Happy new year, paper punks. Can I still say that on Twelfth Night? Is it even Twelfth Night – anyway. I hope you all had a peaceful and fun festive period and now it's time to get headaches again. A quick announcement:

From February 2024 the listings will be back in public circulation at the usual spots across the city, and Another Subculture will return to the original, pre-chaos format of A3, risographed, and with interviews, photos, columns, gossip and whatever else you came to expect in Alternative Strategies one giant page at a time. Getting it all into gear again is exciting and may even become more manageable, and it will be good to try and capture what's been going on in a more regular fashion.

I have sent out an evaluation issue to subscribers with the January 2024 listings - and an attempt to recreate this map on the other - and that's what you can see as a scanned sneak peak up there. Testing ground and making sure I'm still posting, but I have restarted putting the night's gigs on Instagram so you won't miss out on events as I get my bearings again. As always, I also recommend you follow DIY Listings London but also Foundation Vinyl's newsletter (who posted a great review of Alternative Strategies' interview with Michael Molcher too), SELout and Eroding Empire - they all cover different aspects of the DIY and punk scenes that AS overlaps with, and all worth time on the bookmark bar.

Two more points before I get the tinsel taken down:

• I need to raise the monthly Patreon amount by a pound a month - from February 2024 everyone pays £3. First class stamps have gone up to £1.25 so you may have noticed second class, plus I am now paying to print the listings (and might get adverts involved once again as a result), so it's just to ensure I don't lose any (more) money. Cost of living, etc, etc. This remains your guaranteed way to get the listings, and this year those will be twice as big, so why not sign up now?

• And yes... what should go on the back? I'm thinking a big interview, maybe a rotating column or two, a running total on how much my band is costing to run, that sort of thing. Photos and artists' impressions too, of course. Let me know what you think would work! 

As ever, thank you all for signing up and keeping me in the post office and looking out for gigs/scenes I never knew of before starting all this. Realised it was too late for a 'best of 2023' type post but I did go through Jan to Nov and realised I've been going to at least one gig a week, with the highlights including Ribbon Stage, Devo, Delco MFs, Be Your Own Pet, Physique, Current Affairs, Special Interest at the Walthamstow Trades Hall... and local heroes Hellish Torment, Hellscape, Paddywak, Findom, Ikhras, Skitter, Vaiaparia, Gross Misconduct, No Home, Sublux... this city isn't dead yet. YET. 

(And of course: there are not too many copies of Alternative Strategies' latest issue available - on the website and across the city, plus Specialist Subject in Bristol,Good Press in Glasgow and Village in Leeds for you further afield. £7.50 + postage, the last stapled zine I'll be doing for a little while, dig in...)

More next month, get to the gig - take care, World Peace 🍉 - B P / A S