AUGUST punk gig listings online - long live Scunthorpe - ALT S submissions open
Hello, paper punks, and happy August! After a busy busy month, it's time for another monthly calendar - you can now download the latest version online and print copies will be in the letterboxes of subscribers by now too. Paperboy mode will be engaged over the coming days including at a few gigs here and there over the next few weeks.
As is expected, it looks like there's an all-dayer and an excuse for a BBQ every weekend in the month, and while the international festival routines have simmered down we're still seeing packed lineups and banging club nights all the way through so go find your evenings in the yellow pages!
So what of July? Started it on holiday over in Oakland, California watching Mika Miko (and ESG, Gravy Train!!!, Warp) in the not quite heat - only to return on a flight one day and get straight on a six hour train the next for Glasgow Zine Fest. I was nervous about turning up with my London-centric media but it was a great weekend, albeit one of those where you're tabling, sleeping, tabling, home. A bit like touring if you think about it! There was also the Current Affairs night at the Lexington too; gig of the year contender right there.
Last weekend too, I spent the weekend in my hometown of Scunthorpe to table at their first ever zine fest - at Cafe INDIE, a venue on the High Street which has long served as an oasis in the neglected town centre - and it was a lovely afternoon. For this I whipped together a pamphlet called Glanford Punk - if you ever heard my first cassette zine from 2013 you'll know I like digging into local punky history, so that's exactly what I did for this: a 16 page scrapbook of punk mentions, bands and local columns from Scunthorpe, Grimsby and the villages in between. A lot of familiar faces from the Household Shocks compilation if you ever grabbed that from Dark Entries back in the day, and you can grab a copy online for £3 including postage if you're curious.
The future, then. Having taken Alternative Strategies up and down the UK, it's now time to get the next issue underway. Submissions are open again for the Autumn 2023 issue and I want to get back into interviewing bands, reviewing gigs and seeing what's been happening over the summer, and will be taking a Dictaphone and my best crap cameras to the final Static Shock Weekend too. If you have an idea, some photos that could do with the riso treatment or a column pitch then please get in touch before the end of August - hello@anothersubculture.co.uk is the magic address - and please bear in mind that 🔺 it's just Ben running the show and 🔻 this is a zine about DIY musicking first and foremost. Doesn't have to be London-centric but interviews with bands with a manager but only two gigs to their name will be cheerfully ignored...
Right, that'll do from me. (Keep the last weekend of November free.) Take care, get to the gig - - B P / A S
