Happy new year, paper punk rockers. A review, of sorts, but first:

1. January's listings are almost ready, and will be printed as soon as we're all back to work next week... so please accept a digital contingency. Week 1's punk events can be found at anothersubculture.co.uk, an A5 appendix to cut out and paste to your December calendar. Someone's got to keep the fires burning as we realise how many weeks are left until payday...

   

2. Annual subscriptions are back. Had a few requests for these, alongside the usual £3 a month plan - so here you go. You will, of course, recieve a laminated membership card and any merchandise I end up creating that can fit in a letter. £30, UK only (obviously), available only until Tuesday 14th January 2026: order today! (You can of course still pick up a copy in the usual places, or subscribe on a rolling basis for £3 a month.)

It is the last day. I have been awake since 5am browsing Letterboxd and eating the remaining Christmas marzipan, because why not. 2025 doesn’t feel like twelve months, it feels askew and too long, the year of the brain and of new arrivals bringing clarity and joy while the Earth continued to fall to pieces all around us. If you are seeing out the year with a bang later, have a great and safe time - find mates and avoid the milk-based BuzzBalls, for we have a world to rebuild.

I would like to thank everyone who has been supportive, sent ideas and contributed to Another Subculture since it returned in the autumn. Taking a break was necessary but I had missed the rituals (and the dozen or so record shops that, good heavens, I was required to frequent every last Sunday) and had grown ever wearier worrying about the stranglehold that platform capitalism has on not just our favoured noises, but everyone else’s. The decisions to turn away, even if only slightly, from companies such as Spotify and Boiler Room show that people are itching to free themselves from the trap of contemporary culture funding and thriving, but we are still coy about where we go from here. (I plan to continue my streak of public disclosure on What This All Costs in the new year, all while filling out an Arts Council application like a right sucker.)

With punk, the tightrope feels thinner than ever with every Zettle by PayPal card transaction taken at the door, and the wrangling over Hardcore and punk’s burst above ground thanks to Turnstile and the like (I’ve swung back to being glad people are getting crazy over mosh music again, and just want them to make the leap to forming their own scenes, just like we did Back In The Day, sniff) — and I wish that the boldness and activism in support of Palestine and those imprisoned while awaiting trial for over a year now that has been prevalent over the past couple of years is sustained even as ‘ceasefires’ and attention drifts on the timeline. Uncut magazine has a ’50 Years of Punk’ badge on its current cover, so expect nostalgia both warranted and tiresome along with the hated question of ‘what is punk today?’, which I only want to see asked in the pages of The Guardian by Adrian Chiles.

Oh look, I’m talking about infrastructure again instead of what the good stuff actually sounded like. I have been enjoying the season of lists, elevated Christmas gift suggestions from cool people with eyes and ears - and regret once again not joining in. Like I said, a fuzzy year. Good things:

• My most played album was Richard Dawson’s End of the Middle (Weird World). Might be a concept album, might well be his best work in years - just him, a few vignettes, excellent use of ‘a diminished chord’.

• aya’s hexed! (Hyperdub) sounds absolutely mad and I need to see her play live next year.

• Shakti, from Barcelona, released their debut LP (La Vida Es Un Mus) and it carries that best sort of paranoia/euphoria that floor filling post punk should have, without forgetting when to make a statement stand.

• Kissland’s GIRLS MIGNON (625 Thrashcore) rules, a nosebleed garage/fastcore screamer. Australia continues to amaze and confuse me.

• Supernormal was invigorating, as previously remarked, and I look forward to applying to volunteer at their next one in 2027. I don’t think we have in London a replacement to Static Shock Weekend in its true chaotic spirit, but then do we need one when Lost Wisdom, Gob Nation, Decolonise Fest, First Timers, Sunday School and Impulse Control are doing their thing? (Disforia Punx and S.P.I.T. were responisble for some of my favourite gigs this year an’ all.) I did not host a weekend this year, and my credit rating thanks me.

• I enjoyed watching Qlowski at Piehouse Co-op, Vaiapraia at the George Tavern, Still House Plants and Es at Cafe OTO, Public Acid at New River Studios, Sublux, Traidora, Grazia, Gross Misconduct and Crude Image everywhere I saw them and Half Man Half Biscuit in a cave in Castleton.

• I listened to 227 episodes of the Three Bean Salad podcast, not including Patreon exclusives. A life well lived.

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• An honour and a privilege to be part of the good ship Controller/Revolt, a video game + punk + radikal fanzine from James (of Tethered), which included interviews with untitled goose likers, developer unions, crust punk game makers and all sorts. I think it's sold out? Usagi Boots' Bomberman on the front as well always tickled me. Hopefully we'll get a second issue made in 2026.

• I also helped design Palestine: Khawa, a photozine documenting the West Bank through the eyes of BB & JG and published by Real Gold. Essential if you can find one. (If you have a publication that requires someone to fuss over line heights and paper gsms, give me a message. One day I will make a portfolio.)

• And of course: making music with your mates is the number one. Rubber play next on January 31st, and Repetitive Strain, my radio show with Vanity Crystal, returns on January 18th on Voices Radio.

Do I have any predictions? Only that I will use about a thousand stamps, and that our friends will be free again. I’ll have an INs/OUTs list in print, be sure of that. I will send an update when January’s listings proper is available, but before then… happy new year!

Get To The Gig — BP