The Skinny Current Issue

Inspired by the long-trailed emergence of the ‘summer’, big outdoor gigs (the imminent arrival of the Eras tour in Edinburgh), Eurovision before it was (ideologically) cancelled – this month it's the POP issue, 2024 style. We’re thinking pop where it meets DIY, pop that doesn’t ask for permission to exist – as in Honeyblood setting up a guerilla gig outside the Arches at 2am, as opposed to your hopefuls selling their life’s pain on TV for a chance to be exploited by some record executive. The energy we’re talking about is bold, creative, challenging, perhaps you would say gallus?

Lauren Mayberry has spent over a decade fronting synth-pop phenomenon CHRVCHES and is now taking a DIY approach to her burgeoning solo career. She looks back on her roots in the DIY scene, where she used to produce a zine called TYCI, which provides a seamless link to our chat with Black Lodge Press’s Cj Reay. Ahead of Glasgow Zine Fair, we meet the radical publisher to discuss the art of protest and the zine as a tool for the dissemination of anarchist thought. We talk to Glasgow musician mui zyu about the joy of experimentation and improvisation, and meet Stina Tweeddale of the aforementioned Honeyblood as the band celebrate a decade since their debut. We have a nuanced dissection of the work of Charli XCX and the bratpop genre, and celebrate a collab between two queer party planners – PONYBOY and INFERNO – with a b2b interview.

As is often the case when we decide to theme a magazine around two seemingly disparate but – we are certain – extremely related concepts, headlining the cover prompted a deranged brainstorming session. Suggestions included, but were not limited to: Pop it Yourself (fairly self-explanatory); Pop til you DIY (DIY like die, yeah?); Poppin Off; Do It Yourpop; and finally, Pop Patrol – attempting to meld together the pop theme and the emergent cat subtheme* and also authoritarianism I guess?

Beyond the theme, Film talks to Love Lies Bleeding director Rose Glass about casting Kirsten Stewart and considering, albeit very briefly, setting the bodybuilding action in Glasgow. As Glasgow Film Theatre celebrates its 50th birthday, we talk to some of the staff, programmers, back and front of house, to hear what makes this Art Deco cinema such a magical place. As much-anticipated British debut Hoard arrives on screen, we meet writer-director Luna Carmoon and actors Joseph Quinn and Saura Lightfoot-Leon to hear more. And as Shallow Grave turns 30, we ponder its damning indictment of the Edinburgh flat rental market.

Intersections explores the Edinburgh graffiti scene as a means for public expression and resistance, and considers the role of knitting as a coping mechanism and creative outlet. Theatre meets author and host of The Big Scottish Book Club Damian Barr, as his memoir Maggie & Me is adapted for the stage by National Theatre of Scotland. As she launches her new children’s book The Hidden Story of Estie Noor, Nadine Aisha Jassatt writes about the magic of reading children’s literature. We also meet Giulia Galastro, whose regular nights Open Comedy and The Other Show have become some of Scotland’s most inclusive spaces for comedy. We close with The Skinny on... Lovefoxxx, who's back touring with CSS and has a lot of strong opinions about a lot of things. 

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* The cat subtheme developed as Lauren Mayberry and mui zyu’s interviews both feature cats entering the Zoom rooms. A further subtheme emerged around a surprise resurgence of 90s Oscar winner Mediterraneo, which was both the first film ever seen at GFT by now-head honcho Allison Gardner, and the worst film ever seen anywhere by Lovefoxxx, a position which she defends in an impassioned and heavily edited rant on our closing page.