I learned about Pindrop Zine around the time it was starting out (almost a year ago now). I'd never gotten into zine culture before but I was a regular at Windmill so the prospect of having a zine for my scene seemed cool.

After catching one of the Pindrop gigs they host at Windmill, I bought my copies and was pleasantly surprised with how well they were made. A zine like this is something you don't know you need in your local scene until you have it. Below is a conversation with May, the founder and editor of Pindrop. Bolded sentences are mine, non-bolded are hers.

When did you start going to gigs in the London scene?

I was at the University of Manchester during covid, and I never went out or anything. I was not into live music at all. After covid I was thinking I need to do something with my life now that I can go out again. I did Politics, Philosophy, Economics for my undergraduate. I did my dissertation in Politics, about internet activism and feminist discourse on Instagram. So I was really into digital subculture, digital communities, all of that.

Then I did my master's in LSE, and my master's thesis supervisor was like "you can study a subculture but you can't do it online. I want you to find something in real life to study". I had no idea what I was going to do, this was really throwing me for a loop. Then my at-the-time best friend's boyfriend was in a band in Portsmouth. I had never met someone in a band before so that was really cool and novel to me. So I started talking to them and they mentioned this venue called the Windmill. Her boyfriend was really into Yard Act at the time, and I was like "this is garbage, surely somebody is doing this but better". And that's how I found Sunglasses by Black Country, New Road. That made me go "there's this venue, there's this interesting music, let me see what this is all about". So I would say like 2022 was when I found out about things.

BCNR was one the first bands you got into (in the Windmill scene)?

Yeah they were one of the first ones. I actually really hated Black Midi for a while, because up until that point most of the music I listened to was pop. Like Charli XCX, (laughing) pre-Brat Charli XCX though I feel like there's a distinction. I was listening to more experimental pop music but nothing like Black Midi. So it was very abrasive and it took me a while to learn to enjoy, but once that happened I got obsessed.

I'm really interested in studying aesthetic theory and politics of art, so I thought this would be such a good case study. I ended up doing my master's thesis about it. I was going to a gig almost every single day in the summer of 2023, which was really crazy and intense.

Can you elaborate more on your master's thesis? Was it about a specific band or about Windmill in general?

It was about "Urban Austerity and Eliminating Spaces of Youth Socialisation", and how Windmill or other sort of music venues being substitutes for this. The importance of live music for the youth community.

Where did the idea of creating a zine originate from?

We sort of noticed that there's a gap in the market, because there's all this people online talking about the Windmill scene, but physical media is something that's not done as much.

Because there's no real financial incentive to do it, this will never ever be profitable. But to me this is my version of being in a band. I wanted to do writing with other people, writing on your own can be very lonely. I think creating something with someone else is the most pure form of friendship you can have.

Did you read other zines from back in the day (80s/90s) in preparation?

I've always been into zine culture, I think Sam (one of the editors of Pindrop and member of Paper Hats) is probably more inspired 80s/90s punk zines and underground music culture. I was really obsessed with Rookie Magazine which is this online zine by Tavi Gevinson. It is very "tumblr-y", very 2010s. For a certain demographic of people, Rookie Magazine is this well known, well established thing. That was my main inspiration.

Was the aesthetic of the zine immediately clear or did it go through different iterations?

I feel like we're always deciding the aesthetic of the zine. Our first designer had a very clear vision and she did a great job with the first edition of the zine. She added these game pages, designed the borders and outlines. She had uni stuff to focus on so she couldn't do the second one. We have a new designer now and we're workshopping a Pindrop 2.0. I don't have any design experience, so for me that's the hardest part of making a zine. The writing is fine, it's the artistic direction that can be a nightmare. We're still figuring that out, but I think it's very much based on DIY zines from the past.

The reason for this is that this "very polished, amateur music" feels very over-saturated, anyone can make something that looks almost professional. It's almost like going back and looking less professional, being more scrappy, is a more unique aesthetic now if that makes sense.

What about the writing style? Do you go for consistency between different writers?

We have a manifesto of rules. I'm not sure if I can share all of it, but one of our rules is that "it's never about you unless it is about you". I come from a writing background, not a music background, and before I worked on Pindrop I had a tennis blog that I worked on. I was also very into Substack, there's many people on Substack that take this "I'm telling my story" kind of editorial approach. It felt very over-saturated to me. When I'm reading a review of something I don't care if you were stuck in traffic on the way or whatever, you know (laughing). I just wanna know what the music was like.

I think Sam's writing style is very inspired by vintage NME. I don't know if you've flipped through an old NME, the way they used to write about music is so different to now. There's this sort of sarcastic, clippy tone to it that I find very refreshing. I understand why music journalism has become much nicer now because they were extremely cruel for no reason. I'm not saying we should go back to that, but I do feel like this poptimist swing of giving favourable reviews to everything makes for less interesting writing, even though that's what is incentivised now.

What are your personal influences when it comes to writing?

So I do political theory related writing and creative writing also, so I have a lot of influences that sort of swirl around. I think my biggest influence is probably Stuart Hall who is this cultural theorist. If you do any writing about British subculture he's on the scene everywhere. When I was doing my master's thesis which is the lens I view all of this through, he gave me the ability to break down what's happening, what to look for, what's interesting.

Lydia Davis is my favourite author, she does these micro short stories, some of which are less than one page long. She focuses on every sentence adding something, every word being important. There's this flow and cadence to how she writes that I really enjoy. So I would say for non-fiction and fiction, those are my two biggest influences. I could really go on about reading for a long time though. My friends are all musicians or visual artists, so they have a very refined way of talking about their medium, I don't have that many writer friends so it's a different way of translating your artistic experience if that makes sense.

What part of the zine creation process do you enjoy the most?

It really depends on what kind of mood I'm in. Sometimes I really enjoy writing think piece essays, sometimes I feel like going to gigs and seeing what's out there. I don't think anybody has ever said this but sometimes I really enjoy the project management process. My day job is project management so I feel very comfortable in that sort of role. Making sure everything is getting done, it feels like I'm helping my child grow or something (laughs).

That's interesting, for me project management is one of the hardest parts when it comes to projects.

So I'm American, as you can tell from my beautiful accent, and Americans are really obsessed with extracurriculars. My parents would put me in extracurriculars where you're doing some sort of project management from the age of 12. So I've been doing some kind of project management for over 10 years. I'm not saying that like "I'm so experienced and so good", it's more that I fucked up so many times and have come across so rude to so many people that eventually I can't do that anymore. I had to figure out other strategies.

Do you see the Pindrop team growing or do you think you've hit the right size?

Right now I see us growing, but who knows? Maybe we could really flop and Pindrop is over.. I can't really predict it but I could see it growing in size.

What is your advice to someone who wants to take part in their local music scene but they don't know anyone in the scene already?

Honestly, the only thing you can really do is just show up to things. If you are a regular at a place for long enough people start to recognise you and start to talk to you. All you need is one friend in the scene and then you meet all these other people.

I was doing my master's thesis and I was struggling a lot to talk to anybody. I was this dorky politics master's student and I didn't know anything about that kind of music. Then I met Luna (roustghoti), she knows so many people and knows so much about the scene. Meeting her unlocked everything for me, because once I knew her she could introduce me to all these new people. So it's really all about sticking it out and keep going to things. I guess that's just general advice for meeting people, just do what you enjoy and eventually you'll also meet people that like the same things as you.

Similarly, let's say someone reading this is already active in their local scene and they want to start their own fanzine. Where should they start?

You can make a zine on your own but it's really painful, you'd have to do all the parts. But if you can't find anybody else to do it with, just do it. I've had so many projects where I procrastinated on starting, because I thought "it's not the right time" or "I don't have the right skillset". But the way that you learn things and the way you get opportunities is by having something that you're working on.

Literally just starting it, even if it ends up being the world's worst zine, is better than having a zine that doesn't exist at all. I've put out many things that are not perfect to me, but at least they are out there. Don't let yourself be paralysed with the idea of starting, that first step is the most important one to take.

Check out Pindrop Zine's Instagram to learn about their upcoming zines and gigs, and their website for their existing gig reviews/recommendations.