THE GREAT UNDERGROUND GRASSROOTS UNITY CIRCLE (AKA WE WANT A CHUNK OF THAT GRANT)
It brings me no joy writing articles like this one. I strive to be a positive influence on the scenes I regularly interact with. However, reality isn’t always nice, and it is crucial to hold those in positions of power and influence accountable for their actions and subsequent effects on local scenes.
We’re living in a time where performative allyship and virtue signalling are unfortunately extremely common amongst scene leaders. It’s unfortunate that to those approaching local scenes from female/queer/working class/POC/etc perspectives, this allyship is truly performative and lacks the proper care and understanding to support developing and independent creatives.
I have had this article running circles around my brain for years, but feared writing it because sometimes it’s hard to be honest and face backlash, even with it feels necessary. I’ve worked my arse off over the last nearly eleven years. I’ve never been in it for the money (but I’ve lost a lot supporting those I believe in), and I still feel like I have to lose a limb to be supported or accepted in certain scenes and communities.
We can sit here painting and posting a beautiful and communal picture of any scene. Whether it’s the unsigned grassroots music circuit, maybe a recovery room trying to get sober or straight, you may be someone fighting for Palestine to be free, or the Green Party chasing the next election. It’s a real joy when everyone sticks up for each other, shares lifts to protests, splits diesel money, makes people feel valued, and offers things like floors to sleep on. These scenes look open to everyone, like you’ll be included and accepted, but there’s always guaranteed to be a dickhead leading their scene like the Pied fucking Piper and loyal devotees running after them, ruining everything.
Silence protects the cliques. Speaking protects everyone else.
I hate to break the news, but nine times out of ten, they’re not what they claim to be. Genuine? Rare as a hen with teeth. Every scene has its gatekeepers, narcissists desperate to be top dog, clambering over each other and stabbing each other in the back. “It’s just business, darling,” they purr as they spread rumours and do all they can to tar your name in the hope no one will entertain you. No, that’s not business baby, that’s extremely poor conduct, and your ego is begging for another stroke.
DIY dresses itself up as utopia, endless solidarity, everyone welcome, gear passed around like communion wafers. In reality, it’s pure pantomime, performative theatre masquerading as inclusion. There are some good venues local to me, like Sheffield’s Gut Level, a queer-led collective with over 5,000 members, exemplifying this by prioritising affordability (e.g., £4.50 pints) and mutual aid, countering national trends of venue closures.
Festivals like Tramlines are ran by some of the loveliest people I’ve ever met. No Bounds and Get Together further showcase organic growth, measuring success through engagement rather than profit, building on post-punk roots to modern indie sounds. But of course, there are arseholes everywhere, every industry breeds them, but music thrives on the cult of being “the best,” so you’re guaranteed a front-row seat. Instagram sells you the commune fantasy, the lived version is a gated community with a velvet rope you’ll never get past unless you’re already inside.
“We want you to do well, (but not too well, and definitely not better than us.)”
So before anyone pipes up with, “It’s not a velvet rope, love, we’re protecting our precious space from scoundrels and nutcases!” please, spare me. Protecting it like a pirate’s gold, straight into irrelevance, while the real scoundrels (the ones pocketing bar tabs and charging full price for venue hire for sold-out charity gigs, yeah… I’m not naming names, but it happens all the time) get VIP passes because they drank in the right pub back in 2005. If that’s “protection,” then I’m the Queen of Sheba, and your scene’s about as secure as a sieve
As a woman in this scene, I’ve learned that criticism from men is framed as “Oh, he’s so passionate!” while the same words from women are dismissed as negativity, you’re branded as trouble if you dare call out a man, and there’s just endless proof that gender bias is baked into the gatekeeping culture.
In my experience as a woman in the industry who’s been around for 11 years, the minute you actually attempt to get your hands into one of these ‘precious’ ‘community projects,’ these ‘gatekeepers’ come scurrying out of the woodwork like woodlice when you turn over a damp log.
The “passionate bloke vs bitter woman” double standard is so ingrained that people enact it without even noticing. Same rant, different genitals equals a completely different social penalty. It’s exhausting, and it’s real. You need to know the right people, be sleeping with one of the ‘in’ crew, have the right politics, have links with the right bands, have the right amount of dirt under your fingernails, but not too much, mate, we’re not animals. And yeah, I know here comes the ‘You’re just being negative, pet, why so bitter after 11 years?’ brigade. Bitter? If calling out gender bias and deliberate exclusion makes me bitter, then call me a lemon tree. But funny how when blokes rant about the same shite, it’s ‘passionate advocacy for the scene,’ complete with backslaps and free pints.
Yet, shout-out to crews like the Emergence Collective in Sheffield, where women-led line-ups aren’t tokenistic, they’re the norm, drawing crowds that actually reflect the city’s diversity. Or think of the queer night series in Manchester that’s tripled attendance by centering trans and non-binary artists (not just ticking boxes). These aren’t outliers, they’re blueprints, proving that amplifying women’s voices doesn’t ‘ruin the vibe,’ it packs the house and pays the bills better.
I’ve emailed at minimum 10 men from my local music scene over the last six months, and chased them up to still be ignored (I chase because yes, we’re all guilty of forgetting or missing things), just for help or support with Palestine charity stuff, potential gigs (paid not charity) or just offers of support to help their venue, but guess what? No response.
I’d get paranoid, but it’s always been like this. Venues and promoters are often world champions of this fake-ass cliquey horseshit (but oh so nice to your face, of course,) and you’re never, ever, allowed to call them on it. But fuck it, if anyone’s gonna do it, I will, I’m sick of acting like this sort of shit doesn’t exist, it does, and I’m not the only one who’s experienced it.
Before anyone claps back with “well, you lot ignore emails too,” hands up, guilty. We try our best, we’re three people with full-time jobs, families, university deadlines and running a nonprofit magazine that pays NOBODY. We miss plenty, and we state that we can’t always respond to every message. The difference? We don’t pretend we’re an open-door community hub while running a private members’ club. We warn people upfront that we’re slow as fuck and we sometimes drown. Your clique doesn’t come with a disclaimer. That’s the hypocrisy I’m on about.
And the irony? The same gatekeepers who freeze out people are the ones who’ll spend three hours virtue signalling, posting loud acknowledgements of community, rainbow-washed graphics, or “solidarity” statements online while excluding people who actually want to help. They won’t put you on a press release list after asking over and over, it’s a joke. I’ve reached out too many times, and then the same cliques ignore and refuse to collaborate, share your work, and promote their gigs while still refusing to acknowledge the creatives behind it. Just because it wasn’t birthed inside the Sacred Group Chat of 2011, and you aren’t a cis white man. Starting your own thing doesn’t magically solve structural exclusion when the existing power nodes simply ignore anything that didn’t come through them first.
It’s deliberate, it’s sexist, and it’s bang out of order. Virtue signalling is their currency, they trade in appearances while the actual work of building community rots or rests on the shoulders of those they intentionally or unintentionally ice out.
Overall Figures (let’s stick some official stats in, before I’m accused of crying into my 0% Heineken and being a mardy bitch who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.)
Pay gaps still endure for us women earning 30% less at labels and Black women 52% less than white men, compounded by barriers in male-dominated roles like A&R or production. Intersectional issues amplify exclusion, with childcare and ageism hitting women harder. This disadvantages those needing spaces most, per UK Music’s 2024 Diversity Report, showing 53.8% female representation overall but underrepresentation for ethnic minorities (17.5%) and working-class backgrounds, urging accelerated inclusion.
In Sheffield specifically, while the scene thrives with DIY spots like Emergence Collective promoting accessible improvisation as the “opposite of gatekeeping,” what I’m calling out for is pathways beyond “boys’ clubs.” Male-dominated line-ups, male-dominated organising committees in certain venues and complaints about cliqueyness or subtle exclusion of women, non-binary people, and musicians from certain backgrounds. These criticisms have been voiced publicly by musicians in the city (notably in the last 5–7 years) and have led to conscious efforts by several groups (including Emergence) to do better.
In the scene I work in, it’s the same tired faces and boy club cliques, all sweet smiles, calling your band, mag, or project “sick,” to your face, half-heartedly listening to your projects, then handing your slot to their mate’s sixth rebrand because “they’ve been around longer and we’ll make a better payday.” They don’t trade in community, they trade in appearances, chasing grants and faking community. It’s far from genuine. A lot of the “community” infrastructure now survives on Arts Council or local authority money that explicitly asks for inclusion, diversity, working-class access, etc. So the paperwork becomes a performance, rainbow-washed Instagram stories one minute, freezing out anyone who doesn’t personally know the collective’s ex-drummer the next. The hypocrisy would be funny if it weren’t actively killing the culture it claims to protect. And I know it’s business, of course, venues are on their knees, but don’t try and bullshit anyone, you’re all up for collaboration when you’re just a lads’ club wanting to tick boxes with a token girlfriend falling victim to the pick me mentality (deeply rooted in internationalised misogyny) to balance that shit out.
So many ‘inclusive’ DIY spaces, or ‘by the scene for the scene’ nights, with ‘no hierarchy’ collectives are controlled by the same twelve people (nine times if not ten times out of ten men) who have gatekept the promotion scene for years.
Oh, you’re not in the WhatsApp group? Hard luck, mate. You didn’t go to the right school? Ain’t got parents who ski in France every year? Sweetie, where do you holiday, Cleethorpes? Oh, how quaint, but our collective’s more Chamonix than caravan park. You didn’t drink at the right pub back in 2011? You didn’t cough up for the limited cassette release of 2016? You’re an outsider forever.
You didn’t go to school with the Arctic Monkeys? Nah, bollocks to you, “mate”.
They’ll let you book a gig on a Tuesday if you grovel enough and bring a decent line-up, and then act as if you’re doing them a massive favour. And the most hilarious thing is, they really have convinced themselves that this is a radical thing to be doing.
We’re just trying to protect the space from scoundrels.’ Protecting it straight to the grave, you absolute prat. Your ‘safe space’ is a members-only male wank chamber for people who all already know each other. They’re out there acting like Nelson Mandela, saving the scene, with their army of Che Guevara besties chirping up in the comments to back them up.
Unless you’re as thick-skinned as I am and see these men for the gatekeeping pricks they truly are, you won’t survive. It’s full of white, cis, middle-class gatekeepers who’ll take a bloody three hours to get through a land acknowledgement ceremony. It’s not a ‘community’ thing. It’s about people that my mates and I already like and know. It’s about ticking the boxes for grants. It’s about what you can do for me? And if it’s not a lot, you can stick it up your arse, well, unless you’re bringing a big crowd, paying our hire fee and sticking plenty behind the bar.
Don’t kid me with the ‘grassroots scene is family’ hype. It’s a family, all right, a fucking mafia family. And if you aren’t family, you’re just another cash cow they can milk for doorsplit. Another pawn for them to be fake interested until you finish, so they can grab their share of the takings and run.
There are so many fakes. So many cliques, and they’re poisonous. There, I’m done. I can already hear the whining responses crying “This is so negative,” without taking any accountability or questioning themselves why yet another person might feel this way. It happens every time I try to speak on issues within the scenes I interact with, through my perspective as a woman and industry professional, and I’m truly tired of it.
Cue the defence, ‘If you don’t like our inclusive cock fest collective, start your own!’ Brilliant idea, I have, it’s nearly 11 years old, and we’re smashing it. Yet my hometown circuit still can’t acknowledge us and our accomplishments, let alone respond to an email. Listen, I don’t need them, but this is for every woman, ethnic or religious minority, trans or non binary person approaching these fake fools. Perhaps these virtue-signalling industry jokers will see this and think I really need to stop being such a wanker. We personally have solid connections with all major PR companies, festivals and management, but you turn your nose up at our offers of support. Nice. Our social media gets some months over 4 million views, and our website hits 30-50k a month, more depending on content, it’s not the NME, no, you grassroots king, but it ain’t too shabby. We get accredited for gigs at Wembley and every massive iconic venue all across the UK, but yet try and get a photopass for a local promoter’s grassroots venue around the corner, you’re pushing it, mate. But sure, you continue to ignore our offers of free help.
Survival of the most connected. Beautiful, innit?
But here’s the thing, this isn’t about burning the grassroots scene to the ground. I fucking love the decent people in the grassroots scene, there aren’t many, but they exist. I’m speaking for its own sake, especially in my neighbouring city. DIY should be inclusive, not exclusive, it should open doors, welcome people and not close them. If a DIY is to survive, or truly thrive for its own survival, it must get its priorities straight. Instead of guarding its club, its clique, its own, its future. The future is women, the queers, the kids of colour, the ones who actually need these places. That’s where the future of music is. If you want to call this piece negative, that’s up to you. I know I’m not the only one who feels or has felt this way in Sheffield alone, and I’m not afraid to say it. I call this testimony. And testimony is important, because if we don’t start naming the poison, we’ll never build the cure.
So, before the twelve apostles of DIY rush to share this with a smug “So negative!” and zero self-reflection or accountability, ask yourselves this… If your ‘family’ is so welcoming, why does it look and feel more like a mafia than a melting pot? I’m not here to burn it down, I’m here to expose the rot. I’m handing you the blueprint to survive, to thrive, to actually matter. The danger is stagnation. When DIY becomes performative theatre instead of genuine inclusion, it stops being a lifeline and starts being a closed shop.
If you are putting events centred around minority groups on your grant applications, ask yourself, what are you doing for these communities besides charging full hire fee and getting your ‘hard-earned’ diversity points. If DIY is to survive, it must stop protecting its clique and start protecting its purpose.
That’s why testimony matters. Naming the poison isn’t negativity, it’s the first step towards building the cure.
