Carmel Walsh
Carmel Walsh follows the moving story of contemporary and heritage guitar music through news pieces and live reviews for God Is In The TV Zine. She is the masthead’s News Editor, shaping fast-turnaround coverage of new releases, tours, festivals and grassroots music initiatives. Her work stands out for the way it connects announcements about bands, venues and institutions to the wider fan culture and history around them.
News editor for singles, albums and tours
As News Editor, Walsh’s core output is short, focused news pieces on singles, albums and tour announcements across indie and alternative music.
Recent work includes reporting on Death Cab for Cutie’s single ‘Stone Over Water’ and forthcoming album I Built You a Tower, framing the track within the band’s long career. She covers major tour and reissue campaigns such as ASH’s 30th anniversary edition of their debut album 1977, combined with a UK and international tour and livestream.
Her news coverage spans cult and classic acts, from Blur’s first new album in eight years, The Ballad of Darren, and its lead single ‘The Narcissist’ to Wolf Alice’s homecoming show at London’s Finsbury Park. She also follows label-driven projects, like Bella Union’s Private Pressing release for The David Tattersall Group, signalling an interest in how independents package and present artist catalogues.
Across these stories, the emphasis is on clear, concise reporting of the who, what and when, with enough context to situate each announcement in an artist’s trajectory.
Championing emerging artists alongside established names
Walsh routinely places emerging and underground acts alongside headline names, giving space to new voices within the same news stream. Coverage of Keyside’s summer anthem ‘Lemon & Lime’ treats a rising act with the same news discipline she applies to legacy bands.
She reports on debut projects such as My Precious Bunny’s album A Moment in my Eyes and its single ‘I Go Up, You Go Down’, marking early milestones in an artist’s career. Her archive includes stories on artists like Baby Queen, highlighting singles such as ‘Nobody Really Cares’ in the context of contemporary pop-rock and youth culture. Social posts from bands sharing her pieces, including Spoon Speaker Man’s ‘The Age Of No Opinion’ and Power Of Dreams’ Irish and UK tour announcement, underline her role as a regular point of contact for acts looking to break through or reconnect with audiences.
This blend of profiles means an emerging act covered by Walsh is often positioned in a landscape that already features Blur, ASH, Death Cab for Cutie and other recognised names.
Grassroots venues, institutions and music heritage
Beyond artist news, Walsh devotes significant attention to the ecosystem that supports live music and preserves its history. Her reporting on Music Venue Trust’s Pipeline Investment Fund details how £40,000 is distributed to eleven grassroots venues, foregrounding the practical infrastructure behind small-room shows.
She covers initiatives like Crawley Museum’s effort to create a permanent collection dedicated to The Cure, tying local heritage work to global fan communities. The Salford Lads Club story marking forty years of The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead with an anniversary poem fits the same pattern, connecting a specific place and project to enduring album mythology.
In these pieces, Walsh moves beyond artist promotion to show how venues, museums and trusts sustain the cultural memory of guitar music and provide platforms for new generations.
Live reviews and the gig pilgrim perspective
Walsh’s description of herself as a “gig pilgrim” is reflected in her live reviews, which sit alongside her news output. Her write-up of Self Esteem’s show at Rock City in Nottingham demonstrates a close attention to performance dynamics, audience response and the atmosphere of a particular night. By pairing news of upcoming tours and festival slots with on-the-ground accounts of what happens on stage, she offers a fuller picture of an artist’s current phase.
This combination of forward-looking news and retrospective live coverage gives her work a continuous arc from announcement to experience, rooted in the realities of venues and fans rather than purely in promotional copy.
Across roles and formats, Walsh’s coverage is defined by a consistent focus on guitar-led and alternative music, a balance between breakthrough acts and long-established bands, and an attentiveness to the grassroots venues and institutions that keep those scenes alive. For stories involving tour announcements, new releases, venue campaigns or heritage projects in contemporary music, she operates as a specialised news editor with a strong sense of how artist narratives intersect with place, community and live performance.
4 more music journalists.
Abigail Kellett
Abigail Kellett is a news reporter at the Halifax Courier who stands out for visually led coverage that shows how culture, nightlife and local life play out on the ground. She documents gigs, festivals and major live shows at venues such as The Piece Hall through curated photo sets that capture atmosphere, crowd and setting as much as performers, and she uses extensive image galleries to tap reader nostalgia for nights out in Halifax town centre. Her beat spans arts, entertainment, going out, heritage, books and literary events, along with community life, people stories, local challenges, milestones, transport, regeneration, lifestyle and food. She reports through photographs, checklist-style features, reader-driven lists and roundups of most-read stories, turning announcements, programmes, author events, festivals, shop lists and everyday characters into stories about place, shared memory and how people spend their time.
Adam Lyon
Adam Lyon is a digital audience and content editor whose news beat sits at the intersection of Ayrshire’s cultural life, business environment and public affairs. He works for the Ayr Advertiser and as Digital Audience & Content Editor for Newsquest in the west of Scotland across multiple weekly titles. He covers Ayrshire news with a strong thread of music and local culture alongside business, courts and public affairs. He reports on music when it has a clear community or national hook, treating songs as news events rather than reviews. His business work explains how local firms and retail policy shape town centres. His court coverage uses round-ups of sheriff court cases to show patterns and outcomes. He also fronts video previews and is active in a football supporters trust community.
Adam Maidment
Adam Maidment is a senior What’s On and LGBTQ+ reporter whose work links big-name gigs, new venues and cultural flashpoints to everyday fan culture and inclusion. He covers music, nightlife and the wider cultural scene for the Manchester Evening News, focusing on how concerts, openings and immersive events land with real people and communities. His beat spans live music, arenas and stadiums, new restaurant and bar openings, food reviews, exhibitions, street art and nightlife infrastructure, with a particular focus on LGBTQ+ audiences and neighbourhoods. He reports on venue ambitions and problems, cultural institutions and equality issues, and franchise-led experiences, using straightforward, on-the-ground reporting and clear description. Drawing on a background in community reporting, he looks for underrepresented perspectives and uses social media, analytics and local sourcing to find stories where culture, identity and place meet.
Alex Rigotti
Alex Rigotti is a freelance music and culture editor and journalist who joins fast-turnaround music news with detailed reporting on artists, fandom and politics. They report breaking stories and live music updates for NME and Paste Magazine, covering pop, rock, club music, underground scenes and cultural debates around art and identity. Their live-music beat includes setlists, tours, festival appearances, cancellations, ticketing, venues and onstage collaborations. They previously served as a contributing editor for NME’s Radar section, supporting coverage of emerging artists and new scenes. Rigotti also writes features on rap lyrics and criminalisation, Eurovision and politics, queer feminist bodybuilding, astrotherapy and contemporary art. Their reporting is direct and specific, using clear quotes, concrete details and artists’ own words to explain what happened and how music fits into wider cultural and industry trends.