Darin Zullo
Darin Zullo reports on music and performance for Boston.com, bringing a background in local news and data-driven storytelling to concert reviews and coverage of the city’s cultural institutions. His work stands out for pairing detailed, service-minded accounts of shows and lineups with clear explanations of how artists, venues and civic figures intersect across Boston’s cultural life. He writes as a freelance reporter for the masthead after earlier general assignment work there and experience across student and community outlets.
Rock and indie reviews and setlists
Zullo’s core music coverage focuses on contemporary rock and indie performances, with an emphasis on live shows and the specifics of what fans hear on stage.
His review of a long-running alt-rock band’s set - framed around the idea that the group’s appeal is not “hard to explain” even two decades into its career - combines a critical response to the performance with a clear setlist that documents how the night unfolded song by song. He further highlights indie and alt-rock lineups in pieces promoted by Boston.com’s social channels, where he spotlights “all-star” bills that bring together bands from across the scene for multi-act shows. Across these articles, he treats the setlist as core reporting, using it to structure the narrative and to give readers a practical sense of what a tour or festival stop delivers.
His music-adjacent criticism extends to film when it centers on major musicians. In a review of director James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, Zullo writes about the birth and growth of Dylan’s career across six decades, treating the movie both as a piece of cinema and as a vehicle for understanding an artist’s evolution.
That approach - looking at how a work re-tells a musician’s story - mirrors his live-music coverage, where the history and trajectory of an act often sit alongside the immediate impressions of a particular night.
Performances at the heart of civic life
A second strand of Zullo’s music reporting follows performances that connect directly to city leadership and major cultural institutions. He covers events like Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s appearance on stage with cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Symphony Hall, treating it as both a musical collaboration and a civic moment.
In this type of story, he explains who is involved, what was performed and how the event fits into the broader public role of the venue or the officials on stage, keeping the tone straightforward while still attentive to the symbolism of the pairing.
That interest in music woven into public life also shows up in his broader writing for community-focused outlets, where he contributes to coverage of “stories of justice, hope and resilience.” The same instinct to link performances to community and institutional contexts can be seen in his music pieces, which often situate shows within the fabric of city events, local traditions and the responsibilities of public figures.
Newsroom technology, data and justice reporting
Zullo’s music coverage is informed by a substantial body of work on local news, technology in journalism and data-rich storytelling.
He reports on issues such as AI-assisted reporting in Boston-area newsrooms, explaining how a generative tool is being used to turn community announcements into newsroom copy and what that means for trust and the role of reporters. He also writes on complex legal and public-safety stories, including campus controversies around speech and security, criminal complaints involving local officials, and court outcomes in serious violent crime cases.
This hard-news experience adds a procedural and evidentiary discipline to his arts writing, where performances and cultural events are treated with the same clarity about who did what, when and with what consequences.
Beyond the masthead, he has produced detailed features on climate data and visualization for journalism audiences, including an explainer on how Derek Taylor and The Pudding used visualizations to recontextualize climate change, and a guide to new data tools and tips for investigating climate change. He has also edited and written lifestyle and service coverage for student media, such as columns on places around Boston to bring visiting family and guides to the city’s best bookstores. These pieces show his comfort with structured, list-based formats and practical detail, skills that carry over to setlist-heavy concert reviews and lineup previews.
Taken together, Zullo’s portfolio presents a music reporter who brings the habits of a local news and data journalist into the arts beat.
He treats concerts, film biopics and high-profile performances as events to be documented precisely, then placed in context - whether that context is an artist’s decades-long career, a city’s civic culture or the evolving tools of the newsroom. For story ideas, he is a fit for pitches that sit where music, public life, technology and clear, accessible explanation meet.
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.