Stack of blank paper pages, no titles, no people. Photo: Kasia Sikorska, Pexels License.

SCOTLANDSep 28, 2026

Last Issue

The Skinny spent two decades writing down Scotland's nights out. Now it is gone, and one zine has to ask another's question: who keeps the record?

posted by cj archer · Sep 28, 2026

Every scene has a paper trail, even if nobody thinks of it that way at the time. It lives in the free magazine you grab from the stack by the door on the way into a gig, the one you fold into your back pocket or tuck into your bag next to your compact and your keys. It lives in the listings page someone circles in eyeliner pencil at the bar, and in the review you read on the bus home that makes you feel like the night you just had actually counted for something. You rarely notice that paper trail while it is being laid down. You only notice when it stops.

On 10 September, The Skinny stopped. Scotland's free monthly culture magazine announced on Instagram and on its website that its September edition would be its last. "After 20 years of independent cultural journalism and with a very heavy heart, we have to tell you that September's edition of The Skinny is our final issue," the statement read, explaining that Radge Media CIC, the company behind The Skinny and its sister titles Fest and GNAW, "has ceased operations."

I am writing this for a zine, which makes it feel less like a news item and more like a letter to a relative. Night Shift exists for the same reason The Skinny did: because somebody has to write down what happened on the floor before the morning light erases it.

From volunteers to an institution

The Skinny began in 2005 as a volunteer project. The Stage describes it as "founded by volunteers," and Resident Advisor's report on the closure traces how it grew from that group into one of Scotland's longest running independent arts and culture publications. Chortle notes it started as a free Edinburgh and Glasgow listings magazine before expanding to cover the rest of the country. Over the years it covered music, film, theatre, visual art, comedy and literature, and The Quietus points out that the interview roster reached as far as Pearl Jam, The Wu-Tang Clan and Mogwai.

For people like us, though, the heart of it was the clubbing section. According to RA, The Skinny ran a monthly guide to Scotland's electronic music scene, covering nights and events in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen and beyond. It profiled Optimo (Espacio), Slam, Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Ben UFO, Kerri Chandler, Helena Hauff, Lanark Artefax, Ribeka and Avalon Emerson, among many others. Its very first issue, published in October 2005, featured interviews with Orange Juice frontman Edwyn Collins and the late Chicago house legend DJ Funk.

Sit with that for a second. A magazine that would one day be read in bars across a whole country opened its account by putting a Chicago house legend next to a Scottish indie icon. That is not a publication hedging its bets. That is a publication telling you, from page one, that the dancefloor belonged in the culture pages.

A sudden ending

The closure was abrupt, and the people who made the magazine say so plainly. "We are devastated that our work has come to such a sudden end," the statement read. "We have not been immune to the economic difficulties in the Scottish arts and despite our very best efforts, funding pressures across the sector, rising costs and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis have contributed to an increasingly challenging situation." It described The Skinny as "a key asset to Scottish cultural life" that "was produced by a small team with all the challenges that entails."

Chortle reported more detail from an email editor-in-chief Rosamund West sent to journalists. "We believed that the business was viable upon reviewing our position at the end of August and had begun a process of restructuring to reduce our costs," she wrote, "but when a key piece of potential funding fell through, the situation changed dramatically." Chortle also reported that contributors have been told outstanding invoices will not be paid for now, a cruel footnote for the freelancers who filled those pages, since Chortle says those invoices are likely to include a great many reviews from the Fringe.

The reaction reached well beyond the music press. The List, a rival Scottish arts title, published a statement calling it "a sad day for Scottish arts and culture" and "a major dent to arts journalism in this country," pointing to a "post-covid landscape of paper mill strikes, the cost-of-living crisis, cuts across the board." On 14 September, Edinburgh Northern MSP Sanne Dijkstra-Downie lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament titled "Commemorating 20 Years of The Skinny," expressing concern at "the loss of an important independent publication."

Not the only light going out

If this were one closure, you could call it bad luck. It is not one closure. In May, the BBC reported that Nightshift, the free Oxford music magazine that shares our name, had published its final issue after decades under editor Ronan Munro, who ran Curfew from 1991 before launching Nightshift in 1995. "It's got harder and harder," Munro told the BBC, describing delivery days as "an absolute ordeal nowadays" and adding that "financially it's always been up against it." Its last cover read: "Thank you and goodnight."

On 1 September, Ben Perkins sent out the final issue of Another Subculture, a monthly London punk listings zine, noting that "a first class stamp has doubled in price since I made issue one." Different cities, different genres, the same arithmetic. Paper costs more, postage costs more, venues close, and the people doing the work are usually doing it for love and very little money.

Who keeps the record now

This is the part where I am supposed to tell you the internet will pick up the slack. I do not fully believe that. Feeds forget. Platforms change their rules. A story that lives only on somebody else's servers can vanish the day the company pivots. A magazine in a box under your bed, stained with a ring from the last pint of a long night, does not.

But I also do not believe the record dies with a publisher. The Skinny's own farewell insisted that "this may be the end for The Skinny, but it's not the end of what we believe in: the power of independent journalism, the value of art and creativity, and the importance of print media." It thanked everyone who had "ever picked up a copy in a bar or read it on the bus," and it thanked Scotland's "DJs, filmmakers, party-throwers and creatives" by name. That is a list of people who can keep writing.

Perkins, closing Another Subculture, pointed readers toward DIY LISTINGS LONDON, SELOut, Pindrop Zine and GEL, noting that "nothing like this existed when I started in 2019." His parting advice is the best answer I have heard to the question of who keeps the record: "Take care, make a zine, make your own media!"

So here is my ask, from one small publication to whoever is reading it in the queue or at the afters. Write it down. Photograph the flyer on the stall. Save the setlist. Interview the DJ who plays the early slot in your city before anybody else notices them. Ask the person in the platforms and the glitter mini what song made them cry at 4am, and print the answer. The Skinny did that for twenty years so that Scotland's nights would not disappear into memory alone. The least the rest of us can do is keep the pages turning.

Goodnight, The Skinny. Thank you for writing it all down.

Sources

Signals From the Heart of the Rave The Flyer on the Fridge all issues

cj archer