When we started NTKO CIC, we always knew it was going to be an ambitious project. Like anything that doesn’t do things the ‘normal’ way, it was always going to be an uphill fight – not just to establish ourselves as a brand-new CIC, and not even just to build ourselves a niche as the premier community hub for rock music and mental health in Lincolnshire, but to do all of that while staying true to our core principles of radical authenticity in the face of uncomfortable social stigmas has been what could generously be described as ‘playing on hard mode’.

Happy Halloween! Graveyard smashes and awful puns aside, it’s the one day of the year where we get to be as weird as we want without anyone giving us much hassle about it. This month, I spoke to NTKO Director and Founder Dale Tyler alongside NTKO’s newest member, Jordan Burton-Morris about the events that are helping to put Lincolnshire on the UK Music map… and how a chance encounter transformed a once-shy 19-year-old into NTKO’s resident promotions powerhouse.

Big hair, big performances, and huge personalities: 1980’s Los Angeles was the neon-drenched cradle for a new breed of music that would rock the world from its East-Coast epicentre for more than a decade, and shake the entire rock and metal genres for years to come. Building on the foundations of performers like Alice Cooper and David Bowie, hair metal (or glam metal) takes the artistry and frustrations of the 1970’s and cranks the intensity up to 11; acid-bright colours, thunderous live shows, and enough hairspray and musical talent to light the world on fire caught the metal scene by the mouth with its shamelessly loud, proud…