Heaven Seven Magazine Spotlights Charlotte’s DIY Scene

DIY might stand for “do it yourself,” but in all reality, surviving in the local DIY music scene often takes a community that comprises a conglomerate of bands, artists and supporters who all come together to create an underground culture that defies the mainstream.

Promoters, photographers, bloggers and dedicated fans have as big a role within the DIY scene as those who create the music. Alonso Barrera, also known as Alonso Morning, has found his role in this community with Heaven Seven Magazine.

Morning launched Heaven Seven Magazine in late 2023, describing the small publication as a DIY zine focused on Charlotte’s underground subculture. Per Morning’s mission statement, the zine is “collaged from the moleskins of local weirdos and dedicated to promoting their voices.”

Heaven Seven aims to create a space in which individuals can create, contribute and collaborate to form and cultivate a community based on supporting and inspiring others. 

Morning said he was inspired to launch the zine after attending last year’s Queen City Zine Fest, an annual event that showcases local zines, comics, illustrations, chapbooks, small press editions and other self-published printed matter. 

Last year’s event took place at Knight Theater in September as part of the Charlotte International Arts Festival. 

“I’ve gone to Queen City Zine Fest for the last couple of years and noticed the majority of the zines are from neighboring cities like Raleigh or Greensboro. A lot of them are personal, diary entry zines. I wanted something to capture lifestyle, art and music in Charlotte,” he said.

Morning has been a creative for as long as he can remember. He started drawing at an early age while growing up in northern Mecklenburg County, then stepped up to making comics in middle school before delving into creative writing in high school.

“I was going to major in English because I always liked writing short stories,” he said. “I wanted to pursue art, but my parents said, ‘You aren’t going to get any money off of art. If you want to make money off of art, you have to do graphic design,’ essentially saying that was my best bet.”

Morning’s parents, who are also graphic designers, had immigrated to Charlotte from Mexico. Money was tight for them and college was expensive. Although his parents supported his pursuit of making art a career, they advised him about the financial risks. 

He felt he had one chance to make the right decision.

“Money was so tight, and I didn’t want to waste any of my parents or my own money. So, I went with graphic design and that’s when I started learning how cool it could be,” he explained. “It’s an amalgamation of all the creative things I’ve done before — drawing, writing, etc.”

In honor of print media

As time went on and Morning gained more experience in graphic design, he started exploring more creative outlets including collage art and photography to elevate his skill set.

He took up photography during the pandemic as an excuse to leave the house and be out in the world at a time when there weren’t many other reasons to do so. 

As with drawing, he always had an intense interest in music. Listening to local artists and supporting them through their live shows provided a particular muse for the multidisciplinary artist. Photography gave him a new way to capture the experience of a live performance. 

Morning has watched as venues have reopened and people have slowly become more comfortable attending shows, though it remained disheartening at times. 

“When you go out to a show, especially on the weekdays, it’ll be you and five people that are there. A lot of people have work, which is understandable, but I didn’t see any of my friends,” he said.

Eventually, he began recognizing familiar faces regularly at the shows and created connections with some of those people. It was like watching the scene get rebuilt, he explained. Today, he believes there’s a stronger DIY community now than there was before the pandemic.

Morning felt compelled to add his own building block to the strengthening scene, and after he attended Queen City Zine Fest, it became clear to him how he could capitalize on the many different mediums he had practiced over the years. 

He knew he didn’t want to launch a blog, as he’s a firm believer that holding a physical copy is an important part of the zine experience. 

“I’ve always been a fan of physical media, whether it’s CDs, records, movies … I like having them physically,” he said. “It allows you to have a connection with it.”

He believes that such media creates memories and connections in a way that other media can’t. He recalled the coffee stains he accidentally smeared on one specific cover of a zine while at a coffee shop once. He can still see the creases and tears from when he had stuffed one in his back pocket.

Having a zine he can hold and take with him when he goes out to shows or sees friends is part of that connection, too. Being able to share something physical with someone is special, he said, and it goes beyond a link or QR code. 

“I always tell people who have the zine to hand it off to somebody who thinks they would like it,” he said. 

What the future holds

In Heaven Seven’s most recent issue, local avant-garde artist Mono Feo and alt-punk rockers Subvertigo were highlighted as part of Charlotte’s thriving cultural scene. The zine features in-depth interviews with the milk-man-cop and heavy gazers describing their beginnings and influences.

As part of the issue’s launch, Heaven Seven sold limited copies at The Milestone in April, conjunct with a Wastoid show that also featured Ken Mujo, Narah, and Subvertigo. The event is a testimony to Heaven Seven’s devotion to community and the importance of connecting people within the scene to one another.

Not only did the zine’s soft launch directly support one of the bands highlighted within Morning’s work, it created another welcoming avenue for those looking to join Charlotte’s music and arts scene. 

One day, Morning hopes Heaven Seven can create events based around local music and be able to promote other artists and bands through the zine.

“I want to have a community around the zine so when people are looking to get involved in the scene, they have a place to go,” he said. “I want it to be a hub for people to find other artists that they like and meet like-minded people.” 

Morning’s end goal is to get more people actively involved in the DIY scene, adding that the only requirement for entry is to be as weird, or as much of yourself, as possible.

Morning asks that anyone interested in contributing to Heaven Seven send submissions of art, photography, writing, or music to 7hevenseven7@gmail.com.