About

The Original Blue Roses fanzine

Blue Roses fanzine was created in 1997 and inspired by the fantastic music of the time and the passionate musings of various fanzine writers. I must admit that I didn’t have the musical talent or creativity to actually make music but I loved to immerse myself and I was inspired to write.

Access to new music was great, and I loved finding hidden gems amongst the demos and pre-releases that I received. Meeting and interviewing bands was very exciting. And going to gigs took over my life. Blue Roses was full of gig reviews as, living on the outskirts of London, there was always something going on. One fanzine writer asked if I was actually homeless, needing to resort to going to gigs every night for shelter!

The fanzine was a cut n paste job, and taken to the local shop for photocopying. Almost all communication with record companies and PR agencies was by mail, and on the rare occasion that I needed to speak to someone, I would call from the payphone at school or they would call my home landline and leave a message with my mum and dad!

I was thrilled by every single sale of the fanzine. I would sell at gigs or record stores but mainly via flyers distributed in other fanzines. People would send a £1 coin and a stamped self-addressed envelope with their request for a copy.

I continued the fanzine from school years to university. Manchester was a great place to be for the music scene but around 2001, I found myself less inspired by the music, and traditional paper fanzines generally seemed to be dying out with the early move to online zines and blogs.

It’s been a while but I am inspired again to reboot Blue Roses, reminisce about the late 90s, digitise some of the original content, reflect on what’s been happening and how things are now.