RIOT ON THE ROCKS – HIATUS
Tuesday, March 15th, 2011
Riot on the Rocks spanned five awesome years of my life. Work started in 2004 with my first interviews with the New York Dolls and the MC5, with Issue 1 released Easter 2005. Then came 3 more up to the last issue, in Spring 2009.
I decided to write this post as a closer really, a fitting full stop at the end of rock and roll adventure.
Over the course of my time doing the zine I have been lucky enough to pick the brains of almost all of my musical heroes, to hang with some of the lovliest people in rock, to have life-changing experiences (dance on stage with the Flaming Lips anyone?), to attend two SXSW’s, to support amazing new bands on their journey and to gain enormous pleasure from meeting and conversing with my wonderful readers all over the world. Oh, and to talk to Sebastian Bach on the phone while sitting on my parents’ sofa. That was pretty rad.
For me ROTR was a great big two fingers up at the mainstream music media. I did my time as a freelance journalist, and wasn’t impressed. When I picked up a magazine in a newsagents, nine times out of ten I would roll my eyes and put it back, rather than eagerly devour its content. I was bored of hype, and hungry for good honest writing about good honest musicians. I wanted magazines that oozed with passion for their subject, not cooler-than-thou cynicism.
With ROTR, I feel like in my own way I gave people exactly that. I put a huge chunk of my own heart in to a bunch of photocopied pages and it turned out people got it. They liked it, they understood why I was doing it and they recognised what made me different from other writers, from other publications. I built up great relationships with bands, labels, PR companies and fans alike, was offered awesome opportunities and seized all I could. As cheesy as it sounds, I am so thankful to have had the chance to do what I have done. If my 14-year-old self could see me now, she would definitely high five me.
I want to thank all kinds of people for supporting and believing in me, and all the wonderful people who contributed in some way: Sarah for being my ever-present +1, writing, networking, shoving dictaphones and video cameras in people’s faces and a few late nights with scissors and glue, Mum & Dad for infinite patience, the loan of a long-arm stapler and the odd lift to the printers, Dylan for his help with the first two issues writing and drawing fabulous front covers, Rachel, Miranda, Jim, Davo, Rob, Dav, Dyson, Jenny, Sian, Vicki, Ro, Kai and all the other writers, artists and photographers who took part, everyone who helped out with the ROTR night at the Social in 2009, Mel for tolerating the production of Issue 1 in the flat, and Mike for his web-mastery. I would also like to thank Will Ginno for being there at the very beginning, when Riot on the Rocks was a super cool Wednesday evening radio show on Sussex Uni student radio.
I want to thank the PR’s and label reps who gave me the time of day, and most importantly, I want to thank all the musicians, big and small, who took time out to talk to me and my gang, and gave a little bit of themselves to a humble DIY zine, helping it become what it became.
To everyone who read, bought, stole or found a copy of ROTR, who thought it looked worth shoving in your pocket or parting with a couple of quid (or bucks) for, thank you so so much for validating this whole labour of love.
I said this was a full stop, but it might be a comma or a semi-colon. Who knows? Maybe one day I will dig it out again. Like, if the Hellacopters re-form, it is only right that I should get the exclusive first interview. Right?
Until then, if you need a fix, you will be able to read and download the PDF versions on this site a while yet.
I have got other projects going on that I should probably tell you about. One is Glue Me Down (gluemedown.wordpress.com, launching 21/3/2011), a new blog where I write about and review zines and also the umbrella under which I am going to be running an exciting interactive zining workshop as part of the Editions Of You Zine Fair in Oxford on April 9th (more info at editionsofyou.com), and hopefully more in the future. I am also going to be speaking at an evening event at the O3 Gallery in Oxford as part of the Editions of You festival on the 31st March. The whole brilliant thing is being curated by Dr Lisa Busby as a celebration of self publishing in music.
The other is Hrrr Club (www.hrrrclub.com) which will, when it is finally up, be a light hearted but firmly female perspective on all the wonderful horror films I fill my time watching. It’s a total indulgence but check it out if that’s your bag.
Okay then. Over and out for now.
Sian B. Rockin’ x
