Fanzine
The Stone Roses
1989

First Sunday night in 1989. I'm 16, up late doing my A level homework. Very late. A programme called The Otherside of Midnight catches my attention. I like the name.
The presenter introduces a band and the screen shows a guitar neck with a capo on it. A simple echoey riff starts. Its the kind of riff i try to do when I am pretending to be in The Bryds or Primal Scream. An open string with a fretted note. Genius. The shot widens as the riff repeats and i see a 60s looking dude with a cool guitar. He has a landmine fuzz pedal. I race downstairs to start the video recorder my family has only just brought that christmas - our first one.
I go back upstairs and watch the rest of the track and note down the name of the band. I try to continue with the History essay but instead i get a small pot of Humbrol gold paint and carefully apply the words "the STONE ROSES" to my black ring binder - landscape, small 'the' with the other two words correctly spaced one below the other. Not like the proper logo which i had never seen - a bit gothy - but bold and in caps.
It's dry by the morning and i go into sixthform college knowing that i have the coolest folder anyone will see that day.

The next time i encounter the band is in the WANTS pages of Record Collector that March. some bloke wants a copy of a single called Sally Cinnamon - cool, that combination of words chimes perfectly with the image of the band i carry in my head. Y'see - i recorded static. I didn't change channels on the VCR - what with only just have got it and everything.
I write to the PO bx number and recieve a reply from a bloke called Bob who fills me in on my questions about the band. He advises me to "hunt down those early singles quickly if i were you - they're gonna be huge".

The fanzine pages i have uploaded are from Honey Hunt and is by Bob Stanley - the same Bob who sent me the letter.

I can't remember the next time i saw them on telly but i did buy the lp the day it came out.

I also kept in contact with Bob for a year or so and acquired several records he released on his CAFF lable. In 2014 i sold those records and spent the money on a set of kitchen units off of ebay. Bob Stanley paid for my kitchen!

There's more
I didn't go to the Heaton Park gigs.
On the Thursday of that weekend i picked a bag of strawberries at the allotment and got a train to Dundee. I shared the fruits with my fellow passengers. Got to Dundee, went to see my Dad.

On the Sunday i took the first of only domestic flight i have ever taken back down to Brum. We flew over Heaton park. I do wish i had been in the mood to take a snap. But i wasn't. I wasn't even in the mood to give the scene below me a second glance. I wasn't wishing i was down there grooving away. I wasn't wishing i had seen them more first time round. I wasn't smug in the knowledge that i, at that time, owned a full set of original BLACK CAT NUMBER 7s/12 and all the inserts. I wasn't even gonna show off to my fellow passengers that i have one of those mispress Sally Cinnamon 12" singles ....

Ten days later i got another domestic flight Birmingham to Dundee. My dad fell off the log that day. He would have wanted me to express it in those terms.

BURNLEY FOR THE CUP!