''Rock Street Journal'' or ''RSJ'' is a monthly

magazine A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...

covering the

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

scene in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

. It was started in January 1993 in

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...

by Amit Saigal and Shena Gamat Saigal after they noted the lack of a support system for Indian rock musicians. The magazine has grown in popularity ever since and is now published from

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

. It organizes the yearly Great Indian Rock Festival (GIR) to promote original music of new and upcoming rock bands in India.

History

Amit Saigal and Sam Eric Lal used to perform in a band called Impact in the 1980s. They realized that there was no support system in place for new and upcoming rock musicians and bands in India. They only had college fests as platforms. According to Sam, "The community was large and strong but very fragmented at the same time. When we thought about this, we decided to come up with RSJ which would provide news about rock music anywhere in the country."Rocking to a new beat
by Arundhati Basu, ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'', 20 November 2004. And thus ''RSJ'' was born to bring a sense of community among these struggling musicians, the first issue published from Allahabad in January 1993. It was initially planned as subscription-only magazine. Amit promoted the magazine in college festivals but only sold a handful of subscriptions at that time.Interview: Face-to-face with Amit Saigal
by Sandipta Sengupta, ''merinews.com'', 20 July 2006. The magazine has grown substantially since then, and has a circulation of 1, 42,000 copies per issue.

Features

''RSJ'' regularly covers professional and college festival concerts throughout India. It also publishes reviews of new music albums, new bands, old bands and everything that falls under the gamut of the Indian and the international rock scene, they also publish reviews of Indian Bands along with extensive reviews and interviews of International bands. Its website has an extensive database of over a thousand rock bands and musicians hailing from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

, including

desi DESI may refer to * Desorption electrospray ionization * Drug Efficacy Study Implementation * Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument See also * Desi (disambiguation) Desi or Deshi is a self-referential term used by South Asian people. Desi may al ...

rock bands from elsewhere in the world. The website also contains the official forums frequented by thousands of Indian rock fans. Between 2004 and 2007, a thread called the "Deadman show" was the most visited and read thread in the forum. Currently boasting of a registered database of over 40,000. Over the years RSJ changed the overall approach to the content and now covers an array of varied music and concerts. The magazine also regularly does free CD releases every month. The latest initiative however is the Breaking Boundaries Split EP series which features music from across the globe and renowned bands. The first edition featured Textures, New Way Home and Indian metal legends Bhayanak Maut, Scribe and Undying Inc. The second edition is rumored to feature bands like Tesseract, Fell Silent and hardcore band Norris from Canada.

Concerts and music festivals

RSJ organizes the Great Indian Rock Festival each year showcasing the best among upcoming talent in rock and roll in the Indian subcontinent. The first GIR was in 1997 in

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. It is usually held in Delhi in the month of February, in the 11th year of GIR; Norway's biggest Black Metal Act Enslaved were headlining. In addition, ''RSJ'' has organized several other concerts including the Concert for Tibet in 2003 in

Dharamsala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

, and the Brotherhood of Rock in

Shillong Shillong () is a hill station and the capital of Meghalaya, a Indian state, state in northeastern India, which means "The Abode of Clouds". It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the list of most populous cities in ...

. RSJ has also conceptualised and executed events like the Pubrockfest and RocktoberFest which are now regular events in Delhi, however the PubrockFest went national this year going to 7 cities and with over 30 gigs in all. This year the Pubrockfest is bigger going to 20 cities with 60 gigs and also features two international artistes from Australia and Canada respectively. 2007 also saw the inception of a new festival called LiveAlive - Experience Jazz, Blues and Beyond, this festival focused on music like jazz, blues and other experimental music. Every year in November, Jazz fans in Delhi get a treat in the form of The Jazz Utsav which is organised by Capital Jazz in association with Rock Street Journal, the Jazz Utsav features some of the biggest acts in Jazz from across the globe. Over the years the number of festivals have grown and the key festivals that RSJ does are 1. Great Indian Rock 2. Live Alive 3. Pubrockfest 4. Rocktoberfest 5. Global Groove 6. Jazz Utsav

References

{{Reflist

External links

Official websiteRSJ Forums
1993 establishments in Uttar Pradesh English-language magazines published in India Monthly magazines published in India Indian rock music Music magazines published in India Magazines established in 1993 Mass media in Allahabad Magazines published in Delhi