Rock Street Journal

Rock Street Journal

Rock Street Journal, September - October
Editor	Amit Saigal
Categories	Rock
Frequency	Monthly
Circulation	1, 42,000
Publisher	Amit Saigal
First issue	January 1993
Company	Entertainment Media Services Pvt. Ltd.
Country	India
Language	English
Website	www.rsjonline.com

Rock Street Journal or RSJ is a monthly magazine covering the rock scene in India and South Asia. It was started in January 1993 in Allahabad by Amit Saigal and Shena Gamat Saigal after they realized the lack of support system for Indian rock musicians. The magazine has grown in popularity ever since and is now published from Delhi. It organizes the yearly Great Indian Rock Festival (GIR) to promote original music of new and upcoming rock bands in India.

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." 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. The magazine has grown substantially since then, and has a circulation of 1, 42,000 copies per issue.

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, including desi 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.