Tim Vigon interview - The Stone Roses

 Interview with Tim Vigon, creator of world famous Made Of Paper fanzine (15/08/2014)

First things first how are you?

All good my friend. Thanks for asking!

Can you talk us through your up bringing?

My upbringing was pretty normal, I was brought up in Macclesfield which is about 20 miles South of Manchester, my parents were teachers and I went to a normal comprehensive school in Macc, when I was 16 I went to 6th form college in Moss Side, Manchester and that kind of opened up the world to me in a big way. Macclesfield is a small town , even though it’s close to Manchester people couldn’t be more different. It was totally different for me when I started hanging around with people who lived in a real City, it was 1987 when I started going to college in Manchester, so an amazing time to be there! What was the first music you got into?!

Like most people it was just through whatever I could find of my mum and dads. They had a BASF 90 cassette (yep i’m that old) of the Beatles live at Hollywood Bowl with Sgt Peppers and Let It Be on the same tape. I played that tape to death. I’m still obsessed with the Beatles. I have a little doll of one of the Beatles on every door handle in my house and lots of bits and pieces of Beatles memorabilia. I just went to see Paul McCartney this weekend in LA. That was the first music I listened to and I’ve never got bored of it. I was lucky in that when I was growing up, bands like The Jam, Dexys, The Specials, Madness were in the charts and everyone at my school was a mod, and into Northern Soul, so that music came to me early in my life and it stayed with me from there, not because I was cool, I wasn’t, but because that’s what pop music was at the time and I was surrounded by it. Great music soundtracked my youth. My first proper gig though was U2 in 1987 on the Joshua Tour, I was really into them!

How did you get into the roses?

I’ve had a season ticket at Manchester United since 1985 and I went with a bunch of lads from Macclesfield. Some were older than me and were already getting into ‘indie’ music, going to gigs and stuff like that - I was into things like U2 and the Style Council etc, and in about 1988 when they were old enough to drive, I used to travel with them in the car and they would play mix tapes of stuff they liked, New Order, Happy Mondays, WonderStuff, Inspiral Carpets - I was blown away by their music but the band I loved the most that they played was The Stone Roses. It hit me like a tonne of bricks and I just wanted to know everything about them. I was lucky that those lads let me hang around with them and go to gigs/clubs with them, because I most definitely wasn’t cool. Once I started getting into this stuff it introduced me to other people in my college in Manchester who were into this sort of music and the scene was just exploding. I was lucky, right place, right time.!

You went to a few gigs in their classic line up period between 1989 - 1990. Can you give us a low down of each gig you attended?

 It was such a long time ago, I can only remember bits and pieces of each gig...! !

Liverpool poly 24th April 1989:

This was a mental gig. Liverpool is so close to Manchester and even though it was a small room, it seemed to be full mostly of people from Manchester, I just remember that the crowd was kind of flat when the support band was on (an early version of The Real People) but as soon as the Roses came on the place transformed. I just remember everyone bouncing and dancing from the first note to the last. I think that was the night when I knew they were going to be massive and it wasn’t just me and my mates - this was going to take over.!

Manchester Hacienda 27th February 1989:

I really don’t remember much about that night at all!!!!

Shrewsbury Park Lane 25th May 1989:

I had friends in Shrewsbury who weren’t into the band, but i persuaded to come with me and let me stay with them. I remember it was supposed to be in an indie club called The Fridge, but the demand was so high they moved the gig into the glitzier Park Lane club next door - it was a weird thing to see the band play in an old school nightclub like that. The crowd was mental again, we were right at the front, people knew all the songs - it was like the Beatles had come to town. After the gig we had this mad moment where Steve Adge who tour managed the Roses and became their manager came up to us as we were leaving and asked if we wanted to meet the band - I thought we were being blagged but he took me and my friends backstage - we couldn’t believe it. I’d got a set list from the gig and the band signed it, they seemed kind of oblivious to the madness, it was like it was just the way it was supposed to be. People in the dressing room, fans hanging around. We all went to a party in Shrewsbury that night and Ian Brown and Cressa came with us. I was just floating on air, they were my heroes at the time, I was just a kid who loved the band. They were very tolerant considering.!

Walsall Junction 3rd June 1989:

All I remember about this gig is that it wasn’t very busy. We couldn’t believe it. There were maybe 100 people there - the band were still great, I remember vaguely that they changed the set up a bit that night - but also that Steve remembered us from Shrewsbury and let us backstage again. That day the band had their first ever National front cover (Melody Maker) and I had a copy which they signed for me - even though the gig wasn’t packed, it felt like another step up. It was mad to be there the day they had their first front cover like that - we all just wanted to be wherever we could where they were. We tried to get to their gig at Leeds Polytechnic at the end of the tour but we got stuck in a traffic jam. Never been so gutted.!

Manchester International 2 May 6th 1989:

Amazing gig. Ian Brown walked onstage ringing a bell. It was a real Homecoming. The crowd was insane, it felt like the band knew everyone in the room - there were kids sitting onstage, people of all ages, the album was out, everyone knew every song. It was a special night. The bands’ manager owned the International 2 so this was just such a home gig for the band, and you could feel it - they’d been around the country on a massive tour and they were back home triumphant.

Blackpool Empress Ballroom 12th August 1989:

Probably the best gig I’ve ever been to. At least the most memorable. This was the first time that people started wearing Reni hats and wearing the clothes the band were pictured in on the album, in magazines or had worn on television. It didn’t feel like a gig crowd, it felt like a movement. We sat on the balcony and I’ll never forget when Adored kicked in, the whole floor was jumping. I’m certain the venue was oversold and there was about 4000 people all under the same groove. It was such a giant leap from the gigs before it was another moment when it was clear that this thing was growing exponentially and they were going to be huge. Again Steve Adge pulled me and my mates backstage, we got to take photos of the band and to show them the fanzine I was writing - the band were on a high - everyone was. Special Night.

Ally Pally 18th November 1989:

Weird gig. By this point the band were huge and probably the most hyped band maybe in the world. Everyone was talking about Manchester and particularly the Roses. This was to be the next big Event gig after Blackpool, from Blackpool they were all about Events rather than tours (at this time) — I managed to get a pass that got me into the soundcheck- which went on for hours. The band was great, but the room sounded weird. Ally Pally isn’t the best room for music, it’s been improved now I think , but back then, it was hardly used for gigs and they struggled to get the sound right. They worked so hard on it. The thing about gigs is that when you soundcheck you have to make your best guess as to how the sound will change when the room is full of people, in the end the gig just didn’t catch fire and the sound was rough - the band tried and tried but the gig was a struggle - it was a little bit of a comedown after Blackpool, but for most people it was just another step.!

 Spike Island 27th May 1990:

Crazy day. We went to the press conference the day before which was even more mental, and ended in chaos when one of the bands’ mates stepped up to complain about one of their other mates getting arrested the night before. The media didn’t know what to make of it - the band were just enjoying the ride and the hype. No-one was to know that this was to be their peak (at the time - obviously on the comeback dates the shows were bigger, but Spike Island remains a legend) - it all seemed like another day in the office for the band, but we know now it wasn’t. It was a strange day, there was no support band, just DJ’s, which reflected the bands’ tastes and the kind of thinking at the time, but the crowd were there for a gig so the vibe was weird until the band came on. It was kind of windy so the sound changed throughout the gig, it’s hard to tell what the gig was like, it was just a moment really of 30,000 people in a field celebrating the time of their lives - the band of their lives. Everyone was there who you saw at gigs and clubs, every band at the time was backstage - it was definitely a ‘happening’. It was hard to tell how significant it was going to be at the time, we thought they’d just keep doing more and more - bigger and bigger.!

Were there many familiar faces at each gig you went to? Was there a gang from mcr at each gig?

Yep. There was definitely a bunch of people that were regulars. There were people who worked in the record shops in Manchester - Piccadilly Records and Eastern Bloc, so you’d know them through buying records and being at the gigs, and there was a gang of girls nicknamed the ‘bobs’ who were a little bit older and cooler than us, but would always be around and were actually friends of the band. There were loads of familiar faces, and we all acknowledged each other, but there was definitely kind of a pecking order..and i was at the bottom haha!

Why did you decide to start your legendary made of paper fanzine?

I’m an enthusiast and I just had a load of energy. I had friends who made fanzines and it seemed like a good thing to do to get all this passion off of my chest. If it was now i guess i’d have just written a blog - it was just the outpourings of a mad fan - I did it on my dads computer and I printed it on my mums’ work photocopier. I decided to write as much of it as i could before Blackpool and try to get some good stuff from Blackpool to finish it off - so I took a load of little flyers i printed out and gave them out in Blackpool at the gig - saying that the fanzine would be on sale at Piccadilly Records on the Monday. Of course it never got finished til the Wednesday I think. I think I printed about 50 copies - I would have been happy just to sell all of them. I went into Piccadilly Records where they sold fanzines and asked if they’d stock it and they called the manager to come out to speak to me. He went mental at

 me saying that they’d had hundreds of people in since Monday asking for copies of it. I apologised and said I had them now, when I told him how many I had he called me a bunch of terrible names and told me to go and print a load more. it’s funny looking back on it now. I did 2 issues of it and ended up selling about 3000 copies overall. It was crazy, I was getting phone calls from people in the media, the bands manager wanted some for promotion (which he never paid me for...!) and i was getting interviewed for magazines and even getting fan mail. Which was weird. I think it was just that the band were so distant and mystical that any connection people could get with them they jumped on. But I was just a mad fan writing down things about something i loved.

Did you lose interest in the band in their wilderness years or were you waiting for the second coming?

I never lost interest in the band. They’ll always be incredibly special to me because they changed my life. The whole build up to the second album was crazy because of the court case, the time it took, the rumours, Reni leaving and everything - i love the 2nd album - i didn’t love the gigs around the second album though!

What did you make to the band without Reni and with Maddix?

Not The Stone Roses. The Roses are a classic example of a band that is all about chemistry, greater than the sum of it’s parts. I can’t even remember a thing about those gigs, it wasn’t the Roses.!

Were you surprised when they announced their 3rd coming?

Kind of , but only because of what they’d all said in the media, at the same time, not surprised because, working in the music business, I know how financially things work, and The Stone Roses never got the money they deserved for what they achieved. Mismanagement/possible corruption or whatever you want to call it, but the band weren’t rewarded despite bringing joy literally to millions. I think there was always going to be a time when financially they HAD to do it, and the demand was so great. It was amazing for people who weren’t lucky enough to see them the first time round, and also for people who did, it was a chance to relive glory days. From everything i hear Heaton park was magical. I’m glad they did it. They deserve to live comfortably for the rest of their lives and the fans deserved to get their moment with them!

You've seem them at Barcelona and Fuji rock. What was it like seeing the classic line up again?

Barcelona was just amazing. it was emotional to see the 4 of them onstage playing those songs. Brought all the feelings back - the crowd was amazing. The Roses were always at their best when they were at one with the audience- Barcelona was like that. Fuji wasn’t quite the same, big venue and foreign audience that weren’t as invested as the European crowd. But Barcelona was incredible, as was the London Olympics gig - where they were just brilliant.!

You also got to see the Roses at the secret London Adidas gig. How did you get a 'golden ticket’?

It was an Adidas gig, i had a mate who worked there who called me on the day and knew my history with being a fan of the band. I’m eternally grateful.

Are you hopeful for a 3rd album?

Not really. I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s hard to recreate the chemistry of 25-30 years ago live let alone in a studio. If they’ve got great songs and are getting on then fantastic, but I honestly don’t think it matters. It’s only worth it if it lives up to what they’ve done before.

You live in LA now. What takes you to sunnier shores?

My wife is American so we moved here for family reasons. I ended up in the music industry myself - I was a PR first, working bands like The Verve and The Charlatans, and then I became a manager and managed bands including The Music, The Streets, The Zutons, Delphic and Dexys. If it wasn’t for the Roses there’s no way i’d have done this for a living. I’ve just started working in music again, i took a break from it when i first moved over here 2 years ago, but now I’m managing bands again, and looking for my very own new Stone Roses.