Once upon a time, I (Davearama) published a fanzine dedicated to Bananarama called Pop Life. The fanzine was published from 2003 to 2007. Well, ten years later, there is a new issue!
The new issue of Pop Life
Back in the 80s, there was an official Bananarama fanzine produced by their fan club called True Confessions. It was named after Bananarama's third album. The editor was Peter Lorraine, who went on to manage The Saturdays and now is behind the reunion tour.
The new issue of WOW!
In the mid-90s, Jason 'Jay' Berges published WOW! The Unofficial Bananarama Fan Newsletter. WOW! was the name of Bananarama's fourth album. This was so wonderful to get because at the time, any information about Bananarama was hard to come by. Yes, this was before we had access to the Internet. We got lots of updates around the album Ultra Violet.
The first issue of Pop Life
By 2003, we had the Internet, and we had Yahoo chat groups, including the Bananarama Mailing List and the Bananarama Club. We didn't have Facebook or social media back then. And I decided to have another go at creating another fanzine dedicated to Bananarama because there was something magical about having a physical copy to have. So I chose to follow the fanzines/newsletters than came before me. I named the fanzine after Bananarama's fifth and fabulous album: Pop Life.
Sara and Keren received issues of Pop Life
Pop Life, The Unofficial Bananarama Fanzine was published during a very exciting time. It was during the time that their 2005 comeback album Drama came out. I was lucky enough to interview Keren, Sara, and Jacquie for the fanzine. You can read those interviews by clicking on their names. Sadly, I was never able to interview Siobhan. Although we did have a lot of features about Siobhan and Shakespears Sister in the fanzine.
30th Anniversary edition of True Confessions
For Bananarama's 30th anniversary in 2012, Peter Lorraine published a 30th anniversary of True Confessions. Earlier this year, when the reunion tour was announced. Jay encouraged me to do another issue of Pop Life. I initially said no, because my life is busy enough as it is. Then Jay went and published a new issue of WOW! The Unofficial Bananarama Fan Newsletter. And well, I was inspired to give it another go!
The 24 issues of Pop Life
So today, there is a new issue of Pop Life, The Unofficial Bananarama Fanzine. I'm not printing it and mailing it out. It is a PDF only. You can download the issue for free by clicking here. Please feel free to print a copy!
I hope you enjoy it.
Cheers then,
—Davearama
P.S. You can actually see the first 3 issues of Pop Life in the photos section of the Poptastic Confessions Facebook page!
When you have time, can you upload a printable version of this where all of the pages are ledger (11x17), including the cover & back / first & last (1 & 12 as one ledger page so it can be printed two-sided then folded into a booklet)? As it is now, it's not printable in order no matter what I do. Thanks! If I'm missing something or should be using a particular piece of software to make this easily print a booklet from this PDF, please let me know. THANK YOU.
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