‘I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead’
Well, I just wanted to break the ice with a silly picture and a quote from a nice song, but you’ll be relieved to know that I am not dead yet, but quite disappointingly I have to confess that I am not Jim Morrison either. Not even related to him. So, you want to know what the hell is ‘rockandrollogy’? Clearly, it’s a neologism that defines a new science, inspired by the term musicology and to its historical approach to the matters of music, restricting its focus to a single genre, that is rock and roll. However, since I am the only one out there who defines himself a rockandrollogist, I can also add that one needs to be a metropolitan peripatetic and a pilgrim to qualify for the post. An active citizen who witnesses the constant changing of the cityscape, who denounces the gentrification of its seminal areas as well as the abandonment of its music heritage; a member of the community who praises the debut of new venues, studios, and record shops, and welcomes the appearance of street art and memorial plaques that celebrate and acknowledge the music history on our streets. That’s what a rockandrollogist is. That’s what s/he does.
In fact, if Rock and Roll is dead (notably in 1959*, 1969**, 1980***, and 1994****, at least), as stated by many rock stars themselves (Gene Simmons, Joe Perry, Steve Harris, Flea and Roger Daltrey, to name a few, in the last decade only), the study of it as a historical phenomenon, which is quite young in itself, has never been in better health, with thousands of publications, biographies, films and documentaries (rockumentaries…), new prints of old materials, and even university courses (to my knowledge both Rochester University and Berklee College of Music have one) being put together, published, advertised, sold, and distributed every day all over the world.
Those are my main sources, along with the myriad of articles all over the internet of course, the omnipresent Wikipedia, packages and booklets of CDs and records, museums and exhibitions, local magazines, fan websites, and – particularly for London, the city where I live – quite a bunch of reads, among which I want to mention at least: Punk London. In The City 1975-78 by P. Gorman and M. G. Haddad (2016); London Gig Venues by Carl Allen (2016); Rock and Roll London by Tony Barrell and Vinyl London by Tom Greig (both 2019, both on sale at the excellent Museum of London bookshop); Jimi Hendrix in London by Steve Rodham (2016, that can be bought at the beautiful Hendrix & Handel Museum); the essential Rock Around Britain by Pete Frame (1999), and In the City by Paul Du Noyer (1999). Most importantly, though, I go out, I walk, I go to gigs, I take pics, I love music and the magnificent city that I have been calling home for the last decade.
In fact, London is the place I live in and there’s nowhere else like it, every corner of it, from the trendy East to the bourgeois West, from the elegant North to the working-class Sarf of the river. David Bowie, The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, The Beatles and the Stones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and the whole Punk scene, Queen, you name it. The goal of this trivial enterprise is to take you to the places where they made history and are still celebrated. Studios, rehearsal rooms, defunct and existing venues, record stores, bookshops, apartments and houses, every nook and cranny of our streets.
From Regent’s Park mosque on to Baker Street,
Down to the Cross where all the pipesmoke neat,
To Somerstown where somethings never stop,
The Roundhouse, The Marathon Bar and Camden Lock.
You can make it your own hell or heaven.
Live as you please.
Can we make it, if we all live together,
As one big family.
Down to Chinatown for duck and rice.
Along Old Compton St, the boys are nice.
On Carnaby you still can get the threads,
If you wanna be a mod, a punk, a ted or a suedehead.
*Buddy Holly died in a plane crash (on February 3rd), Elvis was in the army (since March ‘58), Little Richard had quit rock music to preach and study theology at Oakwood College in Alabama, Chuck Berry was arrested for violating the Mann Act (in December), Jerry Lee Lewis’s tour in the UK had been cancelled in ‘58 due to a controversy regarding his marriage (he had married his first cousin once removed, when she was only thirteen and still believed in Santa Claus), and the Payola Investigation had almost wiped rock music off the radios.
** After the Rolling Stones’ Altamont concert on December 6th, when four persons lost their lives.
***Somewhere between the release of The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ and Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The River’ or, if you like, with the murder of John Lennon in New York.
****With Kurt Cobain’s suicide in Seattle on April 5th.
“But as we all know, rock ‘n’ roll will never die, and education too, as Henry Adams always sez, keeps going on forever.“
Thomas Pynchon
@Rockandrollogist 