Rock & Roll Public Library Pt 1 - The Launch

ROCK & ROLL PUBLIC LIBRARY
FARSIGHT GALLERY
LONDON
EXTENDED UNTIL SATURDAY MARCH 22ND

In a quote from a contributor to the Rock & Roll Public Library magazine, Mick Jones pretty much said he’s fed up talking about The Clash. And, in that spirit I’ll keep the following personal anecdote short.

It’s 1979 and I’m performing in one of several post-punk groups in a pub back room at a DIY gig. The Clash have just released an album (London Calling) and I am expressing my disgust at the fact it’s a double album by biting and breaking open my own cassette copy with my healthy, teenage teeth and pulling the tape out until it spools across the stage. The fact that it was at that concert that the lead singer of another local band rightly heckled me with a Jim Morrison quote should indicate my own moral dilemma when it came to thou shalt have No More Heroes: the punk rock decree.

Whilst walking around the exhibition of Mick Jones From BAD’s almost life-long collection of cultural artefacts we (the missus and me) bumped into a man examining each item most carefully. We got talking about the copy of the FRESH album pinned to the wall (called Out Of Borstal, do your own googling but it’s rumoured to be the inspiration for the name of the first NWA album) and it turns out he is a collector. But, as he told us brimming with admiration, this is only a small fraction of the entire collection. There is, apparently a warehouse full of pop culture ephemera (or, as the Americans say, ‘antiques’). He considered himself an amateur compared to Mick Jones.

it’s clear that age is acting as an anorakian retardant on some of the old groovies of 1976

The launch night for the exhibition, which includes a magazine, took place at one of London’s dark space galleries - no name on the door, walls constructed in self-consciously bare ply (and mysteriously connected to a guitar shop on the other side of the building). It would be difficult to find if there wasn’t a couple of dirty great landmarks right next door - Centrepoint and St Giles In The Fields church, pretty much where the St Giles Rookery once seethed. Inside, it’s busy, too busy to linger long at the exhibits.

Some of the many fanzine pages

There are various recognisable faces from the pop world - and Chris Packham - wandering around. Oor Bobby Gillespie bounces about wearing a designer donkey jacket and it’s clear that age is acting as an anorakian retardant on some of the old groovies of 1976, the Old Punks, OPs who, actually, hated being called punks, just as the OHs hated being called hippies. One confused youth is gloriously dressed in a leather jacket emblazoned with the Crass symbol. The other youngsters, in a minority by a large amount, seem to be fascinated by the old fanzines, guitars, posters, puppets and projectors - Egyptologists in an Egyptian tomb.

Comfortable shoes abound.

Back to my attempt to eat London Calling. I learnt several things that night. One. Cassette’s have a lot of tape in them, particularly double albums, and there was plenty of tape still in the cassette after a minute or two of furious post-punk de-spooling. Two. No-one cares. For most people, those in bands they love (and let’s face it, many people absolutely love The Clash) are separate, apart and special. In fact, Mick Jones was/is a bit of an uber fan himself and that, no doubt drove him to make something of his own. So my mini punk-purist tantrum was less than pointless.

John, Dusty and three Rwandan vicars

That’s the key, of course. However much you love something made by someone else, if their inspiration is not for you to do something yourself, then you are ‘just’ a fan and each time this happens, one more punk fairy dies.

So, we will return to this exhibition, when there are less old gits having catch-ups and getting in the way and report back on the inspiration V fandom equation.

Rock & Roll Public Library Pt 1 - The Launch
Rock & Roll Public Library Pt 2 - Cruising Altitude
Rock & Roll Public Interview - In Orbit
Rock & Roll Public Library Preview

The Rock & Roll Public Library
Farsight Gallery, 
4 Flitcroft Street, 
London WC2H 8DJ
EXTENDED UNTIL SATURDAY MARCH 22ND
12 noon - 7pm daily
More info at www.rocknrollpl.com