An impressionistic look at the interplay of Rock N Roll and Culture in Los Angeles during the latter half of the 1960s. There are familiar elements: storytelling, critical discussion and commentary, and lots of Rock N Roll attitude. But this one is different from most of our previous RNRAP offerings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We open in Manila, in the Republic of the Philippines, July 3rd, 1966. The second stop of the Far East leg of the Beatles’ 1966 tour starts out weird and ominous, and gets worse from there. By the time the tour sputters to a halt—late August in San Francisco—the boys are almighty sick of it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We open at Waldo Point Marina in Sausalito, California, just north of San Francisco. Otis Redding takes a break from the road on Bill Graham’s houseboat, and comes up with a signature song. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jimi Hendrix's astonishing, supernatural talent was forged in poverty and neglect as he grew up in Seattle. We talk about that, and about the night Elvis came to town. After a short stint in the Army comes to a humiliating end, Jimi takes it on the road and spends the next four years paying his dues as a sideman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We start by taking a clear-eyed look at the infamous seaside “Riots” in the resort town of Clacton, United Kingdom and several other towns in the summer of 1964. The British press were WAY over the top in their depiction of these events, but they did document the first schism, the first big division in Rock music and culture: the traditionalist Rockers versus the Modernists, or “Mods.” Oh yeah, a couple bands like The Who and Kinks make an appearance... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...
Episode Ten opens up with Christian narrating at the site of the Bricklayer’s Arms Public House, in Soho, West London, where Brian Jones met with two younger men, school chums, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, in the fall of 1963. You might know them as The Rolling Stones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Welcome back Diggers to Episode Nine: The Medium, The Message, The Music. This show will contain familiar elements — storytelling, commentary, and musicology — but it is also a bit of a departure. It takes place mostly in the mid-sixties, but we’re not following a timeline or building a story: it’s more of a mosaic, a think-piece. We think the influence of psychedelic drugs — especially LSD — on rock music is critically important and very much overlooked. It’s a vital part of the overall story. ...
The show opens December 27th, 1961, at the Cavern Club where Pete Best calls in sick, and the boys bring in Richard Starkey - Ringo Starr to the world - to sit in on drums, his first paid gig with the Beatles. It clicks musically; the band really swings with Ringo on drums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Arrival: we begin the show on February 7th, 1964, in the first-class cabin aboard Pan American Airlines Flight 101 from London to New York City. It’s a raucous, party atmosphere, but John Lennon, for a moment anyway, feels alone in a crowd. A door opens, pandemonium ensues, and a new era arrives. Some housekeeping, and we move on to the Soho District, West London, and lay some foundation for today’s story—and for future discussions. Then we pull back a bit, and look at some of the political, eco...
We open in Manhattan, in the main room, the big studio at Columbia Records. It’s Fall of 1963. A big-time, high-stakes recording session for Aretha Franklin is about to get underway. Aretha is an astonishing, one-in-a-billion talent, but it’s just not clicking for her at Columbia. We spend a little time exploring why it isn’t clicking, and then we talk a little about the feminist perspective, and why we think it is called for. And we move on from Manhattan, to South Grand Avenue in Detroit; to H...
A quick prologue: we stop by the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, where they opened up a very cool exhibit in March of 2015. Then we move on to Newport, Rhode Island, where Pete Seeger is about to introduce Johnny Cash, an established country star playing for the first time to a folk festival audience. After a rough beginning, the show goes very well. Afterwards, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan—mutual fans—meet for the first time and begin a lifelong friendship. We then spend some time getting...
The Sixties are about to begin and we’re feeling the change of the guard. We briefly recap the first Golden Age of Rock N Roll: 1956 to 1959. A lot happened, and fast. Too fast to last. We skid perilously into a new decade. As we open the sixties, all the big players are offstage, and a lot of folks are saying Rock N Roll is dead. We open in a police station in St. Louis, and Chuck Berry is in big trouble with the law. We detail Chuck’s legal fight to its conclusion in early ’63. We also catch u...
We describe Rock N Roll as an “enfant terrible,” then an unruly toddler, then a hyperactive kid. When Buddy Holly breaks out in late 1957, we see Rock N Roll has stepped out into the world as a confident young adult. Our story begins on a snowy two-lane highway in rural Iowa, on February 2nd, 1959: the fateful last day of the Winter Dance Party tour. The shows are going well, but the tour is a real grind. Cold, tired, and fed up, Buddy Holly decides to charter a small plane after the show that n...
Archaeology is the study of human activity in the past, looking at lots of different things from lots of different angles. We take that approach with Rock N Roll. We recap episode one, and open in Memphis, 1954. Sun Records owner Sam Phillips has found his elusive crossover sound—and the artist who can deliver it. Elvis breaks out; in just a few months he’s on the cusp of national stardom. We get to know Sam Phillips better; we find he shares affinity and common ground with his young star. Sam w...
Welcome to Rock N Roll Archaeology! This is a reboot of Episode One: The Precursors, originally released October 15, 2015. We updated and improved it some, and re-released it on November 4, 2020. We begin in Times Square, late summer of 1945. The war is over. First up, the Baby Boom and a newly-discovered demographic, the white American teenager. This new cohort is huge, with unprecedented economic clout. Young, restless and affluent, and they want to get beyond the timid, conformist popular cul...
