also see About Jason DeBord
The Rock Subculture Journal is a website and resource that celebrates rock and pop music, and related subgenres, in a variety of forms, from news to reviews to analysis and opinions regarding everything from studio recordings to live performances to collectible artifacts and memorabilia.
A component part of the Rock Subculture Journal is its related Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube pages, which I encourage interested readers to like and subscribe to in order to have more information and social interaction with this site.
This site was born out of my other website, the Original Prop Blog, which just celebrated its five year anniversary this week, as I type this overview of its sister site, the Rock Subculture Journal. In fact, many of the original articles published on this site to launch it migrated from the OPB.
Many know me as a fan of film and television – while very true – I have always had as much of an appreciation for popular music. Over the past two years, some of this has crept into the Original Prop Blog site, as more and more I’ve begun to share stories and publish articles about music – both collecting rare stage and studio used artifacts, as well as attending live concert events, the latter being highly off topic from the stated mission of the OPB.
So the origins of this site were born in the other, which also equipped me with somewhat of a pattern to follow to build this second, new site, having burned a similar path in the past.
While the Original Prop Blog is fairly narrowly focused on collecting rare memorabilia, my intention with the Rock Subculture Journal (or RSJ for short) is to be much more lax in that regard; while I intend to share my knowledge from the collecting side with readers here, it is one of many aspects I hope to develop over time. With the RSJ, I really wish to celebrate a love of music, and especially the incredible opportunities to go and see favorite artists perform live, and in some rare cases, even meet and interact with them.
Another significant part of this endeavor, that I hope to build on significantly, is the idea of combining a love of travel and concert going… and I hope to build significant resources and a community of fans of music who want to partake in “Concert Travel” and share ideas and resources in this regard. See Article: “Traveling for Concerts – An Overview”
One of the most challenging aspects for this endeavor has been coming up with a name for it… I spent much time on Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, and generally reflecting on what suits my intentions (and is not terribly long).
In the end, with some help from my friend and fellow music lover Oz, I settled in on simply Rock Subculture for the root domain, and Rock Subculture Journal overall.
Music is a very subjective thing, and I love many styles and genres of music, so the biggest challenge was finding one word (other than “music”, which is too broad), to cover all that I love. And the best word for that seemed to be “rock”, short for “rock ‘n roll” or “rock music”.
I think Wikipedia has a nice definition of Rock music:, which opens:
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of other genres such as blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical and other musical sources.
I believe that the American Heritage Cultural Dictionary has an appropriate definition for subculutre:
A group within a society that has its own shared set of customs, attitudes, and values, often accompanied by jargon or slang. A subculture can be organized around a common activity, occupation, age, status, ethnic background, race, religion, or any other unifying social condition, but the term is often used to describe deviant groups, such as thieves and drug users. ( See counterculture.)
What I like about this, and in my own personal experience, is that rock music actually brings together a diverse group of people who might not ever otherwise meet or socialize, if not for a shared interest in certain bands, artists, or styles of music. Music really transcends occupation, age, status, ethnic background, race, and religion – I think it can speak to us on a much different level that puts all of those things aside.
Lastly, I sought a word that would be sum up my own objectives in publishing articles on this site, and journal seemed perfect to me (at least the first three definitions):
jour·nal
noun
1. a daily record, as of occurrences, experiences, or observations: She kept a journal during her European trip.
2. a newspaper, especially a daily one.
3. a periodical or magazine, especially one published for a special group, learned society, or profession: the October issue of The English Journal.
So all in all, this site is a resource for fellow fans of music, and I hope to publish frequent articles that cover my favorite artists, their activities and live concert events, some news, a variety of resources, tips about buying tickets for and attending gigs, travel tips and ideas, information about collecting related memorabilia, some showcases of such memorabilia, interviews, and more.
I publish my e-mail and phone number on this site publicly, so if you would like to get in touch with me, please feel free to do so. I am always happy to talk music, as well as meet people at various concerts.
Jason DeBord
