British musician, songwriter and producer Mick Jones will launch a new magazine, The Rock & Roll Public Library Magazine, on 1st March, available to buy at an experiential exhibition at London’s Farsight Gallery, which runs until 16th March 2025.
The Rock & Roll Public Library (RRPL) is a large, material archive of 20th century pop culture, collected over a lifetime by Mick Jones (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite). It includes thousands of items, including books, comics, magazines, musical equipment, literature, art, clothing, ephemera as well as music and film in every format, revealing a wide network of influences that span the entire 20th century.
There can be few places where scarce beat poetry pamphlets sit amongst a family of Simpsons Pez dispensers, or where Al Capone’s tie rests next to cigarette cards of royalty. The unique nature of the RRPL comes from the fact that it tells the story of popular culture through everyday items and ephemeral objects as much as it does through valuable historic artifacts.
The Rock & Roll Public Library exhibition will celebrate over-the-counter-culture, featuring elements of bookshops, newsstands, comic book stores, record shops and video rental libraries. The exhibition , which will include photographs by Jeff Pitcher, is a celebration of pre-digital – the analogue, the physical pop culture history of the 20th century and beyond – the aim being to inspire others to create, make connections and remember.
At the heart of the RRPL archive is the unique collection of artefacts and personal items from Mick’s life and times as an art student, to The Clash and Big Audio Dynamite – clothes, musical equipment, lyrics, notebooks – as well as previously unseen photographs and ephemera. A selection of these rock and roll artefacts is included in the exhibition to represent this very special, exceptional view of cultural history.
Previous iterations of the RRPL have been exhibited twice at CHELSEA Space, Summer Show Underneath the Westway, on Peter Blake’s CCA Art Bus, as part of the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015; and Museo Jumex in Mexico City (an intervention by artist Laureana Toledo)
Edited by the RRPL team, The Rock & Roll Public Library Magazine focuses on DIY culture – from punk rock fanzines to fashion, art school to dole queues, four-track home cassette demos to high-tech studios – a ragged map to aid further exploration and inspire creation.
The first issue will be available in three different covers and will be on sale at the RRPL exhibition at the Farsight Gallery, which is run by the Farsight Collective.
“The magazine to me is like a record, with each article a separate track and it tells a story – my story,” says Mick Jones. “And by extension through our shared culture, all of our stories. I hope that anyone who reads it will enjoy it.”
The Rock & Roll Public Library Magazine has been created to share elements of the archive and serves as a curated selective journey through the collection. A portable exhibition in itself, it invites the reader to find their own connections and inspirations from the Library’s wide-ranging artefacts.
• Register your interest for online sales and other retail outlets at rocknrollpl.com/magazine
• The Rock & Roll Public Library will be open to the public at Farsight Gallery, 4 Flitcroft Street, London WC2H 8DJ from 1st – 16th March 2025. 12 noon – 7.00pm daily. For more information visit rocknrollpl.com
• Mick Jones Rock & Roll Public Library Exhibitions Group
• Farsight Collective is a team of experienced operators assembled to transform under-utilised spaces into centres for culture and community, allied to financially sustainable practices and a highly flexible and pragmatic business model. Farsight have been extremely effective in bringing together the best talent in their industry, these relationships have been forged over three decades building and operating some of London’s most iconic venues.
News item with thanks to Joel Meadows at Tripwire Magazine and Louder Than War
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Art and Illustration, downthetubes News, Events, Exhibitions, Magazines, Other Worlds
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