Venue Stories - Narratives, Memories, and Histories from Britain’s Independent Music Spaces - Fraser Mann
The Rock Garden: Conversations with My Dad, a Punk-rock DJ
Venue Stories - Narratives, Memories, and Histories from Britain’s Independent Music Spaces - Fraser Mann
Tom Jackson [+]
PhD Candidate, York St. John University
Description
In the 1970s, the Middlesbrough punk scene converged on an inner-city 400-person capacity nightclub: The Rock Garden. It hosted the biggest names in punk, rock and metal, including Siouxie and the Banshees, The Clash and The Sex Pistols. The Rock Garden also played a pivotal role in hosting smaller and less established artists as they made their way through the hectic and cramped music scene of the late 70s. Throughout this period, my Dad manned the decks. An unassuming man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of obscure punk and hard rock, he lined up and mixed hardcore punk, ska and Two-Tone LPs for a diverse and at times hostile crowd of punks, skins and rockers. In 1981, The Rock Garden closed its doors seemingly for good. This was until 2010, when an old friend convinced my Dad to take part in a one-off pop-up punk night called The Rock Garden Revisited. The event celebrated the music, atmosphere and culture of the late 1970s. My focus for this essay is on why ‘The Rock Garden Revisited’ has continued to ‘pop-up’ in various independent music venues around Middlesbrough for the past 10 years. I want to consider the cultural importance of the original ‘Rock Garden’ venue and contrast this against the role the contemporary reincarnated venue has within the current Middlesbrough music scene. Importantly, I aim to drill down into how the Rock Garden continues to engender a sense of community within those new and old to the punk music scene in Middlesbrough and consider why this revival is more than just nostalgia.