BoomerGirl Diary

When I first laid my hands on the new Rolling Stone: Cover to Cover The First 40 Years, from Bondi Digital Publishing, I could hardly wait to get it home and dig in. The package is big, 12x10 inches and it weighs several pounds. It has four discs, a 208-page companion coffee table book, and a free one-year subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. For someone like me, who is something of a rock historian, it sounded like an excellent source of information, richly detailing the rock and roll subculture from the Fall of ’67, just after the Summer of Love, to the present.

I subscribed to Rolling Stone back in the 70’s and 80’s, when being “on the cover of the Rolling Stone” meant an artist had ‘arrived.’ For a long time the magazines sat in piles around my house, but after years of collecting them, one finally has to ask oneself, “What am I saving them for?” So I reluctantly moved them on. Still I saved a few of my favorite issues and have them stashed in a box in my basement. Now when I do get them out, they are musty smelling and somewhat unpleasant to handle. Having 98,000 pages digitally archived on discs is a dream come true. Now, finally, it can truly be said of the magazine, ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss.’

After installing the software, which is easy and user friendly, up comes the navigation page with the famous Annie Leibovitz cover of John and Yoko, right in the middle. There is a PDF instructional on how to navigate around if you want to use it, but it’s pretty intuitive and self-explanatory, so you can basically jump right in.

First off, if you click on the Browse button a menu drops down and you can scroll through the covers of all 1,026 issues, November 9, 1967 to May 3, 2007. Unbelievable to think you have access to forty years of Rolling Stone. It is a veritable feast for the eyes. As I tumble back through the years, meaningful covers trip my memory as if it were yesterday. The disastrous Altamont Festival, Issue 50, January 21, 1970; Charles Manson, Issue 61, June 25, 1970; the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Issue 68, October 15, 1970; and Janis Joplin, Issue 69, October 29, 1970; Patty Hearst, Issue 198, October 23, 1975; The Police, Issue 337, February 19, 1981; the list goes on and on.

Bob Dylan probably makes the most appearances; John Lennon runs a close second. So many others; Linda Ronstadt, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers, John Denver, Bonnie Raitt, Robert Redford, OJ, Ali, Jimmy Carter, Elton John, Pete Townsend, Prince, Madonna, Jane Fonda, Tom Cruise, Nirvana, Michael Douglas, James Taylor, Tom Petty, Billy Joel, Steve Martin, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton. My mind is blown as I look through the rows and rows of familiar covers. There is actually one issue in July 1984 for which there is no cover. Imagine that. They couldn’t find a cover anywhere for the ‘Summer Double Issue’? I guess they weren’t planning ahead. I was also struck by how provocative some of the covers were, downright blatant nudity.

The earliest issues are yellowing, have faded print, tape is holding one cover of Tina Turner together. There is a very authentic feel to them; they are not pristine and flawless. It’s as if you are actually looking at the real thing. The issues progress from a newspaper format to a slick magazine format and become much more vibrant in color. You can also browse by category or name.

When you choose a cover and click on it, you are taken inside to each article and picture. You can choose an article, go to its page and zoom in to read every word. As I go from page to page it reminds me a little of looking through microfilm in a library. Depending on which cover you choose, you may have to change to another disc, but the program will tell you. I was delighted to discover in an issue from 2000, in which co-founder and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner reviews of one of my favorite albums, Mark Knopfler’s Sailing to Philadelphia, that I had never read before.

I would say that this is a pretty remarkable product and we will surely start seeing more of this done in the near future. Bondi has created a very robust, user-friendly presentation and the only downside I can see, is that you may be spending much more time at the computer trying to go through it all, than you ever planned to. But if you’ve got the time and want to access the good old rock and roll days of the past, then this product is for you.

Until next time, rock through the holidays and be excellent to each other… Penny