A journey through real places marked by the great tragedies of rock history: murders, suicides and premature deaths that transformed everyday spaces into places of worship and collective memory. From homes to hotels, from streets to iconic buildings, an alternative geography of music emerges, where the myth of rock stars is inextricably intertwined with their end. From Jimi Hendrix to Janis Joplin, passing through Marvin Gaye and Ian Curtis.
In These Must Be The Places – Dark Atlas of Rock by Camilla Sernagiotto (Arcana Edizioni), we cross an alternative map of the history of rock made not only of music, but of places where music met its definitive breaking point: suicides, murders and premature deaths that transformed ordinary spaces into places full of meaning and myth. These are houses, hotel rooms, buildings and streets that are no longer simple geographical coordinates, but emotional and symbolic nodes of rock culture. Places like the Dakota Building linked to John Lennon, Kurt Cobain's final spaces or the traces left by Amy Winehouse become part of a broader narrative, in which the artist's end ends up being inseparable from his legend. These places are never neutral: they absorb, reflect and amplify what has happened there. Over time they transform into almost magnetic points of attraction, where collective memory, myth and fascination for the dark side of rock overlap until they become indistinguishable. We asked the author, Camilla Sernagiotto, how she put all this down on paper. Here's what he told us.
How did you come up with the idea of describing rock through places?
Because a place is capable of absorbing the energies of those who pass by, those who live there and, I believe even more, those who die there. Unfortunately, I am not a very believer and it is difficult for me to imagine anything beyond death. Yet, among the most inexplicable things that have happened to me, there is one linked to a very important person for me, to a place, to music, to energy and to death. From that moment I am convinced that the last breath remains somehow trapped between the four walls in which it took place, especially when those who die are personalities from whom energy overflows such as rock icons.
What was the creepiest place you discovered while researching?
I have a real fixation for the Dakota Building, so much so that I have already written an entire book dedicated to that New York building inhabited by Hollywood and entertainment stars, where John Lennon lived and above all died, murdered by Mark David Chapman. But in any case all the places I talk about in this dark Atlas, and there are truly hundreds of them, have an incredible centripetal force: they inexorably attract anyone, especially those who love rock and the dark shades that have always colored it. Among the most disturbing, Thélema Abbey in Cefalù, the Black House in San Francisco, Euronymous' apartment in Oslo and Dead's house in Kråkstad, Norway, immediately come to mind. But even Kurt Cobain's house and Boleskine House have now officially entered my unconscious. And who lets them out anymore?
Is there a story that affected you more than the others on a personal level?
They are all so powerful that I couldn't choose just one. But Harry Nilsson's apartment, with two corpses in the same bed who died at the same age and within a short time, is something that goes beyond coincidence. And if those two corpses are Mama Cass of The Mamas & the Papas and Keith Moon, drummer of The Who, then the story truly becomes a novel. The strength of all these events is precisely this: they seem invented due to how absurdly excessive they are, and yet it is all true.
How long did it take you to collect all the material for the book?
I couldn't quantify it, also because when I start writing a book I throw myself completely into it and there is no longer any difference between day and night: I have to go all the way. Let's say it took me a while. Not quite enough time to actually travel around the world, as in these pages, but it was still a remarkable adventure, both in terms of intensity and amount of time. And I would leave on this trip again tomorrow. Indeed: already today. Actually: already yesterday.
Have you visited some of the places you are talking about or have you worked mainly on archives and testimonies?
I have visited many of them. Even slightly less traveled destinations, such as India and Oslo. The few stages of this “Via Crucis of Rock” that I have not yet been to are already in the wishes of my passport.
Why do you think we are so attracted to the dark side of rock stars?
Because the very essence of the rock star is made above all of darkness. The rock star is then the archetype of what all of us, deep down, long to be: a sort of angel fallen on earth who enjoys the delights of paradise here among us, even if in the end he ends up being crucified… The DOC rock star, the one of controlled origin let's say, is never heavenly or celestial, but always damned, vampire-like and imbued with rock rituals. And then because the myth of the cursed artist has always fascinated us: since the times of the Scapigliatura, and perhaps even before, since the times of Dante and the Comedy. After all, I challenge anyone to really prefer Heaven to Hell… Darkness attracts us, seduces us, intrigues us more than perfection. As I explain in the Dark Atlas, in the part dedicated to Anton LaVey and his Black House in San Francisco, where the Church of Satan stood, much of the rock aesthetic of flames, horns and tridents was born right there, from the Californian Church of Satan. In the 1960s and 1970s LaVey influenced music, cinema and literature. The theatricality of its rites gave the “la” – literally, since we are talking about music – to a whole rock and metal symbolism made of fire, horns, tridents and diabolical figures. So if you want to be a real rock star, you can't avoid dealing with all this.
Of all the figures told in the book, which one fascinated you the most?
If there is an extremely fascinating personality within the pages of this book and among the folds (and wounds) of rock, it is Aleister Crowley. Although for many he certainly needs no introduction, he is the famous British occultist who inspired Anton LaVey and his Church of Satan, as well as Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Doors and everyone, really everyone. Crowley is, himself, one of the most indestructible rock icons that exist. Perhaps he is the rock star par excellence, who lived following his own precept (which however he took from Rabelais): “Do what you want”. Very rock. Even Saint Augustine said it, eh!
How much does myth matter in building the legend of artists like Jimi Hendrix or Kurt Cobain?
For the rock martyrs protagonists of These Must Be The Places – Dark Atlas of Rock, the myth built around the curse of their deaths is a fundamental part of the legend, it is the scaffolding that holds everything together. Many of them have become immortal precisely because they are honorary members of the “27 Club”, that group of artists who died tragically at the age of twenty-seven amid excesses, alcohol, drugs and genius.
Is there a place in the book that you would really recommend visiting?
I recommend visiting all the places described in this book, because each one has something to communicate and transmit, both to those who know how to listen and to those who do not yet have a soul open enough (or rather: tuned to the right frequency). Even those who cannot clearly perceive the words and notes that these places whisper to us will still find incredible places, full of history and stories. As an incurable patriot that I am, the cursed Italian places are the ones I recommend most warmly. And then Boleskine House, in Scotland, on the banks of Loch Ness, because one of my obsessions is also the Loch Ness Monster. The fact that Aleister Crowley wanted to live there is no coincidence. Then the house passed to Jimmy Page, a great collector of everything related to Crowley.
After this dark atlas, would you also like to write a “luminous atlas” of music?
Darkness and brightness are inextricably linked, like night and day, which would not exist without each other. In reality this dark Atlas is already very bright: you just need to know how to find the light between the lines and between the places. I found my light, not to the sound of rock but to the sound of Bella Belinda (yes, the song by Gianni Morandi). But this is another story, or rather: my story, which I tell in the introduction.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
