Last month we conducted a punny examination of Morrissey’s statement of intent to be buried at the LA celebrity cemetery Hollywood Forever, and we’ve been thinking about rock star grave sites ever since. And about death in general, but that’s the therapist’s problem. So we devoured Guardian‘s lengthy roadtrip/examination of British rockstar resting spots and the fan homages that adorn them, which chronicles writer John Harris’s visits to the tombs and memorials of John Bonham, Sandy Denny, Keith Moon, and Marc Bolan (among others). The piece’s thesis comes mid-way through:
A tangle of stuff seems to lie behind these mawkish tributes: from a charitable perspective, a simple devotion to the music, though that element is often overshadowed by slightly warped factors – chiefly, a darkly romantic fixation with dying young. If the central delusion of fandom is the idea that one’s idol is close to a different order of being, the tributes left at graves are that idea in excelsis. No matter that many of the stones denote people who exhibited the usual rock-star pathologies: violence, alcoholism, arrogance, misanthropy. In death, all becomes perfection, plectrums and flowers.
Which is the most eloquent bitch slap you’ll ever get for your worship of false prophets. Dude should hang with The Pope!
Anyway, the piece is fun (to skim), if only to hear the crazy shit that fans put on their rock heroes’ graves. (They’re routinely cleared of clutter, but when the reporter went, Bonham’s was “festooned with paraphernalia, including 80 drumsticks, a copy of Led Zeppelin II and, strangest of all, an all-areas pass for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ By The Way tour.” Chad Smith isn’t that derivative!)
Any of you guys made similar pilgrimages? See anything worth writing about? Best we’ve got is a trip to Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris’s Père Lachaise, where a series of kids threw joints, cried, and then screamed when a black cat walked from behind the tombstone. But even without fan-made decoration, this remains the craziest such sight you’ll ever see.
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Oh Christ. Who’ll be the first to mention Chuck Klosterman’s execrable Killing Yourself to Live? Oops. It was me.
I’ve been to a Shins concert where the band literally died on stage. Or at least it seemed like it. Does that count?
Hey, you can find rock star graves at http://www.findagrave.com
(I kid you not)
Here’s Dee Dee’s – http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6484099
unless you’re a real bad-ass and don’t need no grave…..
JAMES BROWN!
i guess Morrissey couldn’t be buried next to Oscar Wilde, since he’s in the same cemetary as Jim Morrison in Paris. Which is a great cemetary, but Morrison’s grave is boring now that the graffti covered bust is gone, and replaced with a marble slab.
I also saw JIm Morrisons grave in Paris. I was amazed at the emphasis of his presence throughout the graveyard, with handwritten signs on others tombs that read “JIM THIS WAY ==>” Also visited Oscar Wildes GIANT tombstone that day. Beautiful cemetary! a must see when in paris…
Jimi Hendrix’s grave is in the next town over from me. Recently Paul Allen and Hendrix’s family put in some gigantice gazebo and fountain (with purple backing lights!) recently for him, but I haven’t cared enough to go see it. I did see his gravesite a while ago, and it was pretty lowkey– worn down grass, plain flat headstone with cigarettes, rolling papers, and guitar picks around it. What you don’t realize is that the flat granite headstone is actually 6′ deep. It used to have the standard ones that are like 6″, and they got stolen continously. I’m not sure if Allen and co. moved Jimi himself into the gazebo or if it’s just there for “reflection” purposes.
I’ve been to Morrison’s grave in Paris as well. That cemetery is incredible.
His grave was crowded with people, and there was a guard there. You can not film, but you can take still photos.
I’ve been to Bon Scott’s grave in Fremantle, Australia. It’s got some crude graffitti around it, “highway to hell” and whatnot but it’s really pretty normal and nondescript. It was kind of sad really. Bon was a terrible drunk who, as the lead singer for AC/DC, cultivated the image of a lascivious dirtbag. It was kind of poignant to see the grave that his parents had buried him in. He was buried with his given name, Ronald, and the stone simply had the dates of his birth and death and the words “our loving son”.
that’s uh… not real. at all.
*the management…yeah that book was pretty awful.
anyway the only “rockstar” grave ive seen/”been to” is johnny ramone’s because i went to watch a humphrey bogart movie at hollywood forever.