Original framework
The Vampire Theory of Rock and Roll
Thesis
The central argument
The Vampire Theory proposes that the history of popular music is a history of cultural predation — a recurring pattern in which musical forms are born in marginalized communities, colonized by dominant culture, drained of their vitality, and then reborn in new hosts. The ‘vampire’ is the mechanism of transmission itself: the process by which authenticity is consumed and transformed. The theory traces this from the Delta blues through the British Invasion through the present, identifying the structural dynamics that persist beneath changing styles.
Key concepts
A working vocabulary
- 01The Vampire Theory
- 02Sound littering
- 03The ontological wound
- 04Trojan horse inversion
- 05Cultural transmission as predation
- 06The Delta-to-Rock morphology
Development
An evolving architecture
This framework is presented here in its foundational form. Chronologies, related notebooks, essays, presentations, and subsequent iterations will be introduced as the archive is migrated.
Archive in preparationCross-references
Connections
- Shamanism — entheogenic roots of music
- Alchemy — transformation
- The McLuhan Galaxy — media ecology of sound
- The Les Paul Foundation
The web of connections is part of the work: each framework gains meaning through the domains it informs and the inquiries that return to it.