About us

Rock On opened for business in August 1971 operating out of a flea market at 93 Golborne Rd at the unfashionable end of London’s Portobello Road market. Ted Carroll, the proprietor was a rock’n’roll and blues fan who also co-managed Thin Lizzy and so the stall was only open at weekends. Prior to opening day, stock consisted of a bunch of previously owned 45’s, 78’s and LPs that had been dredged up from thrift stores in the seedier parts of various cities in America, Ireland, England and Scotland. This was augmented by 1800 factory fresh London label 45s that were discovered in the loft of Thin Lizzy’s Irish record distributors in Dublin a week before opening. This haul, which was purchased by Ted at a knock-down price, was the end result of a week of cherry-picking through about 20,000 original ’50’s and ’60’s deleted London and Top Rank 45s.

These fantastic 45s put Rock On firmly on the map from day One as they included such rarities as ‘All The Time’ by Werly Fairburn modestly priced at £2 ‘Down Yonder We Go Ballin’ by Smiley Lewis (£2) and ‘Ballroom Baby’ (£2) by Dick Lory, as well as many other well known and sought after artists.

Within a week of opening, Ted would be greeted by a queue of expectant customers each morning as he arrived to open for business. He soon noticed that his customers included such ‘faces’ as Jimmy Page, Lemmy from Hawkwind, ex-Pretty Thing Twink and many other denizens of the Rock World, all of whom rubbed shoulders nonchalantly with mini-bus loads of Welsh teddy boys and aging French ‘Blouson Noir’.

Brian Eno came by to check the place out, but didn’t buy anything, Lenny Kay was intrigued and delighted to purchase a copy of his Link Cromwell ‘Crazy like a Fox’ single on the London label in the punk rock section for 40p. Joe Strummer spent the summer of ’72 vainly searching for an original 45 of ‘Junco Partner’. Malcolm McLaren purchased wholesale quantities of US rock’n’roll reissues for his Let It Rock boutique in the Kings Road, Jimmy Page came by to fill gaps in his collection of Sun 45s and Phil Lynott after a visit, wrote about Rock On in ‘The Rocker’. In 1974 Malcolm McLaren would drop by regularly with Paul Cook and Steve Jones looking for material for their new group and would buy Yardbirds, Animals and Monkees 45s. By now Rock On was becoming a tourist attraction having been featured in several write ups in the Music Papers.

Ted’s ROCK ON in 1981 with WONDER WORKSHOP ELVIS wallpaper

When Ted first moved into his tiny space at the back of the flea-market, next to him was an even smaller stall operated by the not-yet-famous Wonder Workshop duo John Dove & Molly White. John & Molly were already becoming involved with Paradise Garage at 430 Kings road, so after about 6 weeks, they decided to move  from the flea-market and Ted extended his retail premises to include their space, paying an extra £6 a week for additional room and in the process inheriting the unique Elvis wallpaper created by John Dove.

Other customers over the years have included Bob Dylan, and various members of The Cramps, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Los Lobos, Sir Douglas Quintet, Madness, The Clash, The Human League, Primal Scream, The Rockingbirds, The Gorillas, The Fall, to drop just a few names.

“I opened ROCK ON RECORDS in a tiny 6′ x 6’stall in the back of a flea market at 93 Golborne Road on Saturday 24th August 1971. My opening stock included 1800 45s on the London American label. These helped put the ROCK ON stall on the map immediately as these records, all in mint condition, included multiple titles by Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, Everly Brothers, Fats Domino, Eddie Cochran, Ray Sharpe, Rosie & The Originals, Rod Bernard, The Ronettes, Crystals, James Brown, Solomon Burke, Ike & Tina Turner, Freddie Cannon, The Turtles, The Association and The Critters, etc.at prices ranging from 25p up to £1. In addition, there was a handful of even rarer titles by Alvadean Coker, Smiley Lewis, Werly Fairburn, Lavern Baker, Love, Darlene Love, The Nightcrawlers, Link Cromwell [Lenny Kaye], Little Hank and others!

After just a few weeks, I would have a queue of about a dozen punters, waiting for me to open at 9.00AM on a Saturday morning. In addition to the foregoing, I had quite a few titles on the original Sun record label, also 78s, a few great LPs [ Pretty Things 1st UK LP £3], about 100 US oldies 45s and a few hundred second-hand UK 45s.

In September 1974, having resigned from co-management of Thin Lizzy I decided to open a second collectors’ record stall, this time in Soho Market, slap bang in the middle of the West End. This outlet initially opened for just 3 days a week and was managed by ex-Skid Row / Thin Lizzy tour manager Frank Murray who soon left to open the Electric Ballroom and then manage The Pogues. Frank In turn was replaced by Roger Armstrong who I already knew from his days as social secretary at Queens University, Belfast. Roger who was at a loose end at this time, threw himself wholeheartedly into taking care of business at Soho and soon the little stall was open 6 days a week. In fact, Roger was so enthusiastic, that before long I offered him a partnership in the small Indy record label (Chiswick Records) that I was planning to launch in the not too distant future.

A year later in August 1975, I opened a third branch of Rock On Records in partnership with Barry Appleby at no 3 Kentish Town Road, right next to Camden Town Tube Station. The opening party was attended by many well known journalists & musicians including the Flamin’ Groovies and their manager Greg Shaw whose fanzine ‘Who Put The Bomp’ was hugely popular among record buyers. By this time Roger and I were making the initial moves to release our first record on Chiswick Records, which in due course morphed into the Ace Records group of labels.

THE JAM perform outside ROCK ON Soho

During the first 2 years of Chiswick Records we managed to release over 40 records including several LPs and we even scored a top twenty hit with Radio Stars’ ‘Nervous Wreck’. This meant that Roger was spending more and more time working on the label, while still managing the stall at Soho, which by now had tripled in size and had acquired a couple of assistants Stan Brennan & Phil Gaston.

Around this time one of our customers Paul Weller and his group The Jam, played a free concert on the pavement outside ROCK ON Soho. The first we knew about this was when John Weller popped into the stall trailing an electric power cable which ended up being plugged into one of Rock On’s light sockets!

Barry was taking care of business at Rock On Camden with help from myself and several assistants including Trevor Churchill. Trevor had previously worked at EMI, Motown and Rolling Stones records and I soon recruited him as a third partner in Chiswick Records.

By 1979, things had become so hectic, I was left with no alternative and so I sold the Golborne Rd stall to Rockin Rex for 200 US rock’n’roll reissues.

Happy Days!!!!”

Ted Carroll