Dr. Lester "Noel Redding" Carboni and Rick "Mitch Mitchell" Majestic with Jimi Hendrix at the 1967 Art Show, New York City, 3/2/07

Rick Majestic and Dr. Lester S. Carboni founded Tyrannosaurus Rocks as a photocopied music newsletter back in 1974, when it seemed as if photocopying was the wave of the future.

They covered music and music-related topics, taking turns operating the copying machine, which they named Bruce until Steven Spielberg named his shark Bruce, then they just didn’t give it a name after that.

They loved music more than anything, but they also had a sense of humor about it, which wasn’t illegal back then. They bonded while at a hippie’s house, whom they fought from turning off the Ramones on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.

Rock on TV was rare. There was no MTV, no American Idol. If you wanted to see Mick Jagger lick Ron Wood’s lips on SNL, you had to be at home when he did it. Fortunately, Rick and Lester never went anywhere.

Except to concerts, when they could scrape together $3 for a ticket. Today, of course, at a concert $3 won’t buy you a cup of spit. Or at least, not a large.

After years of serving a solid fan base of 35 or so, depending on who was home, Rick and Lester sold out. Rick got a job helping country music DJ’s ban artists from radio and Lester wrote a corrupt rock review column called “This Rules!” where he’d give 5 stars to any band with $30.

Cut to 2006. While at the Rock'n'Ringtone Expo, they made plans to attend the final concerts at CBGB’s, where they had spent their youth seeing bands and also holding in their bladder, because they were afraid of the downstairs restroom.

On the night they went to the once-in-a-lifetime reunion of the Dead Boys, Rick, who had been anticipating the show for weeks, left right after the Anti-Nowhere League, and actually missed the headliners, claiming he had to “go camping.”

Dr. Lester S. Carboni was left with the Dead Boys’ final, poignant and powerful set – and also with Rick’s comment, “Let’s start Tyrannosaurus Rocks again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get to the KOA.”

They picked up where they had left off, but now using the Internet. In the business, this is known as “going electric.” When T. Rocks first appeared in its new form at the Newport Photocopier Festival, it was roundly booed.

“We lost the people who like their information photocopied,” said Lester, ruefully.

“Can’t say as I blame them,” said Rick. “There’s something honest, noble even, about Xerox paper. And purple ditto ink. But kids today, they don’t read dittoes.”  

Carboni and Majestic say music is everything. There is nothing that is not

music. The universe is a vibration, an overtone in a single note of a chord struck on the white Mosrite guitar of a cosmic Johnny Ramone.

In fact, it’s always 1974, when rock and roll seemed like it would never get better but then it inexplicably did. If the universe is music, and the world is CBGB’s, let

T. Rocks be the bathroom downstairs – but one you’re not afraid to use.

So in the spirit of that

original newsletter, let's

Xerox and roll! I wanna

be collated...

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