The Past, Present and Future of Rockabilia

Welcome to the all-new Rockabilia Blog! Wait…blogs ARE still a thing…right? Ok, good…just checking. To be fair though, we probably really should have started this years ago. I mean, we were actually around back when LiveJournal was popping, so to say we’re just a little late to the party at this point is a pretty big understatement. But, more on that reason later…

We do have some exciting blog entries planned for the next several months, such as a brief history of the entire rock T-shirt market, but first, we figured it’d be a good time to tell you the history of OUR company. So, as the Ramones, Rancid, and just about every other punk rock band in existence would say: LET’S GO!

In 1987, a company called Concert Express was started in an apartment. Believe it or not, there was virtually NOWHERE to buy band merchandise, aside from concerts, at that time, much less OFFICIAL merch (seriously: it was almost entirely bootleg back then), and thus, the idea to start selling those types of goods outside of live shows was born. All our time was spent in the music scene anyway, so we figured we might as well try to make the lifestyle our nine-to-fives. Anyway, our only source of advertising in 1987 was basically to run print ads in magazines like Circus & Hit Parader, and of course…you could write to us and request a catalog. Sourcing the actual product was an absolute nightmare (this was before cell phones, before email, before THE INTERNET, hello?!), but hair metal was huge, and life was good.

Fast forward to the mid-90’s, when alternative and grunge were all the rage (pun intended), and a couple small acts you may have heard of (and listened to, just admit it) like Hanson and Spice Girls were absolutely dominating pop culture. Oh, and the dot-com era was in full swing too, which means we were seriously selling music merchandise on the WORLD WIDE WEB (which was a foreign concept at that time), people! The company had changed and grew so much in this timeframe, that we felt a bigger, better and stronger name was needed as well, so…Concert Express was officially changed to Rockabilia, and a new era had begun.

In the late 90’s/early 2000’s, we also started a second division of Rockabilia (which you may remember seeing promos for) called Infinity 1. This was an attempt to differentiate and separate the entertainment (comics, movies, TV shows) merch that we started to carry, from the band merch we were known for. We eventually retired this name though, but we HAVE messed around with the idea of bringing it back. Hmm…

For the last decade or so, as the world continues to move faster than ever, we too have changed drastically, and continue to adapt and evolve in one of the most exciting (yeah, we’re biased) sectors in the entire music industry: MERCHANDISE. Which brings us to the callback (go back and reference the first paragraph here if you forgot already):

To be honest, we just never felt it was truly necessary to show you the people and story behind Rockabilia. We have always been too focused on buying products and shipping orders to slow down and have real meaningful conversations with our fans. But in today’s day & age, we realize that you want to know who we are, and why we do what we do. So hopefully by now, you know the WHY (because we LOVE music, duh), but the who? Well, all we can say is that we promise to start showing you the individuals and stories behind what makes this company run. We want this to feel like an intimate acoustic performance or small hardcore show too, which means we want and need YOUR participation. What kind of content do you want to see from us? What do you want to know about Rockabilia? Leave a comment below, because we’d love to hear from you and work together on this. Besides, since we’re in Minnesota and essentially hibernate for most of the year anyway, we’ve got the time.

Thanks for reading this far. Till next time, rock on!

-Rockabilia