Exclusive to Backporch Tapes, How I Obtained the Rock

For nearly forty years, I’ve been collecting and preserving pieces connected to Charles Manson and the Family, artifacts and fragments that history was ready to erase. Much of what you’ll find here exists nowhere else. These are exclusive, one-of-a-kind relics that survived only because chance, timing, and a stubborn sense of preservation stepped in.

One of the most significant pieces in this collection is what I call "Manson’s Music History Rock". Its story began by pure accident in 1999, when the Spahn's Ranch property, once the Family’s home base, was being sold off from the estate of Frank Retz. The land was being divided into lots, and a local church had claimed ownership over the area where the rock stood, the same rock where Charles Manson once sat and played his music for the Family, and famously for Terry Melcher, the producer whose rejection changed the course of history.

When the church began removing anything connected to Manson, including the rock itself, I stepped in. Armed with survey maps proving they didn’t own the property, I stopped the demolition, but by then, the rock had already been broken apart. Pieces were scattered across the ground, freshly cut and forgotten. I gathered a bucketful of fragments, and for twenty-six years, they remained untouched, until now.

Each "Manson Music History Rock" relic you see here was created from that very rock, the last surviving remains of a piece of American music and crime history. Every item is handcrafted and accompanied by a C.O.A. there is a postcard showing Manson’s original rock in the picture, with his initials carved into it during his time at Spahn Ranch.

These are not just collectibles, they are preserved echoes of a moment that shaped the world’s most infamous story. Only at "Backporch Tapes" will you find these authentic, exclusive relics, rescued, restored, and reimagined into living history.

​