Cooking and rock'n'roll are not as synonymous as many of us chefs, PR people and agents would have you believe

When I was eight, my mum presented me with a clarinet. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a clarinet will remain resolutely virginal until he goes to university. A clarinet is the least sexy of all instruments, beloved of no one's favourite sex symbol, Acker Bilk. It is also absolutely not rock'n'roll. Not one bit. Guitarists get the hot groupies and snort crack off shaven macaque monkeys; clarinetists have a nice cup of tea with your nan.

To reinforce my lack of rock'n'roll credentials, I had to Google "can you snort crack", lest the more pedantic class A drug users among you attack this piece for factual incorrectness. It turns out that you can. As to whether or not anyone has ever snorted it off the back of a shaven monkey, Wikipedia remains unclear.

My point is that cheffery and rock'n'roll are not as synonymous as many chefs, PR people and agents would these days have you believe. Having a tattoo does not make you Tommy Lee any more than it makes you a Maori tribal elder.

I was recently sent an email breathlessly announcing: "Five-star chefs, four unique dinners, one stylish setting – Alyn Williams presents CHEFstock 2013."

CHEFstock 2013? Really? Do you think that's the legacy the organisers of Woodstock had in mind? A £180 tasting menu at a posh hotel in Mayfair? Williams is a stupendous chef, and by all accounts a lovely chap, but why oh why do we have to sell food as if it's a music festival in a field? We are told to "book early to avoid disappointment" as if it's the final performance of the Rolling Stones.

There might be one true rock'n'roll chef: Marco Pierre White. Marco was a bona fide rock star – the hair, the wild-eyed madness, the soaring genius and prodigious destruction, the glorious photos from White Heat, all sunken cheekbones and fury. But even Marco now spends his dotage shooting pheasants and flogging stock cubes. You can't imagine, say, Johnny Rotten selling out like that, can you? Oh.

If Marco's protege, shouty Gordon Ramsay, had any rock-star credentials they were eviscerated by his extraordinarily cringeworthy performance on Desert Island Discs. Can you imagine a less rock'n'roll list than this? If it were any more beige, it would be hummus.

And CHEFstock isn't the only offender in this field. There's The Big Feastival (geddit) – brainchild of Saint Jamie Oliver and Alex James, inventor of Cheddar Tikka Masala cheese. The setting is James's farm in Oxfordshire. Tickets cost £60 a day for this "celebration of music, food and fun", with its "little dudes den" showcasing the likes of Peppa Pig. OK, the Peppa Pig thing I can get behind. But are we chefs really deserving of this idea of the Madonna-style microphone and big rock'n'roll platform?

This might seem an odd stance for a professional demo chef to take – full disclosure: I work at the Demonstration Kitchen in Borough market. But that's an intimate setup, being more along the lines of a cosy chat while I cook, followed by everyone eating the food I've cooked (usually while I serenade them with clarinet classics). It's very much not a "show".

We chefs need to calm down a bit. With great TV contracts comes great responsibility. It's just cooking, after all. My heartfelt wish is that the next foodie fad is less about the chef and more about the customer. Marco was a one-off – he had the skills to pull it off. Much of the "chef as rock star" thing going on at the moment reminds me only of poor wee Frankie Cocozza thinking he's Keith Richards while simultaneously being the only thing in living memory less rock'n'roll than me and my bloody stupid clarinet.