The past few days I was in Cleveland OH with my family, and one of the things we saw there was the Rock and Roll hall of fame. It's a decent place--the sort of thing you go to once and it's interesting, but then you've seen it all. There were some cute computer exhibits that gave you five-second blurbs about famous musicians, or showed you the less-famous influences of famous musicians; also displays about different genres in rock music, about album-cover art, and of collections of stuff--clothing, drumsticks, etc. Overall, the best part was the movies they had about rock music and culture. While much of the time they said a lot without managing to *say* anything--listening to a guitarist talk is a lot like listening to an actor play the guitar--the movies had two things going for them. First, they did have occasional coherent moments that are well worth seeing, such as Pete Townsend <sp?> of the Who talking about the casualties of the 'Live fast, die young' philosophy. And second, they actually showed more than '60's user-friendly rock. This is more than I can say for most of the rest of the exhibits--they know their audience, and they give them what they want. While they did pay lip service to the usual suspects-- punk, for Revitalizing Popular Music, rap for being the Voice Of The Oppressed, and Kurt Cobain for Representing Generation X--they never went past talk. Except for brief clips in the videos, I heard no music that I couldn't find on an 'oldies' station, saw no posters in the gift shop for bands later than Led Zepplin, and in general didn't encounter anything my grandparents woudn't find innocuous. This is not a complaint against old people in general--this is a complaint against my grandparents' taste. In a way, that's what I should have expected. Recent music has been so cynical and rebellious that it would be difficult to put on a pedestal and honor. Even most '60's rock musicians would have found the idea of a hall of fame 'too establishment'. But the work of rebellious artists is hung in galleries and sold for millions of dollars, the work of rebellious poets is anthologized and praised by 'the establishment', and classical music that once would have seemed shockingly modern is now viewed as completely innocuous. If we can put Van Gogh and Beethoven on pedestals, why not Trent Reznor? All right, maybe that's a bit much to ask, but at least some Hendrix? Pleeease?...5 responses total.
Now that I've gone and entered this, I realize it might have been more appropriate in the Travel .cf. Oh well...
Send the fw of the Travel cf, whoever that is, a request for a link!
What? no Jimmy Hendrix? That's practically sacrilege! :) Wait 20 years, when bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam are elgible for induction, and we might finally see something about them. They definitely defined music in the 90's.
Hi I am Ganesh.Very much interested in music.Planning to form my own ROCK Band called "THE HAWKS".Do get in touch with me at ganz@cyberspace.org Waiting for ur reply Ganesh.
That's Jimi, senna, speaking of sacrelige....and he was mentioned, video clips of him were used, etc. I just never heard any hendrix *played*.
You have several choices: