Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll, Baby!!

Due to the lack of internet access on my vacation, I'll be posting a bunch of stuff today.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame was sooooo worth it, if only for the wall of Duran Duran memorabilia. The only thing that was less than stellar was the photography ban - no photos allowed. Bastards...

I got to see a ton of memorabilia: the aforementioned Duran Duran wall - the suits that John & Nick wore in the "Save a Prayer" video, some other clothes, buttons, hand-written lyrics, posters... I was a 13-year old girl again, if only for 5 minutes, and it felt wonderful. I'd still put out for Duran Duran, assuming any of them were chubby chasers...

I was amazed by the Rolling Stones clothes - Ron Woods has the skinniest pins in history. How he could walk on those things is beyond belief. And Jagger - who dresses him?! And who'd have thought that Keith Richards has actually improved with age?!

As I've never been a fan of Jimi Hendrix, I was pleasantly suprised by his stuff - a lot of the lyrics that were handwritten were great. Jimi had awesome penmanship, too. Yeah, of all the things I could say about Rock God Jimi Hendrix, I commented on his penmanship. You can take the teacher out of the classroom... His clothing was AWESOME. I think Prince is Jimi reincarnated, though, as the outfits on display would not have looked out of place in his Royal Purpleness's closet.

There was a special exhibit dedicated to Ray Charles, which featured an organ, some costumes, and some early recordings on reel-to-reel tape, among other things. The most unusual artifact in that collection was Ray's Braille Playboy magazine, though... I guess some things could be better in Braille.

There was a special exhibit dedicated to the Who's Tommy. As someone who had Mr. Uhligh for music class in middle and high school, I was intimately acquainted with the Who. The pictures and costumes were great, but what really blew me away was the score itself. See, a looooong time ago, I was a pretty good pianist. I took classes in theory and musicianship and everything, so I know how to read and write music. This was real music. Plus, I always had a kind of crush on Roger Daltrey, his appearance in several Highlander episodes notwithstanding.

I was suprised at just how little Beatles memorabilia they had, though, as the Beatles are considered by most people to be the GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. I shout this in caps because it was drummed into my head by my teachers and contemporaries alike (I admit to having a fondness for early Beatles stuff, but for the most part, I don't care for them). Also, had my sister-in-law had her way when the WCM was born, his name would have been Ringo. He was the last of 5, so they let the older kids put names in a hat. Thank God someone noticed that Priscilla stuffed the hat with Ringos.

I had a great time grooving to AC/DC at the HOF jukebox on the 5th floor. They had the entire catalogues of every HOF inductee in the jukeboxes (with earphones), and I enjoyed unleashing my inner metalhead for a while. I browsed the other stuff, too, but who can resist "Big Balls" by AC/DC?! Not me.

Anyway, 4 out of 5 chocolate kisses for the Rock & Roll HOF. It would be a complete 5 stars if they had let me take pictures.