2007 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame

Now it’s getting interesting. 2007 marks the first year that rap is recognized in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and your Dad is pissed off. Actually, a lot of people are pissed off; with all of the no-brainers already inducted, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is now to the point where they are including controversial acts and while still ignoring others.
To be honest, I was a little pissed myself that The Stooges were curiously left out (again) this year while The Ronettes, a "band" that I assumed to be nothing more than a Phil Spector project, were included.
After screaming "Fuck you, Jann Wenner!" a few times, I calmed down and realized that the oversight is nothing new and, ultimately, inevitable.
Could this be the first signs of the Rock Hall transistioning from the old guard to the new?
Before I open up that can of worms, here’s a quick rundown of the ’07 inductees.

• Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five-The fact is, without introducing rap music, the Rock Hall would run out of artists, or at least artists that would insure the profitability of the damn thing afloat. And if you’re going to open the door to rap music, you have to start with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five. For real: most of the people I knew that had the single “The Message” had it right next to their rock records anyway. So what’s the difference? Flash looked visibly moved that he was inducted at the end of the set, and for me, that made the entire “controversy” irrelevant. And fuckin’ a: they had the tightest performance of the entire evening.


• The Ronettes-Another controversial inductee. Anyone as foxy as these chicks and anyone who married Phil Spector….And lived to tell about…Deserves a place in the Rock Hall.


• Patti Smith-Controversy again. This time it’s about lack of commercial success and the perception that the Rock Hall has developed into an elitist board that’s supposed to teach us dummies what we should be listening to. The reality is that Patti Smith had an enormous impact on rock music, regardless of her carpet bagging, hippy idealism. Her performance of “Rock & Roll Nigger” was probably one of the most notorious moments in the history of Rock Hall performances. Keith Richard, one of Smith’s primary influences, dyed his hair for the occasion and looked relatively good.


• Van Halen-Jesus H. Christ, what a clusterfuck. Yet another controversial inductee (see: rock elitism) but the fact remains that they deserve to be in there. Just not in the manner in which they were represented. Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony were the ones on hand to accept, and if the presence of Sammy wasn’t enough to turn your stomach, how about Velvet Revolver covering a few V.H. tunes? Slash completely fucked up the introduction to “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” before Scott Weiland managed to turn the entire performance into a joke. Weiland donned some strange type of vocal styling that was nowhere near David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar, or even himself. It was the most awfully perfect way to introduce one of the most insanely frustrating bands. For all the drama that V.H. has put fans through lately, the Velvet Revolver performance was karma at its best. Telling, Hagar waxed at how he was honored how one of the “best rock bands around today” literally raped the material they presented. The Red Rocker wasn’t much better either as he sounded completely flat during a walk through of “Why Can’t This Be Love.” Truly, one of the worst performances in Rock Hall ceremony history.


• R.E.M.-About the only inductee that was mutually agreed upon, and rightfully so. Eddie Vedder managed to both passionately speak about the band and virtually guarantee Pearl Jam’s induction into the Hall in 2016. I think Michael Stipe came out of the closet during the acceptance speech! And Holy Shit, I miss Bill Berry behind the kit. I was nearly brought to tears when they did “Gardening At Night.” It quickly subsided when they had Vedder come out for “Man On The Moon,” which was almost as annoying as Stipe yelling “Cool!” during the chorus.

Stipe brought out Patti Smith for a cool version of The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” which I also took as a swipe against the Rock Hall voters for not getting Iggy and the boys in this year.
Then, everybody and their dog came out for “People Have The Power.” Sammy Hagar joined Ronnie Spector in the “I don’t have a fucking clue what this song is” department while Keef managed some tasty soloing before he figured out that he was carrying everybody else’s ass. Steven Stills also threw down some nice solos on a few measures while managing to look more and more like Van Morrison (with muttonchops) each passing year.
It was a very tepid and uneventful way to end one of the most debated years in the history of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Personally, I think the Rock Hall shot their wad fairly quickly during the first few years when it seemed they tried to induct all of the obligatory pioneers. Rather than hurting someone’s feelings, the Rock Hall ran ramshot over the first wave (10 artist were inducted in 1986 while only 5 managed to get in this year) and they’re now faced with an increased debate on who is worthy and who isn’t.
To that point, and to quote a great rock album, it’s too late to stop now. When the Hall started to allow bands in on sales instead of cultural significance, it changed the make up of the inductees forever.
The first evidence of this came in the Hall’s strange choice to induct Bobby Darin back in 1990. If you’re wondering, outside of “Splish Splash,” what rock & roll records Bobby Darin actually contributed to the genre, well, you’re absolutely correct in your confusion.
Ever since then, there has been at least one “what the fuck are they thinking” moment when perusing the inductee list each year.
But now there’s more and more of them for the baby-boomers; the entire Grandmaster Flash fiasco merely reaffirms their tired argument of how rap isn’t really music. They’re also going to have to come to terms with progressive rock and (gasp) metal as those influential bands start to become glaringly absent to the rest of the rock community.
In letting go, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there is going to be a lot of bands that I would automatically disqualify as being contenders to the Rock Hall. I don’t feel that a band like Kiss deserves to be in, and there’s a whole slue of progressive rock (a genre that I feel, in some ways, did more to harm rock than help it) bands that I would roll my eyes at if they made the induction list.
Like Wings said, let ‘em in. The Rock Hall is not about me, nor is it a history lesson of underappreciated performers deserving of additional recognition. Right or wrong, the entire induction process is just as polarizing as it should be, given how polarizing the genre was when it started.
Just in case Jann Wenner is reading this, however, let me use Glam-Racket as a soapbox to lobby for the following whose time is well overdue:

• Kiss-Look, I can’t begrudge the literally thousands of motherfucking bands that were influenced by these assclowns. So let ‘em in and give Gene and Paul a reason to suck some more cash out of their moronic “army” in the guise of another farewell tour.


• Alice Cooper-And don’t forget to bring the surviving members of the original band, you right-wing motherfucker.


• The Stooges-Duh.


• Rush-The Hall could placate both the progressive rock contingency and the metalheads in one fell swoop with this one.


• Joy Division-Goth began here and there hasn’t been a band more black since.

Feel free to add your own via the comments.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

A vacation to Cleveland just sounds funny. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to go there. I liked the idea of having people ask me: “Where are you going on vacation?” and having my response be “Cleveland.” Most people looked at me funny. Some didn’t miss a beat, “Oh, you’re going to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?” Hell yeah, I’m going to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I’m a big fucking fan of rock and roll, you understand.

There’s one obvious point to the Rock Hall that needs to be mentioned. Like the definition of Rock itself, the Hall is pretty much all encompassing. But let’s be honest, the “Pop Music Hall of Fame” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Then there’s the whole debate as to why a city like Cleveland would be considered a suitable home to the Hall itself. You’ve got the notion that disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term “Rock & Roll,” but that’s a debate in itself. I say: give the town a fucking break. Over half the city’s population has left during the latter half of the 20th century and, admittedly, there’s not a lot of draw left to potential tourists. So fine, put the Hall on the edge of Lake Erie in a town that’s otherwise known for the Browns, the Indians, the Cavaliers, and not much else. Detroit may be the only other city in America that’s probably more deserving of self esteem boosting museum draw, but studies have shown that the majority of Americans think of Detroit as the place where people go to get shot at. So Cleveland it is and it is Cleveland that I went on vacation.
Let’s get to the point of this: if you are a fan of rock music (we’ll use this generalized term) you need to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Seriously, devote a weekend (Cleveland deserves at least a weekend) to go there and explore this very meticulous shrine to a musical form that was considered to be nothing more than a novelty for the first decade of its existence.
Speaking of: there’s plenty of novelty housed within the Rock Hall, I’m guessing to accommodate the youth that pass through the doors alongside the parental units (Boomers) that pay the twenty bucks a head to validate the music of their own generation. As any fan of rock will tell you, there’s really no need to “validate” this era at all. Its importance is obvious. It’s the righteousness of this generation that really needs checked, but the Hall does a fairly decent job of conglomerating the phases of popular music while avoiding a “holier than thou” preference on one particular decade. The criteria of requiring an artist reaching the quarter-century mark before being eligible for induction does leverage the playing field a bit, but we don’t really need to hear, nor believe, that the importance of Green Day has been fully realized, do we?
So the kids have their interactive Ritalin exhibits, their Christina Aguilera costumes, and their references to 90’s “old school.” But the real find is for anyone with a hint of musical knowledge and, as expected, a treat for anyone that houses more than the usual amount of rock pedigree.

I image that if you fall into that latter category, the Hall can be a little overwhelming, particularly if you’re with someone who has less interest in you. Consider this observation from a family; I put the married couple to be in their early forties, and their pre-teen daughter and early-teens son. The Dad was completely taken with the artifacts and understandably wanted to take every moment in. The young daughter, on the other hand, really had no interest whatsoever in learning more about the importance of Les Paul and the development of the electric guitar. She started to fidget and whine. The father’s frustrations became obvious. “Why don’t you want to see this?” he asked, literally dumbfounded at why his daughter was bored. He finally reached a point where he didn’t care “why” his daughter was becoming winded. As any real fan of rock music would do, he stopped caring, declaring “I want to see this!” before letting his wife handle the child-care duties. The Mother and daughter went elsewhere to entertain themselves, leaving the son in Dad’s care. He took him to the exhibit that showed the progression of music technology, from Edison cylinders to Jobs’ Ipods. I heard the father explaining the concept of 8-tracks to his son. The son looked confused, and he had every right to be.
The 8-track tape player defies all logic.
If you’re a fan of both rock and guitars, then you’re doubly occupied. The Hall is overrun with them, to the point where you’re exhausted just trying to keep up. There are those that require some comments: the end result of “London Calling” coverboy Paul Simonon smashing his Fender bass, Howlin’ Wolf’s electric guitar, virtually all of Jerry Garcia’s Doug Irwin guitars, and countless others. There are some glaring omissions (we get Michael Anthony’s Jack Daniels bass but not one Eddie Van Halen six string) but give the Hall credit for not throwing up a bunch of autographed shit and calling it memorabilia. You can get that at any local Hard Rock Café.
There was a couple of special exhibits while I was there: a section devoted to Roy Orbison (pretty cool, particularly Roy’s handwritten action plan for himself, detailing what he was going to do with his career from that point forward) and another one for Bob Dylan’s “American Journey”, documenting his life from 1956 to 1966. This one was a tad mediocre, overflowing with interactive spots that essentially mirror the “No Direction Home” documentary and provide little additional insight. It was, however, somewhat eerie seeing Woody Guthrie’s Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital t-shirt that he wore while housed there, dying from Huntington’s disease.
Other notable artifacts (for me) included John Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to “In My Life,” childhood drawings from Jimi Hendrix, the mangled airplane skin from Otis Redding’s last plane ride, Jim Morrison’s report card (where he received a “D” in citizenship) and, fuck it, there are way to many things for me to list here.
Whatever your feelings about Jann Wenner, Dave Marsh, Cleveland, or that the whole idea of a rock and roll hall of fame is indeed a “piss stain,” you will find yourself humbled and attentive once you make amends and go there.