Thursday, March 12, 2009

On Tuesday we made our first stop at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a fascinating experience and we could have easily stayed there all day with our guide Gargi Patel of Rosetta.

We decided to try and use what we saw to fill up a “25 things” list.

1. Interactive display showing 2 influences of major figures in music history
2. John Lenon’s piano from London
3. Dave Bowie’s concert costumes
4. ZZ Top Coupe
5. John Lenon’s jacket from Sargent Pepper’s
6. David Crosby’s Guitar (Tiger maple with swan inlay)
7. Lots of other guitars and basses
8. John Paul Jone’s bass
9. Elvis Presley’s purple car
10. Talking Heads’ Polaroid Collague for album cover of “More Songs about Buildings and Food”
11. Hand-written lyrics to Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”
12. Hand-written lyrics of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Light the Fire”
13. Hand-written lyrics by Jim Morrison
14. Jim Morrison’s report card and childhood drawings
15. Many other hand-written lyrics
16. Jance Joplin’s Porsche
17. Michael Jackson’s werewolf mask from Thriller
18. Jimmi Hendrix real priest robe he bought in England
19. Keith Moon drumset and shoes (We are not following his precedent in our hotels)
20. Herman’s Hermits and other British Invasion bands display
21. How normal Mick Jagger looked when he was younger
22. Road case for Ron Woods’ Chief Engineer – it exuded history
23. Beatles’ action figures
24. Security guards that looked like they just stepped off the crew bus
25. The clothes – All the clothes gave a different perspective on how thin most of these rockstars were
26. The music – Playing throughout the museum was music from different eras in rock and roll, it added a nice ambiance to the entire experience

Everywhere you looked there was just a story behind all of the memorabilia you saw. We stopped at each exhibit and were mesmerized by the new perspective we gained by seeing the pieces up close. The experience was interesting because it was a shared one; we were connected through the icons to the time they represented.

One disappointing aspect of the museum was not being allowed to take pictures of any of the exhibits because of the agreements with the artists. In essence, they didn’t want their content to be pirated. (A common theme in music it seems.) But this creates a bit of tension in the experience. You want to experience the musical history first-hand — which is wonderful the artists have donated all those exhibits. But you also want to be able to share with your friends what made the experience so special — which cannot be completely conveyed through words.

Sitting at lunch with Gargi after the museum, we tried to come up with some innovative ideas of our own. One idea that I had was to allow people to take in limited-purpose cameras that would allow you to take 3 pictures. So you could choose your top exhibits that you wanted to share after leaving.

(Of course, that would encourage some people to just keep re-paying the admission fee to catalog the entire museum which may be why they aren’t able to do it.) That blossomed into another idea of having photographers inside the museum ready to take your picture at exhibits that would permit it.

The two biggest factors the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame should focus on to prompt their innovative spirit are allowing people to share their reasons for going to the museum and give them a chance to motivate their friends to go. If they end up creating a secondary revenue stream as well, so much the better.

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