Rock On! Now Cleveland Has A Claim To Fame - A Rock ‘N’ Roll Museum
The pyramid of steel and tinted glass perches on Lake Erie, a $92 million temple to rock, roll and rebels that tries to capture the spirit of music since the 1920s.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened last Labor Day weekend after 12 years of hand-wringing, financing and massaging. It’s part of Cleveland’s rebirth, years of work that have turned the city around.
“As the governor said, we’re off the rock and we’re on a roll,” said Luzon Thomas, spokeswoman for the museum. “Cleveland is no longer The Mistake on the Lake.”
No, Cleveland now calls itself The New American City. It’s undergone a burst of development, building a new baseball stadium and the hall of fame. A new science center is going up soon. Development is skyrocketing. Crime isn’t. Neither is the cost of living.
Cleveland is what Detroit and other crumbling Midwest cities want to be.
These days, Cleveland is celebrating, despite the probable loss of its pro football team. The city not only has the rock ‘n’ roll museum; it has a world-class baseball team. Both the football and baseball stadiums are within walking distance from the Hall of Fame.
“We’ve had people coming from not only all over the United States but from all over the world,” Thomas said. “In less than one hour, I met people from Australia, New England and, what was it, Louisiana. It was just amazing. They’re coming from Japan, London. There’s all kinds of people coming from London.”
The Hall of Fame building is a geometric fantasy of angles and curves designed by I.M. Pei, the architect renowned for creating buildings out of angles. An eight-story, triangular glass “tent” springs off a 65,000-square-foot public plaza.
Often, it’s more crowded than a rock concert, although the main lobby is roomy. Visitors are let in on regular 15-minute shifts. They’re greeted by cars hanging from high ceilings, loud music and drill-sergeant-like security guards.
The museum holds more than 55 displays, showcasing Janis Joplin’s psychedelic Porsche, Jim Morrison’s Cub Scout uniform and Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-addled letters to Rolling Stone magazine.
There’s Alice Cooper’s chopped-off head that he used as a prop in concerts, and a striking lower body Cooper ensemble consisting of a black leather bikini and high boots. There are three Madonna outfits, and outrageous clothing from George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic bands.
There’s a display on fashion, which shows different outfits on 20 mannequins.
“That’s very popular because you’ve got different flavors,” Thomas said. “You’ve got Bono, Deborah Harry, Elvis, The Beatles, David Bowie from Ziggy Stardust. That fashion basically influences the way people dress, how they wear their hair and how they wear their makeup.”
Yeah, right. Like everyone ran out and spray-painted themselves silver after Bowie did.
The best parts of the museum were the interactive displays, historical documents, the clothing trends, the visual montages on TV screens and quirky displays such as one-hit wonders.
The computer terminals were a popular draw, but the museum could use more of them. The wait is long. One computer allows the user to trace bands to their influences, and to hear sound snippets. On another, visitors could listen to selected songs from the 1920s through the 1990s.
The historical documents contained their own hits. John Lennon’s report card constantly described him as intelligent but failing to live up to his ability. On one science test, he scored 3 percent.
Jim Morrison’s report card showed that he was class president - and class clown. He was talented in writing and art.
The museum holds original lyrics by Patty Smith, the Sex Pistols and Neil Young. There’s nothing from Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, however. He was disgusted with the idea of the museum.
Another display showcases fans with no lives except for their idols. One man created a shrine to Bob Dylan. He built things there, like a Mr. Tambourine Man made of a tambourine with appendages. Another man just loved Madonna and her artistry. Another man collected thousands of drumsticks, all signed and arranged in an incredible pinwheel.
Their devotion was fairly fascinating, if kitschy.
The parts of the museum I disliked most were the Hall itself, the rap showcase, the gift shop, the Pink Floyd floor - and the guards.
One floor is devoted to Pink Floyd’s The Wall. There’s the wall, a blow-up cartoon from the movie, a chair with a potato-like creature in front of a TV, and the incessant replaying of sound snippets from the album. It’s supposed to be deep. It’s really unnerving.
Two floors up waited the actual Hall of Fame, which honors the giants of rock (selected every January since 1986 by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation). The line was at least a half-hour wait. The hall was up a winding staircase. It was dark, with flashing screens of inducted artists and quotes.
Everyone was whispering or silent, apparently pondering the meaning of Elton John, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. It was too reverential for rock. It was also too filled with testosterone. Out of the 120-plus artists and groups in the hall, only a dozen were women.
Customers couldn’t stay in the hall too long, though. The security guards were fascists. They wore black berets, black T-shirts and black pants. They watched very closely. They wanted to be security guards at rock shows, but they weren’t. They took out that pimply failure on customers, shadowing them to see if they were hiding cameras in their coats.
The gift shop was mostly a CD store. It sold overpriced CDs, genuine rock ‘n’ roll T-shirts and expensive prints. A key chain ran eight bucks. A mug more than $10.
But with its clothing, manuscripts, TV screens and blaring music, the museum was informative and interesting. It captures corporate rock, but there are tinges of underground rebelliousness. I expected to hate it, but kind of liked it.
The hall’s biggest problem is this: It’s too darn happy. When I left the museum, I had this glowing feeling of warmth, peace and love. It left the taste in my mouth of a vanilla and white bread sandwich.
The museum wasn’t angry. Rock ‘n’ roll is about anger, protest and pushing the limits. Or it should be.
The museum walks a very bland line and misses chunks. R.E.M. was noticeably absent, as was anything substantial from the Grateful Dead. Influential bands like MC-5 and the Velvet Underground weren’t shown. It’s very corporate - the main exhibition room is named after Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records and driving force behind the museum. He’s also in the Hall of Fame.
There was no display to rock artists killed by drug overdoses. There was no showcase to rockers killed in airplanes. There was no rap sheet of arrested rock stars.
The display of rap was paltry, despite the section of wall devoted to that music form. It included forerunners, like GrandMaster Flash. It included Blondie and the Beastie Boys. It had a hidden corner devoted to Public Enemy and a small section to Run D.M.C.
But the biggest rap group featured - figuratively and literally - was The Fat Boys. The Fat Boys produced vanilla rap, about food and other quirky things. They were fat. A leather jacket from the biggest Fat Boy was hung prominently.
They’re dangerous, all right.
Despite perceived flaws, people seem to love the museum. On opening day, about 7,800 people rolled in. Weekdays, the museum averages about 3,000 visitors. About 5,000 stop by on weekend days.
Not one woman, whom I met on a plane after she had been visiting a sister near Cleveland. She was on her way home to Carson City, Nev.
She was decked out in polyester and elastic, but she was a true rock-and-roller, a rebel in Reeboks. She had just got her first tattoo, a butterfly-and-sunflower number on her upper left shoulder. She’s planning on buying a motorcycle. She’s 77 years old.
She didn’t go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She had her reasons.
“Whatever for?” the woman asked. “Rock’s not dead yet.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos
MEMO: Staff writer Kim Barker, 25, is pretty sure that her favorite acts of all time, The Pixies and Tom Waits, will never make the Hall of Fame. And that’s OK.