Priceless Rock Junk

Welcome to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame! Please hand over your $25, your cameras and your immortal soul! These are but sacrifices of the Gods of Rock. As my faithful blog readers already know, I am a sucker for "priceless" Rock 'n' Roll memorabilia. My many trips to the Hard Rock Cafes of the world were certainly not for the chicken strips and the Legendary 10 oz burger, rather, the red leather pants worn by Freddie Mercury and Tom Petty's jeans when he was with the Traveling Wilburys. For a guy like me, the rock museum was like a walk into Mecca itself, or perhaps a more appropriate simile would be that it was a portal to my own personal Nirvana. After a lot of thought I've decided that rather than bore you with all the amazing stuff I saw, I'll just mention my favorite; the triple omega 8-string bass guitar owned by John Paul Jones. I spent several minutes drooling over this thing, and several more minutes today trying to find a picture of it online (no cameras allowed). If anyone ever wanted to buy me a guitar, this is where my taste lies: Zoom in and look at that fret board! Yeah, I could go on and on forever, I mean the display case containing this fabulous chunk of wood and steel was right next to that cool red car in all the ZZ Top videos. Plus there was an entire room of Beatles stuff and it was super gear. Needless to say, we stayed until closing.

Via Zoe's cutities, Sara and I got to know one of the security guards, who filled us in on the little secret that we could take pictures in the lobby. Here they are:

Friendly security guard took this picture of us in front of some of the cool guitars at the front door. These were done by celebrities, which automatically renders them masterpieces. I'm not sure who did the Ramones guitar, or the George Harrison guitar, but the blue one was done by one of the most vile people in the world, Yoko Ono. I like the Ramones. And I like George Harrison.

Remember that span of about 6 months in the 90's when everyone was wearing a Phish hat in order to fit in? This hot dog was at the forefront of that movement as it brought the members of the band into the audience during their 1994 Boston New Year's Eve concert. That's Sara below the airborne tube steak, next to Billy Joel's convertible.

And finally I think I'm obligated to include these dangling cars from a number of past U2 concerts. Unlike most U2 songs, these cars are all very unique and artistically interesting. I really liked the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. It was a great way to finish up our tour de Midwest.