exhibit #4

John Lennon: The New York City Years (The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex)

This was my first time at the Annex, so this reflection covers the John Lennon special exhibit and the main galleries as well.

The anteroom is covered with silver plates, marking the names of each of the inductees. Overhead the music of an inductee plays for a snippet, and the corresponding name glows. As we get closer to the entrance time, the snippets cut faster and faster, finally reaching that iconic "A Day in the Life" crescendo.

We move to the next room for an introductory film- a montage of images and film clips and quotes, charting the evolution of Rock & Roll. The lights, the music, the images- it really made me tingle. I really liked it.

After the film we move to the next room and receive audio guides. My first instinct is, "this is starting to get a little exhaustingly corporate- they're really guiding us through this entire process?" but eventually I realize the audio synchs up to each exhibit, playing the appropriate music as you look at each exhibit. This is a very cool feature- because of course it's great to carry the music with you, it's really the whole point of the gallery.

The beginning of the exhibit features different video screens discussing types of bands throughout history. For instance, their examples of "Art Influenced Rockers"- Velvet Underground… Television… U2… Coldplay. Really ran off the rails there)

After that comes the main course, a chronological gallery of memorabilia. My favorites: James Brown's cape; Madonna's Keith Haring jacket; a 1957 promo headshot of Simon and Gatfunkel as shiny-haired, dorky teen idols, "Tom and Jerry." To think just a few years later, they'd be among the leaders of a new break from that culture… Bruce Springsteen's 1957 Chevy convertible, yellow with airbrushed flames, the car he owned while composing Born to Run. It's so fascinatingly, thoroughly appropriate, as so much of Born to Run is all about trying to capture that magic, the spirit of the 1950's cars, the greasers, the girls, the sweetly naive young toughs.

The next chamber focuses on New York's specific contributions to rock history. Wow- I should listen to Grandmaster Flash. This audio guide's already rewarded me with a new album for my 2009 list. Hypothetically I love the huge Manhattan map, but it's a little dull. Wow, it's pretty cool to see the CBGB awning again… to think I used to live next to this thing. A little moment of reunion. The CBGB artifacts in general are pretty cool; many of them remind me of Rauschenberg combines. "The Bottom Line," a famous club that the landlord, NYU, closed because they couldn't agree on the lease. Hah, oh motherfucking NYU! I loved my years there but it's hilarious how destructive they are to this city's cultural history. Cool seeing David Byrne's big suit. And Jesus, Debbie Harry was so hot. "Rapture" is not as annoying as I thought, or at least it sounds really good right now.

John Lennon: The New York City Years

Before you walk in, there are these adhesive white sheets on the ground. I guess they're to wipe off your feet (the room is all white- one big white space, white carpets, white walls), but my first instinct was, "Yoko's gonna post these as art somewhere- all of these foot prints." Favorites: John's New York City t-shirt. There's a Ringo collage, there's a George collage… no Paul? Random note: their first NYC apartment was on Bank street. It's interesting seeing the original Grapefruit book. I remember looking through mom's copy back home. I'd never heard of the "War is Over" billboard campaign until just now. Yoko looks really hot in this film of her and John hanging out in their soldier outfits. They were a good looking couple. I also enjoy the amusingly strange video of Yoko walking an endless loop of men from a door to the window. Man, that must have been incredible when Lennon joined Elton John onstage at Madison Square Garden- pretty sure it was a surprise appearance, right? I wanna read up about it. MSG November '74. Yoko's season of glass poem is really good. This exhibit has made me like her more. And the brown paper bag of clothes… heartbreaking. An extraordinary place to end this exhibit.