tumblr : 45rpm
I care a lot about visiting the various sites of rock and roll history, whether it’s the former site of the Cavern Club or the Finsbury Park Astoria or the Palladium or 213 Bowery or the bank that used to be the Fillmore East. But clearly I am close to something very much resembling insanity to wake up at 6 a.m. in Las Vegas, rent a car, and head four hours into the desert to look for a dead tree.
Yes. We went looking for The Joshua Tree.
I reminisce about rock and roll tourism, U2 style, in ye olde pre-internet days over at Scatter o’ light.
The corner of 7th & Main in Downtown Los Angeles. If you know what it is, you know what it is; if you don’t recognize it, it won’t mean anything even if I explained it to you.
(Of course, if you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you saw this last week, so I apologize.)
I have to say that this was one of the coolest rock and roll things I have gone looking for in a long time. It was so much fun figuring out where this was, realizing it was still there, and then going there and putting the puzzle pieces together.
As much as I always wanted to, I never made it to Minneapolis until this year. Probably because I was smart enough to know that it wasn’t like every band I cared about would be standing on the street corner waiting for me as I got off the bus. The closest I came was when I was moving back to NYC from Seattle, a logical overnight stop was just outside of Minneapolis, and I took a morning detour long enough to stand in front of the Let It Be house for a few minutes and take a few pictures.
I will start with this premise: If you are reading this blog, you should visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I know what you are going to say. You are going to argue that [artist] isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yet, or that it took them [X] years to induct [X]. I have heard your arguments, and I have made them myself (Patti Smith likely only got in when she did because Michael Stipe issued an ultimatum. Gram Parsons is STILL not in. et cetera). But you need to separate the nominations from the physical place with the stuff, or you will be doing yourself a disservice. Because if you care enough to make those kind of nuanced arguments, then you are exactly the kind of person who needs to visit the Hall in Cleveland.
elsewhere