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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – Travel Essay Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame and Museum The above website seems to be thorough in its information. I just wanted to put in my two cents. My brother ‘Gil’ was two years older than me and he got into music before I did. I still remember the first three 45’s that he bought. It’s My Party, Sugar Shack and the Martian Hop. A short time later, a friend named Steve brought over the 45 that changed our world. It was a two sided record by the Beatles; I Saw Her Standing There and I Want to Hold Your Hand. Well, this changed everything. I got a guitar and Gil got a drum set. A couple of months later Steve bought a guitar also. Can you imagine it!!! There was a small dance/concert hall right in my hometown less than a mile from my house. This was in my ancestral home of Old Orchard Beach, ME USA. The hall was the Palace Playland but the hall was open only during the summer. The hall was small so we only got the second and third level bands. Here are some of the acts that I remember: Beau Brummels, Kingsmen, Rockin’ Ramrods, White Fluff, Freddy Boom Boom Cannon, Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs, Love Incorporated, Zombies, Searchers, Beacon Street Union, Ultimate Spinach, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Moody Blues, Leslie Gore and Mocha Chip. The Yardbirds were scheduled to play the Palace but the government would not let the Yardbirds into the country. After a while the Palace burned down and was not rebuilt. After a while I started to like The Who. Pete Townshend was my idol. I loved the flamboyance and guitar smashing. In fact, this ruined my music career! Rather than improving my guitar playing, I concentrated on my “showmanship”. I went to Woodstock in 1969. My main reasons were to see The Who and Jimi Hendrix. Well often times, things do not work out. We got into Bethel, NY but no one would tell us were the site was. I had a druggy friend who took some drugs and started puking all over the place. In addition, we had parked the car about 6 miles away and we were not sure where we had left the car. So, we went back home in tremendous disappointment. Here is what happened to The Who at Woodstock. Pete Townshend hated being on stage at 4:00AM and he hadn’t slept at all that night. Pete said that it was the worst show that The Who had ever performed. I purchased a bootleg DVD of The Who’s performance and all but 4 songs were terrible!! As luck had it, the Woodstock movie picked up the best songs from their set. Pete’s guitar smashing and throwing the guitar into the audience must have given everyone a permanent memory!! PS; I never saw The Who at Woodstock, but I did see them at Tanglewood Massachusetts in 1970.Here is what happened with Jimi Hendrix. Jimi was to be the featured performer at the end of the concert. However, the show had gone too long and Jimi ended up playing to 50 people on Monday morning. That is how luck can go. I have always loved The Who, but they seemed to be running out of gas. Now, at this stage of Rock and Roll (1974), snobs were trying to hijack the music. Some of these musicians claimed that “music wasn’t good unless it was difficult to play”. There were a lot of people who wanted to play Rock and Roll but they were unable to play up to the snobs’ ability. Into this atmosphere came the Ramones to save Rock n Roll.
Roger Lacroix, Contact:
Roger@Stationhill.com
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