Museum of Broadcast Communications

Stay Tuned: Rock on TV – Museum of Broadcast Communications – November 14, 2019

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Straight from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rock on TV exhibit is a trip down memory lane, with video from shows like Shindig, Hullaballoo, Soul Train, and American Bandstand; and artifacts, like one of Eric Clapton’s guitars, a Paul Shaffer keyboard, and costumes worn by Cher and Michael Jackson (not the same ones by both).

I wrote a two-page paper on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and its politics for my college freshman rhetoric class (how do I remember that?), so I was happy to see that show well-represented in the exhibit, especially because of two famous incidents it references.

One was Pete Seeger singing Waist Deep in the Big Muddy for a second time, after his first rendition was deleted by the network from an earlier show because of the song’s anti-war message. The other was Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, going a little overboard when blowing up his drum set on stage, apparently causing some permanent hearing loss for Pete Townsend.

Darlene Love appears in several of the videos, commenting on various shows, including, of course, both Late Night and Late Show with David Letterman, which forever etched her name in TV music history for the 28 times she performed Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) on them.

Letterman is lauded as someone who brought a lot of rock acts onto his show. Apparently, other hosts, like Johnny Carson, and Ed Sullivan, who famously had The Beatles and Elvis Presley, among other rock acts, on his show, only did so kicking and screaming.

It’s a stretch to call all the music highlighted in the exhibit “rock”, but my only real complaint is the varying, overlapping sound levels that sometimes make it hard to hear at a few of the stations, even if you’re not Pete Townsend.

Louder Than Words: Rock, Power & Politics – Museum of Broadcast Communications – May 24, 2019

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I didn’t know that Neil Young wrote Ohio in an hour or ever think that I would see his handwritten lyrics for that anthem on a scrap of paper, but now I have, along with a lot of other interesting memorabilia and historical insights.

Going the morning of opening day, I was the first paying customer (there had been an invitation-only preview to which I wasn’t invited – I must be slipping) to see the museum’s new exhibit, on loan from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

I had a nice chat with a museum curator who approached me to ask me if I was enjoying the exhibit. I assured him I was (I really was – it’s great), but, me being me, I led him to one of the didactic wall panels on which there are a couple statements that I thought were inconsistent and confusing, though not of sufficient importance to shut down the exhibit. He assured me that he understood my concern and would discuss it with higher powers.

I couldn’t tell whether he was just being polite, but he did inform that I wasn’t the first person to point out an issue. At the preview (again, to which I wasn’t invited) someone noticed that the reed on the Bill Clinton saxophone on exhibit was improperly attached to the mouthpiece (insert own joke here). The curator, without the authority to change anything, had sent a message, with a picture of the saxophone, to the Rock & Roll Museum and was awaiting word as to whether they would be sending a swat team to correct the error.

The exhibit is arranged chronologically, with reference to the President of the time, starting with Eisenhower. Interestingly, there is a photograph of Clinton with Lou Reed, who did not appear to be improperly attached.

Museums – 2017

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In 2017 I visited exhibits at the Museum of Broadcast Communications, Art Institute, American Writers Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), and Musical Instrument Museum.

The Musical Instrument Museum is supposedly in Phoenix, but I didn’t see anything but desert for miles around it, which reminds me, I also visited the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, where I learned that javelinas look similar to, but are not pigs. Okay, good to know. The special exhibit at the instrument museum was Dragons and Vines: Inlaid Guitar Masterpieces. The guitars were much more attractive than the javelinas.

The Breakup exhibit at the MCA was mostly related to a serious topic, but what caught my attention was that it also had some cool memorabilia related to theories on the timeline of the breakup of The Beatles. Spoiler alert – they’re not getting back together.

The Saturday Night Live: The Experience exhibit at the Museum of Broadcast Communications offers you the possibility of paying more money on top of your admission fee to have your picture taken behind the Weekend Update news desk. I passed on that part of the experience, went home, and sat behind my own desk for free.

I went to the Rodin exhibit at the Art Institute expecting to see paintings of a giant flying monster from a 1956 Japanese horror film (oops, that was Rodan), but instead saw a bunch of sculptures, including one of some naked guy thinking. I wonder whether he was thinking about giant flying monsters.

I’ve been to Jack Kerouac’s grave in Lowell Massachusetts (wasn’t my idea), and seen Jack Kerouac Alley across the street from City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, but I’ve never read On the Road Again, even though it was the anthem of my generation, or so I’m told. I loved Canned Heat’s hit On the Road Again, way before Willie Nelson recorded it. I’m not sure what to make of all that, but it was still interesting to see the 120-foot-long roll of paper upon which Kerouac typed the On the Road manuscript, which was on display at the American Writers Museum last October. By the way, in case you’re wondering, it’s not toilet paper, though that would have made an even better story.