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03-13-07, 11:06 AM
http://www.hecklerspray.com/rock-roll-hall-of-fame-now-with-added-confused-old-folk/20067416.php
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame: Now With Added Confused Old Folk
March 13th, 2007 at 13:00 by Stuart Heritage
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a big deal - it's one of the only places on earth where several old bands who haven't really played or spoken for 20 years can go to a big room and awkwardly try not mention why they hate each other so much.
And this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was no different. Held in New York last night, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony featured a band that hardly bothered to turn up, a drummer with a brain aneurysm, a scary old lady, a group of women who pointedly neglected to mention the man who invented them because he might have shot a woman in the face and - best of all - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who somehow managed to get through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony without looking like a rag-tag gaggle of embarrassing Dads and/or the scary homeless woman who plays with herself outside Argos.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the calender highlight for fans of gaspingly self-important music ceremonies that take the best part of a year to prepare even though the end result is usually like watching a particularly dull evening of VH-1, although sometimes it can get vaguely interesting. Like last year, for example, when The Sex Pistols wrote a bizarre freeform letter saying that they didn't want to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and then Blondie pretty much imploded onstage.
It looked as if nothing that comical was going to happen at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though - the shortlist of nominee potentials was solid but uninspiring, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee announcement came and went without much palaver - but that would be to neglect the almighty power that old bands have of making themselves look like nobsacks in front of a massive audience.
Take Van Halen, for example. When it was announced that they'd be inducted into this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Van Halen promptly reformed and announced plans for a stadium tour. But come actual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame night, and Van Halen were in tatters - Eddie Van Halen was in rehab, Alex Van Halen didn't turn up because Eddie Van Halen was in rehab and David Lee Roth didn't turn up because the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame organisers wouldn't let Van Halen perform because Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen weren't going to turn up. In the end, fill-in singer Sammy Hagar and the bloke who used to play bass for Van Halen before Eddie Van Halen replaced him with his own sonwere the only members to show up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the final ignominy coming when ****-awful metal band Velvet Revolver played some Van Halen songs onstage.
Then there were The Ronettes. Now, when people think about The Ronettes they instantly think of Phil Spector, the production genius credited with inventing The Ronettes' trademark Wall Of Sound noise. But thanks to the impending Phil Spector murder trial and a long-running disagreement over royalties, Ronnie Spector - Phil Spector's ex-wife - failed to mention him once in her acceptance speech.
But aside from those ghastly ****-ups the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame went without a hitch. REM and the CBGB-closing Patti Smith both accepted their inductions with grace and spirit, with the original line-up of REM even joining forces with Patti Smith at one point to rattle through a cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog in tribute to The Stooges, who went another year without being let into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But the night belonged to hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; hands-down the most innovative and influential Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees this year, the first hip-hop act to ever be inducted and a group of men still capable of putting on a decent show, as the New York Times reports:
Last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who proved that hip-hop was more than party music with their 1982 hit “The Message,” became the first hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joseph Saddler, better known as the disc jockey and producer Grandmaster Flash, said backstage, “It opens the gates to our culture.” Jay-Z, the rapper who is chief executive officer of Def Jam Records, handed the awards to the group. Reading his speech from a personal digital assistant, he said, “The shot heard ’round the world was fired from the South Bronx.” When Melle Mel, the rapper on “The Message,” stepped up to speak, he urged the music executives in the audience to “make hip-hop the culture that it was, instead the culture of violence it is right now.”
And to think, if all of Van Halen had bothered to turn up to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they could have made an equally apt point about making preposterous giant-haired, leotard-wearing widdly-widdly-widdly wank-metal the culture that it was, too.
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame: Now With Added Confused Old Folk
March 13th, 2007 at 13:00 by Stuart Heritage
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is a big deal - it's one of the only places on earth where several old bands who haven't really played or spoken for 20 years can go to a big room and awkwardly try not mention why they hate each other so much.
And this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was no different. Held in New York last night, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony featured a band that hardly bothered to turn up, a drummer with a brain aneurysm, a scary old lady, a group of women who pointedly neglected to mention the man who invented them because he might have shot a woman in the face and - best of all - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who somehow managed to get through the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony without looking like a rag-tag gaggle of embarrassing Dads and/or the scary homeless woman who plays with herself outside Argos.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is the calender highlight for fans of gaspingly self-important music ceremonies that take the best part of a year to prepare even though the end result is usually like watching a particularly dull evening of VH-1, although sometimes it can get vaguely interesting. Like last year, for example, when The Sex Pistols wrote a bizarre freeform letter saying that they didn't want to be inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and then Blondie pretty much imploded onstage.
It looked as if nothing that comical was going to happen at this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, though - the shortlist of nominee potentials was solid but uninspiring, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee announcement came and went without much palaver - but that would be to neglect the almighty power that old bands have of making themselves look like nobsacks in front of a massive audience.
Take Van Halen, for example. When it was announced that they'd be inducted into this year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Van Halen promptly reformed and announced plans for a stadium tour. But come actual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame night, and Van Halen were in tatters - Eddie Van Halen was in rehab, Alex Van Halen didn't turn up because Eddie Van Halen was in rehab and David Lee Roth didn't turn up because the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame organisers wouldn't let Van Halen perform because Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen weren't going to turn up. In the end, fill-in singer Sammy Hagar and the bloke who used to play bass for Van Halen before Eddie Van Halen replaced him with his own sonwere the only members to show up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with the final ignominy coming when ****-awful metal band Velvet Revolver played some Van Halen songs onstage.
Then there were The Ronettes. Now, when people think about The Ronettes they instantly think of Phil Spector, the production genius credited with inventing The Ronettes' trademark Wall Of Sound noise. But thanks to the impending Phil Spector murder trial and a long-running disagreement over royalties, Ronnie Spector - Phil Spector's ex-wife - failed to mention him once in her acceptance speech.
But aside from those ghastly ****-ups the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame went without a hitch. REM and the CBGB-closing Patti Smith both accepted their inductions with grace and spirit, with the original line-up of REM even joining forces with Patti Smith at one point to rattle through a cover of I Wanna Be Your Dog in tribute to The Stooges, who went another year without being let into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But the night belonged to hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; hands-down the most innovative and influential Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees this year, the first hip-hop act to ever be inducted and a group of men still capable of putting on a decent show, as the New York Times reports:
Last night at the Waldorf-Astoria, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, who proved that hip-hop was more than party music with their 1982 hit “The Message,” became the first hip-hop group to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joseph Saddler, better known as the disc jockey and producer Grandmaster Flash, said backstage, “It opens the gates to our culture.” Jay-Z, the rapper who is chief executive officer of Def Jam Records, handed the awards to the group. Reading his speech from a personal digital assistant, he said, “The shot heard ’round the world was fired from the South Bronx.” When Melle Mel, the rapper on “The Message,” stepped up to speak, he urged the music executives in the audience to “make hip-hop the culture that it was, instead the culture of violence it is right now.”
And to think, if all of Van Halen had bothered to turn up to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they could have made an equally apt point about making preposterous giant-haired, leotard-wearing widdly-widdly-widdly wank-metal the culture that it was, too.