On the Ms. Magazine blog, Audrey Bilger made a mention this month about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's recent exhibit titled, "Women Who Rock" which opened May 13th.
Personally, I’ve been to Cleveland once and visited only 2 places: the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (intentional) and the Cleveland Taco Bell (by default).
Let me tell you about my experience at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...
My group and I paid our admission fee and made our way through the exhibits. They had some good stuff: the guitar that was smashed on the Clash's London Calling cover (ok- you know how I feel about that), Bjork's suit worn on Post, a couple of David Bowie outfits. That's all I really remember, aside from the anger.
The anger came from the total isolation I felt being a female paying admission to the place. It was pretty clear that there wasn't too many women included in rock music here at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And, to a female performer/musician like myself, visiting the place was pretty much like walking through a Guitar Player magazine. Guitar Player Magazine isolated me years and years ago. I was so disgusted on my visit that I actually demanded a comment card to write on at the front desk! Yeah, I’m sure that went right up to Wenner.
Well, I suppose the years and years of complaints made the curators of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame consider that perhaps women actually can and do play rock music, too! Well, I'll be! Our feminine prayers have been answered!
No, I will not be schlepin' up any time soon to visit.
Here's a intro about the exhibit, fresh from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website:
"Women have arguably become the leading voices of the industry, standing -- army-booted, bare-footed, or high-heeled stiletto -- toe to toe with any artist of today."
Wow, "leading voice"? Really? Is that all it took? Are we REALLY there already?
If that's the truth, why are we ALWAYS ignored on any music magazine cover: Guitar Player (whoa, ladies play music,too?) or Vintage Guitar (what's a lady?) or Modern Drummer (but, then who's going to help them carry my cases out of the stage door?) or ugh... Rolling Stone (weight limit of 85 lbs., ladies).
Yeah, we're totally there, aren't we? I can tell you, MYSELF, from the comments I've received throughout the years from male musicians (we'll cover that in another post) that we are nowhere near our destination. We're not even in the same time zone.
I was also unimpressed with the Cleveland Taco Bell.
Here's what Ms. Magazine has to say about it:
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/05/12/we-know-women-rock-tell-us-something-new/
