My family was so impressed by our visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex on Mercer St in NYC on my birthday/Father's Day this past weekend, I wanted to tell you a bit of the details. I also figured there might be a few of you who've visited the main RRHF in Cleveland, that maybe you'd want to describe your impressions/adventures here as well.

The Annex, which opened in November 2008, is in an unassuming building in Soho. It's got a small sign on it that simply says, "Annex." In fact, the only reason we knew we had found it were the John Lennon banners and posters on the Annex and surrounding buildings, announcing a special feature exhibit created by Yoko Ono about the couple's New York City years. The Lennon exhibit opened May 12 with tickets currently being sold through July 12...however there is no official ending date.

The first part of the museum is the Hall of Fame Gallery, a room housing the silver plaques of each honoree, inscripted with his/her signature, and displayed according to year of induction. Imagine the grin on my face as we entered this darkened room, and the sounds of Best of My Love hit my ears! I knew I was gonna like it here! In the Gallery, as about 30 seconds of a rock song would play, the artist's plaque would light up with a pretty neon light behind it, so that the signature would glow from amongst the hundreds (?) of plaques mounted on the walls. Then, another song would come on, and another plaque would light as the first would fade. That was pretty cool! It was fun to see who could find their favorite artists fastest; and surprising sometimes to see which artist beat another one into the Hall. I learned, for one, that although the Beatles each have their own individual plaques as part of the Beatles induction in 1988, all but Ringo have been inducted as individual artists and have plaques in later (different) years. Also, Jimmie Page has been inducted both as a member of the Yardbirds and of Led Zeppelin...but his signature is so different on each plaque that you would never think it was the same person in a million years!

Next, the museum staff shuttles us into a room made out to be a large club with stools and a stage, and they show a movie...well, media show...that literally makes you feel like you in the audience watching concert after concert of famous rock performances throughout history from the 50's to today. I was surprised by how many my kids recognized...I guess "our" music has rubbed off on them. No Eagles here, however.

Then, to explore the rest of the museum, the staff hands each of us wireless stereo headphones that transmit the audio for the rest of the exhibits in the galleries. That makes the museum what it is. As you pass a certain display, poster, whatever, technology triggers the correct song/voiceover to play in synch with what you are viewing. If you back away, or circle around to view something else, the audio automatically changes to suit what you are changing to view. Brilliant! The highlights for me in the galleries were the original handwritten manuscripts of songs that artists had written. I'd say the best was Elvis Costello's (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes which he wrote on a train schedule while on a 10-15 minute train ride in England. I also enjoyed the room dedicated primarily to the Boss, Bruce Springsteen; with a smaller area of the room bringing in Billy Joel. They had Bruce's first car, a 1957 Chevy convertible (along with his driver's license/registration), plus a few handwritten manuscripts, clothes, etc. Billy Joel's manuscripts were actually in notebooks in a large colorful display...he seems pretty organized!

Finally, the show ended with a separate exhibit hall dedicated solely to John Lennon. Yoko Ono had gathered personal photos, movies, artwork (both by him and her), newspaper articles, etc. and created this exhibit to memorialize his NYC years with her. We spent a lot of time in this area. There were two very moving things at the end, that led to a wall-sized petition for tighter gun-control laws that will be sent to Obama when the exhibit is over. One was a photo shoot Yoko did of John's blood-stained glasses for her album cover (the glasses looked to be real behind the glass display case...it took a while to realize it was a photo.) The other was a brown bag of the clothes he was wearing at the time he died. She states that even though he was a famous man who had everything he needed, that this was the way he was returned to her...as Patient #---, in a brown paper bag. She wanted that display to invoke the senseless nature of all killings.

Well, that ended the official tour of the Annex. Of course, no tour is ended until you are led out into the Gift Shop. They had some lovely first-rate rock and roll items that I briefly considered buying for some of you. First up, Soda, a mounted and framed Fleetwood Mac Rumours album signed by all band members for a mere $2500. That seemed a better value than a mounted and framed "test pressing" of the Hotel California album signed by all the Eagles for $4500--the reason being is that this item was a plain white wrapper-type album cover with their signatures, plus a typed song-list dated Nov. 12, 1976 on a separate page. (No photos of the guys or the hotel!) Finally, the best one of all was a signed Beatles album (an early one, though I'm sorry I've forgotten which one) for $39,500!! I didn't see any takers for any of these. We settled for a poster for the Lennon exhibit (the same one hanging on the street outside) and a pin of the Annex logo.

This has only whet my appetite to make the trek to Cleveland to see the main Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where I know there is a HUGE Springsteen exhibit that just opened, and is on until spring 2010. Road trip!