March 9, 2008, Frankfort, KY – Popular music discussion blog Rock Town Hall announced today that its “Foyer of Fame” – a virtual counterpart to the more famous (though arguably no more relevant) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum – was now “open for business.” In addition, Rock Town Hall revealed that on Monday, March 10, beginning at 8:30 PM EST, the Foyer will induct Bob Seger and Steve Miller as its first two members.
The two thoroughly average rockers will be inducted in special ceremonies befitting their status. Bob Seger’s name will be permanently etched into the tin-plated walls as the Foyer’s charter member, and subsequently, Steve Miller will become the first winner of Seger’s namesake Annual Partial Lifetime Achievement Award and Chili Cookoff.
ADDED: Schedule of Events follows!
Of today’s festivities, RTH co-founder and Moderator Emeritus Jim Slade said, “We’re thrilled to finally open the doors of the Foyer of Fame to the public, and couldn’t be more pleased to have the Motor City’s most famous rocker as our first, namesake inductee. The fact that Steve Miller will join Bob in the Foyer as the winner of our first Bob Seger Annual Partial Lifetime Achievement Award and Chili Cookoff is just icing on the cake for us.”
The Bob Seger Partial Lifetime Achievement Award is granted to rock and roll artists who never quite fully betray the promise shown by their early, impassioned recordings, even as they achieve the measured, prudent artistic attitude of seasoned rockers. Slade explains: “One listen to ‘Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man’ up against, say, ‘Hollywood Nights’ will make it clear why Bob Seger had to be our charter member of the Foyer. That first single – indeed, much of the album from which it came – just dwarfs the later number in passion, drive, spirit, and fist-pumping excellence. On the other hand, it’s not like ‘Hollywood Nights’ actually sucks or anything.”
As part of the Foyer of Fame’s Grand Opening celebrations, Rock Town Hall will be focusing exclusively on the careers of Bob Seger and Steve Miller, with insightful analysis from academics, rock critics, musicians, and studio owners, as well as reflections from less important, “littler” people whose lives the artists have touched over the years.
“As always,” said Slade, “the public is welcome to join us – particularly on this joyful day, when we celebrate the best of rock and roll’s most ordinary artists.”
Schedule of Events
- 8:00 pm: Tattered Red Carpet Preview
- 8:30 pm: Paul Rodgers Inducts Bob Seger
- 9:00 pm: A Self-Important Moment of Reflection on the Significance of the Evening’s Events in Progress
- 9:30 pm: Eddie Money Inducts Steve Miller
- 10:00 pm: Bob Seger Performs Live with the Original Silver Bullet Band
- 10:30 pm: Chili Cookoff
I’m still wrestling with your concept, but reading Ben Ratliff’s record reviews in today’s NYTimes seemed to be sniffing towards it.
HOWLIN RAIN – “Magnificent Fiend”
“…(The band) mines a shallower level: second-tier mannerism and cliché…
…Howlin Rain is comforting and good-timey. It makes a type of music you may have heard in bait-and-tackle shops and the backs of school buses, or maybe during lulls in the commercial-free rock block on your FM station. It is precisely B-list hard rock, like Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep, Nazareth.
…Mr. Miller plays his heart out, as does the band. He sings lines like “the wind calls the hangman to my name” and “Ruby, I chased your laughter with elephant wings,” a slurry of stoner poetry. All of it may remind you not of a venerable old record, but of one that was bought cheap and didn’t make the cut when you had to move your stuff out of your mom’s house.”
Is this what you’re celebrating here?
-db
Beautiful, db! That does get to what’s being celebrated, but in particular for artists who initially showed greater promise. For instance, I don’t think the early works of Johnny/John Cougar Mellencamp got any rock nerds stoked either at the time of their release or years later the way “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man” or “Living in the U.S.A.” did. Thereafter, Seger and Miller would fall exactly into the same boat as this Howlin Rain band that is reviewed in the NY Times.
For all the joy that will accompany these inaugural inductees into the FoF, their inductions will be tinged with a modicum of regret. And that’s the way it should be.
I’m sooooo not concerned that our ratings are going to trump the HOF show that I have no issue bringing this to everyone’s attention:
I may lose cool points for saying that I’m really looking forward to seeing that performance. But my blatant disregard for cool points is precisely what makes me so cool
Huh, Madonna’s not performing? I was counting on her doing a solo acoustic number.
Man, Mr. Mod! This looks like an AWESOME ceremony! Check that schedule of events! Is it true that Craig Chaquico will be leading the house band?
HVB
p.s.: did you end up getting Chuck Woolery to do the emcee thing? He was a bit of a prick about it, wasn’t he?
Hey, mOd — sorry abiut not meetig up wiht you guys backstage. i Had a bit too much to drunk with Wooleie WOOLERI.WOOLERYafyter the show. Eddie Money was there and we all got plasterddeSHIT MAN Im DRUNK.
BUt what the fich was up with the duds from the Silerver Bullet Band?!?!?!?! The sax players hair looked like IT WAS ON FIRE OR something. did yoy see that?Q?!?! i serioursley thought he was pulliga a Ttio Jackson for a while there.
Anyhow, great show. tEll WOoleri SHITFUCK WOOLERY that the next time he better not bring thyat whore with hinm. SHIT man!
okYa, talk to you later, and again great show and thanks. The rst of your RTHers can blow me your not good enough to sniff the modreteaor’s JOCK STRAPP! Where were you? Oh yeah too busy bwing all COOOOOOL and shit too cooooOOOOL for school
Hey mod you know the good barrs here ijn Frankfort? Oh yeah you don’t drink IF ONLY you were WOOLERU
FUCK
HBV
PS Frankfort RUUUUUUULLLLES!!!!!!!!
I don’t know about fine drinking establishments in Frankfort, HVB, but there’s a little something special for you that I’ve taped under the left urinal. Check it out!