tonight! / heavy metal-metal kait-grammys museum

posted Friday, April 20 2012

ok, tonight is my book signing in chicago, see previous update and we'll see you tonight.

my business partner marty geramita went to LA for the opening of the heavy metal exhibit at the garmmys museum last week. here's what he had to say about it, sounds pretty good.
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This last week I had the pleasure of going to Los Angeles to see the Golden Gods: History of Heavy Metal exhibit at the GRAMMY Museum curated by Cleveland’s own Kait Stuebner who used to work for us here at Strhess. Let me preface this by saying Derek and I have been very lucky to have had some amazing people work for us over the years and they have all had to live with the music we play in the studio.  Kait was a very unlikely Strhess employee.  She came from a job of knitting with old ladies before being referred to us by our/her friend and person she replaced, Carrie Samek.  Every day Kait would come in the studio and we would quiz her on what band is playing over the stereo, most the time she would just get upset and say Iron Maiden and Derek and I would laugh and go about our business.  Before long Derek nick-named her Metal Kait and would playfully post contests on his Myspace called “win a date with Metal Kait” and before you knew it she was getting all these random metal guys wanting to go out with her, and Derek and I would still laugh and go about our business.  In time, however, she started to have favorite Iron Maiden songs and started to appreciate the music, and eventually volunteered to go out and sell merch on Strhess Tour with bands like Shadows Fall and Suffocation.  She was very genuine and always went on and on about how great metal bands and fans are and in return they really liked her.  Eventually Kait would leave us to become the Senior Manager of Education at the GRAMMY Museum.   After being there a few years, she told us she wanted to do a heavy metal exhibit. To think we may have lighted the spark that made her want to do this made Derek and I very proud. 

Now don’t get me wrong we weren’t expecting much, sometimes when mainstream institutions get their hands on something like this they really have a knack for fucking it up so I went in with low expectations.  To my surprise it was the exact opposite, it was an exhibit for metal fans that covered the history of metal from inception all the way through to today.  I was happy to see an actual relevant exhibit that had none of the major label trappings, I didn’t have to look at any Nickleback, Godsmack or Distrurbed crap and it wasn’t the Metallica show which I’m sure it could have been.  Just a few of the highlights were Cyber Eddie from the Somewhere in Time Tour, the guitar Dimebag learned how to play on, the original hand-drawn Death logo, the cape worn by Ozzy from the California Jam, the masks from Slipkot and what I thought was the holy grail of the exhibit, the original artwork from Dio’s Holy Diver.  There were also artifacts by Motorhead, Slayer, Randy Rhodes, Yngwie Malmsteen, Cleveland’s own Chimaira and a ton more.  There was a wall of album art, a wall of posters from current poster artists of today, a wall of old t-shirts, a scream booth and more.  There was really something for everyone. 

Now what Kait and co-curator Andie Cox accomplished was awesome and I was thrilled with the exhibit, but I was even happier with the integrity of the exhibit.  Not once did I hear from anyone in the museum, we can’t do that because of sponsors, members or guests and I didn’t get the feeling anything was pushed on them from labels or managers and it made sense because this exhibit was all about the fans.  Along with hip-hop, metal is probably the most viable genre of music in the world today. The big difference, I feel, is that the average hip-hop fan cares less about the genre’s past but the average metal fan is loyal and very interested in its history. This is also the most relevant exhibit that could be done today and you could tell that by the people waiting outside the next morning to see the exhibit who were all wearing their favorite bands shirt.  I ultimately believe there should be a museum dedicated to metal but this will scratch that itch for now. 

I’ve been told rock and roll can save your life, but I believe heavy metal helps you kick it in the ass.

Marty

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here's some iron maiden 'eddie's' and hand written music and lyrics to 'holy diver'