A Trip To The Grammy Museum!

I spend a lot of time writing about TV and food, but every now and then, I like to escape the confines of my apartment and take in one of Los Angeles’s many activities and offerings. Conveniently, my friends Jen and Hannah provided such an opportunity to me this past weekend. You see, Jen works for the The Recording Academy, and as such, she furnished a lovely tour of the new Grammy museum in downtown Los Angeles for Hannah and me. We’d been talking for months about organizing a trip, and at last, we put it on the books and did the deed.
Photos from this random jaunt after the jump.

Jen proudly shows off her ruby Grammy pin, earned after five years of servitude to the Recording Academy.

Hannah mans the wheel as our trek to downtown commences. I’m happy to announce that no accidents, fender-benders, or otherwise life-threatening situations resulted from this.

The Grammy Museum is actually housed in LA Live, a relatively new facility aimed to bring people to downtown LA. This was my first time at LA Live, and so naturally I took a photo of the escalators.

Upon emerging from the subterranean parking, I’m assaulted by daylight, signage, and a generally sterile landscape. I love it.

Outside the museum is a mini “walk of fame” which features Grammy highlights right in the sidewalk.

Hannah gawks at a new “record” being installed in the sidewalk. Who could it be for?

Adele!

With ticket in hand, we are ready to have our minds blown by all things GRAMMY (and no, that’s not me capitalizing something. I learned that the official way to write GRAMMY is to capitalize it. You know, like you’re screaming it. Kind of fun).

Right in the lobby of the museum is a drum pad that we immediately begin playing with — what with its captivating steel drum sounds beguiling us to no end. Sure this is technology that’s been around in Radio Shack for twenty years, but it’s still damn fun to us.

Me posing with a giant GRAMMY. I’m shrouded in darkness, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to the plight of the recording industry in a time of digital downloads and rampant piracy. Or maybe it was just bad lighting.

Me pretending to be the RCA dog (but clearly not committing to it).

Upon delving deeper than the lobby, we learned that no photography was allowed in the museum; so I had to switch to stealth mode. I didn’t really understand that. I mean, when I went to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, I could take pictures left and right, and that was a museum about THE HOLOCAUST. Heck, down the street at the Neues Museum, they even allowed me to take a picture of QUEEN NEFERTITI, and in case you hadn’t heard, she’s an EFFIN’ ANTIQUITY! But God forbid I take a picture of Eminem’s scribbles (which, admittedly, were very cool).

Nevertheless, despite the photo policy, I managed to a) sneak in a pic or two, and b) thoroughly enjoy myself. Here’s a very high tech presentation of musical genres. It involved headphones, projected images, and some very cool touch technology.

Here’s me learning about musical epicenters. Did you know that Marina Del Rey is one? These are the things you learn at the GRAMMY museum.

Me and Hannah cavorting on a Michael Jackson / “Billie Jean” dance floor. As you can see, my dancing is quite terrible, even when reduced to one solitary moment.

I have a dreaded feeling I was just standing there, raising my arms at the elbows up and down like a robot.

There were many more interesting exhibits and installations pertaining to music and the GRAMMYs, but alas, the ever present eye of GRAMMY Big Brother limited my abilities to snap photos. I did, however, take a pic of this — a random doc about Beyoncé and Tina Turner that we watched. It got me thinking — what would it be like to have Beyoncé as a museum tour guide? And not like the GRAMMY museum, but someplace else — like the Guggenheim or the Musée D’Orsay. Just thinking out loud…

After spending about an hour and change in the museum (at least ten minutes of which were enjoyed experiencing a Paul Oakenfold interactive exhibit), we then emerged to the sidewalk where ironically the American Music Awards were poised to take place.

The red carpet, a scant three hours before the celebrities would be parading down it.

As fascinating as an empty carpet can be, we decided to move ahead to lunch at the Yard House. Long story short: the food was tasty, the service was slow, and I came down with a brief yet massively unpleasant case of gastrointestinal woe.

After lunch, we emerged from the restaurant to find a long line of people waiting to gain admittance to the award show. Don’t get your hopes up for any celebrity sightings. This group was decidedly hoi polloi, and as such, it robbed me of any associations of glamour I may have imagined the AMAs to have.

Exhibit A: this old dude wearing an ALL-LEATHER SUIT.

So after three and a half hours of enjoying what L.A. Live has to offer, guess what we got stuck with? A $25 parking fee. WHAT THE HELL? I’m not entirely sure how this is supposed to entice people over to Downtown Los Angeles. In a recession no less! So you heard it here first, people: should you want to visit LA Live and its various offerings, please be aware that they will rip you off to no end with the parking. And no, none of the businesses validate. Awful awful awful.

Despite the ridiculous parking situation, we still had lots of fun. The museum was impressively high-tech, and featured several noteworthy items — the aforementioned Eminem scribbles, Kanye’s neon outfit from two years ago, and perhaps most important of all, J-Lo’s signature dress, simply labeled “The Dress.” Oh, and seeing Michael Jackson’s gloves up close was cool too, if only because it afforded us a unique opportunity to see just how chintzy they really were (at least the ones on display). If you thought the King of Pop was sporting diamonds and gems on his hand, think again. We’re talking plastic costume jewelry here, kids. Sorry to burst the bubble.
Anyway, thanks to Jen for hooking us up with the tour! For further information about the museum, check out the website here.