The Great American Rock 'n' Roll Expo: Hollywood Palladium - October 7-11, 1982

[modest wear to edges and corners, plastic-comb binding fully intact]. (B&W and color graphics, facsimiles) Remember this incredible, multi-faceted extravaganza, that virtually dominated the musical consciousness of Hollywood over a five-day period in the Fall of 1982? No? Well, don't feel too bad, because neither does anybody else: it never happened. What we have here is a prospectus/proposal for the event, which was designed to be a Very Big Deal indeed, with no fewer than ten, count 'em, ten individual elements: R.A.V.E. (International Rock Art Video Expo); The Museum of Rock Art (an art show "compiled from the holdings of the world's only museum dedicated to the art of Rock N' Roll," which had been founded a year or so earlier by co-promoter Paul S. Caruso); the Great Rock N' Roll Time Machine (a multimedia presentation); the first-ever auction of "art and memorabilia associated with Rock N' Roll and it's [sic] heroes"; The Great American Rock N' Roll Supermarket (a shopping bazaar for rock memorabilia); the World's Greatest Video Arcade (this was the 80s, after all); live musical performances; the Great American Rock N' Roll Sweepstakes; a "Battle of the Bands"; and last but not least, the Great American Rock N' Roll Midway, "consisting of the newest thrill rides from around the world." You certainly can't accuse the promoters and prospective producers of thinking small, nor of not having the chops to pull it off (even though they ultimately didn't): Hal Sloane (1924-2010) was an entertainment industry veteran, whose varied resume included the production of a series of "Teen-Age Fairs" during the 1960s (a fictionalized version of one such event which figures in Paul Thomas Anderson's recent film LICORICE PIZZA); Paul Caruso was a young entrepreneur who in 1981 opened the Museum of Rock Art on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, an enterprise that claimed to have "the world's largest collection of rock posters . . . as well as original artwork, album covers, concert tickets, photographs, sculpture, and a fast-growing videotape library." (The Museum closed at one point for earthquake retrofit, reopening in a Hollywood Blvd. location in 1985, where it remained until circa 1989 (I've found no press documenting its demise). Now, more than thirty years later, it still has an online presence of sorts, with Mr. Caruso (and presumably his personal collection, which always formed the Museum's core) having apparently resettled in Maine.) This approximately 30-page prospectus, rather crudely designed, has background information on Caruso's and Sloane's previous achievements, promotional descriptions of the Expo's various elements (the most interesting perhaps being the description of "The Great Rock & Roll Time Machine"), a blank contract for prospective advertisers/sponsors, and a detailed budget for the project, projecting a net profit of $211,250. (The latter is formatted with a parallel column giving the corresponding line-item budget figures for the 1968 edition of the Teen-Age Fair.) It's a curiosity, for sure, albeit a fascinating one -- the only remaining trace, perhaps, of a Big Rock 'n' Roll Dream that never made it off the drawing board. Title: The Great American Rock 'n' Roll Expo: Hollywood Palladium - October 7-11, 1982 Author: Caruso, Paul S., and Hal Sloane (promoters) Location Published: [Hollywood, Calif.], Hal Sloane Associates [?]: 1982 Binding: Plastic comb binding Book Condition: Very Good Categories: Music and Dance Seller ID: 27372 Keywords: conventions eighties hollywood palladium