What do bands and artists like Ronnie James Dio, Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead, AC/DC’s Malcolm Young, Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Floor Jansen (Nightwish) and King Diamond all have in common, besides being an important part of Rock music’s history?
Yes indeed, they all have fossils named after them!! Bet, you did not know that.
HeadBangers LifeStyle's Raymond Helebrand went to this travelling exhibition in Maastricht [The Netherlands].
I had the chance to visit the exhibition and speak to Johan Strijckers and my first question was: When did the exhibition start and who came up with the idea of combining the two worlds of Palaeotology and rock music?
Kalloprion kilmisteri
,,The exhibition started on February 8th 2020 and was opened in the presence of
Professor of Palaeotology Mats E. Eriksson from Sweden. Besides being a professor, Mats also is an enthusiast of the hard and heavy genre and because fossils found by one may get names by choice of the finder, he started give the fossils names like
Kalloprion kilmisteri and
Kingnites diamondi. So actually the whole Rock Fossils idea is his brainchild and the idea has grown and taken further by other Palaeotologists.
And with the rock theme for this exhibition the rock band Heavy Humpa did play at the opening. Normally the audience at an opening is a bit dusty, but at this opening we saw tattoos, rock shirts, kind of like going to a rock gig, but now it was the opening of a exhibition.’’'
Until when do rock enthusiast have the chance to visit the exhibition?
,,It is possible until Sunday the 3th of January 2021 to visit the exhibition. So when people are interested go to the website of the
Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht and reserve the desired time slot.
The next stop for the exhibition is
Osnabrück in Germany, that will start January the 30th.’’
How big is the team behind the organization of the exhibition?
,,We do have a team of approximately 10 people, doing all kind of jobs for the exhibition. Myself doing the communication and have the lead of the project. And of course we have staff taking care of the social media part, some do education for the youth, with puzzles etc. So everyone within the team has his job.’’
In a nutshell, what can people expect at the exhibition?
,,The exhibition
Rock Fossils On Tour shows fossils. At first glance not the most appealing idea, but these fossils have very special names. When a new fossil is found, it is given a name and many professors are big fans of rock music, so they give the fossils names of their favorite musicians or bands from the rock and metal genre. Not really to be expected from Palaeotologists and archaeologists. But the dusty image is not for them, being into rock music.
The fossils named after these rock icons are shown here at the exhibition. And the band or artist themselves have a panel with audio. When inserting your headphones, you can hear the music that inspired the name for the fossil.’’
Do you want to see this exhibition yourself? Go and see it in the beautiful city of Maastricht!! I did absolutely like what I saw here and it was interesting as well. More information
here.
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Raymond Helebrand
Born in 1974 in the South of the Netherlands. My older brother introduced me to bands like Iron Maiden, Scorpions, Judas Priest, when I was 8 years old. And from that point on my interest in hard rock/ heavy metal music was there.
I started playing guitar when I was thirteen. Performing was/and still is a big part of me and I played in Rotterdam based Wild Ride, on Mennen’s “Age of Fools” & formed the band Sustain and released the album “This is Now”.
I also was a volunteer at the Kajuit and later on with Rock Justice. And I started to work as a stage hand/roadie. This gave me a chance to help organize concerts, see the other side of being on the road, get to know a lot of bands and meet lots of people in the music business. And in some cases meet friends for life.
It was also an opportunity to see great deal of great bands come and go through the years!
The creative site of designing logo’s, artwork etc. was something I always did for the bands I have played in and later on I got the chance to also use this craft on a business level. This resulted eventually in the start of my own company RH-Design. 4 years ago I made the choice to start making the pictures for my business myself.
Photography combined with my passion for music, is why I made the choice to get involved with concert photography.
My top 3 live concerts (to this date): Sixx:A.M.- Tivoli Utrecht 2016 , Gotthard – ViaRockFestival 1994 & the Monsters of Rock festival Dortmund Westfalenhalle 1992 (with AC/DC, Metallica, Queensryche & the Black Crowes).