PRESERVING ROCK'S LEGACY : AREA WAREHOUSE HOLDS DICK CLARK'S MUSICAL COLLECTION.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

It's New Year's Rockin' Eve, and, for the 25th straight year, Dick Clark will be perched on a Times Square rooftop, ushering out the old year like Father Time and welcoming the new one.

The 67-year-old Clark also has chronicled the passage of time - and the musicians who gave it a soundtrack - at a nondescript Santa Clarita Valley warehouse. He stores decades of rock 'n' roll memorabilia and archives there, items collected during his long stints as host of ``American Bandstand'' and as creator and executive producer of ``The American Music Awards'' and ``New Year's Rockin' Eve.''

John Goines, who lives in Palmdale, oversees the valuable collection housed at the 22,000-square-foot warehouse, the location of which is kept confidential for security purposes. Collectors of celebrity artifacts would give their right arm for some of the documents and objects stored on its shelves.

``He's a pack rat,'' Goines said of his boss, who for sentimental reasons, keen business sense - or both - has amassed vast bits of rock history over the years. Many of the items once stored at the warehouse now are on display at the several Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill restaurants across the country.

In one corner of the warehouse, Goines pointed out the door from a TWA jet - the same airplane which carried the Beatles on their first visit to the United States to appear on ``The Ed Sullivan Show'' in 1964.

In another room is a light brown, baby grand piano which once belonged to Elton John. Metal film cans with years of ``American Bandstand'' broadcasts fill one room, while miles of audio tape from a nationally syndicated radio show called ``Rock, Roll and Remember'' are stacked in another. Records related to the thousands of musical guests who appeared on ``Bandstand'' are boxed and stacked below the warehouse's high ceilings.

``I've got millions of dollars of stuff in here,'' Goines said.

Props from ``American Bandstand,'' which Clark hosted from 1956 to 1988, are stored at the warehouse, including a wooden podium and the prop for Bandstand's ``Rate a Record'' segment, where teen-agers often decreed a new song had a good beat and you could dance to it.

``We have a piano up there. Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins did a recording session on that piano, and they all autographed the top of the piano,'' added Kaydee Medeiros, memorabilia coordinator for Dick Clark Productions.

Clark also bought pictures of the Fab Four that John Lennon had doodled and taped to the jet door during that 1964 trans-Atlantic flight, Medeiros said.

``His personality is to save things,'' said Logan Carr, publicity director for Burbank-based Dick Clark Productions. ``He always says that his wife is so glad he has these restaurants because now he has a place to put all this `junk' - and he (tells her) `It's memorabilia,' '' Carr said.

In fact, many of the celebrity guitars, clothing and other artifacts once housed in the warehouse are now on display at the Bandstand restaurants in Overland Park, Kan., St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Cincinnati, and new sites set to open in Austin, Texas and King of Prussia, Pa.

Among the items on display at the restaurants - the first of which opened in 1992 - are one of Michael Jackson's gloves and Madonna's bustiers, along with John Lennon's hat, Elton John's suit, Chubby Checker's boots and Garth Brooks' cowboy hat.

Other items were gathered by the annual star-studded American Music Awards. The show will mark its 24th anniversary Jan. 27, broadcast from the Shrine Auditorium, Carr said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

Photo: (1--ran in AV, SAC, SIMI and CONEJO editions--color in SAC and AV) John Goines of Palmdale leans on a podium used for many years on Dick Clark's show ``American Bandstand.''

(2--ran in AV and SAC editions--color) John Goines oversees Dick Clark's musical memorabilia collection housed at a 22,000-square-foot warehouse, the location of which is kept confidential for security purposes. Items cover a wide gamut of rock 'n' roll's history, including a piano played by Jerry Lee Lewis, collectibles from John Lennon, a bustier of Madonna and a glove from Michael Jackson.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News