Wenner strikes again!

John - I admit I haven't heard the album and have a certain affection for anything Stones-derivative (assuming Peter Wolf hasn't gone electroclash on us); that said I really doubt this album is twice as good as Nevermind.

mind I do think the review is dreadfully written, I just sort of flinch when I feel like questions of "pertinence" are being exhumed for their strike-a-pose value

biz vent: Jagger was Wenner's partner in the short-lived Rolling Stone UK magazine (or whatever the title was). it went under, needless to say, but it's hardly a coincidence that RS continues to cover RS tours like they're God's word or something.

Oh, and didn't Wenner produce a Scaggs record, too?

(this was actually a respond to the Andy K post, but applies equally here)

http://gawker.com/jann-wenners-kid-is-the-new-head-of-rollingstone-com-508921163

It would be interesting if Wenner's kid were to attempt to give any less than a five-star review to some classic artist's new release. The immovable object and the irresistible force and all that.

Be funny if he worshipped all the offspring of Dad's heroes. Julian Lennon remembers. Jakob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Interview

The new John Fogerty album is getting 5 stars according to a publicist email I received

barf

Grade inflation I'm sure, but I will say that I saw him do "Someday Soon" on TV last night--assuming that's not on the album--and it was fantastic.

Ohhhhhhhh boy

Marchese interviews him and does he ever hang himself on his own rope. (Gift link, go nuts.)

It's being discussed in the worst music writing ever thread (even though it's an interview). Everyone correctly thinks he is terrible and stupid.

Great wisdom.

What a dork.

If only the Black prodigies of the music I claim to love were as “””””articulate””””” as mick jagger but alas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYDhjuq08Fg

OK but the boat pic though

was mick fucking for good reviews? or was that just a byproduct of a beautiful affair?

every time I see him talk I think no wonder we elected tony blair

Many people think boomers suck. I'm a boomer, so if you ever hear me arguing on behalf of my generation, there are a lot of points you could make to counteract my defense, but you really only need to say two words: Jann Wenner. https://t.co/dtHsvaCa4Y

— Frank Conniff (@FrankConniff) September 15, 2023

I don't know why this guy would fall on his sword on behalf of Wenner, but ok

(I mean I guess yeah he shouldn't "argue on behalf of his generation" either... best just to avoid age-based generalizations, y'know)

He's saying that "Jann Wenner" is the only argument you need for the conclusion "boomers suck"

I was about to say, you are severely misunderstanding Frank Conniff if you think that was praise!

Tired: OK Boomer
WIRED: OK Wenner

xxp Yeah no I get it... but I don't know why anyone would say that. I guess if he's invested enough on behalf of "his generation" to argue on behalf of it, then it must work both ways for him

A lot of work going into understanding a pretty straightforward joke

You may have lived in a world where the words "OK Boomer" were not a big deal for a few months

Nah, that's what I'm reacting to! And I'm surprised a self-identified Boomer would play into it, even as a half-joke. (Like, I wouldn't say - "Some ppl say that Elon Musk is proof that Gex X sucks, and I'll admit it, I have no defense!") But I'll stand down here...

The funniest part of Weiner's WTF episode was his umbrage taken at "OK Boomer". Maron prefaced the interview by saying Wenner is (paraphrased) 'the Ultimate Boomer: he did all the things, was at all the events, met all the people, reaped all the rewards...".

lol my son sent me the Wenner headline and I went looking for context and it was even worse than I expected. What a tremendous dickhead.

This really should be his Al Campanis moment.

Oh yeah this one is gonna stick

I used to have an early Rolling Stone interviews anthology paperback. The only non-white dudes included were Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Grace Slick (the only woman), and Booker T & The MGs. Part of the last one involved Wenner playing the group some Rock and Motown records and getting their opinions on them.

Also, FWIW the Berry & Little Richard interviews were by Nik Cohn (IIRC).

I am shocked to learn that Jann Wenner is a tremendous dickhead.

fwiw RS's coverage of African-American music in the early 70s was famously abysmal. They had almost no time for Curtis afaict, but they did give bad reviews of the debut, Curtis/Live! and Roots.

Flashing back on the five-star review of Songs in the Key of Life that also made sure the reader knew that Wonder’s lyrics were idiotic

The condescension from what sometimes seems like virtually all mainstream white rock critics of the time towards black musicians (christgau, landau, etc) is still kind of shocking to read. When christgau wrote about Bob Marley, "As with so many black artists from this country, Marley's latest lyrics seem a little perfunctory, mixing vague politics of dubious depth with hackneyed romantic sentiments of dubious depth, and so what? Marley is not obliged to devote himself to propaganda. As with so many black artists from this country, the music is primary here, a message appropriate to his condition is conveyed by the unrushed rhythms and the way the sopranos share equally with the instruments and the new wariness of his phrasing and dynamics." That was the prevailing "wisdom" of the time.

As part of his re-education process, he'll be compelled to make a TV series where young radicals lecture him about racism and sexism, entitled Woke With Jann.

Woking Stone

Booted from the board of the RnR HOF, which is the kind of bullshit thing that probably matters to him so lol.

👍🏽

Class of 2024: The Monkees; Foreigner...who else?

Vanilla Fudge
Gary Puckett and the Union Gap

I hate the HOF, I hate everything about it but.. COME ON get the Shadows in there quick before they die

The Shadows never meant anything in the US, so that seems unlikely.

maybe i should finally post my list of worthy non-HOF acts as a poll

Blue Oyster Cult still not in

My mom gave me a copy of his autobiography a couple of years ago, because she knows that I'm a music freak. I tried reading straight through and after one chapter decided to try to skip ahead to the good parts. After just a bit of that I stuck it in the little library in our local park. Now I wish I had tossed it in the trash.

Laughable but anyway, per NYT:

In my interview with The New York Times I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks.

“The Masters’ is a collection of interviews I’ve done over the years that seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock ’n’ roll’s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don’t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.

Besides, I’m entitled.

bought Joe Hagan's bio of Wenner (Sticky Fingers) last night on my Kindle - wow this is going to be an addictive read for this Wenner hater, juicy stuff and well researched

(I believe Wenner wrote his autobio because he was so angry about this book, surely a good sign)

he was also defending that UVA article because it told a larger truth about women on campus, despite the hoax at the core of the piece. which was also an idiotic position, but ideologically it cuts the other way (i.e. "always believe the woman"). so, basically, i think jann was just lashing out. cries of misogyny and racism come very easy these days but i think they are overblown in this case. maybe jann needs help?

Maybe you do?

excellent remark.

Do tell. Explain how cries of misogyny and racism are overblown in this case.

Would love to live in a world where “cries of racism and misogyny” were worse problems than racism and misogyny themselves, personally.

i already did, re. his defense of the UVA article which placed women's rights ahead of facts.

the gist of the interview was "don't you dare criticize me about anything," not so much white men are smarter than blacks and women.

none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level

blacks

totemic, world-changing artists

so he sees the people he interviewed as people as well as totems but they all happen to be successful white dudes

1. Hagan's book is indeed manna for them what hate him, but is somewhat extraneous to Robert Draper's prosaically tiled "Rolling stone": Draper bows to no one as a chronicler of hubris, and in my view Hagan should have focused more on the events following the publication of RD's book in 1992: It contains more howlers than Hagan's work. but there can be no doubt that Hagan's book (JW cooperated with both books) irritated him so mightily that he had to get the startlingly basically titled "Like a Rolling Stone" published: he described Hagan's book as "badly written," which prompted significant chortles from staffers who very often had to clean up JW's poorly reasoned, poorly phrased, poorly EVERYTHING work.

2. And so again, that he was ever considered a formidable, incisive, gifted editor, which was the appraisal of every single solitary person ever in a position to know, is curious: all other evidence seems to point to him being quite stupid, a singularly incurious, self-regarding individual, slavishly subject to his appetites and to the approval of Mick jagger, the other "masters" and whoever he wished to kiss up to at any given time. And again, as a generator of cover lines, headlines and display type, or what is now best understood as branding, his instincts are basic as fuck. You not only have "the masters" (as in, implicitly, "they are my masters"), snd "Like a Rolling Stone," but for instance, you have the 2017 RS doc "Stories from the Edge": when he wasn't in Aspen or other rich people redoubts and turned his attention to the mag, there would be lots of "this is edgy," edge this, edge that. like many dumbass bosses (like Musk's fixation on the letter X), once he cottoned to certain idée fixes, he could not be dissuaded by his often very bright employees.

3. It was deeply annoying when he was sought out as a meaningful commentator w/r/t not only to music (a less engaged individual as to anything re: 20th/21st century music can scarcely be imagined) but to the legacy of left wing politics post 1968. His principal goal was not for a just society, for humankind to conduct itself in a universally understood humane way (both books contains numerous examples of his staff advocating for full throated left wing advocacy, and which were consistently opposed by JW). His goal was for him and his peer group to supplant the previous generation, for his cohort to assume power held by his parents cohort. Lip service would be paid to high minded ideals, but he very clearly believed his crowd deserved power and respect in perpetuity simply because they did drugs, drank and fucked less discriminately and less discreetly. Their partying elevated human consciousness, and the previous generation's partying was…square. In '77, there was a photo essay in RS titled "The New Establishment," which is what he wanted for him and his friends, and very shortly thereafter that's what he achieved. In the 90s and 2000s, he went crazy with the Clinton and Gore hagiography, as well as pro forma excoriation of Bush-era republicanism— everyone was supposed to forget that he loudly and proudly voted for Reagan in 1980. He takes immense exception to the baby boomers being interrogated about anything, so accustomed to uncritical adulation as he and about a million other self regarding shitheads have been for many decades.

4. One thing for the "Bad Gays" podcast some of you guys have mentioned to examine is what appears to me to be a closet case so severe that he's not really out yet, not really. In angels of america, Roy Cohn talks about liking to fuck guys (or rather, like the also very likely power bottom JW, getting fucked by guys) but never living life in open as a gay man, because "gay men out in the open do not have clout" or undisputed power or respect in mainstream society. If JW ever had interests or character traits common to gay men, it is likely that he mercilessly beat them out of himself. No disco, no show tunes. Only the most macho, respectable white guy classic rock icons! Who he is SO EAGER to proclaim are his friends! Who he vacations with! Look at him, don't you envy him for his access to these great philosophical oracles of our times? He was THERE when Jagger was making Goddess in the Doorway! (he loves talking about being in the studio when "the masters" are recording the music he will breathlessly enthuse over). But I think it is well within bounds to consider as to whether he is turned on by "the masters." It's very plausible.

5. it is furthermore a mystery to me why "the masters" bother associating with this by all accounts vain, stupid little man. Until 2019, the answer would be "his magazine helps me make $$$, props up my self-image." But what can do for them now? It is well known that Mick jagger is a user and is a virtuoso in manipulating pliant supplicants to further his ends. But is not at all well known that Springsteen, Townshend or Dylan are like that.

On the last point, I wonder if sometimes he's just the guy who shows up at the interviews and they politely tolerate him. I don't know the intricacies or details of his interpersonal relationships with any of these guys, so maybe it truly is more symbiotic than it appears but it feels a bit parasitic. He reminds me of the fawning, eager to please, narcissistic talk show hosts who are apparently toxic to non celebrities and underlings, people like DeGeneres or Corden. People who are tolerated only as long as they are forced to be tolerated.

Springsteen is pretty involved with the HoF.

Just occurred to me what a bad look it is in this context to even call your book "The Masters."

Springsteen doesn't need Wenner anymore now that he's got David Remnick.

Cursed Image

https://i.insider.com/6504cc705f9f9c0019b44fb4?width=700

I don't think Springsteen, Townshend et al would completely shut out Wenner once he stepped down from Rolling Stone. You see this in business and politics, but you can't underestimate the sense of loyalty or what could be a nauseating friendship that developed between someone like Wenner and those guys because of the way he helped (or even made) their careers. It's almost like a cliché out of a mob movie, but I'm sure it's there - Rolling Stone clearly had an admitted agenda of promoting Springsteen as THE most important artist of his generation (and I say this as a huge fan who wouldn't disagree that he was indeed great and important), and I'm sure he's both aware and eternally grateful for their help.

Jann must be 5'2", or Bono is wearing his lifts again.

I saw a recent picture of him when he was interviewing Springsteen, and Jann looked tiny.

ne thing for the "Bad Gays" podcast some of you guys have mentioned to examine is what appears to me to be a closet case so severe that he's not really out yet, not really. In angels of america, Roy Cohn talks about liking to fuck guys (or rather, like the also very likely power bottom JW, getting fucked by guys) but never living life in open as a gay man, because "gay men out in the open do not have clout" or undisputed power or respect in mainstream society. If JW ever had interests or character traits common to gay men, it is likely that he mercilessly beat them out of himself. No disco, no show tunes. Only the most macho, respectable white guy classic rock icons! Who he is SO EAGER to proclaim are his friends! Who he vacations with! Look at him, don't you envy him for his access to these great philosophical oracles of our times? He was THERE when Jagger was making Goddess in the Doorway!

I made similar conclusions on finishing the bio a few years ago. Although he married a man, the sycophant's ravenous ambition gnaws away at him; he probably thinks yachting with Mick is more fun than bottoming for his husband.

I guess it’s to his credit that I can’t imagine Wenner picking Michael Stipe as one of his Masters

Of course he wouldn’t, Stipe is famously a Monkees fan. (And said so in an RS interview thirty years back, adding that the Beatles were before his time when young, causing a bunch of readers to bitterly complain in response and apparently still giving his grief years later. A more accurate illustration of the crabbed and useless Wenner mindset I couldn’t imagine.)

I hope the next Hall of Fame class is a couple progressive rock acts, pet shop boys, Sade, Thin Lizzy, New Order, Vixen, Kylie Minogue, Iron Maiden, Teddy Pendergrass, Husker Du, The Replacements... if there's not enough room in the building, boot out foo fighters and rhcp.

Wait, Vixen?

Jon Landau is a fucking twerp as well

Thought I could sneak that earmark in on my bill xp

I feel like Paul Nelson and Cameron Crowe may be the only regulars from Rolling Stone's heyday that would seem like nice people if you got to know them. Nelson in particular might've been their consistently best critic.

Ben Fong-Torres is a great guy

YES, him too. (Also Robert Palmer may be their very best critic too, but his personal life was notoriously messy - I feel very sorry for his family)

Crowe isn’t exactly a paragon of racial issues either, particularly given his casting decisions for ALOHA

xps And I don't see it happening next year, but King Crimson, Pet Shop Boys, Sade, Thin Lizzy, New Order/Joy Division, Iron Maiden, Teddy Pendergrass/Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Hüsker Dü and The Replacements all should've been inducted years, even decades, ago among many others. Sonic Youth, New York Dolls, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Eric B. & Rakim, etc...

Crowe isn’t exactly a paragon of racial issues either, particularly given his casting decisions for ALOHA

Totally forgot that - that was awful, but from what I know of him, I feel like chalking that up to cluelessness/idiocy, which isn't great either but at least he can learn.

Another writer from RS I liked is Aaron Latham, who was among the first out of the gate to go to Hollywood along with Joe Eszterhas

lol I called Wenner a "prototype of white Boomer male entitlement" on FB and some irate elders are going all #notallboomers on me.

FB Boomers = Worst Boomers

They're very sensitive. I was told that the word Boomer in and of itself is a slur.

The best was the guy who threatened to insult MY generation, and I was like, "We know we suck, have at it."

I have a nice little memory of Paul Nelson from his final days, don't know if it is enough to even bother to share.

nothing too trivial for us

I can’t imagine Wenner picking Michael Stipe as one of his Masters

tbf stipe barely articulated anything on the first several albums

It's funny, recently i was thinking how rock n roll as a medium is exceptionally good at not-quite articulating.

_I can’t imagine Wenner picking Michael Stipe as one of his Masters_

tbf stipe barely articulated anything on the first several albums

otm

I just watched Don’t Look Back for the first time, and while Dylan is obviously a brilliant artist without comparison, his articulation was a basically a lot of stoned gibberish

Also, other ppl have pointed this out, but Wenner really could have just been like, “These are just the guys I like” but he had editor brain of having to invent a rubric and then attempting to justifying it

Deflator and table otm.

Lucy Sante had an excellent piece in Kill All Your Darlings about how during the, um, High Dylan phase, he just was totally channeling some kind of dreamscape, can’t remember how it was worded, but later it felt like he was sort of forcing some kind of approximation of that, although somehow he got close enough again at least once with Blood on the Tracks.

In Stipe’s case, it seemed like someone came in with some lawn poison and weedwacker and removed all the kudzu in his voice as depicted on the cover of Murmur, thereby also stripping away all the Faulkner/Flannery Southern Gothic magic.

it seemed like someone came in with some lawn poison and weedwacker and removed all the kudzu in his voice as depicted on the cover of Murmur, thereby also stripping away all the Faulkner/Flannery Southern Gothic magic.

this is the most florid insult don dixon ever suffered

Can we talk about the casual permitting of subjects to edit their interviews?

we can

or we can simply recognize that the entire edifice was built on lies

A good solution to the problems with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is to bulldoze it and then never speak of it again.

I just watched Don’t Look Back for the first time, and while Dylan is obviously a brilliant artist without comparison, his articulation was a basically a lot of stoned gibberish

??? From what I remember of that doc his behaviour throughout ranges from condescending to openly antagonistic. Not saying that's partic "better" than stoned gibberish mind.

he could have paid better attention when elton articulated, “wenner you’re gonna come down/ wenner you’re going to land”

Lol

Dylan is not obviously a brilliant artist without comparison

one of my most feared days for the past decade or so has been the day when Dylan kicks the bucket because we’re never gonna hear the end of it. I will be annoyed for weeks.

Oh don't worry he'll outlive us all.

If it's any consolation I imagine most Dylanologists will be just as annoyed by the non-specialist obits ('Blowing in the Wind man blows no more' etc etc)

street legal reference only for dylan obits

"The man who once sang about being 'a complete unknown' was mourned yesterday by millions across the globe ..."

Idiot Wind Finally Stops Blowing

It's Alright Ma (He's Dead)

Bob Dylan begged God to kill him and was able to die

Nursing the dead, he can't answer you back. (Not sure that even makes sense.)

Maybe he had some problems, maybe some things that he couldn’t work out
But he sure was funny and he sure told the truth and he knew what he was talkin’ about
Never robbed any churches nor cut off any babies’ heads
He just took the folks in high places and he shined a light in their beds
He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore
I rode with him in a taxi once
Only for a mile and a half, seemed like it took a couple of months
They stamped him and they labeled him like they do with pants and shirts

It's too bad so many of Dylan's contemporaries are now gone because I'm sure they took a lot of great stories with them to the grave. When Prince died, you had so much stuff coming out since so many of them were alive and well and I'm sure they felt free to share now that Prince was gone. (Especially true for the unflattering stuff.)

That "especially since his departure" is a real stab in the balls...

Our statement on Jann Wenner's recent comments. pic.twitter.com/dL7lMSTP3k

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) September 18, 2023

Doesn't one of his sons run the thing now? That statement would be high-level oedipal if so.

I guess not! Not sure why I thought that...

Finally, an apology for that Goddess in the Doorway review

jann wenner has not been involved in our operations since the dim and distant era of... four years ago

TIL: Jann Wenner's son Gus Wenner is the current CEO of Rolling Stone

one of these days I'm going to listen to Goddess in the Doorway

"God Gave Me Everything" (the Kravitz collab) is a low-key banger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUk_Dqiow0A

Love how part of the video was shot in a 99¢ Only store.

I can think of several Dylan obit headlines but am currently favoring "I ain't live, babe."

A good solution to the problems with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is to bulldoze it and then never speak of it again.

― the world is your octopus (Camaraderie at Arms Length)[

Yes please

https://i.postimg.cc/8cVKmQg7/Screen-Shot-2023-09-19-at-10-35-39-AM.png

Gonna be fighting some Jann Wenners with my d&d group tonight.

Gelatinous Cube

Meltzer getting fired/banned from Rolling Stone is a classic story.

"It was terrible. At first, it was still such a small operation. Jann Wenner even oversaw the record reviews. I remember I reviewed Cactus' second album, I think, and finding nothing reasonably acceptable about it and I remember Jann Wenner calling up himself and saying, Could you reconsider it and say something good about it, please?'

Well the NYT essentially took him down, might as well have them write more about it (Sisario in this case, gift link)

Gotta say, Landau's explanation is...eh:

But in a conference-call vote that took just 20 minutes, the motion passed with only two nay votes. One came from Wenner himself, and the other from Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen’s manager and a former Rolling Stone critic, who long held a key role at the hall as chairman of the nominating committee.

“Jann’s statements were indefensible and counter to all the hall stands for,” Landau said in a statement. “It became clear that the vote to remove him from the board would be justifiably and correctly overwhelming. My vote was intended as a gesture in acknowledgment of all that he had done to create the hall in the first place.”

Wenner himself trying to stave off the inevitable is roffle:

Wenner responded with a last-minute plea for clemency. “I understand how inflammatory these words appear,” he wrote in an email, “but it is not how I feel in my heart nor have acted in all my years founding and leading the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

How does he feel now with his own foot in his mouth and everyone else's foot up his ass?

rich

Makes a ton of money, emboldened to say whatever he wants, canceled for saying whatever he wants, still rich, will probably whine about it for the rest of his life, no doubt on some TV show or podcast. I'm sure Bill Maher or some other bullshitter is scrambling for his cell number right now.

guys like him are never satisfied though! (see oh for example elon musk) being rich is just a side benefit of wanting to be an insider, part of the cool clique, always on the list, always being able to pontificate to your inferiors...he can have a podcast or go on wherever but it will never have the impact of being the capo of rolling stone and the hall, he knows that shit is bush league....i guarantee this eats him up inside.

Should Jagger ban him from his vacation homes, Yahn will be on suicide watch.

that mick review of fgth is very nigel tufnel

read that as fgti!

Enough Goddess in the Doorway talk, what did Rolling Stone think of I've Got My Own Album to Do is the key question

Tbh Goddess would have been fun to see in RS' recent 50 shit albums by good artists list.

xp

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ron-wood-not-just-another-pretty-face-182505/

xp

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ron-wood-not-just-another-pretty-face-182505🕸/

in fairness he presumably hired her and assigned her that piece. she was quite something, per her wikipedia page.

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW

https://www.spin.com/2023/09/free-speech-in-defense-of-jann-wenner/

Another bit stands out

https://i.imgur.com/BvlsIBr.jpg

I think this whole furor, this landslide of righteous indignation that has cascaded on his head, is way out of proportion. He’s not raping school children! He simply thinks his friends — all of his interviewees he’s long been close with — did the best job of elucidating rock ‘n roll for the purpose of his book.

I have always admired Jann Wenner, and still do.

That's your first mistake, eh.

...and the vast unknowable gulf between the thing he's not doing and the only thing he supposedly did

damn when is the last time Guccione Jr wrote something for Spin?

Sometimes he's just got to step in and give five stars to one of his friends

If you read the whole goddamn endless thing, he gets around to Roisin Murphy, too. A real win-win for everybody.

His defense of RM is basically: She was right

I think this whole furor, this landslide of righteous indignation that has cascaded on his head, is way out of proportion. He’s not raping school children!

Knowing the philosophers of rock the guy likes to hang around with this is a very “my shirt is raising questions already answered by my shirt” thing to just throw in there

of course it wouldn't be complete without zappa at the pmrc hearings

lol omar

The Guccione piece is just horror after horror

I mean ... I love classic-era Spin too, but what kind of enlightenment did we expect from a Guccione?

nothing! but the old lizard doesn't exactly come out of his lair to write anymore so i think we are justifiably just like woahhh

Paul Williams back from dead to reactionarily weigh in on recent controversies.

That Guccione piece belongs in a poo museum

pritin lies, startin controversy

The lack of attention this received is a real tell on how far Spin has fallen out of the periphery

Like probably the second-most-famous music magazine editor ever drops a essay in favor of public displays of racism, sexism and transphobia and it doesn't get a fraction of the attention as unperson telling Tomb Mold that they look like dorks

lol

"As Bill Maher recently said..."

Just addressing Guccione as a writer here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyRLFWF2v_U

lol Whiney

the lack of attention is the best possible response in this case imho

I have no clue who Tomb Mold are and yet I'm certain that controversy is somehow evidence that the world is, basically, getting better

Oh this is quite the read. And the kissoff:

We can't change what was said, but we can learn from it and take steps to ensure that the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is an institution that truly honors the breadth and depth of contributions to music. I’ve included a few links to interviews so you can educate yourself on artistic articulation. Nina and Joni would run circles around you on their worst day. It’s always difficult when a board removes a founder, but in this case, it’s easy. Kick rocks, buddy.

beautiful

Feel free to add "Get in the Ring" to your setlists, Axl. All is forgiven.

Before everyone starts backslapping Troy Carter for his legit great closing line - Carter has been trying to get artists to join his NFT-based music startup.

Records are just NFTs you can play

Yay Troy Carter

Per the Lefsetz thread, seems like Jann went to whine to him.

Jancel culture

Janndek

I actually thought it was pronounced Jahn-dek at first, probably because of Wenner and I guess it sounds like the artier pronunciation

the spin screed is hilarious, basically a column length version of pee wee herman saying “i think we should let him gooo”

Greil Marcus responds: https://greilmarcus.substack.com/p/ask-greil-september-29-2023

Shockingly predictable I suppose

Looks like he quoted the Lester Bangs piece that gets rewritten by a different music journalist at least once a decade at the end of his comments

I’m not sure if “racism is institutional, and if we wanted to remain an institution and sell magazines we’d have to toe the line” is doing quite what he intended. But given the book buying demographic, I could see Wenner completely uncynically thinking he’d do numbers by publishing the same old shit that can sit by the checkout lanes to be a runaway impulse buy by boomers who recognize Rolling Stone and his name. Thinking he has a legacy that’s set in stone and you might as well throw one more book out to polish the marble

I flipped through the book yesterday at the store. No new interviews! Instead I saw the "Jagger Speaks!" or whatever issue-length interview granted in 1995, a Dylan one from 2007, and uh I put it down.

a professor emeritus doesn't question what they built their career upon I guess. It's just the typical arrogance of someone who is railing against cancel culture, and even when acknowledging the poor wording, could not possibly imagine it comes from a place of ill intent, just a tepid suggestion it's the racism we all share.

In the same column, he also goes hard at Bernie Sanders for damaging the democratic brand.

So, I'm about halfway through Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner by Joe Hagan.

It's extremely well researched and fairly well written, definitely digs deep and there are so many crazy anecdotes involved the RS crew as well as a ton of the biggest rockers and celebs.

but goddamn, like reading Trouble Boys I ended up getting frustrated with them (like just act right fellas) but jeeezus this guy, I just fucking HATE him 10 times more than I did before when I didn't know as much about him. What a total piece of shit...like even let's say as Wenner contends that it's a hatchet job, if half of this is true he'd still be one of the biggest assholes who ever lived.

just wrapped up the 70s, I don't know how much more time I can spend with this guy, very dispiriting.

lol Greil Marcus despises this book and Hagan.

Griel doesn't always come off the best so I could see that (though he's still far far far above the bar behavior-wise in terms of the RS boys club, I didn't know Joe Esterhaz was from RS for example)

I had the unpleasant experience of Hagan joining a FB thread last week after Marcus had excoriated him.

I screened Where The Buffalo Roam on Prime last week. Bruno Kirby played the Wenner character, a quite good bit of casting.

Re: Eszterhas

He’s very proud of the fact that he was an incredibly dishonest, shady journalist. He parlayed his BS into a hugely lucrative career, just like director Todd Phillips, who made a fabricated documentary for HBO on a fraternity and parlayed that into a successful feature career

Self-XP

https://uploads-ssl.webflow.com/62bf51eb53f5f66021e924c0/62cec39ffd5e3019b99c39be_Kirby.jpg

I kind of feel like Verhoeven knew exactly what he was doing by using scripts by Eszterhas

the only unedited thing by him I’ve read is that “Mel Gibson is a bad man” self-published thing and it’s ridiculously bad and self-serving

Hollywood Animal is fun, but Eszterhas makes some unbelievably stupid points in it

I DO think he has written great films. It’s amazing how BETRAYED (1988) predicted the internet being a tool for neo-Nazism’s growth, and Telling Lies in America (1997) is great

Betrayed was excellent.

He’s very proud of the fact that he was an incredibly dishonest, shady journalist

yeah they touched on that, he had some very "amazing" journalistic pieces that were maybe too amazing it turns out

a real sexist pig to no surprise, but it was pretty bad across the board

ben fong torres came off a lot nastier than i would have thought

ok i’m reading the library preview of sticky fingers because i need to renew my card

it seems to be giving me 99 pages, should hold me until I can check with the library tomorrow

You do feel for him as a child, his mom was a real cold person

Alfred - what are Marcus's problems with the book? Did Hagan make stuff up or is it the framing?

I mean Hagan clearly dislikes the guy that's a fair thing to call out.

he talks about it here

https://www.villagevoice.com/greil-marcuss-real-life-rock-top-10-all-punches/

That Hagan names as inspirations The Lives of John Lennon, Albert Goldman’s attempt to destroy John Lennon, and Positively 4th Street, David Hadju’s attempt to discredit Bob Dylan, means that his book is one more proof that a biography grounded in its author’s contemptuous distaste for his or her subject is not a good idea. There’s a huge amount of information here, but if what Hagan did with what I told him is remotely typical then it can’t be trusted.

He may have named Goldman as an "inspiration," but the book, as those of you have read it know, is far -- very far -- from sensationalistic and grotesque.

I also started reading the Hagan bk after Wenner's recent disgrace. Hagan isn't really a rockwrite guy is he, I guess for good/bad; he writes loads of corny, clunky sentences like this one:

Wenner approached the handsome guitar player in blue corduroy pants and velvet shirt to ask the name of the group. 'The Grateful Dead,' Bob Weir told him. Jerry Garcia later said it was their first show.

No Richard Meltzer in the index; I think it's this indifference to the storied history of American rock music criticism beyond Rolling Stone, before and after, that also (possibly understandably) irks Marcus.

wait, what's clunky about it?

From the first fifty or so pages I've read, I think that excerpt is part of a pattern that exaggerates descriptions of the men in bands to lean on the "Wenner likes hot rock guys" undercurrent. I don't think it's clunky! If anything, there's not a lot going on stylistically and the descriptive phrases and structure feel like by the book writing class material.

Again, Marcus bemoaning cancel culture and dismissing the reaction to what JW said as an overreaction is just coming from a place of thoroughly insulated privilege, from someone who's never had to feel the type of sting and pain caused by those statements. He's more concerned with circling the wagons.

I feel that a lot of people still think a critical reappraisal of privilege and social dynamics means someone's trying to throw their life's work in the dustbin of history. No one criticism is going to do that. It might shift the current view, but the long march of time is what gets us all in the end.

Hey I'm the last person who would ever defend Jann Wenner or Rolling Stone; my history with the magazine is ancient, dead and buried. But I agree with Greil Marcus about Joe Hagan. Sticky Fingers is vile. Here's an excerpt from a rambling blog post I wrote about the book awhile back.

Credited by his peers as a dogged reporter, Hagan digs and delivers a thorough portrait. Yet every step of the way, from Wenner’s privileged and unhappy childhood to his forging of Rolling Stone in the late 60s San Francisco crucible to his relentless pursuit of pleasure and social prominence in the 70s and beyond, Hagan accentuates the negative. Of course, Jann Wenner is own worst enemy much of the time, then and now. He wastes money, mistreats employees and business partners (including John Lennon), maintains an abject relationship with Mick Jagger that resembles Trump’s humiliating bond with Vladimir Putin, and of course inhales enough cocaine to numb the minds of an entire generation. Even the positive and innovative accomplishments of Rolling Stone in various periods get cast by Hagan as flukes or unacknowledged failures. Since I consider Hunter Thompson to be wildly overrated I can’t argue with his sad depiction. But to cite another example: Rolling Stone‘s widely regarded coverage of Altamont, a deeply reported package on the tragic 1969 concert and its era-ending aftermath, strikes Hagan as merely the latest missive in an personal tiff between the Stones lead singer and Jann Wenner.

Much is made in Sticky Fingers of Wenner’s sexual identity, including by Jann himself. Living as a gay man now, after many years or marriage and three adult children, Wenner readily admits to being tortured by his attraction to men during the closeted 1960s. He’s forthright about his inner feelings but Hagan’s breathless, cynical retelling of Jann’s many bisexual exploits during the following decades keeps it superficial. The tone is more censorious than voyeuristic — almost puritanical. At times this biography felt like reading an account of the 1970s written by one of my Catholic high school teachers. See these people you look up to so much, Mr. Coleman, these rock stars and writers? All they do is take drugs and have promiscuous sex and (whisper) some of them are homosexual…

I felt the same, to a lesser extent, about Blake Gopnik's Andy Warhol bio. When a biographer feels contempt for their subject, it seeps into the pages and distorts the life history. Hagan can't see the forest for the trees (pardon the cliche). For all his reporting skills he doesn't have a clue about what it was like to be alive in the Seventies. Well he might have been a child then but you know what I mean.

Robert Draper's Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History is more even-handed and far from adulatory.

Marcus bemoaning cancel culture and dismissing the reaction to what JW said as an overreaction

this is not how I read his Letter in the Ether response linked above.

Huh. I didn't sense the contempt for Warhol; from what I remember Gopnik's good about contexualizing the work and why it was and remains relevant. ymmv.

probably not so much largely bemoaning it but bemoaning the cancellation of JW. noting the egregiousness of his words while suggesting it was a bit cherry-picked as far as the coverage goes, and i mean it really goes remind me of Al Campanis, who was certainly a teammate to Jackie Robinson, iirc supported him coming to the Dodgers, and yet said some horrible things that led to his justifiable dismissal.

https://africa.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/26707588/how-dodgers-great-jackie-robinson-disgraced-exec-al-campanis-changed-game

On April 6, 1987, Dodgers executive Al Campanis appeared on a Nightline program commemorating the 40th anniversary of Robinson's debut and told a national television audience that the reason baseball did not have any black managers, general managers or owners in the game at the time was that "they may not have some of the necessities." Campanis, who had been the Dodgers' GM for close to two decades, resigned two days later, but now the secret was out, for he had officially revealed what black people passed over for jobs had already known: Front offices did not believe they were qualified and had no intention of hiring minority managers.

Even though their eyes should have told them everything they needed to know, it was easy for baseball executives at the time -- as it was for mainstream whites during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s -- to act as if society were moving at an organic, appropriate speed in terms of minority hiring. But Campanis gave voice to a conspiracy, a deliberate institutional thinking that, once voiced, couldn't be massaged or spun or explained away.

Marcus is trying a bit to massage, spin, explain away. Now would JW consider himself racist or misogynist, vote for right-wingers, use slurs in private? No, never, and I really doubt it. Is he an outright *bigot* per se? Not in the sense we usually imagine. But the institutional issues are there.

But the idea that Rolling Stone itself is as such a racist and sexist publication, is to my mind a fraudulent notion, advanced to make other people look good.

Greil must have missed the "hot ready and legal" Lindsay Lohan cover and accompanying article.

Ultimately the comments will stand by themselves, too egregious to apologize for.

is not an effort to explain away.

Perhaps it should be said he's considering them an awkward misstep that is out of character rather than inadvertently revealing something. I think he might be blind to the latter being true because the former is what seems true on the surface. he seems to refuse to consider that as a possibility.

Seems kind of lame for me to argue about something Greil Marcus said while the world is going to shit of course

+1

i mean honestly read the book but policing the ethics of rock criticism is not really a big deal to me at all (though wenner clearly put his hands on the scales often and has admitted as much despite what marcus says)

there's just a lot of specific things he did and ways in which he treated people that just seem beyond the pale to me, like he lacks fundamental empathy to people who aren't jann wenner. so unless marcus is saying those things aren't true and didn't happen, (or like I said even half of them not being true wouldn't be enough for me) - i don't care how the author spun things or whatever precious missing "context" there was, he's a shit human being.

I think they'd imagine that they kept pace with, or were ahead of, the times and that means the racism and sexism were excusable. Which isn't the point of criticisms of systemic bias and prejudice -- it's about effecting change, not doling out punishment. Although it's hard to see the difference when you were in the in-group

Well if nothing else this thread convinced me to check out Betrayed.

THANK YOU, JANN WENNER!

I’m just happy to inspire someone to watch a Costa-Gavras film

It was a Costa-Gavras film I never got around to seeing - in my queue now

https://www.thehandbasket.co/p/exclusive-women-staffers-of-jann

Marisa Kabas talks to twelve women who were RS staffers under Jann

supposedly the first sales numbers on the Wenner interviews book indicated 800 copies were sold

I wonder what the overlap is for people who bought Hackney Diamonds on CD

Wenner should have put out 30 different MLB team cover variants.

xp all of them, the book was a bonus giveaway for the first 800 CD's sold.

Whatever happened to Tom Berenger?

UHELSZKI: What I noticed back in the day with why (Wenner) didn’t put women in Rolling Stone is women in the Seventies and the late Sixties were just encouraged to be pretty. No woman was expected to give her opinions. You were a groupie; if you’re an artist, the attention was on that quaint little term “your old man.” And no one took you seriously. When I started writing in the early Seventies, when you went into an interview or got on a tour, (A) nobody thought you were the writer, and (B) nobody was happy to see you, because the prevailing notion was “What’s a woman know about rock & roll?”

My first road tour was with Steve Miller and I thought he made a pass at me, and then he told me, “That was just a test. How could you actually sleep with the subject of your story, and then the next day shove a microphone in his face?” It was a wakeup call. There was no way I was ever going to have a liaison with one of the people I was writing a story on. [Being hit on] happened all the time. Rick Wakeman answered the door in a towel, and he wouldn’t get dressed.

I have a friend who calls it “embrace the suck” — when something untoward happens, I just use it as part of the story. Every little slight became fodder. Like when Jimmy Page wouldn’t speak to me except through an interpreter when I was on the Led Zeppelin tour — I think it was ’77. He said, “You have to tell my publicist the question, she’ll relay them to me, and she’ll tell you.” It was like a translation, even though we all spoke English. And I made that a story. (Editor’s note: A rep for Miller said he wasn’t available for comment; reps for Wakeman and Page didn’t respond to requests for comment.)

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/women-rock-critics-music-journalism-misogyny-change-1234853829/

You Love To See It:

https://pitchfork.com/news/bernie-taupin-takes-dig-at-jann-wenner-at-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-2023-induction/

“I guess you could say my being inducted is a paradox, perhaps, but either way, I’m honored to be in the class of 2023 alongside a group of such profoundly ‘articulate’ women and outstanding ‘articulate’ Black artists along with all of the other music masters here tonight,” Taupin said. Wenner had said that the female artists he encountered during his time at Rolling Stone were not “articulate enough” to include in the book and gave examples of Black artists who “didn’t articulate at that level.”