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Post by Partridge on Sept 17, 2023 2:01:10 GMT -5
Jann Wenner is somewhat inarticulate... he is certainly no Dave Marsh.
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Post by MokyWI on Sept 17, 2023 7:44:51 GMT -5
How can you say “ARTICULATE AT THAT LEVEL”, TWICE in fact he said it at two different points in the interview. Once when he said females AND then he said FEMALES AND BLACKS at a different point. How do you say something like that, a person with his life experience, his position, the climate in this country right now, and make comment like that TWICE in an interview? Maybe he is having some cognitive issues at this point in his life. I for one couldn’t finish his autobiography which is not like me, I have only not finished a book I started maybe a handful of times in my fifty-eight years. It didn’t grab me and I forced myself to get 3/4 through it and there it still sits at the bottom of the pile next to my bed. I had high hopes that I would enjoy it, thought for sure I would.
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Post by PoP80 on Sept 17, 2023 8:01:17 GMT -5
Since JW considers R&R to be a male profession, he doesn't seem to take women seriously on any level, including his comments about them being inarticulate. He's extremely pompous and offensive. I don't take his so-called apology seriously.
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Post by erik on Sept 17, 2023 18:52:10 GMT -5
Quote by PoP80:
What is very revealing about what Wenner said in that New York Times interview that got him booted off the RRHoF board is that he seems to have actually harbored those opinions in coded language for a long time, and only now has he said those quiet parts out loud. As someone who, along with his cronies, has for so long had such a well-known stranglehold on who gets in and who gets snubbed by the RRHoF (e.g. Linda not getting in until 2014, when she was eligible as early as 1994 and should have been inducted with The Eagles in 1998 [IMHO]), is Wenner that dumb to think that these comments wouldn't somehow get into the media landscape?
No, I don't take his apology seriously. He has done damage to rock and roll equal to what Harvey Weinstein did to the movie business (IMHO).
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Post by RobGNYC on Sept 17, 2023 20:27:26 GMT -5
I wish that I could be as inarticulate as Joni Mitchell.
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Post by sliderocker on Sept 18, 2023 10:46:29 GMT -5
I want to thank Jann Wenner for proving what I have long said about him: You, sir, are a dunderklopen and a conceited a** and someone who kissed a** to get as far as you got in rock and roll media. You considered yourself a kingmaker but you were never worthy of even being a clown. You were a low class jerk incapable of playing or writing music yet thought you were worthy and equal to those who could, even those you looked down on. I don't really want to thank you nor do I really think you should be referred to as a sir. You were an a** who wanted to stand with the king's horses but that's an insult to the a**es who do stand with the king's horses and have more intelligence than you ever could. Guess anyone could say I'm kicking you when you're down but I can't think of anyone who deserves it more than you.
For all the musicians I have known and loved who never got in the hall of fame and who truly deserved the honor and who never got in because of JW. Now, if the hall will only cleanse itself of any of the stink of prejudices Wenner left behind towards certain artists and allow those artists to finally be admitted.
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Post by Dianna on Sept 18, 2023 15:10:01 GMT -5
How can you say “ARTICULATE AT THAT LEVEL”, TWICE in fact he said it at two different points in the interview. Once when he said females AND then he said FEMALES AND BLACKS at a different point. How do you say something like that, a person with his life experience, his position, the climate in this country right now, and make comment like that TWICE in an interview? Maybe he is having some cognitive issues at this point in his life. I for one couldn’t finish his autobiography which is not like me, I have only not finished a book I started maybe a handful of times in my fifty-eight years. It didn’t grab me and I forced myself to get 3/4 through it and there it still sits at the bottom of the pile next to my bed. I had high hopes that I would enjoy it, thought for sure I would. Interesting.. Awhile back, I started listening to a radio interview with Wenner and got so bored I changed the station. Maybe all of that arrogance and bluster is projection. It usually is with those types.. so I've noticed. |
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Post by MokyWI on Sept 19, 2023 6:39:09 GMT -5
How can you say “ARTICULATE AT THAT LEVEL”, TWICE in fact he said it at two different points in the interview. Once when he said females AND then he said FEMALES AND BLACKS at a different point. How do you say something like that, a person with his life experience, his position, the climate in this country right now, and make comment like that TWICE in an interview? Maybe he is having some cognitive issues at this point in his life. I for one couldn’t finish his autobiography which is not like me, I have only not finished a book I started maybe a handful of times in my fifty-eight years. It didn’t grab me and I forced myself to get 3/4 through it and there it still sits at the bottom of the pile next to my bed. I had high hopes that I would enjoy it, thought for sure I would. Interesting.. Awhile back, I started listening to a radio interview with Wenner and got so bored I changed the station. Maybe all of that arrogance and bluster is projection. It usually is with those types.. so I've noticed. That’s what his autobiography was all about, him bragging the whole way through, or at least it came off that way to me. I wanted to like him even though he gave Linda some shit, still thought I would find him interesting…NOT! |
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Post by rick on Sept 19, 2023 14:30:08 GMT -5
Article from today's (Sept. 19) New York Times -- Jann Wenner’s Rock Hall Reign Lasted Years. It Ended in 20 Minutes. In case you can't access the article, I have copied and pasted it below: Jann Wenner’s Rock Hall Reign Lasted Years. It Ended in 20 Minutes.
The day after the Rolling Stone co-founder made remarks widely criticized as racist and sexist in a Times interview, the Hall of Fame called an emergency vote and ousted him.
By BEN SISARIOFor years, Jann Wenner ruled over the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, viewing his chairmanship of its affiliated foundation as an extension of the cultural gatekeeping power he long wielded as the co-founder and editor of Rolling Stone magazine.
Wenner spoke for the hall publicly, opening its annual induction festivities and posing in chummy photos with music stars. Behind the scenes, he flaunted outsize influence over which of those artists got in and which didn’t, and spoke bluntly about the institution being under his control.
That power came to a swift and brutal end on Saturday afternoon, as Wenner was ousted from the foundation’s board, one day after he was quoted at length in an interview in The New York Times making remarks that were widely criticized as racist and misogynistic.
On Saturday, John Sykes, a media executive who took over as chairman from Wenner in 2020, emailed board members calling for an emergency meeting at 5 p.m. Eastern time. The sole topic on the agenda: a vote on ejecting Wenner.
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.”
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.”
It was a stunning fall for Wenner, who, through his command of both Rolling Stone and the Rock Hall, long held a doubly powerful perch in the music industry, able to boost — or diminish — artists’ careers based on his tastes or whims. Those biases collided with efforts by the hall’s new leadership to address criticism that it has failed to adequately include women and minorities in its pantheon.
In the Times interview, conducted by David Marchese, Wenner, 77, explained why his new book, “The Masters” — a collection of his interviews over the years with rock stars like Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and Springsteen, mostly from the pages of Rolling Stone — included no women or people of color as subjects. He said that none were “as articulate enough on this intellectual level,” and that he did not view them as “philosophers of rock.”
“You know, just for public relations’ sake,” he added, “maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism. Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a [expletive] or whatever.”
Those comments drew immediate fire on social media. Just as quickly, alarmed phone calls and emails began circulating among the 31 board members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which includes music and media executives, players from the finance world and star artists including Pharrell Williams and LL Cool J. (The foundation, created in 1983, chooses the artists who are inducted, and is affiliated with the museum in Cleveland.)
“Your words run the risk of undermining the very institution you helped build by propagating a narrative that isn’t just narrow but also exclusionary,” Troy Carter, a former Spotify executive and adviser to the Prince estate, told Wenner in an email to board members that was obtained by The Times.
Interviews with four people with direct knowledge of the board vote, who spoke anonymously because the panel’s deliberations are confidential, paint a picture of urgency and rage inside the institution.
While board members felt personally appalled by Wenner’s comments, they were also worried about the impact on the hall itself, and its vital relationships with artists — some of whom were already beginning to complain. One missive came from Bernie Taupin, Elton John’s longtime songwriting partner, who is set to receive the musical excellence award at this year’s ceremony on Nov. 3 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Heather Taupin, his wife and manager, sent an email to hall officials calling Wenner’s comments “a slap in the face” to inductees and adding, “We feel very strongly he should immediately resign.”
Although the hall oversees the voting that selects the winners, delicate diplomacy often happens behind the scenes to ensure that artists will accept the honor and appear on its annual induction TV show. This year’s honorees include Kate Bush, Missy Elliott, Willie Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Rage Against the Machine, the Spinners and George Michael, who died in 2016.
At the board meeting, a few members expressed their dismay over Wenner’s comments. Wenner also spoke briefly, though his remarks failed to sway the assembled directors, who include some of music’s most powerful figures at major record labels, music publishers and in the touring world.
The entire meeting was over in about 20 minutes, and the hall then announced the decision with a brief statement. The vote to remove Wenner took effect immediately.
Representatives of the hall declined to release any details about the vote, other than that there was a quorum of at least 16 people on the call, as required by the organization’s bylaws.
Wenner did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement issued Saturday evening, he said, in part: “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.”
In casting their votes, the board members may have been focusing solely on Wenner’s recent interview. But the extent of his influence over the Hall of Fame has long been seen by some as a liability for the institution.
In “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine” (2017), a ruthlessly critical biography by Joe Hagan, Wenner was quoted openly describing a kind of autocratic control over the hall. “In a sense, it’s owned by Rolling Stone; it’s a creation of Rolling Stone,” Wenner said. “It’s unfair to some people to say that. But that’s what it is. It’s my thing.”
The Rock Hall has long disputed that position, arguing that its internal processes, while opaque, are properly democratic and fair. Many artists and their business representatives, however, have scoffed at that (at least until being inducted).
Even as complaints about the lack of diversity in the hall began to grow louder over the last decade — according to a detailed study in 2019, just 7.7 percent of the people inducted into the hall up to that point were women — Wenner dismissed the critique.
In an interview with The Times that year, announcing his resignation as chairman, he said, “I don’t think that’s a real issue,” and added: “People are inducted for their achievements. Musical achievements have got to be race-neutral and gender-neutral in terms of judging them.”
Under Sykes, the hall has made a public effort to diversify its leadership ranks and induct more women and minority artists.
The fallout from Wenner’s ouster at the Hall of Fame was immediate. Rolling Stone, which Wenner left in 2019, distanced itself from its founder. His son Gus, now Rolling Stone’s chief executive, told staffers in an email: “While I love him deeply, I do not agree with the comments he made and understand why they are so upsetting and hurtful.”
But his legacy has not been erased. A representative of Penske Media Corporation, which owns the magazine, said that Wenner’s name would remain on the masthead as co-founder.
And Little, Brown, the publisher of “The Masters,” has not changed its publication plan to release the book on Sept. 26.
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Ben Sisario covers the music industry. He has been writing for The Times since 1998.[/i] |
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Post by erik on Sept 19, 2023 19:24:00 GMT -5
A follow-up:
I think the only "No" vote against showing Wenner the door was by Jon Landau, a long-time member of the Rolling Stone family and, strangely enough, also still Bruce Springsteen's manager as well. Might his "no" vote be interpreted as a tacit endorsement of Wenner and his misogyny??
Watch this space.
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Post by erik on Sept 19, 2023 19:35:19 GMT -5
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