Jann Wenner

Mr. Rolling Stone. Jann has a new book of interviews entitled "The Masters." We discuss the artists and more. (Note: This was recorded on Monday September 11th, prior to the publication of the "New York Times" interview and the subsequent controversy.)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is Yon Winner, who's got a new
book of interviews entitled The Masters. Yon. How'd you decide
who's going to be in the.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Book, Well, first off, it's good to be here with you, Bob,
and I'm had to be glad to be welcomed and
welcomed and welcomed. You bet. Surely I picked the interviews.
I didn't choose the interviews. They chose me. They are
the ones I did over a fifty year period rolling Zone,
and they were just the people who I was totally

(00:42):
interested in the most of talking to and finding out
what they were thinking and about how they did, what
they were doing, what they thought about rock and roll.
So it wasn't every deliberate. I didn't decide even to
do this until last year when I look back and
saw this collection of people represent a really great selection

(01:04):
of the of the men not women unfortunately, who made
rock and roll and over this last fifty years made
it what it was today. They mainly were people, you know,
they were old. These are people who have been around
for a while, but they weren't sense The Masters, the Stones, Dylan,
the Beatles, you know, Bono, the Dead, Bruce Springsteen to who.

(01:30):
These are the great names of our times. They're not
all of them, it's not complete, but these are the
ones I gravitated to, and it turns out to be
a great selection.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So who was left on the cutting room floor?

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, nobody was left on the cutting floor. I mean
there's a few interviews I did that I did were
done with the kind of gravitass and length and intensity.
I mean I did leave a Hendrix's interview on the
cutting room floor, because you know, looking back, I was
like nineteen sixty eight. I just went he was in
San Francisco, and I went over to his hotel room.

(02:03):
We sat aroun all afternoon, smoking dope and playing with
the tape recorder. It just wasn't that good. It's not
very much one. It's going to last a long time.
And then I'm one of the very first sentenced with
a guitar named Mike Blomfield, who was a great guitarist,
somewhat obscure but also not a great think about rock

(02:23):
and roll and all the issues that were attacked to
it in terms of youth culture and the politics of
the United States.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Okay, The interviews ranged from nineteen sixty eight with Pete
Towns into today twenty twenty three with Springsteen. Did you
always have in the back of your mind this fifty
five year old interview with Townshend or did you have
to go back and review what interviews you had done.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
I always had it in mind. Once the idea that
I would do this book came, I didn't do that.
I mean, this is this is most of the work
that I did, because I didn't do interviews as a
general thing. I was busy running a magazine. But if
there was somebody I was really interested in, wanted to
talk and wanted to learn from, wanted to just soak
up the vibe, I understand, why is it that we're
all so excited about this music? I would I would

(03:17):
go do interview them with so I knew that they
were there. Of course I read them again, but it
was clear to me which they were. These were all
of them, really, except for Hendricks and Bloomfield. Okay, but
I used to interview the presidents too. I interviewed Obama
and Clinton and gal Go and so forth. But this
is about music, not about politics.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Just staying with the politics for a second, could you
get straight? I mean, I read these interviews were in
when they were in the magazine Rolling Stone, of course,
but when you're there sitting down with them, are they
answering honestly or are they always weaseling? And how do
you nail them.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Down about musicians or politicians? Politicians politicians are not weasling
or lying or if you try to ask them stuff
that is kind of got youa question or is going
to get them in trouble. You know they're not going

(04:16):
to answer you. Number one, because the slightest mistake they
make can be used by the opposing party. Now, these
are interviews I did in the middle of elections. You know,
the slightest little mistatement and the other guy's going to
jump on you. And the other guy being Republican, they're
usually merciless, you know, I'm thankless, and they're ability to
distort and anything. So there's a danger in it. So

(04:38):
also I find those areas boring. You know, the gotcha
question is never interesting in the end what I'm trying
to do. And also the other thing is that because
the politics are so rough these days and the communications
around us, media is so intense, you know, focus on everything.

(05:00):
They are really pretty carefully rehearsed about everything they're going
to say. Not rehearse in the sense of rehearsal for debate,
but their practice. They know their positions on stuff. They've
been vetted, They've discussed the stuff with their advisors. It's
a product of a lot of policy stuff. They've decided
already what they're going to stand for, and what they're
going to campaign, and what they're going to stand for,
and what's the best compromise of interests, say between unions

(05:22):
in the coal industry and you know, environmentals. They've come
up with their ability how to satisfy all the interests
where they want where they want to be on a position.
So you're not going to get them to make any
breakthroughs there. So what I do is when I interview
them is I want to try and get to know
them a little better. I want to know a little
about how they feel about things. How do you feel
about you know, when you go to the Arctic, like

(05:44):
say Obama did or whatever. Do you worry about your
own kids and what's going to happen you know in
twenty years, where's your level of compassion about this anything?
And just trying to get the personal aspect. You have
to know those persons. I always ask them, of course,
what's their favorite music? And not to me that's fascinating
and it tells you a lot about the individuals. I mean,

(06:04):
I can tell you exactly these people are almost by
type because of the music they listen to. You know,
al Go is a total Beatles fan, you know, Bob
Dylan fan. The new Dylan record come out, he listened
to thirty times. I know, I know that person. You know. Uh,
Obama was a big Stevie Wonder loved the Rolling Stones,

(06:25):
picked all the right albums, you know. Quoted Dylan to me,
but not the when Obama said that's one of his
favorite spoke to him during his campaign. The Dylan. He
didn't say blowing in the wind or the times that
you know, or how many roads must say. He said, well,
it's Pizza's, you know, Maggie's farm. In others, I ain't
going to work on Maggie's farm no more. And which

(06:46):
is a song about, you know, it's working on plantation,
you know, black people being I mean, he was deep
into it, you know, and he's getting the real anyway.
That's the politician thing not to say. You know, you
asked about issues and a lot of serious stuff. But
I think the issue with my interviewing, well, I like

(07:08):
about my interviews with the musicians and with the politicians.
I am not there to challenge you, you know, or
hold you up on the cross for your sins imagine. Otherwise,
I'm there to find out what you think you know,
and what you believe, and what's influenced you and where

(07:28):
you came from, and what your vision is for yourself
and for our country. And I find those things much
more interesting, harder to get and rare to find. And
I think that's one of the things that's so special
about my interviewing and style and about the book I
just wrote or just put out.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Just staying with politics for a minute, Jimmy Carter was
constantly quoting Bob Dylan other rock lyrics. Was friends with
the Allman Brothers. Was that fake or was that real?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
So that was real? You know, I mean that was real.
You look talked to re endorsed him, Hunter, fell in
love with him, but talked to Bob about it, for example,
you know who spent all this time with Carter talking
to him, you know, and uh, discussing all the concerns
that they would have in his lyrics. I mean, Jimmy

(08:21):
Carter is the real deal, you know his I'm very
unusual for president to be so direct and open, you know,
and candidate about stuff. And you know, he paid the
price for that a little, you know, he paid the
price for his times. He I don't you know, he
van against Reagan. He had the hostage christ. I mean,
I think that could have all worked, and he would

(08:43):
if he had been in reelected. It wouldn have gone
through even greater things, you know, but in of itself,
I think he would have did was so important. Okay.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
There are two Dylan interviews in the book. One is
classic Dylan in the Yobs the Skates. One is more honest,
what was your experience like in terms of getting some
level of truth, getting anything at all from doing well?

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Bob is the trickster, you know, he's a the joker man.
He's the you know, a song and dance guy. He's
very funny, he has and a great wit was he
like says, and he also it's an attitude which is
I don't he doesn't really want to explain a lot
of stuff to you, you know, I mean he's reluctant

(09:30):
to give it up, and what do you need to
know it for? And also he's been bugged all his
life by people who have found such deep meaning and
views about life that are so more important to them.
I mean, he understands the role he's played in people's
life and people's lives, in our country's life, and he
gets all that. And I think he understands where where

(09:52):
he stands in poetry and literature, and almost exactly where
he stands. You know, he would never admen any of that.
He would profess I don't know, you know this. I
just can here to amuse people. I'man here to sing
songs or amuse people, or I'm a song and dance
man or stuff like that, which is patently untrue. And

(10:14):
he knows that, but he and he just likes playing games.
So I think when I read over the first interview,
the one you're referring to it as a classic, and
the one that's which he seems to be most evasive,
read a little more carefully. He's not that evasive. If
he doesn't want to answer a question, he won't answer it,
and he'll say so, you know, I mean, it's or

(10:39):
where was that one about? Or I say, well, we'll
have to see about that. I mean, he gets out
of it not by lying, you know, but by kind
of amusingly, you know, softball in the question, throw any
question away, or hitting with the side of his hand
in a gentle and very funny fashion. And at that period,

(11:04):
at that time, for that period, that was as straight
as he was ever and again straightforward with people in interviews.
So but I know what you're saying, and so you
know these he's difficult to interview. But the thing about
that partic an interview I thought was really great is
it felt so much of that time and place. It's
so recalled that Bob Dylan. You know, you could just
hear it, you know, that was him. Then it was

(11:25):
so authentic, you know. And he was also reading again
readingting in life. He was very personal about stuff, you know,
because I was kept asking, how do you feel about being,
you know, the so called youth theater and he said
I don't. And he says, I don't want to. I
wasn't meant for that. You know, there are people in
that position. I could lift every burden. I would, but
that's not me. That's not my job. But then so

(11:51):
I find it such an interesting document. I mean, just
that preserves Bob in that period so brilliantly, and it's
a better and nicer Bob than you see and don't
look back. And then in the second one, which we
did in two thousand seven, I think because the day
this is of course very much sure Bob. I mean,
he's got modern times out at that time, and he's

(12:12):
just much more reflective and deep and thoughtful about everything.
But it's that funny thing. It starts off with a
tease he's doing to me, you know, like saying, well,
I don't you know, like I'm not gonna hang I
can't you know what? You know? Like just putting me
through the ringer a little. And by that time we
gotten to know each other and trust each other, and
it's reflective of that.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Okay, you leave the grammatical errors in Bob's language in
the book. Is that an affectation? Does he really know
the right word to use or is it him being uneducated?

Speaker 2 (12:48):
What is it? I don't think I leave the grammatical
errors and.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
Well, no, he'll say them instead of they Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Well, I think think when you edit a verbal interview
for reading, you have to now turn into something as readable.
And if you always get this, if you get a
constant repeating thing all the time, or misuse of grammar,
you know, I gintly take it all out, unless somehow
you're learning something from that or there's something idiomatic or

(13:20):
special about that. But the repetition of stuff can become cliched. Also,
like and the ones who are hardest. It took a
lot of editing, particularly Jerry Garcia, because here's a lot
of a man's and old man and wow, and you know,
a lot of that kind of hippie stuff. And when
you listen to the tape you don't even hear it,
but if you see it on the written page, you know, Jesus,

(13:41):
there's five wows in one sense, you know, in seven us.
And so you want to clean up as a courtesy,
but without changing any meaning and also leaving enough in
so you can get the sense of the person, the
way they talk and who they are.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
So striking a balance. Okay, what's fascinating to me is
in your talk with Dylan and your talk with Bono,
there's a lot of accolades for bringing it all back home.
Whereas conventional wisdom is highway sixty one, which has like
a rolling stone and then blonde on blonde thereafter. So

(14:17):
in your own personal hierarchy from that early era, the
pre seventy or the pre so called motorcycle accident era,
what is the greatest work?

Speaker 2 (14:28):
Well, it's that's a hard and say. But say in
that era if you want to talk about that pre
John Mussey Harding, pre motorcycle accident, and you're saying, really
the bawd I'm blombering out back Home or or Highway
sixty one. I mean it's a matter of personal preference really,
or maybe when you first heard it, I'm a Highway

(14:48):
sixty one guy. Yeah, but the other two are just
genius as well. Bono as an intellectual guy, so he
he likes bringing it All back home, you know, and
they're grateful dead first Jerry and those people came into
it during Bringing It All Back Home, during that kind
of folk era. But like Bruce says, he's listened to

(15:11):
I Was sixty one of one hundred times, you know.
I mean that's where he got his rock. That's when
he grew up and he came into it. Was it
that record he didn't renewed Bringing All Back home and existed.
He just heard that rock and roll sound on sixty
one with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kubernet Band and went nuts,
as did I. So they're all it's hard to say.

(15:33):
They are great records, you know, and they continue to
be records.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Okay. So were you aware of the first Dylan album
on Columbia which was mostly covers or did you come
in on free Wheeling? Where did you come in?

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I came in on Bringing It All Back Home, and
I suppose Highway sixty one more than anything.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Okay, So how did you become aware of Bringing in
It All back Home? Because of course there were covers,
but it wasn't until Highway sixty one that Bob was
on top forty radio and this is prior to the
breakthrough of underground FM radio.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Well, you know, the first big, big Dyn't hit song
was Mister Tambourine Man by the Birds, and so once
you heard that, which was a breakout song, you know
in this writing and what was saying and take me
on a trip on your wellness spaceship whatever you know,
through the smoke brings of your mind with that so

(16:30):
called folk rock twelves Dring, Jim mcguinnac companyment. You know,
you merely sat up and said, where'd this come from?
And let me find out about it? But also your
friends were telling you about it, and it just you know,
everybody's discovering you know, a lot of people were discovering
Bob Big at that particular point, you know, and the
more populars that song broke broke Bob through to the

(16:52):
rock and roll audience and broke through folk rock and
set the stage for a sixty one.

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Okay. There's a lot of debate fifty odd years later
as to how extensive Bob's motorcycle accident was, whether that's
an issue of retiring from public observation, or whether he
was really banged up. What's your opinion.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
I think he was really banged up. You can get
pretty banged up in a motorcycle accident. But I also
think it came at a time where he needed to
be slowed down because I think he was taking a
lot of speed then a lot of drugs, and I
think it's kind of evident in his behavior and his lyrics.
You know, I'm just you know, this just an intuitive,
non experts opinion. This is an expert opinion. The UH

(17:40):
and he needed to slow down. He's forced to slow down,
you know, by the hand of God or whatever by
taking a turn or too fast. And he understood it
as such that it was a sign signal, you know,
they wouldn't been out there recklessly motorcycles. So I think
it was key and critical to his work. I mean,
I think what he did next, because he did John

(18:01):
Wessey Harden, right, which is a complete turn from you know,
thirty minutes songs on blonde and Blonde I'm talking about,
you know, amphetamines and pearls and your magazine husband just
has to go and stuff like that to a very
very classic restrained country album made National, which is a
beauty and said, you know, it's a different Bob. After that,

(18:24):
I think it was very real.

Speaker 1 (18:26):
Okay, in a different era where there are limited media sources,
Rolling Stone broke the story of the basement Tapes, the
Great White wonder, how did you become aware of that?

Speaker 2 (18:40):
I had forgotten that I had done that I had
and I read it somewhere in its very small world
then of the music industry and music people and music scenes.
Somebody gave me a copy of this tape that they
had sent out for Demos to as Demos started selling songs,
and it was circling around at A few people know

(19:00):
about it, and here here's something special. Was well, had
no public visibility whatsoever. And I heard it and loved it,
and then I thought, this is an album. I mean,
this could justifies easily being released on I wrote a
thing in Rolling Stone and like issue fifteen or fourteen
or something, say debate and said the Basement Tapes must
be released, you know. And and I reviewed what was

(19:23):
on there and said why it should be released, And
soon enough they released him.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Okay, in the fall of seventies, I believe you printed
a whole story that was a hoax about this album.
What was the genesis of that?

Speaker 2 (19:44):
I had nothing to do with it. It was greal Marcus.
It was a very distinguished Craig was our record review
headed there, and he and some of the other his friends,
and there were also some of the critics decide they
put together. It was an album called the Masked Marauders
or was it called Yeah, Great Much Wonder the Hottest.
The name of the album was A Great White Wonder.

(20:05):
This is after this is uh at the era of
the super group. So called it was when you know,
uh Bloomfield was playing. I forgot which the groups were.
Traffic may have formed in or maybe it was Cream
was around then, and they started guest musicians with other bands.
Was very unusual then it didn't happen. You had to

(20:27):
have the actual permission of the record company that you
were signed you to participate. I mean so antique. It's
these these are long ago days, feel And so they
wrote a spoof. They did a spoof for the super
group and they reviewed it. I mean, they didn't do
the right They wrote a review of the Great White
Wonder and said that Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and Paul

(20:48):
McCartney or whomever had all assembled secretly in Hudson Bay, Canada,
you know, and put together this great record and it
was flying out the shelves or whatever. People. So we
started getting phone call with the office asked how do
you get the record? How do you get in touch
with the group? You know, managers calling record comings balling
there because they want to get a hold of it. Well,
of course, so Greal said, whether they go ahead and

(21:10):
record the album? And then Warner Brothers signed it, you know,
no as a just general good time goof okay. In
the second Dillon interview, nowadays throw you in jail for
violenting your copyright.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
The second Dillon interview, you talk about the Endless Tour,
although it's not referred to under that moniker. Whereupon he
rearranges the music and he the classic tunes. Anybody who
goes to the show knows that he may play a
classic tune and you may not even recognize it. Bob

(21:49):
gives his explanation. Do you buy his explanation, and do
you still enjoy the modern day concerts which are not faithful?

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I forget his explanation and just refresh me on that.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Well, it's basically he says, the song deems to be
played that way, that ultimately you start with the recording,
then the song evolves and every night there's a different listen.
It's a facocta explanation. That's why I asked you.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
There's a you know, there's a grain of truth in
that explanation, but that's all. That's about what there is
on that beach. I think that there's a couple of
things work. He has more fun doing it differently rather
than singing at the same time. Eighteen million time in
a row, and then there's a period in there where
he would I thought, did it deliberately just to confuse, frustrate,

(22:41):
you know, do whatever kind of strange thing is in
his mind. I mean, he has got to have known
that the audience comes to hear some of the big
hits as well his new stuff, and it's a disappointments
to people not to hear one of their favorite Bob
songs done in a way you expect to hear, and
then to not regulariz which he knows they're not recognizable,

(23:02):
and we called them on it, and I'm sure a
lot of other people that I remember even walking out
of a Dylan show years ago because of that. You know,
it's just so you know, you don't want to know
that the song is you know, you barely recognize it,
and it's frustrating and it's and it's disrespectful of his audience. Well,

(23:22):
somewhere along the line, you know, about ten years ago,
he changed that and he went back to doing this song.
So now he does something really interesting. He does a
couple of versions of the old songs in generally the
old style or the familiar style, you know, a little
a little better, a little that which is really satisfacing.
They don't take a few, he'll really rework them in

(23:43):
a way that's so amazing. He will turn something, you know,
a ballot into a stately, dignified, aching, beautiful song of
something like like don't Think twice, you know it just
it becomes a gospel tune almost. I mean, they're beautiful
what he does with it. And now what he's doing,
and that is he's really singing primarily his new records

(24:05):
and his new songs, which he's got a lot of now,
and he doesn't have the voice for the old songs,
you know, it's not they don't suit him anymore, and
it's better for him to stay away from them because
he can't do you know, tambourine man or blown in
the wind like he used to in the way you want.
It's got to be in a different way. And he's
doing that with real taste and style of imagination now

(24:26):
and he's accepting, you know, his new voice. It's kind
of blown out and horsemen smoking, but nonetheless quite beautiful.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Let's switch to Jerry Garcia.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
What do we know?

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Had four albums, well, three albums before Live Dead, and
if you opened up Live Dead from nineteen sixty nine,
you saw the Grateful Dead playing in the streets of
San Francisco. The real breakthrough was working Man'stead and then
American Beauty. But since you were living on the West
Coast prior to Working Man's Dead. In the book, Jerry

(25:03):
gives a relatively complete delineation of his history and his
history of the band. But were you aware of the
Dead back then and what was their cultural impact? Oh?

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Well, I was aware of the Dead before I even
started Rolling Stone. I mean they were part of this
kind of like hippie drug scene that I was getting into.
A few people in Palo Alto near Stanford, doing me
in Berkeley, and a bunch of kids in San Francisco
State And so everybody in each of those three scenes

(25:36):
was taking drugs and aware of the people in the
other scenes and go back and forth. That was the
genesis of it all. So I happened to because of
that run into the Dead. In nineteen sixty sixty five,
I went to a Rolling Stones concert in San Jose
and next door to the you know, or in that
same neighborhood. The very first as well, so the very

(25:58):
first asstest was being and I went to that and
it was The Dead was playing in the living room
of this big kind of college attorney or something like that.
And it was the first night they'd ever performed as
the Grateful Dead. They had been Mother McCurry's jug band
up until that, and that was the first night they
were using that name. It was just in somebody's living room,

(26:19):
but it was the group. It was them, and and
I went up to it was either less or we
Are and I said, well, wow, you guys, and I'm
taking acid at the time. You guys are like, oh
my god, mind blowing. What is your name? And he
turns around and goes, we are the Grateful Dead, and
well what is that? Okay? But then so anyway, I

(26:40):
would see them a lot before starting rolling the Stone,
and once I started Rolling Stone, they were, of course,
you know, part of what we did. One of my
best friends was the best friend of the Bill Kreisman,
a drummer, and kind of managed them on the road
for a little bit. And so you know, I saw
a lot of them, you know, And I'm a dead head.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
And what about keys? You were you aware? Have you
read one flew overs the Cuckoo's Nests and the Acid
tests and was he a presence or did you have
to wait for Tom Wolves book to find out what
was really going on?

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Oh? I didn't have to wait for Tom's book. I
we keasey how I was aware of Keysy. I went
to acid tests. I've been down at his house. We
uh uh. Everybody knew his books and there were brilliant,

(27:31):
great books, I mean great books. And he was just
a key member of that that tripartina was part tight
scene I was talking about. He was in Stanford. He
participated in the first LSD experiments conducted by some government
agency with Stanford under contract to Stanford, and part of
that group of guys go, who this stuff is fantastic.

(27:52):
I don't know what they're trying to test for, and
turned on the Grateful Dead and a lot of other
people to the acid around there. And so keysys in
a way the v godfather of the San Francisco scene
and asked tests and you know, just sort of one
branch of the hippie thing. Ken later, you know, became
a regular contribute to Throwing Stone. I mean, I think

(28:13):
I cut it up. He wrote about I think twenty
seven pieces for Rolling Stone over the years, and you know,
He's a hero of mine, and in a way I mean,
I think he's I said, the god of the sea.
He is a great man, great American novelist.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
Okay, so to what degree did electrocool aid acid test
have an impact upon you personally?

Speaker 2 (28:34):
He didn't personally impact I'd already been there and done that.
It impacted me on that. I was so impressed with
Tom and how he was able to catch what I
consider such an evanescent scene, you know, something that's ephemeral
and ethereal and hard hard to get, and he got it,
and it made me all the more impressed with him.

(28:55):
So I just one of the first things I did
when I started rolling stones try and find him, seek
him out, and to get the right to get to
get him to write for us. And I did, and
he did write for us, and the history came out
of that.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Okay. Unfortunately Tom has passed, But in the aftermath and
a little bit during his leader years, people said that
he was a Republican right winger. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Uh? You know, I never talked politics with Tom in
that way, partially because I suspected or new he was
very conservative individual, but not he wasn't concerned in this
hard right sense that people are now. Tom was a humanist,
you know, he liked people. He liked weird people, you know,

(29:43):
and weird culture. I mean, by no means was he
kind of one of those William F. Buckley type haters.
He was kind of snobby Tom. You know, he could
be very he was very elegant, aristocratic his thing. He
was very conservative. He's old fashioned. He's a very old

(30:05):
fashioned gentleman. And he was a great gentleman from the south,
from Virginia. But he wasn't a radical, you know. I
mean he would never go for something like Trump and
would be terribly imus this is my Trump. But uh yeah,
he was conservative. I think he was politically conservative, yes,
but not in that way that you hate people these days.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
So the Dead have this burst of popularity in the seventies.
They ultimately have an MTV hit on earst in the eighties,
but there becomes this whole new wave of fans before
Jerry dies. Of course, we have the incident at the
gig where the stands, where people die, etc. But as

(30:49):
someone who has been there from day one, what do
you think about the latter day deadheads? Let me go
a little bit further. If I say anything about the
Grateful Dead, people correct me, even though I saw him
in nineteen seventy and they weren't even born yet.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
Wells shown your age. I mean, what what is exactly?
What is the question there?

Speaker 1 (31:18):
How do you feel do you feel that the latter
day that it's an affectation that the gen xers have
latched on to the grateful Dead? Let me go one
step further. Springsteen, who's in your book and very eloquent
in your book. You know I saw Springsteen. I bought

(31:39):
the first album, saw Im the bottom Line in seventy four,
the year before Bla to Run. What I always say
about Springsteen is I have no problem with Springsteen. I
just hate his fans. Same deal with the dead, their authorities.
You can't say anything negative, etc. Now the Grateful Day,

(32:00):
since you were around back then, they would play for
four hours. One hour would be unlistenable, one hour would
be great, and two hours would be so so. But
you can't even say that the dead have been iconized
at this point in time. So with your perspective, how
do you feel about the dead and the modern day
interpretation of them?

Speaker 2 (32:22):
Well, I mean I love the classical Dead, The Dead
before anybody, before they made their first record that was
The Dead. I grew up with herd gotten indelible and
was made indelible in my mind, whether Pig Pens blues
playing or Jerry's Garteit guars. Jerry's wonderful guitar playing, and

(32:46):
I liked where they evolved too, but they got to
a point for me that's hard to say. When I
got so involved with Rolling Stone Range in New York,
I kind of lost track for a while there. But
there's a period there that they just like I lost
Got two Jazzy too, prophevizational and I think that came

(33:06):
to go too many drugs, So I think I lost that.
Even to this day, I prefer the more structured songs
uh and uh, you know, where they're tight and they're
bluesy and you can really hear the guitar playing and
really act as a good rhythm section. I can kind
of get lost in China Cat Sunflower, you know, and
just I love to listen for Jerry's Garcian garci Is

(33:28):
guitar playing and it's really wonderful voice. But you know,
have a limited there's a limited range of dead stuff.
I like today the band of the last several years
with John Mayer and it I went. So it was terrific, actually,
and I think it's really shaped up. I think a
lot to do with John Mayer being there. I mean,
he's a wonderful interpreter, non imitator of Jerry, but I

(33:51):
think he bought some kind of missing structure and professionalism
to the band. You know that this set is organized
and tighter, and they're kind of thing more responsible to
the audience, and they still deliver the long jams and
they still deliver all that, and you know, but it's
the essence of it. I have no problem with the fans.
I mean I look at it, and you know, I

(34:12):
just see people, you know, when I see it, I
see people having a good time and trying to recreate
the old days or trying to live another live in
another era. And you know, whether they felt it deep
in their soul or where it came from, where his
style or whatever. I just think it's all sincere and
have a good time and looking strange and you know,

(34:35):
celebrating an era which was wonderful. I mean, it's great
to be a fan of something, you know. I mean,
I'm a more I'm a big fan, you know, of
lots of particularly Stones and Bruce and Bob and the
people I've had here in the Dead and you know,

(34:56):
it's deep into the trivia of it and the passionate
about what song is better? Alb and you liked one. Yeah,
it's fun. It's good to do that. And I think
with a group like that which has stands for such
positive stuff, you know, and with the music is so
interesting and fulfilling, I think it's great, you know. And

(35:16):
uh so I don't distain him and am I and
you know, half the time in their opinion, some random
fans opinion is as good as mine, you know. I mean,
Bruce plays for three and a half hours, the Dead
plays for three and a half hours. Stones just to
two and a half. I'm ripped off, you know. But they,
on the other had put fortunate to at fucking stage,

(35:37):
you know. Okay, just staying with John Mayer, Dead End
Company was tighter and more together than The Grateful Dead
with Jerry ever were, although if you say that, you
know you're a heretic. But let's switch to John Lennon.
You have an edited version of what came out as
a book as Lennon remembers. Now supposedly Lennon was pissed

(36:03):
that he gave you this interview that you turned into
a book that you sold as a book. Was that
your understanding and what was going on there? Well, the
book as it now is out is the full and
complete thing, and the interview that is in the book
that I'm just publishing. I cleaned up a lot for

(36:23):
as you mentioned before, for you know, verbal tics, and
I took a lot of stuff out there was just
not relevant, you know, some discussion of apple business. There's
things that are current then and names that don't mean anything.
They're just you know, focusing more stuff, and and uh,
the reaction, the reaction after the book came out was
pretty stunny. You know. It was like became worldwide headlines

(36:46):
because it was the first time that any Beatle talked
openly about what it was like to be in the Beatles,
who they were, what they did, let alone, you know,
who wrote what, and all the kind of musicianship questions.
But nobody had pierced or gone inside the Beatles. They
were sealed off. They were the most famous group in
the world. They had lovable mop tops kept behind glass barriers,

(37:09):
and all stuff. So this breaking of the silence and
this kind of and also saying that they were breaking up.
And in this interview he detailed the breakup and while
they wake up upset lots of people, and he was
harsh about McCartney. Any case. Reaction was amazing. I mean,
it was headlines around the world, every even in Tibet,

(37:29):
you know, the Laws of Laws of Daily covered in
the front page. You know, it was everywhere because the
Beatles were everywhere. They were the Beatles. So I think
it shocked John, and John did not want to see
it reissued as a book, and I did and uh,
because no more that was already published tonight, it was

(37:49):
my right to do so, uh, And I went ahead
and did it. And I regretted the bad feelings that caused,
but you know, because I didn't, I hated, you know,
doing that. I mean, John meant so much to me personally,
and he had done so much for Rolling Stone, including
giving us this interviews and earlier stuff that put Rolling

(38:12):
Stone on the map. You know, I don't. I don't
know how I would have done it today. You know,
today I might have done it differently. You know, today
I maybe didn't. I don't need the money, you know
I needed need it then or whatever it was. But
so anyway, customer. But we reconciled and we start corresponding again,
and Rolling Stones always backing him on everything he was doing,

(38:35):
and he was always writing us letters and uh, you
know in the end, Gabe, you know, I was giving
another huge interview view to you know, to Rolling Stone
at that time, and he was show me another cover.
So you know, I mean I we would become friends again,
you know.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
So okay, so have you seen the extended let it
be get back on TV?

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Know? I haven't.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
Well, I would say, and as he had lenin Fiend,
he comes across as an asshole. Yeah, so what was
your experience one on one with him? Well, John was
a had a sharp tongue. It would be very tough,
you know, constantly going on. You know, I've talked all
the time and just sharp.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
You know, one of those people's can't act just they're
with you know, they're saying something funny is more important
than any feelings or friendship. You know, if it's a
clever line, let's do it, you know. And if you're
not strong enough or tough enough to take it, too bad,
you know, and the when I saw that, when I

(39:48):
saw Well, I did see a little bit of that
movie though, but let it be uh well, the first
time I saw as I saw with John and his
things after is Oh, it's just Paul's point of view.
This is an edit that came out years ago and
I guess had a limited releasing with drawn or something
like that. He felt it was Paul doing his selections
of the stuff and the material. This point Paul's point

(40:08):
of view, and I was always kind of sympathetic to John,
and because I've been listening only to John about there
were conditions. But once you see that movie, see John
looks like he's trying to sabotage the whole session, difficult
to reign and difficult to pay attention, you know, always
making cutting remarks not available, slumped in the side of
the room, and Paul is desperately trying to organize this

(40:30):
session and make people show up on time and doing
all the things you do as a leader. It and
the movie is fantastic, but I saw a very I
saw a forty vinement selection of clips that were admittedly
assembled by Paul, and that he showed you a bunch
of friends and he had the director Peter Jackson put

(40:52):
this together as a private thing. And your first thing
is you told swept away by that history, by that
time that placed those songs down there, made the magic
of the entire thing is alive and full blast. Then
as you as you're a Beals fan like I am

(41:15):
was will always be, and you start parsing it for
the details of the relationship and things you're learning, and
things you thought this and all the little stuff that
goes along with it, and what every move of a
hander indicates or something like that. You see that you
know Paul, John was dealing. Paul was dealing John who
was trying to sabotage the session, you know, somewhat consciously.

(41:37):
Somewhat self consciously he'd had it. He wanted to make
it rough for Paul. You know, okay, Paul, if you
want to take this thing over, go right ahead, you
take it over. You run the sessions, you do, let's
do your material and you know, make me work, you know,
pay for it. You know. Meantime, I think he and
the open corner taking junk, which doesn't help anything, and
Paul's trying to get it to going. Having said all that,

(42:00):
at that album that came out of that, but It'd
be is their worst record for the obvious reasons. You
can see it in the studio. You know they're trying
to patch it together. Okay, that record.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Was legendarily remixed and added to by Phil Spector. Right,
forget Phil Spector's crimes and going to jail. Whatever, where
are you at with Phil Spector and his work with
the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (42:35):
Okay, I think you're gonna want to critique that album
and I can. And people just said that's not such
a bout, And I say, okay, well, let's go through
the playlist. Can you tell me? Shall I bring it up?
Or is this pointless?

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Well, let me be specific to you. The strings on
long and winding winding road, good or bad?

Speaker 2 (42:55):
Soupy, soapy, you know, sentimental. Here's here's the songs. I'll
let it be. You tell me A few things is
a great be The Two of Us.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Two of Us is a good It's a minor George
Harrison song, but with the intro and the acoustic guitars,
I'm down with who two of Us?

Speaker 2 (43:15):
Sweet? It's a sweet song. It's a long and minding road,
long winding road.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
I have no time for.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Across the Universe, No time for one after nine oh
nine better, that's.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
A song from before where they really were the Beatles.

Speaker 2 (43:31):
It's okay, that's oh no, but it's not for you
Blue for.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
You Blue is once again. It was the flip side
I think of Long Winding Road. Whatever or get back.
It's got an interesting sound. It's a George Harrison album track.
Doesn't belong on that album.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
It's my okay, get back. We all agree that's good,
right right? I mean mine? I mean mine.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
No, it's strained.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Let it be. We can say that's a good one too.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
I don't love that feeling. I got a feeling I love.
I love.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
It's a it's just you know, everybody had a good time.
Everybody let their hair down. When you get John going underneath,
I dig that.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
You dig it. But it's a great song. But wait,
dig it dig a pony, Maggie. I agree with this
is this is my album.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Okay, let's go. It's got three songs that they're worth it.
You know, they got a lot of nice tunes, you know.
But that's anyway.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
But the question, let's stay with Phil Spector, what's your
view of instant Karma.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
I love that song. I mean it's powerful, but that's
John song. I mean, what they'll do it echo, But
the way.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
The drums are the drums don't sound like anything on
a Beatles truck. I'm not talking about the ability, but
the way they sound. They like he's hitting cardboard. It's
got a different feel.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Phil is a genius. He means a genius producer, and
he can strip it down. I mean, I like that.
But they did terrifically. You know what else did they
do together? Didn't Phil produce Imagine? It seemed to produce.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, Phil worked with John. I always thought Imagine was
so obvious that I thought that John was laughing behind it,
although that doesn't seem to be the case. Sometimes when
something is too direct, it really kind of, you know,
rubs me the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Well, I mean, it's such a simple song, Imagine. It's
got such a simple track, and it's just a piano really,
and the notion that it's gonna be so spare and
Instacarma is very spare too. I mean, and if Phil
was a great producer turned into a crazy man, I'm,
you know, sorry to hear him go. I don't think

(45:55):
that he did pretty great work with the Beatles, you
know you Yeah, he's nuts. I enjoyed Phil sort of.

Speaker 1 (46:08):
Okay, let's stay with the Beatles before we get back
to Phil. So if I snap my fingers and you
have to get either McCartney's seventies output or John's seventies output,
what would you take if you could only pick one?

Speaker 2 (46:24):
If I had to only, I mean of their solo
output post Beatles solo output, I'd be going for John.
I think Paul wrote wonderful songs and still does, and
they're pretty, but the major ones that live in history
are by John.

Speaker 1 (46:45):
Okay, the plastic on would be in the first album.
You guys gave great reviews. It was not as commercially
successful as McCartney's first solo album, McCartney with Maybe I'm Amazed.
Of course, it had mother and it had other songs.
Do you think that and there was recently a re
release remix. Do you think that album was unfairly overlooked

(47:07):
or do you think that people really get that album today?

Speaker 2 (47:10):
I think I don't think it was unfairly overlooked. It
was just not a commercial album in any sense, you know.
I mean, there's one pretty song you know, maybe Boy
was that it or so Paul's was the difference between
the two them in that thing. Paul's was a commercial album,
is pretty you know, it's easy to take Paul's out.

(47:33):
John's album was much more interesting, much dealt with much
more complex subjects, much better writing, and frankly better melodies.
But it was a hard album to listen to. It
was a confrontational album. You know. It wasn't about Moon
and June and Spoon and you know, maybe I'm amazed.
It was about mother, you did this to me, did

(47:55):
that to me? And the Beatles are over and just
everything was tough. You know, it came out of as
he said, I had a lot of pain. And it's
a great piece of work. That's the one that will
have a living history, no matter even if it wasn't
successful commercially.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
When did you first hear the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
My first real awareness of the Beatles was seeing him
in Hard Day's Night. I totally missed the Sullivan Show
appearance and was told about it, but I wasn't on
my radar at that point. For whatever reason. I had
just gotten to college. When I saw Hard Day's Night.
I just that was a you know, real Road to
Damascus moment. That was a what do they call those things?

(48:39):
My age is getting it's a real revelation. It was
an epiphany. It was an epiphany for me.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Okay, for many boomers, and you're just a little bit
older than that. The Beatles were a line of demarcation.
You had Chuck Berry, you had Elvis in the fifties,
then we had the drek of Fabian slightly better with
Bobby Darren, and in the sixties we get the fourth
season and Beach Boys. Then the Beatles hits for you.

(49:06):
Is it just one long continuum or do you see
that as a vast turning point.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
It's a vast turning point because it wasn't just the Beatles.
It was Beatles and Bob together and that changed it
all around, as well as the fact that but it
was also continuum. I mean, how can you say that
it was a continuum of Chuck to the Beach Boys
Elvis that all led to the Beatles. Limits It's a continuum, obviously,

(49:37):
but it was a huge pivot point. It wasn't an
abrupt start. It was just in the beginning of the
book The Matches, I wrote along essay about this and
about how the music of the fifties led into the
music of the sixties from a social and cultural point
of view, not from musical point of view. I don't
get in there and think it's to say how Chuck

(49:59):
Berry's song became Stone Songs and the Beatles, and I
don't that's you know, kind of obvious, but that it
was continue these people set the stage, you know, I
mean Jeredy Lewis and Elvis, and it just led right
to the Beatles, you know.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
Okay, So if you speak with people today, and I do,
many people say, oh, it's the same as it ever was,
or to quote you know, Paul Simon or paraphrase, every
generation puts an act on the pop chart. What do
you think about music's place and impact in society compared
to the sixties in the early seventies.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
We have to be a little more specificed about that,
but I think it all this particular music rock and
roll as a continuum from its origins in the fifties,
go back even from its origins as black music, but
from its origins is teeny pretained teen white music in

(51:01):
the fifties too. To days has this in every step
of the way, has had this enormous impact on the
people who grew up with it, and the people do
it now. But the people grow it stood for liberation,
to for liberation and sexuality. It's for literation, styles and
fashion and thinking. When you get to the college years

(51:24):
in the early sixties and the mid sixties and the
Baby Boom coincide. The Baby Boom and its knowledge of
civil rights and awareness with all the injustice there and
the assassination of Kennedy and going to worm, it coincides
neatly with this music. Now that they've all their lives
have loved and led and spoken to him now really
speaks from in a big, broader, deeper sense. And these people,

(51:46):
the Beats and Bob Millen coming along and articulate that.
Yet it continues as this musical form, and I think
it becomes just more and more important and more and
more profound, more moving, more powerful as you go on
and on, as the group's more popular and widespread, and
as technology comes with it, the technology of the long

(52:10):
playing record, that then the technology of the single, than
then the technology of the tape and the tape deck,
and now the a tract tape and the cassette and
all of a sudden the CD, and as we keep
on going, the music becomes bigger and more popular and
more widespread than ever. And today you can hear any
song ever written any place around the world that you
are at anytime free. So I mean, I think the impact,

(52:32):
the influence of the music is so broad and the
content was so important and real in people's lives, people's
personal lives emotionalized of how do I love two people ones?
Or how do I treat somebody I've wronged? Or you know,
just the deep or the personal moral level, plus the
political level, where do I Where do I stand? Where

(52:54):
I do in such an unjust as side that's been
so adjusted to its black population, or these unjust wars,
you know, and where we're destroying the plant. I mean,
So this music has spoken to it all all that
and for a generation and to the issue. And I
think two more than just a generation. And I think
it's it's influenced that generation, moved that generation and guided

(53:17):
that generation. And that has been the whole premise of
Rolling Stone, one of the whole one of the premises,
the key premises of Rolling Stone from the beginning that
these people and these people have interviewed in the book
that I call the masters, you know, were the poets,
were the truth tellers of you know, the gatekeepers of truth,
is what I call them. You know, any people have
come out and tell the truth about society, you know,

(53:39):
which you could learn more about what was going on
in America from Bob Dylan or The Grateful Dead then
and today from Bruce then you learn from any of
the poets, from any of the politicians or the preachers,
you know, or the the entertainers. You know, that truth
was coming out of these mouths. So now these eyes,

(54:02):
Is rock dead today? No, not at all. I mean again,
it depends how you want to define rock. Are you
talking about rock in the fifties, you're talking rock in
a broader sense? Is the musical I don't know. I
still love it. I'm still totally taken by it. I
know that thousands of my children and hundreds and thousands

(54:23):
of other people listen to it and love it because
they can hear it all the time. You have to
pay for it. So the Beals is still probably the
most popular group in the world, you know, of all
the things, and is its forefront of mine as it
was then. Now when we have these pop groups, in
the rap groups Domini and Charles all the place, which
we did again earlier on. You know, we had Fabian

(54:46):
and as you were talking about earlier, we had all
the teen groups. So I don't I don't think so.
I don't think music as a form is dead or
less influential in the lives of people who love it.
I think they' ill lots and lots of messages and
lots and lots of concern it. I mean it's a
passionate music. Music in and of itself, all the arts

(55:07):
is the most passionate and soulful because it's not articulable
and something you feel. Yeah, it's not something you visualize
and see a painting. It's not something you read. You know,
you feel that stuff and has that.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Okay, In the sixties, seventies and even eighties, it was
anathema to sell out. Now everybody says credibility is not
an issue. Everybody accepts that everybody sells out. Where are
you on that?

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Well, I don't know again what you mean by selling out?
Do you mean accepting Curs's commercial sponsorship for scour or
selling your song for a car commercial.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Sell your car for a car commercial? Brand extension into clothing, perfume, etc.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
I to me, it has not affected the quality of music,
what they've written, or my belief in the music. And
when I see Dylan doing a Jo Van commercial, you know,
or I think when I.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
See the Stone started with the jove on for that
too was their first one.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
But let's start. Let's go back to what I consider
the beginning of it in our era, which is the
Jefferson Airplane lent their music in nineteen sixty seven sixty
eight to a commercial for white levis. Now is that
selling out? Well, if we go.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
Back into history and it's all on YouTube, most of
these acts on the way Up did commercials for soft drinks,
et cetera. It was only when they reached ubiquity that
they said.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
No, well I don't like who. I don't know, I
don't I'm taking the who did commercials?

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Everybody did commercials on the way up.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
I don't think that who. They had one commercial, I
think that was it. But the reason I used to
watch Jeffers start Airplane and as a examples that that
is the very culture which started this whole bitch about
selling out and making it a nathma and making it
wrong thing to do and lack of conscience and good
vibes and you're now a hippie capitalist and you don't

(57:14):
subscribe to the new system of love is everywhere yet
And there was some bitching, not a lot, but that's
where the bitching started. And then bitching started right there
and over that particular use of that particular song. I
think it might have been White Rabbit. Now, I just asked,
looking back at it, I said, oh, well, yes, of
course they did accept money from a corporation for the

(57:34):
use of their you know, this beautiful music that it
is supposed to be their treasure and their special thing.
But what what did what did they harm? Did it cause?
What was the harmit did then or now? I mean,
you heard the music, you thought about why the VI's
you know, it wasn't that they weren't selling cigarettes. They
weren't telling you know, bad you know, uh cushion, bad

(57:59):
safety cush for cars, I mean, and so so the
Stones were letting their name to a perfume or Bob
Dylan is selling It was just I don't I mean,
in the end, I don't mind it at all, you know,
And I see the people I do it. These are
among the people who are have got the most integrity
of everybody I know, whether it's Bruce or Bob or

(58:21):
Neil Young, and they all do have their different things,
you know. You know Bob never did it. You know
you two does it with with iPhones or iTunes, which
is not a bad product at all, but you know
that's their attitude towards it. And they're relentlessly commercial bottom
and see a bigger audience coming from it, and see
most and all this sudden. If it doesn't bother them,

(58:44):
frankly doesn't bother me. I'm quite used to it. I
think it's harmless.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Okay, let's switch gears to Towns and who opens the book.
You interview them just before Tommy? Are you a Tommy
guy or a quadrophenia guy?

Speaker 2 (58:59):
I have not thought in those terms. I'm not that
passionate on it.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
Okay, then what was your motivation for opening the book
with Townsend?

Speaker 2 (59:13):
He was the first real interview that I did, and
I thought, and I mentioned before I did Hendrix, and
that I mentioned I didn't air clapped into early on,
before Rolling Still started. This is the first attempt to
do a kind of deep dive. A lot of research
interview with the Rocks. You know that it was the
first one there, and it was nineteen sixty eight, and

(59:34):
it was so clearly of its time and era, the
way we were talking, what we were talking about, the passion,
the confidence, you know, a stuff. And I published a
whole book in chronological order, so it gives you a
sense of the growth of rock and roll and the
growth of the time period, the history of my own
history and what I was looking for and how we

(59:56):
all do and grow up. And really the epilogue is
Dinner with Bruce Springsteen, which I did just this year,
this last summer, this summer because I wouldn't put out
a book called The Masters without brucing it. And he
just happened to be a guy who I never got
around the interviewing while I was doing it, while I
was running Rolling Stone. I mean, the last one I did,

(01:00:19):
it was like six or seven years ago, was Bono
and uh by now and I just so it was
nice to sit down Bruce's house and let's look back
on all this. Now, remember when we were young and
we did that, what do we think today? So it
was the reason I put Pete first was to suggest

(01:00:40):
a kind of a history, a kind of historical pursessive
and that you could read this book also is a history.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Okay, this is audio only, but in video on zoom,
I can see you. You look young for your age,
but you're not taking any steps to forestall the physical
image of your body, whereas many of these acts they
play the people who are in their seventies, yet they
have plastic surgery and hair pieces. What do you think

(01:01:18):
about these aging rock acts? Do you lament the fact
that they haven't gotten older and instead of singing about
Moon and June, they haven't sung about divorce and other
issues that affect people who are older.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
Well, I don't think that's wholly true. First off, of
the people we're talking about here the message, I'm just
trying to think who might have had plasic. First off,
they're all thin as could be to begin with, Yeah,
except for Bond.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
Well, you know when I say Mick Jagger rehearsing for
a tour in a ballet studio dancing, that's a turn
off for me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
It is I look at it as my age. I think,
my god, this guy is several years older than me
and amazing shape. And same with Bruce. I mean younger
than me. But these guys are an amazing shape because
that's their profession. They I don't have to go up
on the stage and dance around for two and a
half hours. I don't have to look sexy and look

(01:02:20):
good and stay in that kind of shape to do that.
These guys do. That's their job, so I don't grudge
any of it. And Mick is not shot and plastic surgery.
Mick has not done plastic surgery. They take one look
at Mick. That's not a plastic surgery type person. And
I don't know anybody here I think that has done plastics.

(01:02:41):
This has done plastic surgery. You know they live well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Well, I know things that I'd rather not reveal. But
my point is that we have aged, and some of
these acts, their major impact upon society in terms of
new material is in the past, and therefore one go
and have nostalgia. But aren't some of these acts frozen
in the ember? They're just playing the same songs. Let

(01:03:06):
me go one step further. Ruce Springsteen makes two solo albums. Okay,
you've been touching Lucky Town. The audience says, you can't
leave the EA Street behind Eastream being behind. Then he
reunites with the Eastreet Band. For me, that is giving
the audience what they want. One of the great things

(01:03:27):
about Dylan. I don't want to see him anymore. I've
been to the never ending tour, but he's making it interesting.
He's still pushing the envelope. But he's one of the
very few.

Speaker 2 (01:03:38):
All right, let's first off, that's a lot of stuff
I have to deal with you, okay. And first off,
plastic surgery and looking at your age. I would submit
that Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger all look more than
their age. They look look their age. I haven't seen
Pete Laley, but I don't think he's gone for anything
radical anything. Secondly, but the bigger point is responding to

(01:04:01):
your audience in and of itself bad. Listen to the audience,
you know, listen from.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
From subterranean home, pick blues you know, uh, don't follow leaders,
watch the parking meters.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Great.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Are you supposed to be independent?

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
What do you mean? He is independent? He writes whatever
he wants. He's not paying attention to his audience right now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
He's writing, I say, Dylan is a beacon. I'm talking
about these other racks, giving the audience what they want.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
All right, so we're talking about let's talk about who
do you want to have Bruce? You mentioned Bruce's talk
about Jakay, Okay, okay, let's talk about Mick. Mick is
every each one of them is different. There's no rule
applies them all. Mick has got a new record coming out.
He's got some really great stuff on it. Okay, He's
not had plastic surgery. He stays in shape. He is

(01:04:57):
His whole thing is has to do with his audience.
It's from the beginning of time to now. You know.
He gets out there and he's a performer and he behaves, behaves,
he creates the rules for performing and the relationship with
the audience. That's his thing, you know. So he's still
doing it and he deserves praise for being able to

(01:05:18):
sing fucking jumping Jack Flash is good today as then,
and also his new records and blowing it away. What
is it? That's his job, the audience. He's not being
told to do by anything. That's what he can do,
and he enjoys doing. He loves getting out there. We're playing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
Did you watch the UH press conference with Jimmy Fallon?

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
I saw a business diough it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
Yeah, okay, didn't it look sad to eighty year old
guys out peddling their music with the jokester? These were
this was a this was a band that was dangerous
cutting edge at one point.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
Excuse me, Well, I don't know how old you are,
but I'm seven. Okay. They were in their twenties, sixtyears
years long on sixty years later, on sixty years. They
may be less cutting edge, they may be less good looking,
they may be doing not but they're still there. They're

(01:06:16):
still performing in as pressively ever. They're still loving rock
and roll. They're still loving their life and then bringing
joy to all of ours. Hey six years wait, wait, wait,
you're a guy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:29):
You're a guy who started Rolling Stone the music was
religious sixty actively, and now you're basically being long in
the tooth. Well, these off the cockers they're out there
doing I got to give them some credit.

Speaker 2 (01:06:41):
No, I'm doing more than that. They're doing some of
their best work. They're still performing nearly at the top,
nearly at the top of their game. Wait, we're still
mark let me finish. They're still doing work that's vile,
that's pertinent to today. The things that are singing about
Ian Bruce is singing about this last album. He's singing
about death, and he's dealing with the concerns of being

(01:07:02):
his age and with death and going old and looking
back and the stulves. I mean, he's he's vitally involved
in the issues that are relevant to him and may
not be irrelevant and are going to be irrelevant to
his audience. I mean, I think you're I understand where
you're coming from. I've heard this point of view often. Yes,
we are getting old, b we look old. Yeah, see

(01:07:24):
we walk old, but we're still alive and we're still kicking,
and we're still kicking his shit out of everybody else.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Well, one of the think one of the time, one
of the things you popularize via your serialization of what
became the right stuff was the concept of pushing the envelope,
Chuck Yeger pushing the envelope, and that's what this music did.

(01:07:51):
If you wanted to know what was going on, you
listen to a record. I don't think that's the case anymore,
even in the hip hop. And therefore, I mean it's
if I watch streaming television, okay, and I watched some
of the Morgan Okay, Danish show on Netflix. I got
an impact in it and a feeling that I don't

(01:08:13):
get from most of the music. Doesn't mean there aren't
great records.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Which the music, which music. The music we're talking about
the masters of the music today that's coming out by
currently hot selling rocket records.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
Currently talking about We're not talking about classic records. So
you're talking about new music. Okay, good, keep going, all right,
you want my response to that? Yes, basically, first and
first off, you're fucking seventy years old, and this is
the music being made by twenty and thirty year old,
so of course it won't it's not going to impact you.
You don't look at these people as being your contemporary,

(01:08:48):
you know the real their concerns are much groomer than
yours ours as seventy. That's one number one, Okay, Number
two is, boy, have the times changed? And I'll tell
you when this music came out, when the stones and
stuff that moved us that I'm celebrating here that I
think is still so great. Look at the media landscape.
Then there are three networks. You know today there was

(01:09:10):
no digital Today everything in the world is available instantly
by camera, by the social media, by Google. By it,
I mean there's no place in the world where something
has not already been articulated. And now, all of a sudden,
because of this new freedom of media, the media has
it's able to deal with the most avant garde issues,

(01:09:31):
the most sensitive topics, the most extreme stuff, the weirdest stuff,
whereas in back in the day you weren't allowed to
do that, but now it's everywhere. So it makes the
music that makes the music in this environment less vital
and important impactful that it wasn't in an environment fifty
years ago when you couldn't hear a lot of the
stuff expressed on TV or newspapers or magazines, when Rolling

(01:09:54):
Stone didn't exist, when the network, when the Internet didn't exist,
where when CDs and exists. So it's in a much
different context, and you're a much different audience. You're not
the audience for today's music. So I mean it makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:10:07):
I say, you know, I say you should sit back
and enjoy and celebrate how great this music wasn't how
lucky you were and I was to be alive in
a period in the sixties and seventies, some of the
eighties where all these brilliant fricking musicians and writers and
singers were all together about the same time, creating it

(01:10:29):
that same period, listening to each other, impacting each other,
influencing each other, driving each other along, you know, by
by competition or by inspiration. And what a rare period
this was in not just American history and musical history
that just love little genius, but in world history. You

(01:10:50):
know where we were present during one of the great
renaissances of our times and of world times. And it's
not something you see very often. Mean, Uh, it's easily
fully comparable to what we've seen to Paris in the
twenties when there are all these painters, matists, cause, etc.
When hemy Me and Fitstcher were there. But even and

(01:11:13):
as good as all they were, and this may sound
a extreme claim, they're change. The change they brought to art,
the revivocation of art, bringing along modern art were you know,
all art and writing by that time it become classical
and stale and borant. But this was also a company.
What we did does not only revived, but it came
along a time of great political, social, technological change in

(01:11:37):
the world. And this is this era was when the
world is transferred from that old world pre nuclear world
to this new world of destruction, of internet, of an
unfathomable number of things that have changed. The world has
more than shrunk. It's all a different place. It's not
a bunch of isolated different countries around the world after
World War Two. It's all We're now so unified as ever.

(01:11:59):
And it's comparable of the change in the world. It
took place, you know, in Greece, you know, or in
Italy and Venice in this in the classical era of
that era, or during Elizabeth Elizabethan England when they came
out of these countries were hugely powerful within the world. Venice, Greece,
you know which they were, and England they ran the world.

(01:12:20):
They were the richest countries in the world. They educated populace,
they had this sense of mastering, achievement and domination, and
they weren't charge themsel a bunch of stuff is more
and more complicated to tease out. But that's what this
period I think was about, you know, And and I
think that's what this work stands for. You know. It

(01:12:42):
had that relationship to its times, you know. And it
wasn't painting, it wasn't writing. It certainly took advantage of
the technology of the times. This is based on the
technology of the times, both the reproducing spread it, the
way that the printed word at one time reproducing spread
that and so forth. So I mean, that's the long view,

(01:13:03):
and we're just older now, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
No, I think that's very well articulated, that we don't
live in a monoculture. And you mentioned the word renaissance,
which I wholly agree with. There was a Renaissance hundreds
of years ago. People have painted and sculpted since then,
but there's only one renaissance, right, just going through the decades. Though,
to what degree do you believe our change in culture

(01:13:30):
and the attendant income inequality was driven by Reagan, who's
been canonized by the right, And to what degree has
that changed our society and left us where we are now?

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Well, I mean, I think all these changes are afoot
despite without Reagan. I mean, this is all happened without him.
He's almost irrelevant to them. But Reagan was it, you know,
a gentle, easy to swallow salesman of a really increasingly

(01:14:09):
putrid influence on society, most particularly in what he did
with income taxes and taxes where the extreme wealth divide
which plagues us now started under him, under reduction of
gutting of the union starting under him. And uh, the

(01:14:32):
empowering of the religious right started under him from modern times.
And so he made it all seem smooth and wonderful.
But I don't view him as a hero or a
very good president or you know, but a funny, charming guy. Uh.
But all these things, I mean, I think, all the
worse stuff in contemporaries. It's not that it hasn't happened before.

(01:14:53):
You know, this kind of his warmart, the religious right
or income disparags haven't happened before in history. They've all
of this. Truth've had many religious awakenings, We've had many
right wing crusades, We've had many cuses berries wealth before
in modern times. Reagan was the first instrument of it,
and it just continued under you know, Bush senior, Bush

(01:15:13):
junior and Trump. Of them, all the worst has been
was Bush junior, George W. Bush. Uh. So I mean,
I I the Republican has been terrible. And I think, yes,
it's been a fight against the Republican ideology.

Speaker 1 (01:15:31):
So you believe it's somewhat secular that these things wouldn't
have happened without Reagan? What was in the culture that
was driving these things?

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Reagan that the regiaction is that the history of America.
I mean, America has been a weird place. We start
off burning witches, we start off flee you know, kind
is it pure in society? You know, there's very harsh
religious strictures in the society. We say we're a society
free of religion, but we had the puritanical stuff, and

(01:16:02):
so it's just been we were a slave society. We
I mean, how do you how do you account for
putting men in chains and whipping them in the way
they were treated. We fought a fucking warm which because
a couple of nine people died, I think the worst
over the issue of slavery. Well, how you treat your
fellow man? That war's never been resolved, you know, So,
I mean it's been lurking under the American surface as

(01:16:24):
part of the modern dilim for years. We've created great
good good in the world and great evil. And I
think that this kind of empowered this generation of America
has been called on to kind of look back and
sit back on that because we can't go on any longer.
As we've been going on. If we go on any
longer this, the planet's over, you know, by environmental destruction

(01:16:47):
and nuclear war. You know. So we need a change
in consciousness, you know, not we have to do this thing,
loved one another. We have to all these bromides that
we've heard in Wrock and all they're true, you know,
and we're where to point. If you don't do that,
you know, we're going to We're gonna some awful things
are going to happen. But I'm wondering whether that was

(01:17:10):
the question or not.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Well, no, you we answered, But let me let me
just go to the present. So in your crystal ball,
what happens in the future.

Speaker 2 (01:17:19):
Jeez, I don't know, could go to me, It could
go either way, you know. I mean, there's great progress
are being made. We have great knowledge, great ability. Everybody
knows what the problems are, you know, we know essentially
how to technically solve all these things, what should be done,
what should be right. But they'll take you know, it's

(01:17:40):
a change in political will and consciousness and right and wrong.
I think al Gore expresses, really, once we see the
environmental question and all these questions as issues of right
or wrong, then We're going to solve them because we'll
know what's right to do, we'll know what's wrong to do,
and so patently clear what's right and what's wrong. And

(01:18:02):
if people just get on the side doing the right thing,
you know. I mean, he keeps saying political will is
renewable resource. I hope so. But you've got powerful But
on the other hands, Bob Filne says to me, and
the last time, he's just human nature hasn't changed fundamentally
in three thousand years. You know, it's still greed power.
You know, the dim side is greed driven, is power driven?

(01:18:24):
How do we break that cycle? These are powerful interests
and powerful wealthy people and corporations were up against you know,
and their hands. They're deeply involved in social structures. Now
things run. I mean, it's not just the greed of
the oil business, but it's greed of all the people
who underline it first, people who work there, let alone

(01:18:45):
people at Morgan Stanley who finance it. You know, the
Bank of America pay for and loan them billions of
dollars every year to keep fun. So that's hard to know,
but I think that in the end you have to
live with hope and optimism, and you have to take
the hopeful approach. I don't think you have any choice
but to do that, otherwise it's impossible to live.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Okay, you're a student of the game. We remember the
sixties when you didn't want to have long here south
of the Mason Dixon Line, red Knicks. Whatever's going on
is much further to the extreme. Now, what accounts for
the hardcore belief in Trump, irrelevant of the indictments and

(01:19:29):
other accusations.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
Well, I mean two things. Once again, I would bring
you back to American history and this kind of these
kind of people have been a constant part of American history.
I've just guessed it's been thirty percent of American history
at the beginning. Remember again, we fought the Civil War.
We had hundreds of thousands of you know, millions of
people public fighting for slavery, like sacrificing our lives for slavery,

(01:19:54):
you know. And then we had Father Coughlin and the
pro Nazi movement keep America out of the war. We
have McCarthyism, so there's a and the religious. We've always
had this strain in American, in American culture. So obviously
I think Trump is tapped into that strain. It's a
big strain and it uh, it's gonna be loyal to anybody.

(01:20:16):
You know, it's loyal to me. And you cannot going
to change your minds. You know, there's no man of logic,
no man of grand jury, indictment. It's nothing that's going
to change their mind I mean not even as sinning
bastard Trump and his five wives and you know, on
and on whatever, even that doesn't turn these people off.
Who are the fundamental any abortion religious people, God fearing

(01:20:38):
you know, these are the least Christian people in the world.
You know, Trump's supporters, they're the most negative. They're they're
demeaning and of poor people. They're racial. I mean, let
me back off this. The other thing is that we've
got this economic disparity going on, this huge thing where

(01:20:58):
people are making you know, thirty thirty forty billion dollars,
I mean, excuse me, three hundred million dollars a year.
They're worth billions of dollars. The wealth is spread around
in the country is the wealth. The wealth. Wealth is
big and it's enormous and people, most people have been
cut out of the system. It's they don't live unions anymore.
They don't have highways ers, they don't have two cars

(01:21:20):
in their garage, intelligence and get their summer vacation. So
people are feeling deprived of the system, you know, they
take it that they haven't received the benefit system. Even
then they work their ass off. And it's been done
historically in the last thirty forty fifth years by Democrats
as well as Republicans, less so by the Democrats, more
so by the Republicans. But today it's stunning. The Democrats

(01:21:42):
are saying, let's lower debt, drug prices, let's give equitable
medical care, and the Republics are tooth and nail against
lowering dut prices. Let the farmer companies make billions of profits.
So they feel justly deprived, and so they're going to
go with the burst presertion like Trump, who have however,
in however inaccurately, he portrays it none less channels the

(01:22:04):
frustration of the swamp, even though he's part of the swamp.
These people are so angry, they're going to believe that
because they don't look beyond that. They want to blame.
So I'm getting fucked over by the establishment, you know,
by those people, and Trump says, I'm going to save you,
and that's it, and there's reason for it for him
them to think that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Just going to the opposite. For twenty odd years, we've
had Fox News, We've had this incredible hammering of Democrats
in the left. We have the DNC operating on the
traditional principles nomine Hillary Clinton doesn't win. We have the
same DNC saying, well, biden't be Trump once. He's our man,

(01:22:43):
even though he will be eighty six if he serves
the second term. What would you advise the DNC and
Democratic Party?

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Tell her the truth, stick to your guns, don't be
intimidated by these assholes embraced byen. He's great, That's what
I would say. Are you troubled at all by his age? Well,
of course everybody's troubled by the fact he's old. But
I'm not troubled by he is. I think he's the

(01:23:16):
most common person out there to run the country. He's
certainly better than any other Republican being discussed or in
the process. Now, I wouldn't trust one of those people
for throating the country, you know, but I trust Biden.
He's got the experience and the wisdom and knowledge. Look
what a great job he's doing right now. Look at
the legislation he's gotten past, which was stuck there all
these years. He's fighting both China and Russia at once,

(01:23:42):
you know, doing a hell of a job of that.
This looks to me like a fully confident, prepared, knowledgeable,
strategic present And he doesn't get roughed his feathers u
gruffled by the latest criticism or whatever. If you get
into the news cycle responding the criticism all the time,
then you're a dead duck. Then you're playing the other
person's game. I think Fox is definitely a new part

(01:24:03):
of the equation these years, and it's just been It's
just poison. It's like a fear factory, you know. It
goes out and creates fear wherever and drives this people along.
But you know, I like Biden. I like what the

(01:24:24):
Demorats are doing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Okay, it used to be Rolling Stone spoke to a generation.
In the last handful of years, exacerbated by the COVID era,
all these magazines are going out of business. I'm always
weary of subscribing to a magazine. It will go out
of business. Used to happen in the past, like the
Manhattaniak Clay Felk or whatever. But now Entertainment Tonight doesn't

(01:24:57):
publish Entertainment Weekly. Excuse me, what is the future of
the magazine business. You're an expert as much as anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
Well. The fact that the magazines are doing so poorly
is that there's no economic model left for them. The
Internet has taken away all the advertising without compensation. It
stole all the material there was the magazines and newspapers
assembled paid all this money for it. They took it free,
put it on their websites and sold advertising on it,

(01:25:29):
and took away the advertisers that the magazines needed to
survive on the newspapers and the news business what I
could call, by the way, the free press, which is
vital to this country, and they've replaced it with this,
you know, the Internet group of quick hits and no restraints,
no laws governing it, no laws requiring it to be

(01:25:50):
not libels or that be truthful and accurate. They somehow
immunized themselves from all those rules, you know. But they're
the most powerful press in the country. But this question
about there's no economical of there's no advertising left, so
you know, it's a more powerful medium more better meetum

(01:26:10):
for advertisers because you can target. Not only can you
target down to the person, you can also send them
add TV advertising on the internet on your phone, you know,
visual advertising. So those the magazines and the newspapers pre
newspaper prepress was supported by advertisers. That's gone. And so

(01:26:31):
there's there's going to be room for specially magazines and
trade journals. And there'll be room for some magazines that
are really highly visual, the highly art trated. But I
don't think you're gonna have mass magazines anymore. You're not
gonna have general interest magazines like Rolling Stone anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:26:47):
Okay, you have Margaret Sullivan, who was the ombudsman for
the New York Times then went to Washington Post now
at the Guardian, wrote a whole book how to save
the news industry. In my observation, whenever you try to
save something, you can't. It's only you have to progress
to the new thing in the future. Do you believe
newspapers need to be propped up or do you have

(01:27:10):
to let the economic system work itself out and go
into the future.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
I think they can be and should be propped up.
First off, what is the Internet, which is his main commination.
But a government subsidized thing. And great part they've been
exempt from taxes for the longest period of time. They're
exempt from regulation that I was just speaking of of
content regulation by under the rules of the free press.

(01:27:38):
They were financed and support initially by the government, which
paid for the beginning of the Internet and invented the Internet,
and still subsidizes it with all kinds of tax breaks
and all kinds of contracts from the Defense Department, Higher Education,
you know, paying these companies enormous months of money. So
if you want to talk about a subsidized industry, you know,

(01:28:00):
it's the Internet. Now they've got billions and billions and
hundreds of millions I was sitting in their bank accounts,
which ought to be repurposed. That's tax money they should
have paid into the system. I'll repurpose. And you could
do things that that you call it artificially propping up.
And I agree with you about how you can't save
a dying dog, but you could give the magazine newspapers

(01:28:23):
and mail them free. If we're going to give the
internet freedom of the public airwaves and the public utilities,
and they don't pay for that, then the newspapers and
magazines maybe should get some of the same. So if
you take away the calls of postage for them, you know,
and subsides by the government, that's a start, you know.

(01:28:44):
And I can think of a bunch of other ways,
you know, and which share subsidies, which would be good.
I mean, I'm not talking about I'm talking about subsidizing
something here that like the British subsidies of BBC. I mean,
we have MPR, could go further than that and such.
But this medium, the press, the free press, was deemed

(01:29:06):
by the founding fathers to be absolutely vital to the
function of democracy, that a well informed public was necessary
to make to elect the politicians that we wanted, and
to make the decisions and policy decisions that we wanted.
And I think that judgment they made was absolutely correct
in the first place, that when the public turns on

(01:29:27):
something and they properly formed public opinions, absolutely paradis to
public policy. And we're not getting that now. It was
so important that they made it the first Amendment to
the United States that you could not inhibit the practice
of the free press. We need that and we need
to restore that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
Okay, Lena Kahan, who is our antitrust point person, is
being more aggressive. Do you have a viewpoint on antitrust.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
I think we all enforced the laws. I think every
time you've seen UH this kind of like anti competitive
uh combination of elements of manufacturing or initial elements, whether
it was the three collar makers or the three UH
broadcaster network broadcasters, or the telephone company or you name it.

(01:30:23):
You know Microsoft yourself, you raise prices and you stultified
innovation and competition. Since we broke up the telephone companies.
Look what's happened as the baby bills in the competition
and started financing cellular service, same with Microsoft. That could
happen a thousand internet companies bloomed and all this you
know other stuff. The three networks are terrible enough to all,

(01:30:44):
you know they but they'll get back to one good
thing they did. But in terms of they're programming the
liberality of it. You know. Also now you've got and
the three carding manufacturers because of their stifling of competition,
you know, because they were such a monoplist didn't have
to be. That led the open the market to Japanese Germans.

(01:31:05):
All the people denovated and did better cars, far better cars.
The problem wasn't how clever the Japanese were. It was
the fact that we were so retarded. We made clunky cars.
The doors didn't fit properly into the you know, into
the doorframe. No, they just didn't do good cars, and
somebody else came along. So I think if we had

(01:31:25):
some the history of competition is good for us. But
I say this about it. Regulated competition capitalism cannot be unregulated.
There has to be supervision, has to be managed properly
because unready to competition where greed conguers all ain't gonna
ain't good for us, and that's what happens. So we

(01:31:47):
need regulated capitalism. What the networks did when there were
three of them and there wasn't all this kind of
crazy Internet stuff, is we were able to unify society,
you know, with standards of everybody agreed upon. We could
agree upon standards of truth, of fact and all this

(01:32:08):
Internet crap that goes on, the unregular, unregulated crap. If
we're really regulating that networks even more of that by
the FCC about objectivity, you know, fairness, truth, we would
have more results like we just had in the Fox
versus dominion case that they've been so unsupervised. Did they

(01:32:29):
emit damaging society? So I want to we need managed
cap We cannot cannot have monopoly capitalism, that'll ruin us.
We need managed combolists.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Okay, you have a new book coming out. Fifty years ago,
you had your own publishing company, Straight Arrow Lennon remembers
came out on that Bill Owen Suburbia. What you learn
in that venture.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
The book publishing has its own very special business that
requires its own intuitive touch and it's own time frame
and rhythm. And that wasn't my business. My business magazines
and news.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Okay, switching to you, you ultimately got involved with US.
You purchase US. Is gossip a fundamental element of society?
Is it more powerful? Now less powerful? There's certainly much
more information online. By the same token, It's not like

(01:33:29):
the old days where you went to the supermarket and
you saw it just a couple of magazines. So I
headline and everybody knew those.

Speaker 2 (01:33:37):
I'm sorry, I was thinking I missed the very question.
The first part of that, the premisey.

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
The bottom line with US magazine is gossip something that's
institutional that just transcends time. Or are we in a
waning era? And it's ironic because we have much more information,
yet nothing has the penetration of the way it used to.

Speaker 2 (01:34:00):
Is eternal. You know. Uh, it's been with us since
the beginning of time. I mean, what's the world's oldest profession, right,
we say that's prostitution. What's the world's second oldest protests?
Professionals talking about who's doing it? Right? So, I mean,
you're gonna have gossip forget, don't don't you know, it's

(01:34:24):
too much fun. Everybody likes it. We're told not to,
you know, that shall not whatever. But the nature of
it has changed so much, the the that there's it's
first of it's sound the internet, it's everywhere, you know,
so you don't have any filters on it anymore. And
you've got different sets of people, and frankly, more people

(01:34:46):
are more interestedout gossip in among their these people in
the real world or these in celebrities, or these influencers
or people you know, they're not mostly they're not made
by movie studios or or even you know anymore. I mean,

(01:35:08):
what movie starts with television? Do you care about their
lives that muchmore? I don't know because I'm your age
and we I don't know who they are, but they're
not the great unifying people. These are. There's thousands of them,
you know. And it's the result of reality TV. It's
the result of as Andy Warhol said, everybody will be
famous for fifteen minutes, you know. So everybody is famous

(01:35:29):
for fifteen minutes, and we now have the technology that
enables it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
So do you read the new J. Penske controlled Rolling Stone?

Speaker 2 (01:35:40):
Yeah, of course I see it. Yeah. Do I read everything? No,
but of course it's Yeah. What am I supposed to say?
It's not in my era anymore?

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Okay, but if you see it, if you could snap.
Conventional wisdom is that Rolling Stone missed the Internet. It
was one of many companies that was accused of that.
If you look at Rolling Stone today and you snap
my fingers and you're in charge, what would you do differently?

Speaker 2 (01:36:13):
Well, I think that the first question. I think every
publishing company missed the Internet, except for The New York Times,
which seems to have really did finally figure it out.
I mean, God, bless uh, nobody, none of the no Hurst,
no Disney, Condie, Nasty Murdoch. Remember my my Space for
a half a billion notes. Nobody figured out and nobody

(01:36:36):
you know, so you can't turn around a big old
you know, you're running a big old battleship. Nobody you
can't the new thing. It's hard to figure that out.
So but I must say I'm the only We're the
only company didn't lose millions and millions of dollars on
it by saying we're not going to jump into this prematurely. Uh.
And if I could snap my fingers, I would put

(01:36:59):
myself back in No. I would say, well, if you were,
if you were back in charge, what would you do.
I don't. I don't think I should be back in charge.
I think it's time for new group of people to
do it. And they're doing it, and they're doing for
that kind of a newer audience and in a newer way.
It's very Internet oriented now, more than magazine oriented. And

(01:37:19):
I wouldn't have made those I would. I'm a magazine
person on the Internet person. So you know I'm the
wrong person.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
Okay, but if you look at MTV, MTV.

Speaker 2 (01:37:28):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say out there, I
wouldn't accept the job.

Speaker 1 (01:37:32):
Okay. MTV famously decided they were going to stick with
a demo as supposed to stick with their audience. They
fired the original vj's Rolling Stone certainly evolved. Was that
something where you sat down and say we have to
change or was it something happened unconsciously? What was going

(01:37:53):
on for those fifty years? Well, oh my fifty years
were fifty years talking about you.

Speaker 2 (01:38:02):
We we basically followed the news. What was in the
news was most people with the movies or was it
music stars or there's politics or whatever it is. We
you know, both in terms of what we put on
the cover and the stories we covered inside of an election,
So we were always with what the most people were
interested in. You know, it was a new music star

(01:38:24):
like Taylor Swift who was causing us, we put her
on the cover. You know, it was you know old
Coot running for office, Hillary Clinton, we put her on
the cover. If it was you know, a movie star.
You know, so we we did all kinds of things,
but basically, what were people who in our culture We
wanted to influence our generation and leaders of our jertion

(01:38:47):
and the people what were the most interested in and
seeing through the primise prism of culture, you know, using
culture as a filter for it. So whether it's the
actual culture or the value of that culture, what that
culture stood for, what I thought the value should be
that we should stand for. And we probably covered everything.

(01:39:10):
I mean, we we've covered all Team Pop, whether it
was you know, Brittany and Justin back in the day
up to Taylor Swift under when I was there, we
did we had done at least three Taylor Swift covers.
You know rap we had. We had every raps are
worth imagining, you know, worth worth it on the cover.
We never gave us up an inch in our coverage
of that. And I had the best coverage of any

(01:39:31):
magazine of the country on rap, including Vibe and and
UH almost besides Vibe the source UH and UH and
politics absolute vital perforce in politics and national politics. We

(01:39:51):
had a role of voice in that so and I
like that. But obviously, you know, things are different now.
I mean, I think without that unique mix and all that,
the centrality of a magazine was diminished. And then because

(01:40:14):
the impact of the importance of the Internet was so
much greater, and it kind of diminished the voice. But
you know, we were unusual, highly unusual.

Speaker 1 (01:40:24):
You know, Tom will famously disparage The New Yorker. What's
your take on the New Yorker?

Speaker 2 (01:40:30):
But I mean his thing was funny at the time.
I mean The New Yorker was one of my favorite magazines.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
Okay, do you miss scheme?

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
I shouldn't. I do, yes, but I'm reconciling the fact
that I can't. But I loved it. I put years
of my life into it. Just great joy and pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
So rumor was that if you heard it was good,
you would fly out the sun Valley for the weekend
ski the powder. Was that true?

Speaker 2 (01:41:00):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
So how many days did you get in a year?

Speaker 2 (01:41:04):
I would do an average of about sixty to seventy
if you season for about twenty seasons.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Oh, very much.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
So that's why you'd asked that question last year.

Speaker 1 (01:41:16):
Last year I got fifties. Well, I went to college
in Vermont at Middlebury. College had its own ski area.

Speaker 2 (01:41:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
I was a starving freestyle skier in Utah at Snowbird
for two years. Oh but my girl, those those were
seventy five and seventy six.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
Interesting. Yeah, I was, yeah going to stay because.

Speaker 1 (01:41:39):
Seventy seven, just to be clear, since we're going was
the bad year there wasn't another bad year after that
till twenty twelve. That was when you know, the skiers
tell your rye closed for a while. But my girlfriend's
families had a place in the lodge a Veil since
the seventies. So although the skiing is not that difficult,
it veil, that's where I spend most of my time,

(01:42:01):
not all of my time. I had Aspen before that,
I hit Little Cottonwood, Candy a little bit, Sun Valley,
phenomenal mountain. Just they don't get that much snow, but.

Speaker 2 (01:42:12):
They got your best nomaking now absolutely absolutely. And the
season last year, yeah, I yeah, so good. Well, god,
let's fifty eight days, a lot of skiing, as you
know what that's like. And I'm sure I could have
been more of an empire builder and made more money

(01:42:34):
and you know, on and on if i'd paid me,
But I you know, what's life about. You know, it's
enough money and I had so much fun and my
kids are all great skiers now, you know, still family time.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
And was it primarily sun Valley?

Speaker 2 (01:42:49):
Yeah, once you end up in a plate, I mean
it was. It was Aspen at first was my favorite. Well,
I grew up in San Francisco. So I ski Squaw Valley,
in Hemley Valley and the Sugar Bowl, and so as
a kid, my met on a ski trip. So I
was really tell me that story. In the forties, they
were both in your early forties, and my one of

(01:43:10):
them put up a note as ski start saying, looking
for rides this weekend to Hunter a mountain or whatever.
And that's how they hooked up as skiers, you know,
and that's how they met. So we as kids who
were living in San Francisco at the time, naturally we're
taking up skiing. Every vacation, we went skiing, you know,
every Christmas, everything, all the time. We went to Squad

(01:43:31):
and they were just about to build a house there
when they decided to divorce instead. So it just it
just got in the blood, you know, just all of
this was a family thing. And I picked up again
as an adult, you know, I skilled till about college,
and I stopped and started again as an adult. Coinciding
with starting with Hunter, who lived in Aspen, and he

(01:43:54):
was no great help for schime. Terrible terrible, terrible influence.
If you can't if you stay at two o'clock in
the morning, you're not going to ski. I mean, that's
not but started skiing and Aspen and finally when I
decided I'm going to do this for a good long
time and now it's time to buy a house, checked
out the various other ski yeers. Now I've been skiing Aspen,
Jackson Hole and Snowbirds as a trio. But I'd never

(01:44:19):
been to some valley. But I went and looked around
it tell your ride and Big Sky and Sun Valley
in some valley was the place that had the best mountain,
the kind of skiing I like to do, the nicest environment.
I wanted to get away from Asspen on the drug
trade and from the living in a big high society culture,
like the kids were going to grow up anyway, and
it was just a family place, you know, world class

(01:44:41):
skiing with family values and great places.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
So if you skied sixty or seventy days a year,
would you park your ass in ketch them or would
we just go out? You get in your plane whenever
the conditions were good.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
Well, at first I would first few days, first first
few years, I just parked my ass and you know,
just get a condo and catch them and all that stuff.
And as I realized I was doing this more and more.
I said, we just have to buy a house. We
bought a house in Hailey, Okay. And it started, and
I realized that the thing was to spend two Actually,

(01:45:20):
if I started scheduling in advance my appointments in stuff
I do in New York and made it inviolable, then
I could actually spend hanks of time in Sun Valley
rather than going out on the spur of the moment.
So I just converted my thinking too, you know what
I'm gonna live, I'll think of it as living there
and coming back to New York the occasional break. I

(01:45:40):
started doing that successfully, and after that then I gave
up the plane because I wasn't commuting back and forth. Yeah,
I mean I didn't get up right away, but I
was going out there to live for the season, coming
back for two or three periods that First they'd be
two weeks at a time, then it'd be a week
at a time, and then finally I came back just
one week, you know, and so and I was, well,

(01:46:03):
what are you the kind of guys with coincid? Anybody
with technological progress like the Internet really helped, you know,
rather than having things fedexed out overnight and having any
approved layouts like that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:15):
Okay, so what would your schedule be? Would you take
the calls from Europe before you went out there, you know,
with a high speed list the run two and a
half times faster. Nobody skis from Bell to Bell. What
was your schedule?

Speaker 2 (01:46:28):
I was skiing from Bell de Bell and I was
exhausted at the end of it and couldn't do the
work really because I was the only one going up
after lunch and I haven't got idiot, you know, but
I as a much warmer. Yeah. And then also I
was getting into smoking pot skiing and if you do that,
and I can't smoke it. So I had cookies and
then they just stay in you all day and then

(01:46:50):
you're so tired when you get home. Somehow, I as
I got older, I just said it wasn't I couldn't
ski Bell de Bell anymore. That was for young people.
I stop. I had to finally stop taking cookies because
I couldn't concentrate. But I got in the morning. First thing,
I visa to the lifts, and then when I might
put my young here's what we have, here's what you

(01:47:10):
look at in the last over the last ten fifteen years.
I put my younger kids into school there and not
in New York City. So in the winters we go
to community school and ketch them. So I get up early,
about seven o'clock in the morning and take them out
to community school and catch them from where we lived
a half an hour away, drop off school, go over.
I had a condo at the base of the mountain,

(01:47:32):
at the base of Baldy, where I would do some
phone calls, do my half an hour Internet stuff and
then go meet be on the first leve at eight
thirty or nine.

Speaker 1 (01:47:42):
Was your condo? Worm Springs?

Speaker 2 (01:47:44):
Yeah, right, the totally at the base of Warms right right.

Speaker 1 (01:47:47):
We're allowed to do And where where do you like
to ski? At Sun Valley?

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
Those my favorite? Well, skipping the powder days, you know
when you always want to go to the bowls or
do some things. I mean skiing. Worm Springs itself is
just great straight shot down Warm Springs, which you could
do most of the time. You can do a NonStop
if you're in shape. Nobody's there except in the holidays.
I loved that. I liked, you know, squirrel, I think

(01:48:12):
was cool great, you know, I mean orange Springs was
the thing for me, you know, and then I love
Midriv and uh, what's the next midriv? What's that call?
I think of it in the second of My memory
is so shot these days. Uh, and those those are

(01:48:37):
the great Those are the great runs. I mean mid
Rive and worm Strings. You can just haul fucking ass
so fast, unbelievable. And skin of bumps in the bowl
is also great. Yeah, it's just that's so fun when
the conditions are good. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
The great thing about Sun Valley, unlike any other place,
is the slope starts at a certain pitch and that
doesn't flatten out until you get to the lift there.

Speaker 2 (01:49:03):
Yeah, that is the magic. No other is. There's no
other mountain you can think of like that.

Speaker 1 (01:49:08):
None.

Speaker 2 (01:49:09):
And if you're combine that the fact that nobody's there,
and if patrol doesn't stop you, if nobody's around, you
can do whatever you want. I mean, the days you
go up there and warms is just empty for like
nearly all day. It's just your mountain, your mountain.

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
Did you go to other places? Did you go to
South America? Did you go to Europe?

Speaker 2 (01:49:29):
We went to you. No, I never went to South America,
but we went to Europe several times, and that was
a lot of fun. But it's in the end it's
not as good as Hunt Valley.

Speaker 1 (01:49:37):
No it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:49:39):
I mean the food is better, but even then, and then,
you know, we went over to Jackson a couple of times,
and I went back to Aspen a couple times, sealed
friends and ski a little bit, by and large. Once
you're settled in, you know, you get to go to
your own home. You know, as you get older, it's
more about the comforts than you know, the adventure of
finding a new spot and you know, are you going

(01:49:59):
to finally take culberts which I never did? And uh,
it's just easier staying home.

Speaker 1 (01:50:07):
And to what degree did your health problems fuck you
up mentally?

Speaker 2 (01:50:13):
I don't think they They make you sit back and
really think about your life like they always do. And
I thought that was good. That was helpful for me. Yeah,
that didn't fuck me up at all. It made me
think twice, which is great.

Speaker 1 (01:50:29):
Well, moving forward, to what degree are you impact your
every day in life impacted by your health issues?

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
Well, I'm not, you know, physically active at all. You know,
I don't going out as a you know, pain any
ass because they've got bad leg and use a cane.
But you know, mentally, I'm having totally tons of fun
and enjoying it, I think, much more than I ever
have in a way. You know. I've got the kids around,
which are wonderful to have that life and that engagement around.

(01:50:58):
And I'm going to write another book. I'm going to
try and write another book as soon as I got
this one out, and mm hmm, just have me a
great time to love listening to music and learning and
listening to classical music a lot these days and really
enjoying that enormously. Uh the new you know, I'll look
forward to the new Rolling Stones record. Bottom way know

(01:51:21):
is cooking one up, and Bob and all my favorites
are got records going on. Bruce has got one in
a can two he's working on right now. And uh
so I'm fulfilled, you know, great marriage, and you know,
watch my kids throve. It's wonderful. I've me a great time.

Speaker 1 (01:51:39):
How much do you listen to music?

Speaker 2 (01:51:42):
A lot a lot, But I don't listen togainst temporary music.
You know, I listen to my old things. I love
and the love for a long time, you know, I'll
go on a kick and I'll listen to Mark Now
for for three months, you know, and then I'll switch
and say, oh, it's kind to go back to the
early Rolling Stones, and it goes around around. This is
Sergeant Peppers this weekend, and I mean, I forgot. It's huge.

(01:52:07):
It's amazing record.

Speaker 1 (01:52:09):
You know, people have forgotten that talking about Abbey Rude,
which I don't think is as good that the White Album,
which is great and uneven. Sergeant Pepper was such a
breakthrough in those songs, it's unreal.

Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
I mean, but go it. Yeah, listen to it, go
back and listen to it carefully, and then you realize
what was going on before this. Nothing like that was
going on before. Those are other good songs and good players,
but nobody had composed this whole thoughtful thing good morning,
good morning bad and you know it was genius.

Speaker 1 (01:52:42):
One forgets and also it was in retrospect such a
short period of time. Yeah, So what do you use
to listen to? You listening to vinyl, You listen to files,
listen headphone speakers.

Speaker 2 (01:52:55):
Anything goes to the yearbuds. They're the easiest, most convene thing.
I haven't used a pair of really high quality headphones
in a long time. I just you know, can lay
down and listen to music, you know what, I and
anywhere and anyway. It's the quality is good enough for
me because headphone quality is just in of itself. I

(01:53:16):
this is what my latest happens. I go to sleep
every night, but in Heaven's Melissa Roberson. I made it
the next tape of roverson I Loves Unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
You know, I think that's also being a little bit older. Crying.
I was too young for crying. Pretty woman is really
when I came in. And so tell me about your
two top pinch me moments meeting people.

Speaker 2 (01:53:43):
Wait a minute, Roy Everson, first of he had two
records of the modern era, Mystery Girl and Mystery Girl
and what was the othering? What they call it? Not
California Blue. Anyway, this last two records. Got to get
those two records. Okay, they're produced in the modern way,

(01:54:06):
and so all the modern and instrumentation is more modern.
And get a guitar players my mother. So their beautiful
records have some great great songs on it, and if
you like them on Traveling Little Berries, it's kind of
like that, Okay, I urge you to get those records.

Speaker 1 (01:54:21):
Oh okay, just while you're on this top anything else.
Personal favorites that are overlooked by me or other people.

Speaker 2 (01:54:28):
Oh, I can't. That's too long. That's way too long.
And I have to know what you overlooked, because I'm
most of my personal favorites are popular stuff anyway, because
that the best stuff usually gets to be the most popular.
But Roy, and then if you go back and listen
to the classic Roy the late fifties and sixty seventies,

(01:54:49):
his singing is unbelievable. He's good, his voice is matchless, peerless.
But the arranging is so wonderfully classic and old fashioned
and detailed, you know, in the amount of stuff that's
in the track, and the way they use the strings,
you know, and how soaring strings and the vocals it's
just some fonic you mean, other beautiful Go listen carefully

(01:55:12):
and then the whole thing. I find it very soft
and in a way that it's smooth. That's soothing, as
was what I find. You know, rock is jangling music.
It's a hard music, things like the who you Know
and stuff like that. I mean, I'm more into the
ballady thing. That's why I love Mark Knolfler and our
straits for that, and Bob does. It's a balancing anyway.

(01:55:37):
But two tingling moments, I mean they're all tingling. You know.
Bob gives me tingles, Mick gives me, I mean all,
I mean, I don't you know they're tingling moments.

Speaker 1 (01:55:51):
How about a non musician, It's.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
Hard to say. I mean, I got so accustomed to
meaning presidents that I don't get tingles out of that,
you know, seeking the most of meeting people, I mean, god,
you know, Bob, John Lennon, Mick.

Speaker 1 (01:56:07):
Okay, so do you have the same access, do you
miss access? Do you care about access?

Speaker 2 (01:56:14):
I do. I have the same access. But those people,
as I've always had, they are friends and colleagues. I mean,
you know they you know, with Bono with their family,
his family, and with the Springsteens, a very family relationship

(01:56:38):
with those people. You know, they're you know, our families
are involved with each other. We're involved with our kids
and our vacations. You know, our social lives are entwined.
You know, really they're younger, but they're like I don't know,
for years, you know, up until recently, Uh, you know,

(01:56:58):
we're deeply involved with Yoko and Sean. I'm Sean's godfather,
Sean Yoga's godfather, and one of my kids, Shawn has
got other to one of my younger kids. And Mick
I just had lunch with me a couple of weeks ago. Month,
a couple of weeks ago. So I mean I'm in

(01:57:18):
regular contact with everybody. I mean, Bob's not a social
be and Pete is I don't Pete, I don't see.
But the rest of the do Are you regularly a
social being?

Speaker 1 (01:57:31):
An extrovert or moore of an introvert? Want to be
home reading both?

Speaker 2 (01:57:37):
I love them both?

Speaker 1 (01:57:39):
And to what you wrote an autobiography. Now you have
this interview book you're talking about another book. To what
degree are you concerned about legacy?

Speaker 2 (01:57:50):
I don't pay attention to it that much. Yeah, it's
not and it's not my issue. My issue is raising
the kids and by myself. Now you know, let me
a good, fruitful, productive life now, doing what I can
to help people, trying to stay healthy and get bring

(01:58:11):
happy is my life and others.

Speaker 1 (01:58:15):
Okay, Yoan, I want to thank you. As far as
the book, the only interview I hadn't read was the
first with Townsend, and it's really very interesting to see
the insight and the intelligence of the different people. I mean,
Dylan certainly comes across as intelligent. They all have different
personalities and whatever the reason behind making the book, it's

(01:58:40):
no hype that when you sit there, it really brings
back the era. You know, sets the constellation right. I
was surprised, not that because I thought it'd be negative,
but everyone's publishing a book, but it really brought the
era and the people were part of the era alive.

Speaker 2 (01:58:59):
It's it's a way, it's a real history as well
just an anthology collection. When I did it and read off,
it was just shocked by how much good stuff is,
how much people really spoke their mind. I mean, it
had been years since I've read these things, and what
was really there, I mean it was you don't get
this at all today, And added all up, I felt

(01:59:20):
that I'd taken a trip to my life until next time.

Speaker 1 (01:59:23):
This is Bob left Stets