This looks grim. One of my favourite bands, The Posies, are no more after guitarist/singer Ken Stringfellow has been accused of some pretty despicable sexual behaviour by a number of women. One of them is a friend of the other main member of the band, Jon Auer, and he believes her and has called time on everything.
I’ve seen The Posies four times, once reviewing them for the old Word site – the only time my writing ever got in the magazine, which delighted me at the time. Added to this is the couple of times I saw Jon and Ken as half of Big Star, which were wonderful evenings. Frosting on the Beater was one of my go-to ‘up to 11’ albums, a glorious mix of melody and power. And now one of them is a wrong ‘un.
I remember this happening with Ryan Adams, though his transgressions were more of the ‘serial toxic relationships’ stripe. Stringfellow, if half of these things are true, has been getting away with monstrous things for some time. And, sadly, more and examples of artists doing these things – on the face of it, sensitive, gentle types – will come to light after some very brave women have found the strength to come forward. I will be genuinely surprised that someone whose music I loved could do such things. And wonder how many of my indie favourites might be doing the same things, right now.
Well, yes, it’s coming to a lot of previously famous men. To shortcircuit the discussion:
Q: Do we hold them accountable for things that were borderline acceptable in the environment in which they did them, but aren’t now?
A: Yes.
There’s a very good documentary about this very issue on Sky Documentaries called, I think, Look Away.
The film makers do not pussyfoot around or pull any punches and Axl Rose and Steven Tyler do not come out of the film at all well.
I think it’s jarring that the latest Mojo has a four-star review of Look Away – tucked at the back. Twenty pages of features and the cover? Lauding the exploits of Led Zeppelin.
Quite.
I saw him on a solo tour here in Brisbane at a tiny venue five or six years ago. There were less than a dozen of us in the audience so it was a very intimate affair, and he seemed like a strange cat indeed. Never would have suspected this, however.
Makes me think of the Johnny Cash film, Walk the Line. Joaquin Phoenix plays Johnny.
He’s starting to attract attention and is becoming a big deal. After another triumphant show, a young girl nervously appears in his dressing room – saying nothing but clearly presenting herself to the young Johnny. He almost mugs to the camera – like someone in On the Buses – clear inference is “what ya gonna do, when they throw themselves at you like that?”. I have read lots of rock star biographies and this is generally how it seems to go, according to them – hapless victims of persistent groupies.
Yes but this is the problem. Walk the Line is a fictional docudrama where poetic licence is used to make the film a saleable piece of work.
It could well be depicting real life events but equally it could be made up. I don’t think you can justifiably use it as proof that Johnny Cash led a louche lifestyle although the odds are he did.
It wouldn’t stack up as evidence in a court of law. The Ryan Adams case It would seem has petered out and as it was claims of psychological abuse rather than physical abuse I guess it is more subjective.
The fact that Adams apologised suggests some culpability and an admission of guilt.
I am interested to hear how the Dylan case proceeds as to be honest it seemed more spurious.
I think the point here was that the film was representing the status quo: this is what everyone expects from musicians. Something like that. Of course it’s fictional.
I get what you are saying but because it was fictional where do you draw the dividing line.? The Nazis were obviously evil but I am sure amongst their ranks there was some decency. We cant tar every rock star who was famous in the 70’s/80’s with the same brush.
Do we condemn promiscuity in its entirety or specifically for under age liaisons? I would suggest the latter but there seems to be a desire to condemn all promiscuity.
For me, the ball game here isn’t trying to take down individual 60s/70s/80s rock stars. It’s trying to make sure people understand the enormous damage that can be done when the power of celebrity is abused, particularly when it comes to sex. And I don’t mean promiscuity.
I do think that until very recently there was a kind of sniggering appreciation of rock stars transgressing sexual mores, including in respect of sleeping with underage girls (always girls though – you never hear a suggestion that 12 year olds were the ones throwing themselves at Michael Jackson). There’s no doubt in my mind that Hammer of the Gods, to give but one example, has been seen as additive to the Led Zep mythos, and I read enough 90s/00s rock journalism to know that tales of women being abused were catnip to a certain kind of journalist, and that we were all taught to turn a blind eye to the shit behaviour of the greats. Just a side effect of their genius.
What’s done is done. If people want to bring claims re: events decades hence they should do so, although they’re likely to be tough to prove. I’ll still listen to the music made by the accused/convicted, in most cases: god knows there are a ton of rap records I love that were made by people who have said or done properly terrible things.
What I would like to see though, is an end to the slightly odd notion that it’s normal for grown men to want to have sex (knowingly) with 15 year olds, or that rock stars are/were somehow the victims of underage girls. Most of all, I’d like to avoid a situation where people cheer that shit on, or even just turn a blind eye, because the perp once upon a time wrote a few songs we like. They’re just songs, even the great ones, they don’t excuse shitty behaviour or ruined lives.
Most of all, I think it’s really really important that we get to hear from some of the people who were on the wrong end of this behaviour, because it’s their stories that haven’t yet been written.
Well said, I remember reading one of David Niven’s acclaimed autobiographies, he mentioned that everyone was impressed when Errol Flynn turned up at a party with a 15 yrr old girl in tow
According to his Wiki page Niven himself got a 15 year old, the future Duchess of Argyll no less, pregnant, though he was only 18 at the time.
Am guessing Flynn was in his 30s or 40s at the time.
Excellent view on the situation – don’t disagree with it at all. However many people in this country have a puritanical attitude towards sex that encourages the very journalistic pieces that we condone. I think if we had a more open attitude to sex then these pieces would become less relevant.
I remember reading Henry Miller’s Quiet days in Clichy as a teenager and being quite shocked in a titillating way. I recent re-read it and to be honest it is a fairly boring read and not erotic in the slightest. I put that down to sex being a taboo subject at home and only developing my own views as an adult.
What I was trying to say was that such events, as described by famous male stars (the Cash film being an example) often follow the same pattern. Young girls appear miraculously backstage and throw themselves at them. “I’m not a monk!” says the star with a wink – he fills his boots and we all chuckle along.
The bit about the star asking his crew to invite good looking girls in the crowd to “party” backstage, and perhaps pointing one or two of them out before the show to be invited back later, is a detail that gets lost.
If there’s a persistent young fan with your poster on her wall at home who has just seen you deliver a great show – at a post-show party she may well tell you that she will do absolutely anything you want. As an adult, this doesn’t mean you now have a free pass to do absolutely anything you want to her.
Bang on. Well said.
Agree completely ,however if the girls are over the age of consent then it is not for us to pass judgement on either them or the artistes. In the history of live music there are plenty of females with the same appetites as their male counterparts
Two thoughts on this.
On the one hand, very very glad to see that this stuff is now being called out, and that the excuses, hero worship and weird glorification of sexual abuse are starting to fall away. All those 90s magazine editors who ran sniggering reminiscences of the time Steven Tyler “adopted” a 13 year old girl should take a long, hard look at themselves. It was disgusting then, and it’s disgusting now.
On the other, I think this article (not all of which I agree with) has some pertinent things to say about the risks of individuals being tried in the court of public opinion:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/10/new-puritans-mob-justice-canceled/619818/
I also found the following paragraph of the NME article a bit odd, in that it seems to come quite close to equating a bad relationship and possible infidelity with abuse:
“One of those women was Stringfellow’s ex-wife Kim Warnick of the bands Visqueen and the Fastbacks, who said that while her ex-husband was never physically abusive, the relationship was “horrible”, and indicated Stringfellow had had “infidelities”.”
Regardless, there seems to be enough smoke in this instance to be reasonably sure of fire.
What will be interesting will be to see the extent to which this reckoning is consistent across genres. Tupac Shakur was convicted of literally leading a gang rape, but he’s still treated with reverence, including by the NME. How do you square that away?
That paragraph gave me pause as well. Like you have noted, there’s enough damning evidence of actual stuff, that if successfully prosecuted, would result in chokey, without the ‘being unpleasant’ stuff.
In fairness to the appalling Tyler (not a phrase anyone who’s watched Look Away would feel comfortable with typing), Julia Holcomb (I use her name here as she’s now an activist) was 16 and not 13 when she fell into his clutches. Tragically, as with the parents of the abused kids in the Michaelk Jackson documentary a couple of years back, her mother seems to have simply sat back and done nothing to stop this from happening.
Aside from numerous pix of how Tyler had transformed JH into some sort of grotesque mini-me, the worst thing about watching her contribution to LA is her recollections of the callous way Tyler dumped her after he forced her to abort his chlld.
The other unconscionable thing Tyler did to JH was to write an autobiog in which he identified her by name after she had succeeded in shaking off the past and starting a family. “I felt as though he had violated me for a second time”, she says with considerably less hurt than Tyler had so thoughtlessly dished out.
@jaygee I dont know anything about the Steven Tyler case because I don’t like him or his music but to identify her by name in his autobiography is pretty despicable.
Jerry Lee Lewis was arguably the first ‘pop star’ (in the broadest terms) to get caught out. He was cast out into the wilderness for quite some time after marrying his 13 year old cousin. He did carry on working, but in the more forgiving (?) world of country music. But his name was mud for a long time. His comeback album 15-ish years ago featured Jimmy Page, and the past history was not mentioned so much.
So I don’t think anyone ever thought the depraved stuff was ok, but maybe there was a period of time in between mid 60s to the new millennium where people turned a blind eye, or were very selective in who they chose to call out. It really puzzles me.
SNL did a pointed sketch about this.
Well with Jimmy Page involved there likely was some discussion about teenage girls and “past history”
Jerry Lee’s early marital history reads like ten years of Eastenders in one, and says more about the weird laws (still prevalent?) in the Southern States than it does about rawwwkkk star excess.
I’ve long checked out of the blue-eyed white-boy blues guys (even mid-to-late 60s Stones) and I have to say I’m not missing it a bit.
Probably the only time he’s made the BBC news page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-59048650
There is something quite narcissistic about the response. Wanting to look like an apology without being any such thing, and focusing on himself having therapy. I wonder what an ‘ethically non-monogamous relationship’ actually is? Is that just a way of saying he doesn’t believe in fidelity?
An “ethically non-monogamous relationship” could be three (or more) consenting adults of whatever gender in a relationship, perhaps?
An arrangement where a couple agree to one or both having outside partners as well as each other?
A “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement?