WEBVTT - Rolling Stone Magazine 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.320 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.079 and there's Chuck. It's the one o'clock hour. I just 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.680 had a nice Caesar salad, so that means it's time 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:21.520 for stuff you should do. How do do you dress 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:26.639 your lightly or do you like it? I do it smartly. 0:00:27.960 --> 0:00:31.040 I start out light and then add is needed. Okay, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.839 because you know I've I've experienced the regret of too 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.479 much salad dressing. Right, you can't take it away. No, 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:44.840 you can't undring that bell, you cannot. Yeah. Uh, Rolling 0:00:44.880 --> 0:00:49.120 Stone Magazine, what's your history with this rag? It's um 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.880 a couple it goes back a couple of days at least. Oh, 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:55.320 you were never into the magazine at all. No, I 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:57.720 mean I've read plenty of like Rolling Stone articles over 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:02.000 the years, like Matt tub stuff, um, some Hunter Thompson stuff, 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:03.720 and of course, you know, every once in a while, 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.319 I'll just run across a really good article from like 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.720 years back. Right, but that was it. Never had a subscription, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.720 never bought it at the magazine rack or anything like that. Okay, 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.479 you know, I just wasn't into it. I didn't hate 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.840 on it or anything like that. It just was never 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.640 into it, not like you're going to today. I won't 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:26.840 hate on it today. I'll just reveal facts. Yeah. So 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:33.119 my history, if you care, is, uh, I always loved 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:40.240 Rolling Stone Magazine and I continue to digitally subscribe, and uh, 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:42.800 you know it is, as we will learn, it is 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:50.920 not a magazine without its downs and controversies. Um. And 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.920 you know it's as Ed even points out in this research, 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.559 like it's sort of been sport over the last two 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.040 decades to sort of debate when then if Rolling Stone 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:06.080 has lost its way. Uh, but it's a magazine that 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.240 I always Um, I just took what I took from it, 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:12.920 like when I was reading you know, at the end 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:14.880 of this we'll get to some of their biggest controversial 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.959 articles and like very poor shoddy journalism, Like I never 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:21.760 read any of those. So I've always just sort of 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:26.400 taken from it what I wanted to and uh, not 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.359 really thought about it a lot until this research. Man, 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.040 there's nothing more rock and roll than that. But I 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.400 do want to plug another magazine. What Cream Magazine is back? 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.000 Oh really? Yeah, I've seen people be you know, the 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:44.400 ones in the know, Like Cream was always better than 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.640 well it was, and uh, like my magazine of choice 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.880 for music since the probably early two thousand's was Magnets, 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.880 which I still oh yeah, you know, it went away, 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.959 then it came back and then but Cream is back now, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.400 and you I think you get I subscribed immediately. You 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.280 get four paper copies per year like a quarterly issue, 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.800 which is kind of cool. But what's really cool, dude, 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:15.040 is if you subscribe, you get access to all of 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:19.280 the archives. So it's really fun to go back and 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.959 read like a contemporaneous Lester Bangs or Cameron Crow piece 0:03:23.960 --> 0:03:27.480 uh from Cream magazine. So I highly recommend here at 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.880 the beginning of our Rolling Stone article to subscribe to 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.720 the new Cream. So yeah, Cream. The impression I have 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.880 is Cream is the one that like really was true 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.000 to what it was going for pretty much from start 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:44.200 to finish, while Rolling Stone was viewed as more like 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:48.880 the corporate version of that almost from the outset. Yeah. 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.520 The reason that it was viewed as that and still 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.760 is today is because the guy one of the founders, 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:59.000 Yawn Winner, was super corporate, like that was his goal. 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.880 He was in ambitious, um hippie hanger on basically who 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:07.440 happened to be in San Francisco when the Summer of 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.640 Love happened, when psychedelic rock broke out, when like the 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:14.800 sixties like really we're like happening in San Francisco was 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:17.080 the epicenter. And that's not to say he like didn't 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.760 dig it and wasn't moved by it, But he also 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.120 saw that this was a really important thing, at least 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:25.800 to him and a lot of other people, and he 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.200 saw that he could probably sell ads against this, so 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:31.200 he did what he knew how to do when he 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.880 started a magazine, as we'll see. Yeah, that's a nice 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:37.479 little intro. And for those of you who don't know, 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:41.599 Rolling Stone is the music largely music magazine, but also 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:46.599 over the ensuing years is since November nine seven, has 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.240 branched out into all manner of pop culture and politics, 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:54.280 and uh, you know, we we didn't want to not 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.240 mention what it was in case you happened to live 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.000 under a Rolling Stone. Oh man, is that written down 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:05.040 in your notes? No? I just yeah, WHOA. So should 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.200 we go back in time a bit? Yeah, So let's 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:10.160 getting the way back machine and go back to the 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.560 sixties in San Francisco and it's dusty in here, Um, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:17.400 a contact buzz from some grass that's being smiled. They 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:26.080 called it grass back then. Uh so yeah, you know, 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.520 Ed is very astute to point out that the origins 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.159 of Rolling Stone is kind of born out of this 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:36.680 sort of um certainly nineteen sixties, but maybe even before, 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:42.520 um left wing all rags that are self published, these 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:46.680 sort of poorly printed black and white magazines about the 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:50.880 counterculture that never really desired to make money. Uh, and 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.760 you know, most of them were super regional and never 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:56.880 like went outside of, um, usually the city that they 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.760 were in as far as distribution. But Rolling Stone was 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:03.120 kind of born out of this idea and in particular 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:08.080 got a lot of its influence from a San Francisco 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:14.480 based magazine called Ramparts. Yeah, which was like far far left, 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:18.760 radical left politics magazine. Um, there was a headline and 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:22.280 I think nineteen sixty eight, maybe even earlier than that 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:26.840 that Ramparts ran it was Ramparts offers ten thousand dollars 0:06:26.880 --> 0:06:30.320 for information leading to the arresting conviction of any cop 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.839 who was murdered a black man. That was on their cover. 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.479 But it was on their cover and there's like a 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:37.960 cop pointing a gun at you. The viewer from the 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:42.080 magazine's cover. And that's you know, okay, it's you know, shocking, 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.600 especially for for even back then. But it's even more 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.960 shocking when you realize that just a few years before 0:06:48.400 --> 0:06:53.760 Ramparts have been lost launched as an intellectual catholic quarterly. Yeah. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:55.359 I mean, I don't even know why they kept the 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:59.400 same name. It was a complete redo, it really was. 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:01.000 And the guy who redid it was a guy mean, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.840 Warren Hinkel And you can't talk about Rolling Stone without 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:08.200 talking about Warren Hinkele. That's right. He transfermed that magazine 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:10.840 into that, you know, that leftist rag that they knew, 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:13.760 and it was you know, obviously big in San Francisco, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.360 but it reached national levels of fame, if not like 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:22.400 widespread fame, like the writers were like featured on talk 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:26.400 shows and um other kind of notably, I guess when 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.400 you're a magazine being written by other magazine being written 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:33.480 about by other magazines, you've definitely made your mark. And 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.720 Time magazine even had a very famous article called a 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:39.760 bomb in every issue. I think it was a cover 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.760 article on Rampart's magazine. Uh. And though it would exist 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.480 alongside Rolling Stone for a little while, in the seventies. 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.520 It was not a big, widespread financial success, and obviously 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.240 because his politics had a pretty um just by nature 0:07:57.320 --> 0:07:59.600 of of what it was a sort of limited audience. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:02.520 And so Yan Winner, who was one of the founders 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.640 of Rolling Stone, who basically personified Rolling Stone over the 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.520 decades because he was the CEO for years and years 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:12.040 and years. He was involved in ramparts Um through a 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:14.160 guy named Ralph Gleason, who will meet in a second. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.400 But the upshot of this is that jan Winner saw 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.640 ramparts what it was doing, how important it was, and 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:22.960 that it never really took off. That I saw it 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.400 blew through at least two personal fortunes Rampart magazine did 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.280 before it declared bankruptcy. And he noted that and he 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:32.640 he kind of took it to heart for his magazine, 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.360 Rolling Stone, And the lesson for him was reflect the 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:40.160 counter culture without actually like furthering the agenda, and you 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.680 can probably be absorbed by much more people and be 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.480 palatable to advertisers too. Yeah, And as far as Winner goes, 0:08:48.960 --> 0:08:52.840 he himself was a college dropout from Berkeley Um. He 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.560 is sort of the personification of what we now think 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.960 of as like the Boomer generation, which is to say 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.640 that he uh and and probably still does. You know, 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:07.360 Um just sort of laud that generation and everything they 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:12.080 did as the utmost importance, and the music of the 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.520 time and the movements of the time were truly historic 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:20.160 and not to be um trifled with. And also in 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.760 a sort of boomer esquay um said, but you know 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.880 what's great as making tons of money, right, being a 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:36.920 capitalist and loving coke? Sure, yeah, I'm sure that was not. Uh, 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.120 I'm sure they were not. In short supply, he was 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:44.400 very famous for his ability to put put away bags 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:47.520 of cocaine. All right, So you mentioned Ralph Gleeson who 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.439 were going to meet. He was a jazz critic of 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.760 music critic who also dabbled in the rock and roll world. 0:09:52.800 --> 0:09:54.960 But he was not a boomer. He was born in 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:59.160 I think nineteen seventeen, so he was thirty ish years 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:03.040 older than Venner and they met at a Jefferson Airplane 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.040 concert and became buddies, and I think, uh, John Winner 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.760 really looked up to him, and they sort of developed 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:14.720 a mentor relationship mentor mint mentee is that what it is? 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:18.640 It depends. So if if Gleason was strictly kind of 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:24.199 advising and training and teaching um Yahn Winner, that would 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:27.560 make him a mentee. But if he did anything to 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.679 further Jon Winner's career, which he ended up doing, that 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.160 would make Winner his protege. Okay, well, let's just say 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:36.680 it was a mix of both. Sure, I just I 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:38.480 looked it up and I really wanted to share that 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:43.400 I got you there's a distinction. But they were friends, 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:48.280 and I believe it was Gleason that also worked for Ramparts. 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:54.040 Uh some and then when Ramparts fell apart, Uh, they 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.360 hatched the idea for Rolling Stone magazine. Well it so 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.480 Gleason left even before Ramparts fell apart because as Warren 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.760 Hinkel did not love the psychedelic rock era, did not 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.360 love hippies um, and Ralph Gleeson did even though it 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.600 was a jazz critic. He definitely got the psychedelic movement 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.959 and was very um appreciative of it and wrote very 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.720 kindly about it in his columns in Ramparts. Um, but 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:23.640 they're falling out happened when Warren Hinkel ran The Social 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.640 History of the Hippies, which was a pretty unflattering cover 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.920 story about hippies and the Summer of Love and how 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.560 basically he accused them of of falling down on the 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.360 job of taking over the responsibility to steer the country 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:40.120 and instead they were just off like dropping acid enshirking 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.319 the responsibility, which would pan out to be really prescient 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:46.000 when you're talking about the baby boomer boomer generation, right, 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:50.360 And um, Ralph Gleason didn't appreciate that at all, so 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.880 he left in disgust. He quit Ramparts. And that was 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.840 about the time when Winner was like, hey, let's make 0:11:55.840 --> 0:12:00.200 a magazine together, Summer of Love. Who can forget know? 0:12:00.360 --> 0:12:04.880 Oh wait, no, it's seventy two. Yeah, because John Volta 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:08.360 played the woodstock for that Summer of Love concert and 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:13.600 seventy two. Oh boy, always feel bad for people who 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:17.360 don't pick up on the inside jokes. We'll get some emails. 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.880 That's all right, it's fun. Uh So they again hatch 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.520 this idea together and they really, um kind of borrowed 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:27.360 a lot from Ramparts, um, not the least of which 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:31.600 was their logo. Um. If you look at the Ramparts logo, 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.600 it's I don't know if it's exactly the same font. 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.760 I'm sure there's They probably technically might have made a 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.920 new font, but it looks a lot like that font 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:44.240 and not the original Rolling Stone magazine font because the 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.920 earliest issues it was definitely a little bit different. But 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.240 the one that we all know today is the Rolling 0:12:49.240 --> 0:12:53.160 Stone font looks a lot like ramparts. Uh. They definitely 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:58.080 hired away a lot of people from that magazine, including, um, 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.359 you know, some of the designers, some of the writers, 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:06.199 some of the some of the editors, photographers, and even 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.040 the office space. They raised, Um, they wanted to raise 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:13.360 ten grand, but they ended up raising sears from a 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:19.480 variety of investors, including uh Jane Winner uh in her family, 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.200 who was Joan Winner's wife, who actually had a much 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.319 larger role in the early days of the magazine than 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:29.160 I believe she's usually given credit for. Yeah, I saw 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.000 it described in I think it was an Atlantic article. 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.640 Is that where where it was? Um, Yeah, that was 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:36.480 a great article, it really was. I think it was 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:38.439 called the Rise and Fall of Rolling Stone or something 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:43.280 like that. Um. And uh Jane Schindelheim Winner is described 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:46.640 as basically being the She's she was so cool that 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:51.319 her her personality was what attracted those you know, cool 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.280 photographers and cool musicians and just people to the magazine 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.920 that they wanted to be close to her basically or 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.280 she knew how to behave around them basically A yeah, 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.000 and they had a um interesting marriage. He came out 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:08.760 of the closet in the mid nineties, much to her, well, 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.480 I say much to her surprise. Apparently she had heard 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.320 rumors over the years and things like that. But I 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:16.319 think it was sort of a sudden thing for her 0:14:16.440 --> 0:14:19.160 and did not go down well. And I believe he's 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.160 been in a partnership with the same gentleman since then. Yeah, 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.920 it was this. It was a sudden surprise for John 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.080 Winner two because I read that he was outed by 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.240 the Wall Street Journal without his permission or even interesting 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.360 even a heads up, just outed him in the pages 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.400 of the Wall Street Journal. The author even pondered, like, wow, 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.520 is this is this scandal going to be the thing 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.120 that sinks Rolling Stone? But it was by then or 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.320 ninety four, and everybody's like, cares you know, it's I 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.800 don't think that qualifies as a scandal. Yeah, absolutely, Um, 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:56.440 so they have this money they got the uh at 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:59.240 his points out that John Winner kept his Porsche though 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.080 it's not like he his force to raise money for 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.800 the for the magazine. Uh. So they got the money 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:08.240 together and they hire a bunch of the Ramparts people. 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:12.320 They in fact used um a lot of the same equipment. 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:15.080 The magazine was the same size, had a bit of 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:17.920 the same look. They had a bunch of unused paper, 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:20.760 uh from Ramparts that they were able to use. And 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.960 they even used the offices where they printed it. I 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.080 think the loft above the office was where they first 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:28.320 made their homes. So they really had a bit of 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.120 a head start. Yeah, and so it Ramparts had spun 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:33.760 off something called the Sunday Ramparts newspaper and that's what 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:36.160 had gone to funk. So Ramparts of the magazine is 0:15:36.200 --> 0:15:38.400 still going at this time, but they used all the 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:42.360 Sunday Ramparts newspaper stuff, including staff, right, so they have 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.640 well when it worked for them, Yeah, and and when 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.000 Glease and quit in protest, and I think shortly after 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.480 that the Sunday Ramparts newspaper folded. That's when they got 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:54.680 together and did this. And then like you said, they 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.240 did it with bucks and they were able to print 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.120 I think forty thousand copies of Rolling Stone number one. 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:05.320 There was a last minute decision to put a production 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:09.160 still of John Lennon in the from the movie How 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.400 I Won the War wearing like um, like fatigues and 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:16.320 like um a helmet with netting on it and everything 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.000 he's looking at the Camera's a very famous photograph and 0:16:19.000 --> 0:16:21.200 they said that it was like a perfect mix or 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:25.680 perfect um metaphor for the mix of like politics, culture 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.480 and music all rolled into one. It really was a 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.400 perfect photo for Rolling Stone number one's cover, for sure. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:34.600 I think so, uh, maybe we could take a break 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:38.040 and talk about how that first issue fareds that is 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.360 that for a cliffhanger, it's great, all right, we'll be 0:16:41.480 --> 0:17:07.880 right back and shock stop. Did it sell? No? Did 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.960 it sell no? Chuck? Now, that first forty thousand, I 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.720 believe thirty four thousand issues were returned. I think a 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.439 lot of this was in part to the fact that 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:21.600 they tried to be their own distributor, which they realized 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:24.520 right away was not a good idea. Uh, and so 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.040 they quickly signed deals with distributors and news stands, and 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.000 UH realized that you know, at cents a copy, weren't 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:35.120 going to make a lot of money with that sort 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.880 of distributor partnership. Model. No. So, I mean they did 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.680 the sensible thing, and they gave up a pretty significant 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:46.160 chunk of their their margin to that distribution distribution company. 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:48.440 But in return, they were able to grow grow, grow, 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.840 like from issue number two or three. I'm not sure 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:53.719 exactly when they took on that new distributor, but it 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.560 was pretty soon after the failure of the first issue. Yeah, 0:17:57.640 --> 0:18:00.520 and then they started selling pretty well. Um, as far 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.320 as the name goes, they did get a thing sort 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:10.360 of threatened, um legally speaking, by the Rolling Stones music group. Um, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.879 but they sort of got out of that pretty quickly. 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.120 I think they may have realized, hey, maybe it's good 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.920 to be friends with this up and coming music magazine. 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:20.160 I don't really know for sure, but yeah, that would 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:23.119 make sense. Yeah. I saw um that it was I 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.320 saw I described as a letter writing campaign or correspondence 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.000 between that was initiated by Mick Jagger to John Winner 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:32.959 basically saying, hey, man, you can use this, but how 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.680 about some free advertising and lots of really good coverage 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:40.320 and all that. Um exactly what? Yeah, And I guess 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:42.600 they got dropped or something like that. Supposedly only that 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:45.359 initial letters survived, so no one knows exactly how it 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:47.919 panned out. But John Winner was definitely the kind of 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.879 person to trade you know, space for something else, like 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:57.679 maybe advertising dollars or you know, a favorable review of 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:01.240 a record um in Rich earned for that record company 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:03.760 or the parent company, Advertising and Rolling Stone. He was 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.639 definitely not only not not above doing that, he was 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:12.359 actively chasing that kind of opportunity. Yeah, and you know, 0:19:12.400 --> 0:19:14.280 I don't think there's a lot of people that would 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:16.560 stand up and say that Jan Winner was the greatest 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.520 boss they ever had, especially back in those days. I 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.080 think he might have cleaned up his act, you know, 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.639 later on, But in the sixties and seventies, it was 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.120 very well known that he would, like you said, make 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:29.879 these sort of under the table deals. He would play 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.680 labels and writers against one another, uh ad, sales people 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.000 against one another. He was apparently a pretty cruel editor. 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:40.600 He was never the best writer in the world. He 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:44.080 wrote some reviews and things here and there, but that 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.800 wasn't his strong suit. But um yeah, he was known 0:19:47.840 --> 0:19:51.360 as being fairly misogynist and sexist and sort of all 0:19:51.400 --> 0:19:54.320 the things you might imagine from a uh sort of 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.760 magazine editor in chief. In the nineteen seventies, yeah, like 0:19:57.800 --> 0:20:00.760 a good example for the first issue and early on 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:04.280 in Rolling Stones Life, Um, a guy named Michael Lyden 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.240 was the managing editor and he used to write for Newsweek, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.840 and he brought his wife Linda along, who was also 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:13.160 a writer and an editor, and Jon Winner made Linda 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:15.360 answer the phones because she was one of the few 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:19.199 women working there. Right, it's a good example. Yeah, And 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:21.960 this isn't a hit piece. There's a a very well 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:27.160 known biography of Beyond Winner out there that is um also, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.480 while not a hit piece, not very kind to him 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.840 at all, the Sticky Fingers one that came out, Yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.480 So he had been, apparently on Winner had been shopping 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.040 his his story around for you know, to be written, 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:42.280 initially by a ghostwriter and then finally a biographer. Like 0:20:42.359 --> 0:20:44.679 he couldn't get anybody to do it because he was 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:47.239 just known as such a control freak and everybody was like, 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:49.719 I do not want to be involved with you for 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.000 three or four years writing your story, Like he would 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.679 pick a part line by line captions under photos in magazines. 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.119 This is in the nineties. He was still doing this, 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:02.320 you know, like he was that kind of Boston You 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:05.680 can just imagine what a train wrecked nightmare. He would 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:08.680 have been if you were his biographer. He finally got 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:11.640 somebody to do it, but that somebody said, dude, you've 0:21:11.640 --> 0:21:13.840 got to give me creative control over this. You have 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.400 to give you freedom, and the you know, the guy 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:18.080 like you said. It wasn't a hit piece, but it 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:21.960 also wasn't just fawning and flattering like apparently Yon Winner 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:24.880 had kind of hoped it would be. Right of course. Um, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.200 as far as circulation goes, they say that it peaked 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.240 in two thousand and eight with a circulation of one 0:21:31.280 --> 0:21:36.320 point four million, uh and as around five hundred thousand today, 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:40.119 about twenty seven thousand of which is actually I believe, 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.360 like you know, paper copies, although maybe that's just news 0:21:44.400 --> 0:21:47.879 stand and not subscription. Yeah. I was wondering if that 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:54.000 number reflects their um digital subscribership, because actually it is. 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:59.200 And honestly, I never really knew what magazine distribution equaled anyway, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.040 so I was surprised is that it peaked at one 0:22:02.080 --> 0:22:05.359 point four million, which just seems for such an iconic 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:08.639 magazine that just doesn't seem like a lot of human 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.679 beings reading a magazine. No, I mean, think about it, 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.359 We're not too far off from Rolling stones peak. You know, 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:16.239 I didn't want to say that, but that's what I 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:18.919 was thinking. I was like, I had a Caesar salad 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:24.000 for lunch, so I'm feeling rather chilled anyway. Um, yeah, 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:25.560 I don't know what I thought it would be a 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:27.560 figure to be like ten million or something like that, 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.439 but no, that's still rather respectable one pointion. That's subscribed 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:33.639 to a lot of people, I believe. Yeah, circulation. I 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:36.800 think that includes new stands sales. But the reason I'm 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.800 wondering whether the web or the digital subscribers are included 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:44.920 in that later number the recent stuff, is because they 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:49.320 very famously, I should say, Yahn Winner very famously shunned 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.760 the idea of moving into the digital realm. And even 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:56.439 even as his son Gus was the guy who was 0:22:56.520 --> 0:23:00.000 running the digital arm, he still wouldn't give him resources 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.840 to support like a genuine website. Yeah. An example I 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:06.160 saw is that Rolling Stone broke some story. I can't 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.240 remember what story it was, but it was a big story, 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:12.000 and um, everybody had to go read about it on 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:16.000 other digital news sites because they hadn't posted anything or 0:23:16.040 --> 0:23:19.480 the story on Rolling Stone website. Like it was like 0:23:19.560 --> 0:23:24.399 that interesting. Uh. They've also changed format just size wise 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:27.919 over the years. They they started out, you know as 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:30.960 a sort of regular size smaller magazine or or should 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.159 I just say average magazine. Um, And it was in 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:36.159 black and white with the with a little bit of 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:38.879 color here and there, like a single color process, and 0:23:38.920 --> 0:23:41.720