The 2014 class induction ceremony and performance extravaganza is coming up in Brooklyn this Thursday April 10 and wow is this class giving you problems. KISS is pissed off and won't be performing after going back and forth about it for months (and after being on the ballot for fifteen years). Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens is still undecided about attending but Linda Ronstadt won't be there due to complications of Parkinson's she's experiencing. She mentioned to Billboard that you all haven't contacted her.
You did contact Nirvana's management, though, to let them know that Chad Channing wasn't going to be inducted with Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl. Pat Smear should be in the mix, too, but I'm focusing on Channing here for a particular reason. The
In 1988 and 1989 Dave Grohl was still in Washington D.C. drumming for the band Scream. If Chad Channing was the drummer on the records -- not a session musician -- that made the band eligible this year then he should be inducted, too, right? You make these exceptions for other bands (why, hello Red Hot Chili Peppers), what exactly is the problem here? Not enough swag to go around? Just being dicks, like you are with KISS? Hoping Courtney Love has a meltdown (because you know she won't keep her mouth shut and whatever she says won't fit on a t-shirt)?
In the end, this is your party and you can invite whoever you want. When you invited the Sex Pistols (and inducted Glenn Matlock along with his replacement Sid Vicious -- imagine) and they predictably refused to attend Johnny Rotten called the whole thing "a piss stain." I don't know that I totally agree with him but it would be lovely if instead of trying to mark your territory as arbiters of cool you took a cue from the truly cool kids -- the bands themselves -- and included everyone.
They totally delegitimate themselves with this kind of thing. I read about the thing re: KISS earlier and thought it was total nonsense.
ReplyDeleteIf by delegitimate you mean make asses of themselves then yes. Oh, the KISS thing is beyond stupid but it has to do with the fact that the HoF didn't want them there to begin with. And Nirvana won't be performing at all, which I find odd considering that Grohl sang for Freddie Mercury when Queen was inducted and Grohl and Novoselic have performed together since then most notably with Paul McCartney. I wonder how much the situation with Channing may have led to their not playing.
DeleteI sort of meant, get people to stop paying attention.
ReplyDeleteI think the only people who really pay attention, anyway, are goofballs like me. Maybe they do have good reasons for the decisions they make but from where I'm sitting it looks arbitrary. Like with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, eight past and present members were inducted but not Dave Navarro who played on "One Hot Minute" and was with them for a couple of years. Did he turn it down or was he not included to begin with?
DeleteI was talking about this with my TA (late twenties) today, and she said she thought in her gen (a) people weren't paying attention, b/c old music who cares or 9b) the generational vibe is to not like exclusion.
DeleteThe thing that's giving me the biggest problem is that Channing was the one on the record that they're using to clock the years.
DeleteFunny, I just watched a documentary on trying to authenticate the painting, Bords de la Seine à Argenteuil, ostensibly signed by Monet.
ReplyDeleteThe people involved gathered enough concrete evidence for provenance, the timeline and other evidence suggest it is authentic, and many, many experts/connoiseurs assert that the work is, indeed, Monet's. Yet the Wildenstein Institute in Paris is the ultimate arbiter (though it has been proved wrong in the past); the committee summarily dismissed the painting as Not. Monet. Because they are It. And without their say so, you can't auction off the painting as a Monet, the institute is that powerful.
I think the groups honoured should have the last word, not the arbiters. It majorly SUCKS that they get to have the power, when they cannot assess the contribution that a group member makes more so than the group and should have the humility to admit it. IMO, it's all about power.
Hey, pi! Obviously I agree with you. I think what's happening with Channing is related to what they're doing to KISS. In their case the only members being inducted are the four founders which leaves out a lot of people including the late Eric Carr who drummed for them for almost a decade. I get that the Hall is irritated KISS is there to begin with (like with Rush last year) but they don't have to be dicks about it.
DeleteAnd it looks like Nirvana will be playing after all. I'd read several places that said they weren't but yesterday a photo of their equipment showed up on their FB page with an additional guitar that loudwire.com identified as Joan Jett's.
I hate Rush- all that high pitched screeching, though I love the bassy thing (I'm from Toronto so I know them well, too well, from the radio back in the day- arrrgh). KISS are baby poseurs. Whatever. The bands should have the final say.
ReplyDeleteIf Nirvana is playing, that will be EPIC. I think I would cry, not with grief, but with recollection. Joan Jett? That's interesting....
Nirvana did perform with Joan Jett, Lorde, St. Vincent and Kim Girdon from Sonic Youth. They also played an aftershow with Jett and you can find video of that on her FB page.
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