C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

I mean...

https://scrammagazine.com/emitt-rhodes/

emitt makes an appearance at around 1:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNyoAyo9088

https://i.imgur.com/OIlRtDo.png

from p. 9 here:

http://krlabeat.sakionline.net/issue/4dec65.pdf

so david beaudoin actually wrote a book in 1997 about his experience with the palace guard and the hullabaloo. based on the title, i wonder if he talks about the sexual abuse that emitt brings up in those two interviews:

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550493239l/1589699._SX318_.jpg

I suspect, based on his fearful and pretty nasty homophobic comments in this and one other interview I’ve read online, comments uttered without any sort of “one of the boys” jokiness, that Rhodes went through or witnessed some physical abuse that fucked him up. Or possibly he was repressed? Who knows? And this is on top of all the record contract grief. He just reads like a heavily battle-scarred person. Sad.

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee)

i don't know emitt's life or what he went through.

i know there are many, many kinds of trauma and abuse - physical, sexual, emotional - and they are all damaging. i know that trauma and abuse is far more common, particularly in cishet-identifying men, than is readily acknowledged. i know there is a lot about rhodes' life that i have seen, uh, very commonly in, particularly, amabs who have gone through trauma and abuse, who are socialized to handle trauma and abuse in a certain way, for whom trauma and abuse are _normalized_.

i know that trauma and abuse is not a matter of "victims" and "abusers" but is a cycle, a pattern of behavior, that is instilled. i am not surprised to learn of the things that emitt rhodes has to say about gay people. whatever he went through, whatever brought him to that point, i think he is responsible for what he has said and done, and i do not think anything he may or may not have done exculpates him.

i very much enjoy much of emitt rhodes' music. i am saddened, but not surprised, to learn how difficult his life wound up being, how much hurt and pain he went through, and i am glad that he is not suffering anymore.

Man, reading that long interview the good Capitaine Jay Vee posted. Every time I see the name of the manager who messed him up I keep thinking "the bass player for the Monks!?" Sorry, my mind has a mind of its own.

I am still a little 🤯 after listening to the 2010 interview and reading that other interview.

On a lighter note, that interview also has this great exchange:


Kim: Your label mate, at the time, over at A&M was Phil Ochs, who was going kind of psychedelic…

Emitt: Nobody liked Phil Ochs. Did you like Phil Ochs?

Edwin: I loved his music.

Kim: I heard he was a horrible human being, by all accounts, but I still liked his records.

Emitt: You mean you liked him??
(The waiter walked up at this point to ask if we needed anything and Emitt addressed him.)

Emitt: Ever heard of Phil Ochs?
Waiter: Uhhh…

Emitt: How old are you?
Waiter: I’m nineteen.

Emitt: No, you’ve never heard of Phil Ochs. Forget it.
(The waiter left and we continued this thread)

...and this:

Kim: But you’d go back in time and kill Hitler?

Emitt: (chortling) Oh, I’d kill Hitler, no prob! I’d kill Saddam Hussein. Show him to me, I’ll go for him. (drives his butter knife against table repeatedly)

Kim: Put the knife down.

Are you posting that to go with NTI's "lighter note" or...?

the things that count as "a lighter note" these days...

Well, I thought it was funny (like a Simpsons gag..."Dad, put the butter knife down...")

well, it wasn't funny when my wife said it to me this week.

Reading that interview (and remembering others with him), I get the feeling he had to have been an aspie. The stubbornness, the feel for perfectionism, going from zero to tmi so rapidly in conversation...

Ya think?

going from zero to tmi so rapidly in conversation...

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain)

haha, now are you talking about rhodes or about me? :)

Relatedly, there was this in that interview:

Edwin: What other instruments do you play besides guitar, piano, bass and drums?

Emitt: Nothing. Is there anything?? For me it’s one-four-five. It’s Pythagorean Theorum. For me it’s mathematics. I love Pythagoras. Everybody else in rock and roll loves Pythagoras, too, even if they don’t know it. I’m just telling you that Pythagoras was a wonderful guy. He lived a long time ago, nobody knows him and nobody cares. He gave us do re mi fa sol la ti do. Without him… somebody else would have had to do it. I love math. I love science. I love that stuff.

Edwin: Yeah, math and music are pretty much synonymous.

Emitt: It’s Pythagoras. You split the string in half and you get an octave. You split it into thirds and you get a third.

the homophobic shit in those interviews is so heinous, and ER brings it up so abruptly, it's just really difficult to read.

That is really unpleasant, and the grandiose I Am A Scientist stuff doesn’t help any.

its always amusing to me when dudes in music learn like one scientific term or basic concept, and then immediately imagine themselves as a timeless polymath renaissance man. "I bring so many disciplines to bear on my music - art, history, science. For example, like Nicola Tesla, I too think outside the box when creating my music."

OTM. I started a whole thead about this.
Math & Music: The Severed Alliance. Some Recent Academic Approaches (Do Not Read If You Hate Drums)

I guess my thinking about it ended up being, "yes, there is some relationship between math and music, but it is vastly overstated by various people for various people and there are very smart people who are on record as saying that this relationship is vastly overstated."

It's like the "I am smart so I can deduce everything from first principles."

I'm axiomatic, like Euclid.

Ilx0r Euclid, Euler to thread!

Not to throw more fuel on the fire, but wondering how long it will take for this kidney stone of information to pass through my system.

Ilx0r (-Euclid-), Euler to thread!

Real quiet on this thread today

Yeah, a little too quiet

That interview with Scram magazine is pretty horrific. The whole sexual abuse story he tells, the bit about the guy who was abused getting arrested outside the club where they had played as teenagers with a bomb or explosives, wtf? Also, though they've censored the names of the people involved it's fairly easy to find out who they are - and the guy he accuses of the abuse is still alive.

I saw that. He was named after Gary Cooper!

The interview is from 2016, so nothing seems to have happened about these accusations. Not that Emitt Rhodes in 2016 is any kind of reliable witness on anything. judging by that interview.

Sorry, that’s the kind of datum my Aspie mind gravitates to when there is some horrific reality I don’t feel that comfortable discussing.

Sometimes some of those uncensored names show up on the Fan Page, but mostly just echoing Emitt. Can’t seem to find anything about the contents of that book.

Are you sure that interview is from 2016? I don't remember seeing a date, thought it was older. Here's another interview, not sure if it was linked yet, not sure if I need to read another interview with him right now myself: https://thelosangelesbeat.com/2012/04/long-time-no-see-los-angeles-beat-exclusive-interview-with-emitt-rhodes-part-1-of-2/

This popped up recently and there are even some rumors about who it is about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiQs3yKfys8

xp i'm actually not sure if emitt is actually in the video i posted.

i started reading a lot about the palace guard, orange-empire records, and the hullabaloo to find out more about the scene that was going on. it's particularly disturbing how much the contemporary promotion hypes the fact that it's a place for the TEENS, where the KIDS can finally come hang out after hours and see their favorite pop groups.

(xxp) Might not be 2016, thought I saw that somewhere.

Seems like with the political references being made that Scram interview was from the mid-2000s, possibly around the time the Rev-Ola Merry-Go-Round comp came out.

these two quotes appear right next to each other in kate sullivan's 2001 oral history of KROQ:

GARY BOOKASTA (founder, KROQ AM and FM): We wanted to call it "KROK," but it was already taken. It was [DJ] Humble Harve's idea to use the Q. He ended up killing his wife, but Phil Spector and I went to bat for him in court. He only got two years [for manslaughter].

SHADOE STEVENS (DJ, 1973-74, 1976-79): KROQ was the inspiration of Gary Bookasta. Gary was a con man. He had an almost mystical ability to make people believe in him. He pulled together 13 partners, who built this radio station in Burbank. It took off like a rocket.

Self-XP I see on the Scram site that the interview was put online in early '16, but issue of the mag it appeared in was published in 2003.

yeah i mean why else would he express the desire to murder saddam hussein

Yes, so those allegations have been out there for a hell of a long time.

All of this is not seeming to have much effect on my ability to listen to his music this afternoon, somewhat surprisingly or not.

A lot of these things were an open secret – Bob Markley and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Kim Fowley and the Runaways. I keep hoping Ugly Things will do an exposé on sexual abuse in 60s garage rock circles. It’s def. a part of the history.

This popped up recently and there are even some rumors about who it is about:
📹

I think every music scene ever has had creepy, manipulative older guys who hang around it - Markley and Fowley are textbook examples.

Where are these? I didn’t see anything in the comments.

Back in the day, Fowley came over to hang out in Glasgow for some reason and had all these indie rock scenesters from the Pastels and Teenage Fanclub running about after him like he was some fucking genius - while he was trying to touch up all their girlfriends. He played some shit gig with Norman Blake on guitar and somebody from the BMX Bandits on bass or whatever and I remember someone saying after it, "Do you want to hang out with Kim?" and I was like, "I'm not going anywhere near that talentless cunt".

Good for you.

_Where are these? I didn’t see anything in the comments._

Some family friend on FB Fan Page said it was about a decade older celebrity Emitt was dating that his dad didn’t like. Although a decade older than Emitt at the time is like what, mid-to-late twenties?

I think every music scene ever has had creepy, manipulative older guys who hang around it - Markley and Fowley are textbook examples.

not only were there aspects of that scene that might have encouraged the presence of predatory behavior, it's precisely that, for fowley, being a sexual deviant / creep who bragged about hanging around high schools trying to pick up underage girls, that was all self-consciously part of his image / "appeal"

cf. the fugs' "dirty old man"

Oh yes, definitely the 60s was perfect for these sorts of creeps, and eventually you end up with Manson .