Gene Simmons felt up a friend of mine in a club in Vegas, repeatedly, after being told to piss off. He’s an asshole.
Gene Simmons is disgusting. Sex Tape? Try his plastic surgery tape. Or his “advice” for women. Barf.
Madonna and Michael Jackson might well be horses’ asses, but they are pop, not rock.
Please, let us NOT start a lengthy music-genre discussion here…PLEASE!!!
Furious Marmot - I believe you are referring to an episode during the famous Lost Weekend he took in LA for a few months when Yoko kicked him out. At least once he got tossed from the Whiskey a Go Go (I think) with Harry Nilsson for being drunk and obnoxious to all present, including I think one of the Smothers Brothers. He also came out of the bathroom once with one of those dispenser maxi-pads taped to his forehead…so, to my knowledge, no waitress-bashing, just being a jerk.
And **Scumpup **- well, I guess you and I are going to disagree. Everything you say about Lennon is true, and taken at that level, we’re done. But he wrote beautiful, experimental music - In My Life, Tomorrow Never Knows, Across the Universe, etc. - that go places someone like Morrison didn’t seem to even know existed. And Lennon was confronted regularly by folks who pointed out what he was doing was assinine - there’s the famous interview with the British reporter where she basically says “you can’t be that stupid, can you?” The point is that Lennon was more famous and influential than almost anyone at the time - and as a damaged outsider who wanted to rock n’ roll, he had no clue how to use that. So, he tried a bunch of stuff - stuff that was considered fringe and experimental at the time, but also “groovy” - there were Human Be-in’s and Woodstock and other such Events and Happenings going on - so when you put Lennon’s actions in context, well, they don’t make sense, per se, but I can see where he might be coming from…
My $.02
Jeeez…that goes for just about everyone back in the 60s and 70s (drunk). As for puking on stage, I googled it (:eek:) and it’s not all that rare, evidently.
I’ve always wondered how he got his reputation (aside from the tongue thing). He’s a complete asshole, and not even a little attractive.
I probably should have stated this in my OP, but better late than never. Being a horse’s ass does not preclude making good music. John Lennon was a talented and influential musician. He was also a horse’s ass. The two are connected only insofar as his fame and influence from being a musician gave him the opportunity to publicly be a horse’s ass. Absent the fame and influence, he’d have been just another smartmouth deadbeat dad.
I saw him in the late 80s, but I think the walking pharmaceutical/drug store thing had ended by then.
Great concert, by the way. Him and Johnny Winter. Shoooo-weeee!
Eh? I really don’t think it was done ironically. Sorry but the dude wasn’t that clever. he really did believe his own hype. Not sure it makes him a jerk though just pretentious.
Yeah, he was that clever, as any readings of anything he ever wrote will tell you. He also detested his own hype.
It’s true that Lennon was definitely capable of being an asshole to people, and according to all reports was often a bully even to those closest to him, and that he had a mean, scathing sense of humor. He was also reputedly a batterer of women. Unquestionably a deeply flawed person. That doesn’t mean his talent, intelligence, wit and social conscience weren’t genuine, though.
I like his music. I just don’t want to pay for a concert that he shows up too drunk to perform it properly.
I still don’t think it was done ironically. And he sort of did believe in his own hype or at least used it to his advantage.
As for his writings, well putting his artisitic work aside I haven’t found anything particularly meaningful in anything he wrote. YMMV but I don’t think the man was exceptionally clever.
Maybe an example of his cleverness would bolster your case.
Hell, an example of both wit and horse’s assedness comes from one situation: when asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, Lennon responded, “The world? He’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles.”
My vote goes to Sammy Hagar.
Can’t drive fifty-five? Hire a damn chauffeur!
Making a statement about an unpopular and often violated law makes one a horses ass?
I heard Michael Stipe is a bit of a pain in the patootie. REM played Savannah, and then afterwards Stipe went to see a local band in a small club downtown. He got drunk and thought it amusing to roll his empties onto the dancefloor. He was asked a couple of times to stop, but wouldn’t.
In the background, he had-get this-Foreigner playing. “I Want to Know What Love Is.” As if the whole thing wasn’t bad enough.
Amber in Treasury-what “advice?” shudder
Michael Stipe? I can believe it. He always struck me as a pretentious dickweed. Love REM-but I can definitely believe it.
In the horse’s ass stakes Bono and Sting are the front runners, with Bono just having the edge in inflated self-importance and pretentiousness.
Riiiight…
So as long as he opposes drugs (which for a lot of recreational use don’t harm anyone but the user), he’s cool to be a misogynist and generally allround ugly human being?