Intersting Take on the Billboard Interview

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=716400408505153&id=661035204041674

Chuck Klosterman : The Irresponsible “Journalist”, Who Is Responsible For The Billboard Eddie Van Halen “Interview”. By Jon Oldemeyer

“I have come to believe that overcoming a self-focused world-view is impossible,” Klosterman explained, reading from his latest book, I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined) . “Life can be experienced only through an imaginary mirror that allows us to occupy the center of a story that no one is telling. I don’t think the human mind is capable of getting outside of that box, and I’m not even sure if this is problematic”. A quite telling excerpt from a book after having Googled Chuck Klosterman Reputation”. Most of the links presented will be from that search.

Yesterday 06/19/2015 Billboard Magazine published a story that caused a shitstorm of controversy amongst Van Halen / Sammy Hagar fans. http://www.billboard.com/…/eddie-van-halen-addiction-david-… *Watch the accompanying video provided with the story before reading, as I know Klosterman’s voice from having seen him several times on a very opionated Kiss related podcast as a guest, which much like Mr. Klosterman, seems to thrive on controversy. The video shows Eddie Van Halen’s demeanor at the time (it was filmed during the interview), which seems almost jovial, yet in the written interview he comes off as almost being bitter and curmudgeon like.

About 18 months ago I read an interview with Jimmy Page, in which the writer came off as someone who had read “Hammer Of The Gods” one too many times. He seemed to be very interested in Page’s past heroin use and dirt on the band, rather than the musical aspects (which this interview was supposed to be about the upcoming remaster series) or what made the magic between them as a group of individual musicians.

http://www.gq.com/moty/2014/jimmy-page-men-of-the-year
I vividly remember how after reading it, that the interviewer seemed to be trying to get Page’s goat and that Jimmy Page seemed very irritated by this man, but at the time I had no idea who Chuck Klosterman was and soon forgot about the article.

A few months later during the KISS hall of fame induction fiasco, I ran into a fan based KISS podcast / Web series (which will go unnamed, as I do not support it). It had been on for over a year and there were plenty of Ace Frehley related episodes, so through April 2014 – January 2015, I would slowly catch up on the episodes that were of interest to see what crap they had to say about Ace (the only reason I ever gave a shit about that particular band) and in the process I would watch a few new episodes, in which I would be introduced to the name and face of Chuck Klosterman. He would be a guest on the show in September and November of 2014. He came off to me like some really hyper guy who’d drank one too many energy drinks. He really seemed to enjoy coming up with “what if?” scenarios and base stuff on conjecture, but that particular show thrives on that and since I already had a certain disdain of varying degrees for the three hosts of the show, I came away with a more favorable opinion or first impression of Mr. Klosterman. He also appeared to present himself more as an author as I recall and I had no idea he was also a freelance journalist.

Moving forward to the day before yesterday, I had ran into another story that seems to pop up every few months and has been going on for the last 8 years, where Sammy Hagar brings up something negative about Van Halen http://ultimateclassicrock.com/sammy-hagar-perform-van-hal…/ just to get himself some press, which is funny, because by selling a huge 70% stake in his tequila business several years ago to Seagram’s, he’s worth more than each and every single member of Van Halen, but I do suppose that not being able to sell records the way you’re accustomed to (the first Chickenfoot album did sell 500,000 copies and going gold in the process, so I’ll give him that, but it also had to do with the publicity of being a supergroup and their second release tanked) by only going gold once as a solo artist since originally quitting / being fired from VH and that release was hot on the heels of him leaving the band. Since then each album has sold less and he’s been forced to play smaller and smaller venues and this certainly could cause a problem for somebody with such a huge ego. These are just facts and can easily be looked up. The only reason I even bring this up has more to do with why I chose to vent my frustration and give information this way, instead of having to deal with people who only look at headlines and soundbites to make their stupid and uninformed opinions without even reviewing the source material beforehand. They give me a fucking headache! Hagar is a narcissistic master manipulator who knows how to get a headline. He knows that Van Halen can’t stop him from performing the songs in concert, nor can they forbid him from re-recording the songs and besides, they get paid for it anyway, but if this is even truthful to begin with, it was presented to VH1 about him performing the songs on the show Live From Daryl’s House and for no other reason that I am aware of, but he neglects to give this information and makes it sound (like he always does) like The VH brothers are conspiring against him and “Mikey” and his fans follow him blindly. He knows he’s responsible, because it’s all in there for the listener to see the omission. If Eddie did it to be a dick, because he knew a TV show would cave in at a lawsuit, then so be it, because Hagar has said and done enough shit to deserve the inconvenience, but it also could be that television broadcast law is different for rights and he simply doesn’t want music he wrote being presented in that format.

Anyhow, after going through the motions on that bullshit, the Eddie Van Halen interview in Billboard Magazine that I had been anticipating arrived yesterday and once I finished reading it, I looked for the “journalist” who wrote it and there it was… By Chuck Klosterman… Holy Shit, No fucking wonder!! Eddie’s demeanor sounded so bitter and negative, but because the writer was using so much of his own narrative to push the story and I found it odd at how much of this narrative was familiar after 35 years of Van Halen articles and interviews that I’ve read in numerous guitar magazines, Rolling Stone, Circus, Hit Parader, etc (Creem Magazine is missing because most of their stuff was made to be hilarious, which it was… R. I. P.), that I smelled a rat. I kept my mouth shut all day while seeing post after post by people saying things so hateful that it’s futile repeating them, but they made my blood boil and yet I am so thankful for multiple reasons.

1. This article caused this response from Mr. Hagar https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9dnFzRxD_G8 , in record time. It was almost like he had “Eddie Van Halen” on his Google alert. Maybe he knew about the content of the article and what it contained beforehand and figured he’d lie and wait? It certainly would explain the reason for the “cease and desist” story planted the day prior and out of the blue. Sure it could be purely coincidence, but really? All the same, I now have full confidence that I’ll never have to worry about even the most remote possibility that Van Hagar will ever rear it’s ugly head again. Whatever means of life support the chances of that ever happening, are now dead. The plug has been pulled. That’s what happens before you find out the facts and make a video saying “FUCK YOU!” to somebody that will never go away, so for that and only that, I owe Mr. Klosterman a big “Goddamn Thank You, Hallelujah!!!” I had already erased any trace of Hagar from my music collection a long time ago, just as I had Ted Nugent and Megadeth, except for one thing… Montrose. If I had to make a list of my top 100 all time records, it definitely would’ve been in there, but I learned to live without Double Live Gonzo, Tooth, Fang & Claw, Rust In Peace and Peace Sells, so good riddance. Some people you just can’t stomach hearing anymore.

2. Seeing how people react to headlines, but form an opinion only on that, instead of bothering to inform themselves. This story as a whole means almost nothing to the majority of the world, but as a microcosm of how people react to headlines, soundbites or just plain misrepresentation of information meant to cause a ripple effect of distorted truths or flat out lies, so that it becomes fact almost instantly is amazing to me. Although I didn’t take on an experiment, but I can now look at it from that perspective and it’s scary as hell to think about how we process information now, especially when it’s exactly the same when something truly important comes along. maybe we were better off with newspapers? Sure, maybe there were people that would see a headline and then start talking out their asses, but the majority would read the story and then form an individual opinion without instant analysis from idiots to cloud their judgement.

3. That the saying that “You Can’t Fix Stupid” is more profound than the simple saying or witticism that it was most likely originally intended to be. It fits our reality show mentality as a species more than ever.

At the same time, I cannot in good conscience close this without stating that some responsibility of this actually lies with Eddie Van Halen himself or at least his publicist, who at last check was his wife’s job. Through one morning of some simple checking out of Chuck Klosterman and his credentials, would’ve shown even a layman that this guy was a potential problem. Eddie probably will just let this ride and not defend himself. It’s what I’ve known him to do. He should make the tapes (which do exist or should) be made public. And get a retraction and apology from Billboard. Of course I have no proof that he didn’t say these things, but if you read the Jimmy Page article, you’ll be able to see how he may have been very irritated by the writer’s line of questioning and either said some things he should not have, in which case he would need to apologize and make a retraction or as I think, he was in an antagonizing situation and had his answers taken out of context. The piece on Page shows me this, but from what I remember, Jimmy was too witty for that and threw it back in his face. It also could be a character assassination piece as well. Make him produce the tapes!

One last thing, it looks like Mr. Klosterman also does or did write an ethics column for the New York Times. Here’s a link of somebody having a problem with one of his columns and asking the question “Chuck Klosterman: Worst New York Times Ethicist Ever?” or was that meant to read as a statement? http://ethicsalarms.com/…/chuck-klosterman-worst-new-york-…/ Judge for yourself, I’m done with this clown.