ROLLING STONE'S ROCK WORLD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00845R000100080005-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: June 25, 2010
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: April 25, 1969
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/25: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100080005-4
L'YM11
APR 2 5 1969
PERIODICALS
Rolling Stone's Rock World
Uncertainties abound in the publish-
in~, business, but one fact seems tantaliz-
ingly obvious: there arc millions of po-
tcntial readers for publications aimed at
the I 8-to-25 age bracket. But how to
reach them? One method is to hire pro-
fessionals to turn out smooth articles in,
hi lingo in a psychedelic or Art Nou-'
v au layout ("Talking to kids in their
n language," it's called). Cheetah and
ye magazines es tried that-and folded.
`Another approach is to realize that to-
day's youngsters tend to detect false
notes and are. not readily dazzled by
packaging, so the publisher simply lets
writers have their say in blunt, un-
ffected prose on plain, tabloid-sized
a
newsprint. Rolling Stone, the San Fran-
cisco-based rock-'n'-roll newspaper-mag-
zinc, is doing well by doing just that.
Free to Knock. Stone's 23-year-old
v editor, Jann (pronounced Yahn) Wenner,
insists that he did not start the biweekly
journal to grab a market, but simply to'
ourselves-we're not promoting some- the paper ran a typically wry headline:
body else's trip," he says. What interests MORRISON'S PENIS IS INDECENT. The
Stone's writers is the whole rock world. ? paper startled its readers by attacking
Their staple is music, but they increas- the yippics just before the 1968 Dem-
ingly offer news and views on the entire ocratic Convention for proposing "meth
life-style that rock shapes. ods and means as corrupt as the polit.
Started 18 months ago, with just ical machine they hope to disrupt."
$8,000 and a staff made up largely of Energy Core. Stone was the first pub-
part-time volunteers, Rolling Stone has lication to probe the misuse of funds
already moved comfortably into the for the Monterey Pop Festival and to ex-
black, employs twelve people full-time, plore the obsessions of "the groupies,"
and claims a circulation of about 60,000. girls who chase rock performers into
.It will begin printing in London this bed (TIME, Feb. 28). This month, the
month to serve its 7,000 British readers paper devoted 20 pages to an exami-
more promptly. In the rock-music world, nation of the "American Revolution in
.
c.uivv,.?m. 1969. A summary article by Ralph J
-- F!""?''F"I"~^"* Gleason, 52, a veteran rock specialist
cured . many r~ dicals~~of 'v harboring fe
ure out how to make a revolution with
WENNER OF "STONE"
Even work can he fun.
port it for NBC. He wrote a rock col-
umn for the campus Daily Cali/ornian.
later' for Ramparts, before starting
O
its influence is ininicnse: recent praise
of an unknown Texas blues guitarist
named Johnny Winter impressed Co-
lumbia Records, which, after hearing
him. gave him a $600,000 contract.
Most oe Stone's ad revenue ($70,000
last year, and rapidly rising) conics from
record companies, but its reviewers have
felt free to knock such hot-selling per-
formers as Janis Joplin, Arctha Franklin
and The Doors.
While Editor Wenner considers his
paper part of the "youth revolution,"
he does not automatically accept every
part of the youth scene. When young
people and police clashed in Palm
Springs, Calif.. during an Easter va-
cation pop festival, Stone largely ig-
nored the music in favor of first-rate
reporting of the violence. It even had
kind words for the cops, who "exer-
cised amazing restraint, ignoring the bla-
.tant sexual activities, drinking and dop-
ing," until, finally, "the youthful va-
cationers asked for much of the trou-
ble they got." Stone does not condone
the kind of activity that got Singer Jim
Morrison charged with indecent expo-
sure during a Miami concert, although
courses. "The Beatles aren't just more
popular than Jesus, they are also more
potent than the S.D.S."
The notion that life, and even work,
can be fun, pervades Rolling Stone's
airy offices. "We've reversed the prior-
ities," says Wenner. "We have a good
time first and a viable business sec-
ond." Wenner was a student at Berke-
ley when the Free Speech Movement
disrupted the campus, and he helped rc-
Stone. While both he and his paper free-
ly use four-letter words, and he wears
his hair long and shaggy, he is not a ste-
reotype rebel. "Rock and roll is now
the energy core of change in American
life," he argues. "But capitalism is what
allows us the incredible indulgence of
this music."
Copy Approved for Release 2010/06/25: CIA-RDP90-00845R000100080005-4