PETER Tork of The Monkees has a message for Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner – stop monkeying around with our chances of being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!
“Jann Wenner is single-handedly keeping us out of the Hall of Fame,” the mop-topped bass player for the ’60s group told Page Six. He said Wenner, who co-founded and is a vice-chairman of the Cleveland-based museum, “doesn’t care what the rules are and just operates how he sees fit. It is an abuse of power. I don’t know whether The Monkees belong in the Hall of Fame, but it’s pretty clear that we’re not in there because of a personal whim.”
Tork points out a recent incident in which Wenner was accused of intervening with the Hall of Fame’s voting committee to induct Grandmaster Flash instead of the Dave Clark Five, even though the British Invasion band had more votes.
“He single-handedly replaced a director and overrode a vote,” charged Tork, who now plays with a group called Shoe Suede Blues, which has a new CD, “Cambria Hotel,” out and will perform July 3 at The Cutting Room.
Tork believes Wenner doesn’t like the fact that The Monkees, who were originally cast as actors for a TV sitcom, didn’t play their own instruments on their first two records. “Jann seems to have taken it harder than everyone else, and now, 40 years later, everybody says, ‘What’s the big deal? Everybody else does it.’ Nobody cares now except him. He feels his moral judgment in 1967 and 1968 is supposed to serve in 2007.”
Tork added that a Rolling Stone reporter who once interviewed him later called him before publication to complain, “You were going to get a glowing column but Jann Wenner took my column, shredded it and said, ‘We’re not going to say anything nice about him.’ ”
Wenner did not return a call for comment. But a Rolling Stone rep and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame president Joel Peresman both denied Tork’s charges, insisting Wenner had no influence on the voting committee and no power to veto who got in. They suggested Tork’s beef was a stab at getting free publicity for his new record. That said, The Monkees have never been nominated.