Danny Fields' lawyer's got his work cut out for him…
Fields claims Out magazine tarnished his image by intimating he used his music connections to bed young boys. Here's the excerpt from the issue in question:
The '70s was sure a lot of fun, but I was sure a lot of young. Boy, if you didn't get laid, then it was your own fault. I don't remember ever being inhibited by saying 'I'm the manager of the band. If you want to meet them, come to my hotel room and sleep with me, and I'll introduce you to them in the morning.'
Now, compare that blurb to the quote from Legs McNeil's Please Kill Me: Uncensored Oral History of Punk (pictured). Which do you find more incriminating and tarnishing?
This isn't the first time Fields has found himself embroiled in a war of words. The famed music manager once alleged that he and The Who's Pete Townshend were "boyfriends". Townshend denied the claim and even suggested that Fields may have drugged him. Of course, Townshend later faced kiddie porn charges, so we're not sure who to believe.
Jeff Bercovici thinks so, too.
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Summers on Fire Island with Danny Fields shooting off his mouth poolside…vastly entertaining…total character.
Who is he? Seriously. Never heard of him.
Queerty fails to acknowledge that the "please kill me" quote as apposed to the "OUT" blurb, loosely compared above, is within the context of an oral history of 70s underground music and culture in which Danny Fields is comprehensively portrayed in the context of his work. The book includes some insight into the sex and drug infused scene, textually relevant therefore is who was taking what drug and the who fucked who parts. The implication in the OUT quote and the comparison above is that Fields, perhaps the most influential character in the protopunk years, armed with the fuck lure of star access, subsidized an MO of seducing bus boys and groupies with signing the occasional band. That's maybe OUT's idea of cool, but, for starters, its inaccurate. I see no evil on Field's part and suspect fun is being frankensteined into degredation here. Queers make the best gay bashers, they say. What a shame Queerty feels compelled to play the part.