There are sexual predators in the music industry. That’s not a surprise is it, the point is, it fucking should be! This Sky Documentary looks into the prevalence of under age sex and abuse in music. With a host of people, Kari Krome, Lori Mattrix, Vicki Hamilton, Trudie Arguelles, Jackie Fuchs all telling their stories of LA, 70s, all age clubs attracting kids into rock n roll… and the bands playing it. The normalisation that rock stars can do whatever they want to young girls because of who they are and we’ll all just look away. Julia Holcomb’s story of the abuse she endured from Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler is particularly sickening, as the excuses are offered and catastrophic failures are made by everyone. No one looking out for the 16 year old Julia. “The girl is dispensable. The man is not”. Tyler is a prick. Always has been. Which is a shame as I like Aerosmith. I’ve a ticket to see them next year, but watching this I feel very conflicted. I feel that the line “My job was to look after the band” gets uttered a lot. Except maybe when the band is The Runaways, an all girl band that’s treated as just the same prey. It’s 90 minutes of misogynistic debauchery. Mainly centred around the actions of Steven Tyler, Runaways Manager Kim Fowley and probably least surprising Axl Rose. None of the stories are surprising, but what’s most shocking are the people here, still idolising, finding reason and laughing it off. Although these 3 are the focus, it’s clear the intention is to magnify that this is a wide spread issue, over decades and genres. “It sometimes seems that everything that’s to be said about this subject has been said, now what we need to start doing is listening”.
9/10
