Rolling Stone Publisher Talks Parties, Celebs & Madonna [audio]

How serious is Rolling Stone about making its first Super Bowl party a hit? The magazine’s publisher, Matt Mastrangelo, has been keeping us up to speed on all the details, and this week he flew in from New York to share some more.

Mastrangelo points out that Indy’s Super Bowl music scene is shaping up very differently than it did in recent host cities. Here, live music will dominate; in Miami and Dallas, clubs and deejays flooded the party circuit instead. Even before the big game, Indy will turn into one big music festival, thanks in part to the monster lineups at the two Rolling Stone parties. (And the latest release: Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood will duet at a private concert for the CMT channel.)

As far as familiar faces in the Rolling Stone crowd that won’t be singing, Mastrangelo promises to book A-list celebrity guests who won’t “sulk in a corner” or do the “walk and dodge,” a sneaky star maneuver involving a hasty side-door departure after the red-carpet business. He adds that the magazine is receiving invitation requests from 20 to 30 celebrities each day, but VIPs often make a game-time decision on which party they’ll attend. “If someone tells you that this celeb or that celeb is coming [to their party],” Mastrangelo says, “don’t believe them.”

Rubbing elbows with the beautiful people is hardly the only reason to spring for a $500 or $1,000 ticket to one of the Rolling Stone bashes at The Crane Bay. The Bacardi Bash on Saturday, Feb. 4, will sweep guests to 1920s Cuba (complete with a Havana-trained connoisseur rolling cigars), to the 1950s, and back to a modern rock jam. Chicago-bred rapper Lupe Fiasco will perform spectacularly, but we prefer the lineup at the Sunday tailgate party—Perry Ferrell, frontman for Jane’s Addiction, has requested “sufficient space for his dancers,” according to Mastrangelo. Lord knows what that means, but it’s probably worth the $500 ticket alone. Throw in a performance by the always-raucous Roots in such an intimate space, and this is starting to seem like the party to attend on Super Bowl Sunday.

Before heading out to continue making the media rounds, Mastrangelo shared his opinion of the impending Madonna show: “Where women in rock are right now is fantastic. And she’s the original woman who rocked. You have these icons. The Super Bowl should be that. She’s never been a flash in the pan.”

Photo: Rolling Stone publisher Matt Mastrangelo, right, with Gary Padjen, former Indianapolis Colts linebacker
and co-owner of The Crane Bay, site of the Rolling Stone parties

Audio courtesy of 93 WIBC Indy’s Afternoon News with Ed Wenck