February 1972
CONTENTS
Dear CREEM: I’m from Detroit, moved to Seattle a year ago last spring and got a job as a mailcarrier. While working this week, sorting mail to be sent to Alaska, I ran into CREEM with R. Crumb’s cover and remembered some of you guys. Please send a year’s sub.
ROCK 'n' ROLL news
Yoko Ono and John Lennon made a surprise guest appearance at the John Sinclair Benefit held in Ann Arbor on December 10th. Fifteen thousand people turned out to see speeches and performances by luminaries who ran the gamut of rock and politics: Bobby Seale, Stevie Wonder, Jerry Rubin, STK, the Up, Ed Sanders, Commander Cody, and Allen Ginsberg.
PROCOL HARUM It’s Only Realism
Richard Cromelin
In the thick air of the early evening, Los Angeles wrings itself out after one of its record-breaking August heat wave days. Coldwater Canyon cuts into the hills above Beverly Hills, the luxury homes that sit back from its streets bespeaking its posh status.
Features
Get Behind the Blue Oyster Cult
R. Meltzer
(Before it gets behind you.)
How Does it Feel?
Dave Marsh
It’s Bob Dylan month! Time for the first annual Bob Dylan Revival. “Just like the blues,” as Barry Kramer put it. Here ya go: new, mind boggling single (about George Jackson?!) new album (Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Volume Two) maybe a movie and record of Bangla Desh, and Tony Scaduto’s supposedly definitive biography about to appear.
Features
Crabby Appleton Zaps the Zombies
Lester Bangs
Like any other average San Diego couple, we were growing a bit tired of double features at the drive-in and watered-down drinks at Swinger clubs, so one recent weekend we took each other to romantic Los Angeles, for Crabby Appleton’s opening and the watered-down drinks at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go.
200 Motels What’s the Deal?
Rick Bolsom
“What’s the deal?” Somebody gave weird old Frank Zappa a bunch of money to make a moving picture.
I Rather Expected Something with Dirty Fingernails
Stephen Nugent
Those writers who cater to the pulp appetites of the masses have been constant targets of abuse at the ailing hands of their fellow writers who pose as artists of a superior caliber. One of the few writers of detective-mystery fiction who has received critical acclaim not belying a profound disdain for all things smelling of pulp has been Raymond Chandler, a British-educated oil company executive who found himself jobless in S. California when the great crash came in 1929.
The Lions used to be favorites
Jon Carroll
Pro football starts at 10 a.m. in California, when television coverage of the first Eastern games begins. This morning the Los Angeles Rams are playing the Detroit Lions on the local CBS outlet, while over on NBC the Baltimore Colts will visit the New York Jets.
Chicago: 4x6
Robert Christgau
Remember the Golden Age of Rock, when life began anew every day and Paul Williams was writing about Love’s Forever Changes as if it were as great a work of art as Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful? Predictably, even the shrinkwrap has deteriorated since then.
Juke Box Jury
GREG SHAW
“Now here it is, the most requested song we’ve had in a long time . . .” I turned up the volume on my car radio, always interested in what Top 40 America is requesting, and hoped for something tolerable. When the song ended I punched the radio off and rode along for minutes in stunned silence.
HIGH IRON SWING SHIFT GREASY DIESEL BLUES
Bill Bergeron