March 1972
Contents
Dear CREEM: Hot on the heels of the Wild Angels Syndrome, we now have been given, by your previously excellent magazine, the new Grand Funk Syndrome (also known as the Kids Are All Right Syndrome). This particular manifestation is restricted to certain jaded rock critics who seem to feel that if the kids (i.e., America’s adolescents) like it, it must be good.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Bob Dylan, who is more visible than ever these days, made a surprise appearance at the Band’s Academy of Music show in New York, on New Year’s Eve. Dylan walked on stage at 12:10 a.m., for his 1972 debut, and did five songs with the Band (nee Hawks, his old touring group): “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” “Life Is A Carnival," “Don’t Tell Henry,” and “Like A Rolling Stone.” The Band were taping the show - they taped their entire four day engagement, which included a horn section on the second show each night, for possible live album use — but it is now known what plans Dylan has, if any, for the tapes.
Features
Elvis and the A-Bomb
Stu Werbin
Sometimes the thought of Elvis Presley gives me cold sweats.
TIGHTEN UP
Vince Aletti
I�ve been thinking about the past year but I can�t remember it. It seems like the year before, continued the next page (like the second sheet of a pad that still holds the impressions of the message written on the sheet above, now torn off and stuffed into the purse of the woman gone off to meet the man who�s been threatening her over the phone while the detective rushes in to read the near invisible traces she didn�t know she�d left).
Features
JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
Craig Karpel
Christianity as rock and roll!!
Every Picture Tells A Story... Don't It
DAVE MARSH
That month off did me a lot of good, I think, and I hope it�ll show up here. There are certain times when everyone�s thinking has a certain congruence: our concern right now, for example, seems to be with fascism. Control vectors seem to converge on every side and almost all the people I know feel wedged in by it.
Features
FREE JOHN & YOKO
The new Plastic Ono Band conies to Ann Arbor to Free John Sinclair Starring David Peel, Archie Shepp, Ed Sanders, Stevie Wonder, Commander Cody, Jerry Rubin, and a cast of thousands!
Welcome to the Future (on 35mm Celluloid, where it belongs)
Lester Bangs
The novel William Burroughs once claimed was the only one he�d been able to get through in years has finally been made into a film, by the man who gave us Dr. Strangelove and 2001 and who has probably done more conclusive thinking about the shape of things to come for Western society than anybody else making movies today.
Eyes water; brains boggled
John Kane
December was the movie maven�s month. A thirty-one day period during which the major studios released a slew of celluloid guaranteed to make the eyes water and the brain boggle. Movie follows movie in such rapid succession that not even the most masochistic critic could hope to keep pace.
Waiting for Self-Portrait
Dave Marsh
For 200 pages this is just what a Bob Dylan biography ought to be. There is everything about Dylan�s life up to his rock period in 1965 except an interview with Hibbing�s Good Humor man, and it�s the best of everything at that. All the people who knew Dylan best make their appearance and speak their piece, from Hibbing�s high school to Minneapolis� Dinkytown to the early Village hangers-on and performers.
That's the Way God Planned It
Greil Marcus
The whole Bangla Desh set was premiered over the radio a few nights ago, neatly coinciding with the Indian Army�s rout of the West Pakistani forces and the liberation of the East, putting the sweet seal of history on the cause that launched this record in the first place.
Meanwhile, back in the suburbs...
Greil Marcus
Paul and Linda are offering themselves as the petit bourgeoise alternative to the millionaire bohemian ethos of John and Yoko. The four of them are bringing every issue into play: city v. country, politics v. privatism, women�s liberation v. domesticity, rock v. schmaltz, even hip v. square.
So tough he doesn't have to prove it.
Greil Marcus
I think if someone tells me they like rock and roll but not this album I'm gonna either laugh, turn up my nose, or spit.
Ono, Raitt,Taylor and a pair of Lauras: Sisterhood is Powerful
Lester Bangs
Anybody with the right attitude, a few ideas and some moxie can create art if not Art. Or maybe that�s Art if not art, since the inflation of the idea takes it out of the realm of craft and turns it into a stereotype, a caricature which can be exploited by almost anybody with access to the media who carries themself right.
Sly Stone: A Reassessment
W. Kim Heron
Sorry, gang. The riot�s over. Uh, but you can stay for the after party, even though some of you might claim it�s a wake. The last Sly single before the great lull was �Thank-you etc.�, a story about, well, fighting the people you have to fight with and escaping with your life and all of the songs the group had recorded and, well, the period that Sly and the Family Stone blossomed in: Youth and Truth are making love Dig it for a start Dyin� young is hard to take Copping out is harder.
ROCK • A • RAMA
EDDIE COCHRAN — Legendary Masters Series (United Artists UA 9959, 2 LPs):: One of the most evocative covers in re-issue history, intriguing liner notes by Lenny Kaye, an intelligent selection of cuts, and mostly secondrate, lifeless music.
Holiday Music,The Rock and England at a glance
GREG SHAW
I�ve decided to start dating these columns, to give you a better idea of how they relate to reality, which has usually changed quite a bit between their writing and the time you see them. This decision came to me as I sat here planning my review of this year�s batch of Christmas records and suddenly realized that most people wouldn�t see this column until at least February ... Christmas records have always been with us, starting in a big way with Bing Crosby�s �White Christmas� (Decca 23778) which seems to have been routinely reissued just about every November since 1941 or so.
SNO QUEEN EGO CAPSIZER V-18 LONE WOMANIZER BLUES