July 1972
Festival of Life
Craig Karpel
Do you know the way to San Diego, Jose?
CONTENTS
Dear CREEM: Maybe you can tell me why the rock stars have no moral values?
The Christgau Consumer Guide
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
Jackson Browne, Dave Edmunds, The Everly Brothers, more
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Best news on new Rod Stewart albums (no title yet): he’ll record Jerry Lee Lewis’ country hit, “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made A Loser Out of Me).”
Stones Roll Again
By the time this magazine reaches your hands, the Rolling Stones will be well into their 1972 tour, which covers 30 cities in a seven week period.
LOONEY TOONS
Dave Marsh
We’ve introduced so many relatively new figures in CREEM with this issue, though, that maybe someone needs to explain just who each of them is, and why what they’re doing is here rather than a 30 page photo spread on the Rolling Stones or something.
Features
Dr. John Says “Gumbo Ain’t No Zydeco”
Dave Marsh
Gumbo is Dr. John’s fifth album, but it seems like his first.
Letter From Britain
Notes On T. Rex
Simon Frith
Zonk. This column is going to be about how things look in and from England.
Features
The Beach Boys: The Makings Of A Fanatic
Tom Smucker
The Critics Kept A Knockin' But The Stars Kept A Rockin' And The Choppin' Didn't Get Very Far
LEMONADE SPRINGS
Sandra Carroll
The morning mail brought me yet another book club offering, this one called the New York Times International Cookbook.
Features
Bring Your Mother To The Gas Chamber: Part Two
Lester Bangs
Black Sabbath And The Straight Dope On Blood-Lust Orgies
Creemedia
MOVIES
Beyond the Valley of El Topo, Fritz The Cat, Fillmore
SHORT TAKES
MODERN TIMES: Charlie Chaplin is even funnier than his legend.
FLASHES
Jesus Christ Superstar is gonna be a movie!
Creemedia
BOOKS
Janis, Diana, more
Comics
Ed Ward
It says a lot about the way a lot of us live our lives, I think. Doesn’t have to, if you don’t want to look at it that way, but try telling that to the fanatics.
Records
He walks it like he talks it (usually)
Lester Bangs
A great American band who never quite became a “success” in the standard sense.
Records
You can be my Partner in Crime
Greil Marcus
Things are different when there is a new Rolling Stones single on the radio.
Hot 'n' Nasty (when apropos)
Downhome music is where it’s at. Clarence Carter. J.J. Cale. Tom T. Hall. Candi Staton. They all sound laid back to me and they are artists who can be extremely addictive. Like immersion baptisms. See, someone ducks your head underwater and the water gets up your nozzle and you try to get out of it but the preacher won’t let you so you give in and eventually you are drowning for your sins.
Dr. Frankenstein steps out
Ben Edmonds
The name Todd Rundgren has passed across so many lips in the past few months that you can almost detect traces of chapstick around its edges.
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
You can tell this one is special from the beginning. The strings come in, but all of a sudden, there’s an insistent, pounding drum driving the schmaltz into the background. And then, out of nowhere, a swoop down the piano scales, as if a signature.
The Macaws come home to roost
Lester Bangs
David Peel is everybody’s favorite NoTalent. And with good reason. He has managed to get three albums out since being discovered screaming somewhere in the East Village way back in the daze of the Summer of Love and all that.
Things are tough all over
Last month I ventured for the first time outside my home state of California. In a trip that took me through Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, I learned quite a bit about this country of ours, and unlearned even more.
ROCK-A-RAMA
HEAVY ORGAN: BACH LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO - Virgil Fox (Decca):: Virgil Fox accomplishes the rather unexpected feat of turning Bach into the Roller Derby.