May 1973
CONTENTS
DEAR CREEM Hey! Why did Brian Jones want to punch out Rodney Bingenheimer? Kathleen Dunkle Pasadena, CA. (Recently? — Ed.) Yesterday, I turned thirty and, in a letter to a friend this morning, I misspelled Elvis Presley’s name for the first time.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Latest trendy non-rock star hanger-on is Slavador Dali, who lunched with Alice Cooper and saw David Bowie’s Radio City Music Hall show in the same week. Dali is currently working on a hologram (a three-dimensional picture developed with the use of laser beams) of his concept of Alice’s brain.
THE BEAT GOES ON
R. Wakeman
The US Department of Commerce has awarded, a $944,000 loan to the Estey Piano Company to manufacture a plastic piano, along with the guarantee of a $2,000,000 bank loan for the company as soon as production of the plunkers begins. The Estey Company gets the loan because under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Act, loans are available to companies and workers who’ve been hurt by imports resulting from recent cuts in tariffs.
LOONEY TOONS
DAVE MARSH
Someone just reminded me that as of this issue, CREEM is four years old. A remarkable event, maybe, but true, anyway. Egomaniacally enough, CREEM and yours truly have the same birthday. Or, more to the point, CREEM’s first issue appeared on the day I turned (uh...) 19.
Features
Roxy Music: Terror in the Rue Morgue
Lisa Robinson
Word was out that Roxy Music was glamrock, a hype, flashy, weird, fifties revival, electronic, esoteric, terrifying and incredible. So I was really pleased, when I saw them in London recently, that they were none of the above. Well... maybe all of the above.
Hello, Hurray-The Super Sane World of Arthur Brown
Simon Frith
I was a young man back in the 1960 s but so were most people The spirit of `67 haunts us ills the scent of a dying rose No one knows what really happened I but we've still got the silhouettes on our shades. One up the arse for the business, one more toke for the audience and a media mess.
Features
JETHRO TULL IN VIETNAM
Lester Bangs
Their Rock 'n' Roll Circus Has A Really Big Top...
Another Top Ten? Yeah, But...
Vine Aletti
Well, yes, it’s ridiculously late for a 1972 Ten Best list, but after seeing everyone else’s, I wanted to add a footnote. Maybe a little perspective. It’s, strange to me how everyone acknowledged the importance of black music in 1972 — it was, for trend-watchers, a Very Big Year for black music — but almost completely ignored it when it came time to listing the year’s best music.
Features
Travel Round The Country Playing Music By The Hour
Ed Ward
The True Story of a Western Swing Band called Asleep at the Wheel
The Man Who Tried To See The Groundhogs
Colman Andrews
Goldham Anders tried to see the Groundhogs. He tried hard. He tried with fiery spirit, with the full flood force of his blood-tides, with the lanky strong power of his mighty body, with the brilliant biting wit of his remarkable mind. Goldham Anders tried.
WHO WILL SAVE THE WORLD? THE MIGHTY GROUNDHOGS
Creemedia
MOVIES
Robbie Cruger
Shamus, The Harder They Come, Wattstax
CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX
Hedda Hopper (May she rest in peace) is turning over in her grave with the dirt uncovered’ this month. Rona Barrett wishes she had such news: Woody Allen currently filming Sleeper is also considering writing a tasteless screenplay called Sex and Death... Marjoe, the religioso r‘n’r star, is trying his hand at legitimate (TV?) acting.
SHORT TAKES ADMIT ONE
Jann Uhelszki
THE HEARTBREAK KID — You can always get what you want. Our sappy hero decides to shuck the entire “wedded bliss” bit, after 72 hours of marriage, when his bride demands to know in every motel from Long Island to Miami Beach “How was IT?” “Was IT wonderful?”
BOOKS
Dave Marsh
Ellen Sander is one of those toney oversimplifiers of rock one is continually frustrated to find in magazines like (best example because it’s most middlebrow) Saturday Review or (more chic, still anti-rock) Vogue. She’s not the worst of the lot, and she certainly is not the best, especially now that people like Henry Edwards and Lillian Roxon have begun to introduce some taste into the culture 'zines.
UTTER TRASH
Mike Baron
Vampirella, an attractive young lady wearing the remains of a silk handkerchief, came from the planet Drakulon where blood flows like water; in streams. They drink it from mugs there, and nobody calls them bloodsuckers. But through an unfortunate series of catastrophes Vampirella was displaced to the planet Earth, alone and thirsty.
PLAY IT LOUD
Guitar Arnie
Ray Charles may never have had any problems, but the majority of rock piano, players have found that trying to maintain a full, undistorted level of piano sound while the rest of the group are pumping up their amps is a difficult task. A variety of solutions have been tried.
Records
Billion Dollar Babies: Alice Spends Himself All Over The Place
Ben Edmonds
Quite simply, Billion Dollar Babies is the Sgt. Pepper of punkdom.
SPECIALS
Michael Goodwin
I think my karma’s improving, inasmuch as 24 blues records have found their way into my house this month. What a treat. Atlantic, Polydor and Fantasy are all out with monster blues reissue series — well, mostly blues, with a few fringe benefits and one folkie.
JUKE BOX JURY
GREG SHAW
Sometimes a mere 7” piece of plastic Can reach out and grab a whole vector of rock history, pulling it into focus for you for the first time. It happened, to me twice today. Sitting around with Marty Cerf listening to Dusty Springfield’s greatest new record,"Who Gets Your Love" (Dunhill 4341) I suddenly understood what Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds were all about, why the Four Tops had a hit on Dunhill, what the real story behind the short-lived TA label was, and a host of other fascinatingly trivial insights into the workings of the pop process.
ROCK • A • RAMA
DOBIE GRAY — Drift Away (Decca):: Dude’s come a long way from “The In Crowd” to pleading to “Drift Away” on the mists (?... well, yeah, now that I think of it) of rock 'n' roll with quasi-supersession Nashville backup for the cable. A moody, pleasant album — even the customary banalities go down easily: “Lay Back” follows "Rockin’ Chair" and it all sounds fine in or out of the dentist’s chair.
Rewire Yourself
A Future You Can’t Refuse
Richard Robinson
At the moment using an electronic component is a 50/50 process.
Extension Chords
Brooks Synthesizers: Lucy in the Sky with Diodes
Michael Brooks
When the phono needle first touched down on Switched On Bach (Columbia MS7194) there really wasn’t a shot fired around the world.