November 1973
CONTENTS
BARNEY & MIKE
Why is it you guys devote so much material in your rag to hypes like Alice Cooper, yet refuse to interview someone who REALLY has his head together, like say, for instance, Cat Stevens? Tim Jurgens did an admirable job on the “Aladdin Sane” review.
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
The Allman Brothers: “Brothers and Sisters” (Capricorn). Simplicity can be a virtue — the nice thing about the Allmans is that when they put two fiveyear-olds on the cover we know they’re not cornholing the kids on the side. Gregg Allman is a predictable singer who never has an unpredictable lyric to work with anyway, and the jams do roll on, but at their best — “Ramblin’ Man,” a miraculous revitalization of rock’s weariest conceit — they just may be the best.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Latest hotso rumor from cross the pond have the Stones and Faces joining forces. Melody Maker has a “suggested line-up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richard, Ron Wood, Ian McLagen, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts and Kenny Jones.” Shades of Ornette Coleman!
THE BEAT GOES ON
David Reitman
Dr. Hook had it all wrong. While the rock star may want to make it to the cover of Rolling Stone, the ambition of the rock musician is to make it onto the wall of Manny’s, a music store on West 48th Street in New York. Manny’s is undoubtedly the most famous music store in the world;
Letter From Britain
Notes From Nowhere
Simon Frith
Do you realise that these days the careers of rock's key people are controlled by the fantasies of their wives.
PLAY IT LOUD
Guitar Arnie
Orville Gibson worked in a shoe store, his brother Orzo was an upholsterer, and Kalamazoo, Michigan was the place in the late 1870s. Orville got his kicks from making guitars and mandolins out of old pieces of furniture, even getting a little international notoriety when he made a violin out of wood taken from the Old Town Hall in Boston.
Features
The Discovery Of JIMI HENDRIX A discussion with Chas Chandler
Chris Welch
It is doubtful if Chas Chandler had any idea his first discovery would have such impact and become such an integral part of the incredible boom in rock music that was to come.
Features
The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople
Ben Edmonds
The times they are a-changin’ (again).
Features
Meeting the Beatles
Paul Mills
I was cooking myself a hot dog in the kitchen when I heard applause coming from the living room.
Sweet Notes
Simon Frith
Even in close-up Brian Connolly looks like a pop star. Blond hair, neat little face, boots up to his waist. In the pub people keep eyeing us — we must be famous, but who? A girl gets brave but plays safe — gets Mick Tucker’s autograph first, then mine.
Features
SCREWING THE SYSTEM WITH DICK CLARK
Lester Bangs
(Don’t laugh-he knows a hell of alot more about it than David Crosby!)
Eleganza
Alice Cooper Did Not Invent Glitter
Lisa Robinson
With all due respect, glitter did not start with Marc Bolan.
UTTER TRASH
Mike Baron
One of the most important reprint projects in comic book history is going on right now, and has been going on since 1968 in the pages of two Gold Key titles, Walt Disney’s Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. The reprints feature the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and D. Duck as written and drawn by Carl Barks, the man who brought them to comic book life in the late forties. Other artists have drawn these characters before and after Barks, but none have approached the old master’s strength of story line, sense of humor, or graphic excellence.
Extension Chords
Guitar Necking With A Bottle and Related Perversions
Michael Brooks
There’s nothing quite so entrancing as the sound of the standard guitar or dobro doing its imitation of the human voice. No other musical instruments come so close to the laughing, crying, singing voice of mankind, and that’s very possibly why the instrument has become so popular in the western world.
DUST MY PUMICE
R. Meltzer
Competition, distraction are par for the course. Allow for travel delays, gaps in the cooperation you’d normally expect. Adjustment to newly discovered realities becomes the motif for your daily living. Accepting people as they are brings you a greater satisfaction.
Rewire Yourself
Future Toys At Your Fingertips
Richard Robinson
While the Japanese are busy stamping out mass market media hardware to compete with the all-American products of RCA, Zenith, Motorola, and the other corporate giants, there are a small, select group of electronics craftsmen in this country who have the creative flair and ingenuity of the Japanese, who eschew the worsted wet-dream of owning our souls, and who seem to be content with manufacturing products that are both functional and unique.
Feminism West Of The Pecos
Greg Popek
All I knew of Marilyn Durham’s bestseller, “The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing,” was that it had been tagged a women’s-lib western. With some qualifications, that pat critique could apply to the film as well. For sure it’s a western: it’s got cowboys and Indians and a posse and a school-marmish lady and it even opens with a train robbery.
CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX
Wondering what things you should know but haven’t heard about Hollywood’s honeys lately? Read on! Earl Wilson’s deadline may beat CREEM’s release but he didn’t catch all these scoops sitting in Sardi’s... Here’s one you folkies may be hot about: Leadbelly, a picture based on the famed black blues singer, Huddie Ledbetter has begun principle photog with Gordon Parks Sr. (Shaft) directing... Ossie Davie’ Third World Cinema is starting its first project for 20th Cent.
SHORT TAKES ADMIT ONE
David Marsh
CLEOPATRA JONES (Warner Bros.) — One of the slickest, fastest-moving black movies we’ve seen. The camp elements are fantastic, a cinematic hodge-podge: real “Beyond the Valley,” “Batman” stuff. Good soundtrack (featuring Joe Simon and Millie Jackson) too.
BOOKS
Lester Bangs
Do you care if you never read another word about the goddamned Rolling Stones? Or at least, about that stupid uneventful tour they took last summer where nobody even got killed? I don’t; I’ve read Richard Elman in Oui and Craig Karpel’s technical treatise in Penthouse and Robert Greenfield’s toadyings in Rolling Stone and Truman Capote’s Warhol-cassette burble reminiscences also in Stone and my own solemn Exile re-review and sociological analysis of a concert I didn’t even see in CREEM and Terry Southern’s pathetic zonkogroovywowsville comicstrip press-release in Saturday Review and probably a whole lot of other stupid crap I can’t even remember now and you, know what?
Records
NEW YORK DOLLS: L.U.V ’em or Leave ’em
Robert Christgau
Personally, I don’t like the cover.
Rock-a-Rama
ADRIAN SMITH (MCA):: �I paid for your goddamn voice lessons, Adrian, and I paid a lot. You�re going to be an entertainer or I�m gonna know why.� �But Mom!� Wait a minute, you two. Mrs. Smith, she�ll never be an entertainer because her voice sounds like a frog.
JUKE BOX JURY
GREG SHAW
I just got my hands on a copy of the new Raspberries single, and you�d better believe I�m excited. �Tonight� (Capitol P-3610) is at least as good as their first two hits, and maybe their best yet. Guitars and drumming are as aggressive as the early Who, in fact this is a better record than �I Can�t Explain,� of which it reminds me somewhat.