February 1974
CREEM
DEAR CREBM I saw your ad in Blues Unlimited as I am a music man and have made records and have some , Rock also Blues. I first recorded in 1950, also lately and played festivals in 1972. Made records in 1972 for Adelphi and some has been re-recorded.
BARNEY & MIKE
1973 CReem ROCK 'N' ROLL POLL
It's that time again. We've reached that point in history where everybody's gotta have an opinion. If you can paste somebody else with it, so much the better; verily, without opinionated putzes there would have been no CREEM at all. Thus, the CREEM Readers Poll for that never to be forgotten year, uh... 1973.
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
Last month I was faced with the unpleasant prospect of a Consumer Guide full of rejects, and I skunked out. Such a bunch of shitty records. I even considered trying to put together a whole column of oneliners. Some examples. The Art Ensemble of Chicago: "Bap-Tizum" (Atlantic), I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Reports have Rod Stewart's next solo album being his last, with all. future energies being directed toward the Faces. How this will affect Rodney's contract with Mercury is uncertain, but it's believed that Mercury and Warners are working out some kind of arrangement whereby one would distribute the records and the other the tapes.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Richard Cromelin
"I was probably 13 or so when James Dean got killed. I mean I didn't really know about him, just stuff we heard in England, but he's one guy I' picked up on. It's all publicity I suppose really, but with James Dean I really thought he was what he was, as well as being a film star.
THE DR. HOOK STORY
Lester Bangs
Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show are playing the Community Concourse in San Diego. They've just come tumbling onstage, seven raggedy wastedorties picking the ticks out Of their beards, giggling in the classic pothead manner, tossing off as many four-letter naughties and peepee doodoo sniggerines as the market will carry.
SULKY ANGLE: THE POETRY OF PATTI SMITH
Patti Smith
Patti Smith's name has been seen in our pages often — as record reviewer, as chronicler of the mythic history of the Rolling Stones, above all as poet.
Letter From Britain
Peculiarities of the English
Simon Firth
These things happened this month: 1) RCA announced that David Bowie has sold 1,056,400 albums in Britain in two years and 1,024,068 singles, while "The Laughing Gnome" has sold 200,000 copies for Deram.
Features
Elton John: Prisoner of Wax
Ben Edmonds
Could it be that this mild-mannered popstar is actually...a vinyl junkie?
ELTON JOHN’S HEAVY 100
Being one of the most avowed record gluttons on public record, we figured that having Elton John list his personal favorite albums might yield an interesting compilation.
Features
Steely Dan: The Panic in the Year Zero Bossa Nova
Wayne Robins
We're sitting drinking Campari in the Angry Squire on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea, a dull sweltry Sunday night, watching the sippers and swallowers drift through a brew or two and buzz out somewhere else.
CREEM DREEM
Marty
Creemedia
Martin Mull: Just Like Mick Jagger (Only Funnier)
Ed Naha
Martin Mull is easy to spot in the New York City rush hour crowd. He's the One waiting patiently outside of 57th street's English Pub, clad in slightly baggy white pants arid a faded, short sleeved, flowered shirt, the kind you see on the Mike Douglas Show when Don Ho and his zany Hawaiians are cutting up.
ON THE ROAD
Ed Ward
"Imagine having one of these honeys between your legs"
Eleganza
Cornaby St.: For Tourists Only
Lisa Robinson
London — The song is over but the memory fumphas on.
UTTER TRASH
Mike Boron
It is impossible for the comic fan to anticipate the vicissitudes of the industry on the basis of industry publications themselves. When Marvel or National announce big changes and forthcoming titles in their own pages they are usually as reliable as a White House press release.
Rewire Yourself
Needle of My Dreams
Richard Robinson
"Anything II Could Do... III Can Do Better!" is the proud announcement headlining Shure's ads for their new phonograph cartridge.
PLAY IT LOUD
Guitar Arnie
Every time you saunter out onstage to play a set, your performance, the energy you expend, should do more than dissipate through your fans" spacious craniums. Every precious little note you play, every dazzling move you make, must, by all rights, be recorded.
Creemedia
NY Film Festival: There Are So Few Elite Activities Left
Lester Bangs
The 11th New York Film Festival was one of the shortest (18 films, most of them shown twice) in the Festival's history and one of its least spectacular, yet it sold out immediately, mostly through advance mail orders from people on the Festival's own mailing list.
Boy Howdy's Last Tango: Top Ten Eyeball Kicks
You're probably as tired of Ten Best lists as we are; after all, they do suck.
confessions OF a FILM FOX
Hollywood is all a flutter with the remake of A Star is Bom. You would never guess who have been cast as leads, so I'll spill the canollis — James Taylor and Carly Simon (incidentally their little star should be born by the time you read this). And to think all this time we thought it was going to be Liza Minelli and Desi Jr... by Peter Sellers... uh Eddie Albert Jr.... Unremotely controlled.
BOOKS
Dave Marsh
Having discovered, much to our embarrassment, that the Sylvia Topp involved in the production! of As They Were is none other than Tuli Kupferberg's wife, we were not at all surprised to find in our mail one morning a copy of Tuli's latest tome, Listen to the Mockingbird and the skeleton key to the latest CREEM contest, or quiz, or whatever it is. No prizes this time, friends.
Records
John Lennon: All the Dignity of Eric Burdon
Lester Bangs
Poor John. When the Beatles broke up he was the only one of the dissipated Fab Four who put in a bid to be taken seriously as an artist.
Eat a Bowl of Wimp
J.R. Young
America's newest LP is one of those innumerable albums that is best when it slips onto your turntable unnoticed, unheralded, and when you're doing something else much more important, like cleaning your goldfish tank, because if you take too much time thinking about playing it, you then might take too much time actually listening to it.
Records
Everybody’s Favorite Dunce
Robot A. Hull
This is the album that Beatle fans from all over the world have eagerly been awaiting for six months.
Rock-a-Rama
WILLIAM BURROUGHS - Call Me Burroughs (ESP-Disk):: Betcha didn't know this existed. Well it's still cataloged and it's a true skullblitzer. Willie B. overcomes the dullard shortcomings of most spoken word albums by the sheer molasses-thick force of his totally unique and charismatic vibe as manifested in a voice that alternately buzzes like berserk Cairo auction, squawks like broken crystal set 1923, wheedles like an old junky with runny nosey smirks like backstage queen in the withered duckings of age, transmits metallic robotski insect blips from outer space: "Uranian Willy the Heavy Metal Kid. He wised up the marks...
The Wildest Monotone Around
GREG SHAW
It's been a long time since. I've been exposed to such a concentrated dose of pop as last week, watching the David Bowie segment of Midnight Special. The show itself, all flash and wham barii, was like' one great audio-visual single; following Wolfman Jerk and all those boring un-produced American" rock shows, it'll have to go down in history like the Beatles" first appearance oh Ed Sullivan.