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May 1974

CREEM

MAIL

Please.send letters to: MAIL Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, Ml 48012 DEAR CREEM Do you realize that picture of Elton John on page 35 of the Feb. issue looks just like Radar from M.A.S.H.? If he wasn’t wearing the superstar duds, I’d swear he was our favorite corporal on furlough. Frank Burns Korea (That was no Elton, that was Gordon Sinclair. -Ed.)

BARNEY & MIKE

THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

Robert Christgau

David Bromberg: “Wanted Dead or Alive” (Columbia). Any Jewish boy with glasses who makes his living doing Blind Willie McTell imitations had better remember his place. Hence, this key line: “When I got up this morning I had Someone Else’s Blues.”

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Happy Harry Nilsson had a bomb scare in February. He drove up to a local English airport to meet his Irish girlfriend’s plane, drove her home and was so’apxioua to get behind closed doors that he left her luggage 3P the trunk of the car. Next morning the lovebirds woke up to find their house surrounded by dink squaddersHarry’s driver had opened the trunk, seen a small bag with Irish air tags and an Irish ftame on it, succumbed to an attack of DMZ paranoia and called the law.

THE BEAT GOES ON

Jim Esposito

Many moons ago, the entire southern half of the Floridian peninsula was just one big swamp. The Everglades encompassed everything from Lake Okeechobee south. Then, the real estate developers moved in with bulldozers and cement trucks.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive: FOUR SIDES of HAPPY PORK

Billy Altman

Joplin, Missouri has two highlights.

Features

BILLY PRESTON: Rolin’ With The Sixth Stone

Wayne Robins

In which this jack-of-all-jams remembers the Stones, Beatles, Little Richard... and resolutely refuses to flip his wig.

Features

DADA AT THE END OF A FIST

Lester Bangs

A champagne flight with Grace Slick.

Features

Heavy Breathing

Greil Marcus

I had read a lot of articles about Bob Dylan’s tour with the Band before it arrived at the Oakland Coliseum.

Features

The Page Memoris

Nick Kent

Over, Under, Sideways, Down TheYardbirds, Zep and Everything in Between with the Toynbee of Anglo Machine Heads

DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL

David Marsh

It took an album to make me realize that the best singles or at least, the most interesting ones, so far this year have been by women.

1973 ROCK & POLL

Well, 1973's had it. Your ballots are in. You say you didn't like anything. What we're wondering is how come you had to send in nearly twice as many ballots as last year just to let us know that 1973 was not worth remembering. Like last year, you saw fit to voice your ambivalence: New York Dolls — Best New Group and Worst Group; Iggy Pop — Hero and Most Pathetic; Watergate — Drug and Rip-Off of the Year.

Letter From Britain

What’s the Ugliest Part of YOUR Bodg?

Simon Frith

I’ve just been filling in the 1973 Creem Rock V Roll Poll, which is at least more entertaining than the ones NME and MM serve up. Most pathetic of the year? David Bedford’ in the Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres. Comeback of the year? Alvin Stardust (alias Shane Fenton, minor star of the 60s British bandwagon) — three months in the hit parade with “My Coo-Ca-Choo.”

Eleganza

My Latest Fling

Lisa Robinson

Hollywood — it’s amazing how, in this city of fantasy, people really don’t have that much imagination when it comes to style.

PLAY IT LOUD

Guitar Arnie

Like to play guitar, drums, or some other instrument but find that there’s no orte to play with? You can still rock out, you know, if you don’t mind playing with yourself. You can write songs, check out arrangements, record Beethoven’s Fifth, all unassisted with you playing all the instruments.

Rewire Yourself

All four LPs Are Dinosaurs

Richard Robinson

Well gang, today’s subject takes us to the arena of the great tape versus disc controversy.

Extension Chords

Title 17 US. Copyright Code

Michael Brooks

A copyright is a protection given by the law under U.S. Code Title 17, and is offered for the creative people.

DUST MY PUMICE

R.Meltzer

They should’ve had a big tote board with the weekend’s highway death toll on the wall but they did not. Just the big money tote, signifying to exactly what extent the Memorial Day T-Viewers felt like digging down into their pockets on behalf of wha-? Highway safety? Yes, a telethon for highway safety! Y’see highway non-safety’s the one realm of corporeal misfortune everybody’s either experienced fir hand or at least seen and gawked at sure ain’t like cystic fibrosis or myasthenia gravis (after all, who’s ever seen any victims of them except of TV?).

Creemedia

TAKE YOUR TENTACLES OUT OF MY POPCORN

Ed Naha

During the deadening nineteen fifties, when oafs were oafs, presidents were non-existant war heroes and teenagers throughout the' land measured their status in terms of the height of their Cuban heels and the amount of grease in their hair, far-sighted Ray Harryhausen was doin’ us all dirt.

SHORT TAKES

Brian Zabawski

McQ (Warner Bros.):: John Wayne is Seattle police detective McQ. McQ is rugged. Seattle is rugged. McQ’s old time policeman buddy is not rugged. He is soft. He is soft because he has just been ventilated by a few thousand machine gun slugs. McQ is annoyed. He wants to find the killer. He quits the conservative police force to track he, she or it down.

CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX

The theme of this month is Hollywood goes rock and roll, and rock and roll goes Hollywood. David Kung Fu Carradine has been moonlighting between takes. Seems David and his brother Kevin have been showing up at rock concerts and small clubs in Hawaii and Southern California.

BOOKS

Ed Ward

Raise your glasses high — here’s a trio of books for the thirsty reader of any persuasion. While Will Anderson making you lust for a brew, Kobler is documenting America’s fight against it and Dietz is reminding us of the past and present glories of the Real Thing — Coke.

Records

Todd Rundgren: You Feel Just Like He’s Jesus’ Son

Wayne Robins

Todd the Mod? Todd the Bod? Todd the Nod, or Todd the God?

ROCK-A-RAMA

MOGAN DAVID & HIS WINOS - Savage Young Winos (Kosher):: Another rock critics project, except these boys are try na do it on their own. Hooracha and more power to 'em, sez yer auditor. S. Pearlman/R. Meltzer Blue Oyster Cult’s success at same stakes has not emboldened them - rather than pursue all the glitz and gold due them thru Establishement channels (meaning Kinney sprang for C. Milk, but a crop croup like this is beyond the pale), they have opted for releasing their debut as an in-group Capitalistic venture.