THE COUNTRY ISSUE IS OUT NOW!

January 1976

CONTENTS

MAIL

CLAMORS FOR PATTI Why don’t you CREEM-puffs cut loose of those petticoat-panzies you’ve been capping on (Karen Carpenter and Carly Simon for example) and get down to a real rock ‘n’ roll lady such as the notorious Patti Smith? (Is this “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine?” Or some redneck roster?)

CREEM ROCK CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Ronald Trice

THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

Robert Christgau

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS: “Win, Lose or Draw” (Capricorn):: For a year or so I’ve been telling cynics that the Brothers haven’t broken up. Now I feel like maybe I was taken. C. CRACKIN’: “Crackin’—1” (Polydor) :: Inspirational Verse: “Throw away all your thoughts of hating,/We’re all important to someone,/But even though your house may need painting, /Yours is not the only one.

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

For the record: it’s Ronee Blakely, Bobby Neuwirth, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Joan Baez, Rob Stoner, Mick Ronson, Ian Hunter, and Joni Mitchell, to name just a few who are doing full-time duty on Dylan’s current mysterioso mini-tour of New England clubs; while Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Janis Ian, and George Harrison are completing or scheduled for only part-time duty with the “Rolling Thunder Revue,” when they get a chance.

THE BEAT GOES ON

Susan Whitall

Space Trackin’ CAPE KENNEDY, FLA. — How would you feel if you were jolted awake to the strains of Jerry Jeff Walker’s “Redneck Mother”? Ready to face the world? Ready to push all those little buttons and tussle with the Russkis in outer space?

PENGUINS IN BONDAGE

Robot A. Hull

Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart

Creem Profiles

CHICAGO

(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)

In The True Rock Holiday Spirit, Flo & Eddie present... BUDDY

Once upon a time — I think it was on a Thursday a week before Christmas on a cold and snowy night — the stars reflected brightly on the snow already fallen as a baby reindeer was born. His name was Buddy. And, not far away, Mother Nature had caused yet another miracle to occur: a sapling named Maurice poked his tiny, leafy head above the frozen soil.

JETHRO TULL: NAKED CAME THE CODPIECE

Mongo Genheimer

TANGIER— In the Asian rain forests, charred infant flesh is scattered about the branches of a sapling like grotesque Christmas bulbs on a lethal celebratory icon. “When you did War Child, was it a reaction to the monolithic sort of thing you’d already done?”

Features

JOHN DENVER IS GOD

Lester Bangs

Something very new and beautiful came into my life oh, it must have been about three years ago, and since then it’s put me through so many mellow changes that I just had to share it with you.

Features

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN IS NOT GOD (AND DOESN’T WANT TO BE)

Robert Duncan

Understand. New Jersey has no baseball or football teams and half of it stinks.

Features

PATTI SMITH: SWEET HOWLING FIRE

Tony Glover

In most hip recording studios real-world time doesn’t exist — but in Electric Lady it’s denied.

LIZTOMANIA: KISS ME WHERE THE SUN SHINES

JANN UHELSZKI

“People are going to start thinking I’m Tommy. Liszt is a quick way of showing them I’m not Tommy,” Roger Daltrey recently told reporters, explaining why he took the part of Franz: to conquer an identity crisis.

CREEM DREEM

Tina Turner

Features

WHORIN’ AND SCORIN’ WITH Z.Z.TOP

Rick Johnson

“Have you seen the Pyramid Building Syndrome these days? Seems to be the big thing right now.

The Bay City Rollers Papers

Cameron Crowe

“You’re gonna interview the Rollers? They’ve been together six years. Ask ’em what they’ve been doing all that time.”

THE NEXT BEST THING TO ALMOST BEING THERE

One of the things I always grouse about when some do-gooder cultural enthusiast drags me out to some damn rock 'n' roll concert or another is the fact that I might be missing some good TV.

Stars Cars

C.F. Turner

Letter From Britain

If It’s Tuesday (or Wednesday or Thursday or...) This Must Be The Bar

Lester Bangs

Some notes on a week in the British Isles, courtesy of Rock Junkets Ltd.

Rewire Yourself

Copping The Proper Buzz

It’s Christmas again and there’s never been a better time of year to electrocute yourself.

Extension Chords

Towards A Brave New Present

Eric Gaer

The reason for the Travis Bean guitar sterns from a need for new technology in the field of solid body electric guitars and basses.

THE BEST & THE WORSTEDS

Lisa Robinson

JANUARY Fashion-wise, 1975 didn’t immediately dazzle. Robert Plant started, and eventually finished the Zeppelin tour wearing a floral print wraparound blouse and jeans, Jimmy Page wore satin jackets, and John Bonham wore Clockwork Orange boilersuits and black derby hat.

Creemedia

TRUCKIN’

Michael Goodwin

Truckdriving Movies Chills, thrills, spills, pills...not to mention Detroit on a Friday afternoon, that’s something else... Truckdriving folklore is so rich in potential excitement that you’d expect truckdriving movies to be as important a genre as westerns.

Confessions of a FILMFOX

Altho old Pres is putting on some excess baggage, his pretty ex, Priscilla is in fine shape. She’s no longer doing the karate boogaloo with her former live-in Kung Fu teacher, but she still is maintaining her “civil defense.” In fact she recently purchased a fox fur case for her 7 inch blackjack.

Records

APPOMATTOX REDUX

Lester Bangs

The Allman Brothers have one very serious, probably insoluble problem: they want to die.

ROCK · A · RAMA

STRAWBS - Nomadness (A&M) :: This could be very embarrassing at a party, although it can be very inspiring at four AM in downtown Birmingham during burned-out deadline rush. Rick Wakeman plays very nice electric harpsicord on “Tokyo Rosie,” while Dave Cousins remains an Old-English romanticist.

Motor Mouth

WOODY DISCOS THROUGH DETROIT

Greetings and felicitations earthlings... summer’s long gone but if this month is any indication of things to come, we’re hot for winter.

CALENDAR

Concerts MONDAY, DECEMBER 1 DAVE MASON and ROXY MUSIC Toledo Sports Arena J. GEILS BAND Cleveland TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2 PETER FRAMPTON and BOB SEGER Michigan State University, MSU Auditorium WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3 SKIP VAN WINKLE Chances Are, Ann Arbor THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4 FRANKZAPPA

YES VIRGINIA...

Extra Creem, throughout the year, has tried to bring you the best in interviews. We’ve picked Detroit personalities with interesting jobs or backgrounds and made them the Creem Cheese of the month in an effort to bring them to you, our readers.

EXTRA CREEM'S SHOPPING GUIDE

For all of you cretins who can’t think of anything besides ties and plants and perfume at Christmas time, EXTRA CREEM, at great expense of money and time, has gone here and there, up your street and down ours, in an effort to present you with the definitive Christmas list.

WRAPPING THOSE BEAUTIES

Bob Talbert

Of all the people in this world I envy (and there must be three), people who wrap spiffy packages are God’s gift to Hudson’s and I wish I could be like them. My packages come out looking like a shirt somebody stomped on. I have a hard enough time with shoelaces (the Free Press hires the handicapped), much less itsy-bitsy ribbons on Christmas packages.

Creem Cheese Of The Month

SUSAN WHITALL

God, it’s 11:00, and I’m late for this appointment with Dick Purtan. Rock ‘n’ roll just isn’t a diurnal business — even when I get there, an hour late, our photographer has to offer to slap me silly to get the adrenalin flowing. I marvel at Purtan’s energy as he receives us in one of the engineering booths, surrounded by controls and tapes (“Crowd Sounds,” “Hysterical Laughter,” “Baby Crying,” “Horse Neighing”).

HEARTTHROB VS HEARTACHE

AIR WRECK GENHEIMER

To stand under the big lights, hear the roar of the crowd, take the encores and toy with the hordes of hypersexed groupies dying to titillate your rock star-inflated ego. Ah yes, to lead the sordid life of a teen idol...is that what you wanna do when you grow up, kids?

THE REAL SANTA CLAUS STORY!

Amy Broderick

You’ve gotten the real dope in this Christmas issue: an interview with Mr. C. himself — well, we grownups have our fantasies. An eight-year old EXTRA CREEM correspondent has demanded to give her side of the story in an effort to get the story straight after years of “Yes, Virginias” and CocaCola Santas.

Hush Puppies Aren’t Dumb

Marty Fischoff

THE FAMOUS BLUE DOT, 20841 John R, Hazel Park, 543-4070::In the patois of Kentucky cuisine, a hush puppy is a cornmeal ball, flavored with onions and other spices and deep-fried until delicious, delectable, diaphanous, indescribable. Pick your own adjective.

What Every Young Boozehound Craves

Airwreck Genheimer

THE WAGON WHEEL (Corner of Rochester & Big Beaver, Troy)::Greeting ,you at the Wagon Wheel is a dollar cover charge that is necessary to cover salaries for a highly trained security force who collect the dollar cover charge. Don’t get paranoid.