February 1977
CREEM contents
In the meantime please print SOMETHING to let people know that I am not working on a ten album set based on The Bible. In fact, I am working on a thirteen album set with Ronnie Lane and Eric Clapton. The story is based on the life of Alexander the Great and his now legendary meeting with Jimmy Carter.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
RY COODER: "Chicken Skin Music" (Reprise) ::The title refers to an Hawaiian expression closely allied to "goose bumps," which has to be the most modest instance of hubris on record—I mean, does Ry really believe this is gonna make my skin prickle? Folk eclecticism is a nouveau jug commonplace, after all, even if most nouveau jugheads do lack Rj/s imagination and musicianship, not to mention the capital to add color from Honolulu and San Antonio onto the same LP. Too tame.
ROCK 'n' ROLL NEWS
David Bowie has been on the ill side lately; when Angie found him in their Berlin apartment (where he was finishing his new album with Eno) looking rather peaked, a doctor was summoned. Their verdict: Bowie's heart was OK, but his four-pack-a-day nicotine habit is probably doing him no good.
Creem Profiles
HALL & OATES
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
At the press reception in a Chicago hotel a healthylooking Harrison answered questions serenely—nay, earnestly. One writer barked to another: "Did you ask him about...it?" "Nah," the other one replied. "He brought up the reunion himself."
KIKI DEE SAVED FROM A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH
Ok, so the Beatles got the MBE but when Elton John goes to meet his Queen it won't be any old tin pot medals for him. He'll be on one knee and it'll be "Arise, Sir Elton!" because Elton hasn't just sold millions more records than them but he's a gentleman, an English gentleman.
Letter From Britain
Punks, Weeds And The Irish Question
I've decided to believe in punk rock after all.
LISSOME LOLITAS OR TEENAGE TRASH
Patrick Goldstein
Our reporter gets into it.
Features
Eric Clapton Is Alive,Well, and At Home with the Old Lady and Dog
Barbara Charone
Any objections?
NILS LOFGREN SUCKS EGGS
Susan Whitall
Nils Lofgren does not have an identity problem. You may, though, when you consider that he was discovered at 17 by Neil Young, had a Top Forty LP produced by the likes of A1 Kooper, has carried a public torch (immortalized in Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go") for that guitariste mysterieuse Keith R. of the Stones, but somehow manages to integrate these diverse threads in the small, shy Italo-Swedish human being you see onstage ripping out power chords while airborne from his trampoline.
Features
It’s My Party And I’ll Be Pretty If I Want To
Steve Clarke
The year of the Framp.
The BIC You Don't Flick
Richard Robinson
Some manufacturers release as many new turntables, amps, speakers, etc. as some record companies release records. Others develop exotic hybrids that require $5,000-plus in components of dubious, though often ingenious, design. Even name brand manufacturers regard technological breakthrough as their major selling point (audiophiles love technological breakthroughs) and introduce new systems as quickly as they abandon older new Systems.
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD KISS
Robert Duncan
And now the long-awaited CREEM Rodent of Prey Interview (with Bat Lizard Gene Simmons) of...
CREEMEDIA
Rick Johnson
Cheapo TV paperbacks have been with us since forever, or at least their cagey insubstantiality makes it seem that way. Who can forget those great Man From U.N.C.L.E. masterhacks like Bombay Is Missing with Ilya always looking like he just finished chemotherapy five minutes before they shot the cover?
Confessions of a FILM FOX
Whose Anger is rising? The latest pink slip to be issued on the set of Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising went to Zeppelin ace Jimmy Page. Said Anger (in an article sent directly to your Fox from Anger himself) in New York's Soho Weekly News, "I'm certainly jaded with that rock superstar syndrome..." Asked whether he felt vindictive towards Page, he replied, "You bet I do.
Stars Cars
FRANK ZAPPA
Eleganza
Growing Old Gracefully In Rock 'n' Roll
Lisa Robinson
Mark Farner told me that Grand Funk might break up because Don Brewer wanted to work at something more "secure", something that he would be able to do in twenty years.
WILL THE ODD COUPLE COME OUT?
John Morthland
About 30 days ago as I write this, I interviewed Mick Ronson in his Manhattan apartment.
Records
SUBMARINER DON’T HAVE NO IDENTITY NEITHER
Joe Goldberg
It is 6:12 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I have my TV tuned to channel 68 in Newark, N.J., and I am watching the Uncle Floyd Show.
ROCK.A.RAMA
BLACK SABBATH—Technical Ecstasy (Warner Bros.):: When a band's been around as long as this one, it's time to talk about packages. Ergo: Nice Led Zeppelinesque title. Provocative, Magritte-like cover art. Hmm. Seems to me that the Rascals seized on surreal covers during their musical decline, too.
The South Rises Again
It was just about seven years ago that the pride of Meridian, Mississippi struck its first blows for Rock 'n' Roll against inflation. Seemingly overnight, Peavey Electronics Corp. entered the picture with a line of professional amplifiers and sound systems to give the fat-cat competition a round of ulcers.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down