August 1977
Contents
STROKING OUR JOKES Thanks for your article on Keith. You said something, and with feeling. Compared to Rolling Stone's pompous and vacuous account, it was like hearing Jack Flash after a blitz of Kraftwerk. Yours Truly, Nancy Achilles San Francisco, CA (Compared to other letters, yours was like reading James Joyce's Ulysses after a chapter of Rock Revolution.—Ed.)
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
ABBA: "Arrival" (Atlantic)::Since this is already the best-selling group in the universe, I finally have an answer when people ask me to name the Next Big Thing. What I wonder is how we can head them off at the airport. Plan A: Offer Bjorn and Benny the leads in Beatlemania (how could they resist the honor?) and replace them with John Phillips and Denny Doherty.
ROCK 'n' ROLL NEWS
Ted Nugent got the best of a chain saw recently; he was cutting a tree when the saw slipped and cut his leg to the tune of 36 stitches... no problem, though—despite doctor's warnings of "No dancing around, no rock 'n' rolling" Ted was not a jot subdued onstage or off.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Darcy Diamond
HOLLYWOOD—I had just rolled back to my place from the Whiskey after having consumed ten Heinekens and 25 Snowshoes (made with Peppermint Schnapps) when I discovered that the club's bouncer had followed me home. I let him into my place. He was kind of a cute football-type, and the dumbest man I have ever met.
Where's My Big Boy With Extra Sauce?
Barbara Charone
Alice Cooper is waiting for the man.
Creem Profiles
JOE WALSH
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
Features
HALL & OATES CONFIDENTIAL TAPES
JAAN UHELSZKI
Confessions of an odd couple.
CHEAP TRICK
Ira Robbins
Sight gags for simps.
ROLL OVER SHOGUN
Carl Arrington
KISS sneak attack Japan!
Southside Johnny: BISEXUAL ARTICHOKE?
Robert Duncan
I've got a pile of records here by the desk that I mean to listen to. From top to bottom the pile includes: Kevin Ayers, Jean Ritchie, Hank Thompson, Pink Floyd, the Persuasions, Steve Hunter, John Cale, Bryan Ferry, Dickey Betts, Starz, Asleep at the Wheel, Kraftwerk, the Band, Bad Company, Marty Robbins, Cheap Trick, and Jimmy Page's new production/concoction Detective.
BAD CO.: Jumpin’ Pumpin’ Music
Air-Wreck Genheimer
Stuffed buffalo heads crowd the desert arena's trophy case.
Letter From Britain
Stuck in the Grooves With the Bourgeois Blues
Simon Frith
It turns out that the other godfather of the British New Wave is Jim Morrison.
Lisa Robinson Interviews Elissa Perry Interviews Lisa Robinson
Lisa Robinson
I've often said that as far as rock and roll wives go, the ones you'd want to know, stay home.
Stars Cars
RUBY STAR
Creemedia
Monty Python's Neil Innes: How Sweet To Be An Idiot
Simon Frith
There's no tradition of rock humour in Britain (there's not much of one in America come to that—but we haven't even got a National Lampoon).
Confession of a FILM FOX
Now that Mary Hartman is just a memory, Louise Lasser is said to be busy writing a book all about the trials and tribulations of working with Master Norman Lear. (Can you stand the wait?) Donny, Marie and the rest of the Osmond clan (who can keep count?) have moved their facilities out of dirty, disgusting California to clean, pure Provo, Utah...
Records
Dictators Blast Into Teenage Cysthood
John Morthland
The burger thing crawled slowly through the mud, an amputee star fish lost in a sea of porcine pink.
GOT INCREDIBLE SCREAMING LIVE BEATLES IF YOU WANT IT!
Last year when Wings was set to tour the States some New York rockmag was doing a one-shot on McCartney and wanted me to listen to every vocal Paul ever cut and do an annotated discography of the whole damn thing (ran 26 pages or so). Aside from the sheer joy of coincidentally also managing to hear how incredibly fucking great Lennon was back in those early days of the first 5-6 albums what was really mindboggling about the whole project was I actually got to play every cut of every Beatle elpee in sequence, something I never figured I'd ever do again.
Rock · a · Rama
TAMMY WYNETTE-Let's Get Together (Epic) ::There are few voices that've illicited raw emotion from me (Dusty Springfield makes me crazy, especially in the summer), but Tammy makes my normally frigiferous sentimentalities turn to Elmer Gantry jelly.
Rewire Yourself
Stick It In Your Casio
Richard Robinson
The Casio CQ-1 Computerized Quartz is a five-ounce computer the size of an eyeglass case that does the following.
Extension Chords
Life On The Way Up
Allen Hester
Every game's got its own rules, some obvious, others that you can only learn by playing.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down