October 1977
CONTENTS
CATERWALLING FOR CHARITY I was both appalled and surprised at an advertisement in your magazine. Your recent plea to your readers to save the Met is a joke! I never buy your magazine (I have better things to do with my money) but read it on occasion.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
In which Consumer Guide gives up the funk. Below find the beginnings of a retrospective re the recorded Parliafunkadelicment Thang, omitting Fuzzy Haskins solo, the Horny Horns, and God knows what other spinoffs. Funkadelic is a great group that doesnt make “good albums."
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
We've all heard about the CREEM editor who, upon meeting Paul McCartney, asked Linda “Hows the cook of the house?" (Her reply: “Ive got two hot dogs inside me right now.") Now Melissa Manchester shares her “I met Paul McCartney" story: Seems she was singing backup on Ringos last album when the McCartneys showed up at the studio to help Ringo put.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
Everybody thinks its all peaches and CREEM being a rock critic. You wake up in the morning, crawl gingerly over the sleeping superstar (s) in your bed to the bathroom, where you ingest at least six different Exotic Drugs. Then you hop into your Mercedes, drive out to the Post Office to pick up all the free records, t-shirts, diamond-studded Supertramp belt buckles, etc., and zip back home, casually tossing Kiki Dee 45s to bewildered youngsters along the way.
CLIMAX BLUES BAND Get It Right!
Linda Barber
Backstage at the Royal Oak is a cement tunnel lined with pipes (remembrance of air raid drills past). The purpose of my journey into this summer night was to be entertained and, I hoped, enlightened, by a bluesy band known as Climax. Although none of the four members claimed to be the spokesperson, I chose to stick close to lead vocalist and sax/clarinet player Colin Cooper.
MINK DE VILLE: SUCK FUR FURY
Howard Klein
“Mink Pie, hows that!" challenged Willie, whose darkly silent, sinewy presence dominated the dimly-lit coldwater flat in Oakland.
MARSHALL TUCKER GETS IT UP, GETS IT ON, AND KICKS IT OUT
TOM DUPREE
A CREEM piece about any pop group oughta have at least one off-thewall thing about the group in question.
Features
LONDON’S BURNING!
MIKE FLOOD PAGE
Rock’s next generations?
Creem Profiles
KIKI DEE
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
THE RISE AND RISE OF PETER FRAMPTON
Penny Valentine
LONDON—“Im more confident now, thats the difference. Success brought me confidence and relief because I finally made it," said Peter Frampton, leaning back into the fat soft cushions in his suite at the Ritz. He was in London on this midsummer day to attend to personal business, mostly.
Pretty Vacant
Simon Frith
To tell you the truth, nothing at all happened this month. I didnt go to any gigs—none I can remember anyway— and I cant get worked up, like the rest of the rock press, about the Summer of Hate—new wave groups and fans getting beat up, etc. All thats happening, that I can see, is that the papers are reporting little local difficulties rather than concentrating on the superstars like they usually do.
PINK FLOYD’S HEART OF DARKNESS
Ira Robbins
A crash course in Pig Latin.
AT THE ZOO WITH THE J. GEILS BAND
SUSAN WHITALL
It was time for a big Rock Show at the monolith just outside of Detroit, Pontiac Stadium, and this wasnt no rock 'n' roll at the Hollywood Bowl, sir.
CREEMEDIA
Ed Naha
Ed Naha is the author of Horrors— From Screen To Scream (Avon Books), and the producer of a record, Gene Roddenberry: Inside Star Trek (CBS).
DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Edouard Dauphin
Locusts and ants. Thats what were serving up this month. And you deserve to gag on em. Especially if youre dumb enough to waste your time on Exorcist II: The Heretic and Empire Of The Ants, a pair of pukers that could give bad movies a bad name.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
Neil Diamond will wander across your TV screen this fall via his Free Man In Paris special, loosely based on the singers life. Written by actress/director Jeanne Moreau (and how they ever got together is anyones guess), the film also co-stars Brigitte Bardot.
Stars Cars
ANN WILSON
Eleganza
Radical Chic
Lisa Robinson
Halston and Diane von Furstenburg havent been there yet, but Andy Warhol went to CBGBs to see the Talking Heads and the Ramones.
WHERE ANCIENT ROCK STARS GO TO DIE
Rick Johnson
How time flies when youve been having fun. Seems like only last Wednesday that all the cool kids were zooming around town with the tops cut off their Volvos, and from every tape player came the sounds of this great new “super-. group," Crosby, Stills & Nash.
ROCK-A-BYE, BABY TO SOME DIXIE MELODIES
The Mad Peck
Hello, I say HELLO. Foghorn Leghorn here with news of a delightful, I say DELIGHTFUL new collection of rock tunes grown right here in the heart of glorious Dixie.
ROCK • A • RAMA
CHARLES CHRISTOPHER PARKER, JR.—Bird/The Savoy Recordings (Master Takes) (Savoy)::This two record collection isnt the “definitive" Bird album—he was so prolific and his genius is scattered over so many different records that no single album can define his music—but it is the best currently available.
Extension Chords
Synthesizers Are Changing The Face Of Music...Again
The ARP Avatar really is amazing; it will do everything the manufacturer says it will do and more.
Rewire Yourself
Match Your Music With Your Ears
Richard Robinson
“In the broadest sense, the SG-9500 actually 'hand-tailors your music...to enhance your music-listening pleasure," says Pioneer of their stereo graphic equalizer.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down