June 1979
CREEM
Hello! You beautiful maniacs, you, hello! FIRSTLY: Thanks for the Debbie Harry calendar! That gal is gorgeous! Don't make no snide remarks, either, or I'll resurrect Oscar Wilde and we two will come up wif somethin'. An' if we don't, Tommy will.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
ELVIN BISHOP: "Hog Heaven" (Capricorn):: Bishop is a road musician. He doesn't knock himself out making Great Albums, but he doesn't get all twisted up racing after Breakthrough Hits, either. He doesn't even Promote Product much—when he passed through in January, he mentioned his current LP only when he did a song from it, which happened once.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Roving shutterbug Chuck Pulin reports from New York that the benefit concert for the Indochinese Boat People, organized by Todd Rundgren and raising an estimated $30,000 for the cause, was quite a sight to behold. David Johansen kicked off the show with a powerful set, followed by Blue Oyster Cult, whose musical contribution was just about wrapped up when Patti Smith jumped onstage to join them.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
NEW YORK/DETROIT — While we're busy celebrating 25 years of rock 'n' roll, let us not forget that this year also commemorates the first quarter century of rock criticism. That's right, rock critics the world over have their own drum to bang this year— and, if we expect today's musicians to produce bigger and better music during the next 25 years, there's no reason why they can't also be expected to assist today's rock critics as they make an equal effort to upgrade the state of their art a couple of notches before 2004 rolls around.
Letter From Britain
Punk Has Risen From The Grave
Penny Valentine
Unlike many people I don't regard this as the end of the age of innocence.
Creem Profiles
BOOMTOWN RATS
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
THE NON-TRENDINESS OF DIRE STRAITS
Gary Kenton
I was doing publicity then. Working for the Warner brothers (Stan and Reg). I was in London, escorting fellow CREEM contributor Richard Riegel to a couple of concerts by Thin Lizzy at London's Wembley Pool. (Richard had hardly travelled outside of Cincinnati, no less been to merry England, so he required a certain amount of supervision.)
Features
THAT’S COOL THAT’S TRASH: A HISTORY OF THE FIRST PUNK ERA
Robot A. Hull
For fifteen years there has been an enigmatic force, burrowing underground, pulling people by their roots down toward the core of white-hot rawness.
OUTLAWS D’AMOUR: THE POLICE
John Pidgeon
The Police are the best rock 'n' roll band I've seen in years.
Elvis Costello
DESOLATION ANGELS HAVE GASTRIC JUICES, TOO
Penny Valentine
After four years, Bad Company toured Britain.
Features
BLONDIE Plucks Her Legs!
Nick Tosches
Deborah Harry, formerly of Hawthorne, New Jersey, sits there.
CREEMEDIA
Rick Johnson
Way way back, in the mists of our spermatozahood, Name That Tune was a good old, self-explanatory kind of show. The band played the melody (usually "Three Coins In The Fountain"), the jerk tried to guess and if he got it right, he won his own home bomb shelter, completely stocked with a colorful array of hula hoops.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
Plans to bring the Eagles LP, Desperado, to the screen are on again, with shooting to start later this year. Assisting in the Warner Bros, production is the group's manager, Irving Azoff, with the screenplay by Steve Forman. And if all goes well, a second Eagles vehicle, Hotel California, will go celluloid . . .
DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Edouard Dauphin
Hippy (hip' i) n. 1. an unkempt, filthy degenerate, usually a youth, circa 1960's, distinguished chiefly by absurdly long hair, junk store clothing, an aversion to work and bathing, a predeliction for drugs of all kinds and a love for rock 'n' roll particularly as performed by dead musicians.
Stars Cars
ROBIN ZANDER
Records
SEX PISTOLS MEDICAL REPORT: ONE DEAD, MANY WOUNDED
Mitch Cohen
Eddie Cochran's "Something Else" is a funny song about class distinction and aspiration, about what to settle for (the not quite ideal car) and what not to settle for less than (the dream girl).
FANTASIES OF THE STARS!
THE MAD PECK
ROCK • A • RAMA
Richard Riegel
THE WONDER BAND—Stairway To Love (Atco):: Right, kids, we've already had disco reinterpretations of classic English rock tunes from the songbooks of everybody from the Stones to The Animals to the Spencer Davis Group, so the definitive disco-revision of Led Zeppelin's catalog has been long since overdue.
Extension Chords
Operation Armstrong
Allen Hester
Find him: There's this guy in Santa Monica named Armstrong.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down