October 1980
CREEM
STARTLING NEW CONCEPT! Dear CREEM: ENCLOSED IS A PICTURE OF THE LATEST CRAZE!!! DANNY THOMAS AND THE CLASH! DIG THE FABNESS! From Ah Existor named Michael S. Royal Oak, MI SOMEMUTANTS NEVER GROW UP! Did I ever tell you about the time I slept with Bebe Buell?
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
Country music is still a singles medium, disseminated in 150-second swatches on AM radio. Although country artists record as many as three or four albums a year, it’s rare indeedy for one to "make much show of working on them'. The standard formula is a single or two for bait, producer and/or artist connected compositions for royalties, and cover versions for filler.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Looks, like the announced liason between Blondie and producer Giorgio Moroder was shorter than intended. After two days in the studio, Moroder suddenly left, supposedly due to his full involvement with the next Donna Summer LP. Thus, no more “Call Me’”s—instead, former and future brickhead Mike Chapman has returned to the fold.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Sid Griffin
PASADENA, CA-Tm a roots man, I see everything in terms of what came before,” says Ian Whitcomb, author and novelist, songwriter, disc jockey, BBC correspondent, archivist, recording artist and ex-pop star of the 60’s, “and there’s a terrible tendency in this country to think anything that happened five years ago is nostalgia.
Creem Profiles
THE PRETENDERS
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!’’)
Features
PARTY GAMING WITH THE JAGS
Richard Riegel
I watch the Jags stand there, comic-strip question marks and exclamation points frozen over their cosmopolitan English skulls.
BEBE BUELL STOPS FOOLING AROUND
Patrick Goldstein
Blondes really do have more fun. Just ask Bebe Buell, girlfriend to the stars, who’s taking time out from her career as rock’s favorite pin-up princess to tackle a singing career. That’s right—this year’s model is making an album, tentatively titled (what else) Cover Girl.
THE ROCKETS NO RUNS, ONE HIT, NO BALLADS
J. Kordosh
I've fallen asleep and I'm dreaming. Through some inexplicable turn of events, I'm working in the promo department of RSO Records. Evidently no one bothered to check my credentials before they hired me. I'm sitting at my spacious, modern desk, the kind you get when you work in the record industry.
Letter From Britain
PARTY GAMING WITH THE JAGS
Penny Valentine
If it was going to happen at all they thought it would happen in Brixton where the clubs being raided all the time sent the black youth to set up their sound systems and I Roy pounded through the open windows, the streets turned to dub.
Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
HARDROCK GUNTER: The Mysterious Pig-Iron Man
Nick Tosches
Unlike the Bohemian culture of Paris in the 1920’s and ’30’s, that of Birmingham, Alabama, bespoke itself not through painting and literature, but through music.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Paul Jones’ Sixties Retrouvé
Toby Goldstein
The blues band sings the whites.
Eleganza
Clash Vs. Led Zeppelin!!!
An increasingly large part of our Mail Dept, letters are devoted to some “Clash vs. Led Zeppelin” battle.
Rewire Yourself
THE ANSWER MAN
Richard Robinson
I get these phone calls, friends of friends, people I haven’t seen in ten years, complete strangers. Not one of them wants to know how I am, few say thank you, all of them are about to buy a hi-fi or video deck so what would I recommend. I sigh, play the answer man, and more often than not they get off the phone annoyed with me.
CREEM DREEM
NINA HAGEN
Features
Heavy metal’s new wave
Rick Johnson
Heavy what?
Extension Chords
FENDER 1980: THE STRAT IS BACK!
Allen Hester
Ah, the Fender Stratocaster!
Stars Cars
THE B-52s
PUT YOUR HANDS ON THE HERT
Jeff Nesin
Without embarrassment or default this could easily be the album of the year, but true to recent form, the presentation has been a little hard to take.
One Chicken-Fried T-Bone Comin' Up
Robot A. Hull
Right off the bat T-Bone Burnett has three things going for him: He was born in Tokyo (home of the Jolly Green Godzilla); raised in Fort Worth (Dallas's understudy), and he co-produced the Legendary Stardust Cowboy’s “Paralyzed” (which, actually, was more of a precursor to ’70’s punk than the Kingsmen’s “Louie, Louie”).
ROCK • A • RAMA
GRACE JONES—Warm Leatherette (Island)" Disco’s dying, so they say, so what are all these ex-fashion models to do? Now Grace ain’t standing still; gotta give her that; She’s hired a first-rate reggae band, picked some great tunes, and recorded them with none other than Chris Blackwell.
CREEMEDIA
Dave DiMartino
“So much fun—it should be illegal!” That's not anyone’s review, that’s a capsule blurb on the cover of a book. Cheech And Chong’s Next Movie book, to be precise, a 144-page paperback illustrated with stills from the film of the same name. Which, in turn, should not be confused with Let’s Make A New Dope Deal, the new Cheech And Chong album on Warner Brothers records, purposefully released just two,weeks prior to the film’s opening, which—coincidentally—with radio airplay will up the film-gross ante by several million Big Ones.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
And the bleat goes on... So what’s it gonna be then, eh? A Clockwork Orange and Caligula star Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen of Goin’South fame will tie the knot in London by the time you read this. It hasn’t been decided where the couple will reside or honeymoon at presstime...
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
TED NUGENT AT THE CROSSROADS!
My name is Ted Nugent. I'm just 12 years old, but someday I'll either be a big rock 'n' roll star, or a ballet dancer.