November 1980
Creem Profiles
DAVE EDMUNDS
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
CREEM CONTENTS
This Bridgewater person should be informed that he is being paid to review albums like Robin Lane And The Chartbusters and not expose his failed aspiration to become a master of the literary style known as “stream-of-consciousness.” Now I will admit that I didri’t understand a fucking word except for some reference to Chrissie Hynde’s underarms and sexual aggressiveness (a smothering combination, no doubt), but that still does not keep me from realizing how incredibly bad his writing is.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
(This month Robert Christgau rates rock best-of compilations. — Ed.) ABBA: “Greatest Hits” (Atlantic ’76):: Although four of these songs have gone Top 20 here, the title commemorates the band’s conquest of such places as West Germany and Costa Rica, where Abba’s Europop is the biggest thing since the Beazosmonds.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
As you’ve probably heard by now, famed dairy farmers John Lennon and Yoko Ono are currently recording a new album. What you don’t know is that Cheap Tricksters Rick Nielsen and the effervescent Bun E. Carlos are helping John on guitar and drums respectively...
THE BEAT GOES ON
Mark J. Norton
“I watched a snail crawl across the edge of a straight razor... that is my dream; that is my nightmare. To crawl across the edge of a straight razor...and survive.” —Marlon “Two-Tub Man” Brando as Col. Walter E. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. CLARKSTON, MI-“Hey, look —I lived with that movie,” said Mickey Hart, percussionist of the Grateful Dead and the Rhythm Devils, the group that supplied Francis Ford Coppola with the necessary abstract soundtrack for the controversial film Apocalypse Now.
THE RECORDS: Not Made To Be Broken
J. Kordosh
When I pulled into the Standard gas station, I hopped out and asked the attendant if I could pump my own. “I’ve got to see a band that’s playing around the corner,” I explained, “and I’m kind of late.” The attendant shrugged, and pointed to the rows of empty parking spaces.
SECRET AFFAIR: Mods As Sods?
Gregg Turner
Mod? Mods?
CREEM’S FIRST ANNUAL DUBIOUS ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
Rick Johnson
Then In 1973, I Learned How Ted Nugent: “I didn’t know you could beat off until 1972.” Pest Control And The Baby Seal Joe Fernbacher on The Wall: “I give it an 88 because it makes me wanna put cats in Samsonite briefcases and strangle em.” When Postcards Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Write Home Richard Riegel on Devo:
THE EXPLODING PSYCHEDELIC INEVITABLE
Penny Valentine
“You cry out in your sleep/And all my failings exposed,” mourns Ian Curtis on the extraordinary, emotional “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” This song, currently in the British singles chart, has its potent appeal hidden on paper. What’s so new, in terms of popular music, about lyrics that deal with the a.m. realization that something about a relationship can go disastrously wrong?
Features
PETE TOWNSHEND: WHO’S HE?
Carl Arrington
A lethal wit, a stubborn idealism, a wounded heart, a teeming mind and a nose that invites insult.
MAGAZINE Leader Admits Murdering World (No One Notices)
Michael Davis
Rock ’n’ roll has been walking a strangely schizoid path of late. The biggest bands (in America, anyway) invariably promote the images of rebellion, independence and power while their music usually remains predictable pastiches of past styles spiced by a few hip rips.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Welcome To My Nightmare: JOE JACKSON VS. SUCCESS
Toby Goldstein
On the second evening of Joe Jackson’s 1980 mini-American tour, both the mercury and the humidity are hovering close to 100, enveloping several thousand Central Park-goers in a cloud of water vapor, warmed-over booze and sweat. Uneasily pacing across the stage, Joe Jackson, becomingly attired in a black suit, is about to expire of heat prostration.
Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
JIMMIE LOGSDON The Man Without A Subtitle
Nick Tosches
This is not a funny story, so try not to laugh.
CREEM DREEM
RACHEL SWEET
PUNK WOODSTOCK Meets The Ugly American
Dave DiMartino
Just out of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel, a friend and I are fighting a losing battle. We’re trying to take Canada seriously. Here we are in actual Ontario, nary a snowshoe between us, on our way to Punk Woodstock by way of a route as exciting as Canada gets:
CROUCHING TOWARDS BOWMANVILLE OR ELVIS: What Happend?
Susan Whitall
I must confess to hating “rock festivals” with some passion. My response to the rhetorical “Would you have gone to Woodstock?” question has always been a resounding “No, no...God no!” What? Go voluntarily to a place where I would be covered with mud, dosed with all manner of cheaply-made hallucinogenics, forced to watch heaving mounds of human flesh copulating all around me, and after all that...not seeing the bands very well!
REWIRE YOURSELF
Richard Robinson
The most misunderstood and abused component in a stereo system is the turntable that plays the records. The majority of people out to buy a new stereo concentrate on the quality (and cost). of the amplifier and speakers. They sigh with relief when the hi-fi salesman throws in a Garrard 630S turntable with a Pickering V15 cartridge for an extra $55.
EXTENSION CHORDS
Allen Hester
Look out, citizens, the Rebel, the Outlaw and the Bandit are on their way! Not to mention the Switchblade, the Cleaver and...oh my God!... the Razorblade! What’s coming down the road here? Progressive country legions headed for a confrontation with the new wave zealots?
CRYPTOMANIA
Dallas Mayr
A big drink, this album. According to the scale in my bathroom it weighs three pounds. I may benchpress it. Sixteen sides, more sides than most albums have cuts, and an enclosed superhype booklet filled with pretty pictures and lowbrow prose.
Fear Is A Man's Best Friend
Joe (I like knives) Fernbacher
Fear is: —the feel of something huge, moist, warm and unknown slithering its way across your bed sheets late at night... —turning a corner at midnight on a lonely, deserted street and coming face to face with a laughing clown... —hearing odd creaks and groans of a house, at night, when you’re all by yourself—creaks and groans that sound like a meeting of panting phantoms...
WHITE DOPES ON GRITS
THE MAD PECK
ROCK A RAMA
Richard C. Walls
HORACE SILVER—Silver ’N Strings Play The Music Of The Spheres (Blue Note):: Following 27 years of faithful service pianist Silver, the last of Blue Note’s famous repertory company, has delivered his final album (no, he didn’t die—the label did, tho it continues to release juicy re-issues).
ELEGANZA
J. Kordosh
With unemployment rising faster than the number of people crushed to death at rock concerts, interest is growing in how to present oneself at a job interview. As everyone knows, the interview is the last big step before getting that job, so it’s essential that you don’t blow it!
CREEMEDIA
Toby Goldstein
First, know this—the Clash have disavowed Rude Boy. Second, know this—it is not great cinematic art or expertise we’re talking about here.. But ultimately, know this—if the Clash are your heroes, and you can’t get enough of Strummer’s crumbling choppers or Paul Simonon’s Grecian profile, and most of all, quake before the steamy electrical storm the group generates onstage, shell out the bucks and suffer through the dialogue.
Prime Time
Richard C. Walls
The column this month is especially mean-spirited, even vicious—partly because it’s being written in the middle of another hot, muggy summer, partly because I’m still p.o.’ed from watching the political conventions, and partly because, after a little humid soul-searching, I realize that I only write this stuff for the money and because I have an ax to grind, in that order.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
It’s sure gonna be a cold, cold winter... Especially for Jaclyn Smith and hubby Dennis Cole, who’ve officially separated. Rumor has it that Jaclyn has been seeing actor Alex Cord... The punk was lucky dept.: Clint Eastwood recently Won a jury verdict in a lawsuit filed against him by Andy Sugar, who’d claimed that Clint stole the title The Enforcer from her book of the same title.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
Stars Cars
BERNIE TAUPIN