May 1982
Creem Profiles
OZZY OSBOURNE
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
CONTENTS
Please send letters to: MAIL Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O.Box P-1064 Birmingham, MI 48012 WARUM IST KINGPIT? A very sincere and gracious thank you to Richard Riegel for “Bob Dylan: More Of An Outlaw Than You Ever Were?” in CREEM, March 1982. Mr. Riegel seems to recognize a fact that other rock journalists have forgotten or do not realize—Bob Dylan is the greatest songwriter of our lifetime.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
SUGAR BLUE: Cross Roads” (Free Bird Import):: You may remember his harmonica from “Miss You” (or if you’re lucky Johnny Shines’s newly tape-available Too Wet To Plow), but if you figured he could sing at all you didn’t guess his voice would be as rich and mellifluous as his harp, more King Pleasure than Little Walter.
ROCK N' ROLL NEWS
AMERICAN EAGLE ATTACKS PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER! Patti Davis, Ronald and Nancy Reagan’s “famous” little girl, recently wrote to an L.A. columnist, claiming that she composed “I Wish You Peace” for the Eagles on the band’s Hotel California LP.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
Equal Shares For The Au Pairs “He works the car, she the sink She’s not here to think Sits with the paper, discuss the news She doesn’t have political views” “Diet"—the Au Pairs NEW YORK—Unlike the women she tends to write about, Lesley Woods has views on absolutely everything including politics.
THE FLESHTONES: PRIMAL ROCK
Michael Goldberg
SPLAT! A plastic bag filled with red chili sauce arcs up and out of the crowd and catches Fleshtones’ lead singer Peter Zaremba right on the jaw. SPLAT! The thick red liquid is all over Zaremba’s face; the top of his baggy black sweatshirt is drenched.
CREEM & YAMAHA CELEBRITY GRAND PRIX MOTORCYCLE GIVEAWAY!
Here's your opportunity to win and win big! The official pace motorcycle seen with Sally Struthers at the CREEM CELEBRITY GRAND PRIX held in February at Anaheim, CA could be yours. This lightweight and lean Exciter 250 from Yamaha in Cardinal Red (pictured below) features a 250,
Baby, You Can Drive Our Car: Creem GRAND PRIX '82
Boy Howdy gave the Indianapolis 500 a run for its money this past February when he presented his first annual CREEM Grand Prix at the Malibu Grand Prix Raceway in Anaheim, California. The star-studded event was part of the National Association of Musical Instrument Manufacturers (NAMM) winter convention, also held in Anaheim.
THE BLASTERS’ AMERICAN MUSIC!
Sylvie Simmons
First time I saw them at the Whiskey, the night they broke the club’s bar sales record and played American music so good that it almost made you forget how bad American beer is, there wasn’t a record company satin jacket in the place.
OL’NICK THE KNIFE’S BACK IN TOWN!
Bill Holdship
The Line Forms On The Right, Babe
Features
THE CARS DON’T GET EASILY AMUSED
Tobby Goldstein
A view from the edge.
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
Penny Valentine
Hearing “Winter of 79” three years after is initial recording comes as a shock. As undisciplined, chaotic, and downright lousy as punk was, at least it produced its own kind of militancy. And now here’s Tom Robinson scuffling through the EMI vaults and emerging with a collection of TRB tracks that weren’t released on an album during the lifetime of the band.
REWIRE YOURSELF
Richard Robinson
These days in New York City a fascinating electro-cultural phenomenon is taking place: record stores are empty while there are lines around the block to get into video stores. Companies like Video Shack, First Run, Video Bugg, Video To Go, and The Video Room have sprung up on street corners throughout Manhattan and are doing a land-office business renting and selling video cassettes and video discs to those who have discovered the ultimate form of contemporary home entertainment.
Stars Cars
EDDIE VAN HALEN
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Features
THE LAMENTATIONS OF JERRY LEE
Nick Tosches
The following is an excerpt from Nick Tosches’s new book Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story.
EXTENSION CHORDS
Allen Hester
My last installment of “Extension Chords” was a sort of “name-game” piece about the cross-pollination of American-made cars and guitars; an article which probably betrayed this writer’s love for both. However, in the interest of balance and equal time, it is only fair that an article about the new Japanese guitars should follow.
Features
AC/DC: DEATH POOCHES LICK THE COSMIC MILK BONE
Sylvie Simmons
They all look like they’d benefit from a Jerry Lewis telethon.
Creemedia
THE FILMS OF ROGER CORMAN: BRILLIANCE ON A BUDGET
Richard C. Walls
Some people might wonder what all the fuss is about. Certainly, after catching Attack Of The Crab Monsters (’56) or War Of The Satellites (’58) on the tube, the idea that their director, Roger Corman, might be the focus of cultish admiration and in certain circles nonchalantly referred to as a genius may seem too ludicrous to believe.
Prime Time
Richard C. Walls
THE KING IS WEIRD: And now another two cents worth of emotionally charged rationalization masquerading as objective analysis concerning the Elvis/Goldman controversy. Actually I feel a bit more objective than some since I was too young to care when Elvis first hit and much too cynical to respond by the time of his performing comeback—and though I have no love for Goldman, whose unrestrained loathing for Presley, popular culture, hillbillies and other non-intellectual aspects of Western Civ reveal to him to be a most self-centered and uncompassionate type of beast, still, the Elvis defenders have made me squirm just as much as he.
CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX
Robert De Niro unleashed! When a TV interviewer recently tried to get a comment out of Al Pacino as he was leaving the Night of 100 Stars gala in Gotham, typically neuro Al wouldn’t speak, but wow! His formerly reserved companion De Niro grabbed the mike, exclaimed “Ask meee!” and proceeded to give a detailed commentary to the startled reporter.
Records
HETERO, GUN TOMORROW
Jon Pareles
“Things go from bad to weird,” Lou Reed observes in “Underneath the Bottle,” thus astutely summing up his latest career turn.
HETERO, GUN TOMORROW
Rick Johnson
When word first leaked that Talking Head honcho David Byrne was slated to produce the new B-52�s album, it made about as big a splash as Cartoonland�s first mute penguin. Pairing Barney Google with such an impeccably trashy, intentionally fun outfit sounded like the snorestorm of the year.
NOT QUITE A-OKEH
Jeff Nesin
A true story. Just the other night I was rummaging around the shelves looking for something to wake me up after nearly two hours of pre-Belle A1 Green (I�m devoted to him, consider him the great artist of the 70�s, etc., but there�s only so much of the Hodges Bros, tastefully restrained groove that a man can take without slipping into darkness), when what should slip onto my searching hand but Spirit In The Dark, the wonderful 12-year-old Aretha Franklin album.
ROCK • A • RAMA
Richard Riegel
STEPMOTHERS-You Were Never My Age (Posh Boy):: Buzzsaw punk as an ideal (you don�t necessarily parrot in yer own jagged rock), say these L.A.�s-finest Stepmothers. Shrill, jangling, nervous, poppy-edged stuff, like if Dino, Desi, & Billy had had their pimply political consciousnesses raised 29 eons or so since 1966.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where theStars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
JOHN BELUSHI 1949-1982
At presstime, we were genuinely shocked to learn that John Belushi had been found dead in a Los Angeles hotel on March 12, at the age of 33. It�s already a clichē, but the fact that such an energetic presence ceases to exist doesn�t sink in very easily.