September 1982
CREEM CREEM
This letter is to remind Mr. J. (Quiche-Eater) Kordosh that the current year is NINETEEN EIGHTY-TWO and to suggest that his impressions of the Fear band (July '82) belong to the middle class, washed-out, over-the-hill Woodstock gang of writers who might find more enjoyable employment writing cute remarks about potato chips and imported beer for Oui magazine.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau .
ASIA (Geffen):: The art-rock Foreigner is a find—rare that a big new group is bad enough to sink your teeth into any more. John Wetton and Steve Howe added excitement to contexts as pretentious as King Crimson and Yes, but this is just pompous—schlock in the grand manner, with synthesizers John Williams would love.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Sorry to report that James Honeyman-Scott, a founding member and lead guitarist of the Pretenders, was found dead in a friend's apartment in the Notting Hill district of West London on June 16. Honeyman-Scott reportedly died in his sleep after returning from a benefit for multiple sclerosis at London's Venue club.
Just A Little Off The Top, Please
Annene Kaye
NEW YORK-YO! Arise from your slimy loaflife pits, collect your wits, and prepare to meet six young men who go under the name Haircut One Hundred. Founding Barbers Nick Heyward (lead vocals, guitar, songs), Graham Jones (guitar), and Les Nemes (bass) had little contact with the music business or the "rock lifestyle" when they began practicing in Nick's room.
RICHARD THOMPSON SHOOTS OUT THE LIGHTS
Michael Goldberg
There is a story circulating about Richard Thompson. The way I heard it, the Eagles approached him, prior to hiring Joe Walsh: they wanted Thompson in the band as lead guitarist. Living in obscurity in England, Thompson allegedly replied: "What? And spend the rest of my life working with a bunch of Southern Californians?"
Features
MARSHALL CRENSHAW’S TRUE POP WAYS
Iman Lababedi
Let's talk about it: 1982 has its first and probably the finest brand new pop star in Marshall Crenshaw.
POP GOES GREAT BRITAIN!
Penny Valentine
"I won't let you down/won't let you down again." The classic single emerges in the shape of Ph.D. In the way of all true pop, who Ph.D are is relatively unimportant, it's what they sound like that counts. The new pop lays claim to its own statuesque ballad form led in by Ph.D's one track and New Order's "Temptation."
NEW WAVE SHORT WAVE
Richard Robinson
by Once upon a time the reception of radio and television broadcasts had a quasi-mystical aura to it. In the pioneer days of broadcasting, those interested in snatching sound and pictures out of the air often had to build their own radios and TV sets to do so.
Features
DAVID LEE ROTH & THE PHILOSOPHY OF DIVING DOWN
Sylvie Simmons
Those lips! Those eyes! That body!
DAVE EDMUNDS, ROCK FAN
Bill Holdship
From Small Things, Mama, Big Things One Day Come!
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
JOHN COUGAR & THE FOOLING OF AMERICA
J. Kordosh
I'd never listened to any of John Cougar's records before American Fool, although I saw him open for the Kinks a couple of years back. I remember thinking (a thing I'm not addicted to, by the way) at the end of his set: "Hey, this guy should get an encore."
GREGKIHN
THE NAMM JAM
Allen Hester
The annual National Association of Music Merchants trade show is always, to borrow an adjective from David Letterman, an "extravaganza," and this year's show in Atlanta was no exception. Exhibitors from around the world packed the Georgia World Congress Center with every imaginable musical instrument in Christendom, and then some.
PUSSY-FOOTING IN THE HEART OF THE BEST
John Neilson
Yanking the Ted Nugent LP off the specially-designed backwards-playing turntable, I hurled it on the corner with the others. No satanic messages on that one either. Not that I really expected to find any, of course—two years of this and all I've ever gotten were headaches and bad dreams of Neanderthals coming up to me saying "NEVAEH 07 YAWRIATS EHT GNIYUB SEHS DNA!" and "NAM NORI MA I!" Still, the Committee of Responsible Elders Enforcing Morality (C.R.E.E.M:) was paying me big bucks to help root out evil in rock music, so I couldn't complain (someone's gotta pay my Mr. Pibb tab).
Creemedia
Bowie Plays Baal
Cyril Blight
In March, Bertolt Brecht's Baal, with David Bowie in the title role, was presented on British television.
Lumpy Rutherford's Blue Period
Richard C. Walls
JUST KIDDING: David Letterman's late night extravaganza seemed doomed in Detroit for awhile (Detroit was one of the first markets to drop his morning show, replacing it with John Davidson's, an unforgivably crass thing to do) but after the local NBC outlet's nefarious plans were leaked to the public by Motown media watchdog and muckraking journalist Mike Duffy, the hue and cry was intense enough to make the powers that be decide to give the show more time to click, ratings-wise (while, in a let's-not-encourage-therabble type move, denying that the h & c had anything to do with their decision).
FILM FOX
Rick Johnson and others of his sex can rest easy—Pamela Sue Martin didn't wed her big bucks S. American b.f. Manuel Rojos after all...yet! Richard Thomas—forever in our hearts as John-Boy Walton—is to play Hank Williams, Jr. in an NBC movie of the week chronicling Bocephus's wild life. Richard will try hard to fake the "booze 'n' babes" scenes...
Records
OVERPOWERED BY MERE
Far and away the two most important musical whatsems of the seminal anti-deathculture late-70's UK scene were the Sex Pistols and (it says here) Throbbing Gristle.
ROCK A RAMA
THE FIBONACCIS—(fi bo na chez) (Index EP):: If the B-52's had milked Henry Cow while waiting in line to become extras in a Fellini film, it would have sounded something like this. For a low-key, quirk-art band, the fibos are surprisingly easy on the ear: Enticing rather than demanding, they may yet find themselves appealing to all sorts of people who'll never learn to pronounce their name right.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
Stars Cars
DIANA ROSS