March 1983
Creem Profiles
CATHOLIC GIRLS
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
CREEM
FIRST FIND THE TALENT I’m writing this in response to your December issue’s review of the Who’s It’s Hard by Gregg Turner, a man who is a pathetic waste of the effort it must have taken his mother and a platypus to conceive him. This is the only unfavorable review I’ve read about this record, which shows that Turner is one of few who can’t recognize qualtiy.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
TONI BASIL: "Word Of Mouth” (Chrysalis):: The only woman ever to offer to take it up the ass on top 40 radio (close your eyes and concentrate on the Words if you don’t believe me) tops that trick by making four words out of “Don’t want no body” and then playing the double negative both ways.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Move over, Margaret Trudeau!! Mick Jagger, who sings with a fairly popular British band, has signed with noted British publisher Lord Weidenfeld to publish his biography for $2 million—the most a British publisher has ever paid for a book.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Iman Lababedi
NEW YORK—During the summer of ’81, I wrote a review of London band Killing Joke’s second album What’s This For...! for the Village Voice; in it I described the killing joke ideology as exploitative nonsense, and Killing Joke’s music as an ugly, overwhelming, heavy metal-disco fusion that might be the first real advance in HM since the Stooges.
GABRIEL GOES AFRICA
Don McLeese
A lot of us came late to Peter Gabriel. Or perhaps it’s just that Peter Gabriel came late to us. By “us,” I mean anyone who has trouble mouthing the word “progressive” in a rock context without a trace of a sneer—anyone who believes that the “art-rock” that flourished in the early ’70s had about as much in common with rock’s true spirit as Art Linkletter does.
I FIND MISSING PERSONS
John Mendelssohn
The germ of the union that would one day become countless hundreds of thousands of fans’ favorite new New Wavoid attraction of 1983 wriggled into being one afternoon in the late ’70s when a curvaceous cutie called Dale strutted onto a soundstage somewhere in America to say howdy to her old buddy Frank Zappa.
BRITAIN’S UNITY ROCKERS: THE ENGLISH BEAT'S SOUL SALVATION!
John Neilson
The first thing that grabs you about an English Beat single is, of course, the BEAT: Pulsating, snakey, sort of reggaeish only faster (but not ska—more on that later!). Then come the chiming guitars, followed by a rich vocal with a feel not unlike Elvis Costello in a good mood.
RIC OCASEK WORMS ON A STRING
Michael Goldberg
The office is dark and silent. Here, in one of the rooms where Elliot Roberts, creme de la creme of rock star managers, and his associates make deals for the elite of American rockers—legends like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, as well as younger blood like Devo and the Cars—all is elegant, reserved, formal.
WHERE’S YOUR HEAD AT ADAM ANT
J. Kordosh
The room was full of balloons. A bouquet of balloons, sold nowadays like helium-filled, high-tech clusters that cling to the ceiling. A bundle of mail was strewn on the table counter, next to a cheesecake and a carafe of juice. Most of it remained unopened, but several drawings sat propped against the envelopes.
FLEXING NEW MUSCLE: SLAV SIREN TO PLAY MATA HARI
Cynthia Rose
Marlene Premilovich—professionally, Lene Lovich—has been out of the musical limelight for awhile, since the January 1980 release of Flex and a subsequent tour of Ireland, America and Europe (including her ancestral Yugoslavia). She did only two live turns this summer: both on the stage of London’s Venue, helping a visiting Tom Verlaine with sax and co-vocals on “Postcard From Waterloo.”
Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
THE MIDNIGHTERS: From The Sins Of Annie To The Twist
Nick Tosches
It was towards the end of 1951 that Johnny Otis (born John Veliotes; he found it gainful to pass as black), the 30-year-old Savoy recording star who also worked as a talent scout for King Records of Cincinnati, came upon a group called the Royals at a talent show at the Paradise Theatre in Detroit.
SCREENING FOR MERCY!
Cynthia Rose
With the ritual switching-on of Christmas lights in Regent Street, the growing winter gloom seems officialized: “winter” meaning the damp chill that’s begun to sneak up every sleeve and down each collar, plus the sinking feeling that sets in when it’s dark by four o’clock.
Stars Cars
EDDIE MONEY
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
ROCK '82: TOTAL PALOOK AVILLE
Does anyone, at this late date (10:27 AM EST), remember 1982? Don’t feel bad—neither do we! It was definitely One Of Those Years: The Who pulled off the first of what will probably be annual farewell tours; planes crashed; wars occurred; the world ended (again) and CREEM once more resisted the urge to change the name of our records section to Justifiable Homicide.
Tearstained Memories: LEARNING LESSONS OF LOVE FROM ABC
Toby Goldstein Dear Bobby: I never thought even you would be so cruel. All those times you said you loved me, you said you’d be there for me, you said you understood...I believed in you! I defied my parents to go out with you, turned my back on my friends, who warned me that you were no damn good.
CREEMEDIA
Rick Johnson
Turn on your television these days and what’s the first thing you see? Fish heads peeking out from birthday cakes? The origin of the trick funnel? More souplines? Besides all that, here, I’ll give you a hint: KEEE-BLAMMO! WACKA WACKA WACKA!
Confessions of a FILM FOX
OK, raise hands, all those who have had it with Miss Audrey Landers’ incredible disgusting, passionate peach hair color! The admittedly-attractive Miss L., 24 (ha!), has obliterated her dark-eyed good looks with this ridiculous cotton candy tufting all over her little head.
EXTENSION CHORDS
Allen Hester
A few years ago, an up-and-coming manufacturer of sound reinforcement gear joined forces with one of the better established names in professional audio: Tapco merged with Electro-Voice to form EV/Tapco. Since then, an already good line of products by the younger Tapco has been enhanced by the years of experience and good reputation of the older EV, with musicians and soundmen being the prime beneficiaries of this merging of the minds— the talents and the solder guns.
OF IDEALS AND GESTURES
Richard C. Walls
Frankly, I didn’t give a damn if that guy blew up the Washington Monument or not. After they got all the people out, of course. I mean, they could always build another one without too much trouble, right? It’s not just that some sadistic gym teacher forced our senior class to jog to the top back in ’66—as a symbol it’s always been a little tacky, and later for symbols anyway.
ROCK • A • RAMA
Michael Davis
PSYCHEDELIC DREAM (Columbia):: No, it’s not the eagerly-awaited Hooked On Drugs V. 2, but it’ll do for a cosmic chuckle or two. Unearthed from under a mound of moldy mushrooms in Columbia’s vaults, this ’60s compilation unfortunately makes no distinction whatsoever between the bands with original styles (like the Byrds or Spirit) and those who just day-glowed along for the magic carpet ride (Kak, July, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy).
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
CREEM DREEM
PHILTHY ANIMAL TAYLOR