August 1983
CREEM
AMERICA’S WOMANHOOD REMAINS UNTHREATENED Do Boy George and Adam Ant go to the same beautician? And if they do, can I have his/her number? The Mother Of Rock Lynda Davis, CA When does Boy George become Ma George? 1 hope he doesn’t change—being Boy George is probably better than being Man George.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
BANANARAMA: “Deep Dea Skiving” (London):: In some pop convolution the affectlessness with which these London lasses appropriate various attractive girl-group epiphenomena may simply signify that they’re not an “authentic” girl group.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
The Who have canceled their plans for a “first farewell tour" of the U.K. According to Roger Daltrey: "We want our farewell shows to be an event, and our records haven’t done vary much' in Britain over the past few years." Which might be a kinder way of saying that the British are perhaps a little less gullible.
THE BEST GOES ON
John Neilson
DETROIT—It was a sight that would surely strike cold fear in any mother’s heart. Mission Of Burma, lately one of America’s most widely acclaimed independent bands, was midway through a powerhouse set at Detroit’s City Club. Bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott were giving the audience a good pummelling, alternating Gang Of Four-ish rhythmic interplay with a straight new-hardcore sledgehammer assault, and driving the crowd into a frenzy.
FRESH FLESH With The Flesh Eaters
Gregg Turner
There’s a scene in Roger Corman’s Bucket Of Blood where the poet Maxwell, beard-and-shaded, commands the attention of hipsters tightly assembled at the local hang-out. “DEATH TO JIM, JOHN, JOE, JERK” he bellows. “LIFE IS BUT A SEA IN THE MULTITUDE OF FISHES.
Creem Profiles
VANITY 6
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
THE GOLDEN AGE OF THOMAS DOLBY
Michael Goldberg
In L.A., Thomas Dolby was tied up. With Michael Jackson.
WALL OF VOODOO’S OFF SOUND TRACK BETTING
Richard Riegel
Caricatures Shown Not Intended To Depict Artemia Salina
THE THOMPSON TWINS AT THE SEASHORE
John Mendelssohn
No other band in the British syncopop sweepstakes boasts greater bounce to the ounce. Indeed, to get some idea of what the Thompson Twins are like on stage in their best moments, picture three over-inflated basketballs newly dropped from the penthouses of adjoining skyscrapers.
MARSHALL CRENSHAW HAS A FIELD DAY
Karen Schlosberg
What a guy. That phrase, always delivered with a flatter-than-thou Midwestern twang, is often bandied about within the Crenshaw camp. It could be used in jest or in earnest, to describe anyone from Roger Whittaker to Wayne Newton. It could also be used, while rockin’ around the studio in NYC, by any assorted Crenshaw— Marshall, Robert, or John—to describe each other, producer Steve Lilly white, manager Richard Sarbin (especially if he’s come equipped with per diem pay), engineer Scott Lift, or various passers-by within range.
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
Cynthia Rose
The Phantom Of The Paradise will always be the kind of film which says more about rock than Let’s Spend The Night Together because, as director Brian DePalma sussed, rock’s peripheral personalities (model girlfriends, vampiric execs, ligging TV presenters) wield a mighty slice of the music’s frisson.
BENCHPRESS
Billy Altman
A veteran of far too many seasons of New York bodychecks, brushback pitches and clothesline tackles, CREEM’s longtime Record Review Editor Billy Altman inaugurates, with this issue, Benchpress—a regular column devoted to the always wide, sometimes wonderful world of sports.
Features
Lita Ford’s Got BLOOD If You Want It!
Iman Lababedi
From Runaway to metal goddess.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Anybody Here Seen My Old Friend MOLLY Hatchet?
J. Kordosh
Just before Molly Hatchet went onstage, Keith Johnson—their road manager— escorted me to an unusually good seat.
CREEMEDIA
J. Kordosh
Welcome once again to Mayfield, pop. 18,240. Yes, the land of giving guys the business, the happy hamlet where women bear All-American names (June, Mary Ellen) and men have names that sound like Bizarro Scrabble (Tooey, Lumpy.) The land of TV’s growing-uppest kid, Theodore, and his family, the Cleavers: the Godfathers of Nice.
Features
THE KINKS: A SAD KOMMENTARY
John Mendelssohn
Behold The Kinks’ new konstituency.
Eleganza
SNEER & SNEER AGAIN
John Mendelssohn
Once upon a time, musicians behaved onstage as though they yearned for nothing more than their audience’s pleasure.
CYMBAILS '83
Dave Patrick
Cymbals, the most mysterious of musical instruments, have played many roles in our musical evolution—and, indeed, our world history. From the tinkling fingers of gyrating belly-dancers, to marching to war atop elephants with Hannibal, to that smooth Nashville country studio sound, to blazing drum corps stadium performance and even to Neil Peart’s fiery punching to accenting with Rush, cymbals add sound available from no other musical instrument.
Records
STAR OF STAGE, SCREEN, AND MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES
Michael Davis
The arrival of a new David Bowie album usually means the arrival of a new David Bowie as well.
CREEM DREEM
PATTY SMYTH
Roy Trakin
ROCK • A • RAMA
RED ROCKERS — Good As Gold (415/Columbia):: The general tone of this, the second album by the politically-oriented Red Rockers of San Francisco (by the way of New Orleans), is aptly struck by the inscrutable jauntiness of the delightful “China,” a song whose lilting sound can best be described as "implied' Byrds."
KISS & TELL
Jaan Uhelszki
Has Film Fox died? No, just put to bed without supper for the rest of her. life. Replacing CREEM’s increasingly moldier Fox will be the newer, hipper, slightly revamped and modified Kiss & Tell column, brought to you by former CREEM Features Editor Jaan Uhelszki and guaranteed to put gossip where it rightfully belongs—in boldface type! Ms.
Stars Cars
DAVID LEE ROTH
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down