March 1986

CONTENTS

LETTERS

Please send your letters to: Mail Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O. Box P-1064 Birmingham, Ml 48012. DE FISH FRY P’OCEEDS! I went out and bought a few other rock magazines because you guys were late coming to the store this month. So I bought Circus, Record, Hit Parader and a couple others not worth mentioning.

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

STAMPING OUT MICHAEL The Virgin Islands—a colony of Great Britain— have prepared and printed a series of eight postage stamps honoring Michael Jackson...only to discover that there's a long-standing policy that the only living persons to appear on British colony stamps are members of the British monarchy.

THERE IS NO EASY CURE

Sylvie Simmons

A vivid recurring nightmare turned Cure leader Robert Smith into a nervous wreck.

...AND THEN CAME ARCADIA

Liz Derringer

When John Taylor and Andy Taylor— certainly two of entertainment's most endearing Taylors since Opie and (Wait a minute!) Andy—formed the highlysuccessful Power Station last year, there was every reason to fear (or hope, depending on your point of view) that Duran Duran were defunct.

WIN STEVE STEVEN’S GUITAR!

Well, not actually Steve's personal guiter, but a Steve Stevens Model Guiter designed and manufactured by those folks at Hamer. That's right, you could actually end up playing like, Billy Idol's debonair guitarist and perhaps even be writing great songs like "Rebel Yell" or "White Wedding" in a matter of time (haircut is optional) when you strap on this fine peice of work from Hamer.

Roger Daltrey: Who Am I?

Chris Welch

Two years after the agonizing bust-up of the Who, Roger Daltrey can no longer stand premature rock burial.

Features

GIVE US VAN HALEN!

Dave DiMartino

You do it one of two ways: either spectacle or personality.

Records

LEFT OF THE DIAL

Richard C. Walls

Here's the deal: a cult band, a critic's band called the Replacements, operating out of Minneapolis, makes three records for the tiny but brave Twin Tone label.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

ABC �How To Be A Zillionaire� (Mercury) The look of the Mark I ABC fooled Anglophobes into dismissing the music as fashion-plated pandering even though it was as politically suggestive as U. S. Anglophilia gets. So don�t let the look of the Mark II ABC fool you into hoping the music is outrageous, or even campy except in a Bryan Ferry twice-removed way.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

You might have to do some serious searching to find the Single of the Month this time. It�s called �Closer To The Heart,� by an Irish group, Clannad, who used to sing principally in Gaelic and are still filed under Folk in those enterprising record stores that import their LPs.

ROCK • A • RAMA

Michael Davis

WATERBOYS This Is The Sea (Island) It appears that the Waterboys are finding out that their music sounds bigger if they don�t constantly force their dramatic impulses on it. Mike Scott�s muse may still drink downstream from the likes of Dylan, Phil Spector, Van Morrison and Patti Smith, but his voice and vision are increasingly his own.

Del Fuegos Beaned In Boston

Richard Riegel

So how young are the Del Fuegos? Well, if I�d been impressionable enough to have knocked up a Il�l high school gal the first time I heard the Beatles� siren song, I coulda fathered the Del Fuegos� Warren Zanes, as he didn�t come onto the scene until 1965!

All the things you ever wanted to know about ZZ Top

Sylvie Simmons

Do you sleep with your beards over or under the bedclothes?

Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar

CALENDAR

CAVERN CLUB PSYCH-OUT

Gregg Turner

The '60s Are Alive And Well (Sort Of)

Three O'Clock: Tocking Heads?

Sharon Liveten

One of the most memorable experiences in Danny Benair�s life was seeing the Monkees play live. The drummer from the Three O�clock recalls, �I was in elementary school. The Monkees! I was praying to them. I was in the third row and Mickey Dolenz fell into the moat at the Hollywood Bowl.

On The Road With Roky & Pete

Thomas Anderson

What follows is a conversation between R.E.M.�s Peter Buck and former 13th Floor Elevator Roky Erickson when the two recently met in Austin, Texas en route to a local restaurant. ROKY: I haven�t been doing that much recording, I�ve been fixin� to start writin� some songs. The name of my band is Evilhook Wildlife ET.

ROBYN HITCHCOCK GOD WALKS AMONG US

Bill Holdship

In his own words, some people expect Robyn Hitchcock to be �a kind of exotic species of plant� or a �wigged—out acid casualty� in the vein of Syd Barrett or Roky Erickson. He�s actually quite serene, pleasant, unpretentious and reasonable in every sense.

Isn't that Nick Lowe?

Karen Schlosberg

�I seem to occupy a funny sort of position in the music business,� Nick Lowe says with a trace of a grin and a sigh. �I�m considered to be something of an eccentric, so people kind of indulge me and my flights of fancy. I�ve always felt like an outsider and that�s really the way I like it.

Eleganza

WHAT TO EXPECT IN 1986

John Mendelssohn

If, as Tom Wolfe does, you believe that it takes a decade about five years to get started, you must be expecting the 80s to begin any day now.

CREEMEDIA

John Mendelssohn

Several years ago, in his infamous Outspoken Period, Elvis Costello allowed as how Sting ought to be cuffed mercilessly about the ears until he quit singing in a Jamaican accent. Presently, it�s his record company that�s in for a good cuffing for having bankrolled Bring On The Night.

DRIVE INSATURDAY

Edouard Dauphin

Re-Animator is the newest movie to be based on an H.P. Lovecraft work and to say that it is the best horror film in recent years is not to do it justice, in The Dauph�s opinion, and, believe me, I have sat through my share of inept vampire flicks, Jason sequels and Stephen King drivel (did they make a film of this guy�s high school diary yet?), which is what the 1980s seem to be all about—at least in the genre that, for whatever reasons of mental instability, continues to be Edouard�s peculiar bailiwick.

MEDIA COOL

J. Kordosh

ROCKY IV (United Artists) Surprisingly—especially for those who deride Sly Stallone�s generally entertaining films— Rocky IV is exceptionally good, easily the best of the series since the original. The pre-fight hooplah of the Apollo Creed/Ivan Drago bout (featuring no less than James Brown) is essentially too accurate a presentation of the Vegas fight scene to be satire.

CREEM SHOWCASE

Dan Hedges

�I always had this thing about the �struggling musician,�� Steve Stevens says, taking five during a photo session in New York. �I was always terrified of that. Still am. I didn�t want to fail. I never minded the thought of being poor at doing something, but I didn�t want to fail at it.�

Video Video

LET IT FLOAT, IT FLOATS BACK TO YOU

Billy Altman

If there's one thing that's starting to get on our nerves a bit these days here at the Video Video corral, it's the recent outbreak of what's commonly known in music video circles as Celebrity Cameoitis.

CLIPS

Dave DiMartino

No problems with Madonna. The show�s not only just like the one I saw in Detroit last year, it is the one I saw in Detroit last year. Every song�s a genuine hit—no small accomplishment— and everything sounds just like the record. Only here you can see Madonna, in all her glory, dressed up in the clothes you love, all 83 of �em, singing and swinging and dancing her way into the heart of all America.

NEWBEATS

Gregg Turner

The tune that replaced �Brown Sugar� as rock anthem of the �70s rings out vibrant and just as sneeringly snotty tonight here at Al�s Bar in the fungoid depths of downtown L.A. as in its original incarnation deep in the gloom-imbued shadows of Sex Pistols-era San Francisco, 1976: the Nuns are back.

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down