June 1986

CONTENTS

LETTERS

Even if it were true that Sun City somehow betrays the less than 10 percent of South Africans who rule the country because they have white skin, which it does not, it is deceitful to imply that the question of apartheid is an internal question and that external meddlers like Steve Van Zandt (or, for that matter, myself) only muddy the waters.

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Leo Gerrero, a city councilman in Corpus Christi, Texas, has introduced a measure calling for concerts in that town to limit volume and ban persons under 14 from attending. The proposal is still under consideration. When Kiss played there recently, Gene Simmons addressed the issue at a pre-concert press conference: "People are saying rock is a terrible influence That�s fine.

STRAY CAT NO MORE: BRIAN SETZER SETS OUT SOLO

Brian Setzer has been keeping a mental list. Everyone he�s spoken to lately seems to think his first post-Stray Cats album, The Knife Feels Like Justice, sounds like someone else. �Let�s see,� he says, counting them off on his fingers, �I�ve heard Buffalo Springfield, Creed ence the Byrds...�

AEROSMITH Still Walk It Their Own Way

Toby Goldstein

Steve and Joe are sitting around just like two of the boys, sprawled across the cushioned seats of a Warner Bros, conference room and distractedly watching MTV. Occasionally, some particularly clever turn of a visual phrase catches their eyes, but most of the time, the channel is simply background noise to their planning and joking.

The Hottest In The Hooter Business

Karen Schlosberg

Part One, So You Want to be a Rock �n� Roll Star: It�s gray and chilly in Hartford, with all sorts of elemental mischief threatened. The Hooters have been on tour for eight months, supporting their nowplatinum national debut album, Nervous Night.

THE BANGLES: Making Pop Her-Story

Creem Profiles

RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS

(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)

STRYPER: THE NEWEST TESTAMENT YET!

And a crowd did gather outside a great hall in El Paso, but not to hear of Stryper, but to rebuke them mightily with picket and bullhorn. For, yea, they were believers and sore afraid of Stryper. And so it happened that one of Stryper's moneyhandlers spake unto the crowd, "Be not afraid of this sound, for it shall not harm you, no, not the least among you.

MARTYRS OF ELITISM

Rock's quarter-century is littered with the glittering martyrs of elitism. Onetime shooting stars of individual sound, thought, or attitude, each served as pilot on some trajectory which aborted, mutated or just plain petered out. Yet the martyr of elitism is not an unsung hero of rock 'n' roll. No, he has his hearing; it�s just that, willfully or unwittingly on his part, stardom toys with him and then passes by. And the problem isn�t sex, race or �charisma.

RECORDS

Jeff Nesin

Elvis Costello is one of the best contemporary songwriters, and certainly the most, uh, rigorous, who also hopes to be popular. This has made for difficulties. His initial widespread acclaim, accompanied by widespread record sales, leveled off with 1980�s Get Happy!!—by me, his best ever—and has never really risen above respect and admiration and modest sales since.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Sunny Ade aside, this is the bestconceived juju album ever released in the U.S. One half is specialty items to engage the untrained ear—dub here, funk there, out harmonies somewhere else, all integrated unobtrusively into the basic weave.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

There was plenty of competition for Single of the Month, but the winner is an American release that came out six months ago. I heard Starpoinf�s �What You Been Missin�� when it came out, thought it was OK, and filed it. It turns out to be one of those records that heeds to be heard a few times over the radio, and thanks to a new Urban Contemporary station in L.A. that�s been banging it in heavy rotation long past its chart peak, I�ve been able to let it sink in.

ROCK • A • RAMA

Craig Zeller

Excellent collection of all those golden yesteryear moments originally recorded for Imperial. That means none of the Decca stuff (little of which is golden with obvious exceptions like his transcendent reworkings of �Fools Rush In� and �The Very Thought Of You�) and 90 percent of his hits.

A CATCHY DAVID LEE ROTH HEADLINE!

Dave DiMartino

Foul-mouthed Reagan shocks the world.

Calender

Features

HUSKER DU: Not Bohemia, But Estonia!

Richard Riegel

These guys in Husker Du seem to be so average in every regard that they put my usual just-a-hick-from-Ohio interview shtick to shame.

GOING FISHING FOR TOPICS: A BARTLETTE-ESQUE UPDATE ON OMD

James H. Boren

CENTERSTAGE

Joanne Carnegie

There�s a place on Detroit�s west side called the Motor City Skating Center. Pat Benatar played there in December of 1979. She�d just released her first album, and maybe 300 people cared enough about it to show up. Six years later, on a wintry night at Detroit�s Joe Louis Arena—seating 20,000—no roller skates were in sight.

Eleganza

BRING BACK TIPPER GORE!

John Mendelssohn

Publicly disembowel me and make footballs of my intestines.

CREEMEDIA

Roy Trakin

It�s, an oasis in the middle of MTV�s vast video wasteland, one more televised rock magazine, but with a crucial difference. I.R.�s monthly The Cutting Edge is give or take The Equalizer or Night Flight, the best 60 minutes on the tube. Started three years ago when label head Miles Copeland was given an hour on MTV to come up with a concept, The Cutting Edge has been developed into a pop potpourri by co-directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, along with I.R.S�s Ambassador of Creative Services producer Carl Grasso.

PRIME TIME

Richard C. Walls

According to the latest stats, 83 percent of all American house-holds now have a VCR on the premises. Or maybe it�s 38 percent. Either way, I remember that when I first read this figure (just where, I no longer recall), it struck me as an amazingly high percentage of American households; it was, after all, only a few years ago that the VCR was still considered a luxury item.

MEDIA COOL

London, England) Someone should produce this over here or at least make a film of it, as this London (by way of Liverpool) stage production was the most powerful artistic statement on the life of Elvis Presley I�ve seen thus far. Set on the night of Elvis�s death, it intersperses flashbacks from his glory days and distant past with his horrifying present, following a basic rock �n� roll party line (watching �Elvis�—Martin Shaw is extraordinary in the role— mutter �You goddamn bastard� behind the Colonel�s back was alone worth price of admission).

CREEM SHOWCASE

Dan Hedges

�Success is a dirty word in England,� says Alannah Currie of the Thompson Twins. �If you even innocently mention to someone that you want to have hit records, your name is immediately trash. But that was one of our intentions. We wanted hits. We were sick to death of struggling, of living on 25 pounds a week and getting our instruments out of the rubbish bin.

Video Video

THE PLOT SICKENS

Billy Altman

Right up until a few days ago, we were readying ourselves for this month's report to the troops.

CLIPS

Martin Dio

If I knew nothing of this guy�s personal life, I�d still think he reeked of bad vibes after watching this 1983 performance. There�s no comparing the early �60s, black & white �Whole Lotta Shakin� Goin� On� introduction with the rest of the stuff Lewis wheels out here; early on he looks possessed by demons, in �83 he looks like a demon personified.

NEWBEATS

Cynthia Rose

Back in October of 77, budding Los Angeles punks looked to Slash magazine for news of essential listening. There they read of a young quartet called the Plugz. Through personnel changes and one stint as a �punk power trio,� this band�s members were to become pivotal hardcore pioneers.

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down