November 1986

CONTENTS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Pete Townshend has done it again! Yes, the incredibly adept guitarist/songwriter/ singer/dude has dipped into the ol’ vaults and come up with Scoop: Volume 2, a compilation of demo tapes from over the years. Included are such historical Who songs as “Pinball Wizard,” “Pictures Of Lily,” “Substitute” and “My Generation,” as well as a version of “Begin The Beguine,” a song released well before Pete borrowed some chords from Ray Davies to begin his own career.

Features

R.E.M. Notes From Near Normal Town

John Kordosh

Athens, Georgia, is a fascinating place.

LETTERS

Finally! I was beginning to despair. There seems to be a grain of understanding in your June Eleganza entitled "Bring Back Yours Truly.” I love music, I particularly love rock ’n’ roll. The normal sex and sensuality of rock ’n’ roll is not my beef.

RECORDS

Michael Davis

The Smiths maturing? The idea is intriguing. The possibilities for improvement are there, but how’s this going to affect frontguy Morrissey, you might wonder. He’s come on like an observant innocent from the start and his honest petulance has been part of his appeal for his sizable cult audience, even as it turns off others.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRfStGAll

BLACK UHURU “Brutal” (RAS) Junior Reid ululates where Michael Rose sang, but the big loss is more crucial: politics, some rudimentary specificity. Up against the run of ridmic rhetoricians, though they do just fine. Both Reid and Duckie Simpson have a knack for rhetoric, and while Sly & Robbie might have pushed Simpson’s “Reggae With Me” out on the dancefloor where it belongs, this is their most pyrotechnic production yet—they’ve brought Babylon back home.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

As black artists make greater inroads on pop, the music seems stronger than ever. For the first half of 1986, crossovers from the Black/Urban chart made up almost 30 percent of the Top 15 pop hits, a 12-year high mark. And when you add in the myriad white dancebeat-based hits, there’s no question about what’s pop radio’s dominant sound.

ROCK • A • RAMA

Here’s a fun New York band (actually a nonet: two guitarists, two violinists, one cellist/flutist, one tenor saxist/accordionist, one alto saxist, one bassist, and one drummer) who are dedicated to playing instrumental music which doesn’t hold still long enough to be pinned down.

THE BOSS’S WIFE Part 2

John Mendelssohn

(Our story so far: While our smug upscale narrator is trying to pick up Julianne [Mrs. Bruce Springsteen] Phillips in a yuppie brunch joint, Michael Jackson comes in with his chauffeur, who turns out to be Elvis Presley.) “Jeez,” Michael Jackson says, hitting himself lightly on the forehead with the heel of his hand for not introducing them himself, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

THE GEORGE CLINTON INTERVIEW

Iman Lababedi

If James Brown is the King of funk, and Prince the Prince, George Clinton is the Court Jester.

THE MECHANICS OF GENESIS

Sylvie Simmons

The more things change the more things change. Take Genesis. Started out with only a mellotron and a young man who dressed like a dahlia, and what happens? God blesses them with extremely expensive equipment, extremely long-and-involved songs about extremely weird creatures, and all of a sudden people with loonpants and Lord Of The Rings paperbacks mouth their names with reverence and they’re Progressive.

CREEM NOVEMBER 1986

ENTER GABRIEL & The Political of Amnesty

Daniel Brogan

Peter Gabriel has always believed his music should have a healthy dose of social consciousness, but lately there are those who would transform the former Genesis lead singer into a one-man political action committee. Take, for instance, “Red Rain,” the opening track from Gabriel’s latest album, So.

TRICK OR TREAT: CELLULOID'S METAL NIGHTMARE

Bill Holdship

Back after he’d just finished filming Paul Simon’s One Trick Pony, Lou Reed told me that “making a movie isn’t much fun because you spend most of your time just sitting around doing nothing. That’s the pleasure of playing in a rock ’n’ roll band. It’s immediate gratification.

tangerine dream and you don't!

Dave DiMartino

Some info on Tangerine Dream: they’re from Germany. They’ve put out 22 albums. A few more solo LPs. They play space music. They do movie soundtracks. They very rarely tour the United States. They just did. Rockin’ dudes they ain’t. Ten minutes ago I just put on one of their records, and it was too loud.

Features

THE MEAT PUPPETS BE HEP!

RICHARD GRABEL

Curt Kirkwood, the singer, guitarist and main songwriter of the Meat Puppets, sometimes comes across as a starry-eyed dreamer, a mystic of sorts.

CENTER STAGE

Kevin Knapp

True Confession #1: I have to admit to pretty high expectations for the Dylan/Petty "True Confessions” hootenanny from the very start. Hey, I’m the guy who still has a 4x4 silk-screened banner of Bawb hanging on his bedroom wall after, lo, all these years.

Boy Howday's Guide to Drums '86: Part One

Dan Hedges

You’ve been exiled to the garage. Your old man wants to know why you don’t take up something quieter, like saturation bombing. The guy across the street keeps calling the cops. The same two cops keep turning up. One’s eyeing your gear like it’s hot, quoting some obscure municipal noise statute.

CREEMEDIA

John Kordosh

"I’ve never thought of him as being willingly obnoxious. He’s not vicious; he’s just off-base a little bit.” That’s how 33-year-old Kevin McCormick describes his creation, Arnold, the enfant terrible of the daily comics. And just how off-base is he?

DRIVE IN SATURDAY

Edouard Dauphin

The Dauph’s favorite story about the 1979 film Alien goes like this. I’m watching it for the second time, sardined into an overflow dross palace on 42nd Street. The seat next to me is occupied by a total stranger, a brutal looking, jewelry-laden pimp packing a Saturday night special and part of a sword.

MEDIA COOL

Anne Rice

This concert, filmed in February 1986 during Dylan’s tour of Australia with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, was probably ultimately as uneven as most other Dylan product of the past few years. But set into the video wasteland TV rock is rapidly becoming, Dylan’s unadorned concert was rather bracing stuff.

Video Video

FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!

Billy Altman

You may recall that we ended last month’s Video Video by commenting on the fact that that VH-1 seemed to have had a real hand in helping turn Simply Red’s ‘‘Holding Back The Years” into a national hit.

NEWBEATS

Dave Segal

I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE Sure, I’m a tad spooked about meeting Swans’ Michael Gira. I’ve heard his monstrous, tortured throat emissions on records like Filth (’83), Cop (’84), Raping A Slave (’85) and Greed (’86). I’ve trembled to his band’s austere, grinding, slow-motion rock, a hellish noise that makes Joy Division sound like A-Ha.

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down