August 1987

CONTENTS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Now that all the worlds have blurred, this would be a fine time to check out Scout, a comic published by the high-quality Eclipse line. Lately the storyline has revolved around a burgeoning battle-of-the-blues-bands in a near-future Earth—a future in which the United States has degenerated, if you can believe it, into a third world country.

Features

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO SOUTHERN DEATH?

Kris Needs

The Cult have been onstage for half an hour now.

LETTERS

In regard to Deborah Frost’s unwarranted attack on Chrissie Hynde (CREEM, April ’87), and her accusation that Ms. Hynde “may help set the women’s movement back another hundred years,” I must say, I was appalled at Ms. Frost’s short-sightedness.

Records

AND THE GODS MADE LOVE...

Ira Robbins

Like some stray dog you find in an alley, Minneapolis’s Replacements are a scruffy mongrel of a band.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Below find detailed explanations of why I like one Warner Bros. Minneapolis two-LP tour de force more than the other. But let me put it this way—the Prince has better lyrics. BAD BRAINS “I Against I" (SST) As a reggae band, they were a hardcore band with a change-up; as a metal band, they’re a hardcore band with a great windup and no follow-through.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

It’s not as if I haven’t seen it coming. But the 7” 45 revoiution-per-minute single is welt and truly up against the wall now, and, as the Beach Boys once prognosticated about Wendy’s new boyfriend, its future looks awful dim. Part of me, the part that squirrels away thousands of 45s and attempts to write a column about them, against the tide of all American music journalism in the last two decades, is upset.

Rock-a-Rama

Rock-A-Rama

Richard Riegel

This month’s Rock-A-Ramas were written by Richard Riegel, Jon Young, Bill Holdship, Michael Davis, Chuck Eddy, Steve Appleford and Roy Trakin

Eleganza

The Usual Batch Of Character Assassinations

John Mendelssohn

The principal singer and keyboardist of the KBC Band, Marty Balin and Tim Gorman, look, respectively, like Vidal Sassoon after a rough week and the bank teller you see picking his nose behind the “Business” section of USA Today on the bus to work every morning.

Double Or Nothing? It's The Thompson Twins

J. Kordosh

Question: “So do you get a thrill out of hearing your records on the radio?” Answer: “Thrill? We get a check!” Alannah: “Thomas!” And so it goes with the Thompson Twins, that “lyrics by Alannah, music by Tom” combo. The “Hold Me Now” hitmakers.

Suzanne Vega And The (Un)common Folk

Mark Jenkins

Suzanne Vega was a weird kid, by all accounts.

HIT THE ROAD WITH THE CULT

FIRST PRIZE Hang out with THE CULT!

HIPSWAY TAKES THE PLLINGE CROTCH DEEP IN THE HOOPLA

Bud Scoppa

How sweet it is to be wanted—first by lotsa major-label A&R types, then by radio programmers, and finally by people with cash in their pockets. So far, everything’s been falling nicely into place for the three (formerly four, but the bass player and his brother the manager got sacked at the same time) Glaswegian funkateers who call themselves Hipsway.

CALENDAR

TOM PETTY & The HEARTBREAKERS: LESS IS MORE, MORE OR LESS

Bud Scoppa

The two Petty girls are having a little disagreement somewhere on the grounds of the family estate.

Bachelor #2: Bob Pfeifer

Bill Holdship

There’s a new scientific report out that suggests a broken heart can actually lead to a fatal heart attack. Whatever the case, it’s true that heartbreak is a real drag, but it’s also true that art—both the creation and experience of it—can be real cathartic and helpful when it comes to dealing with (sigh) the end of a relationship.

Lou Gramm: A Jaunt To Dimension Solo

Chuck Eddy

Best way to kick this off is to can the corny suspense and letcha in on what the man told me, which I’m sure as shaving cream is what yer dyin’ to know: Foreigner is no more, kaput, zilch, a thing of the past, at least as far as Lou Gramm is concerned.

CREEM SHOWCASE

Billy Cioffi

How did you get involved with the Violent Femmes? Part of if was they were from Milwaukee. I had been working on my last solo album—which should be out soon, it’s all done—in Milwaukee because I had to go back and take care of my mother who had cancer, so I got to know them just a little bit.

CENTERSTAGE

Roy Trakin

Somebody up there must really like U2. Of all their contemporaries, from the Psychedelic Furs to the Smiths, from Big Country to Simple Minds, U2 has emerged as rock ’n’ roll’s great torchbearers, the band to transport us back to a time when music really mattered, when being a rock star meant a little more than hawking yer wares on a Honda commerical.

CREEMEDIA

Richard C. Walls

The Squashed Eye Theory

Creemedia

Prime Time

Richard C. Walls

You Gonna Die

Media Cool

MEDIA COOL

Michael Lipton

This Month's Media Cool was written by Michael Upton, Bill Holdship, Richard Riegel and Thomas Anderson.

This Month In TV History

Creem Profiles

LOS LOBOS

(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)

Video Video

CLOSE TO THE EDGE

Billy Altman

I've been thinking lately that one of the more distressing signs that the music video scene has gotten itself stuck in neutral gear is the fact that the medium has, to date, produced so few real stylists.

Newbeats

NEWBEATS

Drew Wheeler

Stop Making Saints

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down