May 1974
CREEM
Please.send letters to: MAIL Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, Ml 48012 DEAR CREEM Do you realize that picture of Elton John on page 35 of the Feb. issue looks just like Radar from M.A.S.H.? If he wasn’t wearing the superstar duds, I’d swear he was our favorite corporal on furlough. Frank Burns Korea (That was no Elton, that was Gordon Sinclair. -Ed.)
BARNEY & MIKE
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
David Bromberg: “Wanted Dead or Alive” (Columbia). Any Jewish boy with glasses who makes his living doing Blind Willie McTell imitations had better remember his place. Hence, this key line: “When I got up this morning I had Someone Else’s Blues.”
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Happy Harry Nilsson had a bomb scare in February. He drove up to a local English airport to meet his Irish girlfriend’s plane, drove her home and was so’apxioua to get behind closed doors that he left her luggage 3P the trunk of the car. Next morning the lovebirds woke up to find their house surrounded by dink squaddersHarry’s driver had opened the trunk, seen a small bag with Irish air tags and an Irish ftame on it, succumbed to an attack of DMZ paranoia and called the law.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Jim Esposito
Many moons ago, the entire southern half of the Floridian peninsula was just one big swamp. The Everglades encompassed everything from Lake Okeechobee south. Then, the real estate developers moved in with bulldozers and cement trucks.
Bachman-Turner Overdrive: FOUR SIDES of HAPPY PORK
Billy Altman
Joplin, Missouri has two highlights.
Features
BILLY PRESTON: Rolin’ With The Sixth Stone
Wayne Robins
In which this jack-of-all-jams remembers the Stones, Beatles, Little Richard... and resolutely refuses to flip his wig.
Features
DADA AT THE END OF A FIST
Lester Bangs
A champagne flight with Grace Slick.
Features
Heavy Breathing
Greil Marcus
I had read a lot of articles about Bob Dylan’s tour with the Band before it arrived at the Oakland Coliseum.
Features
The Page Memoris
Nick Kent
Over, Under, Sideways, Down TheYardbirds, Zep and Everything in Between with the Toynbee of Anglo Machine Heads
DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL
David Marsh
It took an album to make me realize that the best singles or at least, the most interesting ones, so far this year have been by women.
1973 ROCK & POLL
Well, 1973's had it. Your ballots are in. You say you didn't like anything. What we're wondering is how come you had to send in nearly twice as many ballots as last year just to let us know that 1973 was not worth remembering. Like last year, you saw fit to voice your ambivalence: New York Dolls — Best New Group and Worst Group; Iggy Pop — Hero and Most Pathetic; Watergate — Drug and Rip-Off of the Year.
Letter From Britain
What’s the Ugliest Part of YOUR Bodg?
Simon Frith
I’ve just been filling in the 1973 Creem Rock V Roll Poll, which is at least more entertaining than the ones NME and MM serve up. Most pathetic of the year? David Bedford’ in the Commonwealth Games 10,000 metres. Comeback of the year? Alvin Stardust (alias Shane Fenton, minor star of the 60s British bandwagon) — three months in the hit parade with “My Coo-Ca-Choo.”
Eleganza
My Latest Fling
Lisa Robinson
Hollywood — it’s amazing how, in this city of fantasy, people really don’t have that much imagination when it comes to style.
PLAY IT LOUD
Guitar Arnie
Like to play guitar, drums, or some other instrument but find that there’s no orte to play with? You can still rock out, you know, if you don’t mind playing with yourself. You can write songs, check out arrangements, record Beethoven’s Fifth, all unassisted with you playing all the instruments.
Rewire Yourself
All four LPs Are Dinosaurs
Richard Robinson
Well gang, today’s subject takes us to the arena of the great tape versus disc controversy.
Extension Chords
Title 17 US. Copyright Code
Michael Brooks
A copyright is a protection given by the law under U.S. Code Title 17, and is offered for the creative people.
DUST MY PUMICE
R.Meltzer
They should’ve had a big tote board with the weekend’s highway death toll on the wall but they did not. Just the big money tote, signifying to exactly what extent the Memorial Day T-Viewers felt like digging down into their pockets on behalf of wha-? Highway safety? Yes, a telethon for highway safety! Y’see highway non-safety’s the one realm of corporeal misfortune everybody’s either experienced fir hand or at least seen and gawked at sure ain’t like cystic fibrosis or myasthenia gravis (after all, who’s ever seen any victims of them except of TV?).
Creemedia
TAKE YOUR TENTACLES OUT OF MY POPCORN
Ed Naha
During the deadening nineteen fifties, when oafs were oafs, presidents were non-existant war heroes and teenagers throughout the' land measured their status in terms of the height of their Cuban heels and the amount of grease in their hair, far-sighted Ray Harryhausen was doin’ us all dirt.
SHORT TAKES
Brian Zabawski
McQ (Warner Bros.):: John Wayne is Seattle police detective McQ. McQ is rugged. Seattle is rugged. McQ’s old time policeman buddy is not rugged. He is soft. He is soft because he has just been ventilated by a few thousand machine gun slugs. McQ is annoyed. He wants to find the killer. He quits the conservative police force to track he, she or it down.
CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX
The theme of this month is Hollywood goes rock and roll, and rock and roll goes Hollywood. David Kung Fu Carradine has been moonlighting between takes. Seems David and his brother Kevin have been showing up at rock concerts and small clubs in Hawaii and Southern California.
BOOKS
Ed Ward
Raise your glasses high — here’s a trio of books for the thirsty reader of any persuasion. While Will Anderson making you lust for a brew, Kobler is documenting America’s fight against it and Dietz is reminding us of the past and present glories of the Real Thing — Coke.
Records
Todd Rundgren: You Feel Just Like He’s Jesus’ Son
Wayne Robins
Todd the Mod? Todd the Bod? Todd the Nod, or Todd the God?
ROCK-A-RAMA
MOGAN DAVID & HIS WINOS - Savage Young Winos (Kosher):: Another rock critics project, except these boys are try na do it on their own. Hooracha and more power to 'em, sez yer auditor. S. Pearlman/R. Meltzer Blue Oyster Cult’s success at same stakes has not emboldened them - rather than pursue all the glitz and gold due them thru Establishement channels (meaning Kinney sprang for C. Milk, but a crop croup like this is beyond the pale), they have opted for releasing their debut as an in-group Capitalistic venture.