January 1977
CREEM
Having been a critic for both The Hollywood Reporter and Record World, having been in the record business for a decade, having worked at Columbia for 3½ years before moving over here, and having heard a countless amount of product and known many artists, etc.
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL: "Wheelin' and Dealin'” (Capitol):: Now that its musicianship and production values are established, the album quality of this excellent but marginal band will depend mostly on the song quality. Except for “Miles and Miles of Texas,” this LP singles out no really striking nonoriginals, and LeRoy Preston has apparently been touring too hard to contribute more than two new compositions.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Buns Across The Ocean: Patti Smith, who’s always had a volatile relationship with the British press (when a Melody Maker reporter came a’callin’, she was waiting for him with his pan notice of Horses pinned on her hotel room wall), met the British press in October at a press conference.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
NEW YORK — The fundamental things apply, as time goes by, like “Sister Ray,” for instance. It had only been out for a couple of years when Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers first recycled it as “Roadrunner” in 1970, for a John Caleproduced album that was so raw Warner Brothers never got around to putting it out.
BOSTON: BEANTOWN BOMBERS BREAK BIG
Patrick Goldstein
“Rock stars are like sports heroes,” says Barry Goudreau.
Features
Hall & Oates: The Cream Cheese Soul Brothers
Kevin Doyle
I used to feel sorry for Daryl Hall and John Oates. I don’t anymore.
PLUNGING THE VELVET KNIFE
Billy Altman
Or A Fable Of Modern Times
Letter From Britain
Goodbye To All That
Simon Frith
Now is the time, or will be when you read this, when all good rock critics (and bad ones too) start summarizing and assessing and listing like lunatics.
Features
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD KISS
Robert Duncan
The bunker on the hill burns a low, hard silhouette into the full moon behind it.
Merry Kissmas!
Extension Chords
WaH-Wah’s For Your Hands!
Bill Parsley
There was a time when all that lay between a guitar ace’s Jaguar and Magnatone amp was a thin chord.
Creem Profiles
QUEEN
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
Features
DOG MEETS DOG: Ted Nugent Guitar House In The Kennel
Air-Wreck Genheimer
There just ain’t no doubt about it. Ted Nugent is definitely a MAD DOG from the very instant the Motor City Mental Case slams his moccasins down on the stage.
Eleganza
Who Wore What When 1976 Wrap-Up
Lisa Robinson
I re-read last year’s version; last year was better.
Creemedia
The View From Hear; A Thinker From Led Zep
Robert Duncan
I’ve always thought that Jimmy Page was a heavy dude.
Stars Cars
STARZ
Confessions of a FILMFOX
The Janis Joplin film Pearl (20th Century Fox) still needs a lead, but talk is that bouncy Valerie Perrine is being considered. Diana Ross insists that hubby Bob Siiberstein's therapy gatherings broke them up, but word is that her real love hangover is (and always was) His Motown Majesty, Berry Gordy.
Records
“A Certified Pood ’un, Y’Know?”
R. Meltzer
Back in July or August of nineteen hunnert sevendee Ronnie Finkelstein of Circus Mag told me there was this dynamite broad working at Scribner’s Bookstore in NYC who was givin people free books all the time.
Love Letter to a Burrhead
It’s not that I don’t love you anymore — it’s just that I don’t think we can continue together on just love alone.
Rock ’n’ Roll Never Forgives Bob Seger
Air-Wreck Genheimer
BE IT RESOLVED by the findings of the great and mystical Genherimerini, oracle of Ouzo, prophet of Pabst, from the discerning dissections of dog drippings on the court house steps it may now be presumed that this album will soon go gold and turn to platinum by the time this copy is in your hands! And that presumption is so damn near irrebuttable, Clarence.
ROCK-A-RAMA
RODERICK FALCONER-New Nation United Artists) :: Now that everybody from the Cult to Sparks to Iggy (?) has agreed to bury the swastika, along comes Roderick Falconer to cash in on the presumed pseudo-Nazi void. The joke’s on you if you’re enough of a dumkopf to buy this album, as the “New Order” trappings of the jacket and liner have nothing at all to do with the music, which is the usual singer-songwriter hippiebilly cliches, his divine muse at least one pop album.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down