December 1981
OK, like, you’ve been down hard on RUSH for a while now, eh, and it’s really beginning to get to us, eh? ’Cause, like, RUSH is, like, one of the top of the groups (next to the Teen Jeans, they’re from Moscow, and our cousin Brian has their album), eh?
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
AU PAIRS: “Playing With A Different Sex” (Human import):: For months I struggled to get with the commendable postpunk feminism and accessible quasifunk rockaroll of this gender-balanced quartet, and for months I failed. Only in person did I notice that gender symbol Lesley Woods had about as much to say now as Grace Slick did in 1967—more than you’d predict and less than you’d hope—and that on the whole they sounded like a bored Gang Of Four.
Creem Profiles
BILLY SQUIER
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Iggy Pop is announcing to any and all who’ll listen that he’s going to change his name for his next album, to avoid the prejudice his name causes among the satin jacket FM radio brigade. That’s what the man says... The Stings are expecting another little almost-blond...
THE BEAT GOES ON
J. Kordosh
Supersnoops CREEM have uncovered this top secret shot of singers Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet exchanging actual wedding vows as part of a wacky new promotion! "It's a dirty job but someone's gotta do it," groaned a none-too-pleased Rachel, snidely adding that her new hubby "certainly” had the right first name.
Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
LOUIS PRIMA: Gleeby Rhythm Is Born
Nick Tosches
Louis Prima often spoke of writing a book about his life and times.
JOHN ENTWISTLE’S ALRIGHT, OR SO HE CLAIMS
Iman Labadedi
LA VIE EN BLEU (RONDO)
Penny Valentine
In France for a long weekend, an English family on the Vieux Marche think I am French and speak to me in broken English. As usual, the thrill of their mistake sets me in a good mood for the rest of the day. Returning from four days of Normandy food; patisseries, seafood and the nine a.m. smell of fresh-baked bread wafting from the boulangerie’s, we hit a British ferry and instant tat.
Do Greenheads Have More Fun?
Chris Salewicz
DEBBIE & CHRIS GO KOOKOO CHIC!
STONE CITY BURNS
Dave DiMartino
Rick James wears funny clothes, has long and braided hair, smokes dope onstage and sings about kinky girls—“the kind of girls you read about in new wave magazines”— and how he’d like to taste them. He is black, and he is also Motown Records’ first official superstar of the 80’s.
REWIRE YOURSELF
Richard Robinson
As much as most people understand that their cassette or reel to reel tape recorders will record as well as playback, it seems they have a lot more trouble making recordings than just pushing the “play” button. Often the tape machine is blamed; after all, the machine plays back pre-recorded tapes great, but original recordings don’t play back that well.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
STONES TOUR KICKOFF ’81
EXTENSION CHORDS
Allen Hester
Waylon already said it, there’s only two things in life that make it worth livin’, and one of them is guitars that tune good. Like a fine horse or a perfectly tuned engine, a good guitar is hard to find, regardless of the price one might pay for it.
CORRECTION
Features
RAY DAVIES UNRAVELS THE KINKS
Bill Holdship
An Art Lover Gives The People What They... Need!
Stars Cars
MARTIN CHAMBERS
CREEM DREEM
GRACE SLICK
CREEMEDIA
Rick Johnson
The 1981-82 television season may well be remembered for decades to come as the year the networks dumped all the gimmicks, bucked all the trends and opted for the Total Desperation method of programming. Here are just a few of the viewing highlights you can expect this fall:
1981 CREEM ROCK ’N’ ROLL READERS’ POLL BALLOT
Just kidding...you’re there, the Stones are there, and we demand your vote! We’re holding David Lee Roth and Joe Willie Strummer hostage until we hear from every town, every state in the union! David and Joe will count every ballot, their tears dampening your incomprehensible scrawling, their famous hands counting your votes, their million dollar voices laughing, laughing at your unbelievable choices for the Tops In Rock 1981!
DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Edouard Dauphin
Inexplicably, that 1978 song, perhaps the finest musical tribute to British lycanthropy ever recorded, is nowhere to be heard on the soundtrack of An American Werewolf In London, latest flick from John (Blues Brothers) Landis. But just about every other ditty concerning wolves or full moons gets an airing, with "Blue Moon" heard in three different versions.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
Problems, problems...seems that just when Victoria Principal and Andy Gibb decided they wanted to make it legal, Vicki remembered hubby Christopher Skinner was still a legal relative, as their divorce hasn’t gone through yet. Next month: Andy learns how to drive...
Records
KWINTESSENTIAL KINKS KWIRKS
With mixed feelings and modestly rising expectations I received Give The People What They Want and found that, at least in this instance, nothing succeeds like success.
Talkin' The Dogg
ROBOT A. HULL
ROCK • A • RAMA
Richard C. Walls
THELONIUS MONK—April In Paris (Milestone):: This live two-fer recorded in Paris in April ’61, has the weirdest format...after a solid first side consisting of long and short pieces by quartet and solo piano, each of the three remaining sides features two Monk standards clocking in at circa 10 minutes apiece, all six cuts having the identical solo line up—tenor saxist Charlie Rouse, Monk, and walking bass solo by John Ore, a longish one on the traps by Frankie Dunlop.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down
CREEM