March 1987

CONTENTS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Pictured here are two of the brave young men of Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom, a new band featuring Andy (“The Perfessor”) Shernoff and Richard (“Don’t Call Me Handsome Dick Anymore”) Manitoba who, if you must know, were once the brains and the brawn behind everyone’s favorite proto-punk band, the Dictators.

ONE NIGHT IN NOVEMBER With ROBYN HITCHCOCK

John Kordosh

At Schoolkids Records in Ann Arbor, Bill Holdship, Robyn Hitchcock and myself are looking through the records. It’s the evening of the day the Bruce Springsteen five-record boxed set has been released. “We came to do an in-store signing here earlier and couldn’t get in,” says Hitchcock.

LETTERS

Thanks for your superb coverage of heavy metal, punk/hardcore, and assorted other categories. You’re keeping the Lester Bangs spirit alive very nicely these days. But your December issue, I’m afraid, illustrates once again that you have an almost complete lack of understanding of music made by women.

TEN YEARS AFTER

John Mendelssohn

On the sunny, balmy Monday this was released, the local deejays said, absenteeism in San Francisco broke all records, as tens of thousands of otherwise loyal employees called in sick so they could get in record shop lines to buy it and then go to the beach or Golden Gate Park to spend the day digging it.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

What’s made him the decade’s premiere country star artistically has been his disinclination to act like one—he’s never climbed on the Nashville assembly line like Skaggs and Strait and so many smaller fry. Until now. He goes for George’s intensity rather than Merle’s hang-loose, but he won’t convince you he thought these songs were special, and though this may mean the truth is still in him, don’t bet on it—not after he yanked the difficult-to-program album he’s got in the can.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

No contest, no surrender. “War” by Bruce Springsteen is Single of the Month by acclamation. In the volatile cultural context of an empire in decline, when a disastrous past war is undergoing an Orwellian overhaul to turn it into a heroic prelude to a potentially disastrous new war, Bruce Springsteen’s insuring that hundreds of radio stations will be trumpeting “War/What is it good for?/Absolutely nothing” all winter deserves a curtain call.

ROCK • A • RAMA

Michael Davis

Why does a reissue get reissued? To get remastered for better sound and remarketed for better sales, presumably. At least that seems to be the case for these eight Rhino reissues. Six of these bands were contemporaries of the now-famous-again Monkees, so you can hear why many of us thought of the Monkees as just another group on the radio at the time.

Eleganza

WIGHAT ON YOUR HEAD!

John Mendelssohn

From sea to shining sea, wherever there are rock ’n’ roll types who want their hair to be noticed, there are wigs designed by Sture Osten.

Creem Profiles

IGGY POP

(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)

GIVE HUMAN LEAGUE A CHANCE

Sylvie Simmons

They live in Sheffield. Because they like it there.

generation LANDSLIDE '87

Bill Holdship

First things first. Alice Cooper’s “Under My Wheels” is a rock ’n’ roll classic. You can put it on a party tape or hear it on the radio after, say, something from the Stones’ Exile On Main Street, and it doesn’t sound a bit out of place. I always thought it was a Detroit rock ’n’ roll song.

billion dollar baby revisited

Bob Greene, a contributing editor to Esquire, writes a Chicago Tribune column that is nationally syndicated.

CREEM MARCH 1987

JASON & THE SCORCHERS: HICK'RY SMOKED HEAVY METAL

L.E. Agnelli

“We’re in France, in Toulouse, I think. It’s the morning after the gig, and we’re all getting in the tour bus to go to our next gig. And I notice Ronnie and Jeff (Johnson, Scorchers’ bassist)—who always room together—are giving each other these knowing looks, and whispering to each other, and shit.

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

Jon Young

Andy McCluskey laughs at the memory of The Song that changed the fortunes of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. "We were nervous when 'If You Leave' came out, because we were on the same label as Simple Minds and people were saying it would do for us what '(Don't You) Forget About Me' did for them.

BILLY THEN, IDOL NOW

Kris Needs

"I hope if I get it right, it’ll be a great record. If I get it wrong, it’ll be in the trash-bin. I wouldn't be surprised if it bombed!” That was Billy Idol talking earlier this year when he broke off the Whiplash Smile album sessions to do a single interview (which appeared in the August issue of this magazine).

CREEM SHOWCASE

Dan Hedges

The blonde with the bass is the one you notice first. But thanks in large part to Joey Pesce, ’til tuesday’s swell-dressed keyboard korner, the Boston-based band have managed to break free of the bar circuit with dignity and credit ratings intact, if not improved.

NEW GEAR

Korg bills their new DP-80 as “a new keyboard concept for both the amateur and professional musician.” The instrument sports a 76 note/6-octave touch sensitive keyboard (with full size weighted keys), 16 built-in voices, on-board stereo speakers and full MIDI implementation that includes separate Transmit/Receive channel selection, Omni On/Off, Local On/Off, and external Program Select capabilities.

DRUMMING BY NUMBERS

Billy Cioffi

Recently a fellow songwriter and I were working on a new tune. We were in my little home demo studio laying down a drum track with an electronic drum machine. The machine that we used is about five years old, but at the time it was first made available it created a big noise in the record-making world.

CENTERSTAGE

Bill Holdship

Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ early Detroit shows are among my fondest rock ’n’ roll memories. I saw him the first time he played the city, a few weeks after This Year’s Model was released. He performed two shows that night, both no longer than 50 minutes, though they each seemed to contain a zillion great songs.

CREEMEDIA

Richard C. Walls

Ken Kesey's last novel, Sometimes A Great Notion, came Out over 22 years ago. Previously, he had written that classic of the individual at war with a spirit-crushing establishment, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (a great book to read in school when you've still got enough spirit to respond).

DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

Edouard Dauphin

A year ago in these pages, The Dauphin urged all but the faint-hearted and vomit-prone among you to go see ReAnimator, first-time director Stuart Gordon’s deliriously bloodlogged hommage to the work of horrormeister H.P. Lovecraft.

MEDIA COOL

Jeffrey Morgan

Billy Altman turned me onto this show the last time I was in New York, and I owe him a dinner for the tip. Quite simply, it’s the best live action children’s show I’ve seen in at least 20 years. Even if you don’t like PeeWee Herman all that much (hey, my hand’s half up), you have to admire his genius when you’re confronted by it in a universe of his own design.

This Month In TV History

Video Video

PAPA DON’T BLEACH

Billy Altman

One of the biggest problems with being a critic is that people are always expecting you to have opinions about everything.

CLIPS

John Kordosh

Line up, ye fans of Britpop, for the visual/aural thrill of a lifetime. Why, the 21 songs on this tape feature so many beautiful and talented people that one scarcely knows where to start gushing. How about the imitable Frankie Goes To Hollywood, with the famous video for their famous “Relax”?

NEWBEATS

John Neilson

Mention Southern rock these days, and most people will think instantly of R.E.M. But when Guadalcanal Diary, who hail from Marietta, Georgia, called their debut LP Walking In The Shadow Of The Big Man, I’m sure they weren’t talking about Michael Stipe.

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down