July 1987

CONTENTS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Frank Zappa has signed with Poseidon Press to write his autobiography. Tenatively titled The Real Frank Zappa Book, it’s slated to be published in late 1988, at which point this Bureau will digitally sample some of the words therein for a rousing good column.

The Smith's Stange Ways Have Found Us

Andy Hughes

When you come to interview a man who personifies the term “English” in the way that (Stephen) Morrissey of the Smiths does, it’s no surprise that tea is served early in the proceedings. “You do take milk, I presume?” inquires Morrissey (“No one has called me Stephen for a very long time.").

LETTERS

Ken Barnes’s article on the singles of 1986 (April ’87 issue) excludes four important B-sides: two by Elvis Costello, “Brand New Hairdo” (an energetic song cut off of King Of America) and “Get (Find) Yourself Another Fool” (fabulous rendition by E. C. of old ballad, with great organ by Steve Nieve); and two by John Fogerty, “I Confess” (with Bobby King) and “My Toot Toot” (with Rockin’ Sidney).

RECORDS

Richard C. Walls

I realize it’s only a coincidence, but the week during which I first became acquainted with this record was the week that teenage suicides became the media’s hot topic—even Nightline took a stab at it, always a sign that an issue has arrived.

CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE

ROBERT CHRISTGAU

Not only do they sacrifice meaning to sensation, they happily exploit ersatz meaning as a sensation-heightening device. So fine, don’t trust them. Only since when is music supposed to be trustworthy? Just note that deprived of genius Trevor Horn these mad studio pros have to go with what they know, subjecting their sound-effects music to hook and beat when no grandiose electronic joke comes to mind.

45 REVELATIONS

KEN BARNES

Radio programmers are grappling with a new form of music. Its dance-oriented rhythms and hiphop-derived production effects draw heavily from black styles, but the singers are usually white females (under a group moniker or a first name only) and the melodies are light, airy, pure pop.

ROCK•A•RAMA

I was real hot for Human Switchboard when they released their scorching Who’s Landing In My Hangar? album five years ago, but when I got closer to the group, I wasn’t sure whether I really liked Bob Pfeifer’s totalitarian those-who-are-not-with-me-are-against-me script for his coming anti-superstardom.

REAL MEN, REAL GENTS, RIPPED JEANS

John Mendelssohn

Behold how one may now achieve the trendiest new look in rock by doing that for which, in childhood, his or her mother used to wail, “Oy! Oy! How am I to patch these, you careless little monster, you source of limitless aggravation and migraine headaches?

DAVE EDMUNDS

John Mendelssohn

You’re giddy with delight at the prospect of meeting and chatting with Dave Edmunds, Wales’s most notable contribution to rock ’n’ roll, for he’s produced some records you’ve liked, and you thought his version of Elvis Costello’s “Girls Talk” was definitive, and his cover of Dion’s “The Wanderer” from his new live / Hear You Rockin’ LP is in heavy rotation on MTV, and you adored his version of Elvis Costello’s “Girls Talk,” and his shyly grinning likeness is plastered all over millions of teenaged girls’ bedroom walls, and you dare imagine that some of his sexual charisma will rub off on you.

PATTY SMYTH ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Deborah Frost

There’s a firetruck parked outside the building containing the office of Patty Smyth’s management. The lobby is filled with firemen trying to determine whether the building is indeed on fire. For the sake of a story, I’ve dodged the usual bottles and knives, cherry bombs in my ears and vomit at my feet.

The Thompson Twins

CELESTIAL POST-CARDS & XTC

Karen Schlosberg

An update on the attempted Americanization of XTC. For an eighth full album the trio is told, as reported by stalwart singer/songwriter/guitarist Andy Partridge, to “go away and write something that sounds American.” An American producer, Todd Rundgren, is lined up for them and Partridge is told, in no uncertain terms, to “shut up and be produced.”

SIMPLY RED

Gregg Khruschev Turner

Somewhere, some time ago—in these very pages—I postulated the existence of xerox, a not-necessarily prejudicial term referring to a musician’s carbon-copy conversion of a previous and already well-worn prototype. And that the xerox range of lookalike or soundalike facsimiles spanned diverse turf imitating obscure and familiar rock ’n’ roll icons.

Crowded House Warming!

Vicki Arkoff

“Once Neil came home from the studio and I had all these people there,” says Crowded House’s Nick Seymour. “We were sliding down the hallway stairs in cardboard boxes.” Yes, things got very crowded when the Australian-based Crowded House was temporarily displaced to Hollywood last year.

REO AS WE KNOW THEM

Robyn Lisa Burn

“It’s weird. We pulled into town last night, all of us being together again checking into a hotel, and I swear to God it felt like the last year and a half just didn’t exist. We’re right back on the road. It just doesn’t feel like we went home—it’s like you fall right back into that groove,” Kevin Cronin says, still trying to get adjusted into yet another Holiday Inn.

CREEM SHOWCASE

Billy Cioffi

Every year at approximately this time, contenders for the title of International Fretmeister emerge, fingers flying and harmonics ringing, taking on last year’s gunslinger in a battle of the polls. One of this year’s picks, so far, is George Lynch— who, rather than storming out of nowhere like some of the Asgardian brats we have known—has been plying his chops in the journeyman’s hard rock band Dokken.

CENTERSTAGE

John Kordosh

The Long Beach Arena’s one place they’ve had some serious concert problems, most notably the Run-DMC episode of last year. I don’t know what’s caused those serious problems in the past, but this night—March 21, that is—I do know many in the audience were seriously fucked up.

CREEMEDIA

Bill Holdship

Tony Gayton has made a nifty little documentary with Athens, GA.—Inside/Out. The town of Athens seems to have all the right elements for an interesting film about real people. It's a college town in the deep, rural South with all the history and culture that might suggest (shades of Faulkner!) and all the eccentrics (ranging from the genuinely weird to the utterly pretentious) such environments seem to attract.

DRIVE-IN SATURDAY

Edouard Dauphin

What do Dick Cavett, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Freddy Krueger have in common? Nothing, you say? Wrong, Starchhead! All three appear in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, the latest horror sequel and a film with the longest title since 1969’s Anthony Newley/Milton Berle starrer, Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness?

MEDIA COOL

OK, so maybe Woody Allen has relaxed from the art struggle a bit to wallow in nostalgia for America’s Good Old Days, just like the rest of us rapidly-aging types. Still (thus?), I find this movie much more “inspiring” than Allen’s acclaimed Hannah And Her Sisters, which had too much material about rich people and their couplings (save that for the New Yorker, Woody).

This Month In IV History

DR. OLDIE

Video Video

THE THREE STOOGES DIED FOR YOUR SINS

Billy Altman

Last time, you may recall, we took a break from the usual hostilities to focus in on several clips that we thought merited some attention from a positive point of view.

Creem Profiles

THE BEASTIE BOYS

(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)

Newbeats

Harold DeMuir

“So many bands get in a position where they could really put across important ideas and say important things, but they don’t,” observes Matt Johnson, alias The The. “A lot of bands start off left-field and everything, and then they get a little taste of success and start diluting what they’re doing and chasing after the old dollar-shaped carrot.

Backstage

Backstage

Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down