December 1987

CREEM

CONTENTS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

As has been generally expected, Lindsey Buckingham—singer; songwriter, guitarist and producer for the enormously successful Fleetwood Mac-—has left that group to pursue his own interests. Buckingham stopped work on his solo project to produce and participate in the making of Mac’s latest platinum album, Tango In The Night, the album his ex-bandmates continue to support on tour.

BERETS FROM MARS! R.E.M. EAT THE DOCUMENT

Karen Schlosberg

It’s dangerous to write about R.E.M. without falling into the Larger-Than-Life trap. Perhaps it’s because so few “Rock Stars” (and that term is used loosely) define themselves not only by music but by principles. That the band tends to come off looking like, well, um, folk heroes, just by being decent human beings, is a rather ironic reflection not only on the music business but on celebrities in general.

Can Rich Men Sing the Blues? THE FABULOUS T-BIBBS ffll OUT

Roy Trakin

These are the best and worst of times for the Fabulous Thunderbirds. After 14 lean years and four commercial flops, the Austin, Texas-based critical darlings rode the wave of the blues revival and their own hit single, “Tuff Enuff,” to the biggest success in the band’s career.

LETTERS

Dear Sirs: Please send me a copy of your guidelines. B. Platt APO, NY (No.—Ed.) LA LA LA LA LA BAMBA! Upon seeing September 1987’s issue of CREEM, I was pleased that Squeeze was finally getting some well-deserved attention. However, after reading Ivan Lababamba’s schizophrenic article on them, they’d probably be better off without that article.

RECORDS

Jon Young

Just got through watching the video of John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurts So Good” on TV. The swaggering little brat obviously thought he was pretty cool stuff back then, when in fact, he was beggin” for a swift kick in the behind. Which only makes his invigorating new opus, The Lonesome Jubilee, all the more satisfying.

CONSUMER GUIDE

Robert Christgau

Just like Howard Stern says, it’s tough being funny every time out, but at least they’re in there pitching, hurling sophomoric knuckleballs at every freshman in sight. Though they’ve picked up some sarcasm at the feet of Camper Van, pop gothic remains their thing, from the ’60s to Graceland to exploitation flicks to Anglodisco “art fags,” an epithet Mark Knopfler will find hilarious all the way to the bank.

ROCK • A • RAMA

Like most post-punk country-rock bands, the Beat Farmers are more than slightly twisted; unlike many of ’em, they can also write songs and play their instruments. Their best stuff suggests the concerns and attitudes of Kinky Friedman crossed with the popcraft of the Hoodoo Gurus, and they even have the good sense to cover a Tom Waits tune from his currently-out-of-print Closing Time LP.

ELEHGANZA

Hercules "Archie" Bovis

to it. I have listened to it for years. I don’t like to read about it. I have read about it for many years, and what I read is usually poorly written. Almost always, it is poorly written. When it isn’t poorly written, it is filled with poor judgment by rock critics who have misinformed, second-hand opinions.

Growing Up In Public: JOHNCOUGAR MELLENCAMP'S Lonely Jubilee

Bill Holdship

You’d think that John Cougar Mellencamp would be living a rock ’n’ roll version of the proverbial life of Riley. Two years ago, Scarecrow took him to heights even he probably thought were unreachable. And now there’s The Lonesome Jubilee, the second smash album in a row that has not only the public raving about him, but the critics as well—some of those same critics who blasted him relentlessly after he first began pursuing his rock ’n’ roll muse well over a decade ago.

Up Where You Belong

THE CURE

Are You X-Perienced?

Conrad Heiney

Dropping the needle on X’s new album was something of a nerve-wracking experience for me. As a diehard X fan, I have vivid memories of joyously opening up my copy of Ain’t Love Grand, whenever that came out, only to experience intense disappointment and pain.

CREEM'S PROFILES

HOME: Somewhere in those silly '70s. HOME: Somewhere in those silly AGE: Old enough to remember. PROFESSION: Frosted flakes. HOBBIES: their hair ’till it looks HOBBIES: Finding great cover tunes; growing their hair the aesthetics of junk culture; rockin’ out-with tongue firmly in cheek.

FABI! GEAR! The George Harrison Interview

J. Kordosh

In a plush Warner Bros, office, Bill Holdship and I listened to George Harrison’s first album in over five years, Cloud Nine. “I wracked my brains for a title, trying to think of something that didn’t have one of the song titles in it, ” Harrison said later.

TECH TALK

Billy Cioffi

Since the first wave of British guitarists, few American rockers have staked out their own turf with an equal nod to musical mastery and anti-authoritarianism as has Joe Walsh. He is the exception to everybody’s rules. Since he hit the road and the national airwaves with the James Gang in 1969, many of his English contemporaries have considered him (and still do, for that matter) the most unique and gifted of the U.S.

CREEM READERS POLE BALLOT

Welcome to CREEM’s 12th Annual Readers Poll. As always, we’re asking you to decide the very artistic worth of everything that’s happened in the year gone by—and, as always, we’ll carefully collect each ballot, skillfully tally every vote, meticulously complete the results, respectfully worship at the church of our choice, and publish the results a few issues down the road.

dBunking History

Harold DeMuir

“Our past is well-documented," drawls drummer Will Rigby. “We’ve had so many stories written about us from the tough breaks angle, and we’re not interested in having a bunch more. There’s a lot more to us than that." “We don’t want sympathy, we just want to move on,” adds frontman/songwriter Peter Holsapple. “As far as we’re concerned now, our history starts with The Sound Of Music.

CREEMEDIA

Bill Holdship

"Apparently nobody ever bothered to inform nine-tenths of musicians that music is about feeling passion, love, anger, joy, fear, hope, lust, EMOTION DELIVERED AT ITS MOST POWERFUL AND DIRECT IN WHATEVER FORM, rather than whether you hit a clinker in that third bar there.

MEDIA COOL

Bill Holdship

The title makes it sound like some cheesy science-fiction parody, but this is actually a fictionalized (though supposedly based on fact) account of the 1978 post“punk” scene that went down in Melbourne, Australia. The “plot” (and that’s used in the loosest sense of the term) revolves around a band called—you guessed it—Dogs In Space, fronted by real life INXS singer Michael Hutchence.

CENTERSTAGE

Iman Lababedi

“The past is another country,” J.B. Priestly once wrote. In the world of pop music, it’s a statement as true about the immediate past as it is about the far past. And it’s the kiss of death for a stylist like David Bowie, a man who has spent his career cheating passion in the name of style to achieve nothing more than celebrityhood.

NEWBEATS

Harold DeMuir

Duane Eddy was a guitar hero before the term was even invented, and one of the coolest white guys of his era. Between 1958 and 1962, he and his former band, the Rebels, placed 15 singles in the Top 40, making Eddy the best-selling instrumentalist in the history of rock ’n’ roll.

Backstage