ROCK AND ROLL NEWS

ROCK AND ROLL NEWS

Johnny Winter, the albino bluesman who has never reached the prominence or prowess expected of him when he was discovered by Rolling Stone and manager Steve Paul, has a new group which may well provide him with the outlet that he’s been looking for.

His new group consists of three ex-members of the McCoys, Rick Derringer on guitar, Randy Hobbs on bass and Randy Z on drums. The group came together when both Winter and the band were relaxing in Steve Paul’s New York country home; they began to jam together but then decided that they should make the relationship permanent. Winter has already appeared once with the crew, at a festival type show in Montreal.

The group is also in the process of recording Winter’s third legitimate album for Columbia (although a fourth legit number was done by Imperial). The rest of the rash of Winter records that have been released are entirely rip-offs and shams; in fact, on some of them Winter hardly even appears.

Richard M. Nixon, the so-called President of the United States, has a shrink.

His name is Dr. Hutschneider and he’s been holding Tricky Dick’s hand since the ego-shattering experience of losing the 1960 erection. Besides assisting the presidential head, the good doctor is also a consultant to the National Commission on Violence.

In the Committee’s report, Hutschneider has proposed a solution to the “desperate” need for urban reconstruction; it’s real simple, folks, all you do is focus in on the real problem: six-year old kids. (Studies have shown that every person (100%) now in prison was at one time or another probably six years old.)

Hutschneider has decided it’d be a killer idea to have all the six year old deviates across the land take a bunch of “serious” psychological tests. The tests, of course, would determine their “fitness” to exist in today’s complex, everchanging society without turning into “bums”, “effete snobs” or the like.

The demi-freud has also proposed the so-called Final Solution to the Kindergarten Problem — the ones who don’t pass the tests (in the doctor’s erudite terminology, those who are “angry, rebellious, undisciplined, and disturbed”) go to a “remand” (remands us of concentration) camp.

The doctor’s unique approach to handling dangerous six year-olds is undoubtedly a direct result of the problems he’d encountered in giving the President “head” for the last ten years.

As the Motor City rock scene moved into the whirling, swirling circles of the BIG TIME “pop” world, it was perhaps inevitable that there would appear a “big-time” tri-initialled booking agency to join the ranks of the PTA-IFA-CMA etcetras of the NY/LA axis. DMA (Diversified Management Agency) is that inevitability.

Spurred by Dave Leone, DMA (founded on the remains of the scurrilous Quatro empire) began by achieving “exclusive” Michigan representation for the top acts on the neo-Motown circuit — MC5, Stooges, Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Savage Grace and Friends.

With these groups as a base, leaving the “small” groups (generally those without record companies) to their own devices and the smaller agencies, such as Jeep Holland’s A-2, Rusty Wood’s A&A and Jerry Patlow, DMA has by now eliminated almost all the competition save Patlow. It appears that they’re ready, at this point to begin competing with Premier and the rest on their own level; they’ve got the staff to do it, too, because as the other agencies fell by the wayside their agents quickly moved to join Leone and Company.

It’s not as bad as it might seem, though. DMA does now book other levels of bands. With the failure of most small clubs, long the mainstay of the up and coming high energy hordes of local rock acts, to survive the big time ballroom/pop festival scene, Dave Leone is now concerned about building what he calls “second generation” acts to sustain the scene. “I’ll do anything to keep the bands working”, he told us. “Even if I have to throw concerts myself so they can have jobs.”

For all its drawbacks, DMA’s, emergence does have a better effect than having groups forced into dealing with the high rip-off, low-return New York bigshots. It’s always easier to keep an eye on what’s at home, of course, and hopefully the bands will do just that.

LONDON — Mary Jane Superweed, the strange British woman who has written the pamphlet “Drug Manufacturing For Fun and Frolic”, has come up with a bizarre set of figures on the consumption qf dope last year at Woodstock.

She figures that if 90% of the 500,000 people present (450,000) smoked just one joint a day, at 30 joints the ounce, that’s 15,000 ounces of dope. Which figures out to about 1,277 keys.

And that may serve to explain why you may have felt the effects of a “dope famine” last summer — as

someone noted at the time, “No

wonder there’s no dope anywhere, all the shit is up here.”

NEW ORLEANS, La. - Pink Floyd, in the midst of one of their rare

Amerikan tours, met'with a more than minor catastrophe while in New Orleans. The band was robbed of $40,000 worth of equipment, stolen from their rent-a-truck while they

slept. (The group carries prodigious amounts of equipment because of its involvement with experimental/electronic music.)

Included in the theft-loot were four electric guitars, an organ, the crew’s 4000 watt sound system, a dozen speaker cabinets, mikes, two drum kits, ten miles of cable (!) and five $400 Italian echo units.

DETROIT — Bob Seger and his band have wrapped up production on their third album for Capitol, Mongrel. The record features Seger’s hit single of a couple months back, “Lucifer”. It also features his new band, supposedly the best thing Seger’s had behind him since the days of Bob Seger and the Last Heard, his original band.

The Stooges are ready to release their new album, Fun House any minute now. The album should be out by the end of July, from what the Elektra kids tell us, and believe it, it’s the mindfuck of the year. The tunes

include “I’m Loose”, “TV Eye”, “Down On The Street”, (the “B” side of the single), “I Feel Alright (1970)” (the “A” side of the single), “Fun House” and the colossal mind-destroyer of the year, “L. A. Blues”. The record should bring the entire band to prominence, as opposed to the press’ common fixation with only Iggy. Certainly Steve MacKay reveals himself as one of the premiere saxophonists in rock and roll and the S cott-Asheton-Dave-Alexander rhythm section is equally astounding. As always, Ron Ashe ton is superb on lead guitar, and what can you say about the Ig except that he’s never been in finer form?

What with the Parks and Recreation Department’s helping out with the ABX free concerts, in terms of providing the site, and their hiring of freeks to work for them this summer, it seems only natural that they should be promoting a series of free rock shows themselves. There’s not that much being talked about at this point but they’re there and, if you live in the city you can probably find out by calling Parks and Rec’s downtown office for dates and times and who’s playing.

Jeff Beck dropped into the Motor City for a couple of weeks to record a new album at Motown’s studios. There’s talk around that the record, produced as usual by the erstwhile Mickie Most, will also be released by Motown.

And while the Dynamic Duo was here they were busy robbing the cradle for at least one Detroit group that Mickie Most will produce and Peter Grant (Led Zeppelin’s boss) will manage.

LONDON — The Rolling Stones, with Mick Jagger releasing his soundtrack albums from two movies (both of which are ever-so-minimally Jagger) have been invited to the Palermo (Sicily) Music Festival to receive from the Sicilian capital the Palermo Peace Prize for “their contribution to peace through their music.”

Yeah, and next year they can give it to Sonny Barger.

NEW YORK — Jeremy Steig, mostly jazz, sometimes rock, flautist, had his first one man show, as a painter, May 2nd through June first at The Conception Gallery in Woodstock, N.Y. His work remains in the gallery.

Steig has done several records, most recently a pair for Solid State which feature paintings by himself on the covers. He also made an early attempt at fusing jazz and rock several years ago with a band called Jeremy and the Stayrs, which had one record released on Reprise.

Anthony Braxton, the stellar Chicago clarinetist, plays a Dixieland clarinetist in a new Jean-Luc Godard film which will star Jean-Paul Belmondo. The flick was done while Braxton was wintering in Marseilles.

Blues Image, the Atco group primarily known for their single “Ride Captain Ride” is being featured in British director John Irvin’s documentary about the rise to fame of an Amerikan pop group. The film is being made for TV, BBC there, NET (of course) here.

I

Bob Hite, who is the leading boogie-man in Amerika as the lead singer for Canned Heat, has started a new magazine called The R and B Collector. It’ll be sort of a newsletter/magazine combination, with a good portion of it given over to answering the eternal question “Where does one get hold of that kinda shit?”

The magazine will concentrate solely on the singles period from 1948 to 1960. For subscription data and stuff write, R and B Collector, 18632 Nordhoff Street, Northridge Calif.

Flying Dutchman is releasing a special album on Kent State — Murder at Kent State University. This album is a documentary compiled from columns written by the New York Post’s Pete Hamill. Says Bob Thiele, Flying Dutchman president, “I also have tapes of the President Nixon remark about ‘student bums’ and some comments by Vice-President Agnew, including the ‘intellectual snobs’ remark. I think the new album is the most provacative of all (Flying Dutchman has released three other records in its “Audie Quarterly” series — Robert Scheer’s A Night at Santa Rita, Hamill’s My Lai Massacre — and Stanley Crouch’s Ain’t No Ambulances for No Nigguhs Tonight) — It shows the gap between the administration and young people today.”

Sleepy John Estes and Big Joe Williams, country blues singers of some reknowh, will be featured in a documentary film produced by Joel Rosenthal.

LOS ANGELES - Delaney and Bonnie are gathering some new friends, some of the musicians who backed up Elvis Presley in his Los Vegas shows. One of the new friends is really a very old friend, James Burton, lead guitar, who used to work with Delaney in the old Shindogs from Shindig.

Speaking of Elvis, by the way, he’s scheduled to play the International Hotel in Sin City again, sometime in late August or September.

Brian Auger and the Trinity have signed with RCA and their debut album should be out by now. Coinciding with this is their current U.S. tour.

$800 for a Mickey Mouse comic book?

It seems that that is the going price in Bologna, Italy where a 1933 Disneybook brought that figure in a public auction.

Firesign Theatre, the first post-Burroughsian comedy team, are about to release another album (their third) called Don’t Crush That Dwarf, We Need the Pliers. Lord, may they never stop.

Another top English group has plans in the works to start their own recording set-up. The Rolling Stone’s contract with London Records expires on July 31st and they seem to have no plans for re-signing, with anyone. If they do form their own recording company, the Stones will have complete control over their product, including repertoire, promotion^ packaging and marketing. Distribution would be worked out with some established label. We’ll see.

NEW YORK — Douglas Corporation, which has been steadily working on recording and producing unusual but talented artists (Tim Leary, Lenny Bruce, John McLaughlin, The Last Poets) now has plans to release media product designed from the Laurel and Hardy archive.

Oliver Hardy, who was the fat one if you’re confused, was, amazingly enough a graduate of a musical conservatory where he studied classical music. The first Laurel and Hardy product will be an LP, the first ever released of Hardy’s singing, called Naturally High. Included on this album will be four songs by Oliver, a duet with Stan and some of their comedic sequences.

Also being readied is a Laurel and Hardy flick; English filmmakers Malcolm Hart and Mike Margetts have spent about 1500 hours editing footage from the 44 Laurel and Hardy epics into a 90 minute, “contemporary saga”.

The film is contemporary in that is represents Laurel and Hardy (or “Stan and Ollie” as the folks at Douglas call ’em) in such situations as hassling with the cops, running amok in drag and getting harrassed in court. The soundtrack of the film will be scored by “a major English rock musician” whose name may never be available, if one is to judge from the anonymity surrounding the Douglas-released Tim Leary album.

The company plans to release the Laurel and Hardy record this month with the film being slated for issuance in the fall.

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. - If you got drafted because you were delinquent (of if you’re in jail because you refused induction, on an induction notice that was speeded up because of delinquincy) you’ll be out shortly, if you make your move quickly.

That’s the effect of San Francisco Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli’s ruling. It makes an earlier Supreme Court decision retroactive; thus those men now in jail/army because of delinquency can get out. Now.

But you’ll have to get an attorney. The Army is not making any effort to inform its slaves of the decision, obviously. They’re having enough trouble getting them to go in now.

NEW YORK (FRINS) - The Free Ranger Tribe, which co-ordinates the Underground Press Syndicate and also does the Free Ranger Intertribal News Service, held a benefit for John Sinclair in the Grande Ballroom (it’s only fitting) of the Hotel Diplomat in New York.

Children of God and Elephant’s Memory kicked out the jams and the Long Island Drug Division proffered lights, among other things, other things being squirt guns and 50 beach balls. To top it off, two roast pigs were served to chants of “Off the Pig! All You Can Eat!”

It is said to be one of the biggest benefits ever held at the Diplomat although, due to the $1100 spent in advertising it, the benefit lost money. They plan on trying again, however.

The greatest album title of them all (so far) is the Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf - Hand Me The Pliers which is set for Columbia release shortly or perhaps not so shortly. The group’s previous titles, perhaps just as meaning(less/ful) were Waiting For The Electrician and How Can You Be In Two Places At One When You’re Not A ny where At All.

L.A. — The Doors are planning a European tour which will start in August.

In their recent resigning with Elektra the group was given permission to do soundtracks for other labels. Hope they do better than Mick Jagger.

You folks in the Detroit area waiting for a visit from Tricky Dick may have yourselves a long wait. It seems Nixon is trying to avoid the Detroit area since Jean Dixon told him of Nostradamus’ prediction that he would get it here. Agnew, it is alleged, invested in an armored vest upon hearing the prophecy. Hmmm... is this really the home of the brave?

Dick Gregory has started a 40-day fast to protest the “tragic and hypocritical nature of the narcotics problem in America”. Gregory links heroin pushers with the reigning institutions of Amerika. “The heroin man could not survive without the cooperation and consent of two other men — the cop and the politician.”

Elvis Presley is due to be presented in a “Woodstock-like” movie. MGM plans on following Elvis throughout his

month-long engagement at the International Hotel in Las Vegas with six cameras. The movie is to be entitled just “Elvis” and will be released in November. Is it a coincidence that Kirk Kerkorian, owner of the International Hotel is also the controlling stockholder in MGM?

I guess all of our Indian brothers don’t have it so bad. The Jicarilla Apache tribe of New Mexico is to finance a $2 million western called “A Gunfight”, featuring Johnny Cash and Kirk Douglas. The Tribe is also to reap the rewards I of the film.

Someone is finally taking action against the movie “Woodstock” besides boycotting. One young hairdresser from Montreal has gone to court to block the showing of a portion of the movie which depicts him taking off his clothes and frolicking in the grass with a lady friend. He wants this taken out of the movie because the film was shot without his knowledge or consent.

Mercury Records recently released an album by the “Early” Youngbloods called Two Trips - Jesse Colin Young

with the Youngbloods', for that little ruse they’re about to be served with a suit for $50,000 charging them with “fraudulent use of the name ‘Youngbloods’.”

Four of the tracks on the first side contain material by the Youngbloods’ nucleus (Young, Jerry Corbett and Banana) while the second side is entirely done by Young with the assistance of fellow folkies John Sebastian and Peter Childs. And one of the tracks on the first side is only Young and Corbett.

ALTAMONT, Calif. - Both Mick Jagger and Sonny Barger, in unrelated cases, are in deep dope trouble. Barger, the president of the Hells Angels, was busted in Oakland for possession of narcotics, specifically cocaine and heroin.

Jagger, on the other hand, had a recurrence of an old problem. The pig who busted him last January, Robin Constable, is suing Jagger for libel because of Mick’s statement that Constable had offered to forget the whole thing for $2400.

If you’ve heard that Ginger Baker and his Air Farce were gonna come over for a tour, you can scratch it. Ostensibly because of the political situation (whatever kind of excuse that is), maybe because of “licensing problems” promoters are supposedly facing but more likely because no one would’ve shown up if they’d bothered to come.

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. - The notorious Ted Nugent, property of the Amboy Dukes, has again surpassed himself in the realm of the bizarre. While the Dukes were gettin’ it on at the Danny Thomas ALSAC Benefit here, Nugent apparently got carried away and decided to do an imitation Flipper number.

The stage at the show was set up forty feet off-shore with groups and equipment arriving by helicopter and motor launch respectively, then being returned to their hotels, across the bay, by cabin cruiser. The audience, meanwhile sat in bleachers on the beach.

Nugent, being Nugent to the Nth degree, decided to dive off the stage and see if he could swim well enough to survive. He couldn’t and it took a young lady’s assistance to keep him from drowing.

The Dukes are a killer huge attraction in the Southland, with the Daily Planet, the Miami alternative culture paper calling Ted “The greatest guitarist in the nation.” Well, uh . . . .

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. - The ’Frisco light show troupe, Dr. Zharkow, has split to Washington, D.C. to begin a series of political mixed media shows. The crew hopes to “raise money for anti-war organizations and (hopefully) to help us all move past mass rallies and authoritarian theater.”

They’ve changed their name for the time being, too. The Continental Congress Mobile Unit can be reached through Vince Casalaina at 2140 Stuart, Calif.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (IS) - Noted rock and roll guitarist and sometimes operatic composer, Peter Townshend, of the world-famous Who, was apprehended here on June 22nd for improper use of a British colloquialism. To wit: “Our new album is going down a bomb.” Translated into honko Amerikanese the phrase means that the jams are doing just fine on the popcharts but apparently to Eastern Airlines officials in the South it sounds like a threat.

According to Informed Sources, Townshend made the comment while waiting for the Who’s Eastern flight from the home of Stax to Atlanta to take off. The plane was already on the runway when he made the comment but the next thing the noted composer of “Tommy” knew he was sitting back at the terminal with veritable hordes of police and FBI men asking him “What’s all this talk about a bomb?”

The flight took off two and a half hours later, sans Townshend, who was held for “questioning”. Apparently they couldn’t figure out exactly why Live At Leeds was so subversive because by 8:30 he was in Atlanta where he discovered that the crew’s equipment had not yet arrived.

That was held up by the rockster’s equipment truck breaking down en route from Memphis to Atlanta. And thus the Who didn’t go on for their scheduled 8:30 performance until 11:45.

Well, like the man said, “I know what it means but I can’t explain.”

NEW YORK — Besides appearing at opera houses and such on their new American tour, the Who are bringing over a 4,000 watt p.a. system that will broadcast the group in stereo.

The set-up was built by Who guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend and Who equipment chief Bob Pridden. Its function is to offset the vastness of the halls the group will be playing in on their new tour.

Along with that, negotiations are underway to compensate even further by the use of color-video-tape to accompany the stage act. And, where the group has decided that even that wouldn’t do to make things adequate, they’ve elected to play smaller halls — in San Francisco, for example, they are playing at the Berkeley Community Center, possibly the smallest venue on the whole tour.

In order to handle the massive equipment complex and lessen the danger of equipment damage, the equipment is being driven, not flown, across the country by the Who’s five man equipment crew. They’ve been outfitted with a custom-built truck (not a Bucket-T) complete with tv, stereo and sleeping quarters in order to make the 500 mile a night and more drives that the tour requires.

Apparently, the Who can afford it — their press releases state the Who will make more in guarantees alone on this tour than they’ve grossed on any previous tour.

GRINNELL, Iowa(LNS) — Pterodactyl, a Grinnell College underground paper, finally won a long court struggle recently when a local district court judge dismissed an “obscenity” case against four of the paper’s vendors. The judge declared Iowa’s obscenity law unconstitutional.

The four vendors had been charged with a felony for selling an issue of Pterodactyl which contained a full-page mock Playboy advertisement showing a naked young man masturbating in front of some Playboy centerfold nudes.

Pterodactyl’s lawyer, Clark Holmes of the American Civil Liberties Union, found a precedent for the case in a previous Supreme Court decision concerning a Michigan statute similar to Iowa’s. Explaining his decision on the Pterodactyl case, Judge Blair Wood said:

“The Supreme Court of the United States, in an opinion . by Justice Frankfurter, finds that the Michigan statute, ‘by quarantining the general public against books not too rugged for grown men and women in order to shield juveniles’ innocence is, in effect, ‘to burn down the house to roast the pig’-

The Iowa law had banned importation, production, possession and distribution of printed material “containing obscene print, pictures or descriptions manifestly tending to corrupt the morals of youth.”

LOS ANGELES - B.B. King and Leon Russell have recorded an album together, for release on King’s label, ABC. Also in on the sessions was Joe Walsh, of Cleveland’s James Gang. One of the numbers recorded was Russell’s “Hummingbird”, the track on which George Harrison plays guitar on Russell’s album.

Micheal Butler, Hair’s producer and by now an easy millionaire, has decided to donate $225,000 to the United Nation’s World Youth Assembly. Well, not exactly donate it. ..

What he plans to do is hold a benefit performance of Hair in which all the other people involved in the play, the actors and stagehands and producers will donate their bread to the fund.

Well, like they say down at the GM Building, “We gave”.

SEATTLE, Wash. — Terming the production of Hair a “cultural rip-off’, the Seattle ‘ Liberation Front has demanded 25% of the local box office go directly to the community. Hair makes a hell of a lot off the people, and it should give a hell of a lot back,” they say.

Louisiana government news: The bill to ban rock festivals in the state of Louisiana was defeated in the Senate. The Senate also gave the vote to 18-year-olds. Right on.

LOS ANGELES - The Seeds have signed a recording contract with MGM Records, and are now working on their first album in over two years. Between being the Seeds and the Sky Saxon Blues Band the group has had a couple of hits, including “Hey Joe”, in 1966, probably their biggest.

Disc jockeys at KYOK, a soul station in Houston (owned by archconservative William F. Buckley) went out on strike to protest the station’s policies.

The strikers presented the white station manager a list of demands which included increases in salaries for all personnel, an all-Black news staff, a Black traffic manager, and an end to advertising for companies which exploit the Black community. Black disc jockeys at the other white-owned soul station in Houston, KCOH, presented their station management with a similar list of demands.

NEW YORK — Elektra Records is going to release a second Delaney and Bonnie album, probably outtakes from the first one. Since the first Elektra thing is undoubtedly the best overall performance D&B have released, it should be worth having — and it was produced by the notorious Leon Russell.

“The Feminists”, Andy Warhol’s new flick, deals with Women’s Liberation and stars Jackie Curtis. Jackie describes herself thus: 21, 5’11”, gender male, “not a boy, not a girl, not a faggot, not a drag queen, not a transsexual, just me, Jackie.” Should be quite a flick.

It seems that the omission of The Band on the Woodstock album and movie was with their sanction, or should we say demand. “We didn’t like the setup, and the album seemed pretty shoddy”. Atlantic threatened to release the tapes anyway, but they never did.