THE MILLIONAIRE

Dear CREEM:

My fifteen years of highly costly research involving hundreds of case studies is now complete. Would you be so kind as to publish the findings?

To wit: in every instance observed, rock and roll musicians were corrupted by money. Thank you.

Yours truly,

J. Bersford Tipton Philanthropist Palatial Estates, N.Y.

P.S. Enclosed is a cashier’s check for $1,000,000 which will cover my CREEM subscription for the next 166,666 2/3 years.

Dear CREEM:

Re: Marchello (formerly the Good Rats):

We partied at Back Alley Sally’s during the heyday of the Coatroom featuring Frankie Avila (that good-looking Italian) and his sidekick “Yell-Your-Balls-Off’ Duffy, back when the drinks were real cheap. We drank out asses off and we orcked on into the wee Diner hours. Glen Cove Paul frequents the action at Back Alley Sally’s with the Coatroom Groupies, which is an extra added attraction.

It is still a good place and Marchello is better than ever.

Jo & Kay Glen Head, L.I.

Dear CREEM:

I’m sick and tired of all these “avantgarde” freaks. I guess I used to be one too. I read Rock, Hit Parader and shit like that. I used to buy byrds, Jefferson Airplane, Beach Boys, CSN&Y etc., thinking I was super-hip. But there was only problem: I’d listen to it twice and then not listen to it again. I just didn’t like it. But I thought, after always reading Rock, that to be cool you had to like them.

Rock also said “Grand Funk, Black Sabbath, SLB, etc. suck,” so I went around telling everyone {hat, even though I never heard them. Then, one day, believe it or not, I heard GFR, Cactus Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin at a school party!?! And I loved that music.

So anyways, one day in December, I picked up a copy of CREEM. I had this bad image of CREEM that I had got from your friend and mine, Rock. But I bought it anyways, cause of the picture of the picture of the Who on the cover.

I couldn’t believe it, cause it was great. I have been buying it ever since. Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs are the best. But I noticed that this month (June) there was no Loony Toons and only one review by Marsh. There better be more of him next month or I will boycott CREEM even though it’s the best.

Peace and George Wallace?

Chip

Vacanville Ca.

TOP TEN REVISITED Dear CREEM:

Re: General B. Napoleaon.

Being of great impotence where I stand, not wishing to figure out who the fuck you are, I would like to go on the record as countering your sayings by saying (you may quote, too):

1. Alice Cooper is the best mutha-fuekin’ group around, with one bad-ass guitarist.

2. Grand Funk smells, eats and sounds like shit.

3. MC5 are musicians, and damn good ones!

4. Michael P. Jagger can sing worth fuck (Although it’s a pretty mediocre fuck).

5. Carole King is so clean, she can’t even take a shit.

6. Mark Farner can’t even read music.

7. The Who are great.

8. The Mothers are even better than the Who!

9. Frank Zappa plays some fantastic lead.

10. Grand Funk doesn’t know what any instrument looks.

11. If you think Alice Cooper is such a screwall group, then what the fuck are you doing in Dwight Frye Memorial Hospital???

Wang it schmuck,

Joe Shiblotnik

Uncle Sam’s Asylum Choir

United States of Asparagus

Dear CREEM:

A cooking column! Wonderful! But may I make a couple of suggestions?

Mainly it comes down to this: I don’t think that anything should be considered for inclusion in the column unless the great majority of ingredients can be purchased with food stamps. This may not sound fair, but let me continue.

Inspired by what I read in Ms. Carroll’s debut column, I set about gathering the ingredients I needed. I had heard tell of a delicatessen called Haig’s on Clement Street in San Francisco, and it was there that I went to buy some of the more exotic ingredients she listed: lemon grass, fenugreek, laos powder and curry leaves. Well, I got the curry leaves — the last bag of ’em they had — and some fenugreek. The other stuff, I was told, would be in either in two weeks or two months, depending on which of the staff you asked. So I went back to the house and wrote Mrs. DeWildt the Indonesian foods lady a letter. She wrote back immediately, and I was kind of stunned to read that not only would it take about three weeks to get the stuff, but she requires a minimum order of five bucks, plus a 30% surcharge for tossing the package over the Rockies. Ouch.

Now, I’m gonna do it, mainly cuz I’m pretty serious about this kind of thing, but the vibe I get off CREEM about who they think their readers are is kind of inconsistent with sending off $6.50 for assorted sambals and a jar of trasi. Not to mention the difficulty in finding a joint like Haig’s — even if they had everything I wanted — in Pocatello or Memphis.

I spent several years in the Midwest, and indulged my passion for the kind of cooking Ms. Carroll enjoys nearly every day, using materials I got at the Super-Valu which, had I been eligible, I could have purchased courtesy of the Agriculture Department. True, I was using one of those horrible Americanized cookbooks, but it tasted so good that I didn’t care too much.

Food purism is like folk purism. Authenticity is important in a lot of ways, and nobody will deny that the real thing is usually best, but if it is truly impossible to get the real thing, you make do with what you have — a position most of -CREEM’s readers are no doubt in.

And if anybody out there has a way to keep hamburgers from dissolving when I put them on the hibachi, I’ll mail ’em ajar of laos powder after I score from Mrs. DeWildt.

Best,

Petaluma Pete

Sausalito Ca.

Dear CREEM:

To Ben Edmonds, 12 dozen purple roses. The masterpiece of an article on Todd Rundgren was beautiful: I hope Todd read it and appreciated it. I loved it and Todd!

A big kiss to everyone who loves Rock and Roll because I’m a Rock & Roller and I’m, proud.

Tare Earp

Miami, Fla.

T. REX MILITANTS FREAK OUT Dear CREEM:

I got a few words for your Simon Frith. Who the hell does he think he is anyway, writing all that shit about Marc Bolan? First of all, your readers deserve to know T. Rex didn’t have five songs atop the charts in England - it was 6. Anyway, what’s so bad about Marc prancing about in those sequined suits; there are some pretty shitty bands in America - at least T. Rex is good. I should know - I saw them. Watch out Simon - we know your kind.

A devoted Bolan freak (tough if you don’t like it),

Natalie McDonald Hackensack, N.J.

Dear CREEM:

S. Frith on T. Rex (July):

“ ... a refueling of fun. If we leave it there ... it’s nice but nothing more. But if

T. Rex’s magic rubs off on some of the thoughtful musicians around (I rate Marc Bolan as an idiot) and if they start to deal with our life...”

Man, that’s sure fucked up! Whoever these thoughful musicians are, they’d be lucky to be such idiots! “You slide so good/With bones so fair/you’ve got the universe/Reclining in your hair.” ‘‘Well you’re slim and you’re weak/You got the teeth/Of the Hydra upon

you/And I love you/You’re dirty sweet and you’re my girl.” If that’s idiocy, I can dig it! “Nice but nothing more,” all right. What did you ekpect? Wittgenstein? LATER for “thought,” anyway. Send this Frith back to graduate school, baby!

Tom Clark Bolinas, Ca.

Dear CREEM:

Every time I see a piece by Craig Karpel I’m reminded of what I’ve been thinking, talking, composing at about the same time he must have been writing. Karpel, you’re writing my book. Damn you to heaven.

Jesse Kornbluh

New York, NY

Dear CREEM:

I’ve just read your magazine for the first time and I like it, but as for Lester Bangs comment, “And except for their singles, Creedence can go jump off the levee,” you can tell Mr. Bangs that he’d better listen again to some of the fine albums Creedence has on the market, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and Bayou Country. They might not be heavy or as rock-like as Led Zeppelin or Humble Pie, but the albums they’ve recorded are clear, undistorted and very tastefully done.

Jeff Le Blanc

Lafayette, La.

,P.S. Thanks, Greil Marcus, for the fine story, “Creedence Clearwater Revised.”

Dear CREEM:

Congradulations! This is the first time in a year I didn’t find something mean, nasty and unkind about George Harrison in your magazine, which is probably because you didn’t say anything about him at all.

Kroshka

Ann Arbor, Mi.

(Maybe you didn’t read thoroughly enough? - Ed.)

Dear CREEM:

I just finished listening to Jeff Beck’s Rough and Ready album, which I like very much, and I read the reviews you gave it in your April issue. Your “reviewers” didn’t even take the album seriously, which is a very stupid attitude, and simply dismissed it as garbage. Once again they have proved to have a collective IQ of 20 or less, and shown themselves to be a bunch of narrow minded, pretentious shitkickers. I usually like your magazine, but the record reviews are very often ridiculous. I mean, if you’re writing a rock magazine it is because you love rock music, isn’t it? But your reviewers seem to enjoy putting records down, as if they didn’t like rock at all.

For example, getting back to the Rough and Ready review, Jon Carroll wrote: “I have not heard the new Jeff Beck album. I do not want to hear the new Jeff Beck album.” How could a serious, music loving rock writer say something like that?

Alfredo Antillon M.

San Jose, Costa Rica (Maybe he wasn’t serious? - Ed.)

I thank Vince Aletti most heartily for mentioning me in his “Tighten Up” piece on gay rock lyrics in CREEM (May), since I love any and all publicity, but at the risk of ruining a friendship between the country’s only openly gay rock critic and one of the country’s two openly gay film critics I’d like to say that I disagree with most of Vince’s peripheral points, to wit:

(1) I had sympathy rather than contempt for the young kid who approached us at the Village Voice Xmas party, unsure of his sexual identity but wanting to talk to faggots. It’s tough to “come out,” an agony each of us goes through in her or his own way since we’ve all been brought up to be straight. Remember, Vince? Or have you forgotten so soon?

(2) It’s not necessarily ridiculous to think that gay people tend to be more “artistic.” This is a question still to be resolved. Everyone who becomes an artist has to go through a period of fantastic self-introspection resulting from a feeling of alienaton from one’s peers. (See Malcolm Cowley’s excellent essay on this.) Straights may go through such a period; gays must as part of the coming-out process. It would not surprise me if, statistically more of them, proportionately, turned out artists.

(3) I don’t like Vince’s naming of a few rock artists whom he thinks are gay but who have not said so themselves to the world. An artist’s announcement of her or his homosexuality to the public must be an existential act of joy. She or he must do it herself or himself. I have very strong moral feelings against doing my gay sister or brother’s public “coming out” for her or him, denying to her or him a precious moment in her or his life that must be chosen willingly and joyfully.

(4)In general, I find that Vince takes a far too cavalier and simplistic attitude towards the gay sub-culture. “Camp,” self-pity, show tunes, the whole Boys In the Band tradition may be the result of oppression — but so are the blu^s. As liberated gays we have to learn to deal with them, not reject them in favor of some polymorphous substitute. They are our tradition — the only one we got. Gay Liberation, to me, means increasing options, not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Of course I agree with Vince’s main point. We must have more gay lyrics, and more gay rock stars must tell they world they’re homosexual.

Stuart Byron

New York, NY

/Vince Aletti replies: I don’t know about “existential acts of joy, ” but I’m not doing anyone’s coming out rite but my own. With the exception of David Bowie, who has discussed his homosexuality in interviews, none of the rock performers mentioned in my piece are, to my knowledge, gay - and I didn’t say at any point that I “think" Mick Jagger, A l Green Elton John or James Taylor were faggots. To fantasize about James Taylor singing a love song to a man is not to expose Taylor. It had occured to me to include a disclaimer of this sort with the original piece, but I rejected the impulse to “protect" the stars. If the idea of James Taylor (my most unlikely example) being gay flickers across people’s minds as a possibility — “oh yeah?" — even an unimportant one — “well, so what if he is?" — people have come maybe a little closer to accepting the possibility in themselves. An important part of what I was saying is that “gay” feelings aren’t really restricted to gay people and that everyone should have open ways of dealing with those feelings, like singing about them. It might help destroy that tight little either/or prison everybody’s in.)

Dear CREEM:

I like your magazine best because the ink on the pages doesn’t come off on my fingers.

Howard Silver

Chicago, Ill.

P.S. Try to do something about the front and back pages though, because they do.

Dear CREEM:

I want to thank Tom Smucker for his Beach Boy article. Thanks Tom! It came from his heart. My heart feels the same way. I thought I wrote the damn thing with the way I feel about the Beach Boys.

Why did Lester Bangs leave the Beach Boys out in his review of the new Rolling Stones LP? He told about Dylan and the Who. He told about all the big performers and their decay. He didn’t mention the B.B.’s. That’s because unless you’re special you don’t. The groups are so built-up then used this way. The Beach Boys aren’t used this way. We caji thank Brian Wilson for this. He made his group specialized (they surely weren’t not mentioned because they aren’t big). The Beach Boys are only used in rare important times. I’m glad.

Kenny Levine

Brooklyn, NY

ROCK-A-RAMA SECRETS REVEALED

Dear CREEM:

I was intrigued by one of your comments regarding the threatening notes you receive in the mail each monthaccompanying that shitty article, Rock-A-Rama. No wonder he is anonymous. Especially when he knocks great records like Procol Harum in Concert. I know for a fact that they aren’t dead and stuffed. If they were, how could they have cut a new album?

Vic Stanley

Gurnee Ill.

(Procol Harum passed away in an earthquake while staying in a motel in San Leandro Ca. some months ago. Their new album was cut by the Masked Marauders, with Herb Alpert and Sonny Stitt filling in for Booker /Reid. Future recordings will be made by a quartet composed of Bernie “B.B.” Fieldings, Reg Presley, Andy “Thunderclap" Newman and Johnny [“I’m Alive”] Thunder. - Ed.)

Dear CREEM:

This is in regards to your article in CREEM Rock and Roll News, page sixteen, “Addendum to Knight vs. Funk, Eastman, et. al.” The group is called Mom’s Apple Pie and they are hardly only three in number. Sincerely,

CONTINUED ON PAGE 79.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10.

Larry Patterson

Pafterson-Irwin Ent.

Sharon, Pa.

CHECKING IN AT NUMBER ONE, THIS MONTH . ..

Dear CREEM:

1. Please send one copy of the Dylan book.

2. Tell Lester Bangs he is an idiot.

3. Dylan’s a moralist - yes, yes. ,

4. Enclosed check for $8.50.

5. Whatever happened to Diana Ross?

6. Cale’s cut of “After Midnight” is a song.

7. Red Cop is very hard.

8. Steve Randock is the only salesman I like.

Goodbye,

John

Steve Randock Mobile Home Sales

Spokane, Wash.

P.S. High Camp!

CULT CONTROVERSY CONTINUES

Dear CREEM:

I just got around to reading your mail column. I dug most of what everybody said, but one jack-ass really got me pissed off. It was the guy from Vermont who tried to rip the shit out of Blue Oyster Cult.

I read R. Meltzer’s article on them and bought the first album. This was the first time I’ve ever bought an album because a writer said they were good. I love the album, and it has to be one of the (if not the) best albums of this decade. They really bring back the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. Their songs are great both lyrically and musically, and they aren’t too politically inclined (which makes a change from the current trend). I’ve never seen the group live, but if they ever came within 100 miles of this dump, I’d break my ass to see them.

As to the comment “He (Meltzer) writes the lyrics,” I only found one song that he even had a part in. And that was one ‘of the best cuts.

I’ve been a steady fan of yours since I “discovered” a copy in Florida. I’ve never been sorry for buying a copy, and I doubt if I’ll ever regret buying one. This is the first time that anyone’s ever got me fucked-off enough to write to a magazine, so I’d appreciate it if you’d print this, so’s people wouldn’t have to listen to fuck-heads like A. Schwartz.

Ken Wallace

Ambler Pa.

Dear CREEM:

I read in your July ish “the album comes with a pair of nylon panties and pubic hair.’’ Well, mine came with a pair of paper panties and no hair. 1 wrote to Warners about this, and received a form letter saying “Nothing can be done.” Being persistent, I wrote to them again, including the form letter. This time, I received a personal reply saying that they didn’t know what I was talking about. Has Alice Cooper gone bald?

Arthur G. C. Penning

Queens, N.Y.

(Not exactly. What Warners was afraid to admit, and what CREEM reveals here for the first time, is that Alice lost the hair on the operating table in Sweden. Seems it takes a while to grow back, after pulling a myra breckinridge and the album just couldn’t wait. Tough titty, as they say. - Ed.}

Dear CREEM:

1 can remember when Lester Bangs was writing incredibly fucked up reviews for Rolling Stone. Through some dense logic he twisted the words “Detroit” and “high energy” to make them synonymous with shit. There was one review (of the Frost) so bad the second worst critic, John Mendelsohn, had to write a refutation! Lester’s raving was so pitiful it was a joke. One Rolling Stone letter writer brushed him off as a “buffooncritic,” and that summed it up.

Bangs move to CREEM was interesting to say the least. But through reviews like that of the Frut’s Keep on Truckin’ album, he still betrayed himself as a pompous pud. All his magnum opuses (Lou Reed Lives and the alltime worst 2-part Stooges piece, for example) were long-winded, empty shit. In Ann Arbor, clubs were actually started for physically assaulting Lester and mailing him dead fish & Romilar!

However, starting with his Do the Godz Speak Esperanto article, his writing has steadily improved. Even his latest long one (Black Sabbath) was right-on. As I see it, Lester’s greatest asset is his ability to turn a phrase. Who else could sum up the UP so handily as with “vested-interest jams?” He still blunders occasionally (Pink Floyd has no Star Trek fixations). Other points in Lester’s favor are that he has caused Dave Marsh’s writing to improve, and he does a great job on Rock-A-Rama.

The Kid From P/D

Ann Arbor, Mi.

(Wait a minute! A) Lester is still a buffooncritic and B) Dave Marsh’s writing has not improved. Also, Langdon Winner and an expatriated Detroiter named Jeffrey Rappoport wrote the Frost review, not the notorious John Ned Mendelsohn. — Ed.)

Dear CREEM:

Tell your brief film reviewer he sucks. Gumshoe is a fine film. It’s not a “dispiriting attempt to show an American genre through an English sensibility;” it’s a film about such an attempt and why it is dispiriting, why English fantasies about America grow old and pathetic. And it’s got music by Tim “Jesus Christ Superstar” Rice. What more could you ask???!

Simon Frith

Keighley, Yorks.

England

ERRATUM

In Dave Marsh’s “The Daring Young Man and the Flying Chimpanzees” (August), the lyrics to “Rock and Roll Circus” should have been credited to Bob Segarini and Randy Bishop, who wrote and recorded it while in a group called Roxy. (It’s available on an album called Roxy, on Elektra.)