The Beat Goes On

Rod Stewart: Gold Lame Heart to Match

Rod Stewart got his American start in Detroit, in a lot of little ways that count — the Faces could fill up any house in the city well before they could do it anywhere else — and, apparently, he�s never forgotten those early standing ovations.

On their most recent tour, Rod and the boys had never looked better: Rod walked out in gold lame�, with a matching bare-midriff top; Ron Lane was decked out in a white suit, like Dylan at Isle of Wight; the rest were dressed in their usual casual British foppery and finery.

They swung into a set of Faces/ Stewart songs that left everyone charmed, despite the fact that Ron Wood was playing with a set of broken ribs, and Rod had strained his voice a couple days before. (He went to Randy Newman�s father, a doctor in L.A.) Wood had broken his ribs in the bathtub: �I was standing in the shower, talking to somebody, leaned against the

shower rail, and it just came right out. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back. I got up straightaway but since then I�ve been laid up... It�s been a real bummer, this tour, an illness tour, just managing to get through.�

But the Faces rocked like champs, nonetheless. If Stewart lacked something in vocal quality (we couldn�t tell, but then, we�re fans) he more than made up for it by crawling about the stage, throwing the mikestand higher than usual, and in general cavorting in the most ancient of senses.

He didn�t just let the performance speak for itself either. After �I�d Rather Go Blind,� a tune from his new Never A Dull Moment album, he walked to the edge of the stage and spoke firmly: �That tune was originally recorded by a lady named Etta James ... And she didn�t dress up to do it.�

The set was familar Faces numbers, with only a couple from Never thrown in. There�s a new Faces album in the works but, says Wood, �We�ve got about seven tracks for it. It should be done in another month... or three months. Funny, we�ve got no real song titles yet, but the album title was agreed on from the first. It�s Ooh La La — going to be a French theme, can-can, moulin rouge type thing.�

The applause at the end of the show was deafening. It went on for almost ten minutes without a second�s let up. When the group came back out, Rod had changed to a silver suit; stepping to the mike, he said something we couldn�t believe, but which might explain Never A Dull Moment�s opening line: �Never be a millionaire.�

�You knew we�d come back, didn�t you?� he smiled, to an audience he�d once played to eight times in two months (in 1970), �Well, you haven�t changed a bit. We�ve changed our clothes a couple of times since then but... we really haven�t changed. And we don�t forget. And that�s no bullshit.� He thumped his chest and the band stomped into a five minute version of �Twistin� the Night Away.�

Someone once suggested that Rod Stewart get a Nobel Prize for Every Picture Tells A Story — Grammies and gold records just weren�t good enough. That night, we saw a young girl pay $50 for one of the beach balls the Faces kick out to the crowd before their encore. The truth, as always, lies somewhere between the glitter and the glamor but one thing�s for sure:

Rod Stewart (and the Faces) have found what Neil Young�s only looking for. They didn�t have far to look.

The Munchie Bunchie Coloring Book

I don�t color �em, I read �em. They�re easy to find and fun to shop for, and there�s an extremely wide variety to choose from. There are no coloring collectors yet, but I own just about every coloring book on display right now at the Super K Department Store. Lessee, there�s Little Lulu and Daffy Duck Goes to Hawaii and even a Donny Osmond/ Partridge Family follow-thedot and color combo kaboodle (which replaced my missing edition of the Archie and Jughead coloring book). Of them all, my favorite is the weirdly elaborate thing called The Munchie Bunchie Coloring Book.

The characters are rather has-been sketches. There�s nothing exciting about their emptiness; I just leave them in their pitiful vacuum and don�t even worry about shading in the hues. They all have lousy names like Wally the Watermelon and Sappie Sundae, anyway. Although they�re intended to represent human beings in more cuddly and edible form, I sure the fuck wouldn�t wanna sink my choppers into one of those unappetizing little squirts. The Munchie Bunch they ain�t.

Nevertheless, somebody made up for the lousy artwork by writing some extra-fine snappy dialogue. It�s a clipped, economical narrative; reminds me somewhat of all those dopey Existential word games. I mean, the author actually says nothing, but then again it sounds so mightily profound. (You might even compare it with Steam�s �Na Na Hey Hey�.) Consider these few excerpts from the sensitive portrayal of two eager customers, Sappie Sundae and Arnie Cone, purchasing some popcorn from Wally the Watermelon:

Fresh From the Popper

Fresh Buttered Topping for the Kids

Arnie Cone Sez �Yum�

Here Comes Squeezie Squash Eat Fast, Sappie Sundae!

Squeezie Does A Flip �I Want Some, Too�

Ed Watermelon Displays a Sign CLOSED FOR THE DAY Arnie Cone Just Laughs (Reminds me of Charles Manson, somehow - Ed.)

If you didn�t like that, you�re certainly not gonna like the rest: �Gabby Guitar Counts the Votes,� �Munchie Mans the Pump,� �Rinkie Rose in a Pose,� �Percie Visits Penguins at the North Pole,� but there�s no real plot. Mostly a lotta minor sub-plots filter through. Sassie Strawberry directs children across the street while Dollie Dink buys a new hat while Munchie gets a haircut while Corkie Corn manages a baseball team. The subplots are so intricately interwoven you don�t catch on at first. As events stack on top of each other and begin to smother everything in a tremendous souffle, you finally realize that this is what William Burroughs was trying to do. It�s definitely the direction in which most other beatnik writers are headed. In a word: befuddled gibberish.

You don�t have to go to a John Barth narrative to discover way-out fiction. The really strange fiction can be found in coloring books, and The Munchie Bunchie Coloring Book in particular. Who needs Donald Barthelme?

Robot A. Hull

T Rex Hits the Tube

Latest move in the efforts of the Kinney Cartel to pull off T. Rex� much promised but scantily delivered duplication of their British success is a commercial for American network television.

The spot was filmed in color by Pegasus Productions of Los Angeles, and directed by George Gootsan, who has also directed commercials for Hallmark Cards, United Airlines, Dubonnet Wine (starring Lou Reed) and the Seven Up Teen Angel series. The T. Rex ad features video pinups of Marc Bolan on stage and at rest (in state). Your first chance to see it was in New York, beginning Sept. 8, and glaze-eyed Bolanites in top hats could be observed thereafter making pilgrimages from all over the country. When they finally got there, so many TV sets were left on in anticipation of any and every airing of the spot that a massive power failure resulted, throwing Manhattan and parts of the Bronx into total darkness for a period of six hours, during which time widespread outbreaks of streetfighting and youth looting were reported. When the lights finally came back on, 36 had been killed, 144 were injured, every drug and liquor store in the benighted areas had broken windows, and syringes, marijuana butts, broken wine and champagne bottles and. pills of every hue and indication were scattered openly on streetcorners. Mayor Lindsay called for an investigation, and the Bolanites doffed their top hats in favor of the security of anonymity and quietly slunk out of the city.

Since then, the commercial has run in four other cities — Boston, Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles — with no comparable major disturbances reported. In each city it was aired in conjunction with stops in the group�s latest US tour and placed in such prime showcases as The CBS Thursday Night Movie, Sonny & Cher and The Mod Squad. Future Kinney plans include a guest appearance for Marc Bolan on The Mod Squad, playing a Sunset Strip acid dealer who gets kidnapped by Arabs and forced to submit to torture by camel in his first dramatic role. And watch the next few issues of TV Radio Mirror for those hot Marc-Peggy Lipton rumors!

Ziggy At The Top

Detroit�s Fisher Theatre was perhaps the perfect concert hall for the presentation of David Bowie. It�s a relatively small and intimate place — the seating coapacity is right around 2,000 — and boasts a history which is tied more closely to legitimate theatre than rock & roll. The atmosphere is what would�ve been called plush five years ago, but now qualifies as elegantly decadent. Great golden chandeliers, modernisitic sculpture, and evidence at every turn that the money which was poured into the construction of the show palace now goes into clothing and make-up for its children. On this night, they would have done their parents proud.

According to members of the Bowie entourage (which included Mr. Iggy Pop, currently under the same management as the Starman), the foppery and finery which Detroit pulled out of the closet to greet David Bowie was by far the most spectacular of the tour. In this crowd, velvet was a more common commodity than blue denim. The standard greeting could easily have been �trick or treat.�

With his flaming orange bull-dyke coffiure and nervous hips, Bowie attempted to project an image of Elvi -as-truckstop-whore which was actually more imposing than effective. Clad in an outer-space jumpsuit which played gold off green and black, the total impression was more than anything that of the gaudy joker in a deck of gay playing cards. His band — the Spiders from Mars - were uniformly attired in metallicsilver outfits with black trim. They changed costume at one strategic point in the show, as did Bowie.

The music was every bit as calculated, though often not nearly as flashy, as the costumery. The band — with particular regard to the guitar of Mick Ronson — was excellent, Bowie sang well, and most of the material was performed with the smootness and clarity which marks Bowie�s records. Still, something in the machinery was slightly off, and the audience�s response was warm but decidedly reserved. A large part of it might be that God never intended Sunday dress-up for boogie. Or maybe it�s that Bowie�s presentation succeeded too well at being theatre of the unreal. Applause at the movies is saved for the end.

The situation was summed up best by a girl who attended the concert strapped into a wheelchair. She attracted everyone�s attention as she entered, pushed through the crowd by a husky hipster in velvet and lace. After the show, she was wheeled back out through the lobby in similar fashion. She spotted a friend in the throng, and in her enthusiasm, toppled out of the wheelchair. Everyone in the vicinity was momentarily taken aback, but then outright shocked to see the cripple hop sprightly onto her feet and back into the wheelchair. As she was wheeled through the door, she smiled in spite of herself, as if to say, �a show, after all, is only a show.�

You Art What You Eat

Cincinnati: the name conjurers visions of... Johnny Bench? Well, don�t look now, but there was a happening in that faceless beer capital, an art show to be exact, with all the avant-garde accoutrements that help make a groovy city scene. Yes, Cincy's swankest turned out at the Contemporary Arts Center on September 14 to kick off the show, entitled �Eat Art.� The opening was the social event of the season, drawing all the nattily attired closet queens, bathroom beauties and back room promoters out of their closets, bathrooms and back rooms. What a night!

IT'S SO HARD TO SAN AV REVOIR, SO LET'S JUST SAY HORS D'OEVVRE;

The stars of the show were Smart Ducky and Pat Oleszko. Not exactly household names in Des Moines, but in Cincinnati their legend has begun to spread as fast and smooth as whipped cream cheese. So what if Smart Ducky is from Boston and Pat 0. is from New York; every burgeoning hot spot has to import some personality to form the nucleus for the oncoming renaissance, right?

Miss Oleszko, formerly a member of the Esquire B.urlesque and once runnerup in the Miss Polish America Pageant, opened the show in grand style, erupting from a seven foot Patty Cake to do a striptease. I was a bit disappointed to find, upon investigation, that the cake was not edible. (Or at least^ it tasted like carboard to me.)

So 1 didn�t get any cake, but I wasn�t discouraged for long. Smart Ducky saw jtfo that, providing tray after tray of delectable hors d�oeuvres in an exhibit called �Mais Oui Serve Vous.� Ducky, comprised of Martin Mull, a talented egg whose debut record was released this fall on Capricorn, and his perky partner Todd McKie, made each platter into a replica of a certain work of art by some of the world�s great artists. One, for instance, had crackers smothered with millions of sesame seeds, giving the impressionistic visual effect of a Seurat painting. (Clever, eh?) You kind of had to squint to get the idea on some of the trays (1 had a heck of a time with Poons and Picasso) but if you got tired trying to figure out what was what, you could just start eating.

Mull, one of the world�s foremost midget fetishists (not dwarves, just midgets), said that although the show was certainly a thrill for Smart Ducky, it was not the best ever. The pinnacle of his career came in the middle of a Philadelphia concert when he caused a man to laugh uncontrollably until he finally had to excuse himself to leave the club and throw up. �If I could affect everbody like that, I�d be great,� Mull said. Unfortunately, I don�t think he reached any such gastronomical heights with his hors d�oeuvres.

Even though Smart Ducky and Pat Oleszko were the obvious headliners, there were several other savory spectacles worthy of mention: an exhibit, created by Les Levine, of 18 carat gold chewing gum (for all you art buffs, the brand was Wrigley�s Double-Mint and 30 pieces were chewed, cast and mounted in all); Pat Renick contributed a six foot fiberglass bottle of Pepto Bismol (which may have been the reason for Smart Ducky�s failure to wreak havoc with the patrons� stomachs). Plus, a nine foot man created by Keith Kleespies out of frozen root beer. This exhibit melted during the show and had to be videotaped for all those unfortunate enough to have missed the opening night. But they did get to drink the root beer.

The performances by Miss Oleszko and Smart Ducky were also videotaped so that they could be shown for the duration of the show (approximately a month). The lucky people who were there, however, are still buzzing about it. Cincinnati, long having to live in the shadow of Cleveland as the No. 2 swinging city in the Buckeye State, is coming into its own. Call your travel agent now. Gary Kenton

And What ABOUT Joe Cocker?

Two years ago, Leon Russell was a sidebar to the Joe Cocker story; now, obviously, the tables have turned.

Joe�s meteoric success is matched only by his calamitous decline. At the height of his rise to fame came Leon with his Mad Dogs and Englishmen. From the great Grease Band and �Little Help From My Friends� to �Delta Lady� and 100 fans and friends (so who needs enemies?) forcing Cocker*to the edge of the spotlight and finally off the stage altogether.

While Cocker recovered (it took all of 1971, and a bit of �72), the audiences had to settle for the Mad Dogs movie and his sparse singles; only �High Time We Went� went far.

The road isn�t easy for a performer booked as a comeback, particularly when that comeback has been delayed by contractual disputes. (Joe was eventually forced to buy his way out of the Dee Anthony pact, at a price rumored to be in the $2-$3 hundred thousand range.) So Joe�s first time around, this spring, was excusable. But now, it�s vaguely pathetic.

The spastic fantasy-guitar playing is reduced to nervous thrashing. The powerful voice is incoherent. The big backup band is more than adequate, but the effect is lazy, listless music. Surprising from a 10 piece group including Stones� hornmen Jim Price and Bobby Keys, Chris Stainton and Allan McCulloch (both late of the Grease Band), and two drummers. There are highlights — particularly, the opener, �Woman to Woman,� a Stainton-Cocker number, enhanced by the black female trio, the Sanctified Singers. But the rest all sounds like �St. James Infirmary.� Sing the Blues, Joe.

The crowd is with him all the way though. Egging him on to the sound they remember; clapping and carrying on ecstatically as if to let him know he can try with some help from his friends. They call him back for three encores — that�s how satisfied they are!

On the third encore, he gets the hang of it. The song is �High Time We Went.� Indeed!

Robbie Cruger

Billy, Meet Diana, She�s a Fan

Diana Ross has made a comeback of sorts (see the Movies section, this issue), and she�s bringing Billie Holiday with her. With the release of the Motown biography, Lady Sings the Blues, there�s bound to be increased activity surrounding the Holiday legend.

In fact, what might be approaching is a sort of latter-day Billie Holiday cult. Lancer is rereleasing the autobiographical book on which Lady Sings is based, and if Motown has any luck at all with their Diana-voiced soundtrack, you can count on Columbia and MGM repackaging their extensive Holiday archives, too. MGM, in fact, has already begun their move with a garish purplecovered Best of set, whose contents are inestimably better than its appearance.

Still, the Holiday fad, should it emerge, will be a little different. She was, unlike most other archival restorations, appreciated in her own time — if not by New York�s all-powerful cabaret licensing commission, at least by the jazz-club patrons of her time. Many of them are still around — Ms. Holiday died only 15 years ago, and at a relatively young age (44), at that — there are enough of them that the legend might not get commercialized and tarnished the way so many others have today.

Jack Flash Trips Over Candlestick Kid

The Spotlight Kid—better known as Captain Beefheart—came down recently from his lair high in the windy crags of Trinidad, California, to visit friends in Los Angeles and finish up work on Brown Star, his forthcoming album. While cracking crumpets with Jack Nitzsche, Cap mentioned that he would like to talk to Mick Jagger, and asked Jack to phone up the Mod Prince for him. This Mr. Nitzsche (who has occasionally arranged and played piano for the Stones) did, and after a few minutes of the customary superstar babble, Beefheart asked Jagger what he was into lately.

�Oh,� said Mick, �I�m gettin� intah ESP.�

�Really,� quoth Cap, �how you doing at it?�

�Great, great,� enthused Jagger, Ohviously getting worked up, �it�s going fantastic!�

Beefheart didn�t bat an eye. �Oh yea,� he leplied dryly, �then how come I had to call you?�