THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Star Jumps Off Hollywood Sign

Everybody knows that Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind was one of the biggest best sellers of all time. Fewer people, however, know that Ms. Mitchell was killed by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street in Atlanta, Georgia. How many people know that Jacqueline Sussann, apparently feeling that the success of Valley of the Dolls was not contributing enough to her status as a legend, once flew down to Atlanta and went to that very same streetcorner and hired some guy to drive up and nudge her with his bumper? She executed a perfect four-point sprawl on the pavement, hollered till AP and UPI picked it up, then got up, dusted herself off and finished crossing the street, where she recovered from the mishap with some chitlins in Lester Maddox’s Funky Chicken Shack.

Nothing makes for better PR than doom and gore. Witness the case of actress Elizabeth Ashley, star of a play currently running in Century City, California (unless it’s already closed by the time you read this), called “Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign.” Liz startled Hollywood residents recently when she climbed fifty feet up the letter “H” on the sign high above the Hollywood hills and jumped!

With producer Zev Bufman, director Tom O’Horgan and a film crew, the plucky actress hiked the treacherous fire roads and braved thick brush to begin the hazardous climb on the immense and deteriorating landmark, a chore that would have deterred even the bravest stunt girl, to re-create the incident in Hollywood history that was the inspiration for Dory Previn’s new musical, that of a young starlet whose dreams of stardom were so crushed that her despair led her to climb the spectacular height and jump off the letter “H”. (Rock fans may remember Ms. Previn for her deeply moving series of albums about Mia Farrow, and her hit “The Poly-Unsaturated Demise of Ali McGraw”.)

Services were held for Ms. Ashley at the Beverly-Wilshire Mortuary on November 3rd; it was a small, quiet ceremony, with only family and close friends attending because, as her agent said, “We didn’t want this sad occasion subject to the glare of tasteless publicity.” The rock band Co. performed, a medley of Ms. Ashley’s favorite songs prior to the burial. She has been replaced in the role of Mary C. Brown by Totie Fields.

Film is just one of the many multimedia techniques that director Tom O’Horgan is employing in the staging of the show and producer Bufman feels that “Mary C. Brown” will bring an entirely new dimension tQ musical theater. They have already announced plans for a big-budget musical comedy to debut sometime in 1973, on Broadway this time, based upon the life of Sylvia Plath.

Dylan To Be Wild?

The biggest news of all last month was that Bob Dylan, he of the manychildren and hits, had journeyed to L.A. While there, he stopped in to visit a new friend, John Kay. Dylan was reportedly knocked out by Kay’s first solo album — he didn’t like Steppenwolf very much, he said — and he agreed to play on ■'one cut of Kay’s new album, Licorice Whips. The song, not by chance, happened to be what Kay called “his favorite Dylan tune,” “It’s All Right Ma (I’m Only Bleeding).”

Dylan plays acoustic guitar and sings on the choruses of the Kay version, which includes all verses except the middle one. (The one about “old lady judges watch people in pairs/ limited in sex they dare/ to push fake morals insult and stare/ Propaganda, all is phony.” Hint hint.) He probably won’t be credited on the record though, due to contractual hassles.

Bob told Kay he might like to record an old Steppenwolf tune, too. The song? “Born To Be Wild.” “I didn’t like Steppenwolf much,” the Hibbing minstrel was reported to have said, “but ‘Born To Be Wild’ really gets down.”

The Revenge Of Rodney Bingenheimer

it happened just when we expected it the least. With our pants down and mouths wide open, Rodney Bingenheimer (the one-time “Mayor of Sunset Strip”, former stand-in for Sonny Bono and recipient of a punch-out threat from Brian Jones) is threatening to fulfill the pledge of achievement he set for himself back when he was but a lad of 19: “Someday I’m gonna make it.”

The world’s not on fire just yet, but little old Rodney (5’6”/24 yrs. old) has actually opened his very own nightclub on the Strip. It’s called, appropriately, “Rodney Bingenheimer’s' E Club” (the “E” standing for English or Ecology or E underarm deodorant or anything), and it sits in an ever so logical location: a mere two blocks from the Continental Hyatt House (where maids give head in elevators while clerks take pictures) and just minutes from the hot Whiskey A Goo Goo.

“We don’t have live entertainment,” says Rodney, “only records, like pubs in England. This is Los Angeles’ first starkraving discotheque, and it’s complete with all the fringe what makes those in London tick.” Entering, you’re part of an imposing corridor of mirrors. At the end is a small window, where you’re liable to find Cynthia Plastercaster, the International Butter Queen or maybe even Rodney, all happy to alleviate you of the E Club’s two-and-a-half buck cover charge. “We charge because we don’t want just everybody to be able to get in,” claims Rodney. “The cover keeps the undesirables out and sifts through the would-be crashers and hangers-on.”

Rodney says his club is promoted by word of mouth. None of the ritzy $2300 per month billboards which litter the Strip, no newspaper adverts or radio spots, but “already Don Steele has done a bit on his weekend show about David Bowie and the Spiders cornin’ down to the place and spending the entire evening. John Gibson mentioned us in his column, and even Bob Gibson is sending us down some girls now.” It would seem that his method of exposure is effective indeed: in the first two weeks, the joint was jammed every evening.

The E Club opens every evening at 6 PM and closes at 2 AM. Plans call for the place to become an. after-hours room for members who will pay $50 per year to be a Rodney Card Carrier. “This place is where it’s all happening. Already we’ve had three members of Uriah Heep, Elton John, David Bowie, Noel Redding, Ray Davies and Aynsley Dunbar,” exclaims Rodney proudly. “And the popstars realize that this is one of the few places in LA worth hanging out at.”

It’s got the location, the price is right, we all like the very English records he plays, and certainly Rodney has the reputation. “But who knows what will happen, even Rodney admits. “By the time this story comes out, we may be closed.” Ah, Hollywood.

Martin R. Cerf

War Over? It Is For CREEM

We thought Richard Milltown was foolin’, but maybe he’s not. We’ve been waiting for certification of his intentions about getting out of Viet Nam, but we haven’t had any domestic evidence. Of course.

Until, on November 10, we received the following letter from our distributor, Curtis Circulation Company, and their Ms. Riccio, from their International Sales Department. The letter, to CREEM mojo Barry Kramer, read:

“The New York Office of Stars & Stripes received the following telex message from the Pacific Stars & Stripes Headquarters in Tokyo:

“EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL MAGAZINE AND IpPERBACK SHIPMENTS ON mJRRENT PACIFIC STARS AND STRIPES ORDERS FOR VlETffAM.”

“We have complied with this request — the shipments of CREEM for Pacific Stars & Stripes — Vietnam (Account No.3009) are now cancelled effective with the February 1973 issue.

“Please cancel any ‘in house’ orders you might still have which have not been shipped and confirm so that we can issue the appropriate credit.”

So, if you’re a Pacific Stars & Stripes customer of CREEM, we can only hope that you’re reading this at home, and if not, that you’ll be sure to check out our independent distribution deal with the Viet Cong.

Hendrix Alive In Montreal?

Here’s a true, real-life rock and roll story for you:

At the tender age of 14, Frank Marino of Montreal, Canada, took a bad acid trip — a very bad acid trip that lasted two weeks and put him in the hospital where he could try to sort things out in peace. He had never played any instrument in his life, but there was a guitar handy, and one day Frank picked it up and started playing, right there in the hospital. Almost immediately he was playing perfect Jerry Garcia licks, and by the end of the day he had the whole Grateful Dead songbook down cold. That night he dreamed he was Jerry Garcia in the studio, putting the finishing touches on “Viola Lee Blues” from the Dead’s first album.

Frank soon tired of Garcia — I know what he musta felt like — and developed a Jimi Hendrix fixation. Possessed and obsessed, he literally lived inside the sound of Hendrix’ guitar.

In early 1972, shortly after he turned 17, Frank got 17-year-old bassist Paul Harwood and 17-year-old drummer James Ayoub to join him in a power trio called Mahogany Rush. They cut a single for Kotai, a new Canadian label started and jointly owned by exiled American rocker Jesse Winchester and the former Montreal promo man for Kinney. The single was called “Buddy,” and it was a teenager’s tribute to Hendrix.

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Honest, you gotta hear it to believe it! Frank plays just like Jimi Hendrix without ever copping a lick directly from his idol. “When I was feelin’ down he’d lift my spirits high/And at the same time his magic music made me cry,”* Frank says of Jimi, and then he cries out into the void in utter disbelief, “And then one day he just up and died/And I felt all alone as I stood screamin’/‘Buddy, what has happened, can you hear me, friend?/Buddy, I didn’t see this cornin’ round the bend/ Buddy, is this the way your story ends?’ ” When Frank sings, “Well he’s gone away and he didn’t even know my name/But I knew his; he was a man of fame,” he is (without even trying) going right to the heart of the rock superstarrock audience experience. How many others must have thought the exact same thing? He even tells Jimi, “Well you rest easy, and I’ll carry on singin’,” and it sounds perfectly unpretentious, doesn’t make you wince a bit like “poor Otis dead and gone, left me here to sing this song” did. It’s that unaffected. Sure, Frank, you carry it on, you have been chosen and the torch passes hands. After all, somebody’s gotta do it. Whatta classic teen lament this song is!

“Buddy” went high on the Montreal charts last summer, and whenever Mahogany Rush played for the locals, it was Beatlemania all over again. Nymphets screamed over the music and threw items of personal garmentry on stage. The band members had their clothing torn and their hair pulled as they fought to get back to their limo after the gig. Frank Marino took it all in stride. A star is born.

Last Fall, as the single was slipping from the charts, an album was released, but only in Canada. It’s called Maxoom (Kotai 3001), and the title is a pretty good description of the music therein. It’s all written, arranged and produced by Frank Marino. The songs are peopled by blue silk ladies and couples who meet on the sands on Jupiter’s moon one crystal morning, fly to Saturn’s rings on a sun ray’s beam, and make love under a star-filled sky. There’s kings and queens on cosmic missions, guys who’ve been driftin’ around for 101 years, and strange creatures with plastic noses and wooden combs dressed in white patent leather lace. Frank and his “Boardwalk Lady” meet the prince of fools lying on an aqua feather bed. “Am I losin’ my mind?” Frank asks the prince, and the prince replies, “Not yet, but keep on tryin’.”

There’s a blues (called “Blues”) that Frank wrote when his 16-year-ofd girlfriend moved to Toronto. The band’s 16-year-old roadie sits in on piano for this one, and it sounds iust fine. Needless to say, rrank Marino sings just like Jimi Hendrix.

I’m having trouble describing this album to you. I fear it sounds like I’m talking about another Hendrix exploitation number, but that just ain’t so. Like I said, the guy plays just like Hendrix without ever stealing a thing outright. He’s real sincere, and all I can add beyond that is that the magic of the rock is there independent of the Hendrixisms; Frank Marino’s music stands on its own terms, and it’s not just a curiousity item. Given Frank’s background, I think I’ll just cop out and say it defies explanation. It’s really that uncanny.

Frank Marino may not have the slightest bit of control over it, but someday he’s going to play the ultimate guitar chord that will split the earth right at the seams. Jimi Hendrix will rise from the ashes and we can all take a walk in the sky, just like Frank says. When that happens, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

John Morthland

* All songs by Frank Marino, ©1972 by Kotai Music except “Boardwalk Lady” by Frank Marino, © 1972 by C.E.L. Publishing.

WhoopieTie Yi -Sly Shows Up Gotham

Can there be any doubt that Sly Stone is a genius? Just when you think he’s going to fade into the ozone, he appears to reaffirm his place in the cultural vanguard of the Seventies. And his latest exploit is his best yet. I quote from the New York Daily News:

“It was just a little after high noon when the stranger in the buckskin jacket, levis, Afro haircut, silver studded holster and imitation Colt .44 stalked through the doors of Harvey Radio Co., 2 W. 45th St.”

Well, it wasn’t one of the Flying Burrito Brothers. Sly whipped out his piece, waved it vaguely at everybody in the store, and started hollering at the top of his lungs. Nobody could make out what he was saying, but that’s cool: you couldn’t understand him the time he harangued the audience and nodded out across Dick Cavett on the ABC network either. Who cares what the fucking words are? It’s the sense of style that counts.

The customers screamed, scattered, ducked and ran. The man meant business (real business, not this bullshit cash register stuff), and they knew it. One scurried out and called the police, who arrived with sirens blaring.

Sly looked the coppers up and down with supreme disdain, hitched up his gunbelt and said: “Hey, man. I’m from Fort Worth, Texas, and I’m a cowboy.”

A perfectly reasonable and believable statement, under the circumstances. But instead of taking him at his word, the pigs disarmed him. Then they discovered that the pistol was a toy, but they took him down to the station anyway, where they charged him with threatening people with an imitation gun, an offense for which he could1 be fined up to $25. Then, just to be even more bogus, they confiscated his gun and holster arid, according to the Daily News “hung them up in the 54th St. Station House.”

Sly played Madison Square Garden that night without a hitch, and even showed up on time. But I ask you: who was the jiveass here, and who showed real class?__ _

Vince Vance At The Vanguard

Ever since Sha Na Na went slippin’ and slidin’ across the stage at Woodstock on a wave of camped-up grease, 50’s-styled revivalist bands have been assured of their own special niche in the mass consciousness. Slick back your hair and away we go. Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids have been ripping it up wherever they appear, Sha Na Na are tempering their wayback machine with a delightful new approach courtesy of Jeff Barry, and Grease has come to Broadway.

The latest addition to the grease-andspit sweepstakes is Vince Vance & the Valiants, who at first glance might seem to be just another follow-the-leader operation^ but in reality are of a substantially different breed. In the first place, these are not college kids with a concept (Sha Na Na) or suburban punks too young to have seen the phenomenon they parody first-hand (Flash Cadillac). Vince Vance & the Valiants come the closest to actually capturing the spirit of those Fabulous Fifties because they, unlike the others, have somehow managed to avoid the fact that 1959 was over twelve years ago.

And, although their live show — which owes a lot to the Coasters’ practice of working up little visual stories to accompany their songs — just might be the most energetic of any of the revivalists, the music it’s built upon comes from a crucially different perspective.

Vance and his entourage (which numbers a full twelve pieces) hail from New Orleans, and are a Southern rock and roll band in the same sense as, say, the Allman Brothers. “The old rock and roll spirit has never left New Orleans,” remarked Vince. “People down here still hate the Beatles because they look like queers.” They’re exceptionally wellversed in the musical traditions of that city, as well as the rockabilly which has never really released its grip on our Southern extremities. Where most of the revivalist attempts at recording have failed dismally because they focus on material too familiar for any extraneous identity, Vince Vance feels that with vaults full of undiscovered New Orleans and rockabilly gems, such a problem will never arise for his Valiants.

The accompanying photo spread should tell you why, even if you’re not interested in an education in the rock and roll tradition of the South, Vince Vance and the Valiants are an act not to be missed.

Burton Cummings Soul And Inspiration

Regarding the following comments made by One Who Knows in the Nov. ’72 CREEM, “Burton Cummings is the rightful and unquestionable heir to Jim Morrison’s spiritual mantle.” I can vouch for that; every word is true!

Awhile ago, Randy Bachman, who wrote “American Woman” as a boy-girl riff before Cummings added the “changed” lyrics, was illuminating upon why he quit the Guess Who, and a lot of it had to do with Burton. “I used to go over to Burton’s house once every couple of weeks to write tunes. One day I walked in and his whole bedroom was completely done in Jim Morrison posters. Not little pictures, but huge posters; the walls, the ceilings,. . . everything! And he was wearing a little strand of beads like Morrison, too, ana he/Started to stand on stage with his legs wrapped around the stand, you know, the uh ... mike symbol...”

Burton blew it with Randy when the Guess Who played the first half of a Creedence Clearwater show at the Los Angeles Forum three years ago, when both groups were very hot. “Towards the end of our set, I could sense there was this whirlwind in the audience. We were getting to them and something was gonna happen in our last number, a great standing ovation or something. Our show closer was going to be ‘American Woman’ ... but when we started up, Burton turned around and told us that we were gonna do ‘Friends of Mine’, which was his pseudo-Morrison song. It gets into all kinds of weird trips that I don’t like, stuff like killing babies and religion. And when Burton started cursing and swearing on stage, I saw the excitement that we had been building up just ... crumble ... mothers and older brothers were taking the kids out of the arena because they didn’t want to see this ... thing happening.”

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Burton Cummings

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Bachman and the drummer both quit the group that very night, but they had to stay on to serve out contracts. He finally got a Doctor’s certificate to excuse himself from the Guess Who, his last performance being at Fillmore East early in 1971. He went off to form his own group, Brave Belt, with fellow Winnipegger Chad Allen, who founded the original Guess Who (of “Shakin’ All Over” fame) way back in 1964. Chad has since left the group, which isn’t doing very well, anyway.

Juan Rodriguez