THE BEAT GOES ON

Winchester Man Lips A Stiff One

Anyone with even an occasional eye to the tube is no doubt aware of the cultural phenomenon known as the "cigarette man." Or rather was aware, before the F.C.C. so neatly — if somewhat belatedly — invited cigarette advertising not to appear on television, thereby freeing us forever from the Marlboro Man and his soul buddies. Forever? Well, almost.

The latest cancer stix to infest the market are "little cigars," and the most recently unavoidable is something called Winchester. They may be ringers for your basic filter-tip, but they're really cigars, see, and as such are exempt from the F.C.C. flat. So after only a brief

respite from the hearty, bite-throughthe-filter grins of the Marlboro Man, the crotchless and chromed misogynist with his precious Silva Thins, the guy racking up tireless miles around the globe for a pack of Camels (and his sibling in the filter department, with a Dartmouth diploma stapled to his fly), we are subject to yet another visitation of nicotine-made-flesh-and-bone: the Winchester Man.

A clever cross between a wimpy SoCal beach boy and Kid Cajones, this Winchester Man is the spitting image of Jo Jo Gunne's Jay Ferguson, and at least as plausable as Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo. Why, he even saunters around to a jingle based on Santana's "Evil Ways"!

His number is to bullshit various fat and impotent old men out of the way, and then, with the help of a short but very stiff Winchester, scoop up the

languishing sex object and split for the nearest waterbed. Despite the cowboy suit, his inoffensively longish hair still puts him on the other side of the ideological Rio Grande from the Marlboro/Nixon archetype; but the message they and all the others share is an obsessively sexist image: "Smoke my brand, pal, and you'll score "til your dong drops off."

Aside from the insult value, the really insidious aspect of this approach is that it hits people precisely where they're most vulnerable: in their pants. As an inveterate smoker, I detest the preachy dicta of the anti-smoking groups; I know it's bad for me, for chrissake, every smoker does. The only people who recommend smoking are the people who make things to smoke. And, come to think of it, the Winchester Man may be the best reason on two feet why you shouldn't smoke. C'mon F.C.C., the Marlboro Man has ridden off into his last video sunset, won't you send the Winchester Man to the Big Waterbed In The Sky? Or, at the very least, to the pages of Reader's Digest. G?rrit Graham Despite reports published in nearly every existing music paper that Little Feat has broken up, it ain't so. Understandably, Lowell George is mightily pissed off.

The Continuing Saga Of Little Feat

"That was all jive-ass bullshit," he declares in no uncertain terms. What happened, according to George, is this.

One day he dropped by John Sebastian's house to hear a tape of a' new Sebastian song. George's harmony part fit in perfectly with the two voices already on the tape, and there was talk of George, Sebastian, and Phil Everly going on the road together. However, the idea never got past the tentative talk stage, because Lowell and Phil Everly didn't get along with each other personally as well as they did musically.

Meanwhile, George explains, "Some jerk in Warner's publicity department told some jerk from the Hollywood Reporter that there was this new supergroup of me, Sebastian and Everly. This guy put it in the Hollywood Reporter. Then Rolling Stone magazine said this new supergroup is taking place and Little Feat is breaking up because of it. Of course they never checked with anyone in the group, so there was never a denial made of it. They're fulla shit; they're so hungry, all those people are so hungry for gossip that they just gotta dump all that bullshit on everybody."

Lowell George reserves the choicest of expletives for those two journals, but it's also true that several other publications picked up the story from there and also ran it without checking. So here's Little Feat with an album around the bottom of the charts, another one about to be made, and the group is looking for gigs when the word goes out they're no longer in existence. The album, which is receiving almost no promotion anyhow, immediately falls off the charts. Studio time for the next one is hard to come by. There are no bookings.

It reached the point where the frus-

trated Lowell George was shopping around for a new label. But once the dust had settled he was able to get what he wanted from his current company, and the band went into the studio to make a new album for Warner's, with George himself producing for the first time. The album will be out probably in February, and George is promising that it will be different this time.

The reason is that shortly before the rumor spread, Little Feat had expanded. The remaining original members were George on guitar and vocals, Richard Hayward on drums, and Bill Payne on piano. Paul Barrere was added as second guitarist to bounce off George. Kenny Gradney came in on bass (replacing Roy Estrada, who went with Captain Beefheart), and Sam Clayton (Merry's brother) joined on congas. The latter two are black, and George says they have forced a change in the group's sound.

"We're more together for one thing, because everybody's a bit more involved and there's more concern with the total product this time," he claims. "Musically, the black cats have told the drummer he's got to play more funky. So Richie's gotta play a little more like Bernard Purdie to satisfy everybody in the band, and Billy's gotta play a little bit cleaner, and so forth. Which is real good, because you can only stay in one place so long before you get bored with it, and before we got in the new guys we were getting bored.

"The music is similar to the last albums, but it's very different, too. It's hard to explain, so you'll just have to wait for the album to come out. But I don't think there's been anything quite like it before. As producer, I've had to insist that I'm gonna be the leader of this turkey and you guys gotta fall in line. You get to do what you wanna do, but there are certain restrictions around it. You gotta give me the benefit of the doubt and I won't do you wrong. Which has been working great, because like Billy definitely has his own definitive piano style, but he hasn't had many solo chances on the records. This time there's lotsa piano, and he really needed that chance to stretch out. Paul's been playing a lot more guitar, and I'm not playing a lot because I got to do that on the last one. I even heard Steven Stills playing on his new record some of my licks, which is flattering, but I sure wish I was making a living. I mean, we all like being an underground success, but we'd also like to go and play to an audience."

That's the crucial point. Both Little Feat albums have been critical successes, and the band has managed to build a small cult following. There are even those who will tell you that Little Feat

is the last rock and roll band in Los Angeles. But commercially they've hardly made a dent; while the status of underground hero might be nice for romanticists, the members of Little Feat are realists. They'd like their music to be heard on the radio, they'd like to be able to do a concert tour, and they'd like a few more burgers on the table. They were just picking up some momentum when the breakup story hit, so they have that to overcome, too.

Lowell George is now harboring a tempered confidence. For one thing, the band finally has a manager. He's Bob Cavallo, who also handles John Sebastian, and he'll take the business burdens off George. Warner's has promised some badly-needed promotion on the new album. And Bonnie Bramlett, who sings with George on one cut on the LP, will probably tour with the group, thereby assuring them an audience; so if the band flops, at least they know they have no one to blame but themselves.

Lowell George and Little Feat are ready and rarin" to go.

John Morthland

Robert Lamm Solos On Axe

We aren't normally in the habit of running press releases, most of which are fit only for scrap-paper at best. This one, however, seems to say everything that needs to be said, and a lot that its authors probably aren't even aware of.

ROBERT LAMM SOLOS ON AXE or The Band That Slays Together ...

Among the members of Chicago, composer-pianist Robert Lamm is known as "Mr. Chops," a name derived from Chopin. This soubriquet received a new meaning on Sunday, October 8th, when Lamm took an axe and chopped his piano almost to bits before an astounded yet understanding audience at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.

Lamm's action, while dramatic, was no mere exercise in theatricality. He felt compelled to destroy the instrument because it was, in essence, a terrible piano — absurdly out of tune, with some notes missing, and a score of keys that would not work when struck.

The events leading up to the Marquette performance had their beginnings with a rider to Chicago's concert contract. While the group carried almost everything they need on the road, the one item which does not travel with the band is the concert grand piano, which Lamm requires. Pianos are sensitive, delicate instruments which do not hold well in transit. Therefore, the Chicago contract specifies that the promoter must provide the band with an ebony concert grand piano, made by Baldwin, and tuned to the international concert pitch of A=440 Hz at 5:00 on the afternoon of the performance.

The piano on the first date of Chicago's Autumn college tour met few, if any, of the required specifications. It was at that point Lamm decided that in the future, if he were provided with a substandard piano, he would destroy that piano in order to save it. To accomplish that objective, he bought a small axe, which Chicago's road crew has placed at the side of each subsequent piano "just in case."

"The ultimate frustration for a musician is to be forced to play an instrument of no quality whatsoever," Lamm states. "Therefore, if I ever come across a piano that is out of tune and which cannot be played, I will eliminate that instrument so other pianists will be saved the embarrassment of playing it."

It was at Northern Michigan University where Lamm was able to put his new policy into action. Although the music department there possessed two concert grand pianos that met Chicago's specifications and although they were advised of the probable fate awaiting a piano of poor condition, the group was provided with a baby grand piano of unknown manufacture and without any redeeming musical value.

The moment of decision came during what is usually a free-form piano solo performed by Lamm immediately before "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? As soon as Robert struck his first chord, he knew what he must do. Grabbing his axe, he first went for the

strings, followed by the sounding board, keys, and woodworking, which had already been mutilated through years of misuse. Lamm explained his actions to the audience following the performance of the song. Officials at Northern Michigan University, apparently aware of the piano's original condition, have not complained about the incident.

Lamm has learned a great deal from his experience at Marquette. "The axe I used was too small; it was more like a hatchet," he explained. "I've obtained a four-foot fireman's axe for the next tour, which should be much more effective. Also, the rest of the group will join me in destroying the next bad piano we find on our stage.

"Hopefully, I will never have to do this again," Lamm continued. "But as long as promoters violate our contract concerning pianos, I will continue to violate their pianos."

Drug-Crazed Rastafarians Conquer Known World

O HOY YOU DERE! I'm the man who gave you (indecipherable). And I'm backwidda BAAAD soun, a SCORCHIf^ soun. An a sexxxxxy soun too. It the one that .... RAT ONN rat on.

(singer): Every night me go to bed, me have wet dream. HA! HA!

HEAR WHAT DA MAN SAY! HA! HE GOTTIT MADE LIKEA HAN GRENADE! HA!

Lie down gal lemme push it up push it up.

You stand in your bright corner, I stand in mine. I can take all the punches you throw me.

— excerpts from "Wet Version" by Dave Barker.

Dave Barker.

By now, everybody knows that "Mother And Child Reunion" by Paul Simon is an example of something called reggae music, even if nobody knows what exactly it is or even how to pronounce it. It's a musical form that has enjoyed a whole lot of popularity in England but which, for several reasons, doesn't seem fated to be too successful over here. Without getting too analytical about it, I'd say it's because 1) penetrating the Jamaican dialect is nigh impossible, and 2) the form is so strictlydefined as to seem monotonous to the uninitiated.

Still, if you're looking for an underground, reggae is it. The odd, static beat, combined with the out-of-tune instruments and usually indecipherable

vocal, adds up to an experience a lot of people find they like. And there's no real need for bringing it up now, except that there are signs that America may well be developing a reggae subculture whether it wants it or not. Consider the large number of pop/reggae songs that are becoming popular here: "Love Is Strange" by Wings, Simon's song of course, "Sisters O Sisters" and the rest.

Add to this the fact that Shelter Records, of all people, has started to establish its place as the country's premiere reggae label, and has released no fewer than four singles of reggae classics, including The Maytals" "54-46 Was My Number," The Classics" "Mr. Fire Coal Man," Hugh Roy's "Flashing My Whip," and Freddie McKay's "Sweet You, Sour You." Roy's song is back-to-back with the Classics, oddly enough, but there may be a reason for this tentative way of doing business. The last attempt to popularize reggae over here — by Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label — almost went bankrupt the day it started. But Thiele was selling albums. Or trying to.

If you're interested in gen-you-wine reggae, there aren't many places you can go to find it, but maybe your favorite British import store would order you The Trojan Story (Trojan TALL 1), an inexpensive 3-record set which covers the history of reggae and its relatives admirably. Or write to Shelter Records at P.O. Box 2391, Hollywood, Cal/90028 and see what they can suggest. And maybe you can find some of Thiele's albums — there were four in all — lying around in the back of your favorite record store.

You might even find that you don't have to be a worshiper of Haile Sellasse or a Jamaican nationalist to like it. I'm not (I don't think), and I do (I think).

Ed Ward

Da 'K' Still Cruisin' In Big Apple

Murray The K, that ageless colossus standing so squarely astride the pubescence of everyone over 20 or so, gave all those within range of WNBC Swingin" Soiree one hell of a good time the other night. Besides the usual gratuitous weirdness, Murfay treated the folks to a funny and revealing dose of pop-sociohistory. In between a soul set and doo-wop set (see below), he ran his. "Record Review Board" popularitypoll, asking people to phone in votes for their favorite out of an incredibly perceptive cross-section of monster moldies, and the results were fascinatin": Carole King's "It's Too Late" finished way back, as was presumably expected by anyone with any kind of discretion; "Satisfaction" was next, surprisingly, one vote behind the Temptin" Ts" "My Girl", which was considerably further than that behind "We Can Work It Out" (b/w "Day Tripper" — altogether a classic piece of plastic); and old Elvis, of course, was out front by more votes than separated Ms. King from The Fab Four, with "Now Or Never." Which speaks volumes about the average Gothamite's good taste, the rather advanced mean age of Murray's crowd, the growing disenchantment with The Stones and their obssessive taste for vile excess, and what songs we remember as life's leaves turn slowly brown. It was all what they used to call very thoughtprovoking. Murray himself made no judgmental pronouncements, leaving you, as I will, to your own conclusions.

Oh yeah, the doo-wop set — well, between such greats as "Papa Ooo Mow Mow" and "Rama Lama Ding Dong" (don't you love it?), Murray played a seminal doo-wop riff backwards, and invited anyone who recognized it to sing it on the air, giving me 'and a few other delighted if shameless assholes the rare chance to humiliate ourselves before millions by wailing through the opening bars of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love." It was wonderful — I even got to say my name. Really, though, the outstanding thing about Murray's whole gig is his tremendous perspective on the music, and his unsurpassed understanding and control of radio as a medium for that music — as the man himself might say, it's a gas. Rave on, Murray, becaws in Noo Yawk Sitty, rock is still spelled wid a kapital K.

Gerrit Graham

Scrooge Me DuckDope Rend! _

If your childhood was gladdened, as mine was, by the monthly chronicling of the lives of Donald Duck and his kin in the pages of such magazines as Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, you are going to be gravely troubled, even saddened by the awful facts which I am about to bring to light. But the responsibility of the press is paramount, and we know that we possess our brief hour of innocence only to lose it, so duty compels me to alert America to the awful truth.

Scrooge McDuck is a drug addict.

That's right, Donald's lovable old miser of an uncle, he of the vast money bin housing uncountabatillions of dollars, the Horatio Alger work-and-win ideal of many a postwar childhood, is in reality not the sterling citizen the comics always portrayed, but a helpless, quivering slave to narcotics from the savage jungles of South America.

The whole pathetic story is revealed in the current number of the biographical journal Uncle Scrooge, published by Gold Key Comics, and if you value your own moral sanctity and that of your children, and have a strong stomach, I urge you to run right down to the nearest newsstand and pick up

this fearsome document. It costs, after all, only 15 cents.

The episode entitled "A Spicy Tale" begins with Scrooge staggering in from "sixteen hours of counting money ... We billionaires sure have a hard life! But a steaming cup of zesty NUTMEG TEA always glues my sagging bones back together!"

Note: for those lucky readers not exposed to the mores and jargon of the "rainy day woman" set, the spice called nutmeg has long been recognized by pharmacologists as having, in sufficient dosage, hallucinatory and addictive powers fully equal to those of marijuana, or perhaps even LSD! Convicts and students have often been known to abuse the subtance, for purposes of "hopping up" on a "high" which may last for as long as two days. For' a terrifying example of nutmeg's caustic effects on the nervous systems of humans and even birds, observe poor Uncle Scrooge:

"I'll have a cup right now," he mutters to himself, "then count for eight more hours and call it a day!" Note that the addict here has recourse to the drug for its stimulant, amphetamine-like as well as hallucinatory effects. But the next panel finds him in a shivering fit of "cold mallard," as the druggies call it, when his secretary tells him that, for reasons unknown, "your suppliers in South America stopped sending the special nutmegs you like!"

CONTINUED ON PAGE 78.☺

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22.

In total panic, Scrooge babbles: "My rare WILD NUTMEGS from the upper Amazon! I've GOT TO have them!" So the message is sent out on the underworld grapevine, replete with a plethora of sinister drug-world double entendres. "McDuck is on the air and up in the air at the same time," says the radio man and there is no mistaking the import. Later on, Scrooge will make a sinister comment about "kicking the tea habit." Astute readers will note in the front of the book that the article is actually a reprint from 1962, when "tea" was the most common term for marijuana in drughead argot. Is this the kind of comic book you want your children to read? If we were reading comics such as this in our formative years, is it any wonder so many of us are on the spoon, the pill, the reefer?

The story goes on to recount how the primitive tribe whose medicine man had kept Scrooge supplied with the drug have stopped pushing it, because "we have been tola that a TUTOR CORPSMAN is coming from Duckburg to teach us ignorant savages SMARTER ways to make a living!" Thank God for the

Peace Corps, or we might all be raving hopheads.

Scrooge is such a slave to the stuff, though, that he hops (get the pun?) the next jet to the primordial interior where the tribe live, only to find that his nephew Donald and his illegitimate nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie are not only on the same plane but that Donald is the corpsman assigned to bring the savages into the 20th Century. The name of the tribe is the Cura de Coco, which in their pidgen dialect means "shrinks the head." But Scrooge is so far gone he pays it no mind, and while Donald goes to the pagan village to teach some rudiments, Scrooge sneaks upriver in search of nutmegs. The tribe welcomes Donald with open arms: "Welcome to the village of the ignorant, great tutor!" hospitably offer him their wives and some crocodile bouillabaisse, and besiege him with requests for immediate education in Western Civilization; "Teach us to do the Twist! Teach us to sing like Elfish Pestly! Teach us to play BONGO DRUMS!" But they also warn direly that "When we catch somebody around who ISN'T INVITED -SKEEK!" And their fingers slash across their adam's apples.

What ensues is too ghastly to describe in a family magazine, so I will merely injure those readers of strong mind and a desire to thoroughly understand the drug problem so that it may be eradicated more quickly, I injure you to go out right now, buy the November issue of Uncle Scrooge if it's still on the stands (if it's not, thrash the newsboy raw for not keeping more in stock) and scare yourselves silly.

Schilling works best.

Lester Bangs