MAIL

MAIL

Please send letters to:

MAIL Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, Ml 48012

DEAR CREEM

So, Waldo Jeffers is alive and well, and living in Durham, N.C. That is really Far-OUT!!! Hey Waldo, call me sometime and maybe we can see a movie together. Huh?

Love,

Marcia Bronson

Stratford, N.J.

CULTURE CLASH ...

I don’t want you to feel that I am ungrateful, but I must return the gift you sent.

Not only did the record, enclosed, make me sick, but I as well as my wife went into convulsions right afterwards. We played it at a low volume for about 6 seconds and that was all we could take. Some of the members of the Marshall Tucker band and the Wet Willie band were present (i think) and no one liked it, so you can take your cultural exchange program and stick it in your pop!

Inside the liner is a message inscribed on the vynal [sic]. Again, thank you for the gift, but no thanks!

Kindest regards,

Mike Hyland

Macon, Ga.

(CREEM’s gift to Mike, who works for the Allman Brothers down there where the jams are laid back and the chicken’s fine, was a mint copy of Raw Power by Iggy & the Stooges. We sent it with a note suggesting a sort of ‘‘cultural exchange” by way of thanking them for the Allmans, Wet Willie and} Marshall Tucker. The album was return with the cover banged to hell, “BANNED IN MACON” scrawled on front and back, and black bars a la National Enquirer drawn across Ig’s eyes in all the jacket pix. Best of all was the record itself — Mike had taken a whittlin’ knife and slashed into the grooves on both sides the words “NO THANKS.” This artifact should be in a time capsule, and Mike, we love you — can we interest you in a mellow little group called the New York Dolls? — Ed.) ' j

E'S FLAT AH'S FLAT TOO

Lou Reed once told me he wanted to give everybody in the state of Nevada an electric guitar and an amp, teach them an “E” chord, and at noon on an appointed day have them all play it at once. A year later (’69) I asked him about the idea and he said “There’s no point in it... There’s enough shitty white blues bands playing all their material in the key of ‘E.’ ”

Peter Laughner Cleveland Heights, Ohio P.S. A good hangover fs like taking a snort of cocaine when you’ve got the Hong Kong flu.

GFR PUT DOWN TO EARTH

Lester Bangs is really screwed up. He’s the last of thediehards to bring down Grand Funk Railroad. In your Sept, issue, Bangs starts off by saying about his interview with GFRR^ “I didn’t really believe most of the things I said to them. So the whole situation was a setup.”

Bangs, you really think you’re a prog. You know it all, so your testing GRF. Trying to make them soung like idiots. Well Lester you came out a bigger fool than you really are.

Grand Funk is down to earth. They’ve been around the world. They see all this pollution. I know l and everybody else would take their word rather than a little skinny goofe lookin critict called Lester.

They treated you to dinner. Which anybody would treasure. But you went back to your office and referred to them as 3 dum dogs. I really wonder about you.

Finally, Mr. Bangs, treat yourself to one of their concerts. Or buy their latest LP. You cant be that bad Lester. Your one critict who puts them down. Just like all the rest. But as you’ll see, thats what they feed on. The more you put them down the greater they become - so thank you.

Steve Roak

San Pedro, Calif.

GODZ LIVE ON (IN AUCKLAND)

dear mr creem ,

i have recently acquired a record by the godz i am losing sleep

who axe the godz and why did they do those things?

please forward me your issue with lester

bangs’ article on same

if you have any available

i’m sure you’ll want some money first so if

you could advise me of what’s required i shall

send it posthaste

i’d like to do this by airmail if possible otherwise it takes an age i will be more than happy to totally refund you

thanks for your trouble

i many sleep better in the knowledge that

enlightenment is on the way

yours

t g hogan

parnell

auckland

new Zealand

(Depending on how you look at it, the Godz were either the most outrageous act or the biggest insult in the history of rock and roll. Only they know why. But they do have a new album coming out, unearthed from halcyon days and Bernard St oilman’s dungeon. We’ll keep you posted. —Ed.)

MAKING IT

Your magazine makes it. Before you dismiss this as idle flattery, let me hasten to add your publication is certainly not without serious flaws. I won’t pretend I’m oblivious to such faults as including articles about people I don’t care about; news that’s never less than three weeks old upon publication; and a stubborn insistence upon blatantly not printing my letters... Screw all that. The rest of the “rock” publications are either illiterate or so sophisticated that they obviously feel compelled to widely stray from rock (or even rock related) subjects. While Rolling Stone has incisive interviews with such rock luminaries as Buckminster McLuhan, Circus prints pimply pre-pubescent “poetry” from readers. Who needs full color glassies of Jethro Tull or Carole King with accompanying articles that read like Weekly Reader? And I don’t choose a “rock” magazine with sophisticated well written articles about L. Ron Hubbard or (yawn of yawns) ecology.

In the final analysis CREEM’s adherence to subject is reassuring. But it’s your overall amorality that binds you to rock ’n’ roll an4 ultimately makes you “America’s only Rock ’n’ Roll magazine.”

Appreciatively,

Wayne Alban

N.Y., N.Y.

P.S. If your next issue mentions Watergate or Geraldo Rivera, kindly ignore this letter.

GROUPIE BULLETIN

O Lover Boy(s). What would you think if the Who would make celluloid their version of the rock Opera “Tommy”? Well, they’ll be here in November and I plan to find out. With my faithful sidekicks Leslie Starr and Queenie and perhaps we can (PERHAPS! We Will —*L. Starr). Can you? O yes, Love BOY(S), (special word to David Johansen, put your face to this Lover, kissy kissy, to the rest go screw!). We gotta idea (groupies here in Hollywierd), why not have a Groupie of the Year. The sluts (not me... Damn it!) send in the resume and a photo of themselves along a photo of them in their most bizarre rag... oo Wow!

Leslie & Candy Barr

Los Angeles, Calif.

(We hear there’s already a Groupies Top'Ten; anybody got more info on this? — Ed.)

HOW TO AVOID PROSTATE

If you’re a writer like me and can’t afford to spend all that money to copyright your music the dignified way, do as I do. Wright out your words and music and put it in an envelope, address it to yourself and mail it in a public mailbox. When it comes back the postmark is the official date. If you don’t open it it’s as good as gold. You will have a great, cheap copyright.

Billy Gee .

Proctor, Ark.

THE TRUTH ABOUT ALICE (NO. 43)

No, you are wrong, as usual. Alice Cooper’s real name is not Vincent Fumier. Since your lame-assed reasearch staff is too busy barfing on Miller High Life, I will elaborate.

Vince Furnier was a pimply, pitted 15 year old during the ’67 Summer of Love crisis. Hoping to make it at Ass, Heaven, he lammed out of Phoenix on a Santa Fe freight, jumped off somewhere between Anaheim and Cucamonga and hitched north. He finally reached the Haight on 8/7/67 and, I have it on good authority, was found dead two weeks later in a doorway. It is believed he was sold a Frisco speedball by one Dan Silverstein (aka Dan Hicks, a notorious pusher) freaked out and beat his head on the pavement causing a fatal concussion.

The story does not end there, however. Vince was buried in a Potter’s field and exhumed some six weeks later during a full moon by Frank Zappa. Zappa needed a fairly fresh corpse for his Black Mass ritual to raise the shade of Spike Jones, his gum. Amazingly enough, Zappa found, rammed up Vince’s butt and totally overlooked by the coroner, a YMCA card with picture positively identifying the deceased as 15 year old Vince Fumier of Phoenix, Arizona.

Zappa passed the card thru the underground of the time, and it eventually wound up on the Coop’s lap. He submitted to minor plastic surgery to conform with the picture. He felt it was that worthwhile to mask his true identity.

And his true identity is — Bronsilaw Stowalski, small arms expert and notorious transvestite remotely connected with the Provo Wing of the Free Polish Peoples’ Catholic Insurrectionist movement. He was forced to flee from Poland in 1957 during the wiping up movement after the Hungarian revolt. He came, disguised as a kielbasa, on a Roumanian ship to Montreal and was smuggled into the U.S. over the Vermont state line.

He hopes to earn enough money as a rock star to bring his whole family over.

Don’t ask Vince’s parents about this or Lester Bangs for that matter. They’re only in it for the money.

Yrs truly

(Arrived unsigned, sans postage or postmark. — Ed.) pij

TODDBALL

All the young kids in Philadelphia look like Todd Rundgren?

To disprove this, I assembled 43 young kids off of authentic Philadelphia street corners; not one passed the test. I did spot one that looked like Ben Franklin and even one that kind of looked like Fabian.

The thing that’s keeping me up nights, though, is the amazing resemblance that the other 41 bore to both our illustrious mayor, Frank Rizzo and our lovely lady Harlow. Do you think? Nah... it’s impossible...

t i should know,

wild april

Philadelphia, pa.

P.S. Print this and next month I’ll tell you why Toddo REALLY multi-striped his hair. (We already know why: so he wouldn’t look like Dom DeLuise. — Ed.)

CAUTIONARY NOTE

IMBEWARE!!! Masturbation causes cancer.

Belatedly;

Edward G. Robinson

Straight Up

P.S. Don’t forget to watch my new movie “Soylent Green” from MGM.

GILBERT THE DILBERT

Please lay off my love Gilbert O’Sullivan. If he says he can “get down,” then he can. With such monster groups as Alice, Iggy, etc., don’t you think pefhaps he is the opposite symbol of innocence and purity? The world needs both styles.

Jean

Nashville, Tenn.

MASCULINE ARROGANCE BLOWS

I love the 4 Seasons. I don’t think rock V roll needs “masculine arrogance.” Why be snide about them? I always sigh when I hear “Candy Girl” and “Marlena.” You call them “featherweights.” They’re heavyweights to me.

And by the way, what’s wrong with a man singing “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”? Can’t a man want to be friends for a long time instead of just for a night, too? Can’t you look at the song as at least partly meaning that?

Bye Bye,

Jonathon Richman

Hollywood, Calif.

(Mr. Richman is lead singer for the Modern Lovers, a new band of some notoriety. - Ed.)

ZEP SCOOP

Yep, no doubt about it: CREEM knows how to make the kind, of offer a rock band can’t refuse or the kind of offer a rock band can refuse — and doesn’t ~ or doesn’t make the kind of offer a rock band can refuse or whatever it was that Wenner didn’t do.

Your September Zeppelin coverage was great but this really didn’t surprise me since CREEM is often great. I did not mean to imply that the Rolling Stone/Zep squabble was other than an isolated phenomeon, whatever its significance, and made light of the whole affair, so comfy was I in the knowledge that what I couldn’t find in Stone would pop up in CREEM and vice versa. I bet Zeppelin was onto this too when they hung up on Wenner.

Thank you for pointing out this source of confusion in People.

Best wishes,

Jed Home

People .Magazine

N.Y., N.Y.

MUZAK PARANOIA

Yesterday I saw a bumper sticker reading “Think Muzak.” Do you think this was one of Nixon’s campaign stickers? A Lawrence Welk propaganda effort? Just a sign of the times? What kind of mind could think muzak? I am very distressed over this.

William Boyd

Moline, Ill.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 82.

moiL

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10.

A SANE TURNIP

I always knew you had a great magazine, but you’ve added a magic ingredient; taste good. A favorable review of those groovies Mott the Hoople by the king of bore Lester Bangs was the last thing any sane turnip would’ve expected. One would hope you have the good sense to shove Lester back into his crypt and let this magnificent write-up stand as his epitaph. Oh yeah, you better tell Overend to dump the stacked heels before he falls over and breaks his face, Remember we don’t want magazines with good taste...

Fang

Warren, Mi.

EXPECTORANT

I have received your first issue of CREEM and have concluded that it isn’t what I had expected. Cancel my subscription immediately.

Elise Cour^nd

Biloxi

HO HUM

Alice Cooper’s use of alcohol is strictly medicinal. He’s sick.

Peter Pan

Nevernever Land

(Just goes to show you, we’ll priht anything, folks! - Ed.)

STILL NO AIR

When Ig and the boys were here in concert, there was a'break in the middle of the set while Iggy had an oxygen tank wheeled out for his own use. Scott took a couple drags too. Alot of people laughed, but it kinda scared me. What’s up?

As a fanatic, I would like to thank and congradulate the Stooges for the best rock & roll record ever made. I’ve listened to it everyday for two months and it still gives me goose bumps. It’s much too much!

Jim Kearns

St. Louis, Mo.

(Maybe they$ were going skindiving. - Ed.)

CREEM CASUALTY

For over a year now I’ve been reading CREEM regularly, buying a lot of records and stuff because CREEM said they were good and not buying stuff CREEM said wasn’t good, and making public my CREEM-inspired feelings on certain bands and kinds of dope and things. Now because of, that all my old friends that I used to fart around and listen to Jethro Tull with think I’m some kind of human retardo or something and avoid me. And I don’t have any new friends. Also, I bought this book Naked Lunch by William Burroughs because Lester Bangs is always plugging him and before I had a chance to read much of it one of the nuns (teachers) at 'my school (Catholic) catches me with it (this was last spring when school was in) and gives me this big uptight private lecture on how sick it is and tells me that “[my] lack of security in [my] existence is very sad.” I don’t know what she meant exactly either but you know how embarrassing-that sort of thing is, and this was this young, pretty and uninhibited nun that I kind of like, and I’ll probably have her next year too and she’ll still hate me. You’ve really fucked up my life, CREEM magazine. I was much happier when I was just a punk and not a sophisto punk.

Binky Brown

Columbus, Ohio

(Stand by us, we’ll stand Jby you even after we’ve ruined your life. You just got a freesubscription. - Ed.)