DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL

by David Marsh

Well, This Month Might Be Okay

Boston, March 10

I am not finding it any easier to listen to the radio. Having moved to Boston, ,1 find myself desperately longing for Wolfman Jack, who can make the most banal trash interesting, if only at the beginning and the end of the record. The most creative acts I’ve witnessed in Boston radio — at least musically: WBCN-FM has been doing very good things with feminist programming — have been Arnie “Woo Woo” Ginsburg’s appearance at a party for a departing, but beloved member of the i staff of The Real Paper, my new venue, and a WRKO segue of Rick Derringer’s new “Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo” with his old (with the McCoys) “Hang On Sloopy.” \

Why doesn’t Stax reissue “Starting All Over Again,” by Mel & Tim? Why isn’t Elliott Murphy’s “Like A Great Gatsby” a hit, tied in with Paramount’s release of Gatsby as a movie? What attraction has ragtime to a singer as gifted as Diana Ross, and a public as generally tasteful as AM’s?

“Starting All Over Again” was already the best record of 1972; history is not that cyclical, or that rapid, if it is.

“Like A Great Gatsby” is not a hit, because it isn’t “Like A Great Gatsby” any longer. It is now called “Like A Crystal Microphone,” or something, because Paramount threatened to sue Murphy if he didn’t change the title. (You can’t copyright titles, but you can get injunctions while losing in court; but Robert Redford isn’t going to be as . good a Gatsby as Warren Beatty would have been, so maybe Paramount is justified in being so paranoid. I’ll bet their soundtrack is a zinger — more ragtime, and I’ll vomit.) In any event, Elliott Murphy’s new single is the notnearly-so-terrific “How’s the Family.” Close, but no cigar.

As for ragtime: Diana Ross has rarely, in a mottled career, done so poorly by her talent. Helen Reddy’s “Ruby Red Dress” also shows the influence, but she’s stupid, so that figures. Ragtime is the core of those Dawn hits, sung with laryngitic acuity by the tuneless Tony Orlando and two nondescript women of uncertain — Latin? Black? Italian? Portugese? — ancestry. Dawn are, more or less, to be forgiven. Any ship in a storm, especially for the talentless; it’s not their fault that program directors play, and consumers purchase, such irksome dreck. A1 Hirt has been busy getting a divorce, or he’d no doubt be gracing us with a trumpet instrumental based upon “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” or the equally regressive “Last Time I Saw Him.” Will Mr. Acker Bilk become p.d. of the Drake chain?

But heaven help us all if the noodlenoggined serivenings of J.Brel and R.McKuen become a fad. I am, indeed, feeling a lot more cantankerous than usual this month — it must be the beans; it’s certainly not the breeze — but then, isn't ‘’Seasons in the Sun” topping the chart this week? Isn’t “Boogie Down,” which must be a fine disco record but serves the same function on radio that teats do on a bull, Number Two? Barbra Streisand, a brilliant actress with an abrasively irritant voice, holds down the third spot. The best two records in the Top Ten are by Carly Simon and Aretha Franklin, which vindicates last month’s spew concerning the superiority of 1974 s women singers, but is only halfway good news, as far as I’m concerned. (Please Note: David Geffen is being given credit for Simon-Taylor’s success; he had nothing at all to do with signing or promoting her, aside from being elevated to the. chairmanship of her record company at a peculiarly opportune moment. This won’t rectify a thing, of course, but it makes me feel a smidgen better.)

The best songs in the March Top 50? “Jet,” which is, with the exception of the ever-popular “Instant Karma,” the best post-Beatles single; “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone — where did they learn to do soul music so well?; the aforementioned “Rock & Roll Hoochie ■ ,{jj Koo.”

As for the new stuff, I believe I have some explaining to do. Wayne Robins, CREEM’s New York editor, a dolt though he is my friend, informs me that our four-speed rating system soared right past his dipsomaniacal noggin. For those others of you too double-clutched to figure out such trivial devices, this illumination should suffice: in days of yore, American automobiles had to be shifted manually, and there were no seatbelts. The manual shifting process involved three gears, forward: 1st, from 0 to about 15 miles per hours; 2nd, from 15 to about 35; 3rd, from abut 35 to about as fast as the car would travel. Later, Overdrive was introduced by elitist European sports car manufacturers; American manufacturers coped by lending the gear the more populist term: 4th. Following our theorem — a good single is worth 10 m.p.h. in the car — you will note that we have discovered a cheerily appropriate metaphor for the best of each month’s dreck. This month, in honor of the basic CREEM editorial notion (never use one syllable where two are possible), we introduce our own Overdrive.

Buckle up, or the car won’t start.

OVERDRIVE

“The Loco-Motion,” Grand Funk Railroad (It is possible that Little Eva, Act I: Newcastle, England. The 1950s “Things don’t happen by accident. . wherever she may be resting her revolving buttocks today, wept when she heard this; tears of joy, one would hope, but hardly dare to .presume. Who cares what Carole King thinks, in that case?) 82, bullet, in March 9’s Billboard (whence all these figures).

TURN TO PAGE 80.

The story begins quite near the end of lonely street. In a brick white pleasure dome, a stranded cruiser. There are faded palm trees on a foggy day, mean red houses, and the doorman spits into a paper bag. THE ROXY, it says. Silhouettes in the frames — they’re showing Garden of Eden (for your pleasure), X-rated and Bryan has to climb in through the bathroom. A little scrap of a lad, neat and brylcreemed, alone in the plush seats except for two old-age pensioners snogging in the back row. They’re the only regulars, keeping warm, skiving off school, come into the real, bright, world where love is LOVE and people die with a SPLAT and smile with a GLEAM and James Dean runs WITHOUT TAKING HIS HANDS OUT OF HIS POCKETS! Images to guard warily, keep polished while walking home through Newcastle’s pinched grey faces. Bring ’em out again only in your sister’s room. Tight dresses and lipstick and rock ’n’ roll records and one fine time she Wins two tickets from Radio Luxemburg to see Bill Haley and it’s JUST LIKE BEING IN THE ROXY! The dancehall is bright and sharp and smart; the dancers flash with the beat; the Geordie lads and the Hollywood stars (seen him at the movies haven’t I?) commune. Do the Strand, love, cos Bryan can’t separate them — films and rock ’n’ roll whirling him around. Ginger Rogers boooine and down on the corner H.B. is slashing away at the lapels of his drape jacket. Passe and a stink of beer.

Act II: Newcastle, England. The 1960s “I think I’m basically a blues singer, um, to tell you the truth...”

The stage is now the Newcastle University social building. Gasboard are on stage, eight pieces in bobby sox and letter sweaters and white shoes and white jeans. The singer’s still got brylcreem but he sounds like Otis Redding and Bobby Bland and goes through Chuck Berry paces. He’s been following new dreams: the Animals at the Club A Go Go, modern jazz in the Modern Jazz Cellar; the cycle club and Billie Holliday. Still alone though, even when he was singing in workingmens clubs: “We thought we were avant-garde but it wasn’t much of a mental thing for me. I picked up the music thing.” And concentrated on his art course. Painting sounds, flowers for teacher who was Richard Hamilton, England’s greatest pop artist. Except that Bryan Ferry was going to be greater and his family thought he was mad and were great too, pushed him on and he even got a degree.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 26.

THIRD GEAR H

“Weya,” Manu Dibango (pick; never happen). “1 Washed My Hands In Muddy Water,”, Charlie Rich (pick; how could I have been so wrong about “Love Song” and “There Won’,t Be Anymore?” This could be FIVE in a row — I’d no longer bet against it.)

SICBMI GEAR H*

“My Mistake Was To Love You,” Marvin Gay^ and Diana Ross (67, bullet; not so good as their best, but an improvement over both “Sure Love to Ball” and that club-footed rag-time abomination). “Mighty, Mighty,” Earth Wind & Fire (95; this dance music works on radio: hot group.)

»H FIRST Sill

“Oh My My,” Ringo Starr (65, bullet, first week; not as good as Maggie Bell’s version, for which you should watch, but an improvement over “You’re Sixteen”). “Touch A Hand, Make A Friend,” Staples Singers (53, bullet. They haven’t made a bad record since about 1969, and this is no time to quibble, even though they are starting to repeat themselves in every way.) “Did You No Wrong,” J. Geils Band (104, bubbling under; their first really excellent pop song. This would be Second Gear, easily, if it were ip the Hot 100 itself.)

•H IITUII

It’s getting overcrowded down here. The champ is “Unborn Child,” by Seals & Crofts; these cosmic veg-a-matics should be raped, navelly, and impregnated with a combination of puff adder ovum and eel sperm for daring to butt in with such reactionary sentiment. Mind your own business, you semi-Oriental creeps!

And speaking of creeps, let’s not forget that Harry Chapin, who matches his .crassness with almost unsurpassed stupidity, yet eclipses even those with his utter lack of talent * is still racking up sales with wonderful “W.O.L.D.” It’s enough to make you take the bus.