THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Skinnydipping With A Synthesizer

Well, not quite. But these touring limeys are such naughty boys they’ll throw everything but the mellotron into the pool whilst frolicking hotelside. What else have they got to do? Cruise K-Mart? Go to see Chariots of the Gods or Cinderella Liberty for the 533rd time? Watch old Green Acres on TV?

Nah, nah, nahhh. Their only options lie in the land of no-no’s. Nod or bod, it’s trouble with a buddle on the end wherever these blighty boogers boogie.

Latest sons o’ the aold sod to get sotted and scamper were Emerson, Lake & Palmer, or at least one-third thereof, who recently got caught with jammers down. •Way down. Out the window, in fact, and into the pool where Salt Lake City police arrested Greg Lake and four colonial buddies for swimming nude at two o’clock in the morning.

The oinkers said the five nekkid squealies told them they’d been kicking back in the Royal Inn’s sauna bath and felt like cooli»g off in the outside pool, Temp at the time was 34 degrees.

Greg and palominos Gerard Pompili, Brian MacGougan, Alex King, and Anthony Harrington were hauled into the slams and booked on charges of disorderly conduct. Said arresting officer Hud Nukes: “It wasn’t exactly the old swimming hole.” Bail was set at $100, and all five were out in time for that night’s concert, which was played in full electronic drag.

Another Day In The Life

By now some of you may have heard “rumors” to the effect that John Lennon made an entrance at the Troubadour club in Hollywood a short while ago .adorned with a Kotex on his forehead. Well the way things turned out, that was no rumor but the truth. And for those interested in further details here’s the entire story in its unexpurgated version (as told by a close confidante of the ex-Beatle).

The story goes that John phoned musician friend Jesse “Ed” Davis at the Indian’s home one afternoon and asked Jesse if he wanted to get drunk. Jesse gave an affirmative and upon Jdhn’s arrival a short while later they went to the local liquor store and purchased four (count ’em four) six-packs of Colt 45 and during the next four hours drained every can dry. Another ring on the phone an;L drummer extraordinaire Jim Keltner informed Jesse and John that Ann Peebles was closing at the Troubadour that evening and that they should/all go over to see her.

Not yet having eaten, Lenpon and Davis met Jim and Bobby Keyes at a restaurant called Lost on Larrabee but owing to the great quantities of alcohol the two had already consumed they were refused service. They did however make use of the restaurant bathrooms which are set up in-such a way that boys and girls use the same door to reach their appropriate areas. John upoh spying a Kotex machine on the wall deposited a nickel in the machine and stuck the napkin to his forehead. Driving five blocks to the Troubadour the two entered the club (John still adorned in all his splendor) and proceeded to ruin the show for everyone present.

THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

IBut we got stills (not Stephen, he's dead) of it, in case any of the historians are interested. Yes folks, this is what the most passionately conscientious generation of younguns since the Turkish Invasion has come to. You know who you are and so do we; even a jellybrain can remember his own name. But you obviously need help, so turn yourselves in to us for reprocessing, and we'll spare you the embarrassment of making your names public.

INSIDE TIPS FROM THE STARS NO. 3:

Linda Ronstadt is a star with a problem. Everytime she steps onstage, the aisles are immediately filled with dazed and panting young men, all eager to secure a helping of country cooking for themselves. How does Ms. Ronstadt prepare for these assaults? "Before every show," she confided, "I scarf a whole plate of onions and hot peppers. That keeps the wolves at bay." Unfortunately, it also makes it impossible to keep a band together for very long..,

They returned to John’s house (Lou Adler’s Bel Air residence) but found the millionaire’s mother-in-law ( staying there and then decided to drop anchor at the ex-Beatles lawyer’s home. John promptly ripped out the telephone and stomped on it after he received a phone call from wife Yoko and just as quickly made fast work of every light in the plush apartment. Sitting in total darkness Jesse saw a light from the upstairs bathroom and decided to make use of it. Coming back down 45 minutes later (it took him 20 minutes just to climb the staircase) he tripped over his pants and somersaulted down the stairway. At which point John ripped open his expensive Nikon camera and bandaged the guitarist’s head with 35 millimeter film. Jesse’s wife and John’s secretary were also present and on seeing Davis tumble down the stairs started to scream uncontrollably. Neighbors fearing the worst apparently called the police who broke down the front door and trained shotguns on those present.

John insisted he was “one of the Beatles” to no avail but luckily one of the sherriffs was an Apache Indian who recognized Jesse. The next day the whole crew went to Disneyland. Don’t you wish you were a star?

Steve Rosen

Come Bock, Little Norman Greenbaum

There is a meticulously drawn diagram of a me thanegenerating power plant on the men’s room wall in thfe Inn of The Beginning in Cotati, and a kind of semi-pretentious backwoodsy feel to the place in general, which is why the music thundering in the air seems so totally out of place. It sounds like a British rock band, one that you can’t quite put your finger on, but it sounds familiar. Now what British band in its right mind plays places like this?

Then a familiar lick, a lick that must stand next to the lick in “Satisfaction” for sheer unforgettability, a lick which sold more records for the record company that put it out than - any lick had before or has since, and a verrrrry familiar voice sings: “When I die and they lay me to rest/ Gonna go to the place that’s the best.”

Me and the British guy are sitting on Erik Jacobsen’s houseboat discussing his career. He’s talking about the unfairness of it all, how somebody like Norman Greenbaum could sell all those records and then just vanish. “Is he around, still?” asks the British guy. “Yeah,” says Jacobsen, “but he’s getting a divorce, apd his wife is getting the farm, and he’s living in a reconditioned chicken coop. You oughta go up and visit him — he’d be glad to know that people still remember him.”

“I haven’t done an interview in a while,” says Norman Greenbaum, stretching out in his so-called chicken coop, “so don’t worry about boring me.” It seems that he is glad that this Limey from the wilds of Buckinghamshire has zipped up to ’exotic Petaluma, former Chicken Capitol of the World, to speak with him, and he lovingly recounts the old days of the Doctor West’s Medicine Show and Junk Band and their quasi-hit “The Eggplant That Ate Chicago.” A series of bands followed, culminating in Norman’s being discovered at Hoot Night at the Troubador in Los Angeles by Jacobsen, who signed him to his production company. Jacobsen had scored successes with the Lovin’ Spoonful and the Sopwith Camel, and was looking for something new. He didn’t quite know what he had in Norman, but he knew he had something. Jacobsen felt “Spirit in the Sky” was too controversial, and anyway, religion didn’t sell. Ah, but it did better, as I said, than any Warner Brothers’ single before or since, and Greenbaum was an overnight sensation again. Letters poured irt: “Thank you for saving my marriage — Jesus was what I needed,” and “Dirty Jew — how dare you sing about Our Jesus like that?”

FEETS, GET ME OUTA HERE!

Jim Dandy Mangrum has seen his share of naked hellfire, that's for sure, but this particular apparition seems to have stopped the cosmic cracker in mid-squat. We were too lazy to speculate any further, so we'll let you finish it for us. Describe Jim Dandy's vision and win a prize. Best answer gets the home phone number of his or her favorite member of Black Oak Arkansas. The three runners-up get their choice of the next BOA album or something the editors of CREEM select for them from the 29 cent record bin at Woolworth's. All entries should be sent to VISION PO Box P-1064, Birmingham Mf 48012.

1974 NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

Those poor bastards.

We're not talking about the Rolling Stones, we're talking about the contraband parrots, drunk on Mexican tequila, who were stuffed in old socks and hidden in the secret compartment of some smuggler's jalopy.

The Treasury Department, which runs the U.S. customs >, service, related the sad tale in reporting a siezure at the Texas-Mexico border: "While searching a car entering the United States from Mexico at Laredo, Texas, a Treasury customs inspector discovered a hidden compartment in the vehicle's firewall.

"It was filled with socks and each sock contained a drowsy parrot. The birds had been fed tequila-drenched corn to keep them quiet during their border crossing. i

"Department of Agriculture regulations prohibit parrot importation except under special control. There is a serious danger of disease. The customs officer turned the smuggler, car and birds (drunken) over to agriculture officials."

And Keith Richard thinks he's got problems.

But the problem of assembling a band, plus a tour cut short by problems at home (a premature baby), all but killed the skyrocketing success Greenbaum might have had. The followup single (“Canned Ham”) was a flop, the Back Home Again album was, -(too, and Norman decided to risk all on. a timely, catchy single, “California Earthquake.” “It did okay, but ultimately it didn’t go anywhere. I sat back, and I said, well, I’m not a rock and roller. I got money — fuck it. And I went into the dairy business.” 45 goats, Velvet Acres goat milk, available in Berkeley and Marin health food stores. It just about broke even. A third album, fetchingly titled Petaluma, dealt with the farm at some length. The music was allacoustic, and Greenbaum gojt excited about touring as fcn acoustic act. But the record company blew it, then the divorce started to happen, and Greenbaum fell into a funk. Convinced he was a failure, he never went out to promote the album, and things just gradually fell apart.

But sometime last year, Greenbaum got that old itch again, and the itch was made even itchier by his discovery of a fine young band that had been playing around Sonoma County for quite a while — Crossfire. He decided that he would like to produce them, wrote them a couple of tunes, and when the smoke cleared, they asked him to join the band as their vocalist. He accepted.

As the British guy and I left the farm, Greenbaum was hard at work, pasting white chicken feathers on a white shirt. Greenbaum and Crossfire were going to debut two days hence at a party thrown by a San Francisco Top 40 station for their advertisers, and Norman was going to come out dressed in the shirt and yellow tights, throwing eggs of papier-mache from a basket, singing “Petaluma.” Not quite Alice Cooper, but...

A couple of weeks later, they played the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Auditorium, on the same stage where the Who and the Yardbirds had made rock history in Sonoma County. Some teenagers, totaled on reds, managed to smash seven plateglass windows and then charged the stage, chasing the band away. Amazing! Norman Greenbaum Causes Rock Riot! “Yeah,” Crossfire’s organist, Mitch Froom, said later, “They like rock and roll up here cuz it reminds them of fighting.”

Crossfire had what it takes before they met Greenbaum; while it is clear that Crossfire sees him as something of a “grand old man,” I can see his angle, too — aligning himself with a band that writes lines like “You make me feel I Like a stereo” Now that they have him, the sky’s the limit. For Greenbaum, it’s time to be an overnight sensation again.»

Ed Ward

Some people will go to any lengths to get their picture in the papers. They'll jump on any trend that blows by; they'll stop at nothing, no matter how low or lame, to get a little free publicity. Wellr this magazine isn't flailing for it.