THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Left, Right,Wrong, Right

According to two Columbia University psychologists, there’s more of a difference between musicians and nonmusicians than meets the ear.

They have demonstrated that musically sophisticated people actually “hear” music in the left hemisphere of the brain, while musical knownothings “hear” music in the right hemisphere. Apparently, the reason is that musical experts hear music in an analytic way and everyone else hears it in a kind of intuitive way. The left side of the brain handles all the heavy analytic processes, while the right side is assigned to things like intuition, emotion and dreaming.

To further complicate matters, the right side of the brain receives its sound impressions from the left ear, while the left side hears with the right ear. Musicians thus “hear” music primarily through the right ear, and others hear basically through the left ear.

One more thing: all this pertains only to right-handed people. Left-handed musicians usually hear with the left ear, just like right-handed musical dum dums.

Got it? Musicians to the right, everyone else to the left.

Earth News

Throw Out The Baby Keep Both Water

There’s a crummy movie called Come Fill the Cup in which James Cagney plays a reformed alcoholic newspaper reporter who, for moral support, shares an apartment with an older ex-alky played by James Gleason. One of the big sources of humor in this stinker is supposedly supplied by Gleason and his endless attempts to duplicate the taste of a Bloody Mary without using the vodka. Which, we would be led to believe, is what drinking is all about: taste, for the love of Christ!

Anyway, a quarter of a century later, a bunch of mahonies in Switzerland have succeeded in creating a beer that contains no alcohol. That’s right, not one iota of the old C2H5OH. Drink this shit all night long without even starting to act strange. Jeez, ain’t that dandy!

On sampling a bottle of Ex Bier, I discovered that: it costs the same as a bottle of Lowenbrau (sixty-five cents here in the Apple); it does indeed taste like beer (sort of a cross between. Pabst Blue Ribbon and Bass Pale Ale); its head vanishes almost immediately; it doesn’t get you loaded. It’s distributed here in America by Canada Dry.

Now if some enterprising sort could just figure out a way to produce lighter fluid without the naptha for us hotshots who sniff for the bouquet alone ...

Nick Tosches

HUH?

This is Zolar X, a band from Los Angeles that you read about in our Hollywood spread a couple of issues back. Normally these captions offer some information about the picture, but in this case we'll let enough be enough. Music? Who said anything about music? We didn't.

Imitation Vomit, Instant Life

Where was I in 1962? Well, while one friend was puncturing a neighbor’s front door with a .22; while two others were hauling leaves and sticks from the San Rafael sewer system, lighting bonfires and sending smoke up two miles of drains; and while a fourth was terrorizing the neighborhood with empty CO2 cartridges filled with gunpowder and topped with a firecracker fuse, I was huddled with a Johnson Smith catalog.

You got (and get) a free Smith catalog mostly by mailing away a coupon from the back of a comic book. It was (and is) an item guaranteed to bring out any parental fascism that might be lurking behind liberal guises. When this turned up in the mailbox, the pre-teen allowance that was “yours to spend any way you want” suddenly had the iron chains of “responsibility” clamped on it. Once in your teens, of course, there was nothing they could do about it.

. So who needs grownups? For 60 years now, Johnson Smith has peddled its sensationalist copy aftd the most wonderful junk to America’s youth at popular prices, and it’s time someone said thanks for the fun.

I recently procured their latest catalog, spent hpurs thumbing through it, and was amazed. It’s all still here! The cheap thrills, the tacky flashes, the exotic eclecticism that beats the Whole Earth Catalog any day. The essentials have remained the same as they were 12 years ago and so it seems from simple observation, have I.

I can’t wait to get back into it. Sure, I’ll pass on the combat jiu-jitsu booklet that came in a plain, brown wrapper and was the first bit of my mad that my parents opened, and I’ve lost interest in the book of strong man stunts — “Drive Spike Through Metal With Hand. Smash Rocks With Fist” but I still might go for the hot gum I passed off on my seventh grade gym teacher, or the High Band Police Converter that lets you pick up on cop calls, because I still may need that someday. But why should my preferences dominate this testimony? Let’s allow the imagination to wander.

For those with EC Comics Consciousness, Smith sells a life-sized butchered hand you can stuff in refrigerators for only $2.95. (“Nauseatingly realistic flesh-colored hand that appears to be freshly butchered at the wrist with blood oozing ...”) There are several other kinds of grisly gore: “Create hideous looking scars, cuts, gashes on face, hands, anywhere.”

Disciples of R. Meltzer can purchase Imitation Vomit (79 cents and “Amazingly Realistic PUKE!”), Funny Phony Bird Mess (29 cents), Dog Floor Mess (39 cents), a vomit-dog mess combo at 98 cents (a saving of two dimes), and an elephant cigarette roller ($1.49) whose tusk you pull on so’s its tail will go up and the cigarette will come out its rectum. Har, har, har.

Keeping abreast of the Seventies, Johnson Smith offers a set of five master keys for $1.50 — “open many of the common locks found on doors, cabinets, cases, etc.” — and some Electronic Sound Collector Equipment (read that any way you want) that allows you, if I understand the copy right, to be as far as a half mile away from any conversation you might want to overhear. These items are musts for anyone considering a career in politics.

I have to stop. I’m becoming all too feverishly involved with this. Write to 35075 Automation Drive, Department 6, Mt. Clemens, Michigan 48043, and Johnson Smith will send you a free catalog too. Then you can get down to the business of equipping yourself for whatever challenges lie before you. "Just add water and you’ve got ‘Instant Life’... make tun of city slickers... press control button and you’re ready for battle...”

Hal Aigner

It beats setting fires in the neighborhood sewer system.

"All Things Come To Those Who Die And Wait”

Douglas Records’ perpetually motivated publicist, Kenny Schaefer, is bobbing his Skinny, hairy, giggly body all over his Manhattan penthouse. His boss, Alan Douglas, is putting a new Jimi Hendrix tape on the machine, and what could be more exciting than that?

The listener sits, waiting in jaded silence for what’s to come. After four posthumous disasters on Warner Bros., what new Hendrix could come up to snuff? But news is news, he thinks, and all things come to those who sit and wait.

What comes is a remarkable jam with Mahavishnu John McLaughlift, and a long, new version of “51st Anniver* sary,” with power and grace that the Smash Hits take only hints at, and several hoursmore. It’s only part of the 60-odd hours of Hendrix tape that Douglas has discovered since he began researching the archives scattered around the world — for the Hendrix estate.

Douglas estimates that there are four, perhaps five, good new Hendrix albums which remain unreleased. Jams with McLaughlin, Clapton, Johnny Winter, Lowell George of Little Feat, Khalid Yasin (then Larry Young) of McLaughlin’s first group. A blues album. A pop album, with “Dolly Dagger,” a nasty Dylanesque love song called “Crash Landing,” and a seven minute “Gloria,” to go with “51st Anniversary.” A wonderful instrumental, with an unidentified pianist (perhaps Nicky Hopkins, from the sound of it), called “New Rising Sun,” which captures all of the mystic sensitivity and energy which Jimi ever promised.

Douglas was put on the case by Don Schmitzerle of Warners and Jimi Hendrix’ father after the death, via plane crash, of former Hendrix manager Michael Jeffery. What he hopes to do is release an album or two, pull the inferior, Jeffery-programmed posthumous releases off the market (and re-release the best as Smash Hits Vol 2) and continue with the rest.

He is also developing a TV special, which will qover the evolution of Hendrix from Monterey to the Isle of Wight, and working with Lower East Side poet David Henderson on the authorized biography. Some of the tapes need to be re-produced — everything which needs to be added, a horn track here and there, for the most part, is implicit in what Hendrix leaves out on guitar, Douglas says — and not all of them will hit the market-place. But enough of them will come out to make even the most satiated Hendrix-ophile sit up and take notice.

The listener leaves with a smile.

Rodney Evon

Gold Records For Sole

Gold records are bought. Platinum records do not exist. Huh? It goes something like this.

Gold records are awarded to singles which have sold a million copies and to albums which net $1 million in sales — usually, about 400,000 LP’s, since the $1 million figure is based on one-third the list price of an LP; that fraction most closely approximates the manufacturer’s take.

When a record company believes one of its products is near the $1 million mark, it can apply to the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) for gold status. The application fee is $150. Through a team of independent certified public accountants, the claim is either verified or rejected.

If it’s a verification, the RIAA then offers to sell official gold-plated discs mounted on plaques to both the record company and the artists who made the recprd. There is no limit on the number of gold discs that can be purchased; singles go for $35 each, albums for $55 each.

Should the record company decline to buy from the RIAA, the gold record is not recognized.

Those record companies which claim a new release is “shipping gold” really mean that they anticipate the record will qualify. The-RIAA simply does not sanction claims of a gold record on shipping.

As for platinum records, which honor sales of $2 million, they simply do not exist. While the RIAA is considering such an award, it is for now a gimmick dreamed up by the corporate mind to honor its own product. When a record company does award an artist a platinum record, it purchases the award on its own without any audit from the RIAA or anyone else.

In 1973, the RIAA awarded — and sold — 186 gold records.

Earth News

Jobriath Leaving Earth To Return Home

Then there was the one about Jobriath, who believes he’s a god, lowercase. (He also believes he’s a rock star, but that’s an allegation adequately milked and turned over to the listening public for final jurisdiction.) But a close listening to “Earthlings” from his first LP reveals that he subscribes to the Von Daniken theory that travellers from other solar systems begat humanity on Earth by interbreeding with apes. Far out, no? Jobriath not only believes what he read in Chariots of the Gods, but after a few more albums for Dave Geffen, he’d consider emigrating Earth to start the game somewhere else, somewhere several light years away.

Another Rock & Roller For Low Enforcement

Augie Meyers, noted Texas rock and roll musician, charter member Of the Sir Douglas Quintet, and leader of his own band, Augie Meyers' Western Head Band, has announced his candidacy for Sheriff of Comal County, Texas. Augie, who lives in Bulverde (population 300), has been a Comal County resident for twelve years, and even has experience in law enforcement, having been a deputy in Bexar County in 1959.

"I don't have a platform, really," Augie told CREEM, "just sort of, well, here I am. I mean, there's all these kids going around these days saying 'pig, pig,' and I'd like to do something to change that. I wouldn't wear a uniform or carry a gun, of course. Basically, the state of Texas just needs somebody who is official to be around when something happens. I figure I've got a chance, because I have lived here so long, and last year I was the coach of my boy's baseball team." Augie's opponent is a 65-year-old German who ran unchallenged last year.

"I'm still working with the band, though," Augie assured us. "We're getting record offers thanks to appearing at the Willie Nelson 4th of July thing, and a lot of people thought we were the best thing there." It's true — anybody with talent would have looked good there, but Augie stood head-and-shoulders above the rest with his crackling Tex-Mex horn sound and kick-ass rhythm. A singing sheriff? Stranger things have happened...

Ed Ward

Jobriath pledges a roach-free solar system.

“I’m just sooooo tired," he explains in his selfindulgent moan, “of all these people, everywhere I go, complaining about things like pollution and all. We can all hop in a spaceship and go somewhere else.”

The New York space clown, who insists he was born in a trunk -in the Palace Theater, would like to* be abducted by spacemen at the first opportunity. But he’s content to leave the exploration to the experts — he just wants to be the first interstellar rock and roll star.

But what, Jobriath, will We do once these new spheres become as much a hotbed for greed and corruption as' Earth? Cheeseburger mentality, after all, is certain to follow wherever intelligent life subsists.

“We’ll just pack up and go somewhere else and leave the planet to the roaches,” he concludes. Cary Baker

Cary Baker

Mellow, oh it's so mellow.

Grope Rises To Surface (Again)

At one time Moby Grape was the punch line to an elephant joke involving large, sea mammals at the bottom of the ocean. Around 1967, Moby Grape became a harddriving rpck ’n’ roll band of the San Francisco Psychedelic Psehool and a hot property in the hands of some large corporate land mammals. A couple of years later, Moby Grape was the punch line to an old elephant joke.

The years passed. It was again a band, again a joke, band, joke, then even three or four bands simultaneously. But now the controversy may finally be over with the return of Moby Grape the hard-driving rock ’n’ roll band: Jerry Miller, Bob Mosley and Peter Lewis of the original group, newcomers Jeff Blackburn on guitar and John Craviotto on drums.

They’re presently gigging around Bay Area clubs again, trying to convince somewhat dubious record execs that they’re back together for real. “We want to show them we’re serious,” says Blackburn, a long-time friend of Grape members and “a guy who was always there pickin’ around” in the band’s adopted home town of Santa Cruz. Craviotto, who’s worked with Buffy Ste. Marie, Claudia Linnear and Arlo Gurthrie as well as on the Performance soundtrack, pronounces the? current personnel situation as “mellow, oh it’s so mellow. We came up here jn the same car, and we were all in the car together, and we were groovin’, just groovin’.”^

Their previous demise was laid to the unpredictable psyche of an ex-member as well as bad business practices. Says the friendly roadie, “Everybody said, ‘too much hype’.” He shrugs in vague agreement. “Hell, they had five singles released at the same time.”

“But we’re older now, more experienced. We know what to look for and what to get in writing in front,” explains Jerry Miller, the powerful lead man behind the old Gibson electric hollowbody.

Add to their newfound business sense the fact that this three-guitar orchestra with the intense five-part vocal harmonies can still fry happy brains with solid hightension rock ’n’ roll, and you come out very nearly believing, certainly hoping, that they’ll stick together this time. A new album of “a lot of new stuffin the old vein” is in the offing when business is settled. After. that, a national tour, “maybe next April.”

Could this be the end of elephant jokes?

Robert Duncan

Even Steppenwolf has mellowed, too.

Born To Be Reformed

Three good reasons why Steppeiiwolf re-formed, according to once and always leader John Kay:

1)“The main reason I left Steppenwolf. a few years back and the group hence dissolved was that we were forced, partially by our image, to stick to just one type of music. When I then did my first solo album, I went overboard the other way with all soft, acoustic stuff, a throwback to my old days. Then I got to missing the aggressive stuff and so I started working out more hard material with my own band. We did this tour of Europe, with me and my band opening and old Steppenwolf headlining. It was a nice balance, and for me even the old Steppenwolf songs sounded fresh again. When we returned to the States, Steppenwolf started working out material in my studio, and once I finished my second solo album, I just started working with them again.”

2) “What we found was that it had been good for us to pack it in when we did and take the time off. We could step outside of Steppenwolf and take a look. Now we’re all older, more mature, we’ve all developed different interests. We’ve meflowed.”

3) “We had hindsight in the area of booking, record companies, and stuff like that. Now we have a new label, new manager, new agency, new publicists, new lawyers, new everything. It took us about a year to get out of our various contractual agreements. So we finally have the freedom we’ve always been looking for.”