THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BRAT GOES ON

So What Else Is New?

According to Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, milk consumption in the United States has declined by four percent since 1968, while beer and ale consumption has gone up by 27 percent. Is this further evidence of declining national morals?

Yet Another Great Jump

So by now you’ve heard about all those kids who tried to do an Evel Knievel on their bicycles or whatever and ended up in the hospital. But no one has done it like pop songwriter Eddie Miller, who’s responsible for “Release Me” and many more.

Miller’s daredevil stunt consisted of jumping a 27-inch drainage ditch in his front yard on his power lawn mower. The ditch was two inches deep, and the ramp he designed was a four-incher. Explained Miller, “One of the biggest problems was the big tree on the other side.” It’s a half thumb high and growing.

If You Don't Believe It, Nome One

Congressman Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York made an interesting discovery when he got a bill passed that would add a Vietnam War casualty to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. According to the Defense Department, there are no unknown soldiers from that war.

ENO: Naked and Neurotic

Twelve years of convent schooling with the Sisters of Mercy had not prepared the intrepid CREEM photog for her first plunge into the realm of hi-gloss soft porn snap shooting. Following the “hello-how-a’yas,” Eno’s publicist Simon Puxley hopefully queried, “Would you like to take some nude photos of Eno as test shots for Viva?”

Not that Eno will drop his bottoms for everyone. But since Viva expressed a great desire to see him au natural, flashed in fleshy color gloss across their centerfold, Eno decided to comply. Being a leader in the avant garde (and, in this case, garde derriere), after conceptual art, musique concrete and Roxy, there was no new world left for the irrepressible Eno to conquer save Beefcake.

Magazine history could not be denied Eno chic to cheek. “I could never do this for a male photographer — I’d be too epibarrassed. Don’t be coy, thousands have seen me naked.”

As ■ Ian j. Hunter says in Diary of a Rock and Roll Star, the human bod, undraped, by light of sun is a pretty mundane shell, downright grotty and un-erotic. There was something R. Crumbian comic in seeing Eno traipse the length and breadth of tlie room, wearing naught but a Registered Cult Figure tee shirt, his manhood flouncing' jauntily in the breeze, wondering what poses he could effect that “aren’t neurotic.”

The session hit a crescendo of surrealistica as Eno began twisting like a pretzel, saying, straight-faced: “Get a bun shot.” After suggesting that he be photographed spreadeagle “with all my rudeness showing,” Simon reminded Eno, who seemed a trifle hurt, that Viva didn’t care about his genitalia, just his supple Grecian bod. He ran the gamut of tease poses: Eno teething fetchingly on a sheet, Eno fingering a glass of white wine “decadently,” Eno calling some girl on the phone whilst naked. After sprawling on his tummy, Eno was in a mild state of arousal. “Forgive me if I have a hard-on; it is certainly the way of nature. I can’t sit up,” he moaned;

“Yes, Viva doesn’t like erections,” Simon thoughtfully mulled, “but they’re only test shots.”

“I’ll cover it with a book,” which Eno did until he was once again discreet.

How was he coming up to snuff? Would he make the grade and join Fabian and Lyle Waggoner and even, fer chrissakes, John Davidson? “I have lovely shoulders, the loveliest shoulders in rock and roll, and quite a nice face...” scanning down the expanse of his fleshoid buff. “I’m quite pleased with myself. . .except for my knees; I have knobby knees. They won’t reject me for my knobby knees, will they? Yes, my knees, and my FEET. I hate my feet; they’re always cold. The only time my feet aren’t cold is when I make love, which I do all the time. I only make love to keep my feet warm.”

Unless Viva picks up on a good thing, all the Eno anyone will’ever see, celluloid speaking, is the contact sheet under the photog’s mattress. Eno’d like to keep it that way. He had an unpleasant run-in with a male groupie (“They’re of even less use than female ones.”), and threatened, with a crack of doom, “If these pictures ever find their w^y into any gay magazines” (mustering bile and bluster and pointing at the photog) ‘77/ break your glasses!” Eno’s a man of his word, and you can never tell into whose hands CREEM will fall, can you?

Kathy Miller

Thumbs Down on Singles

The lanky cock rooster, guitar in hand, struts and prances, barefoot, across the stage, head bobbing, wagging his braided tail behind him. His square face, framed by Beatle bangs and a lantern jaw, is all smiling white teeth that punctuate his Wolfman Jack/Peter Wolf cum Marjoe raps.

His name is Larry Raspberry (for real) and he leads the hottest new white act out of Memphis since Elvis stepped on Carl Perkins’ blue suede shoes. In two short years Larry Raspberry and the Highsteppers have succeeded at what Leon Russell has been trying to do for years: tasteful, big band country - jazz - gospel - blues rock ‘n’ roll.

Songwriter - singer - guitarist - pianist Raspberry has a fine ear for copping and the requisite skill for mastering various musical idioms as well as a flair for creative lyrics. Moreover, his derivative music is refreshing and the seven-piece group performs with the rollicking enthusiasm of the old Sam & Dave Revue.

The Highsteppers have eschewed success by the traditional hit single path. “We set out to be a band that was antithetical to the typical rock success formula,” Raspberry explains. “We’re a liveoriented group and Memphis was short on live bands. The Highsteppers set out to move a crowd with a countryoriented tune the same way we move a crowd with an R & B-oriented tune or a rock ‘n’ roll tune.

“It is important that we have only one sound that’s a hit before we let everybody hear all our sounds, or that we are eclectic and happen to pick the right song to be a hit. Dr. John did it that way, after maybe five albums. I don’t think he ever gave any thought to an AM record. His is uncompromised music.”

Raspberry already knows the singles route. In 1965, when he was still a senior in high school, Raspberry led the Gentrys to national stardom with “Keep on Dancin’.” “We did the song, which had been done already by the Avantis, like we thought the Dave Clark Five would do it,” Raspberry recalls. “We then wanted to do ‘Gloria,’ which was before the Shadows of Knight did it, and ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu,’ but our producer (the nowfamous Chips Moman) wouldn’t let us.

“I believe I can learn to put out hit records,” Raspberry says convincingly, “But I don’t want to do that. The Highsteppers are looking through our repertoire to find the hit song. We don’t want to createa hit. What it really amounts to in this business is if the band is willing to work their ass off and how good the band is on stage.”

Jon Bream

Glue Sniffers From Hollywood High

HOLLYWOOOOOOD! Anything can happen in this town; in fact, anything happens more often than some thing, which isn’t to say there aren’t times when nothing happens, Sub-ordinary Monday night at the Whiskey A Go Go. As usual, it was hard to tell if there was something/anything going down, but the place was packed for the opening of an unusual Monday thru Wednesday booking of the Hollywood Stars.

There were three breeds of animal at the club that night. The first, according to repeated mentions from the band, was Columbia Records conventioneers.

Then there were the glitter babes and dolls, a few blocks uptown from their usual haunt, Rodney Bingenheimer’s English Disco, where on any decent weekend (and a few indecent weekdays) you can catch these very same Star Magazine models and fellow travellers (average age 14 or 15) shaking their makeup to the very latest in English import records by the Sweet, Mud, Bowie, Alvin Stardust and even T-Rex.

Get Hypin'

Ah, to be disco deejay Monti Rock III. To be able to change your name to Disco Tex and the Sex-O-Lettes and make a record called "Get Dancin'" which is basically a rhythm track with you shouting rock 'n' roll cliches and the rest of the band shouting the song title. And then to be loaded into a 1932 Renault touring car, with you decked out in a white chiffon outfit and jewels, to make a promotional visit to all the New York hot spots: Elaine's, the No. 1 restaurant df the stars; the Hipgopatamus; Hollywood; Le Jardin; and finally, Trudy Heller's, where you had danced many years back. Ah, such is the good life.

The anything element was added by the teen tour kids. You'see these gawky, bracedteeth wombats everywhere in California, turning Yosemite into a tampax jungle and the Continental Hyatt House, good-natured patron of insane groupiedom, into an orthodpntist’s convention. (One of these creatures last year called my room at the Hyatt House, every hour on the hour to let me know she was still in a room with Spooky Tooth’s road manager, but if I wanted some company.. .1 didn’t, thanks, because the company I had, at age 17, was old enough to be the caller’s grandmother.)

These teen tour kids ravaged the Whiskey like it was the Ho Chi Minh trail on a clear flying day, until their tour leader, a graduate dental student on leave from his orthodontist and wearing, by. the way, plaid pants and a madras' shirt, declared to Mario Valentine of the Whiskey that “this is a bum night,” and marched his marauderS/Out of the club.

By that time, the teen tour kids were out of control anyway; it was like someone had dropped LSD in the coffee at a Junior Mah Jong tournament. Even the glitter kids were recoiling. Finally the teen tour kids left, which was too bad. In my suburban ethnic heart, I liked those kids, and they should’ve stayed to see the Hollywood Stars.

Hollywoooood, indeed! These five young men known as the Hollywood Stars have, my gay friends creaming and my CREEM friends gay with their good looks. The material, and the ultimate image projection, isn’t glitter, glamour, or glib, but more like glue-sniffing in Hollywood High. The best description I can give about their good (sometimes excellent) songs and derivative (minimally competent) playing is that at their best, they sound like Mott the Hoople crossed with the Grass Roots.

L.A: mega-personality Kim Fowley, who discovered the band and who fortunately did. not 'produce their first album, did a screaming introduction. “Only five hit singles, and five songs that’ll change your life,” he ranted.

Hem haw. But then the Stars came on, and with the first notes of “Escape” it’s clear they’ve got something. “Escape/Get out while you can/Escape/Try to understand.” They did cover material ranging frOm Little Richard’s “Rip It Up” to “Satisfaction” to “Roses and Rainbows Are You,” which was a big west coast hit for Danny Hutton before he joined Three Dog Night.

Their best song comes near the end: “Satisfied Electric Fingers” has a great hook and chorus. It’s on a song like this that they transcend their minimal ability with their instruments. I didn’t even notice that they weren’t good the first night; I returned another night with my friend G. from Rodney’s club, and she thought they were very untogether, and she was right.

Yeah, so everybody has off nights. I don’t know if they’re worth what Columbia paid for them (a medium five figure deal is the word on the street, and that’s high for these inflationary days). Hits? Maybe. Album? It sounds very good. But will it play in Peoria? or Boulder? or New York? “Satisfied electric fingers/ But they couldn’t hold on to you/ Satisfied electric fingers/ Wonder what they’re gonna do.”

Wayne Robins

Earl Scruggs Adds & Subtracts

Do not read this if you play banjo. Or, at least, hide your Earl Scruggs and the Five-String Banjo, draw the curtains on your altar, and douse 'the light-up plastic Scruggs statue that has monopolized your studious gaze. Yes, in scruffier publications this item would be entitled: “Earl Scruggs Quits Bluegrass!” “I couldn’t support a band on bluegrass music* I didn’t quit bluegrass as just bein’ a straight damn fool ... cause I was at the head of the fountain! I quit because I was gettin’ bored to death playin’ the same thing ... for 28 ... 30 years.”

Hb does look tired as he does his time at the interview. Rarely he flashes a gaptoothed smile, still he’s so soft-spoken and easy, that you know behind that expressionless, maybe unhappy face, he’s a nice guy. But_he makes it clear that this nice guy is not going to finish last. To make sure, he’s been barnstorming the country (over 250 dates last year) at the helm of the Earl Scruggs Revue* The Revue features not only Earl’s five-string, but son Randy’s lightning acoustic and electric guitar, and son Gary’s bass, harmonica and Roger McGuinn-tinged vocals. Despite what Earl says, some of the music is even bluegrass.

“I don’t mind playin’ old tunes. You notice I played several. It’s only because the people react to it.”

Dream Of The Everyday Housewife

She finally made it, Helen Reddy did, in true Tinseltown fashion. Hordes of suburbans and visiting Instamatic fanatics pushed and shoved their way through the housewife heroine's celebration as the newest addition to Hollyweird's "Walk of Fame" out in front of the Capitol Records Tower was ceremoniously unveiled. Gold record plaques were' awarded and pre-fab speeches by Gubernatorial candidate Ed Brown Jr. and Mayor Tom Bradley noted Helen Reddy Day in L.A. The delighted Ms. Reddy kissed her husband/ manager Jeff Wald, her daughter, her friend Ruth Buzzi — and the Reddy star!

Sherry Rayn Barnett

But Earl’s new music (“I like it better,” he says) is (God forbid, you bluegrass purists) rock ‘n’ roll and blues and country-rock and country-blues ... He won’t put a label on it. Rightly so; the new tunes'run the pop gamut. “I listen to the Allman Brothers, Charlie Daniels, Dylan ... He’s come out with some fantastic stuff; we all like his stuff.” Earl Scruggs wants a piece of their “rock audience” for himself.

With the new music and band, Earl -says, “I have broadened my scope as far as places to work and it’s been a tremendous financial move.” “Financial” — the word may stiffen music lovers, but, in truth, Earl does “appreciate the financial situation.” In fact, he says, “I’ve studied music very closely as far as the reaction and I’ve got several ways to tell you how I studied it; and the quickest, best, and simplest, is by the facts and figures that come up on the adding machine. That’s what I go by. (Pause) That and the interest in what I like to play.”

Does Earl Scruggs want a Top 40 AM radio hit? “Anybody who isn’t interested wouldn’t be recording long. They sinka lot of money in an album.” He deals in harsh realities. You can’t believe it’s this rough for the legendary banjo master. Maybe this comes from years of running financially scared. You feel like telling him to perk up. Things can’t be so bad. “Well, we’re not hurtin’ financially,” he admits. And adds with maybe a hint of vengeance in his mild voice: “Last year I did more than I ever did in a total ten years of country music, and I got the books to prove I’m not kiddin’ anybody.”

Machines seem to mix pretty well in music these days, but I don’t think anybody would mind if Earl Scruggs dropped the adding machine from his act and'put back the fire. But, be forewarned: “As long as I’m playing commercial music I’m certainly gonna go by the adding machine. I’ve got to or I’ll be out of business.”

Robert Duncan

Stevie Wonder For A Day

It was just another day, just another press conference, but it was Detroit, and this was Stevie Wonder’s press conference in the city that spawned the black boy “wonder.”

Motown pulled up its stakes from the Motor City a long time ago, but Motown’s favored son was here reassuring all that Detroit was still his home. In fact, Wonder went so far as to say, “Detroit is still the sunshine of my life.” To coin a phrase.

Detroit responded by rewarding Stevie with the key to the city (a new, improved model that Stevie was the second to! receive, Gerald Ford being the .first) and proclaiming September 27 as Stevie Wonder Day.

“Outasite!” exclaimed Stevie, “I’m going to open someone’s heart with it.”

“Outasite!” echoed Mayor Coleman Young.

A nervous promo man punched his portable Sony, and “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” filled the chambers as Young read a proclamation that called Stevie’s name a household word and described him as “a young man who is the sunshine in the life of countless millions of persons throughout the world.”

“It’s showtime, man! Take some pictures!” mugged the mayor for the TV cameras.

“I’m definitely looking forward to seeing you all at the concert so you can give us some money!” Stevie told the same cameras. The guy’s not greedy; he’s donating file entire proceeds to a charity for underprivileged black children, racking up some more good karma points (he donated the profits from his last four concerts to black charities), because Stevie practices what he preaches, or should I say sings.

The special festivities for Stevie Wonder day? Take a leader dog to lunch? No, Stevie made an impromptu visit to his mother (“She doesn’t know I’m in town so she’ll be cursin’ and swearin’ when she sees me”), and then a jet to a Syracuse gig.

Jaan Uhelszki

Question Of The Month

Who was the first guitar player to use the wah wah pedal?

(Send entries to Question of the Month, P.O. Box P-1064, Birmingham, Mich. 48012. First correct answer wins CREEM tee shirt, so specify size.) ^