THE BEAT GOES ON

THe BEAT GOES ON

DEJA VU

Dig into the attic, find all that old Beatle memorabilia that you never thought you'd need again, and polish it off. With a few minor alterations, it might come in handy again. George is doing his tour, and there's no telling who'll be next. Be there or be square.

Wax Artist Slips Disc

Some people think radio is dead. Some people say it’s just been turned over ... to Elton John.

To those of us here in Detroit who thrive on the AM lifeblood of Windsor-based CKLW, perhaps North America’s greatest radio station, Elton’s two hour stint as EJ the DJ was a snore in the middle of an afternoon of programming that does not usually put one to sleep.

Elton just didn’t come through. We thought he would; we wanted him to. Being DJ in towns all over the country during his recent tour is another great idea from a performer who’s become, at least, the greatest employed idea in the business. In accordance with that reputation, he opened with “The Bitch is Back”; but the rest of his show was a simple mix of not the best R & B and a lot of terrible singles by famous and non-famous (but now signed with Rocket Records) British pop stars. Recent singles by George Harrison, Ringo, and Bad Company were there. Oh, Elton played Paul McCartney, too — but the wrong side of “Sally G.” To accompany them Elton played his cover of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” which may be his first flop and nothing like “Judy in Disguise,” which is what he should have played.

Yes, Elton’s vinyl zeal may just end up foaming out of his mouth. His pick of R & B hits included Barry White’s latest gush, “You’re The First, The Last, My Everything,” which Elton introduced by saying, “I love this guy!” Yuch. He didn’t have to say that, but they can have each other; they may just ride off together in self-indulgence one of these sunset days.

Proof positive of Elton’s starhood only came through, and logically enough I suppose, when he talked over the air on fancalls. He was charming. He talked about the weather (“Glad I brought my fur coats,”), apologized for his cold, and announced his hotel room number (but named the wrong hotel), all to the delight of his fans (some paying $80 for scalped tickets), who were adoring and giggly. He only made one slip with them: when asked by an unusually bold kid how much money he made at one concert, he replied “More than you’ll ever see!” and then tried to recoup with “I mean, it would be hard for you to count it all.”

When Elton was through, DJ Brother Bill Gable took back his post and retreaded what was left of the afternoon with the crossover hit that may even show up “Bennie and the Jets,” “I Can Help.” And followed with the Kinks’ “Lola,” which is not the latest and greatest single from across the ocean. Kiki Dee may sound like Aretha Franklin with the pa system off, but Ray Davies and Nigel Olsson are more than just mikes apart.

And we wish Elton’s enthusiasm would have been really representative of the music that CKLW makes you think you don’t have to buy records for. I mean, not even one A1 Green song? I have all of his albums. So does Elton.

Georgia Christgau

Phone Floozies on the Loose

According to the statistics of Bell Telephone’s anonymous call group in Philadelphia, the number of obscene calls made by women has increased steadily over the last few years. John Ferguson, manager of the department, explains that the number of obscene calls handled

— 1,500 to 2,000 per month

— has remained the same, while the percentage of women making the calls has increased.

Is there a stereotypic female caller, a dirty old woman? “No way,” John told CREEM. “You bring these women to court ^ they’re good looking, nicely dressed, shades pulled back over their hair. There’s no way you’d look at one of them and say, ‘Now there’s a sick person.’ ”

The persons complaining -about female obscene phone calls are usually, in fact, other women, who are not the desired recipients. They’re merely the wives or girlfriends who’ve intercepted the call by accident. “When we do get men reporting the calls, they’re not complaining about them,” says Ferguson. “The most common report comes from a man who’s answered a ringing phone in a booth. A woman will see a man standing in a pay phone booth from her apartment, where she has the number of that phone written down, and dial. Then the guy will answer the phone and afterward call us, saying ‘Hey, I was just standing here in this phone booth and it rang, and I picked it up, and ... ’ ”

Research on men answering ringing pay telephones has not been conclusive, but it is speculated that their psyches are at least as pornographic as the obscene women at the other end.

Georgia Christgau

• DOIN' IT TO DEATH

This is Dan Hartman of the Edgar Winter Group. He is now a human gu itar.| Actual I y, he merely wears a guitar designed for him by Bill Witten who has done clothes for everyone from Elton John to Doc Severinson. This shiny silver suit set Hartman back about $5000. It features wireless construction to allow for freedom of movement on the inside and out, plus heat resistant padding, industrial zippers, and rip cords. Sound is amplified by mike pickups on the inside; no messy cords attached to amps. Further, this guitar utilizes the human body for sound. On a normal guitar, the body of the instrument resonates to provide the tone, but in this case it's from Hartman's abdominal area that the axe acquires its tone. Did we hear somebody say something about excess? Dunno about that — but you'll never get that damn fool contraption off the ground, Orville.ftl

Stay Away From Sailboats In Greenwich Vil lage

Reno Sweeney, by its own description, is a trendsetting Greenwich Village Nightspot and Gathering Place. Its logo, a sailboat, is not unlike the mysterious insignia that identified Noah Cross’ exclusive Admiral Club in Chinatown. When Detective J.J. Gittes saw it, it was final proof that the rich were indeed fuling L.A. When you see the sailboat in the night' with the three stars above, it’s supposed to make you think of paradise, or at least that last fabulous evening you spent in The Paradise Room at Reno Sweeney in Greenwich Village, that wonderful supperclub with the $8.50 per person minimum.

I ate a steak for two hours while I was at Reno Sweeney’s. Genevieve Waite was singing there with John Phillips. Her album, Romance Is On The Rise, a real obscurity on Paramour records, was apparently a favorite of the crowd, and this was her return engagement. Formerly a Vogue model, Genevieve’s currently hyped with a Betty Grable pin-up, standing with legs spread and back turned. She performed in a harmless black satin hot pants suit with a tasteful thin belt at the waist, about as far out as the styles in Glamour. I think she’s supposed to look real innocuous, though I’d just call it vapid. *

The producer of this act is John Phillips, her husband. She sings his songs while he accompanies on guitar, smiling this night with a shiteating grin that made him look like Stan Laurel after too many, insults from Oliver Hardy. A diversified entrepreneur, Phillips began with a pad on the Lower East Side, masterminded the Mamas and the Papas, has been called the Wolfking of L.A., and wrote a broadway show financed by Andy Warhol. And he’s responsible for this act starring his wife that will survive if new-rich hip bar-restaurants like Reno’s do — or maybe even if they don’t.

John’s cashing in on the return to romance, and Genevieve is the woman of his dreams. I mean the girl of his dreams. She is defined by his songs and limited by her on stage rap, a titter of one-liners that he responds to with putdowns as part of the act. This reinforces the idea that she may be cute, but she sure is dumb. She sings of a romantic time when men will open doors for girls again, and when sleeping around will be a gas, and when girls with revenues from modelling and cult film successes like Joanna can play dumb for money while being safely married to successful men like John Phillips.

She sings about trashy women and sucks her thumb in between numbers. Of course she tells us how happily she’s married, and of course she mentions that she knows about the previous three Mrs. Phillipses but concludes by saying that they are all dead, knowing we know they all aren’t.

One of them bore Mackenzie Phillips, now 14, a veteran of American Graffiti who stole the show being the little brat no one could get rid of. With John’s customary acuteness, the lyrics about his daughter are genuinely revealing: the tragedy of her young life is that at 14 she’s falling on her platforms. I hope Genevieve goes first, and in my wildest dreams I imagine her pulling Cybill Shepherd by the halter strap out of show biz too, while they’re both still young enough to go back to modelling.

Georgia Christgau

THERE'S HOPE WITH THE POPE

Pope Paul Vi's recent conversion to the American Indian Movement has been credited as the reason behind AIM's stunning victories in the Wounded Knee trial. He is shown here hamming it up with his new-found brothers and sisters at the post-trial party.

Air Force Brats Put Army To Sleep

If the nation named after this folk rock band was really the fascist dictatorship some believe, and the U.S. Military Academy was the only university, would you think twice about not going into dad’s Roto Rooter franchise? Likewise, if America was the only group, do you think the term rock ‘n’ roll would ever, have been invented? Sominex ‘n’ sleep would be more like it.

So what am I doing at West Point on homecoming weekend with 4400 officers’ children who play laid back versions of ideas Neil Young had when he was twelve? Talking to some cadets about rock ‘n’ roll.

“You picked the wrong weekend,” said Steve, wearing a class of ’76 eagle patch on his blazer. “In a couple of weeks we’re having the James Gang and Mountain. Bob Hope’s gonna be here too.”

Bob Hope and Mountain on the same show?, I asked jokingly.

Steve was right with me. “Could you imagine Hope and Leslie West trading licks — or jokes?” He made some raunchy guitar moves that

•would’ve impressed Ted

Nugent, and we all cracked up.

Figuring football talk

would be further common ground, we asked Steve and his buddy what they though about the next day’s game with Holy Cross.

“Big deal,” they said.

Vast, comfortable, and acoustically excellent Eisenhower Hall was packed,and hushed when America opened with their latest top ten

fluke, “Tin Man.” They wore mock‘military uniforms, and with the very first line, let the cadets know where they stood. “We’re wearing these uniforms with respect for sure . . . we’re all Air Force dependents.”

Writing about America might be something like

siccing John Simon on Airport 75 or any Burt Reynolds movie. Their melodies are harmless, though unmemorable, their guitar playing barely adequate, and their lyrics make John Denver seem like

T.S. Eliot. What sustains

them is their singing: oatmeal harmonies, an opiate for the ignorant. And at West Point, the singing was flat.

Their comedy was like the singing, playing and songwriting. “Guys, think of something warm and soft. Girls think of something warm and ...”

Most of the cadets and dates got it. “Oooh,” they went.

“He just thought he’d slip that in,” said one of the America brothers.

They played their big hits — “Ventura Highway,” “I Need You,” “Sandman” and fifteen or twenty other tunes throughout the set, which included a clever new tune with lots of percussion. “Pretty neat, huh,” said one of the musicians, “A little reggae. We always wanted to be Dino, Desi and Billy.” What you mean wanted to be, white man?

Wayne Robins

Ancient Spacemen in the Deep Freeze

A professor of communications at Florida State University is making noises that might indicate all those rock songs about outer space are more real than fiction.

Interviewed by news director Mark Davis on Boston’s WVBF, Dr. Robert Carr, who has been studying UFO’s for some 25 years, claimed that at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio there is a UFO

And President Ford's gonna on a tripod in a hangar — and that 12 of the craft’s occupants are in the deep freeze. According to Carr, this craft descended several years ago of its own power, or loss of its own power, and some sort of decompression accident killed the 12 on board. They were supposedly then frozen, and one was disected by government doctors. Carr says the creatures are three to four feet tall, well-muscled, have light hair and white skin, teeth like ours, and look like Caucasians except for one major difference.

“When the brain surgeon opened the skull he discovered a highly-developed brain.” Carr said a brain is smooth at birth and develops what appears to be folds. As a man grows older and wiser, these folds become deeper and more intricate. By human standards, these healthy creatures from the UFO are several hundred years old.

Davis asked Carr if the government would soon release information on UFO’s. “Yes,” Carr responded. “The cover-up has become too costly, awkward and embarrassing to maintain any longer. And I heard from Washington that President Ford would make a *, complete

fess up about it too. about-face on the UFO problem and admit they have been real all along, and that it was alright to tell us now. When our government decided back in the 50’s to keep the UFO problem a secret, they were doing it in our best interest. America was on the edge of hysteria as people were building fallout shelters in their backyards. To tell people at that time about spacemen flying around could have set up another incident much like the night of the Orson Welles Man From Mars broadcast.” v

A spokesman from Wright Pat told deejay Davis, “There are none of these things he talks about here and no space craft here at Wright Patterson, there never have been, and that report is without foundation.”

Donny Thomas

Toots Hibbert: Too Much

We were in London to buy reggae records.

Also in London was Frederick Hibbert, the greatest reggae singer in the known universe, a.k.a. Toots. Of Toots and the Maytals, the greatest reggae group in the known universe. (Toots started the Maytals at least as early as 1963 — the same year as the Wailers, incidentally, making the Maytals and the Wailers the oldest reggae groups around. I can make a case for Toots actually inventing reggae, but I won’t make it here.)

The fact that the Maytals were in London at the same time we were was a complete coincidence, but it was a coincidence with a lot of energy behind it. I had been hoping, secretly, somewhere inside me, that maybe possibly, the Maytals would be in London. Rock writer Charlie Gillett told us the good news fipst: Toots was in London, performing. Then he told us the bad news: tonight was his last gig, and we had already missed it. I nearly cried right there.

But Rasta never fails. Next night, as it turns out, there’s a special promo performance for the music press at Ronnie Scott’s, hosted by Trojan Records: free soul food, bar tab and all. And Toots, on-stage.

We end up at a table close to the stage, with new-found buddy Carl Gayle (Black Music Magazine’s resident reggae expert), drinking tequila and watering Paul McCartney’s videotape crew set up their camera. Toots’ new album, In The Dark, plays over and over on the tinny sound system. The place is full of various reggae personages — performers like Prince Miller (who used to be Count Prince Miller, and cut an outrageous reggae version of “Mule Train”), Cynthia Richards, Dennis Alcapone — and recording executives like Trojan’s Webster Shrowder, Ashanti’s Junior Lincoln.

Skin Flesh and Bones, the backing group for the tour, plays one by itself. And then Toots, wearing a red zoot suit, and one Maytal (Raleigh Gordon; the other Maytal, Gerry McCarthy, is in New York setting up a gig) are on stage. '

« “You ready?” says Toots. “Sure,” says Raleigh. They slap hands and the band whips them into “Pressure Drop.” Toots is like electricity — dancing, moving, darting around the stage. His voice is ragged (this is gig No. 5 in one week), and distorted by a funky sound system, but it’s still Toots, building an ecstatic chant from roots that run through black gospel, New Orleans rock, African religious music — putting it together and making it reggae. Raleigh is singing for two guys, really serious, really listening, consciously making music but dancing and getting off on it too. There’s so much energy going back and forth between Raleigh and Toots that it’s like there’s a charged area between them.

Somewhere in the middle of the set, Toots says this: “I know one thing. Love is each and every one of us destination. And we never grow old.”

They do seven songs, ending with a joyous, up-tempo explosion Carl identifies as “Broadway Jungle.” Toots, dripping sweat, makes it offstage. My mouth is hanging open. I’m transported. Stoned. Don’t know what to do.

“Wanta go back and meet Toots?” asks Carl. “Uh, yeah,” I mumble, and we push our way into a crowded dressing room. Carl knows Toots -a little, and he introduces us. Toots says, “Glad you like the show, mon.”

There are at least twenty things I want to say. Ideally, I want to ask for an interview, but at least I want to get across to Toots, in an intelligible way, that there are people in the States who know his music, listen to his words, hear him. But I’m too blown-out.

“Toots, you’re too much,” is all I can get out, grinning. Toots grins back, and turns away. We stumble happily out of the dressing room and get on line for the curried chicken.

Michael Goodwin

LAST OF THE DEAD

It started as a rumor that they'd play four concerts at Winterland and, then retire for a year. It turned out they'd only retire from performing. Still, the Grateful Dead fans packed the place. 1967 it wasn't — the Dead played their country tinged material like they were in a redneck bar and most of the patrons were so drunk they couldn't tell what was happening anyway. They knew it, too, and Cited their own stagnancy as one of the reasons for taking thei next year off.

Grateful Dead Fans Denouce Sex

An Ohio researcher who did a study involving musical tastes and non-musical lifestyles has discovered that, among other things:

Mqst rock fahs consider themselves politically on the left wing;

Music lovers who consider themselves right wingers usually like the Carpenters;

Rock fans who are regular newspaper readers are also regular Uriah Heep fans;

Among people who dislike marijuana, the most popular groups are the Carpenters, Three Dog Night and Creedence Clearwater Revival;

People who don’t care much about their sex lives profess a great love for the Grateful Dead.

CAPTAIN EAR POLLUTANT

"After a six-week tour of playing at 140 decibels every night," says Tony lommi of Black Sabbath, "I like to go home, make funny faces, and plug up my ears so I can't hear anything. The soothing powers of this practice are the best cure I know of for heavy metal withdrawal symptoms. Besides, we're not very big stars anymore, and this is'the only way I can get my picture in the pop magazines."

Flamin' Groovies Try Again

It is pretty much an axiom of the music biz that if you stiff out once, somebody’ll give you another chance, but if you stiff out twice, it’s harder than hell to get anybody to listen to you. And that has happened to a lot of bands. Mostly bad ones, I must admit, but not a few good ones and a couple of great ones.

The Flamin’ Groovies are one of the great ones. The hardest rocking band to come out of the great HaightAshbury scene, they were almost universally despised in San Francisco because they played some oldies, because they didn’t do,cosmic noodling jams and hence weren’t “creative,” and because they played real loud.

Their first album, Supersnazz, was on Epic. Since the producer didn’t know anything about anything, it cost a lot to make, but the Groovies were sure they’d have a hit or two. They almost did, except that Epic decided they’d already spent too much and didn’t bother to press the singles. With no records in the stores, there were no hits.

The next two were on Kama Sutra. Flamingo and Teenage Head were both killers, with Head coming out at the same time as Sticky Fingers and Jagger allegedly saying it was better. It was easily as good, at the very least, but when Kama Sutra tried to pull a number on the band, somebody pointed out that they’d never bothered to sign the contract, and they were free.

Next, they followed the beckoning finger of United Artists’ British wing, who felt that the band had enough of a cult following to make it over there. The Groovies had shed two original members and added a couple of other guys, and they leaped to the opportunity. Two fantastic singles, recorded with Dave Edmunds at Rockfield, followed, but the Accounting Department reared its ugly head again and the Groovies left under a cloud, disillusioned.

I’d kind of figured they’d just given up until Greg Shaw called the other day to tell me that he’d acquired rights to the unreleased UA material and was about to release a single on his own label — Bomp — with a little-known Raiders cut for the B-side. Would I be interested in coming to the recording studio to see them cut it? Would I ever!

Cyril is balding a bit, and George has cut his hair so that he no longer resembles a Comanche warrior, and three new guys had been added: James Farrell on guitar, Chris Wilson on guitar and lead vocals, and David Wright on drums. The threeguitar lineup is pure power, something the Groovies have been real good at in the past, and David is an m-sane drummer. And although I’d sort of expected winklepicker nostalgia, what came pounding through the speakers at the Alembic Studios was quintessential rock and roll.

Greg hopes to create enough of a stir with the single — out January first, the eleventh anniversary of the first Beatles’ single, for you trivia fans — to re-interest a major label in the Groovies. Cyril’s been living with his parents, and George has just been hanging out, and that’s no kinda life for a rock and roller. And I may be too old to judge correctly, but I think the Groovies are playing the kind of music that today’s teens like.

Stranger things have happened in rock and roll, and it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch. Is the third time the charm?

Ed Ward

KISS ASS

Aha — gotcha!

Didn't we? Here you thought we were coining on with a typically gross story caption when in fact we were merely describing this picture as succinctly and straightforwardly as possible. Her name is Janis Kissfan, and in the greart libertarian tradition, CREEM maintains that people have a right to do whatever they want with their bodies as long as they aren't hurting anyone else.

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