THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Mick Toy lor's Stones Surprise

Mick Taylor's departure from the Rolling Stones caught a lot of people by surprise, not the least of, whom was Mick Jagger. "I suppose it was a bit inconsiderate of him to inform us a day before we were about to enter the studios," Jagger told a British reporter, adding that at a Stones business meeting just three weeks earlier, Taylor had given no hints that he might be leaving.

"He obviously had a lot of "troubles" — personal problems — I don't honestly know the nature of them, but there you go ... I was in Managua, Nicaragua, at the time checking out on how the benefit was doing when I recieved a call from the office that Mick Taylor wasn't coming to the Munich sessions. Then I received a call saying Mick Taylor wasn't going anywhere anymore with the Stones," Jagger informed NME's Nick Kent.

When they finally met to discuss it, Taylor seemed "unsure" to Jagger, but he had already made up his mind. He is working in a band with Jack Bruce (late of Cream), American jazz composer/keyboard player Carla Bley, pianist Max Middleton (once of the Jeff Beck Group), and a drummfcr who still hadn't been determined at press time. Taylor will be the band's solo guitarist, and given the line-up, it looks like it will be a jazz-flavored improvisational group which will give him plenty of room to solo.

Undaunted, Jagger promised a "new concept" tour of America for May, with the Stones playing mostly new material. As we go to press, a new guitarist hasn't been named, but they will definitely get one. Among those being suggested are Ron Wood (who's tight pals with Keith Richard), Eric Clapton (who was asked to join when

Brian Jones died, but he was tied up with Blind Faith so Taylor got the nod), Jeff Beck (who could use a good job), and even Mick Ronson (who's working with Ian Hunter in another new group after the demise of Mott the Hoople — geez, this is really getting confusing).

"No doubt we can find a brilliant 6-3 blond guitarist who can do his own makeup," Jagger assures.

Taylor's official statement through his publicist denies it, but one story has it that he was fed up with the Stones because they work so little, thereby eating into both his artistic ambitions and his pocketbook.

Boy Howdy To DropTrou?

"Nekkid broads, eh? Well if that don't beat alL" Boy Howdy was fuming. "I'll tell you one thing, Jake, you'll never see me waving my pud around on no beer can."

The incensed Mr. Howdy was referring to a report that Boy Howdy Beer might follow the lead of a Swedish beer manufacturer now ped-

Alice Mokes History I

You just never know where the ubiquitous and unpredictable Mr. Cooper is gonna pop up next, but you can bet the special highenergy tac squad of CREEM para* parrazi will remain one stumble ahead of him. Here in an exclusive double pistachio scoop we've caught him celebrating his eleventh-hour achievement of being picked over the unceremoniously shoved aside Richard Burton to play the title lead in the upcoming Warner Brothers musical comedy based upon the life of Winston Churchill, Blood, Sweat & Tears For Openers, Baby. Note boo cig and resultant heavy lids — welcome to the hep set, Al, and glad to see you weaned from the bottle!

dling something known as "porn-beer." Graenges Breweries found that by decorating their beer cans with pictures of nude women , and obscene language, sales skyrocketed. They are presently exporting it only to Denmark, but in Copenhagen alone 160,000 cans were sold in one month.

"We never counted on such a demand for porn-beer, but obviously the naked girls and bold words managed to conquer the Danes," said the Graenges marketing director. "It is not strange that the guys like to rest their eyes on the sexy girls while they quench their thirst."

"Everybody knows that Scandinavians are all perverts and geeks — I've heard all about them and their live sex shows," Boy Howdy countered. "And I'm here to tell you that it's strictly Tijuana, man, strictly Tijuana." Back in the old Jefferson Airplane days, Paul Kantner was as radical as the next guy. But like many other leaders of the maybe-not-so glorious revolution, Kantner has cooled considerably, settling into Maoism (For Fun And Profit). He now believes in peaceful coexistence — at least until the great depression.

Lost Imperialistic Payola: The Peking Horse

Kantner wants to tour Red China with the Jefferson Starship, which has been quaking waves lately.

"I'm sending telegrams to Mao Tse Tung." Kantner confided, smiling that condescending I know the true meaning of life smile you always see on. Maoists, Jesus freaks, and Hari Krishnas.

Leather Boys Make Out

All you pretty things thought you had to shave your eyebrows and paint yingyang eggs on your foreheads to pull a Zig, but you were wrong. That was two years ago, sweetheart. Now the way to get a piece of La Dogie is to swathe your sweat in blazingly butch black leather, dears. Here we observe him exiting the Trucks with three of his latest concubines. Smokin,' Dave!

"So far, I've gotten to his Deputy Minister. He keeps telling me "I'm sorry, but we can't accomodate your troupe at the time:" "

Kantner feels like he's making progress. First, they told him he couldn't come because they didn't have the equipment. He wired and said that was all right, they'd take care of all the equipment themselves. Then, the Chinese said they didn't have the facilities. Kanter said that was all right also. The Starship would take care of the facilities, too.

1 "From what I understand," said * Paul, "they're not too receptive. They think all western mu^ic is decadent and capitalistic."

"Well, why don't you get Mao on the RCA mailing list." I suggested.

"That's a good idea," said Kantner. "That's a good idea."

Watch this space for further developments.

Jim Esposito

Toni Rush, Songwriter's Best Friend

The devotion of a true artist is boundless. Or something like that. Anyway, Tom Rush , is sitting in a dressing room after a show at Atlanta's Great Southeast Music Hall just two days after he got married. He leans over to the tape recorder and

loudly says, "But I couldn't wait to come to Atlanta and play for the nice people down here." Any marital problems in the first two days, Tom? "This ring keeps getting in my way. I was out in the audience watching Orphan (his: warmup band and support musicians). I nearly broke my wrist trying to clap."

This tour, and his new Ladies Love Outlaws album, is the first chance people have had to see Tom in a long time. He has just come out of a not-wanting-to-tour period which was totally in keeping with his long career: he has always done the unexpected,

confounding labelers and those who think they know where his head is at. The new trade ads for LLO call Tom a "rock and roll hero" (!) "Sort of strange," is Tom's comment. "I don't know what I am, quite frankly: I just do it and don't label it. Fortunately, that's not my problem."

Tom Rush was called a blues singer, only he sang too much folk. Then he was a folk singer, only he used too many electric instruments (including a great out-of-place 50's rock album with A1 Kooper on Elektra, one that came after the 50's themselves but before the current revival period. "There was some question as to whether I was ahead of my time or behind the times," he says).

But his most important contribution has easily been the discovery and popularization of new songwriters: he is

There's Gonna be a Blowdown

We announced in a recent issue that glitter and all attendant buffoonery was dead as Davy Crockett hats, so what're we doing running this picture of some poor befuddled youngster who looks like he just popped outa Wayne County's birthday cake? Not mocking the afflicted, buster, not on your life. The truth is that this taxpayer was discovered last Xmas, semi-comatose in a Toys For Tots bin and burbling that the last thing he remembered some fast talker with a cigar was telling him he was gonna be the centerpiece in Elton John's prepared piano. Since he also claimed to be David Steinberg's mother, he was turned over to the B'Nai Brith for processing and gradual detox/deflation. When all the air was let out of his swaddle it was discovered that he was actually a derelict extra from the cast of the film version of West Side Story (a Jet, natch) who had been lost on the Bowery in post-Hollywood amnesiacal fog these 14 years. Good luck to him and kin wherever they are.

not a prolific writer himself and reaches his apex when he lays down a beautiful arrangement of some obscure tune by some obscure writer (they have included such nobodies/ as James Taylor, Joni Mitchell and Jackson Browne, who were nobodies when Tom did their songs). To know who'll be happening three years from now, look at this ydar's Tom Rush album label. It reads Lee Clayton and Wayne Berry, for two. If history repeats itself like it always does, it is a guaranteed fact that they will be highrent writers very soon. With both customs officer and friendly "bobby" currently zealous and overactive in confiscating caches of the killer weed and its resinous counterpart o'er the coasts and vales of fair Britain, it takes unusual measure to defend oneself once in their clutches. Clive Ashley and David Hayes, from Guildford, Surry, are two such culprits.

Tom Dupree

Flowers and Leaves, Mole and Female

They don't deny being in possession of cannabis, but they argue that the Misuse of Drugs . Act, 1971, under which they are charged, defines "cannabis" as "the flowering or fruiting tops of any part of the genus Cannabis," and makes no mention of

leaves. A leaf is not a flower, they assert.

When they first appeared in court, the Guildford justices accepted their logic and dismissed the case without hearing the oral evidence of a forensic scientist. Because of this, the prosecutor appealed to tTie High Court, who ordered the case to continue and for Miss Howard to give evidence. It appears that in an earlier case she had put forth the view that there was no part of the plant other than the roots which were not part of the "flowering or fruiting top," and since this view was upheld, it is the opinion of the High Court that the leaves are flowers, however illogical it may seem, and the lower courts are expected to follow suit.

When the case continues later 'this year, Ashley and Hayes will argue that the higher court's interpretation is nonsense, and will be calling on a botanist to explain the elements of plant construction. They contend that they should not be convicted of an offense unless guilty of it, and if there is a defect in the definition of cannabis in the Misuse And Drugs Act, then it should be corrected in the proper Parliamentary manner and not be distorted in an attempt to

close a linguistic loophole.

To the northwest, meanwhile, a Dublin court has upheld a man's contention that the prosecution failed to define whether the defendant's cannabis came from a male or female plant. The Irish Drug Act of 1934 defines cannabis as "the product of the flowering and fruits of the pistillate or female plant." The male plant, therefore, appears to be legal, and once it is dried and chopped, there is no way to prove whether it was male or female.

Jonh Ingham

One BLT To Eat Here, Please

With food prices continuing to soar, supermarket clerks are reporting the rise of another, parallel phenomenon. All around the store they're finding bones of barbecued chickens and ribs, empty milk cartons, fruit rinds and pits. And you should have seen the look on the face of the stock boy who discovered, down one aisle, the remains of a loaf of bread plus open jars of peanut butter and jelly next to the display of plastic knives.

Pull Up Your Pants, Taka a Chanca

Montrose lead vocalist Sam Hager was sitting in his Mill Valley living room smoking a pipe, looking not at all like the man with the interstellar overdrive voice that he presents on stage and on vinyl. "Can you imagine what my fans would think if they could see me now?" He assumed the posture of a professor of musicology: "I am going to . .. rock ... the nation, rock .. . the nation."

Backstage at San Francisco's Winterland, Ronnie

Montrose leaned back Jn an armchair to answer my question about the absence of drug use in the band. "Drugs? ... Sure they've played a part in my life, but I just came to the point where I knew I couldn't play the music I wanted and continue to depend on drugs at the same time. I guess the strongest stimulant any of us use is coffee."

This band could give rock a good name. Tobacco and coffee? What kind of budding young stars are these? Where's the sleaze? Maybe Ian Hunter was wrong — maybe rock V roll's not a loser's game. To round out the picture, let's look at the other half of the band — drummer Denny Carmassi must get his strength from somewhere. "Where do you get the energy to play like that night after night?" "I work out a lot." Well, that answers that.

Auditioning News From Mott The Hoople

Looking a little forlorn, this member of the British comedy act Monty Python reminds us of the guy who was left holding his thumb in the dyke. How did he get out on stage, anyway? Can he walk on those things? Dote he take lessons from Overend Watts? See who else Monty Python parodies in the movie And Now For Something Completely Different, including bits entitled "The Transvestite Lumberjack" and "Hell's Grannies."

But Con He Dance In It?

In celebration of his entry into the forthcoming edition of The Guiness Book Of World Records, Tracy "Super Solo" Burroughs created the world's largest T-shirt. Measuring 35' X 50', it weighs over 100 pounds and is spun of 400 yards of the best Hanes cotton. His record? 218 hours, 46 minutes of non-stop drumming. Buddy Rich says "he comes on too strong," but we're inclined to join his fans who, according to the New York Times, when "he put down his sticks , . . his hands specked with blood and his face dripping with sweat, cheered and threw flowers at him." But we keep wondering: how does he fit a size 840 T-shirt into the crummy little car parked in this picture when he runs around doing promotional gigs?

I remarked to bassist Alan Fitzgerald that he seems so quiet, almost philosophic. "When I'm on stage — that's the place where I let out everything I might otherwise keep inside."

There's no escaping it, this band are not your ordinary, everyday heavy metal music makers. Whether it be on

stage or on record, they have brought new life to largeeconomy size rock V roll. Their first album, which sold over 200,000 copies stateside, and the more recent Paper Money are both shining examples of that.

But I donh: know... "healthy" isn't exactly a word used often to describe rock musicians. It's the only word to describe Montrose, though. Whether it be their actual physical appearance or the attitude with which they approach their music, it's a clean machine they're driving. Ronnie's guitar work is an exercise in precison. He's a maniac all right — nobody but a maniac could play chords strong enough to stun a Medusa one moment and turn around the next with a melodic line to tear your heart out.

Denny climbs aboard his newly-painted flaming drum kit and plays like he was competing for an Olympics gold medal, breathing in synchronization with the time he keeps. Throw in Alan's bendit-shape-it-anyway-you-want-il thundering bass, plus Sam and his space age sacrifice voice, and the ingredients add up to the first American band to truly capture the essence of what so many English bands have been saying for years: play it loud and proud.

Chris Knab

Tooths, Oo Yo Stuff

That's what these two winners of CREEM's recent Keith Richard Lookalike Contest are hoping will set them apart from the random rabble of Nick Kents and bone earrings. And they've certainly got the chops for glory: at right, Patti Smith, wearing her K.R. T-shirt and keeping her eye firmly fixed on Manifest Destiny; at left, James Williamson, erstwhile Stooge, dreaming of bygone frenzies.

5 YEARS JMPO

MARCH, 1970 ^

Tommi Terrel dies under mysterious circumstances

Tammi, a Motown singer best known for her duets with Marvin Gaye, suffered severe brain damage in a never-explained mishap several years earlier, and had gone in and out of a coma a few times since. This time she didn't come out of it. __ „

Keith Emerson of the Nice odds Moog to his stage actl

The Nice, a three piece group from England, are best known for their bizarre theatrics, such as destroying an American flag as the climax to their last number of the show.

Computers Multiply Like Robbits

The number of computer data banks in operation has increased so dramatically tljat now a University of Illinois computer expert is proposing to establish a data bank that will keep track of other data banks. The National Science Foundation agrees to the tune of $100,000, which is the size of the grant awarded Professor Martha Williams so

that she can set up a data bank to store data on all other data banks. According to Ms. Williams, this has become necessary because life is so complicated. Thanks, Martha, you were there when we needed you — but where are you going to store data on the data bank that stores data on all other data banks?

Answer Of The Month

Ybu Can't Fool Them All

You might recall that at the end of The Beat Goes On section in the December issue of CREEM, there appeared a little item under the leading title of "Question of the Month." That question concerned the first musician to ever use the wah wah pedal.

We were cagey. You notice it didn't say first rock musician or anything like that. We thought we were throwing a real curve at you.

We were right. Answers like Clapton, Page, Zappa, Hendrix, Beck poured in. All wrong. Finally, from Joe Katz of Jackson Heights, N.Y., came the correct answer: Maury Wills.

Mr. Wills, a shortstop on the Los Angeles Dodgers, until recently held the stolen bases record. In the off season, he made extra money playing guitar and banjo in such exotic burgs as Reno and Las Vegas. It was in Nevada that he unveiled the wah wah at an introductory banquet for members of the music trade as a promotional hype for the gadget's manufacturer. Well before it ever appeared on any records or at any rock concerts.

Atta boy, Joe Katz. Wear your Boy Howdy tee shirt like heaven.