ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS

Early reports had Led Zeppelin with a fully-recuperated Robert Plant playing the Rose Bowl on January 24. Swan Song, at last word, is denying this and says that only until Plant feels that he is recovered from his summer car accident will any Led Zep tour dates be firmed up. But still, keep youro eyes on the Rose Bowl in late January

Latest word on that Led Zep movie, is that Jimmy Page is still at work mixing the soundtrack and that no deals have yet been made for distribution. Though most of the Aiming was done at a Madison Square Garden concert, including the numbers “Stairway to Heaven” and “Whole Lotta Love,” the producer maintains it is neither a documentary nor a concert film, choosing to call it instead “a modern musical.”Hmmm.

Also, rumor has it that all the members of Led Zep are migrating to Los Angeles for at least the next six months. Perhaps for tax purposes, though maybe just to keep Robert Plant company while he completes his recuperation.

And Little Feat’s ne w LP will be called The Last RecordAlbum.

According to one Hollywood gossip, Ring© Starr is broke, having lost seven or eight million dollars in recent years through bad investments and what he reportedly describes as “just plain squandering my money away.’” And while estranged wife Maureen has allegedly been seeking one million bucks in her divorce suit against Ringo, even a judge, according to sources, agreed with the ex-Beatles’ asessment that he was dead broke.

Earth News reports that a British court has charged the Bay City Rollers’ 19-year-old lead singer. Les NcKeown with assau Iting two newspaper photographers and damaging equipment belonging to one of them at a concert last June. This is not expected to interfere with the Rollers’ American invasion.

Expect another concept album from the Kinks any minute. Entitled Schoolboys in Disgrace — what it’s about has yet to be revealed — the LP will also form the baste for the Kinks’ latest stage show which should be on a three month tour in America shortly.

Welcome back to thg Flamin’: Groovies, last heajd from on their 1971 album Teenage Head, who have signed a new contract with Sire Records and are currently in the studio. ' .

In order to help raise money for an Irish charity dedicated to the support of blind and handicapped kids,

Eric Clapton recently took time out from h is vacation in that country to dress as a clown and perform in a celebrity circus along with new pals Shirifey MacLaine, Sean Connery, and Burgess Meredith. Strange brew, indeed.

Alice Cooper cancelled the rest of his German tour after only two dates, claiming that the authorities who held up himself, his crew, and equipment at Munich airport for several hours on a charge, which was later dropped, of not having paid an $840 hotel bill and making off with rugs, towels, and curtains, were simply harassing him.

There’s talk around Holly wood that Alice may be marrying his forever sweetheart, Cindy Lang, shortly, and in the new New Orleans Superdome, no less.

And in further up-to-the-minute nuptial news.,. Pavlov's Dog’s lead singer, David Surkamp, recently engaged to longtime girlfriend Karen Heinkel will be married ip St. Louis’ (their home-, town) Ambassador Theatre on January 10th. Playing at the same venue for the reception , beside the Dog, will be label-mates, the Blue Oyster Cult, a well-known local weddings andbarmitzvahs band.

Coming straight out of the blue sky over Texas, ZZ Top has been break jng concert attendance records all across the country, rriost notable recently in Atlanta, where they topped the all-time mark ser y the Stones’ last gig. In the meantime their last LP, TresHombres, has spent longer On the Billboard charts — 81 weeks, to be exact — than any previous LP by an American band.

In case you were wondering, that ain’t no stumblebum drunk on the cover of Nell Sedaka’s new .Hungry Years album, but rather one very sober millionaire by the name of Berate Taupin.

Despite denials by their record company, the rumors of an imminent split in Queen are flying ., pretty hot and heavy with the most likely possibility being that Freddie Mercury is anxious to follow a solo

Ex - Free gu itarist, PaulKossoff, who recently released his first solo career album, was stricken with acute kidney failure last month and rushed to the hospital where his heart stopped for 35 minutes before doctors revived him Late word from a record company spokesman is that he'i back on his feet and may even embark on a U.S. tour within the next six weeks.

Flo and Eddie cancelled their recent date at Los Angeles’ Troubadour in deference to Bruce Springsteen who was to play the same night at the nearby Roxy Theatre. Said Eddie (a.k.a. Howard Kayian): “I’d rather go see Bruce than play ourselves.” While Flo (a.k.a. Mark Volman) continued: “When Bruce heard our new album, he immediately tried to get back into the studio tochange a number of tracks on his new LP. We’ ve become one of the biggest influences in his career. ” Joke . Get it?

Carole King, whose last tour was over two years ago, is tentatively planning a world tour for’76 that will begin in Japan in April and wind through the U.$. in fete spring and cover Canada, England and. Scandinavia as well.

Several issues back, we cited a Hollywood columnist who maintained that John Lennon was frantically searching the world for a scalp doctor who could reverse his galloping hair loss .Well, that same Hollywood columnist now tells us that David Bowie is involved in a similar desperate quest, having “dyed his hair to death”, and is presently considering a very painful, experimental process of scalp injections to save his (currently) red follicles.

Speaking of baldies ENS reports that die Beach Boys’ Mike Love, equipped with copies of the TM (standing for Transcendental Meditation) Book, stopped by the offices of Senator Ted Kennedy, among 15 to 20 other'Washington legislators, and dropped in on Susan Ford at the White House, all in attempt to promote TM as an aid to world peace. “If Kissinger can’t impose peace on earth,” explained Love, ‘Nwe must find an alternative.” Has he spoken to ToddRpndgren?

Cosy Powell, one-time-drummer for the Jeff Beck Group, has reportedly Joined up with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. »

Though Manticore reports no knowledge erf such goingson,

Earth News says that Keith Eater* son has been holed up in a New York studio with Mitch Mitchell, former ly of Jimi Hendrix' band (remember?) at work oh his solo LP which should be out by Christmas.

Expect a Best of the Eagles album

Bowie has taped a segment of Cher’sshow in L.A. and is hard at work on two aibums,. One isthe soundtrack to The Man Who FeU To Earth; no word ori what the other: will be. Meanwhile, according to -

Lisa Robinson, while Bowie works . out inHollywood, wife Angela is embarking onaU^.cotlege lecture tour she spoke recently at Eton in England’r* her topic being:

“Aspectsof Entertainment.”

Regarding her new career. Angie reportedly told Lisa* ‘Tmsoexcited, ljust can’t wait |o get out there and visit American campuses. All those cute eager young things. just waiting..‘ I

The Who’s Keith Moon frantically at work in Los Angeles trying to finish up his second solo outing which features,besides the legend-' ary Stew Cropper as producer, the talents of Ringo “Can you get me a gig?” Starr, Billy Preston,. and IQinsVaomm.

That live concert film, Rod Stewart and the Face»featuring j Keith Richard, filmed last January will not, according to Earth News, be released to theatres, but instead has been soldasaTV special.

Another welcome back: to Tom* my Janies who’s recording s new album for Fantasy in San Francisco produced by his frequent writing partner (“Mony. Mony”), Ritchie Cordell.

In the most unlikely pairing since the Band’s Robbie Robertson produced the HirthFrom Earth LP.none other than...the Band’s Robbie Robertson is producing Neil Diamond's next wax.

Not that anybody was ever surerfhat they were together in recent times, hut the word is out that Traffic has . officially broken up and Stevie Winwood is recording a solo album

Shame on John Denver! He has been removed from Colorado’s Bicentennial Commission by that ; state’s governor. Denver allegedly attended only two of the Commission’s ten board meetings, and the FvYouth Activities Subcommittee,”^' of which he was chairfnan, never j

even met.

% - * / ^ i

Alice Coopers role in Robert Altman’s movie version of Vonnegut’s j Breakfast of Champions will be as Bunny Hoover, a cocktail lounge "piano playerc^

Lynyrd Skynyrd are finishing up their Christmas release in j|pe studio, with Tom Dowd producing, but this time without guitarist'Ed King, co-author of “Sweet Home Alabama” and “Saturday Night Special,” who according to inside Sources had big differences with manager and,former producer,

■ A! Kooper.v

Double good news for John Lennon: YokoOno Lennon gave birth this past October (on John’s birthday no less) to an eight pound boy, whom they named SeanOno Lennon and due to the fact that he’s now the father of a U.S: citizen and probably due also to the embarassingiy unsympathetic treatment accorded John by the U.S. government, it appears that his depprt.ation case hasbeen dropped for good.

Dylan’s new album is still untitled but should also be out before Christmas. Apparently Kokomo, Dave Mason and Eric Clapton are only featured on one of the LP’sten cuts with the rest of the backup being provided by Emmylou Honks and an unknown New York bar band who bill themselves as Rockin’ Rob Stoner (ne£ Rothstein) and the Rebels.

Ian Hooter's and Mick Ronson’s commercially unsuccessful musical marriage is apparently cm the rocks permanently. *

Has George Harrison fallen off the wagon?. Word is first he’s now anex-vegetarian.

Fully recoveredfrom that near fatal accident when a faulty air hose seeped exhaust fumes into their sleep-m bus, the members of Black Oak Arkansas, in a grand gesture to ' their home state, have purchased the last one-room schoolhouse in Arkansas and plan to refurbish it as a state monument.

Paris is a new group signed'fo Capitol and features ex-Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Watch,

ex-Jethro TnH bassist Glen

Comtek, and from way back there, ’ex-Nazz drummer Thom Mooney.

Drug possession charges brought .against Three Dog Night’s Chuck Negron in Louisville, Kentucky this past summer have been dropped due to insufficient evidence.

The Winterbrothers along with honprary brother Rick Derringer plan to put out a live set from their just completedwestern tour.

At this writing, a European Stones tour, again with Ron Woodin the other guitar slot, is scheduled to begin any moment while a new LF, which may just be a live set from the past U.S. tour — not the studio tracks from Munich — is due before the end of the month

Paul Simon, supposedly now at qiork on a new album, may be permanently leaving the concert circuit with a farewell tour to start this month

Arid now for the Elvis stories . It may not be a weight problem that • doctors at a Memphis hospital are trying to deal iyrth. According to some reports. Elvis is afflicted with blurring vision, tentatively diagnosed gs glaucoma, a disease which sometimes leads to blindness But whatever it is the docs have supposedly recommended that El wear tinted glasses from now on, especially u nder the bright stage lights Meanwhile Earth News reports that even Elvis has fallen victim to the recession, during his recent stay in the hospital he presented the head nurse on his floor with a new Pontiac, whereas in the past his custom has been to give away Cadillacs (see last issue’s R‘n’ RNews).