Once More With Feeling

"Roll over, darling. Pass me a Marlboro," Peter murmured.

"Yeah, right. Hey, d'we have, to have the Les Paul in here?"

"Well, if you get rid of your tape recorder, I'll—

"All right, all right. Now what was I asking you? Do you sleep in the nude?"

Nah, it really didn't happen, and if , Peter Frampton says otherwise I'll take his Boy Howdy t-shirt away from him.

Actually, I found myself waiting for the slender guitar artiste backstage 'at one of Detroit's larger rock emporiums.

Now, I'm a sucker for a pretty face just like you boys, so when Peter Frampton tells me that he can talk to me in "ten minutes," I guess I get a little dazed and confused. * And wait for about 45 minutes before approaching a record 1 company man* lurking nearby.

"What would it take to get into the

dressing room?" He kicks the door open with his foot.

Once inside I note the ambience; clumps of people dressed in seedy rock chic (this is Detroit, punks), who are picking at a table groaning with food and staring at the-Rock Star. Front and center, Peter is looking sweetly attentive to whatever his road manager is chattering about, but his hands are clamped onto his hips as if to say," "I may look smooth and mellow, folks, but I am the bossman there." In fact, when he discovers that I'm the author of a few lines in a recent CREEM that he objects to, I find out just how tough this blue-eyed boy can be.

You see, I'd taken a remark of his "out1 of context", scummy journalistic hack that I am. Let me take you timetripping back to July 1975. We.are at a rock concert. We are sitting in the grass by the rock stars' trailers drinking Wild Turkey (our only nourishment that day) when Peter Frampton emerges from his trailer and appears "ready to rap." Hard to explain, but in this biz * you read faces like a word-starved | junkie.. .I'll do anything for copy, ANY^ THING, as that eminent rock scribe | W. S. Burroughs would say. You f know, after a while, who's about to spill. It's also in the posture; he's casual, doesn't run at the sight of cameras or notebooks.

So'I circle in and pick up the thread of conversation. ,

"Peter, why'd you streak your hair blond?" a very aggro female of the groupie persuasion is asking.

"I dunho, why not?"

"Peter, what's the line in 'Money' after I'll give you lovin'?"

"I'll give you anything but heaven above."

"Peter, why the Paul McCartney tshirt?"

"Oh, he's great. But why can't he write any decent material?" My ears perk up. Copy...the stuff magazines are made of ...I'll do anything...

Peter goes on to say that he was disappointed with Venus! and Mars, that he expected more of McCartney. I jot down the line about Mac not writing any decent material without adding the disclaimer. Even Brenda Starr knows you strip down quotes to the most newsworthy item. Sensationalism? Uh...I can live with that word.

At any rate, the storm clouds disappear from Peter's brow and his face goes all soft again. He offers me Courvoisier. He offers me some of his time. I accept both. ("Women journalists are whores," F. Sinatra, 1975).

I Suddenly it flashes upon me — Frampton, McCartney. McCartney, Frampton. And 1 remember being twelve years old and picking up the same silky vibes from McCartney's face as seen from a fifth row seat at the Olympia. Dreamy, sloe-eyed Paul who sang like an angel and — ah, but you know how sexy these boyish types are.

Frampton is a direct lineal descendant of every pretty boy rock 'n' roller from Ricky Nelson to Fabian to Paul McCartney, and if you think I'm a lech for bringing it up, go stick your nose in a pile of Carly Simon glossies. I guess it's like the dilemma of the yellow-haired girl in Yeats's poem "For Anne Gregory." She suggests that if she dyes her hair black or carrot or brown then men will love her for herself and not her yellow hair. Yeats says no dice, on/y God will love hqr for herself and not her yellow hair. Would we still love you, Peter? A moot point.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing blander than a David Essextype crooner whose music is as ephemeral as his dazzling good looks. Frampton has been polishing his chops for years, and there's no question that his breezy melodies and clean guitar work would please even if he wore a paper bag over his head. But the fact remains, he doesn't wear a paper bag...

Anyway, the nubile Peter settles into a mood of intense brightness, smoking Marlboros and (despite his protests that he's given it up cold turkey) nursing a brandy. He certain/y has the same wide-eyed, delicately-boned face that pretty Paulie had in his prime. Only when he laughs and his eyes crunch up into blue jags does he look a fraction of his 25 years. "Lines On My Face?" Great imagination this kid has.

After smoothing over each other's ruffled feathers ("Didn't mean to blow you away. But I wouldn't want him to read that, even if he is writing bad material."), we get down to business.

"Weren't you the Face of '68?" The Face shoots me a look of pure agony.

"Yeah, I wouldn't mind except it's almost 1978."

Ah, 1968 — Electric Ladyland, the Cream's last gasps...In that last full flower of psychedelia Peter Frampton was London's teenybopper fave rave. Screaming girls rushing the stage — remember screaming girls? Peter muses that guys now rush the stage.

"I guess that means you've arrived. Heh heh."

Facts: Peter grew up in Kent, the son of an art teacher who taught the budding young David Bowie, no less (Peter, four years younger, would jam with David between classes). His father, also a musician, immersed Peter in jazz records. His first record was a Django Reinhardt. Peter was so obsessed with his piece of electrified wood that he banged away at it from the moment he got home from school until his parentsJiterally pulled the plug out on him at midnight. At the age of fifteen he quit grammar school (in England, the breeding ground for college material. John Lennon went to grammar school. So did Paul. Ringo did not) to move to London and play rhythm gui-, tar for a group called the Herd.

TURN TO PAGE 66.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29.

Happenings, acid, Eric Clapton with an afro, pills, the Marquee Club, marijuana busts, screaming girls, flowered Rolls Royces.. ."Their Satanic Majesties Request"indeed. Freeflowing liquor...all with .the Yardbirds' screaming guitars in the background. What can being a pubescent Sixties rock star do to a sixteen-year-old's head, you ask?

"I was an alcoholic by the age of 18," \ Peter tells me. "I used to get absolutely smashed before I went onstage. And then I gave it up. So when you asked me about my favorite drink for the booze article [October CREEM] I had nothing to say because I hadn't drunk in such a long time. That was serious drinking, every night... 1

Funny, there's no evidence of teenage depravity in this guy's face (unless he's got a picture in the attic that's taking all the abuse...).

At any rate, it wasn't long before Peter tired of this Mini^Mod existence walking alligators along Carnaby Street is all right, but even that can get to be a bore. Enter at this point in time a slight young man (you may call him elfin, but I won't), late of the premier Mini-Mod group, the Small Faces. Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton — a marriage; charted in heaven. The Small Faces' forte had been reflective, . whimsical lyrics packed into lilting little melodies. Frampton also is/was no slouch at the catchy melody line and — although it's a matter of taste — he can turn a shapely phrase upon demand. For a time Humble Pie steered a "progressive Small Faces" course, but when Marriott started pushing a harder, soul-flavofed rock'n'roll line, Frampton wanted out. Strange, too, because he wrofe some of the Pie's better workingman's blues type of rjffs.

Which reminds me to ask him who . his musical faves were as a kid.

/ "Oh, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers —"

Hey, back up. Is this 25-year-old trying to pull a scam? How old was he then?

"Eight. I was into it! Buddy Holly — I'd never seen anything like it. And the Shadows Cliff Richard's group — they were my idols. Then I got into American jazz for a long time, which was refreshing for me because it's far more melodic than rock 'n' roll or blues. Trio jazz.

"I never got into blues. When everybody else was listening to blues and Eric Clapton I was listening to jazz. It's not that I don't find his style attractive — he's ^ beautiful player. But nobody came off like Clapton, because he was the originator of that style. He did so much for guitar, and then Hendrix came along and took it a step further."

Facts, facts, facts... Here's one more. Peter Frampton is a, resident of these States. An alien in our midst. Some time after splitting Humble Pie, he chose to break off from the isle of his birth. New home (upstate New York), new lady, new solo career — you can bet he probably threw out all of his old underwear, too.

"I don't want to say anything against my country. Just say that I feel sorry for England and the economic state she's in,

"I love America because there's so much music. Radio. TV — " he motions as if he's being bombarded with transmissions from the surrounding ozone. "Especially radio, it's unbelievable. In England it's government-run, there's like two stations. Therefore a lot of rubbish gets into the English Top Ten. There are about five new albums a week on Radio One. Five. How many records are released in a week? I would love to live-in England, but two radio stations? You're kidding.""

Cultural deprivation? From a limey, about his homeland? Sojjie switch. He insists (and don't be misled by his boy-: ish ways, this cat is kn^e-grabbing intense), that the English tax situation was not a factor in his decision.

"Everything started happening for me because I was concentrating here. You go three thousand miles away from Europe on a six:week tour. Then you come home and vegetate. Then you go back. I've just got to keep on aind on."

And on and on. He's probably been to Altoona, for God's sake, on his latest continental sweep. Why not stay at home with his lady Penny and count his money?

"1 can't afford to, I can't afford to. Do you have any idea how much it costs to keep this band on the road? Just $10,000 to keep this band moving. Unfortunately we're still at the point where we don't have a reserve."

After chattering about the new live album ("Recorded at Winterland, and NO fucking canned applause like Kiss"), Peter sighs that I've tired him out, so I lay a CREEM t-shirt on him and depart.

A few months later, when Peter has come round to playing Michigan again I decide to drop in on him to see what he's been doing since our last face-off (you know, maybe I'd offended him again... maybe this time he'd bash me! Copy, copy', copy...) The-stage show has improved quite a bit — where he'd been confident last summer he is positively effervescent now, jiving with the audience, dancing around with his guitar bouncing off his hip. He seems to revel in the spotlight centered upon his slender bones. The talk box is no longer just a gimmick but a genuine display of virtuosity — when he merged with it and simultaneously played it and his guitar it was as if he'dbeen captured by this machine (a fugitive from some German menschmachina act) and was forced to transmit music through it. And, if eyes weren't deceiving me, he was still enjoying himself . For the last time, I say to myself, I'll get him to admit that he's tired, that he WON'T EVER PLAY "NOWHERE'S TOO FAR FOR MY BABY" AGAIN.

But as Fbarge into the dressing room this time (I kick my own doors open now, thank you) he's in the midst of telling these cub reporters from the local college deily: "If I didn't LOVE it I sure as hell would not be here!" OK! A hard nut to crack, this. one.

When he sees me, it's "Oh, I know her," and hugs. See, we're friends now — we've been through the hate thing, and now he'll wear CREEM t-shirts onstage for me. I really only wanted to say "Hi, good show," and split, but Peter won't have any of this coy bullshit and he sits me down — wham — and shoves one of his MhVlboros into my hand.

"Sit. Smoke. Talk," he.barks.

Further attempts at leaving are not even acknowledged to be within the realm of possibility, so I settle back, alternately cough and puff (I do as I'm told), and listen in as Peter's grilled by the kids. Actually, I don't pick up too much of it, caught up in trying to look like Anouk Aimee with the cigarette. But then I hear'the female cub gush: "Peter, you're sure a warm person to interview."

"Oh, he's great," I crack. "I even misquoted him and he gave me two hours."

Peter doesn't even pause to toss his sweat-soaked mop.

"Well, lady — you put put with the goods and I'll give you all the time you want."

"I'll do any-thing for copy.. .ANYTHING...I'm still young, boss.