You have to hand it to them. The Sex Pistols, I mean. They’ve been ‘n’ gone ‘n’ got more publicity than any rock group since the Stones lifted their legs against those petrol pumps. More, probably, and just for saying naughty words on television. Front pages, concerts cancelled, the good ladies of EMI refusing to even touch their single in the packaging department —“Yuk!”. And, most amazing of all, free commercials! The News of the World, world’s biggest selling newspaper, has been advertising its no-holds-barred-or -unphotoed expose of punk rock with a thirty second clip of Johnny Rotten and the boys playing the only four notes they know. It’s the only punk rock most kids in Britain have ever heard or seen and if the Pistols can’t make it as the new Rollers after this lot, then they deserve to be squelched to death by the combined forces of *the Respectable Women of Britain, Inc.

One thing the Pistols may not have realized yet though is that the UK, of which they are such concerned citizens, is actually a town in the mid-west of the US of A. I don’t suppose many of you CREEM readers knew that either and I only just found out myself. But once you do know it becomes obvious. Not a very big town admittedly, hard to find on the map and fading now, a once prosperous industrial city become a brake wasteland, but I’ve been Doing Research, like a proper rock journalist, and it turns out that Britain, Michigan, was established by the CIA in 1880. Since then we’ve been used for various nefarious CIA purposes—splitting the atom, breeding the Beatles, the setting for Upstairs Downstairs, most recently as an Awful Example of the Effects of Socialism (you gotta believe the American Dream, see?). I know this all sounds a bit far-fetched, but consider the evidence:

1. Linda Ronstadt.

It was lovely Linda who'exposed everything on the BBC. I guess she hadn’t been briefed very well. Most visiting stars know to treat the BBC with proper respect; Linda came across on the radio like she was calling in on just another hick station in Ohio (which, of course, she was), graciously laying on us some of that smart LA sheen. Gee thanks, and her televised concert was so lpckadaisacal that she was obviously just going through the motions to pay off some old ^political debt. Good Lord! Adam Faith did better Buddy Holly impressions fifteen years ago.

2. The Charts, etc.

Where else but the mid-west would the best selling records be a revived youth club version of “Under The Moon Of Love” (by Showaddywaddy!); a ballad by Chicago (!) who have been unanimously welcomed as the best new classy group since “America” (they’re clever propagandists, these CIA lads); and still more extracts,from late nineteenth century operettas by a combo of ex-ballet dancers called Queen?

3. Tax Exiles

I never understood about tax exiles because although I don’t often reveal this I’m actually a tax expert and according to my calculations all those stars aren’t actually better off anywhere else except Jdrsey (Old not New) and none of them live there anyway. Turns out that it’s not that these people earn too much but that they know too much. It’s not too long before even the most laid back international superstars begin to realize there’s something odd about their flight paths and that’s when the Agency have to move in. There are'' always some stars too dumb to notice anything, of course, and they, like the Moody Blues and Jethro Tull, can stay. Others get re-educated and security cleared and are allowed to return like Rod, currently enjoying a triumphant, critic-squashing tour (though even he has to be accompanied everywhere— can you spot the agent, always by his side?). Buf most are held in CIA holiday camps and rock resorts and photoed endlessly “enjoying themselves”, always with the same people, you’ll notice. Who else do you think Harry Nilsson is, if not Ringo’s security guard?

4. Punks, etc.

I don’t have to say much about them as for years now rock critics have been leaking suggestions about the connections between Mersey Beat, midwestern garages, Iggy Pop and neoBritish punk. What they never dared admit before was that these connections are no accident!

Fact is that the CIA isn’t too worried about punks ’cause most of them are too provincial and silly to se,e beyond the ends of their ear lobes and if an occasional kid does get out of line he can be put under house arrest like John Lennon and if the genre itself gets out of hand then the Agency has a farm in Virginia on which it breeds proper pop stars to divert us. Latest product is Robert Palmer who is so obviously a bionic man that I wonder if the lab didn’t overdo things on the good looks machine.

Stars, punks, robots—none of them are much use to the B.L.A. (British Liberation Army); for our minstrels we rely on the few remaining rock subversives. None of them survive long. They either get brain-washed and successful or frozen out of the media dnd dejected, or both at once like Joe Cocker. Latest hope is Andy Fairweather-Low. At least his great Be Bop TV’ Holla will keep morale up during the long winter campaign. Which reminds me.

5. The Weather

After our summer of drought it is now so cold that my brain has frozen over.Sft'