We Give It A 95 (Good Beat)
Heeeey, neat pictures, Dick—I’d forgotten what the Top 10 list looked like.
The CREEM Archive presents the magazine as originally created. Digital text has been scanned from its original print format and may contain formatting quirks and inconsistencies.
ROCK. ROLL, & REMEMBER
(Thomas Y. Crowell)
by Dick Clark (and Richard Robinson)
Heeeey, neat pictures, Dick—I’d forgotten what the Top 10 list looked like, that girls danced with girls and what an out-and-out greaseball you used to be. Is this what our parents allowed our brothers.and sisters to be left with for a half hour every afternoon?
Really, though; whether you remember the good old days of payola, network censorship, strange record company activities (how come they quit giving cash advances to rock magazines?) etc., or want a quick intro course, Dick (with the help of Rewire Yourself s own R. Robinson) does a creditable job of both baring his own chest (Was he guilty during the payola
scandals? Did he ever date Bandstand nymphettes?) and bringing the period alive for those of us who were caught up in Spin and Marty and Bugs Bunny at the time. >
Susan Whitall
Their Cups Runneth Over
TITTERS
(The First Collection Of Humor By Women)
(Collier Books)
Edited by Deanne Stillman and Anne Beatts__
Boys, don’t be dismayed by the Ms, Magazine vibes you get from this book. Girls, (Sisters? Women?) don’t be dismayed by the cover photo, in the best tradition of the WE A disembodiedfemale-human-parts-school of album covers, bare breasted t-shirt division. There’s a definite schizophrenic feel to this collection of stories, cartoons, foto funnies, etc. The editors want you to
read this book because it’s funny and not because it’s written by women, yet the entire introduction is a rather defensive argument that women are funny and “If it’s now okay for women to write poems about menstrual blood, why shouldn’t it be okay for women to make jokes about women who write poems about menstrual blood?”
It’s just not true that female humor has magically sprouted with the women’s movement; rather, female humor, like humor in general, has
moved into what used to be no-no areas (like Rick Johnson’s neighborhood in Macomb). But if , you’ve digested this warning about the lingering defensiveness and the odd art dept, emphasis on homoerotic illustrations, (what, no beefcake?) forget all about it and buy this book; you’ll laugh forever at such highlights as Gilda Radner’s (CREEM’s t-shirt girl) “Diet Tips,” “Rock Nightmares” by Ann Duncan (sister of Robert), the always readable Fran Lebowitz, etc., etc. Better than Yoo-hoo!
Susan Whitall
EASY RIDERS:
Peter Fonda Never Had Nothin’Like This
“Damnin’ myself for havin’ done such a shitty job of plottin’ gas-stops, I sat sprawled against the sled s empty tank, calmly watchin’ the traffic. Tiltin’ the last can ot warm beer to my mouth,
I gulped down the tepid suds. Takin’ a final, deep drag on the joint I held,'I flicked the roach toward the nearby highway jampacked with truckers and vacationing straights. The hitriffed through me.”
No, it’s not the latest Honda radio spot or a Peter Laughner story on Steppenwolf. It’s Easy riders, the sublimely scummy magazine “For Adult Bikers Only.” Encouraged by pavement fumes and a wider distribution achieved by dropping the posters of bikers pissing on each other in the spirit on camaraderie, the hulking staff at ER continue to go all-out in their chromosome-impairing glorification of gearhead finality.
Regular features include No Bullshit Reviews Of The Flicks (“Don’t see this fuckass movie no matter who tells you to”), an advice column called Miraculous Mutha Tells All, the monthly Tribute To Brothers Lost memorials, and record reviews you’ll never see in a family mag like CREEM: “Joni Mitchell’s songs just sort of waft as she chases them about with her cunty odd note signatures or whatever they’re called. This woman makes me puke.”
The real action is in the stories, where heroic pill-pans gun unmolested through a menacing world of big fights, big bikes and big tits. With enough face-kicking, Rorer slurping, crack-packing and general piston envy to put Marlon Brando back on training wheejs, Easy riders makes for great reading between gang bangs and county jails. It ain’t that easy to Ride Hard & Die Fast for a dollar anymore „
Rick Johnson
