THE BEAT GOES ON

THE BEAT GOES ON

Ian Whitcomb: Still Turned On

PASADENA, CA-Tm a roots man, I see everything in terms of what came before,” says Ian Whitcomb, author and jiovelist, songwriter, disc jockey, BBC correspondent, archivist, recording artist and ex-pop star of the 60’s, “and there’s a terrible tendency in this country to think anything that happened five years ago is nostalgia.”'

Whitcomb is sitting in a coffee shop in Pasadena, looking less like the “true renaissance man” his friend Barry Hansen (“Dr. Demento”) calls him than the logical end product of his stage persona—where he moves about so chaotically his sets are like 50 years of American pop music condensed into 50 minutes. His act is no sterile presentation of Tin Pan Alley, but a raucous look at America’s past.

Actually Whitcomb had less than an hour’s sleep the night before. After hosting the Sock Hop Ball at the Variety Arts Center in Los Angeles he had to be on the air at 6 a.m. for his KROQ-FM radio show. For four hours he plays old records and gossips amusingly about artists, in between suffering through commercials and stoned callers on the request lirie.

The Sock Hop Ball featured Whitcomb on piano fronting an all-star band for charity. “What a marvelous band, too. Big Joe Turner, Tom Leadon on guitar, Motown’s legendary James Jamerson on bass, Freddy Clark on sax, Mike Cohen on drums and Drake Levin of Paul Revere and the Raiders on guitar,” says Whitcomb. “A band like that is very special indeed.”

Like all his projects, the band played music from yesteryear; funky, exciting R&B music, certainly, but nonetheless music from yesteryear. Since breaking into the pop music scene in 1965 with his amusingly suggestive novelty hit “You Turn Me On,” Ian Whitcomb’s life has been devqted to the past.

His book After the Ball was a history of pop .music from ragtime to rock, while his novel Lotus Land was set in 1917 California. His radio show fea-

tures rockabilly and Tin Pan Alley numbers and his personal appearances consist of his performing exclusively old material leading up to the inevitable “You Turn Me On” finale.

,f“I don’t think one should forget the past. I’m really quite frightened of people who deny their culture, they’re people without a shadow. I’m conservative, in that I do believe everything should be in logical steps and we are all part of a great tree with very noticeable connections,” says Whitcomb.

Not that Whitcomb isn’t painstakingly aware of the present music scene. “It seems to me what’s happening now in Britain is that culture is going in a circle where it used to go forward. There’s nothing new to discover —so the kids go back to old dress and styles like the mods and rockers. It’s a sign of decadence.

“New Wave is, doing what kids in the 50’s did when they started rock ’n’ roll. They couldn’t p/ay it then, but they’d never have been allowed in a studio— whereas today they let anybody make a record. When James Brown screams, it’s a musical scream which can be taken to bits and analyzed; when Johnny Rotten screams it’s just a bloody shout and it’s as much art as a paper cup.”

A fixture on the Los Angeles scene (he owns a home in Altadena), Whitcomb’s own rock taste runs toward rockabilly, another music enjoying new popularity today. “Elvis Presley was a greatly heroic charicter to me, looking at

America from my .growing up in England. He was so untutored and unself-conscious, he looked like a Hercules or a Greek God right out of some comic book. Between him and the movies America seemed extremely sexual to me.

“I never tire of talking about the excitement of growing up and looking at America from England in the 50’s. The music here was so supremely exciting, full of escape and hope and

promise and this tremendous sexual lure,” Whitcomb smiles. “Then of course I got over here—and I saw all the girls who weren't well-built and men who weren’t all huge, macho types like in the films.”

Whitcomb is probably most famous for his love of pre-rock American music such as ragtime and Tin Pan Alley (fellow Tin Pan Alley enthusiast Ray Davies financed one recent Whitcomb album), but what’s interesting is his low regard for the leaders of the British Invasion, without whom English musicians tike himself might never have been heard in this country.

“The Beatles looked like the boys next door—they didn’t have the glamorous aura stars had before them. There were just tyloody ordinary, boys next door and I feel very strongly about this. They destroyed glamour and the exciting Land of Oz nature of pop music. I hate them for that, absolutely hate them for that.

“There are plenty of other people who know more about music, be it hillbilly or race records or whatever,than I do,” Whitcomb admitted, “though I happen to be good at taking a bunch of different musics and linking them together in a

BATTLE OF THE BEAUTIES !!

"I don’t carewhat anybody says," says currant CREEM Droom Nina Hagan, "nobody’s 'gonna taka away my title as the world’s most beautiful woman I" Yap, It’s a hard world out there, Nina, and today's protty faco'll bo tomorrow's fading momory no mattar how you look at it I But the competition is fierce, as highly desirable Grace Jones would be the first to agree I "That's right, turkey I "says Grace, 'I’ll yvhoop Nina and anyone else who thinks they got more in the looks department than Grade’s got! 1" And so the controversy continues I Who would you vote for? Grace? Nina? Your mom? Yep, it's a tough choice no matter how you look at it—but one thing's for surp: there's a lot of CREEM Dreem's out there, and we'll do our best to find 'em I popular style for books. I feel After The Ball made pop history into a good story, an interesting, yarn because it is a history which can be terribly dry. ”

Whitcomb admits some of his act won?t be understood by a particular audience because they’re not knowledgeable pop historians like himself. But he says there’s still something that everyone can enjoy, be it a certain soncf or his eccentric's personality. “Of course I’m aware some of my stuff goes over my audience’s head, that’s half the power of my act.

' “A lot of people enjoy it when I’m speeding, going fast, half the time not knowing what I’U do next. Some slips by them and some I don’t even understand myself—but they enjoy this fellow onstage running around with his clipboard, seemingly in chaos and yet somehow"still in dontrol. I’ve been reviewed as ‘teetering on the edge of chaos’ and that’s exciting to me,”

“I’m expressing myself through my work. I guess I write books and make records be-„ cause it is my quest for immortality, a quest to be remembered,” Whitcomb says. “One is always aware of one’s own mortality, and the only things which are lasting are art and friendship. I suppose I try to do both. By my writing, I’m trying to make a monument. ”

Lately Whitcomb has been in a flurry of activity, working on a new book and a new album of player piano music which he chose, played and sang on, Piano Melt.

“I’ve thought they’d make a nice album without words on top, so I thought it would be nice to sing along. The recording quality of the piano is absolutely beautiful, I’ve never heard a piano sound like this with such a lovely, full presence,says Whitcomb.

The cover of the album, Whitcomb’s 13th (not including his 1973 production of Mae West), features his own lavish liner notes discussing each song and artwork by Neon Park of Little Feat fame. Whitcomb says he’s as proud of the album as anything he’s done.

“Some of the tunes are very romantic and charming while others are quite funny. Musically I find it quitQ a satisfying album in the old-time idiom.” Eyes brightening, Whitcomb proclaims “my next album will be more rock ’n’ roll, I’ll come up to date and face the world.

“I’ll make a record which sounds just like the world is today,” he says, pausing. “Terrible . Full of clatter and din. ”

Sid Griffin

Rock My Plimsouls

LOS ANGELES-On New Year’s Day 1979 Peter Case was stuck in San Francisco, broke and nearly broken-hearted too. His band, the Nerves, had (dare we say it again) broken up with nothing to show for itself except a cult EP and a lot of unpaid bills. Case bought a plane ticket to L:A., where the Nerves had helped spearhead the city’s punk sprawl) playing at squalid caverns like the fabled Masque and the Hollywood Punk Palace.

As soon as Case settled into his seat, trouble began. “When the pilot started the engine, the whole plane started to fill up with smoke,” he said, nursing a bottle of bekr. “Everybody started coughing and grabbed their luggage and running off the plane. I was too hung over to move so I stuck around and talked to the only other guy

STRUMMER LEARNS TO READ 11

"This is awfully embarrassing," admits Clash fave Joe, "but between trips to the dentist and the candy store, I never did learn the ol* ABC's I" That’s right, Joe„ but as you obviously know, it’s never too late to learn! "Right, mate,” nods Joe. "After 1 finish this one—my pal Jimmy Page recommended it—I’m gonna start takin' a look at a few of the lyrics I’ve been writin* lately. Who knows?” grinned Joe, "I might finally start to makO sense of 'em! I”

left—some cat with sunglasses.

“Sure enough in the middle of the flight We have ‘a power failure and the plane starts falling thousands of feet. The pilot comes on the intercom and says there’s nothing to worry about—and as soon as he finishes, all the lights go out and we fall another 1000 feet.”

Case laughs—nervously this time. “Then this Cat with the shades decides he has to go to the can and I suddenly realized why he never left the plane— he’s fuckin’ blind.” Case wags his head. “That’s when I figured if I survived that flight my career had nowhere to go but up.”

Up is just the right word. Case’s band the Plimsouls, are in the vanguard of L. A.’s highlytouted new generation of rock bands that includes groups like X, Code Blue, the Rubber City Rebels, Great Buildings and Gary Myrick and the Figures (don’t worry—you’ll be hearing about ’em soon enough). Just signed to Planet Records, the Plimsouls will have an album out this fall.

And they did it the hard way. Case put the band together early last year, breaking ’em in at L. A. area frat parties, motorcyclegang shindigs and a local mental hospital (Case proclaimed that latter audience “our most normal ever”).

Before hitting the club circuit the group won its spurs as the • house band at a cowboy club in El Monte called the Place (probably because it’s the only one in town) . After the first few sets, bassist Dave Pahoa would crow “Only 18 more to go this week.” The band alternated with “Doc,” a blind guitarist who crooned old Bob Wills ballads. “These big 300-lb. Mexicans used to climb on stage and insult us,” Case recalled,“And rather than pick a fight with them, we’d just pass ’em down to ‘Doc,’ who was blind, would go ahead andtell’emoff.”

One night disaster struck. The owner—visiting the club as the group finished a high-decibel, Yardbirds rendition of “Polk Salad Annie” hanging by their heels into the audience—ac-

Iff Yon See AStarln The East

ZURICH, SWITZERLANDA company here has developed a method of determining an unborn child’s sex merely by gobbing on a piece of paper.

All an expectant mother has to do is secure a portion of the chemically treated paper, hork all over it, return it to the lab, and wait for the results. If the slimy yet telltale former tree turns yellow, the mother-to-be can assume she will give birth to a girl. If the humiliated paper turns red, the resulting rug rat

will bd male. No more of this sleeping on one side or the other or listening to Leonard Cohen records to get,the preferred sex.

This frankly disgusting but ground-breaking innovation may be adapted to other useful social and commercial func? tions. Reportedly, CREEM’s own Rick Johnson is busy in his basement, concocting a brew of Kentucky Fried Chicken dripings, a slightly stained Sigmoidoscope and a year’s worth of TV Guide advertisements, in hope that the mixture will detect, in Rick’s own words, “anything that resembles a Bob Welch album, or anything that has anything to do with Canada... you know what I mean.” * cused the group of being “on acid” and promptly fired them.

Mark J. Norton

After that incident, the band concentrated on winning over L,A. clubgoers—with its own material. If the band doesn’t provide enough excitement, its audience will. ‘At a recent Plimsouls show at the Starwood, a favorite pit-stop on the rock circuit, a huge brawl broke out upstairs, spilling over to the” club’s dance floor, when some unruly street urchins began throwing cherry bombs from the balcony.

One of the celebrants paid dearly for his indiscretion—a tough little rockette broke a bottle over his head. “That was my girlfriend,” beamediCase. “It was a great riot, but we missed most of the action ’cause we got locked in our dressing room.” Case had nothing but praise for his rabid following. “We love ’em,” the wiry guitarist said. “Everybody drools on each other and spits at us. Then 150 people crowd into our dressing room and watch us walk around in our underwear.”

The band doesn’t always look much spiffier on stag6, but what’s won them one of L.A.’s largest followings is a live ^ef crowded with explosive rock anthems—the band squeezes out sparks in all directions, capturing both the unflinching romanticism and the teenage bravado of classic American bandstand music.

Like so many L.A. bands, the Plimsouls hearf London call? ing—but rather^ than slavishly re-create ’60s Carnaby Street pop, the group uses it as a stylistic reference point, careening off into more daring sonic directions. The band also hits close to home. Perhaps its most striking song is “In This Town,” a neon-drenched portrait of L.A., a city where “the gravity pulls down twice as strong 24 hours takes twice as long. ”

Though clearly captivated by rock’s sound ’n’ fury, Case has little patience for amenities like lyric sheets. “At its best, rock is illiterate—you know, conversational,” he argued. “It’s like Lenny Bruce. The stuffs not supposed to look good on paper.”'

This complaint applies to some of Case’s musical peers. “Everybody around here is tryijng to be another Rimbaud,” he growled. “But if the music doesn’t swing, you haven’t got anything. I’d hate to think what would happen to Gene Vincent if he’d come out with ‘Be Bop A Lufe’ today. The critics would probably complain that the guy doesn’t have anything to say.”

Patrick Goldstein

Project UFO-NO

RIPLEY, TN—The huge green blob burned out of the nighttime sky like the world’s biggest portion of booger flambeau, appeared to hover indecisively Over the Tennessee countryside, and then plummetted to the Earth’s surface with a resounding splat.

“It had a nice little odor to it,”' reported a sheriffs deputy who was first on the scene. “We knew right away that it .wasn’t no UFO/’ Samples were rushed to anxiously awaiting scientists at Andromeda Strain State U.

The 25-pound blob turned out to be the former contents of a leaky airplane toilet. It seems that airplanes use a blue-green chemical in their “holding” tank to solidify the yummies.

Speculation has now turned

The Only Drawback Is The Scraping

BURNSVILLE, NM-The ultimate fast food has been discovered at last! And it’s been lying around unnoticed, or at least uneaten, for years.

It’s road kills, those once-cute furry little creatures who have failed the crash course in modem technology. Douglas Elliott, carrion editor of Co-Evolution Quarterly, suggests that the “pavement meat counter” may be the answer to high food

NEW ROCK SENSATION 11

"Woof, woof,” quips up-and-coming rock star Bob, a canny canino whose' rise to success has been labeled "phenomenal" by the industry insiders in the know I “I know what the kids want," barks Bob, "and since no one else was ready to give it to 'em, i figured it was time to put my two cents in (" Included in Bob's much-lauded live set are several stirring priginals and an eclectic batch of cover tunes by such diverse artists as the Iggy Pop, Van Halen, Rush, Journey and the Roches. "I've always felt Iggy's had a certain 'understanding' of life's major problems," Bob confided, "and as for Van Halen, Journey and Rush—Iw/sh i could sing like those guys..." And why does the spunky tail-wagger cover tunes by the Roches? "Hey,” he grins,you figure it out II"

to the scientific tests used to determine the origin of the so-called Tennessee Turdball. Witnesses report befuddled scientists shuffling around campus muttering “If it looks like shit, and it feels like shit...”

Rick Johnson

bills. And despite the low, low (everyday) price of run-over dogs and frogs, he says that there is no danger of dreaded Dead Meat Disease if you use a realtively “fresh animal” and cook it thoroughly.

Mr. Elliott’s favorite driveway delights include Crow ala Duane, which he insists is “delicious enough to be worth losing election bets on a regular basis,” and tasty “Parkway Possum” (“make sure it’s dead first”). He also claims to enjoy turtle burgers', if they don’t crawl off the plate first.

Who ever said you needed a gun to be like Ted Nugent?

Rick Johnson

Share The Land, Eh?

TORONTO—Real estate agent and prospective swindler Ben Pitch is attempting to sell Canada to the United States for $15.6 trillion dollars, according to the Zodiac News Service. The scheme, intended to supply every Canadian over the age of 18 with a cool ipillion, would be in keeping with Uncle Sam’s history of keeping large tracts of land such as Manhattan Island, the ^Louisiana Territories, and Alaska, according to Pitch.

It was not immediately clear if the United States-would have to accept Margaret Trudeau, Gordon Lightfoot, the Toronto Blue Jays, a lifetime supply of William Shatner margarine commercials, or the .metric system under the terms of Pitch’s proposals It is certain, however, that right-thinking Americans would insist upon unlimited access to Canada’s most precious resource, baby harp seals,, if the deal were consummated.

J. Kordosh

5 YEARS AGO

Lou's Defective Metal

Apparently Lou Reed has made another person mad at him—namely his manager Dennis Katz, who says he argyed with Lou endlessly over Metal Machine Music. “This record was marketed all wrong,” says Dennis. “If it’d been sold on Red Seal (RCA affiliate), then maybe we’d’ve had a chance. Instead they put it out with a big picture of Lou performing on the cover and people are expecting a new set of songs.” The predictable result has been that returns of the double LP have been unprecedented, with many consumers claiming their copies must be defective: