Here's a typical item: “I collect anything and everything concerning the Carpenters singing duo, especially need TV, radio, concert tapes and photos. Have lots to trade on the Carpenters and your favorites. Please trade! Thank you!” You’re welcome!! That from Ms. Ribble (not her real name) of East Boston, in Rabid Fan, a fanzine/collector’s mag devoted to any number of musicians, but—most especially—the “Carpenters singing duo.” You love it, admit it.

Hi ho, and away we go, into the way-out world of record collecting...a terra incognito • of memorabilia-hoarding (pastel portraits of Wayne Newton, Ronnie James Dio’s laundry tickets, feature stories on Roger Whittaker CREEM’s rejected 3,098 times) that goes far beyond not only vinyl—it goes beyond the pathological. Seriously, I’m not making these up: “J will pay $10 for the address of Neil Diamond's fan club. ” “Would love to hear from other Journey fans (especially anyone who knows any of their San Francisco hangouts!).” “Want to buy or trade Springsteen articles, information, rumors, anything!" Wonder how much I could get for the old “Springsteen paid $20 for the address of Diamond's fan club” rumor?

Well, any hobby’s bound to draw a few nuts here and there. For every lost soul in search of Journey’s Frisco hangouts, there’s hundreds of serious record collectors who are the mainstays of collector’s mags. They not only read ’em, they write ’em, edit ’em, and—most importantly— they advertise in ’em. Boy* do they advertise in ’em. Did you know you can pick up a copy of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Daydream” for seven bucks? Of course, it’s VG + /M(that’s “very good plus or mint minus” depending on your standards), but what the heck do you want? I mean, a 45 rpm record for only seven bucks is what I call “some kind of deal.”

The mags—which consist primarily of endless lists of such records printed in one-tenthousandth point type—do a pretty decent business, it would seem. Big cheese of the genre is Goldmine, a monthly that runs on for almost two hundred pages. In a very recent" issue, I count roughly 50 pages of copy (stories, histories, opinions) and 134 pages of ads. And, actually, this is a little top-heavy on the copy as far as collector mags go. Goldmine is distinguished for having passably good graphics and a businesslike approach. As long as the lists keep acomin’, though, Goldmine will most likely remain the—ahem—GM of the field.

But God knows they’re not alone. The Record Exchanger boasts of being “the first and foremost publication covering the history of rock & roll.” Open the thing up and you find they’ve published—hang on now, here comes a big number—30 something issues! Well, like they say, they’re published periodically, which must mean it’s a periodical. The Exchanger actually comes in two parts, one being a regular rock-history type mag, the other being the ol’ inevitable book of lists. The former—which goes for $2.50—is printed on highquality paper and covers the usual bunch of long-gone acts. (Alas, rumor has it that Record Exchange is dying with only the swap-’em version continued. That’s a dollar for the economic minded!)

More aesthetically satisfying is the scuzzier and shorter Record Finder, where they use 29 different typestyles but concentrate on the alwayscharming “typewriter in need of a new ribbon,” just to keep your eyes hoppin’. Fittingly, Record Finder is, itself, getting mighty hard to find— and may be deceased, as of this vvriting.

One newcomer that promises to stay is R.P.M., a mag that gets better with each issue.One reason is that the guy who used to do the graphics for Goldmine is putting out R.P.M. It’s readable and informative, something like fish & loaves on this scene—and it’s only a buck-fifty. Write R.P.M. at 24361 Greenfield, Suite 201, Southfield, MI 48075.

There are, of course, other collector’s pubs floating around, like the “avant music” oriented Wayside and the relatively-new Record Spinner, which lasted one entire issue. (Actually, this is practically a way of life with most of the collector’s magazines.)

A couple of words of caution to newcomers: lists are often presented as auctions, so there’s no way of knowing how much “Rolling Stones Exile In Switzerland M/M + ” will bring, or is actually worth. Underbid as a matter of course...if somebody else gets the disc you wanted, they probably deserve it.

As far as the stories go, don’t expect high literature, either. Record mags are glorified fanzines with all the critical facility of beached whales. They’re unbelievably eclectic, featuring stories on historical figures like Annette Funicello, Captain Beefheart, Clyde McPhatter, the MC5 and everyone else in the world who’s ever had anything at all to do with music. And all in the same magazine. The level of writing generally hovers between the Grand Canyon and the Dead Sea—record mag editors are addicted to printing run-on editorials that serve no apparent purpose, even by my standards. This is not to say, however, that you can’t get a laugh out of the fannish prose. One fave was the editorial entitled ‘‘Should Rock Bands Be Forced To Retire?" Next issue: “Should Rock Bands Be Forced To Invest In Lucrative IRA’s?”

TEENAGE WASTELAND

SUBURBIA

(New World Pictures)

Puke, blood, rats, roaches and graffiti. Hardly the scenery you’d expect from a film called Suburbia, but it’s all there, bigger than life and twice as funny and poignant. After honing her vision of the Los Angeles punk underground in the classic rockumentary The Decline of Western Civilization, director Penelope Spheeris has tackled feature filmmaking with the grossfunny exploits of a self-styled teenage society called the T.R. (The Rejected) . It will soon be gracing your local bijou, thanks to the supremely good taste of co-producer/ schlockmeister extraordinaire Roger Corman.

“It’s had some pretty gruesome accusations,” Spheeris admits. “Like, it’s misogynist, violent, homophobic, against animals and racist. All I can say is I have nothing against homosexuals or women or black people or dogs. But in our society those elements do get picked on and if I’m gonna represent characters realistically, I have to deal with it. I think representing an unbeautiful reality makes people angry. I don’t know how else to do it.”

Strange that the punk movement would find its most consistent and effective spokesman in the shape of UCLA film school grad (shades of Jim Morrison!) with a 14-year-old daughter “who’s into Adam Ant.” But the irony isn’t lost on the vivacious, violently redheaded Spheeris. “I was leaving a club the other night,” she recalls, “and these wiseguys hanging out in their van yelled, ‘What is it, senior citizen’s night?’ But I don’t care. They’re gonna get old too, and they won’t be as cool as me.”

Well touche, toots. It does take a certain kind of breeding to truly understand teen turmoils, and Penelope Spheeris certainly has the pedigree. Daddy was an Olympic wrestler who owned a traveling amusement park called the Magic Empire Carnival. “The only time I got to see what a real family was like was on Ozzie And Harriet and Leave It To Beaver,” Penelope remembers. “We never had that and nobody I knew did. I lived in trailer parks all over the place.”

And Middle American Mom and Pop don’t come off too wise or pretty for the members of T.R. Our hero, Evan, splits after his alcoholic mother heaves a bottle of ketchup at him, while his buddies escape aging homosexual and child abuser parents. Blond, flat-topped Jack, leader of the group, declares himself an orphan because his stepfather is black and a cop. The T.R. amuse themselves at night by slam-dancing to some great concert footage by T Q O I tho \/anrlalc arirl Pi I Rn day they steal food from people’s garage deep-freezers, taUnt a cripple at the local convenience store or veg out in front of the tube in their condemned tract house homestead. Naturally, they end up in a tragic showdown with a couple of truly gross redneck geeks from Citizens Against Crime.

Suburbia’s “stark reality” is the result of painstaking cinematography and brilliant casting from the ranks of L.A.’s punk scene, and the whole shooting match was completed in 30 days for under a cool mill. “I don’t have any desire to make a 10 million dollar picture,” Spheeris declares. “I think that’s crass wastefulness. I think people do need escapist movies, but I’m interested in dealing with some kind of social issues. Punk rock gave ; me the idea that I could learn something from music instead of just f rockin’ and rollin’. The lyrics aren’t la-di-da, let’s skip off and grow flowers junk. It’s dealing with not having a quarter for the bus and people thinking you’re weird looking. And I integrated sex and violence to get people’s attention so I could slip in stuff that means something. It’s weird. If Dirty Harry goes out and shoots 25 people, that’s OK. But get one kid punching someone out, make it look real, and somehow that’s more upsetting.”

Upsetting for some, revealing for others. “I got a letter from a parent in Washington, D.C. the other day,” Spheeris recalls. “This guy’s daughter had cut out all the ads for the movie. He wrote to tell me that he was going to see it, and thanked me for giving him something to talk to his daughter about. And when I read that I cried. I thought that was better than any review.”

David Keeps