Extremely generous financial compensation is far from the only benefit that accrues to writing this column. Arista Records sends me free reviewers’ copies of albums every few weeks. And I get to make a fool of myself in front of countless hundreds of readers, as I did when I described Bruce Springsteen’s latest album as “a major, major embarrassment.” (I’ve come to regard it as greatreal low on musical inventiveness, just as I said, but with more than enough heart to render such considerations moot. Across the land, hundreds of thousands of Boss boosters will slumber more placidly tonight.) And USA Today called once when it wanted to know something about rock fashion. (I spent most of the conversation trying to convince them that Linda Ronstadt didn’t belong in a discussion of same. They didn’t believe me. No one ever believes me.) And intellectually impaired teenagers with chips on their shoulders send me death threats in care of the editor. And I get intimate insights into the lives and loves of interesting young penpals from sea to shining sea, and in such foreign countries as Canada.

I know, for instance, that while your life may be a cabaret, old chum, that of poor Gail Warnings, of Rochester, New York, is a soap opera.

We originally met Gail, you’ll recall, as a result of her being Eleganza’s 1983 Reader of the Year and the world’s avidest fan of Rochester’s own Chesterfield Kings, those Brian-Jones-haired 1966 revivalists. But then she got involved—and how—with a Keith Moon lookalike in a rival group of like bent, the Projectiles. You might even recall her having written to tell Eleganza’s readers how the sight of this personage playing his drums tended to render her, well, shall we say sexually voracious? Such was her infatuation with this drummer, whom we’ll call Brian, if only because that’s his name, that she allowed him to talk her out of her devotion to the Chesterfield Kings, who subsequently didn’t get mentioned in Eleganza for weeks on end.

But then the next thing anyone knows, Gail and Brian aren’t even speaking, let alone...and Gail’s getting it on and on and on with the Projectiles’ guitarist, whom we’ll call Dan, and Brian’s seen in Scorgie’s—Rochester’s hottest night spot, and to the Raunchettes what the Cavern was to the Beatles—with a large young French woman about whom Gail says...

No, I wouldn’t feel right about relating what Gail has to say about Brian’s new girlfriend—a younger brother or sister might read it and have his or her growth stunted. Like the young woman whose letter the editors excerpted in huge print in the readers’ poll, you might imagine that I hate everything and everybody, that I’m a bilious old misanthrope who lives only to ridicule Ratt, Motley Crue, and other big favorites of intellectually impaired teenagers with chips on their shoulders. But give me credit for having a conscience.

Anyway, Dan, himself so avid a Chesterfield Kings fan that he starts reaching for the wrong frets in awe and excitement when the Kings deign to attend a Projectiles performance, says it’s OK for Gail to adore the Kings once more, and she does so. At the wildest show Gail’s ever seen them play, their lead singer, Greg, destroys a mike stand and a tambourine, and she takes a piece of the latter home as a souvenir. (Brian, meanwhile, sits back by the bar trying to look blase along with his new girlfriend and the Tiles’ organist Tony and his lovely bride Debbie, who used to be Dan’s friends.)

What with the piece of the tambourine and Dan treating her better than Brian ever did—ever could, for Pete’s sake, or at least Greg’s— you’d think Gail’d be happy. But no. She’s depressed because she’s about to turn 27 without being married and Dan isn’t exactly on his way to the jeweler’s, if you get my drift, even though no one, in Gail’s perception, has ever loved him as lovingly as she. (‘‘No one,” she writes, ‘‘treated him like shit until he started going out with me.”) She’s depressed because she’s out of work. She thinks that if CREEM offered her a job as a proofreader or something and she had to move to Michigan, Dan would realize that he couldn’t live without her, but why should CREEM offer a perfect stranger in

TURN TO PAGE 56 another state a job, and who’d want to work for a magazine she thinks has “gone down the tubes & I seldom buy it anymore because there are only stories about bands I hate”?

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36

Then, just before another Projectiles performance, Brian writes, “Gail does Rochester,” and, “Gail goes out with everyone,” on the dressing room wall at Scorgie’s, and Gail gets so livid that she resolves to write, “Brian fucks Godzilla,” in an even bigger, bolder hand the next time she just happens to be in the dressing room. She and her successor as the apple of Brian’s eye glare at one another the whole evening, hardly paying any attention at all to the poor Tiles, and Gail confides, “1 would punch her ugly face if she weren’t such a...[use your imagination]...and I was afraid for my life.”

And then, to top it all off, she loses her Jim McGuinn sunglasses, without which she hardly feels that life is worth living. Such is her despair that she muses, “If I died or something, [Dan] would be so much happier and so would the rest of the band, not that I give a flying fuck about any of those losers.” And then Eleganza makes all of her travails public because it’s been a slow month and I can’t think of much else to write about.

No, that isn’t true. I can think of lots else to write about.

Knowing that Gail Warnings is by no means the only (ex-)reader whose girlfriend or boyfriend is in a group, or who’s in a group herself, I thought I’d finally get around to telling you how to dress yours. Rule one is to look as little as possible like everyone else. Thus, if you play metal or Night Rangerish AOR nearmetal, don’t wear studs, chains, black leather, leopardskin print muscle T-shirts, menacing facial expressions, kerchieves tied around the knees, kerchieves tied around the head, muscle T-shirts period, spandex trousers, rolledup washcloths in the spandex trousers, kerchieves tied around anything, skull drop earrings, skull rings, 1971 shag hairdos, or parachute material trousers with hundreds of zip pockets in unlikely places.

If you play pop soul reminiscent of Prince’s, on the other hand, don’t use a lot of eyeliner or wear frilly shirts, lace gloves, long coats made of what’s known as eyelash material (you know, that shiny stuff), a perpetual sultry pout, or a Princeish coiffure. Also, don’t do dance steps in synch. If what you’re into is synth-pop, don’t wear the sort of GQ-ish leisurewear Duran Duran do, and don’t have hair like theirs, either. If it’s, uh, new wave techno-pop you’re into, on the other hand, don’t wear glasses and terribly short hair and look as though the last thing you’d ever be caught dead thinking about is your attire. Finally, if you’re a tastefully soulful 35-year-old, don’t be losing your hair or wear elegant Italian designer suits like Phil Collins.

There is no rule two.

Being very old and very wise, I think I know exactly what most young metal groups’ response would be if you suggested that they mothball their studs, chains, black leather, leopardskin print muscle shirts, menacing facial expressions, kerchieves tied around the knees, kerchieves tied around the head, spandex trousers, rolled-up washcloths in the spandex trousers, kerchieves tied around everything, skull drop earrings, skull rings, 1971 shag hairdos, and parachute material trousers with hundreds of zip pockets in unlikely places. Among other things, they’d say that dressing as they do attracts “chicks.” I won’t deny that. But what would you rather do, inspire 14-year-old girls at the mall to remark, “Oh, wow!” when you saunter past, or change the face of rock ’n’ roll forever? In 10 years, do you want to be changing someone’s oil or posing for the cover of Time? As I’ve said and said and said and said and said and said and said in this space, the artists who really make an impression are, and have always been, those who defy their audience’s expectations, not conform to them down to the last kerchief around the knee. As I’ve said and said and said and said before in this space, it’s those artists who are ridiculed and reviled for their failure to resemble current superstars who ultimately become the biggest superstars.

Well, you say, if we mustn’t wear studs, chains, black leather, leopardskin print muscle shirts, menacing facial expressions, kerchieves tied around the knees, kerchieves tied around the head, spandex trousers, rolled-up washcloths in the spandex trousers, kerchieves tied around anything, skull drop earrings, skull rings, 1971 shag hairdos, parachute material trousers with hundreds of zip pockets in unlikely places, a lot of eyeliner, frilly shirts, lace gloves, long coats made of eyelash material, sultry pouts, Princish hair, GQ-ish leisurewear, Duranish hair, glasses, terribly short hair, a receding hairline, or even elegant Italian designer suits, what should we wear?

Hey, you didn’t expect me to do it alitor you, did you?