ROCK MAGAZINES: All Washed Up!

ROCK MAGAZINES: All Washed Up!

Rick Johnson

Looks like it’s that time of year again, cowpokes! Birdies tweet, bunnies hop and hopeful young lovers look for someone to come along and jump start their life. Ice fishing? Never happened.

It’s also that time for CREEM to trot out its annual consumer’s guide to the rock press. Aw, you don’t have to applaud and stomp your feet wildly! Hey, you in the skateboard hat, c’mon, no fans allowed on the field!

As you might imagine, us streetwise nuns here at CREEM look at the other rock mags like cops look at U.T.E.’s—Undesirable Transient Element to you civilians. We’ve been accused of displaying all the sense of humor of Basque Separatists when it comes to scooping the competition, but what d’ya expect? I mean, when Hustler does their annual review of skin mags, do you expect them to compare the enemy to anything better than an immune system with a flat tire?

The attorney for the defense says that last line is argumentative and sarcastic, but the judge is too busy trying to refold his Max Mag to rule. You know how legal people love A-ha. So, in the same spirit of fair play and kick ’em when they’re down, let’s take a gander at what the bad guys are up to this year.

BLAST

Blast is a brand new “mega-metal” magazine that sort of evolved from the mega-boring Record Review. They have a great gimmick too—it’s published triweekly, which adds up to a nice, even 17 issues a year. So commence with the coast-to-coast bell-ringing ceremonies.

I don’t want to say Blast is pitched to morons, exactly, but they do keep it pretty simple. The feature articles all have a big gray box at the start which reads FEATURE, unless it’s the cover story (COVER STORY) or an interview (INTERVIEW). Wouldn’t want the readers to think it’s DIRECTIONS TO DAIRY QUEEN or an OLD SCRIBBLED-ON ENVELOPE or something.

You know you’re in good hands right off when you open to the page one gossip column, Just The Facts .. . Dude! Some tasty stuff here—“Rumors surround Ozzy Osbourne...” it begins with a straight type face. Must be some extralarge sized rumors to accomplish that— like big enough to be neighboring states, dude!

The locker room vibes are further enchanced by the soon-to-be-widelyimitated Metal Maidens section, where “well-dressed ladies frequenting metal shows” get their picture taken next to important superstars, like J.D. Kimball of Omen. Sharp idea, guys—right up there with “responsible” sex.

If you frequent the last third of this mag, you run into some very entertaining self-promotions. An innocent-enough looking CAREERS story covers some guy named Seth Riggs who allegedly teaches metal screamers to “reach notes they only dreamed about.”

While I was still wondering where Seth found a cattle prod big enough, I turned the page to find a huge ad for ... The Seth Riggs Singing For The Stars System! Says here he’s taught “hundreds of singers, actors and dancers” how to invade a vocal range they “never dreamed possible.” Bet he had to really work on those dancers, dude! Hey, what d’ya know! He has the same Post Office Box as Blast! Small world!

Flip a few more pages and they’re pushing a book called The Ultimate Star Address. Huh, same P.O. Box. Flip a couple the other way and it’s back issues of Record Review. Same box—like, deja vu, dude!

The reason I picked up Blast though, was for their spectacular Win A Phone Call From Ronnie James Dio contest. Hot damn! An actual phone call! Gee, what’ll I ask him? Hello, Ronnie? Did you know that the nose is the body’s built-in humidifier? No? And just how tall are you anyway, Ronnie? And while I’m on the subject, Ronnie, what do flatworms look like face-to-face? Hello, Ronnie? R.J.?

Mr. Dio?... ”

Get CREEM instead and win a phone call from hell!

ROCK BEAT

The very first Rock Beat I experienced was their “Special All Metal Issue.” Lucky me. After all, it could’ve been their All Zydecho Issue or their fondly remembered Synth Oom-Pa-Pa spec!

RB has a format that’s the mag biz equivalent of coming to rest in a ditch. The 2-4-6-8-color format, we in the trade sometimes call it. That is, eight pages of unrelated statements disguised as individual articles, then a couple of color pinups. Then eight more quote heaps, more color, etc. Having struck upon such a timeless formula—obviously the precursor of Blast—I can see why they follow it so strictly.

These aren’t just any old quotes though. See for yourself: “Sex and rock ’n ’ roll is kind of a natural thing!’ ’—Klause Meine, Scorpions. “We’d like to attract people who could get on the same trip that we are, man! —Robert Dalton, It Bites. “Let’s call our band Fuck!”—Gene Simmons, Kiss.

These ain’t just any pix, either. Many are of bands eating! There’s Metallica with spaghetti dripping from their noses! Oh, look—here’s Megadeth chomping weenies ’n’ chips! And over there—why, it’s Motley Crue swallowing their own press releases whole!

You want variety? They got variety. Here’s one of Ratt drinking! And another one of Stryper thinking about devil’s food cupcakes! But wait, isn’t there anything else in this rag? Gossip? Letters? Interviews? Anything?

Nope, but here’s a nice shot of those wacky cats in Def Leppard holding salad forks over their eyes! Are they trying to tell us something?

They sure are: Rock Beat should be refurbished as a restaurant!

CIRCUS

Whenever I see a new issue of Circus on the newsstand, I grab it excitedly and slip pronto-like to the last page, where I can commune once more with the most important poet/philosopher/statesman/ guru of our troubled times, Mr. Lou O’Neill, Jr.

Lou’s “Back Pages” column is positively resplendent with sparkling gems of interpretive genius. He never just comes out and says anything—he makes you work for each precious kernal of Louness.

Take this item on heavy metal gawd James Hetfield of Metallica, for example. “When Hatfield observed fans throwing torn-up seat cushions,” writes the great storyteller, “he bellowed into the mike, ‘— you’ ” — you! What could the Great Lou mean by that? Cake you? Bone you? Shop you? Ah, the many levels.

But there’s more. After this James person was finished bellowing, he “flashed the morons with the universal symbol of disdain.” The universal symbol of disdain—what could he mean? Making puttputt sounds with your lips while knocking on oak? Hopping up and down three times on each foot and then making hand-shadows of geese? Slapping your knee and shouting a hearty hi-de-ho?!

I just know I’ll be up all night trying to comprehend this one.

You may have noticed I left out the part where I buy the Circus magazine. Heck no, I just check out Lou and shove that sucker back under Mole Hunter before somebody I know sees me with it. I mean, they’ve had the exact same crummy layout for 17 years now, can you believe it? There’s a name for this style: raining debris. Oh, there’s some decent color pix, but you can do much better at home with the freeze frame on your VCR, and that’s free.

Doesn’t help that the whole shebang is edited execution-style. They take these incisive 92-word articles, hack ’em to shreds, then stick one of their trademark dumb heads on it, which invariably remind me of my all-time favorite headline, a little masterpiece I clipped from the Chicago Tribune Sunday supplement that reads: GASKET FACTORY WORKER FINDS JOB ROUTINELY SATISFYING.

They’re still trying to shove song lyrics up our noses, too, for which they deserve some sort of really terrible punishment, like death by Dean Jones anecdotes. To make it look like they’re not ripping off Hit Parader, the inventors at Circus add little boxes at the end called Fast Facts, like “Nikki Sixx took a few personal vacations last year but he doesn’t remember where” and “Gene Simmons turned thespian in ’86.” Shows ya how much they know—you gotta be a girl to be a thespian, dickweeds!

ROCK SCENE

Uh oh, I was afraid this might happen. Somebody stuck a real magazine in here! Genuine features! Thoughtful record reviews—by different writers even! Excellent reproduction on quality stock, not the lousy Charmin-Free byproduct the rest of ’em use.

Just between you and me, I’d better find some stuff wrong with this book now, or those incredibly cool (and good looking!)(hey girls—big bulges, too!)(like horsies\) editors at CREEM will never ask me to “entertain” an idea for them ever again.

OK, for one thing, RS is full of the kind of nasty words and ideas that got all of us rock mags in all that trouble with you know who! Decent family busineses such as THOSE WONDERFUL FOLKS AT WAL-MART or the SUPERIOR HUMAN BEINGS WHO RACK JOB CONVENIENCE STORES, AND WE DO MEAN RACK have objected—and rightfully so—to the sort of filthy gutter language found each month in the so-called Rock Scene. Ob Scene, it should be called. Words and phrases like fug, onus and mother tongue practically flap off the pages like so many plastic disposable boating moccasins.

And the ideas! I don’t know whether to blush to death or beg God’s forgiveness when I read things like this David Mustaine character’s “My right hand is better than half the groupies in the United States!” I’ll probably get struck by lightning for just repeating it! And lord-amercy, look what he says next! “I hope Vince Neil gets butt-fucked to death in jail!” Hey ... ya know, that’s pretty good ... heh-heh-heh, to death, don’cha just love it? HAW HAW HAW! TO DEATH! (Snort!) AIN’T THAT RICH!? (Snort, snort!) HAR HAR HAR HAR—(falls off chair).

But seriously, friends. Don’t buy this magazine or you’ll go straight to heck!

HIT MAG/MAX MAG

Both of these fold-out poster books are brought to us by D.S. Magazines, Teaneck, NJ, so let’s lump ’em. You’ll see they have much more in common.

Such as scintillating writing. On Bon Jovi: “Jon says one of the better advantages of being out on the road is getting to meet his fans.” I see, and what are the worse advantages? Or take this beaut about A-ha: “Riding the crest of a wave can’t always last forever.” Though evidently, it can last forever sometimes. ’Course, what can you expect from a mag whose covers say it’s “A True Collector’s Item”? As opposed to what, a false collector’s item?

I think the reason this specific Hit is supposedly an item is its status as a “special” Monkees issue. And what’s so special about it? The whole damn thing is a reprint, that’s what! Straight from the P.R. clips to you come “Historic Dates In Monkee History.” Not much time, I’ll just mention a few: January 27, 1966, June 23, 1967 and—of course—the beloved February 11, 1968.

As I mentioned earlier, all these reprints are a nice way to put out a magazine without the need for a tiresome staff. But get a load of this—every single word is a reprint! Like when the interviewer asks Mike Nesmith, “Mike, what would you be doing if you weren’t a Monkee?” Hmmm, it was my understanding that Mike still isn’t a Monkee.

They do unfold into pretty posters, though. It’s the publishing biz equivalent of a broken-down TV I saw at a garage sale once with a sign attached that read: “Picture OK, no sound.”

SPIN

Spin appears to have successfully plugged the lucrative gap Rolling Stone left as it drifted away from music coverage. That is, the pivotal weird-sizedmusic-mag-that-doesn’t-really-fit-any-partof-the-newsstand-and-usually-winds-upwrinkled-in-the-corner-partly-hidden-by\he-Rand McNally Great Smokies Atlas-ortossed-on-the-floor-with-the-numerologytabloids gap.

Y’know, one hears a lot of Spin-bashing around the CREEM Estate, which I don’t quite understand, seeing as how the latter’s layout appears to be ... 'uh, slightly influenced by the former.

Here’s another amazing parallel. Dunno if it’s true, but I’ve heard that Mr. Guccione, Sr., doesn’t give a damn if Spin makes any money, as long as it keeps Junior busy and therefore Sr. out of the sleep disorder clinic. It’s funny, a similar situation once existed at the magazine you’re now reading, though back a ways when it was under (and I do mean under) different management (and I do mean different). Isn’t life cute?

Anyhoo, Spin’s not a bad mag. It looks pretentious, but only reads that way about 42.7 percent of the time. I’ve seen some pretty zany things in here, my favorite being an exclusive interview with Johnny Rotten, reproduced here in its entirety: “Hello, John?” “Yeah.” “I’m calling from Spin magazine. Can I ask you a few questions about—” “Fuck off!” (Click) Talk about brevity!

Now, about that 42.7%. "The audience is like a big cloud of confused, raw nerve endings floating around in fresh-scrubbed bodies, wondering if anyone else ever felt as alien as this before.” That’s Legs McNeil on Gene Loves Jezebel. Legs, after all these years, who’d’ve guessed you have a jasmine mind?

“The night before the concert in Nuremberg, video director Marty Callner had stayed up all night wrestling with the reality of the holocaust.” Uh-oh, that’s Legs again, this time explaining the Scorpions. That’s right, those heavy philosophical dudes who highlight each concert by falling down on each other. I do like the idea of the director wrestling with the reality of the holocaust though. I can just see him now, all sweaty on the floor of his room, grunting and growling, finally breaking out the illegal scrote-punch when the holocaust has him pinned.

“Andreas Vollenweider. . . ” never mind, his name is too pretentious to bother with. Let’s mosey.

RIP

Rip’s cover—this month—boasts the following sub-logo: The Surreal World Of Comic Books And Rock ’N’ Roll! Killer concept I think, right up there with walkin convenience and "self” improvement. Don’t know if it’ll sell, but they’re up to issue #4 now and I don’t see any Gucciones in the staff box.

Big on comics, Rip is. Some goodies too, like John Holmstrom’s epic Debbie Harry interview done completely cartoonstyle with John’s expressive hand-lettering. It makes remarks like “Hah ha ha hahh!” or “Like, UHHHHUH!” stand out better than a whole jug of regular bold print.

There’s a decent amount of stupid stuff, too, particularly the cartoon acts they cover: Kiss, Megadeth, Kiss, W.A.S.P., the B-52s, Kiss and Love & Rockets, who are named after a comic book! Hey, listen—it could’ve been Betty & Veronica.

Comix attitude is what really makes Rip hip. They have a department called “Hot Toys” that reviews genuine products like skull water pistols, Rude Ralph (“he loves it when you tug on his eyeball!”) and Grace, the Pro-Life Doll, who comes complete with a tape of Pat Boone singing “Let Me Live.” Honest, these are real! See, here’s one I’ve even caught on TV—Hulk Hogan and Rowdy Roddy Piper puppets. ‘‘Why are these puppets smiling?” goes the accompanying copy. “Maybe it’s because they’ve got somebody’s thumb stuck up their butts!”

The hits just keep on coming! There’s “Dear Ma Nuge,” an advice to the liplocked column by Terrible Ted’s biological mommy that counsels one troubled teen to “put a couple of studs and safety pins on your overalls and mumble a lot and you’ll fit right in!” Thanks, Ma Nuge, I think I will!

Or how about “Wild Style”? This “fashions from the street” section sports photos of everyday peeps adorned with impossibly cool accessories like Jetsons earrings, sprinkler systems and Michelin Tire Windy Travel Charts.

Too bad the whole magazine looks like it just took the stairs instead of the elevator!

HIT PARADER

The continued success of this monthly is really a clod in my churn. I just don’t understand, unless it’s true that heavy metal fans have the brain power of Cybill Shepherd paper dolls. Could be!

HP’s got the all-time most snoreinducing layout in the history of catching Zs, and it hasn’t changed a bit since I first encountered it in the mid-’60s, when all they ever seemed to write about was the Lovin’ Spoonful or Lothar & The Hand People. The Charlton Look it’s called, since this publisher is famous for putting out comic books that look like they’re drawn by tipsy monitor lizards with paint on their paws.

The same lizards probably write HP as well. They’re really big on the ask-astupid-question school of journalism. As a public service, I’d like to answer a few. “Is long-missing guitarist Ace Frehley about to release his first solo album on the Megaforce label?” No. “Have former Black Sabbath vocalist David Donatto and ex-Kiss axe slinger Mark St. John gotten together to form White Tiger?” No! “Are Loudness and vocalist Minoru Niihara parting ways?” NO NO NO!

The department I most enjoy is “Metal Mindbenders,” a trivia quiz that will give you deep, Cosmo-like insight into yourself. O: Name all of Ozzy’s solo LPs. All right: Sidney, Penrod, Bunky and The Fez. Isn’t this fun? 0.' Ozzy’s band has featured the talents of four guitarists. Name them.” OK: Abdul, Miroslav, the Topeka«Kid and Bachelorette #2. This is easy, now I’ll check my score. Hmm, only got four-to-seven points. My rating: Hey, dude, you should be listening to Simply Red. Hey, dude, I should be reading Blast!

As we all know, Hit Parader’s selling point is the dreaded “Song Index.” It definitely helped me clear up a bothersome question that’d been plaguing my mind for at least five minutes—what does “The Final Countdown” mean? Is it boy-leavesgirl? World-goes-blooey? Eggs-almostready? With the lyrics here in front of me, the meaning is plain as the foot on my face.

“It’s the final countdown/the final countdown/final countdown.” See? It means nothing! Not even in Swedish!

MUSICIAN

No one will ever accuse Musician of being relentlessly perky. Totally D.O.A.— dumbstruck on arrival—is more like it.

Check out some of the exciting prose in this mag. On Wire Train: “Kevin Hunter plays a ’62 Telecaster and a Yamaha SBG1500.” Pretty active stuff! Then there’s this Del Fuegos expose: “Tom Lloyd thumps a Fender Jazz Bass, all stock, outfitted with D’Addario halfround Series Two strings.” Nice use of “thumps,” don’t you think? Or how about the inside poop on New Order: “Gillian Gilbert uses three Octave-Plateau Voyetra synthesizers, one of them a sequencer.” Come on guys, the suspense is killing me—which one’s the sequencer?

It would be fair to say Musician is aimed at, you know, musicians. Forget those old jokes about musicians not being able to read, OK? It’s not true. Most musicians can read, and some can also color.

Let’s see, is there any copy in here that’s not so intellectual? Sure enough, here’s a Van Halen interview—and it’s funny even!

Alex Van Halen: Where’d you get those shoes?

Musician: In Baltimore, where I live. Alex Van Halen: You live in a shoe store?

Better get serious here before I sprain my sense of humor. I know, let’s hit the record review section. “Record Reviews,” they call it—I’m starting to sober up already.

To say some of their criticism is a bit tortured is like saying DMC is a bit black. Join in with me to recite this typical sentence from a Dylan review: Coming after the pedestrian “Romance In Durango, ” “Senor” sounds like part of a Cisco Kid episode; had it been placed between “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” and ‘‘All Along The Watchtower,” ‘‘Senor’”s tension would have been emphasized instead of it’s locale.

OK, now say that three times, fast.

You know, it took me 10 minutes just to copy this one sentence and get all the punctuation right. I wonder how long that is in amoeba minutes.

ROLLING STONE

The latest issue of Rolling Stone (Peewee cover) stinks! I mean that literally. PU! I can’t quite figure out the aroma, but if somebody who drinks Chaps Cologne were to pass wind bigtime, it’d probably smell something like this.

There’s got to be a scratch ’n’ sniff card in here somewhere. Either that or the scent is a marking device like the red dye they put on ransom money. Once you’ve touched this issue you’re considered a probable Pee-wee Herman fan and you can be tracked wherever you go. If you enter a restaurant, for example, they’ll automatically hand you the children’s menu.

Wait a minute! I found the card! It’s an ad for Axis Deo-Cologne Spray, which they claim will give you “the refreshment of a cologne with the confidence of a deodorant.” The confidence of a deodorant, what a deal! I’ll have to spray some of this on my mind next time I ask for a bank loan. But enough of this bombastic hilarity. What are they putting in Rolling Stone these days besides weird smells? Well, pretty much the same stuff as always. Although there’s a lot more music coverage since sister mag Record folded.

Pretty good coverage, too. I don’t know about you, but I always turn to “Random Notes” first. That is, after I’m done sniffing the pages. Not only do they come across with some solid info every time, but it’s delivered in a light style without being overly cute.

The movies and TV sections are usually interesting too, but it’s music stuff we’re supposed to be ... what exactly are we supposed to be doing here anyway? Oh, I remember, cutting down Rolling Stone.

Somebody should put a paper bag over Stone’s record reviews. Where do they get this stuff? One critic compares the latest Eric Clapton LP to Richard Manuel’s suicide. The next uses the words kvetch, kudos and huzzahs all in the same sentence, and the third little critic complains about Cyndi Lauper’s lack of uneasiness on her second album. R.S.’s career-wallow record reviews are so predictable, if I were a musician, I wouldn’t even release a second album, I’d go straight to number three after the debut.

But hey, here’s the Charts! The eye injury potential charts? No, the US/British/Video/College/Dance/Album and 20 Years Ago charts. How useful! Wait a second, what’s this small print at the bottom? Oh, I see, due to “production deadline” most of the charts are reprinted from last issue.

Oh, well, as world-reknowned philosopher Pat Morita said on TV recently, “Half a ritual is better than none.”

TURN TO PAGE 57

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43

ZAP

Here’s another premiere issue, or “Boss First Issue” as the cover hoots. With Elvis, the Beatles and the original Monkees all over the front, I got pretty darn excited, kinda like the morning Pee-Wee got Playhouse Fever.

Now here’s something I like to see in any magazine, especially one I want to make fun of: a very official looking Letter From The Editor. “We were the young generation,” boasts editor/publisher “Happy Hal” Schuster, “and damned right we had something to say.” Damned right, Happy Hal, we were and we did\

I’m starting to get the picture now. Yup, Zap is dedicated in full to ’60s worship! Everybody’s here: Herman’s Hermits, Sonny & Cher, Jimi Hendrix, Jan & Dean, Janis Joplin and many more. Not only is this a brilliant concept, but they got all their photos free from record companies!

I think Zap’s ingenious layout is probably the finest aspect of the mag. You get five or six pages of ugly black and white promo shots—pix you’ve seen so many times you could easily sketch them from memory—followed by a fuzzy color page. Then more flat B&W, then another technicolor fuzzball, etc. Happy Hal’s no cheapskate, though—it’s the kind of black and white that rubs off on your fingers so you’ll know how long you’ve been reading.

It’s these little extra touches that make Zap such a good buy. The centerfold of Elvis is already loose. How handy! The better to observe the inch of newsprint that bled through on his nose! Plus there’s a contents page that’s almost all wrong! How very psychedelic!

No, wait—here’s the part I like most: eight pages of Buy Our Crummy Books ads. The Fireball XL-5 File! The Lost In Space Technical Manual! Awrite—they’ve got a Howard The Duck special, too! Why, this isn’t just a magazine, it’s a recreational paradise!®