LETTERS

LETTERS

DEPARTMENTS

Mail Dept., CREEM Magazine, P.O. Box 931869, Los Angeles, CA 90093

ROCK READERS: WHY THEY’RE MORONS

Who is Hercules Bovis to talk? His sitin for Eleganza in the December CREEM was incredibly moronic. I hope he didn’t take any money for the piece, the hypocrite!

Missing the most obvious of all points, Bovis failed to mention that rock criticism serves a great function as a consumer guide. I don’t know about him, but I have a 9-5 (actually it’s 9-6) job and can’t possibly listen to as much music as I would like to. Thus, we average folk need some direction when searching through the hundreds of albums that come out each month. Lord knows \ can’t afford them all.

Bovis also tells us to trust our own opinions. How can we obtain opinions without hearing music first? No radio stations are going to even attempt to cover the entire pop spectrum. Even college stations are formatted to the point that you only get a narrow glimpse of what’s going on. I can assure you I get more information and range from Greil Marcus’s Real Life Top Ten and Robert Christgau’s Consumer Guide than I do from any radio stations (at least the ones around here).

The bottom line is that we have to put some trust in printed matter. Besides, if you know the critics you read well enough, you know when they are biased or exaggerating. Rock criticism is invaluable if only to help up pop fans with limited time and money spend our bucks a little more wisely.

Jim Dooley

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

I’d like to thank Archie Bovis for conveniently summing up the history of rock ’n’ roll by using a simple formula based only on his own taste. Genius? The word comes up.

You see, I was a blind man. I had no idea that I loved the N.Y. Dolls, Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart, Revolver and Exile On Main Street because a group of 25 critics got together and brainwashed me. I had the crazy idea that this stuff was superior rock ’n’ roll, that it really stood out. But now that my eyes have been opened by Archie the Wise, I realize that I was just swayed by the critics and peer pressure—although at the time I could have sworn I was laughed at for liking the above groups. Guess it’s just my gullible, vastly inferior mind playing tricks on me again.

Archie—you’ve taught me so much. Robert Christgau is the most astute rock critic out there? Had no idea. The Sex Pistols album sucked? Wow! I had no idea that “sucking” was when an album still cut through the competition 10 years after its release. And perhaps most shocking of all—the work of Lester Bangs became history “by accident.” The whole time I was under the impression that he was an incredibly talented man who could write circles around you, Arch.

All in all, I’d say your theories are pretty close to airtight.

Bret Hopkins

Rochester, NY

P.S.: Pay John Mendelssohn whatever he wants.

I was lying around listening to Loaded when I suddenly realized why I hotted that “Rock Critics: Why They’re Morons” article in the December Eleganza.

I didn’t hear about the Velvet Underground on the radio.

I certainly didn’t see the Velvet Underground on MTV, or even learn about them from older friends.

No, I learned about the Velvet Underground from rock criticism. Which, Mr. Hercules “Archie” Bovis informs us, is “useless.”

He ain’t alone, either. Back in your February ’86 issue, John Mendelssohn himself wrote a similar Eleganza. And just two months ago, in that little Glory Days interview, Dave Marsh once again talked about “rock critics” and “intellectuals” as if he were neither. There are other examples, but Mr. Bovis’s article is the most recent, most self-loathing, and most extreme, and it got me mad enough to write.

First, let me point out a couple of the more glaring logical flaws in “Rock Critics: Why They’re Morons”:

1. “L.L. Cool J, Run-D.M.C., and the Beastie Boys, by common consensus, make 1986’s ‘best’ records. . .” RunD.M.C. and the Beastie Boys finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in the ’86 Village Voice Critics’ Poll. L.L. Cool J neglected to make an album in 1986.

2. About that poll: “Christgau or any other influential writer gives the nod to an act, and. . . his opinion will be absorbed and rewritten by the 400 rock writers who saw it. . . Then they’ll vote in the year-end poll." Dave Marsh, easily the most widely-known rock writer in the world, pilloried Graceland, the eventual pollwinner, in print long enough before the poll for all the voters to absorb his opinion. As for Christgau himself, only 19 of his 63 A-range records of 1986 (counting jazz albums) made the poll’s Top 40, while no less than 12 records in that Top 40 received B’s or worse in the Consumer Guide. Talk about critical facism!

3. Many rock critics—as well as other human beings—actually enjoyed Elvis Presley’s music before he was dead.

At this point, Mr. Bovis could probably accuse me of nitpicking, and not dealing with his central point, which is that all opinions are equally valid. Leaving aside the fact that this in itself is an opinion, it does save Mr. Bovis from the nasty task of actually having to justify any of his opinions. Actually, since all opinions are relative, it frees Mr. Bovis from even having to identify any of his opinions, although from hints scattered throughout the article we can conclude that the beliefs that “rap is extremely dull” and that “the Replacements are just a mite too derivative” are his own. (Too bad he didn’t defend that last one. I’d love to hear whatever band the Replacements derive from.) Mr. Bovis only offers three explicit opinions in his article:

1. Rolling Stone’s article on “The 100 Best Albums Of The Last 20 Years” was “full of crap. ” Given the demands of Rolling Stone’s countercultural roots, it was inevitable that Sgt. Pepper would top the list, while Crosby, Stills, & Nash and Surrealistic Pillow would make appearances. (Readers’ demands as much as publishers’; it’s instructive to note that in your own “Best Album” lists the readers put Sgt. Pepper in their Top 10, while only Roy Trakin among the critics mentioned it. And he apologized for it.) Granting that, it’s still impressive to note that four albums in Rolling Stone's Top 10 (Never Mind The Bollocks. ., Plastic Ono Band, Astral Weeks and What’s Going On) will never appear on any AOR “Rock Classics” format. Anything that gets the covers of Raw Power and Horses in among the Code Bleu and Georges Marciano ads is a job well done, by me.

2. The Sex Pistols’ album “sucked” and critics only find it important for its “sociological relevance. In this country at least, the Sex Pistols had no “sociological relevance” beyond a few haircuts and a hardcore scene that started late and went nowhere. Due to Sid Vicious and safety pins, and despite my love of the Clash, I avoided buying the album until 1984, when it was long devoid of what little “sociological relevance” it ever had. From the opening tramp of “Holidays In the Sun” I’ve had to live with it ever since. The music is loud and fast and simple and direct and true, like all the best rock ’n’ roll, Rotten is as great a ranter as has ever stalked the earth, and the lyrics... well, they made me feel less alone in my alienation and altered the way I see the world. I’ve never heard either “The Message” or “Friday On My Mind”; I do know that Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols is a great, great album, and it will continue to affect anyone who gets to hear it in the future.

3. Richard Thompson, King Sunny Ade and Paul Simon all “have placed highly or been totally absent in different years’ polls, all with their own series of albums that, on a purely musical level, were equally as innovative or interesting.” Anyone who thinks that One-Trick Pony and Hearts And Bones were as “innovative or interesting” as Graceland is either a Paul Simon cultist so far gone he views a Mbaqanga move as a commercial sellout, or he’s trying too hard to make a point. Only a too-far-gone Richard Thompson cultist could view Daring Adventures as equal to Shoot Out The Lights rather than its thirdconsecutive copy (all of which made the poll, by the way), and thereby subject to the law of diminishing returns. He’s got a case with King Sunny, but it’s a red herring; you can only be introduced to Juju music once, after all, and so subsequent albums couldn’t hope to match the impression made by Juju Music, regardless of their respective quality.

No matter what Mr. Bovis believes, the main purpose of rock criticism isn’t to shame you into liking something that stinks. It’s to expose you to something you might love. To too many kids today, “loving” a song means nothing more than remembering it. You know the “new” Bon Jovi “single” is a good song because you can recognize it after only 15 hearings, whereas it would take at least 25 plays to notice the “new” Madonna “single.” (Luckily, you’ll get to hear it many more times than that.)

In fact, if there’s a real danger to rock criticism today, it’s not the historical conspiracy that Mr. Bovis sees, it’s that rock critics may get lazy or give up, just when we need them most. (Mr. Bovis may see his article as a rebellion, but in truth it’s an unconditional surrender to an age of reaction.) Too many years of trying to get people to listen to the Ramones or Graham Parker with no visible results, why fight it anymore? There’ve been too many reviews lately struggling to appreciate Bon Jovi and Madonna, simply because they move mucho product (can’t wait for the Whitesnake revisionism). If critics contend that these, er, artists deserve attention because millions of kids love them, they’re ignoring the fact that millions of kids never get to hear anything else.

(“So what’s your favorite radio station?” “Why, WANK-100, of course!” “And why’s that?” “Why, ’cause they play all my favorites all the time: Heart, Starship, the Hooters... ” “And why’re they your favorites?” “Why, ’cause WANK-100 plays them all the time, of course!”)

Mr. Bovis is “a fan of rock ’n’ roll” and Mlike(s) to listen to it.” It’s apparently a hobby of his. If it had never existed he’d be down at the post office experiencing the world of stamp collecting. I love rock ’n’ roll, and me and, I guarantee, many others my age have had our lives saved by rock ’n’ roll. And if all we’d had to depend on had been “MTV and USA Today and People,” we’d all be dead.

I’m sorry about the length of this; it was just going to be a short letter calling Hercules “Archie” Bovis a resentful, paranoid, know-nothing dickhead, and it turned into something else. I guess what it really is is a thank-you note to Boy Howdy, if kind of in reverse. Keep up the good work. It does so matter.

Jon McKinley

Annville, PA

{Hercules “Archie” Bovis responds: “While these people were busy writing, much better-looking people were getting laid. ”—Ed.)

EMBITTERED R.E.M. BASSIST CHANGES NAME!

It is a sad commentary indeed on the state of American guitar rock when a band of simps like the BoDeans gets almost three pages in CREEM and tons others (yeah, I can name ’em all, so don’t ask; this is about T.B.D.) never get even the passing glance. Sure, they’re root-' sy and sound like Don and Phil and they’re cute as buttons... and they get AIRPLAY AND MAJOR LABEL PROMO, which is why you put ’em in there in the first place. It’s a lot easier for a hack to do a phoner or trot over to the office of the label for the interview anyway. No muss, no fuss.

The BoDeans suck, and it ain’t because they do awful ripoffs of Mellencamp, Petty, Simply Red or Peter Tosh. It’s because they have the lyrical inspiration of a lovelorn dogturd—hey, nothing wrong with running through the night with a lonely kindred soul determined to beat the odds that weigh REAL HEAVY AGAINST JUST YOU ’N’ ME, BABE!! It’s because they have the musical uniqueness of about a billion other Honest Rockers out there still slogging away in the dingy bars they belong in. And it’s because their live show is the most boring assimilation of stage cliches, from the plastic grins right on down to the “We’re mighty glad to be here!”s; and they take a synth player on the road, to boot!

Here’s my own personal caption for the smarmy photo on page 17: “The BoDeans smile so much because they fooled AOR, the listening public and CREEM into thinking they have anything but aimless retreads of worn-out musical formulas to offer.” By the way, tell Mendelssohn that I’m sending xeroxes of his Rolling Stone Christopher Milk extravaganza out to fanzine writers across the world as Christmas gifts.

Fred Mills

Charlotte, NC

UNCLE, REMUS

I’m rereading a few paragraphs from the December Mellencamp interview which sort of piss me off. They piss me off because I’m finding that Holdship and Mellencamp sometimes aren’t quite as sharp as I might have thought. Right there in the middle of page 32, Bill’s “role model” and “American Hero” becomes the one zillionth proponent of the myth that the Southeast is the happy home of racism in America. It ain’t so.

Quote 1: “Finally, like Scarecrow, the album reflects John’s social concerns. One of the issues that seem to be on his mind these days, if the album is any indication, is the idea of racism in America, a subject that’s reflected in the two videos he and the band recently produced for the LP in Savannah, Georgia.”

WHAM! Yeah, I can see it now. John, the band, the video producer and director all together sitting in a warm spring sunset under a sign that reads “WeF come to Bloomington, Indiana: Home Of Racial Integration.” (How many blacks are there in Indiana?)

JOHN: “Uh, I’d like to reflect the idea of racism in America in the videos.”

KENNY: “Hey, how ’bout old footage of Bostonians stoning bus loads of kids when busing was started?”

THE DIRECTOR: “Nah, too old.”

THE PRODUCER: “Not relevant.”

JOHN: “Yeah, we need a location. Someplace that shows real racism and segregation.”

LISA: “OK. What about Watts or Harlem?”

THE DIRECTOR: “Too tired, too cliched.”

THE PRODUCER: “Double ditto.”

JOHN: “Looks like this is a job for the Southeast.”

THE DIRECTOR: “Savannah, Georgia?”

JOHN: “Bingo!”

Quote 2: “And for the next video, we shot ‘Hard Times For An Honest Man’ on the steps of where they auctioned off the slaves when they would come of the boat from Africa. It was gruesome. Scary and gruesome.”

“They actually publicize that they auctioned slaves there?”

“Yeah, but now they’ve turned the slave headquarters into designer boutiques.” He laughs. “Ain’t that America?”

POW! A quiet, simple Bloomington living room. Late one night.

LITTLE BILLY HOLDSHIP: “What’s a skip, Unca John?”

UNCLE JOHN M.: “Well, little Billy, AM radio signals make it to our radio here by bouncing off the ionosphere and the Earth. Sometimes when the weather is right, weak signals from radio stations far away can reach Ol’ Bess right here in our den. Listen, I’ll try to catch one now.”

OL’ BESS, THE AM RADIO: “... Static... more crap... So hurry down for the last days of the Superiority Sale at White Boy Fashions. They’re located downtown in the old slave headquarters where you can still find old-fashioned quality and the sense that you’re better than them. WLIE, 1330 AM Savannah, Georgia.”

LITTLE BILLY: “Golly, Unca John. Is it really like that in Georgia?”

UNCLE JOHN: “I’m afraid so, Little Billy. It’s gruesome. Scary and gruesome.”

OK, perhaps I’ve gone overboard. But it gets my goat (should I say cow?) when two intelligent folks reinforce a stereotype which is wrong. Of course the South has its history of racism which grew out of factors on which the Southern economy was based. It was then fueled by ignorance and fear. But since the civil rights act was passed (and to an extent before), whites and blacks do pretty well together down here. At least as well as anyplace else. So when concerned with racism in America, John and Bill, try to be concerned with all of America.

Bill Dunbar

Augusta, GA