June 1972
CONTENTS
Dear CREEM: A reasonable explanation as to why a rock publication of the calibre of CREEM would have to resort to printing letters by a hysterical schizzy like Barbara-Julian, and waste all that valuable space, escapes me. Can you really be THAT desperate for print?
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Signed to Columbia: James Osterberg (a.k.a.) Iggy Pop). Rest of the band reportedly joining Our Hero in Scotland to reform. MC5 bassist Michael Davis is no longer with the group, and is probably going back to art school; Five haven’t replaced him yet, either.
THE BEAT GOGS ON
New York City has been remarkably clear of pollution in recent days — clean air, crisp outlines, energy and sun. But then again, the Beach Boys have been here and always cut through the metropolitan muck. The West Coast may be their environs, but New York audiences bide time between their infrequent appearances and tickets are gone shortly after they’re offered for sale. Three nights at Carnegie Hall and other local stops were all SRO.
The Mahavisnu Orchestra: John McLaughlin’s Immaculate Conception
Robert Hurwitz
“I am dealing with the soul of music.”
HOWARD HUGHES: "WHEN ELECTED, MY FIRST ACT WILL BE TO CURE CANCER."
Craig Karpel
McGovern and Lindsay are gonna have a hard time topping that one...
Features
Bring Your Mother To The Gas Chamber
Lester Bangs
Are Black Sabbath really the new Shamans?
Anyone Tampering With This Machine
Lester Bangs
The Senior From of the 70’s
Creemedia
Making It Big in America
Robbie Cruger
The movie contains all the necessary elements for a powerful, compelling, classical epic: strong substance, interest ingredient, an anxious audience. It doesn’t disappoint.
Mad Dog Blues
Tony Glover
I never could take plays too seriously. Movies were okay, even those Sam Katzman thriller serials that always ended with walls crashing down and Superman zonked by Kryptonite as the water rose — they were black, white and gray and two-dimensional, they existed only on a screen. You could either believe in them or ignore them, but you couldn’t change them. If you sat thru the feature twice, the same exact things happened, the same way.
Records
Creedence Clearwater Revised
Greil Marcus
Halfway into the first cut on this album, I pulled out Hank Williams’ Greatest Hits.
Pieties for the people
Lester Bangs
Why America? Their nascent legions of fans must understand intuitively, feeling this music’s pull on their lymph glands without needing or wanting to analyse it, but for those of us less than totally smitten by the omnipresent strains of “Horse With No Name,” it’s a knotty puzzle indeed. It’s easy to scream hype, of course; a friend of mine has actually deduced that since there were also new Neil Young and Crazy Horse albums due out at this time, the promulgation of a Youngish vocal called “Horse With No Name” was actually a dark Kinney plot to capitalize on that synchronicity. Somebody else assures me the song’s about heroin.
On the road to Marin County
Lester Bangs
Anybody who’s seen the movie Cisco Pike knows that Kris Kristofferson’s a pretty good actor. He’s likeable, charismatic in a way that sneaks up on you, and able to convey the proper emotions most of the time. His facial expressions don’t change too much, though, which suggests that he might be better on radio, as of course he is.
JUKE BOX JURY
GREG SHAW
The old mercury hit 84 today and the placid streets of bucolic Marin County were brazenly disturbed by the sounds of yours truly, cruising along in my calaboose, windows down and the manic strains of Black Sabbath’s “Iron Man” blaring from my 40-ohm speakers. The radio was cooperating to its fullest, flinging out one fine summer song after another, from “Brown Sugar” to early Yardbirds, with a lot of Van Morrison, Beach Boys, and Mungo Jerry inbetween.
ROCK-A-RAMA
D&B TOGETHER - Delaney & Bonnie (Columbia):: They’ve left Atlantic, and as if to prove it they hurried this thing out. It sounds like a bunch of outtakes from the previous Atlantic stuff, and it’s so poor it’s no wonder the musicians aren’t credited.