April 1974
CONTENTS
DEAR CREEM Whether you are a doctor or not, I wish you would analyze some dream's: 1) I dreamt that Fred Flintstone was singing “COCONUT” while dancing down the street of Bedrock and 2) My brother dreamt that people had Jethro Tull albums between their legs. TRUE!!!
BARNEY & MIKE
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
Clarence Carter: “Sixty Minutes with Clarence Carter” (Fame). The title doesn’t describe the record — it’s yet another play of this soul survivor’s back-door routine. But thanks to Rick Hall’s confident cop of the Duane Allman high lick and an unusual things-ain’t-getting-better lyric from George Jackson, this isn’t all routine.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Hey, look, Keith’s back! That’s the tone of rumors circulating London which have it that Keith Richard, an easy winner in the “who’ll be the next popstar to kick off” speculation derby, has suddenly come back to life and has reasserted himself as the strong arm in the Rolling Stones scheme of things.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Larry Sloman
“You mean if there’s a riot here we may get shot?,” Ginny Whitaker, the frail dynamo of a drummer, is whispering to Country Joe. Joe, already edgy from the two-hour bus ride from the Best Western Inn that they’ve holed up in on Long Island, is somewhat cruelly feeding Ginny’s paranoia.
The Top Ten Lives!
David Marsh
One of rock’s more interesting eternal conflicts is the debate over AM, Top 40 radio. I think I like AM, for what is is, even though I often don’t approve of what it is trying to be. Despite evisceration, singles-oriented stations — which now occupy both sides of the dial — continue to be more interesting, and just plain more alive, than even top flight progressive FM stations.
Creem Profiles
NEW YORK DOLLS
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
Features
FOGWHAT? FOGHAT Bastard Children of Gordon Sinclair
Ben Edmonds
The first time I confronted the Foghat problem was in 1972 on what was their first mouthful of the American sandwich.
FOGHAT II How To Market Magic
Ben Edmonds
In some ways, you didn’t push the Savoy Brown connection with Foghat as hard as you might’ve in the beginning... It might not’ve been that visible, simply because we didn’t do it in terms of press and hype a la Slade. We made a conscious decision to avoid that style of promotion with Foghat.
Letter From Britain
No Time To Weep And Moan
Simon Frith
Jiminy jee! Last week the New York Dolls played our block.
GET INTO DAVID'S PANTS
If you win the Bowie lookalike contest.
Features
DIARY OF A ROCK STAR: Mott the Hoople From the Inside
Ian Hunter
Wed., Nov. 29, 1972 Here we are, Wednesday afternoon in Philadelphia on a grey and overcast English morning.
HONEY COME & BE MY ENEMY I CAN LOVE YOU TOO
Esther & Lester
The Stooges are back, and I’m happy, and I’m sad. Happy because they’re such a great, great band, a distillation of beautiful fury that could tear your head off. Sad, because I’m sitting in a scumpit called the Michigan Palace waiting through three dogshit bands for them to come on.
Features
Curse of the Vanishing Dynaflex
David Marsh
Shortages of vinyl, paper, gasoline and a variety of other substances already have hit the record industry hard, and the impact will be much greater in 1974, according to a variety of industry sources.
There’s A Little Bit Of Everything In Texas
Ed Ward
And a whole lot of Texas in Commander Cody’s DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS album.
Texas Hall of Fame
Janis Joplin: The thorny rose of Texas who never found her way home. The first and last great Snuff Queen of rock. With Big Brother & the Holding Company, helped put San Francisco (and subsequently Texas) back on the musical map. Doug Sahm: With the Sir Douglas Quintet, was Texas' first long-haired rocker.
Rotting Pulp's a Good Investment
Mike Baron
There are hundreds, of Scrooge-type souls who horde new comics as they come out, counting on inflated dealers’ rates to turn them a nice profit in a year’s time. Twenty cents for a current Swamp Thing will net you a five hundred per cent return in one year.
From Bijou No. 8
Jaybert Lynchton
Eleganza
Rock Couples
Lisa Robinson
What kind of clothes do popstars wear when they’re offstage?
Tell Me About Your New Wah-Wah
Guitar Arne
One of the major problems with writing about (and being interested in) guitars and amplifiers is that it’s none too easy to find out what’s going on.
Creemedia
Lord of the Jungle Meets Bloody Mary
Jim Esposito
Tarzan, The Exorcist, more
SHORT TAKES
Dave Marsh
SLEEPER (United Artist):: Since Woody Allen & the last funny person on Earth, and since Sleeper is the first funny movie since his last one, if it was only worth seeing once, you’d be hard up for a chuckle. And I can’t repeat the jokes, which is lucky for you, since you’d have a good time ruined if I told them, but also because most of them are not that memorable.
CONFESSIONS OF A FILM FOX
As they say, possession is 9/10 of the law and also 9/10 of the movie news this month. They say your have really arrived when the imitations start coming in. Jumping on the devilish bandwagon is a new release titled, The Sexorcist. It’s the saga of a necromancing nymphomaniac.
Rewire Yourself
$500 Was Our Limit: Stereo Shopping with Judy Rubin
Richard Robinson
One bitter cold Saturday morning I bundled up and headed for mid-town Manhattan with Judy Rubin who works with Lisa and myself when she’s not going to high school.
BARNEY & MIKE
BOOKS
Donald Jennings
Bob Sarlin’s Turn It Up, I Can’t Hear the Words is an attempt to define the emergence and direction of serious lyrics in rock and roll. Beginning with a short history of the influence of folk music, and early rock and roll, Sarlin arrives at the term “songpoet” to describe Dylan and those who have followed him.
Records
Depletion Behind A Positive Mask
Patti Smith
God-bye baby. See I was hoping this would be the work that would sever me off.
ROCK-A-RAMA
JIMI HENDRIX — At His Best (Sagapan Records) (Volume 2):: One of your more obscure postmortems boasting a classy cover. Also hands-down winner of “most pretentious liner-notes award.” Written in English and French for all you frog-rockers.