July 1974
CONTENTS
DEAR CREEM POLL ROLL I enjoyed your 1973 Rock and Roll Poll immensely but a few categories should have been there that were not. Please don’t forget these next year: Dinosaur of the Year, Wimp of the Year, Robot of the Year, Ego of the Year, Queer of the Year, Schizoid of the Year, Jesus of the Year.
BARNEY & MIKE
Bob Wilson
THE CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
Big Star: "Radio City" (Ardent). This sounds completely unique if you don't count Beatles '65. Especially if you remember the Beatles as spare, skew, and sprung, which is hard, since they weren't. Can an album be catchy and twisted at the same time? Find out.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Karen Carpenter on Mott The Hoople: "I didn't know who they were, but I thought they were the most amateurish group I'd ever seen. And as for that thing with the hair and shades and the boots..." Richard Carpenter: "They seemed to be trying to outdo each other to see who looked the weirdest.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Jaan Uhelszki
Bette Midler a virgin! You bet, the original tacky lady stars as the Virgin Mary in the nativity spoof, The Divine Mr. J (See May's Film Fox). Well, the fur is beginning to fly around that saga of the Son of God... Seems Bette's manager Aaron Russo has charged the Detroit-based film company with misleading the public by billing his star so prominently.
DON'T TOUCH THAT DIAL
David Marsh
I am beginning to understand why most of the people I encounter can't stand AM radio. I have always lived in places where at least something interesting was going on on that side of the dial: CKLW in Detroit, with its remarkable mix of soul and pop programming; WNBC in NY with Imus and Wolfman Jack, when I was there.
Features
STEVE MILLER: The Joke’s On You
Jaan Uhelszki
Steve Miller in blood red handtooled honest injun cowboy boots, and myself are on our way to the beautiful Buckeye State.
Features
BLACK SABBATH: Meaner than a junkyard dawg
Robot A. Hull
Or a final tribute to Jim Croce.
You’re In Bad Company With Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs, Simon Kirke & Boz
Steve Clarke
Imagine this, if you can; a group called the Buddys who played Buddy Holly songs — and who would have called themselves the Hollies except that someone beat them to it.
All-American McCoy
Billy Altman
In Which Rick Derringer Does Everything And Does It Well
CREEM DREEM
Suzi Quatro
Features
DEEP LIP: THE MICK JAGGER INTERVIEW
Roy Carr
The prince of mince & prance spits forth intelligence on the inner workings of an institution called the Rolling Stones.
Letter From Britain
Trouble, Trouble
Nick Kent
It's stagnation time again here in Limey-land. Yup, English rock has gone to the dogs again: we're out in the cold and we don't even have a Bob Dylan touring earnestly to dupe us out of our inertia for even a couple of months.
Creem Profiles
Leslie West
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
Eleganza
Walked Like A Woman & Talked Like A Man
Lisa Robinson
"Gary Glitter certainly killed glam-rock for good," the stunning blond murmured in her sultry voice at the Four Seasons.
Creemedia
The Last Gasp On Gatsby
Henry Edwards
This long, long, two-and-one-half hour film is the slowest motion visual aid imaginable, a reverent Classic Comic in which the actors have been substituted for line drawings with only the sense of animation suffering. Even Rona Barrett knows why they made this one.
SHORT TAKES
Vince Aletti
CLAUDINE (20th Century Fox):: Diahann Carroll is a welfare mother of six who secretly works as a maid to supplement her subsistence-level checks. James Earl Jones is a garbage man. They meet over the trash cans in some suburban driveway, start spending nights together and end up being, quite realistically, in love. But if he wins over her suspicious kids (or most of them), he finds he can't fight the welfare system, and, frustrated, gives into his impulse to just disappear.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
If you're fond of the Fondas this is the month for you. First, Daughter Jane. After a brief absence from movieland, she is back starring in a picture titled The Dollmaker. It's the story of an Appalachian woman and her children uprooted from their mountain home and thrust into a new way of life circa WWII, Detroit.
ROCK DREAMS
Ben Edmonds
You've heard the street rumblings. You've witnessed the testimony of the immaculately hip, who pride themselves on being one step ahead of the rank & file. You've seen magazine reproductions and newspaper raves. You own the album covers of Bowie's Diamond Dogs (debuted as last month's CREEMmate) and the Stones" latest, both the work of the master criminal who's responsible for all this commotion.
Records
ROXY MUSIC: Catch the Next Sensation
Lester Bangs
I'm serving notice right now on everybody to go and wolf down the new albums by Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry.
THE SOUND OF SURPRISE: TOMORROWS GUITARS & AMPS ON TODAYS PAGES AT YESTERDAYS PRICES
Guitar Arnie
Once a year all the people who make and sell guitars, amplifiers, and related musical equipment get together to display their product lines, engage in a bit of communal chit-chat, and, hopefully, take a few orders. This year's NAMM Expo at Houston's Astrodome is no exception.
CUSTOM MACHINES: WHAT'S YOUR fAVORITE QUITAR FANTASY?
Micheal Brooks
At the time of this writing, the Grateful Dead just finished a concert at San Francisco's Cow Palace, where 14,000 strong turned out to see them run through a sound check with their new sound system engineered by Alembic, Inc., a custom outfit in San Francisco.