April 1980
CREEM
PLANT NO PORK CHOP!! To Joe Blow, (Bellefontaine): I feel I should respond to a letter I have read from a recent issue of this mag. I’m really quite angry! I have never seen such a fox as Robert Plant. As far as “fat,” I wouldn’t say so. He might have had a few too many beers, but I like meat.
Creem Profiles
IGGY POP
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
AIR: “Air Lore” (Arista Novus):: Demonstrating not only that ragtime (Scott Joplin) and New Orleans (Jelly Roll Morton) are Great Art consonant with Contemporary Jazz, but also that they’re Corny. And that both Great Art and Corn can be fun.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
Call her irrepressible: A writer from Rockers magazine in Buffalo wanted an interview with Tim Curry, who just couldn’t find the time to do it. Undaunted, she continued to call New York’s A&M office pleading for some time with the eurosexual rocker: But, alas, no go.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Mark J. Norton
DETROIT—Dance music has seen much change in the last few years—with the “Death to Disco” bell sounding nationwide, a funk revival was bound to come dancing out of the closet sooner or later, and it has surfaced in the form of people like James Chance/White and the Contortions, and Lizzy Mercier Descloux, shaking their collective money-makers to a fortified funk beat.
Gimme Stridex: Rick Derringer Eats Cookies & Speaks
Billy Altman
Talk about coming full circle. Rick Derringer has just come back onstage for an encore before a sold out house at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, Long Island and the crowd, in a festive mood all evening, is now moving roaringly towards headbang-ingsville.
WORKING CLASH HEROES PERFECT LOVERS ROCK
Chris Bohn
Inside the Clash’s new rehearsal studio, under a railway bridge somewhere in South London, Joe Strummer is singing a slow country blues about rolling boxcars, twisting his head way down under to reach a low mike, perched next to an electric piano.
KNUKING THE KNACK INSIDE THEIR OWN REACTOR
Richard Riegel
Teresa and I are shuffling down the ramp of the 707, still groggy from the many time zones we’ve breached coming out here to Los Angeles, when we’re met by the first symbol of the Knack’s largess. The furiously smiling fellow from the limousine service, a huge Conway Twitty-lookalike, is holding a big sign that proclaims: “REIGELL”.
The Sports: SURFING JUST LIKE THEY DO IN THE U.S.A.
Richard Riegel
Rocketing up the Stouffer’s Cincinnati Towers by express elevator, I’m attempting to frame an equally hasty explanation for Steve Cummings of the Sports, as to just where it was that I heard Tom Robinson and Eric Burdon in his vocals when I Rock-a-Ramaed his group’s U.S. debut album, Don’t Throw Stones, a couple of months before.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Features
THE SPECIALS: RUDE BOYS SPREAD MANURE IN YANK BED OF ROSES
Simon Frith
The Specials are the first group I’ve followed from first gig to international stardom.
Letter From Britain
COUNTING FLOWERS ON THE WALL
Penny Valentine
"Kid" drove us crazy.
Unsung Heroes Of Rock ‘n’ Roll
YOUNG BILL HALEY: The Lounge Act That Transcendeth All Knowing
Nick Tosches
Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock" is the biggest hit in the history of rock ’n’ roll.
Features
Winkle-pickers Into the Void: THE JAM IS PACKED OFF TO AMERICA
Simon Frith
The Jam spruced up while everyone else was getting into garbage bags.
CREEM DREEM
THE POLICE
CREEMEDIA
Dave DiMartino
Disregard the sheer pomposity and egotism responsible for this book’s publication. Consider it only as the editors intended it, a permanent reference work that, as Dave Marsh has it, is “designed at least as much for the general reader as for the rock cultist.”
Confessions of FILM FOX
Greetings all, and welcome to this month’s episode of “Comedy Is Not Pretty,” subtitled, “The Bong Show.” First to step into the limelight is that titillating toker Timothy Leary, who you may have caught gigging ’round L. A. as a stand-up [stand-up?) comic.
DRIVEN-IN SATURDAY
Edouard Dauphin
Director John Carpenter surprised a lot of people with Halloween, a $300,000 movie that grossed $50 million. With his eagerly awaited follow-up, The Fog, he won’t reverse the process, but he’s pressing his luck. The Fog is a high budget flick that deserves to go down the tubes, but everybody knows: fog floats.
Stars Cars
RICK NIELSEN
Records
IS THERE LIFE DURING WARTIME?
Billy Altman
As much as I like and admire the Clash, London Calling leaves me caught in a dilemma that I’m not at all pleased to be in.
THE COW YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN
The grand release of E/A’s thick brown No Nukes LP—that company’s single most courageous act since they signed (and then quickly dropped) the Dictators—represents many different things. An attempt to pump some life back into the careers of several dishwasher-safe folkies? Certainly.
ROCK • A • RAMA
THE MEMBERS — At The Chelsea Nightclub (Virgin):: Even with the derivative nods toward Clash/Police white reggae styling, the Members’ music comes off as original because it has what both those bands lack: a sense of humor. Songs about the dread “suburbs” don’t sound cliched, songs about American capitalist porkers don’t sound hackneyed, and, instrumentally, the band avoids the murkiness of their debut cut (a few years back) on the Beggars Banquet Streets compilation.
Extension Chords
THE X911: RAPID DEPLOYMENT FORCE
Allen Hester
The rock ’n’ roll arsenal has never been more formidable than it is today.
Rewire Yourself
THE METAL TAPE MIRACLE
Richard Robinson
Of all the formats available for recorded music, the audio cassette is certainly the handiest.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down