February 1983
Creem Profiles
MARSHALL CRENSHAW
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
CREEM
Please send letters to; MAIL Dept., CREEM Magazine P.O. Box P-1064 Birmingham, Ml 48012 ROCK AGAINST POTTY-MOUTH Please be advised that a large share of your readership is comprised of young girls under the age of eight or nine. Did you ever hear an eightyr.-old use some of the language you clowns print?
CHRISTGAU CONSUMER GUIDE
Robert Christgau
ABC: "The Lexicon Of Love" (Mercury):: Since Bowie and Ferry offered a lot more surface than substance back when they were supposed to be saving rock ’n’ roll, I can’t get worried about this tribute band’s lack of depth. Martin Fry’s candid camp and ad-man phrasing don’t altogether justify his histrionic flights, but they do give him room to be clever, which is clearly his calling—some of these synthetic (in more ways than one) funk rhythms make me laugh out loud, and he’s an ace writer.
ROCK 'N' ROLL NEWS
It’s official! David Bowie will launch his first American tour in four years this coming spring, and we can hardly wait... THE DEVIL MADE HER DO IT DEPT. Newest hot couple in the rock world is punk funk king Rick James and Linde Blair of The Exorcist fame.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Rick Johnson
NEW YORK—A SHORT HISTORY OF DERRY, IRELAND: 1688—Britain lay siege to Derry City for 105 days. 1976—The Undertones are formed. “Back in Derry, our earliest concerts, the situation that we found ourselves playing in, was for really small groups of friends in really small bars.”
TAKE THE EL OUT OF MOTELS
Sylvie Simmons
In a smoke-filled call up in Capitol Towers, that awesome Hollywood edifice modeled on an Ajax can. Martha Davis and Marty Jourard sit blinking under fluorescent lights and posters of Anne Murray. Motels. Two of them anyway. The other three (lanky bassist Michael Good-roe; new quitarist Guy Perry, famous for leaving Elephants Memory the week before John Lennon adopted them; and veteran British drummer and personal ac-quaintance of Jethro Tull.
THE PSYCHEDELIG FURS: SUGAR CUBES FOR THE NEW DEPRESSION
Bill Holdship
Richard Butler, the Psychedelic Furs’ chain-smoking vocalist, often sounds like an extremely angry man on record.
Features
GYPSIES, TRAMPS OR THIEVES?
John Mendelssohn
The World According To Fleetwood Mac.
REWIRE YOURSELF
Richard Robinson
I don’t know if you’ve stopped to look in the window of your local stereo electronics store recently or taken the time to browse among the display counters, but if you haven’t you’ve missed out on the fact that a remarkable change has taken place in what used to be called “the state of the art.”
A Morning Walk With Steve Winwood
Jeff Nesin
Winston Churchill would be proud. Steve Winwood apologizes for being delayed, motions us both into equally uncomfortable chairs (leaving the plush one graciously vacant), and gives me his full attention. Polite, thoughtful, clearheaded and forthright, he seems to embody qualities of Englishness that are far older and more honorable than the “Falkland Spirit.”
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
Rediscovering Paradise: EDDIE MONEY
characters blend to form the individual who has just appeared
Several characters blend to form the towering individual who has just appeared in the faded-grace lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel. First, there's Eddie Money, rock 'n' roll star, still getting his bearings in mid-day, thinking about breakfast. Thanks more about this performance in New York this night. Swaggering, bold, oblivious to the horrified stares his booming voice, black leather jacket, “Twilight Zone” cut-off T-shirt, tight leather jeans and high How about two tickets to Moose Jaw instead?
EXTENSION CHORDS
Allen Hester
Twenty years ago, Sandy Nelson ushered in the era of rock drumming with his classic “Let There Be Drums.” A few years later, the Surfaris gave us “Wipeout,” and the die was cast. It has long since become standard practice for drummers to adamantly refuse to play “Wipeout,” but here in the ’80s there is a new plague threatening the boys in the band who pound on the skins: electronic drum machines.
A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS Answer All your Questions... And More!
Jeffrey Morgan
When we offered 10 lucky CREEM readers the chance to have their questions answered by England’s newest hitmakers, A Flock of Seagulls, little did we realize just how large their following was! The CREEM offices were literally deluged with mail ever since the contest was first announced a couple of months ago, with mail arriving from such desolate outposts as Nome, Alaska, and Newfoundland, Canada!
CREEMEDIA
John Mendelssohn
You’ll like the Nada Band. There are about a dozen of them, they all wear a great deal of make-up, and a couple of them have fabulous teased hair. Indeed, one of the saxophonists, Susie Sidewinder, sports a beehive you’d be surprised not to find black widows breeding in.
DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Edouard Dauphin
'He has the power to make you live his nightmares. And he's dreaming about you. ' No, 'he' isn't Ozzy Osbourne, so you'll have to explain those bat carcasses on your pillow some other way. 'He' is the title character in The Sender, a nifty atmospheric horror flick and the scariest thing to come out of England since Haircut One Hundred.
Confessions of a FILM FOX
Question of the month: did Jerry dump Mick? Did he finally offer to marry her? Will he finally get some Oil of Olay and slap it into those face furrows? Well, Jerry was flitting intercontinentally with Aussie (pronounced kang a roo') racehorse zillionaire Robert Sangster—married but trying to forget about it—and Mick was seen in some dangerously swank New York nightclubs with chubette but loaded deb Cornelia Guest...but whether this is out-and-out war between the lovebirds or just tactical maneuvers, we'll have to see.
MIXED MEDIA, MIXED EMOTIONS
Cynthia Rose
Autumn is always that time when issues both new and old begin to surface, and Britain's been staggering under a surfeit of repeats. There are always at least two people (currently David Sylvian and Bauhaus) playing at being Bowie again, and there's also Edsel, F-Beat's new indie label for re-issues.
Stars Cars
THE CLASH
OUT THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR
Billy Altman
First of all, let me confess that I would have given anything to be a bat on the wall at Jimmy Page's castle the night the Atlantic brain trust showed up to talk him into piecing together Coda, the 'new' Led Zeppelin album of previous unreleased outtakes taken from recording sessions throughout Zep's humongous career as the reigning rock 'n' roll band of the last decade.
DRESSED TO FUNK
Richard Riegel
Rick James, in CREEM last year, was quoted on the subject of his funkbunny rival, Prince: 'Long as he's in that pantyhose, he can forget it.' Yep, same Rick James who wears 'long-dreadlocked wigs all the time, but ain't no faggot nevertheless, why he's got women practically hanging onto his cock whenever he strides onstage...
VICTIMS OF SEXISTANCE
Laura Fissinger
Caveat: much of the following has been said before. But hey, boys, you keep delivering the same old goods and we hacks will be more dutiful than Pavlov's dogs. To wit: H20 is very much like the women Hall and Oates have been writing about all along, especially women that are not dogs.
MOVING TARGETS
j. poet
he Gun Club plays for keeps. Their songs crackle like dry corpse skin turning to parchment under the caress of a rattlesnake belly. Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Gun Club's leader and songwriter, is a Texan, and the hollow wind of the prairie echos painfully through his tortured, shrieking vocals.
ROCK • A • RAMA
CHICO FREEMAN — Tradition in Transition (Elektra/Musician):: If you're hip to the toweringly majestic 'Jackie-ing,' one of Thelonius Monk's obscurer magnum opuses, you've absolutely gotta hear the version here. Dunno who actually did the arrangement (coulda been Chico but more likely it was Jack DeJohnette), but the junior high school oompah band treatment they give it is as pure-Monk in spirit as these ears have ever heard in a Monk cover.
Backstage
BACKSTAGE
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down