April 1988
CONTENTS
ROCK ’N’ ROLL NEWS
Having long championed the rights of our animal friends— most particularly the cow, of course—this Bureau is pleased to call your attention to the “Don’t Kill The Animals” video. The vehicle features Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen, rightthinkers like ourselves, cutting through a laboratory fence and rescuing a bunch of our non-human chums from what we can only assume were plans to dissect ’em alive and maybe even worse.
LETTERS
Who is Hercules Bovis to talk? His sitin for Eleganza in the December CREEM was incredibly moronic. I hope he didn’t take any money for the piece, the hypocrite! Missing the most obvious of all points, Bovis failed to mention that rock criticism serves a great function as a consumer guide.
ELEGANZA
Ira Gershwin wrote those lyrics soon after the death of his brother, composer George Gershwin; so whatever we bring to the song, we also bring an added poignancy. I believe in those words, totally and irreparably: if love cannot stand up to it, it isn’t love as I care to define it.
THE POGUES, BY THE GRACE OF GOD
Harold DeMuir
“I was in London talking to a friend of mine,” recounts Joe Strummer, clutching a bottle of beer, “and I decided that it would be good to give up drinking for a few months. Then I went home and the phone rang, and it was (Pogues manager) Frank Murray asking me if I wanted to go on tour with the Pogues on Saturday.”
Creem Profiles
Dave Mustaine
(Pronounced “Boy Howdy!”)
Love & Rockets Be This Perversity?
Moira McCormick
Love & Rockets spend a lot of time singing about heaven. Their first album was called Seventh Dream Of Teenage Heaven, and an early single bore the title “If There’s A Heaven Above.” Their new album, Earth Sun Moon, refers to that great fuzzbox in the sky in no less than three songs, one of which is called “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven.”
A box of Screaming Blue Messiahs
Sylvie Simmons
There’s a white Madonna and a black Prince, a metal Priest and a buffy Saint Marie and three Screaming Blue Messiahs: Bill Carter, Chris Thompson and Kenny Harris. I’ve got Bill, he’s got me, he’s been drinking, I haven’t, I’m not happy but Bill is positively wretched.
RECORDS
Roy Trakin
If there’s any doubt that the balance has shifted in the bi-coastal rock community—in terms of talent, excitement, commitment, energy, etc.— from East to West, one need only observe feisty Lawndale, CA indie label SST, founded by Greg Ginn and Chuck Dukowski a decade ago as home for their own seminal punk band Black Flag.
ROCK • A • RAMA
Craig Zeller
His recording career spans three decades, he’s had big hits, thrown away several opportunities for more of the same, and been immortalized by the Replacements in a song that should’ve been a big hit itself. Who is he? Why, none other than Alex Chilton, friend of the Cramps, originator of at least one pop masterpiece (“September Gurls”) and one of rock’s favorite lost causes.
SPREADING A PACK OF LIES ABOUT DEPECHE MODE
Jon Young
As you no doubt learned long ago, feature stories on your favorite pop stars often reveal next to nothing. Politicianstyle, most of these so-called artists have devised a standard canned rap that enables ’em to deflect even slightly probing questions.
SOUNDTRACKS
Guy Aoki
A few years ago, the typical movie soundtrack album would contain instrumental, orchestrated music scored as background music for individual and specific scenes in the film. If there was a main theme or highlight to the story, there would be one vocal song that could be used as a single to promote the film (e.g., “The Way We Were,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” “Rocky”).
Rock ‘n’ Roll Calendar
CALENDAR
PAUL SIMON’S RETURN TO GRACE
Glenn A. Baker
While Bob Dylan was calling a heartless world to repentance in the ’60s, Paul Simon was more concerned with the state of his own heart...and intellect. Dylan was awed by the dustbowl laments of Woody Guthrie and initially rendered harsh blues songs, but the ever-literate Simon was mentioning Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost in lyrics crafted with almost academic deliberation.
SCREEN BEAT
Billy Altman
I’m writing this in mid-December, traditionally the bottom-of-the-barrel time for new recordings and, ergo, new videos. Why most record companies decide to draw the blinds and by and large close up shop for the holidays is beyond me. I mean, do they really think (as they always claim when pressed on the subject) that most “good” new music will get lost in the shuffle if it’s released around Christmas?
CREEMEDIA
Richard C. Walls
Between the lines of the rambling, cheerily shallow, anecdotal text of this self-illustrated bio/ sketch, possibly buried somewhere in Ron Wood’s mind and incapable of being dredged up for articulation, there’s an interesting story.
MEDIA COOL
Bill Holdship
Robin Williams plays Adrian Cronauer in this true-life tale of an irreverent, hilarious rock ’n’ roll deejay who entertained the troops during the early days of the Vietnam “conflict.” The script isn’t incredibly brilliant, but when Williams has the camera or is interacting with others— which is 99 percent of the time—this is a charming and very, very funny movie.
BRYAN FERRY: The Pariah Speaks
Gill Smith
For someone who once seemed to dominate the rock scene—both musically and visually—so totally, Bryan Ferry seems strangely alienated from what’s going on in 1987. Almost like an outsider merely looking on in mild curiosity, he occasionally breaks the silence with a new album hinting at past glories, teasing at what could still be and then disappearing like a snowflake.
THE 1987 CREEM READERS POLL
It’s the hap, hap, happiest time of the year: yep, it’s time to publish the results of our annual readers poll! Doubtless you’re every bit as excited about this as we are, as well you should be. Why? Because this year the results have the illusion of cohesiveness, one of our favorite illusions on this misty plane of existence.
TECH TALK
Billy Cioffi
I would describe Paul Carrack as one of the world’s favorite singers. For the last dozen or so years, Carrack has appeared on a number of pop music’s best singles, starting in 1974, when Carrack’s bar band Ace became a one-hit wonder with “How Long.”
REWIND
I suppose it was inevitable that the guitar would dominate popular music in the second half of this century: it’s the instrument of the common people. The early popularity of the guitar is easily explainable; it was cheap and easy to learn.
NEW GEAR
The LP Music Group are known for their great percussion devices but have most recently made a serious effort to broaden their musical instrument line. The Kitty Hawk amplifier series, engineered in West Germany, feature the Kitty Hawk transformer—and since Kitty Hawk’s inception they have manufactured transformers for other amps, as well as for industrial use.
CENTERSTAGE
Bill Holdship
“This is no punk rock show,” John Doe said halfway through X’s set, and he wasn’t far from the truth, considering what punk’s come to mean during the last few years. This show could’ve almost restored your belief in rock ’n’ roll as something that crosses many boundaries, as a wonderful continuum and so forth.
NEWBEATS
Moira McCormick
“I have no sensibility for what makes a radio hit,” says Seth Tiven, leader of Boston-based Dumptruck. “Whatever I think is probably the worst song on the record ends up as the big push track on radio. It’s just a really warped sense of taste that I have.”
Backstage
Backstage
Where the Stars Tank Up & Let Their Images Down