Creem – America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine, Reviewed Issue By Issue – January 1983 (Volume 14, Number 8)
Roger Daltrey returned to the cover of Creem for their January 1983 issue. After interviewing Pete Townshend for the November 1982 issue and having a Who “Photo Album” in the December 1982 issue, a cynic could say that the magazine was milking that band like they were a cow with eighteen udders. Alternately, one could argue that the coverage was justified, since Townshend announced that this would be the group’s last tour. Daltrey wasn’t thrilled to see journalist Don McLeese, greeting him with, “What the fuck are you doing reviewing this show…It’s people like you that are the reason the Who can’t tour anymore.” Daltrey, promoting the last tour hype, “We’re going to end our touring career as good as we’ve ever been. And I think that’s important for a band like the Who.” For their parts, both John Entwistle and Kenney Jones were vocal that the band should continue performing live shows. In the best moment of the interview, Daltrey tried to imagine singing the Pete Townshend solo song “Stop Hurting People,” “I’d have to piss myself laughing.”
Humorist/provocateur Rick Johnson was no longer freelancing from Macomb, Illinois. He had joined the Creem staff in Birmingham, Michigan as an “Associate Editor.”
It was a bad month for U.K. acts, “Rock ‘n’ Roll News” reported that Squeeze and the Jam were breaking up.
Features:
“Duran Duran: Oh! You Pretty Things from Planet Earth,” by Toby Goldstein
“Claire Grogan’s Altered Images: Thank Heaven for Little Girls,” by Iman Lababedi
“Aerosmith: Walkin’ the Dogma (Can I Borrow the Karma?),” by Annene Kaye
“Roger Daltrey: The Blond Behind Blue Eyes: Lasso Rog Hits the Trail Again,” by Don McLeese
“I Spy on Iggy Pop: Sneaking & Peeping in the Zombie Birdhouse,” by Edouard Dauphin
“The Complete History of the Stray Cats, Part One,” by John Kordosh
Toby Goldstein documented Duran Duran’s initial debut as a “New Romantic” act to being a mainstream pop group in the U.S. Even members of the band admitted being horrified being horrified about how they were initially marketed by their label. Nick Rhodes, “We spent a good deal of THIS tour explaining ourselves to people.”
Iman Lababedi was fascinated by U.K. actress/pop stare Clare Grogan of Altered Images. Grogan sounded alternatively naïve and sophisticated, like stardom was both a happy accident and the result of sound planning.
Steven Tyler hyped the Aerosmith album “Rock in a Hard Place” to journalist Annene Kaye and didn’t seem to miss Joe Perry (“the old soldier of fortune”). Tyler, “This album’s gonna give a lot of people speeding tickets…European straight-arm, y’know?”
In a more serious than usual interview with Edouard Dauphin, Iggy Pop talked about going to alcohol rehab, writing the book “I Need More,” collaborating with guitarist Rob Duprey, and opening for the Rolling Stones.
The Stray Cats had little of note to say in their interview with John Kordosh, but they had memorized some of Creem’s photo captions.
Quotable Quotes:
Colin Hay of Men at Work, “Isn’t CREEM that magazine that always has people like Van Halen and Robert Plant on the cover?”
Simon Le Bon, “We’re not spotty, three-foot-tall hunchbacks, which gives us the image – the Beatles were good looking. It does help, especially, if you’re talking about young girls.”
Clare Grogan, “People want to see people looking good; it’s human nature.”
Steven Tyler, “The Shangri-Las were always one of my all-time favorite groups.”
Don McLeese, “Daltrey – strutting, screaming, microphone-twirling – is the image of the classic rock star made real. Townshend is the neurotic wallflower who never gets the girl; Daltrey’s the good-looking jock who never misses. Somewhere in the middle, the result has been some impassioned rock ‘n’ roll. Not so much in spite of the tension, but because of it.”
Iggy Pop, “If I take a walk in the Village, I’ll be often recognized but never hassled. Sometimes I feel like a TV star as if I was Bud on ‘Father Knows Best.’”
Iggy on rehab, “A couple of punkettes checked in near the end of my stay – I didn’t lack for sex.”
Lee Rocker on rockabilly music, “It’s still basically untapped dance music. It hasn’t been used that much. Whereas blues has.”
Richard C. Walls on Springsteen’s “Nebraska” album, “Its singular gloom seems appropriate to the times and its underlying compassion is restrained and moving, though I suspect that most people will find it more admirable than likeable.
Robert Hull on R.E.M.’s “Chronic Town” EP, “The mystery of R.E.M.’s music is that it evokes the music of the late ‘60s without any pretensions, mingling past and present to shape both into concurrent moments.”
Summary: It’s always amusing to read Roger Daltrey’s thin skinned reaction to any criticism (years before he proclaimed in Creem that he wanted to beat up Lester Bangs).
Grade: A-
Latest price on eBay: $25.00 to “Buy It Now.”
