PETER GABRIEL"Instant bed/am"

LED ZEPPELIN

ARRING...

011Wasmti

A MONTHLY TRIP THROUGH
MUSIC'S GOLDEN YEARSTHIS ISSUE:1975

FROM71-1

ARCHIVES OF
NME.&
MELODY
MAKER

1975

ifuNNM ,1111N1H

IWO MOM.. 460. &ROW. 11062.110 OWN,111

MARIET KINGALE II

The
SavingI
eThOf

Welcometo 1975
NME'S CHARLES SHAAR Murray is not wrong when hesurveys from behind aviator shades a show at CBGB where
Patti Smith is supported by Television and declares in his
review: "something is happening".

It certainly is. Smith and her band are channellingcurrents that have been swelling in New York for the past
couple of years, creating something in the slipstream of Bowie, Alice Cooper
and the New York Dolls -a happening simultaneously local and international,
primal and intellectual. Pete Townshend thinks rock is on the way out, and by
the end of the year, plenty will agree with him.

On the world stage, meanwhile, our cover stars Led Zeppelin dominate theyear. The band cause riots in the USA, and conquer London with their Earl's
Court show. They release Physical Graffiti, an album in the format best suited totheir heft: a double.
This is the world of The History Of Rock, a monthly magazine that follows
each strange turn of the rock revolution. Whether in sleazy dive or huge arena,passionate and increasingly stylish contemporary reporters were there tochronicle them. This publication reaps the benefits of their understanding forthe reader decades later, one year at a time.
In the pages of this 11th issue, dedicated to 1975, you will find verbatim
articles from frontline staffers, compiled into long and illuminating reads.
Missed an issue?You can find out how to rectify that on page 144.

What will still surprise the modern reader is the access to, and the sheer
volume of, material supplied by the artists who are now the giants of popular
culture. Now, a combination of wealth, fear and lifestyle would conspire tokeep reporters at a rather greater length from the lives of musicians.
At this stage, though, representatives from New Musical Express and Melody
Maker are where it matters. Watching Bob Marley convert the USA. Hearing
how Ozzy Osbourne shot his cat. Doorstepping the Rolling Stones in Montreux.
"What are you doing 'ere?" they asked then. Now, of course, they know.

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

3

$nal

IVo

adventure, the seldom interviewed singer opens up on
John, Yoko and more besides.

Hawkwind's bassist, and Chris
Spedding. The Zep ticket riots.

3n li

12 A mildly cross DavidLi New albums by Bob Dylan
and David Bowie. Great new
singles by Queen and Steve Harley.

Gilmour responds to criticism of
the band's recent shows.

39 John Lennon

Pink Floyd

The Lyceum, Lon

Soul

From dancing to rare
records, DJs and bootlegging.
Following a night out anda morning after on thehigh-energy scene.

ln

in Japan, the band begin
work on "Bohemian
Rhapsody". Has it allgone to Freddie
Mercury's head?

f4"
tVSICAL PETE TORTSHEND(..*:177:11'

WHITE

his new album, Rock'n'Roll,and the Phil Spector -related

drama behind it.

30 fAters

Ron Wood helps
the band totriumph at Madison
Square Garden.
Pete

Roy Wood defends ELOfrom criticism. Don't try andpredict Bob Dylan. Why are myGenesis records scratched?

54 Townshend

2gv Lately a companion of

on a new film. Introducing
Motorhead. The revolution
taking place inside New York's

62 The New YorkJohn I .en non's on his Californian

discotheques.

'tarry Nilsson

LED ZEPPELLVKling

40 News
Bowie starts work

An ailing Robert Plant explains
the new album, Physical Graffiti.

4-

illing Stones

With the film ofTommycomplete,
the Who man takes
stock of his band and, in fact, the stateof rock itself.

aThe band begin an
oversubscribed American tour.

&MEpar. op

Li The former Beatle on

1BO

46 After triumph52

No CO '7

Livecwn

Contents.

6News
Two new members for
Fleetwood Mac. A meeting with

g

/2-1,

L

% A 104m3willuic

Patti Smith

poet performs
entrancingly on
her home turf anddiscusses her debut
album, Horses.

8n Dr Feelgood

66 At home with drummer
John Bonham, talking pubs,
farmland and music. Later, there's
several nights at Earl's Court.

V In Ca nvey Island with
Lee Brilleaux and in Francewith the most surprising andwell -liked band of the year.

Can

72 The German group on tour
in England. Guitarist Michael
Karoli explains the band's "dirty
music". Could that be why Holger
Czukay wears gloves?

86 News
Lou Reed needs to "getsomething out of his system".
Introducing Joe Strummer andthe 101ers. RIP, Tim Buckley.

Bob Marley

Eagles

7gv The Californian band
are on the way to perfecting
their music. Their personal
camaraderie, rot so much.

Dr. Feelgood

90 Ontour with the reggae staras he converts the USA to a

rapturous new sound. "People
must have a leader," the reluctant
spokesman explains.

96 TheodR
sometime Faces
frontman ponders rock success,money and tax exile in thecompany of Britt Ekland.

Steve Marriottit 100 At the other end of
the financial scale, the former
Small Face is skint. So skint,
in fact, he's eaten his horse.

SHE DOES IT RIGHTI Don't Mind

joi

111.1

:4442**14141e

41.,icea

Sear
T.rno 3.211

15

k

\\

ONE iilf THESE
eryi" , NIGHTSy.

.,..dailed 4 .OM Ilre1w.. lee%.

Emmyiou Harris

I pnr Tie Album,. Of
11./..c....t,'lin d...8 Producosaft.. yand which one is Rod. The Faces,

104 The new face of oldcountry explains her work, butalso can't help discussing theinfluence on he: of her former
bandmate, Gram Parsons.

finally, call it a day.

132 Rolling Stones

Feat
The quietly intransigent
116 Little
guitarist Lowell George explains
his position.

Doorstepping the world's
most notorious band as theyattempt to record a new album in
Switzerland. A reporter observes
as "Memory Motel" is perfected.

Albums108 The Floyd disappointwith Wish You Were Here. Dr
Feelgood's second proves a winner.
A new Bowie single appears, too.

News
John Lennon is free toremain in the USA. Introducing
Tom Waits. Bobby Womack
can't work out which one is Ron

110

.4

Black Sabbath

120 Ozzy Osbourne

becomes the band's spokesman.
Never mind the new album...
look out, cats.

13A Peter Gabriel
wir The eccentric front man
explains (diplomatically) why hehad to leave Genesis. What's next?
Films, stories, possibly cabbages.

Bruce Springsteen

126 The most -promoted

artist of the year continues to win
converts post Born To Run.

138"B

At ground level as
American music assumes a bold

new shape. Rev iewea : Talking
Heads, Blond ie, Ramones,

Heartbreakers. Observing
slightly sadly from the sidelines:
the New York Dolls.

145 'Le"eN
Airing displeasure ata Pink Floyd album review. Why
aren't any big names doing any
work? Dr Feelgood are on tosomething. It's the musicians
who make the music, not the fans.

Time Inc. (UK) Ltd, 8th Floor, Blue Fin Building, no Southwark St, London SE1 OSU EDITOR John Mulvey, whose favourite song from1975 is Gloria by Patti Smith DEPUTY EDITOR John Robinson Golden Years by David Bowie ART EDITOR Lora Findlay Maid In Heaven by
Be Bop Deluxe PRODUCTION EDITOR Mike Johnson I'm Not In Love by ma. ART DIRECTOR Marc Jones Love Is The Drug by Roxy MusicDESIGNER Becky Redman Trenchtown Rock by Bob Marley & The Wailers PICTURE EDITOR Kimberly Kriete Young Americans by David
Bowie COVER PHOTO © Adrian Boot THANKS TO Helen Spivak, James Hanman MARKETING Charlotte Treadaway SUBSCRIPTIONS
Letitia Barry GENERAL MANAGER Jo Smalley GROUP MANAGING DIRECTOR Paul Cheal COVERS PRINTED BY Polestar Wheatons
I

TEXT PRINTED BY Polestar Chantry I WWW.UNCUT.CO.UK

Time Inc.

Subscription rates: One year (12 issues) including p&p: UK £519.88; Europe E579.40: USA and Canada $203.88; Rest of World E555.75. For
enquiries and orders please email help@magazinesdirect.com. Alternatively, from the UK call 0330 333 1113, or overseas +44 330 333 1113
(lines are open Monday -Friday GMT, 8.3oam-5.3opm ex. Bank Holidays). Back Issues enquiries: Tel: 01733 688 964. www.mags-uk.com°recycle

HISTORY OF ROCK 1974 I 5

IIAUMA tAULDin)6,.J.2IrTHE IEW STONE._LENNON vs THE US.

1975

JANUARY -MARCHPINK FLOYD, NORTHERN

SOUL, JOHN LENNON,
LED ZEPPELIN AND MORE

A change inmusical approach
NME FEB 8 Hew faces WI t itetwood
FLEETWOOD MAC HAVE lost guitarist Bob Welch,

who has left the band to concentrate on productbn
work. He has been replaced in the lineup by two newmembers -Stevie Nicks (who despite the name is in fact
a girl singer) and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham. This
personnel change means that Mac now have two gildvocalists in Christine McVie and newcomer Stevie.
It is not yet clear how Mac will be affected by this newpolicy, although it would seem to point to a change in T heirmusical approach. The band are now based permaneitlyin Los Angeles, where they are currently engaged in
cutting a new album- which is being produced by the rformer member, Bob Welch.
8 HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

I

October 203,1975:Fleetwood
Mac in New Haven, Connecticut,
between rehearsals for a college radio broadcas: and a show at thecity's Coliseumlater that day:(I -r) John McVie, Lindsey
Buckingham, Christine McVie,
Stevie Nicksand Mick Fleetwood

1975
JA

AM -111°C1H"The next step was
experimentation"
MM FEB 1 Now Queen's Brian May made a guitar from"You can measure the tension of strings with string

December24,1975:
Mayplushornitmadebah." he explains. "It's pretty straightfor

guitaratthe
HammerernithOdeon

UEEN, WITH THEIR glam image andlegion of young admirers, would
hardly be the first band to spring tominor most people, as arbiters ofmusicianship. And yet, they're all competent
instrumentalists - even Freddie Mercury,
darling of the pin-up brigade and arch poseur,can play a mean piano. And he's no novice
when it comes to writing, either.
Lead guitarist Brian May, as well as beinga good musician, also has another reason forrespect - he built his own guitar. Brian's guitar
took him two years to build mainly in his sparetime, and he used an averagely well-equipped
workshop to fashion it.
"At the time the only guitar I had was a little
old acoustic with a pickup which I had mademyself stuck on. That was about to years ago,"
he said.

"That was the only electric guitar I had; it
was the only one at all, come to think of it, andobviously there's only so far you can get withsomething like that. You haven't got enoughfrets, the sound wasn't very hot and that sortof thing. At the time I couldn't afford one of
the high-priced guitars.
"A Stratocaster was my ambition in thosedays but I couldn't afford one. And I didn't
really like the cheaper one; I didn't feel they
were what I wanted at all, so I decided to makeone. I was interested in making things anyway.
"I was lucky to have a father who wasinterested as well and I'd always had

woodworking and metal working tools
around, so basically we just sat down and
8 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

made lots of designs. We drew lots and lotsof pictures, thought about the stresses andstrains, tremolo -design, truss rod design, how
the strings ought to be anchored down towhat shape the body should be, the curve of
the fingerboard - all that sort of thing.
"We drew lots of little drawings andgradually worked our way up to gigantic
blueprints, all the time thinking about thekind of thing I would want to play.
"The next step was a lot of experimentation.
I wanted a good tremolo which was sensitiveand yet could change the pitch of the stringsand yet come back toexactly the right position-a lot of them don't.
"Sol did a lot ofexperimentation withtremolos, tried two or threedifferent designs, somewith pivots, some withhinges and different sortsof things all on a piece oftruss rods which would stand the strain. You
have to find something which is strong

enough to counteract the bending effect of
the strings on the neck. At the same time you
don't want it to be too heavy. It's a question of
simply finding the right material.
"You can look up breaking points of metaland stresses in books. All the information isthere if you just know where to look for it.
You can measure the tension of strings withspring balances, which are quite cheap. So it's

pretty straightforward.
"The next thing was to bend the wood. I was
lucky in that as well because
there happened to be somewood kicking around insome of my friend's houses.
Particularly the neck - themahogany came from a
100 -year -old fireplace
which had been ripped outof a house someone was
knocking down nearby. It'sa beautiful piece of wood,really well seasoned.
"I used mahogany simply because it was
handy at the time but it's a lovely material towork with and I think I would have usedmahogany or oak anyway.
"Shaping it? It was just a plank of woodwhen I got it, so I drew projections of the
shape I wanted on all four sides and then I juststarted hacking away. First of all I cut in theplanes and that left me with an angular sort ofthing and then it was just a question of"I made my own
pickups, gettingsome magnets andwinding wirearound them"wood with the tremolo
attached and some strings
just to see what would happen,"You have to design something which isgoing to stand the strain, which is quiteconsiderable. The system I eventually ended
up with was a plate to which the strings areattached, pivoting on a knife edge which is
attached to the guitar, and the tension of thestrings is balanced by some motorbike valve
springs on the other side. That was the second
step really, and then I went on to things like

rounding it off. A lot of it was done with apenknife. I just worked away and kept
trying the templates I'd made until it
fitted. When it was roughly the rightshape I attacked it with sandpaper for the
final shaping, and then finer and finer
grains of sandpaper to get a good finish.
"Then of course there's the polishing,which I did with plastic coating stuff. You
just pour it on in quite thick layers, let it
dry and then start sanding again! Finerand finer grains until you get down tosomething like metal polish for the final
shaping and polishing.
"And that's the woodworking side. The
same sort of thing goes for the body. The
way I designed that was that the strain was
taken by a solid piece of oak - that's what
the neck is screwed to -and the rest of thebody, which takes no strain at all, is justglued to that.
"At that stage you do all the hollowing
out and you have to decide what you wantin the way of electronics. There are quite
a few hollow pockets in this one which
help the sound."What about the electronics, thepickups and so forth?
"I started off making my own pickups,
just getting some magnets and winding
wire around them; that's all it is really, andthey were very good. They made an
excellent sound, but because I hadn't
designed them properly, when you
pushed the string across the fingerboard
the field wasn't uniform enough to take it.
"I bought some Rose pickups and they
were so different in sound to my own that I
decided to put new coils in them. I kept themagnets and that's what I ended up with.
"The sound of the pickup is only thestart; it's a question of how you combine
the different pickups - I've got three - on
the guitar. There are practically noelectronics in the guitar at all. If you
combine two of them and just have thetwo sounds you get a normal blend of thetwo. If you reverse the phase you're in thesituation where one is cancelling out theother to a certain extent, and what getscancelled out is the thing they've got incommon - the fundamental.
"By using different combinations you
can bring out different harmonics fromdifferent parts of the string. You can vary
the sound a lot.
"By the switches I've got you can get
every combination from the pickups I've
got. I've got six push buttons on the guitar- one phase reversal for each pickup andone cut-out for each."
Brian estimates his guitar cost about £8
to build but says he was fortunate to havea reasonably well equipped workshop at
his disposal. So it looks like a good deal toput some time away, and set aboutbuilding your own guitar, but Brianstresses one thing: "If you are going tobuild a guitar you've got to remember thatit doesn't happen overnight. You've got tohave patience so that when something
goes wrong you can go away, think about
it and come back again in a constructive
frame of mind." Brian Harrigan"When I fix
somebody, they

stay fixed"
MM JAN 18

Ex-Rockin'
Vicar Lemmy

Os,

Kilmisterin
Manchester
in1975

vers.

if T

Josif."'FIRST, A BRIEF anecdote to preface our
encounter with the Hawk -Lord's very own
Angel Of Death. On one of the opening gigs

The Hawk -Lords rhythm section- Lemmy,
Simon and Alan Powell -is, quite probably,
one of the most powerful units known tomodern man. Lemmy agrees, with a certain
qualification: "I do get amazingly powerful attimes. Other times I'm amazingly inadequate."
The whole structure of Hawkwind's
performance, from the playing to theorganisation of the I ightshow, has never, heclaims, been neatlyworked
out. "It's a total chaotic mess.

of Hawkwind's current tour, Lemmy andDouglas, the band's harassed manager, were
engaged in one of their frequent
confrontations. A real eyeball -to -eyeball
showdown this. Neither protagonist wouldback down, and Lemmy, having exhausted hislines of logical argument,
finally resorted to one final,"The audience was
threatening outburst.
"When I fix somebody," hesaid, and here you have toimagine him turning on hisbest Charlie Manson
psychotic stare, "they...

having a collective

epileptic fit"uh... they...THEY STAY FIXED."

Lemmy, by way of explanation, admits toliking the idea of appearing "kind of vaguely
menacing". Although he confesses that heusually succeeds in looking more vague thanmenacing. Our hero began his musical careerwith the legendary combo The Rockin' Vicars,
who were hugely popular north of Birmingham
but never achieved any national success,because they made "really rough records".
Still, that band does hold the honour of being
the first to play behind the Iron Curtain -in
Yugoslavia, where they were guests of honour
at a dinner held by President Tito. Just think, ifthey'd made it over some years earlier, Lemmy
could have been starring in some Eisensteinmovie epic as a Hero Of The People... Lemmy
Nevski, or Lemmy The Terrible.
"Tito," he affirms, "was all right. A good lad.
'Call me Josif,' he said when !asked him to passme the peas at that dinner."
Lemmy left the Vicars in '67, and rejoined
again for three months during the summer fora
last tour. After that our hero became a roadie for
Jimi Hendrix. "Just a humper, y'know. But it wasworth it because I got to see him every night."
It was with a band called Opal Butterfly
that Lemmy first met Simon King, one of
Hawkwind's power drummers. "That was a
nasty little band as well. They'd been going foryears before I joined them, and they were sotired of playing for peanuts that they folded
after a year. And I didn't see Simon fora
while after. Then I joined this bunch ofroving hoodlums, and I saw Simon
hanging out of a taxi one day and ourdrummer at the time was off somewhere
having a nervous breakdown, so I asked
Simon to come and playwith us fora night.
And we're still trying to get rid of him."-

But it works, and if we did it
any other way there's adanger that we'd turn into
something like Yes or ELP.
"It is more than just fourguys on a stage with hair

down to their backsides playing guitars. I
actually saw Hawkwind a few times before
I hustled me way into the band. I went to theRoundhouse, and the whole audience washaving this collective epileptic fit. There was
one strobe on the band and another on theaudience. 'Giving them a taste of their own
medicine,' I thought. 'There's a new approach.'
The crowd was shaking and twitching, and I
remember thinking, 'I'll have to join the band.'"They fitted exactly into my philosophy. They
were weird, and that suited me because I was
always the one that people wouldn't let theirkids playwith. I really dug it, the ideas they were
into. They were playing a lot of free gigs then.
More than we can do now, in fact, even though
we're the only band left who will play free."In the same way as he was attracted to
Hawkwind because of- forwant of a better
word -their lifestyle, so Lemmy has foundhimself drawn to the Hell's Angels. TheAngels,perhaps less now than a fewyears ago, used toflock to Hawkwind gigs and festivals where theband was playing. And Lemmy, with hisleathers and swastikas, looks not unlike thekind of guywho'd give you a chain whipping ina dark alley if you so much as looked at his bike.
"I'm just an old rockerwith his hair grown
long," he says disarmingly, "and since all me
old clothes fell apart I've had to buy all thishippy gear. But I was into the lifestyle ofHawkwind anyway." Allanlones

1975

JANUARY -41`1611

Chris was born in Sheffield but
denies that he was ever greatly
involved in the Sheffield scene,having gone to London at an earlystage. From rock'n'roll bands todance bands seemed not an
improbable step for the erratic
Mr Spedding, and he worked
quite happily "on the boats",
and with such respected senior
musicians as clarinettist Nat
Temple, whose band used to playon the old BBC Radio series
Bedtime With Braden.
In more recent years, Chris has
worked with Ian Carr's Nucleus, in
its Elastic Rockperiod, with thelegendary Pete Brown's Battered
Ornaments (one of the oddest
bands to emerge in the '60s), with
Mike Westbrook and Jack Bruce.
And along the way he became oneof those rock session men withwell-worn telephones.
You'd be amazed to hear someof the sessions to which Chrishas contributed. Would you
believe the Wombles?
"I quite enjoy sessions as long as
it doesn't get heavy, and you canbe selective. I like to knowwho
I'm working for. It used to be said
the session scene was a closed

shop-but that's all changed now.
It's still very important to the
producer that the guitarist canread, though."
He looked up and said
surprisingly: "I've made a single.
It's coming out next month. Shall
I play it to yer? I won't tell you what
it's called." But as the tape reels

rolled, it became apparent no
performance could have noother title than "My Bucket's Got
A Hole In It".

ChrisSpeetfing:"There's not somuch money

aboutnow-"I played on 'Remember You're a Womble'..."MM JAN 25 ntroducing super session man turned solo artist Chris Spedding. What
are his plans if he scores a hit single? And will he be joining the Rolling Stones?
LWE CAN GO speeding by, as any
rock'n'roller will tell you. When you areas good a musician as Chris Spedding,there is perhaps not that sense of urgency
to make "the big time" as might affect thecallow youth who dons leather jacket andaims to be a star by his 17th birthday.
And yet Chris has been a professionalmusician for about 15 years and his career
has lurched in curious but fascinating fashion,never quite settling in any particular direction.
That's the way he wanted it. But now, Spedding
is a man with a goal and a firm philosophy.
10 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

It wasn't quite the thing I had
expected from a man who had held
court in many a top jazz nitery, butthere was no doubt it had thatrhythm all right. A cowbell beat,
the guitar strummed a simple riff,
while drums and bass provided
the solitary accompaniment toChris' huskyvocals.
"This version is based on one
I heard by HankWilliams. I did
this after Sharks broke up, because
it was so frustrating not getting
anything together. I thought I'd

do a Top 40 record. Why not? Since
And Spedding the Geetar Star is not such
I know how to do them. I tried adding more
a wild improbability as it might have seemed
instruments to it, but it's so bare and simple likein the days of Nucleus oreven Pete Brown's
this, we left it alone.
Battered Ornaments.
"All this is what I'm into now. Nobody is
For now it can be revealed, the man who was
making nice pop records at the moment.
whispered as possible
I know it's easy to say it, but
replacement for MickTaylor
you've got to followyour nose.
with the Rolling Stones, has"The scene has changed.
"Nobodyisa hot single up his T-shirt. And
When I was doing so much
if it takes off on the golden roadsession work before Sharks, I did
making niceto Top OfThe Pops, then we canwhole LPs for other artists that
expect an exciting addition tonever got released. Now thethe roster of new stars for '75.
record business has got tighter.

pop records"

MY BUCKET'S
GOT A HOLE IN IT
SwidiwLed Zep's Robert
Plant on tour in
the US.early1975
HRIS
PEBBIN

There's not
so muchmoney about
11PX LAW
Paw* LW
now, and allthat hasinished."In the last year,_
Chris was on halfa -dozen Top 10 records,
and this has helped convince him that singles
are more important, or at least more viable,
than the instant solo album that sells a few
hundred copies.
"Do people want to know this?" said Chris,when I asked which records he had played on.
"Well, most of the Wombles hits and theDavid Essex hits. Yes, I played the guitar on'Remember You're A Womble', and all thealbums. I think the quality is better now
because people have to try harder.
"But I also believe that the English scene isrestricted by the opinions of the producer of
Top OfThe Pops. Record producers try to findsomething that will appeal to Top OfThe Pops
and that will get them on TV. That's why our
pop scene is now so parochial, whereas it used
to be internationalit's down to what the TV
producer thinks will make good TV."
It seemed that the regular rock -groupconcept did not appeal to him, especially as theone time he threw his lot in with such a combo,
its internal problems proved a painful ordeal.
How did he feel when the band finally split?
"I felt really relieved. I was determined to stick
it out, and I saw it through to the bitter end. I sat
it out, and I'm glad I did. If I had left before...
well, it might have broken big, and I would havemissed it. It went down well at gigs and had its
own following. If it hadn't had those personnel
changes it might have made it. It never had achance, to be quite honest.
"Now I'm putting all my energy into thissingle. I used the old Sharks bass player andClem Cattini on drums. Clem gets such a goodfeel and because he has been around for sucha long time, he gets overlooked and taken for
granted. But he always comes up with a good
IMP 6225 A

drum sound."What will Chris do if he finds himself witha hit?
"The idea is to get a scene going, so that I canhave a career going as a solo artist. Rather
than do an LP, I'd sooner keep putting singles
out, and if one was a hit, then I'd put a band
together and go out on the road. The idea is toget out of that routine of scraping about doing
cheap gigs."
One of the big buzzes that circulated theindustry a couple of weeks ago was that Chris
was a hot contender to replace Mick Taylor in
the Rolling Stones. How to break thissuggestion to Chris? He looked decidedly
noncommittal, and the subject had to bementioned twice to draw a response.
Did the Stones ask you to join them?
(Shakes head)" No, they didn't. And if I was in
the Stones, I'd on ly be a back-up man, and I want
to do my own thing. There's no truth in it at all.
When Sharks came up I was ready for it. Now I
have to think twice about joining another band-the way things are at the moment. The way thebusiness is at the moment, I couldn't afford to be
in a band. You have to save up to join a band."Chris Welch

0- The film
version of Peter
Townshend's
Tommy is to havea simultaneous
world premiere in
Los Angeles and
New York on March
19. A spokesman

said that the British
premiere will takeplace in London atabout the sametime, possible thenext day, although
the exact date andvenue are still being
finalised. Polydor
release thesoundtrack double
album in mid -Windows
were broken
MM JAN18 Led teppenn snows in donut as fans Hui.
while queuing for tickets in New York and Boston.
THOUSANDS OF LED ZEPPELIN fans rioted at theweekend when tickets were put on sale for the band's threeshows at Madison Square Garden on February 3, 7 and 12.
(The dates are so spaced because of sports fixtures taking place at
the Garden on the intervening nights.)
Tickets were due to go on sale on Monday morning, but fansbegan congregating outside the Garden on the Friday evening
despite freezing weather. So many fans had gathered by the
Saturday evening that the Garden management decided to begin
selling tickets late Saturday night. More than 50,000 tickets weresold until Sunday afternoon, when the crowd swelled to such
mammoth proportions that box office windows were broken andseat sales suspended.
The remaining 10,00o tickets were placed on sale via Ticketron
outlets spread across the city, and they soon sold out on Monday
morning. The plan was to disperse the crowds to various selling
points instead of congregating them at one outlet.
Another 40,000 or so tickets were sold for Zeppelin's Nassau
Coliseum concerts, making a total of about100,000 tickets sold in
the New York area alone. At Boston, where Zeppelin are appearing
at Boston Gardens, similar scenes occurred and the City Fathers the local government authority - are considering cancelling theconcert. Boston has recently been the scene of racial disturbances
prompted by school bussing arrangements, and the City Fathers
may be unwilling toallow a large crowd
maul! ssuire girdeneU
to gather, whether it
be for a rock concert
4'
II a E D ZEPPELIN
if:...!;11; rrl(..,"'or political meeting.
2sd Peas, s7sg

Ze ppelln flansnotticketsIn.

CHARLESINORTH in New

by CHRIS.

Ur*

when utkett.

the weekend
Unast.de,n.
i ed Jetwelin f di, noted at at Maths,onSqnunarrte,.

.

L,......4.c three show %March, and it
includes three newTownshend songs
which were not in
the original Tommyscore -they are"Mother And Son","Champagne" and"Bernie's Holiday
Camp". MM FEB 8

Promoters in S5o
Paulo, Brazil, havebeen pulling their
hair out becauseof David Bowie's
tardiness in arriving
for concerts
scheduled forround about now.
Owing to Mr B's
airplane phobia, aLand Rover trek had
been planned after
a sea journey fromNew York to
Caracas. Bowie's

secretary, Corinne
Schwab, had been
sent in advance tosurvey the roads byhelicopter -sincesome "roads" arenonexistent,
washed out, orjust
plum unfinished,especially in the
Amazon river basin
region. Singers,
dancers, musicians
and crew were on
standby in New
York awaiting wordon the helicopter
surveillance.
NME JAN18

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 111

1975

JANUARY -MARCH

theof the intelligentsia,
A short while ago Pink Floyd, darlings victims of two NME hilmenstereo -minded and Mx of others beairks, were
Sneeky Pete Erskine, who stabbed Floyd
Benedict° Nicolini (a.k.a. Nicky the K) andand in the dry ice. An inquest look place this week.
lusty in the hair, the musical integrity

Dirty Hair Denied

Di vid Gilmour:"I'm not interested
in disguisingmy

feslingsonstage
with showbiz devices""I don't

think wedeserve it"
Stung by a nasty

live reniPINK FLOYDDAVID GILMOUR

defends his band's
position and rebuffs
assumptions madeabout them. "By thetime Syd left, theball had definitely

stopped rolling,"
he says. "We had

to start it allover again."- MIL JANUARY 11 _ASHORT WHILE AGO, Pink Floyd,

darlings of the intelligentsia, thestereo -minded and lots of others
besides, were victims of two NME
hit men - Benedicto Nicolini (AKA
Nicky The K) and Sneaky Pete
Erskine, who stabbed Floyd viciously in the hair, themusical integrity and in the dry ice.
An inquest took place this week.T here's no dandruff on
this band, claimsguitarist DaveGilmour (no split ends
either) before delivering key evidence as to the merits anddefectsof Pink Floyd, defending their music, and denying
all rumours that theywere killed in the attack.
Hi Dave, have you washed your hair?
"No." Gilmour flashes a thin-lipped grin as he takes his
seat, "and if pecan find anysplit ends in here (liflinga
clump ofhair), then..."Then what, DAVE?

But he's already scanning the menu and doesn't hear.
His free hand, however, is worrying over a plastic

teaspoon. Unconsciously, hegraduallycrushes it, letting
thepiecesslip through his fingers and fall onto thetabletop. Gilmour is nothing if not self-controlled. Placid
even. But not quite.
His anger is of the sullen, smoulderingvariety, and yet
the weird thing is that even duringsuch moments he'll
often make way forabroad smile which can be utterly
disarming because it might be a harbingerof doom, theherald fora personal close-up of one of t he robust Gilmour
flails. Although I can't imagine it ever happening. He isangry, though. Ile told me so on the phone a couple ofminutesafter he'd read thepiece.
"I've just read the piece," he said, "and I'm very angry
about it."
The"piece" i n quest ion - an action replay for those who
missed it -appeared in the 24/11/74 NME issue, written by
myself and Mr Kent in direct response toourwitnessing of
the Floyd on the first two nightsoftheirfour-dayresidency
at Wembley. I'm afraid we werea little rudeabout them.
HISTORY Of ROCK 1975

13

1975

JA NU am -100
Apri123-27,1975:Pink Floyd 1
at the La MemorialSports
Arena on the Wish You
Were Ha re Tour, playing
The Dark Side Of The Moon

in itsent retyduring thesecond half of the set

KF

HAVEACIGAR

Mr Kent wrote an extended review -cu mcrit ique, and I, through the back door,
managed to secure an audience withaGilmour in which I confronted him with theaccusations to be aired in the piece. The
V
overall intention, see, had been, in thewords of the introductory blurb, "to get the
Floyd back into perspective", a sentiment which Gilmour himself says hethoroughly condones. It was the approach that riled him.
Ultimately the phone call resulted in myself inviting Gilmour for lunch- partly as a placatory gesture, partly to prove that the aforementioned
Kent and myself could, and would, stand by what'd been written, andmainly because a rematch might prove to be interesting.
The axis of the criticism in the piece lay upon the fact (self-confessed by
Gilmour) that on two consecutive nights the Pink Floyd made music ofsuch low quality that it cast rather anvil -like aspersions on (a) theirmotivation, (b) their overall musicianship and (c) the feeling engenderedby them in their audiences (both short and long term) and admirers -oneof whom, Sunday Times critic Derek Jewell, pulled out some florid prose
in an appraisal of the debut Thursday -night gig (described subsequently
by Gilmou r as "probably the worst we've done on the whole tour").
Jewell wrote: "Richly they merit their place among the symphonicoverlords of today's popular hierarchy... they reeled off, apparently
effortlessly, a performance with musical textures so ravishing and visual

accompaniments so surprising that, for once, the thunderous standing
ovation was completely just ified."
Such bland acceptance irritates the band, says Gilmour, equally, if not
more so, than its denigrators. "I don't think anyone on our level feels
deserving of that kind of superhuman adulation number," he claims,
hacking at a piece of steak. "But then a lot of them probably dig it. Sure, I'm
cynical of our posit ion.Idon't think we deserve it. But I'm no more cynicalof our position than I am of anyone else's on our level. 1 mean... to try andmaintain your own perspective on what you are is totally different."
The lyrics of "Gotta Be Crazy" -as Nick Kent pointed out- reveal a very
great deal of cynicism, particularly the line "gotta keep people buying thisshit", which is tantamount to a sneer at the audience.
"Mmm. Yeah. It is possibly a sneer... but not at the audience as a whole,
but at the type of adulation bands like us get. I mean, I think there issomething wrong with that... people needing hero figures like that,thinking that rock musicians have all the answers."
But don't you think that while not being responsible for that element, thefact that it hasn't been challenged means bands like the Floyd, throughneglect, are helping compound it? "Yes. Probably. But I thinkwe're lessguilty than most. I mean, we've made conscious attempts at fighting it."Such as?
"In things we've said in interviews and things like that. We've always
said that we don't believe in that whole number, but it's very hard to getaway from the image people put on you."
14 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

How large a proportion of record buyers and concert goers buy music
papers, t hough?A question I did in fact neglect to add. Still seems a bitlame, though, eh? One would've thought that a couple of really finely
honed satires would at least help... But then, really, how concerned arebands about these kind of th ings? Motives schmotives. It helps sellrecords. And you don't gnaw the digits that feed you.
Anyway, we're messing around here. To the specifics. Gilmour is raking
through the apposite issue as he eats. He's inclined towards the John Peelreaction (thinly disguised in his mildly self-congratulatory Diary OfThe
Domestic column each week in Sounds) that the piece was "hysterical",overly personal and laced with supposed inaccuracies.
The first 11 of Kent's opening paragraphs make Gilmour particularly
mad. He claims that description of his personal appearance and that ofa member of the audience (and his attitudes) is totally superfluous.
The offend ingwords ran thus: "On November 14,1974, approximately
7,000 people washed their hair and travelled down to the Empire Pool,
Wembley, to witness the Pink Floyd live. Almost everyone, that is, except
Dave Gilmour -his hair looked filthy there on stage, seemingly anchoreddown by a surfeit of scalp grease and tapering off below the shoulders
with spectacular festooning of split ends..." This led on to a description ofa Floyd lookalike in the audience, who is held up as a Floyd fan archetypewho smokes dope, prattles on about the cosmos and gets off on the stereo
production quirks inherent in all Floyd albums.
"I don't see any of it being in anyway relevant," says Gilmour in thatsullen/placid tone of voice that could be either. Or both. "So there's a guy
like that in the audience. So what?There were probably others like him,
but you find people like that at any concert -but then Kent probably set
out to find one and he did."I assure him that our approach was in no way premeditated. There wasno question of a pre -planned axe job on anyone's part. "Well, I just don't
believe it of Nick Kent. I really don't. He's still really involved with Syd
Barrett and the whole 1967 thing. I don't even know if he saw the Floyd
with Syd. He goes on about Syd too much and yet, as far as I can see, there's
no relevance in talking about Syd in reviewing one of ou r concerts."
But one of the new songs is about him. "Yes, but that's all. In the beginning
the songs were all his and theywere brilliant. No one disputes that. But I
don't think the actual sound of the whole band stems from Syd. It stems justas much from Rick !Wright]. I mean, Syd's thing was short songs."
As for hair washing, well, the subject got short shrift. I think, though,that dressing especially fora gig is something Gilmour subconsciously
associates with "showbusiness"- about which more later. Meanwhile, in
subsequent conversation with Carlena Williams, one ofThe Blackberries,
the two black back-up chicks they hired for the tour, Carlena expressed
delight at the opening pa ras. "Shit!" she observed daintily, "when I saw
that bit about Dave's hair I just cracked up. I had t'read it, y'know?"
Back to Syd.

"The band just before Syd departed had got into a totally impossible
situation. No one wanted to book them. After the success of the summer

PINK FLOYD

of '67 the band sank like a stone; the gigs they were doing at the time were
all empty because they were so bad. The onlyway out was to get rid of Syd,so they asked me to join and got rid of Syd..."This, by the way, is also Gilmour's comeback to my assertion that:"It's almost as if the Floyd, having loafed about half -seriously as theArchitectural Abdabs, garnered their persona from Barrett and, when
he dropped out, for want of anything better to do, clung on to themomentum he provided."
Says Gilmour: "By the time Syd left, the ball had definitely stopped
rolling. We had to start it all over again. Saucerful OfSecrets, the firstalbum without him, was the start back on the road to some kind of return.
It was the album we began building from. The whole conception ofSaucerful OfSecrets has nothing to do with what Syd believed in or liked.
"We continued playing some of his songs because none of us were
getting good enough material fast enough to be able to do without them.
Which also, therefore, meant that I had to fit in with his style to an extent
because his songs were so rigidly structured around it. Oh. And by theway, the band, when I joined, never, ever said, 'Play like Syd Barrett.' That
was the very last thing theywanted!"
This had been part of a quote I'd happened across while writing up theoriginal interview. It came courtesy of former Floyd manager Pete Jenner.
It had appeared as part of Mr Kent's epic Syd Barrett piece last March and,to my knowledge, hadn't been contested then. I presumed it to be accurate.
Another past of the same quote had claimed that Syd's guitar techniqueof using slide and echo boxes was of his own invention. My quote had
been: "The familiar slide and echo boxes were purely of Syd's invention",
which in retrospect was, perhaps, a bit strong. Gilmour, anyway, hotly

denies this.
"Why didn't you ask me about things like that during the interview?" heasks, righteously indignant. "The facts of the matter are that I was using
an echo box years before Syd was. I also used slide.1 also taught Syd quite
a lot about guitar. I mean, people say that ! pinched his style when our
backgrounds are so similar... yet we spent a lot of time together as
teenagers listening to the same music. Our influences are pretty muchthe same -and I was a couple of streets ahead of him at the time and wasteaching him to play Stones riffs every lunchtime for a year at technicalcollege. That kind of thing's bound to get my backup -especially if you
don't check it.
"I don't want to go into print saying that I taught Syd Barrett everything
he knows, 'cos it's patently untrue, but there are one or two things in Syd's
style that I know came from me."In the original, I had prefaced these suggestions by intimating that asa guitarist Gilmour appears to lack any immediately identifiable
personality. The word I had used was "malleable". He says he actually
feels that such a word applied to his style (s) is a compliment. Most
guitarists, he claims, are pretty narrow-minded, restricting their possible
range of operations. In that case he could be accused of spreading himself
too thinly- ie, capable of most things, but not particularly outstanding atanyone thing. Or is that the way he'd intended it?
"No. But I workwithin my limitations. But
then, whether I'm a good or bad guitarist isn't
really relevant. I mean, I try my damnedest to do
my best, although certainly for the first half ofthat tour I was, well, rusty. I hadn't played fora long time and my fingers were really stiff. But
also I would say that I got very good by the time
we were halfway through."
And the accusation that from where you all
stand it's impossible foryou to relate any more to
the thoughts of the average punter?
"If you're referring to that bit which says

now this is really going to hurt". If I may remind you: "What the two Floydshows amounted to in the final analysis was not merely a kind of utterly
morose laziness which is ultimately even more obnoxious than callow
superstar 'flash', but a pallid excuse for creative music which comes
dangerously closes to the Orwellian mean fora facile, soulless music thatwould doubtless rule the airwaves and moreover be touted as fine art in
the latter's vision of 1984.""I mean," he continued, "one can easily envisage a Floyd concert infuture consisting of the band simplywandering on stage, setting all theirtapes into action, putting their instruments on remote control and thenwalking off behind the amps to talk football or play billiards."
any of that
"Personally," Gilmour states stoically,rubbish about 1984."
I really do.

"But I mean, what difference is there between our sort of music andanyone else's, apart from the fact that maybe most of the other bands justplay music for the body -and they're hardly progressive at all. Not that
I thinkwe're wildly progressive, either."
But at its worst, a stage show like Floyd's only dulls an audience's
sensibilities, even to the extent of sending them to sleep. Nothing is left
for them to project their imagination into- it's the difference between theholding power of a radio play and a TV play.And in any case, how does it
feel to be part of a show where the audience doesn't even give you a ripple
fora good solo, yet applauds a bucket of dry ice every time? "Yeah. That's
all part of dramatic effect, isn't it?"And that's a lame comeback.
"We went through a period where we blewout
our entire light show for two years and there wasno real difference. I personally know fora factthat it wouldn't make any difference if we did it
again. We've never been hyped. There's been no
great publicity campaign. It's built up purely on
the strength of gigs. I don't think we're remotely
close to that thing about tapes, do you?"On the strength of the Wembley things, yes.
You looked bored and dispirited.
"Not bored. Definitely dispirited. It gets very
depressing when you're fighting against odds
like dud equipment. Energy soon flags. We
weren't pleased to do an encore, because we didn't deserve it."Why didn't they say so, then? You know, don the olde showbiz batcape?
"I'm not interested in disguising my feelings on stage with showbiz
devices. I've seen hundreds of bands do that. Does anybody respectthem? From what he writes, Nick Kent seems to believe in it all -the oldthing ofThe Show Must Go On, Never Let The Public See Your Feelings
and things like that."
Wouldn't the discipline of forcing just a little of that attitude on
yourselves help in situations like that? "No. When I'm standing there I'm
conscious of trying to give the most ! can," says Gilmour emphatically.
"And I don't need to have clean hair for that." Pete Erskine"I was using
an echo box
years before
Syd was"something about out 'desperately bourgeois
existences'?... [The original quote- Kent's - runs: "I can't think of anotherrock group who live a more desperately bourgeois existence in the privacyof their own homes."[ Well, I mean, how do you or he know how we live ourlives? Apart from you- marginally- about me? Do you? Does Nick? He
hasn't been to any of our houses. He's got absolutely no idea of how I spend
my life apart from what you might have told him -and you don't know
how the others live. Do you think my life is so desperately bourgeois?
"My house is not particularly grand. Have you seen Roger's house?
He lives in a five -grand terraced house in Islington. So I really can't see
how Kent can sit there and say things like that. He's no idea of what he'stalking about."

He does admit to a kind of laziness in the band, though. He's also
realistic about their individual instrumental prowess: "In terms ofmusical virtuosity we're not really anywhere, I think; individual
musicianship is below par."And no, they're not "bereft of ideas" -just resting. And worrying abouta follow-up to Dark Side, which has, he claims, "trapped us creatively". In
passing, he says the lyrics are obvious intentionally.
"We tried to make them as simple and direct as possible, yet as we werewriting them, we knew they'd be misunderstood. We still get people
coming up to us who think'Money- it's a gas' is a direct and literalstatement that 'we like money'."
The point- a good one, I thought -about the appeal of Floyd (andsimilar bands) being in someway associated with the rapid
sophistication in stereo equipment is tossed out entirely.
"Six years ago," says Gilmour impatiently, "we still sold albums and yethardly anyone in this country had a stereo. It was all Dansettes then..."And yet, from casual random sampling of friends with Floyd albums,
invariably the first thing said is, "Oh, such and such track sounds greaton my stereo." Surely this is a case of packaging to some extent taking
priority over contents? "No. That's ridiculous. I suppose the same
criticism would apply to Stevie Wonder?"Well, as it happens...
To Kent's rather brilliant summing up. The para, which starts, "OK boys,

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

15

AMUR

I WI

1975

Inside the ballrooms thatare the citadel of the- MELODY MAKER JANUARY 25 _BARRY, A FAIR-HAIRED motor mechanicfrom Manchester, is about five -eight tall andslim as a panatella. He keeps that way, he says,

Northern soul

all-nishterat
the Leicester
Palais.1975

They Art at Blackpool on Saturday nig!t.

wooden panels except fora couple of doors; one long wall to the right isfronted by a low stage. On the stage behind a wooden hurdle is a disco, thefocal point of the activity here.
Barry stayed there for about three -and -a -half hours dancing a lot,
chatting and drinking. Around midnight he left and drove to Wigan; it
took about an hour. He and his girl had about an hour to kill when they got
to Wigan. They spent it in a crowded, humid coffee bar full of guys like
Barry, some with girls of their own but manywithout.
At 2am Sunday morning, Ba rry left the coffee bar and went into theWigan casino. He changed out of his suit into a light -blue vest andwhite baggies which were in the hold -all and he put on a pair ofless smart, though more comfortable shoes, and went intoanother dance hall. He danced there for something likesix hours.
The Wigan Casino shut at 8am Sunday morning.
Some of the kids went for breakfast and then took aswim to freshen up. Later they all drove to Burnley,
where there was another disco, an all-dayer. There,
they danced some more. Barry does that mostweekends. It's his scene, and he shares it withthousands of youngsters (their ages range fromabout 15 to 26, with most between 18 and 22).
The scene is traditionally based on two things- thedance and the music, which is soul. It is not a new scene,
its history stretches back some 10 years, but now the scene ischanging through pressures of media attention and commercial
exploitation. Several of those who've stayed with the scene throughout
are worried by the recent glare of publicity, but most are confident thatthey'll weather the storm and re-emerge as unified as ever.
The reason for this thinking is sound enough -at least four of the DJs
I spoke to at both the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino expressed itwith virtually the same words.
"It's because," they'd say, their voices becoming serious and wise,frowning slightly, "that we're not the scene... it's THEM out there." Andthey'd point to the bobbing heads dancing concentrated to the sounds.
I'd be inclined to agree with that.

ASHORT HISTORY OF the scene. It's been dubbed northernsoul, but dancers and DJs alike seem not to care for the title.
It goes back to around 1964-5 and The Golden Torch
discotheque ballroom in Stoke-on-Trent. There, early Motown
sounds were played, bands spawned by the soul boom gigged anda deeply knowledgeable sort of clan grew up.
Like any scene with a dedicated following, it also attracted theunscrupulous and the downright criminal, who would take any
opportunity offered to rip the kids off.
But the music remained intact. Other, more obscure records began toget played, their rarityvalue growing with the years. The sound, however,remained basically unchanged. A relentlessly fast snare drum snapping
four -to -the -bar; a booming bassline; sharp, toppy brass and/or strings;
the vocals varying from intense expressive wailing to mechanicalscreeching, yet all compelling and involving. They drew you in andpulled you to the dance floor.
The familiarity of listening to the same sounds every week, however,gradually bred contempt. The search for rarer sounds became more
frantic -a record's lifetime on the decks became shorter. The turnover
demanded was ever greater.
Inevitably the centre of the scene shifted, relocating itself to the North,in Manchester at the Twisted Wheel. There it continued to flourish fora while until it too dimmed and the axis moved on to Blackpool andWigan. There, for the present, it remains.
At the moment the Blackpool Mecca, reacting to the spirallingcommercial interest in the scene and to the incursion of white music intoa previously "black soul" area, is realigning its musical policy to include
newer black music.
It is a difficult, costly business to maintain their policy of playing rare
records- as one of the DJs there, Colin Curtis, said: "I've only got to playa new sound two times and the next week there'll be a thousand copies
pressed up or imported."
Bootleg pressing are also something Blackpool, in particular, iscampaigning against, with as great a tenacity as can be mustered. But
the "purity" of the soul music played in Blackpool is, perhaps, the ma i II
concern and the difficulty experienced in such a pursuit is reflected i il
18 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975a slight fall in attendances there (though this is something of a normal
seasonal occurrence, according to the venue's manager).
Down in Wigan there are no problems filling the two halls- a large one
functioning as the main scene, the smaller playing pop soul; rarity isn't
so essential but danceability remains of essence.
But there is one problem which the hall has to cope with. Despite theCasino's number -one DJ Russ Wi nstan ley assuring the Casino crowdthat the all-nighters were in no danger, four guys, quite independently,
came up to me and mentioned the likelihood of licensing trouble later
this year, although Winstan ley says that the Casino's operated foralmost a yearwithout a licence and has had no trouble fromthe authorities.
Whatever the future holds, whether it is forced to moveon or not, it won't die. They, the dancers, the sweating,spinning, bouncing crush, will see to that.
BACK IN BLACKPOOL, Ian Levine andColin Curtis do alternate hourly stints atthe deck.
Levine is a fat, blunt northerner. He offers a stiff
hand to be shaken, its thumb sticking up like a
flagpole. He looks away from you as you shake theproffered palm. His bluntness isn't rude. It's asbusinesslike as his introductions to the discs he spins.
Ian has been Wing for some four years. He's been collecting
records for eight years and has a fabled collection. He mentions
how many and says he doesn't like that figure published.
He used to work at The Twisted Wheel in 1971, went to The Golden Torchin 1972 fora spell and then moved up to the Blackpool Mecca where he's
been ever since.
He gets his "rare, commercial" sounds from frequent trips to the Statesand is due to go over there in three weeks' time. He'll stay with one ofThe
Exciters, who are great friends of his. He can finance these operations
easily because his parents are wealthy and he has other records sent overby his relations there.
All the time we're talking, leaning up against a wall in the corridor
outside the Highland Rooms, people come up to Ian ("Don't call themkids... they're not," he says firmly). They ask him about a record, about
a future date, about something he promised to bring along. He seems
an avuncular figure there, an impression strengthened by his initiallydistant manner.
But, like Wigan, the scene in Blackpool attracts followers from all over
Lancashire and, often, down into the Midlands. Coach parties from as far
afield as Scarborough, Wolverhampton, Kidderminster, Harlow andCambridge gravitate to the scene, drawn by the magnet of the sounds.
Ian is introducing a greater variety of sounds into the records he's
currently spi n n i ng. They used to be exclusively old records from theStates which had barely caused a ripple in their homeland, let alone beenreleased in Britain.
Nowadays he's playing records just released in the States (one of the last
he played before we talked was taken from a new George Clinton album
which mayor may not be released here. By the time that happens it islikely that Levine will have stopped playing the track.)
At Blackpool Mecca, Levine plays to a crowd of 800-900, which can go
up to 1,300 or more. He onlyworks there Saturday night but adds: "Thisis the one that matters tome. It's the scene that's made me England's top
Dl." (He's very self-confident and assertive).
One noticeable comment from both Wigan and Blackpool DJs revolved
around the music they played and their personal tastes. Few said thediscs they spun were their own preferences. Ian listenedto "something a bit more funky,
but not basic. like Kool
&The Gang."
Ian is at once explicit
and guarded about his
relationship with the Wigan
scene. He doesn't like themusic much, because anincreasing proportion iswhite British or white
American, although it makesa suitable enough noise todance to.
UNDER NY THUMBNORTHERN SOUL

DDS 2003
Stereothrough more swing doors, along a short narrowpassage and through yet more doors. Out into a large
GOODBYE NOTION' TO SAY
hall. At the far end is the stage with curtains closed
Ilamose.-00.<.
behind a deck holding three turntables and box upon-=0.-.14.t.---9.t.=.,4-.6""*"box of records.
`.0.
The temperature in the place starts at hot, becomes humid,then stifling, tropical, equatorial. And the kids dance on.
A record starts to play. As it reaches a bridge the snare drum cracks out
COLIN CURTIS IS pipe -cleaner lean. He has long straight hair
two beats. Every hand in the place, in perfect sync, appears to clap.
which hangs over his shoulders. He's been at Wigan two years
There's a sound like a gun shot, a whip crack.
this March. He started out at the Stoke Mecca and then theThat sound punctuates throughout the evening. These are the people
Golden Torch all-nighters. He left there after "a disagreement". Now,
who make the scene. There may be leeches who feed off their blood,
including the Blackpool night, he works anything from four to sevenpushers and bootleggers and other vermin, but the scene is firmly basednights weekly.
on workaday punters who just want to dance, to be on the scene.
Colin is as talkative as Ian Levine is reticent, yet he is no less blunt.
The hall fills up. The dancers crowd closer together. The music is based
A man for laying his cards on the table. He, more than any other I talked
on the same sound structure as the oldest Motown records -that
to, is concerned about the commercialisation of the scene by record
distinctive, fast -slapping beat -though the colour of the artist singing thecompanies, who are now plundering with the dynamism of Vikings. Few
beat is, at Wigan, increasingly immaterial.
put in what they take out. This, I think is the crux.
Above the dance floor, around the wall of the hall, runs a balcony. Up
Currently, he's concerned "about the pressures on the punters. I don't
there kids push through to the "pop" disco, a smaller hall though no lesswant to make much of this so-called haggling between Wigan and thecrowded, or shuffle through boxes of records, label -less or otherwise,
Mecca, especially if it gets the attention of the wrong types."which are being hawked.
He feels "the punters are being immensely used. Just think, if soul
The centre of activity switches between DJ and dancer. Faces turn to themusic was in the same position as commercial pop music, think of thestage as a record ends. A new one begins and the punters pickup the beat.
bread it'd be making."
Some jog into it slowly; others- more sold on the particular sound being
He doesn't see the past 12 months' interest in the scene as exploitative,
played this time- flywith an effortless, often quite graceful, ease into abut "it is the first nail in the coffin. This music has been underground andsmooth series of kicks, pins, jumps and squats.
I hate to see it turn commercial, otherwise we'll be losing a lot of punters.
Gone are the suits and ties; now all is baggies with vest or bowling shirt.
"To keep the scene alive we have to keep in front of record wholesalers,
There are more blacks at Wigan than at Blackpool, though conversely lessbecause they can ring up the States once they hear what we're playing
black music. There is the paraphernalia of Casino artefacts -posters soldand get 1,000 copies imported. But the time lapse between us playing
to the kids, badges to sew on vest or shirt, car stickers.
a sound and bulk copies appearing and killing it off is shrinking. How
As the night wears on, 3am, 4am, the dance becomes more intent,long can we keep that up?"exhausting. Kids go out fora Coke or sit slumped against a wall. One little
At the moment every record company in Britain is hip to the potential.
fella -he has a light -blue bowling shirt on -is dancing 10 feet from theRight from the time Robert Knight's "Love On A Mountain Top" wentstage. A DJ puts a new record on. The kid stops dancing. He stands,
into the British charts late in 1973 after disco play had activated interest,
expressionless but for a hint of petulance, with hands on hips. The
the record business became aware of the possibilities inherent in suchrecord, you gather, is not to his liking.
a fanatical and loyal bedrock of fans.
So there he stands while all around him
Since then, Tamla Motown have re-released
bodies jiggle, twirl, hop and leap. You don't
old favourites and Pye has launched Discodance to something you don't dig. Behind theDemand, a label drawing its material from thecurtains, on stage, DJs congregate, chat toscene and covering the whole spectra, almost
friends. Russ Winstanley is another podgy man
scoring with The Casualeers' "Dance, Dance,
and Boss DJ of Wigan. He isn't as worried about
Dance", finally breaking through with Nosmo
commercialisation as the Blackpool operators.
King& The Javell's "Goodbye (Nothing To Say)"He reckons the scene will be under closeand Wayne Gibson's "Under The Thumb".
scrutiny "until about June or July. There'll be
Both the latter are white acts, both Wigana couple more hits and then the fuss'll die
sounds, and both abhorrent to current
down. Something like the reggae boom a few
Blackpool practice.
years back."
Some record companies, he says, won't export
For Dave McAleer, Pye'sA&R man up for thequantities of singles under 6,000, and when anight, the testing time of the evening comes
British importer can afford to buy in that sort ofwhen he hands over a new Javells single to bebulk and still make a profit... well, it doesn't takeplayed. As soon as the needle hits the groove there's loud, brash music a whole lot of brains to wise up that here is a licence to print money.
louder than most of the records played.
"We're really scraping round to find records now. You can't fight it
The kids, apart from a few small pockets of activity, stop dancing. It
really, but we'll keep trying to... right to the end.
takes time to get a reaction and any unfamiliar sound is approached with"I mean, I could go to President and tell them what they've got in theira certain suspicious temerity. To dance or not to dance.
catalogue that's worth releasing, but that's not what ! want to do. How
In the end, it's their decision which will decide how long the Javells
many of the soul artists on Disco Demand have got into the charts? None,
record gets played; that goes for any new sound, no matter how rare, howright? They're all white."
black or howwhite. That, says Winstanley, is the way it should be.
And now, he reckons, there's probably going to be a TV documentary on
And then you notice them. The kids sitting and leaning along the stage.
the scene. That is another, somewhat larger nail in the coffin.
One girl is staring out at the dancers and, casually, her left hand holds a"Why do they exploit the scene in this way? They're treading on people's
tape recorder microphone to the shuddering speakers. Then you noticeground, they've no feeling for it... We're going to lose a lot of good people
another. And another. One more at the end of the stage.
if TV gets a grip... It'll be a sad loss for the soul scene in general if
Finally, around 5am, it's time to leave the seething field of dance.
commercialism does take a hold.
Perhaps the most lasting memory of all was walking from one end of the"But," he says, trying to end on an optimistic note, "the scene is here as
Wigan dance floor to the other. It was like walking on a trampoline.
long as the punters want it to be here... Its essence is rarity and it's up to us
The last I saw of Barry, the motor mechanic from Manchester way, heto keep that rarity."
was jumpingway above the other kids, a big, big smile across his sweaty
face. Then he landed, did a spine -breaking backward bend, came up
AT 1.30AM SUNDAY morning, the queue outside theand bobbed fora while. Then went into a spin, arms held tight across his
Wigan Casino, a large, red -brick, grim -looking edifice, ischest like an ice-skater. He looked triumphant after that. The scene's his.
lengthening. Inside, the evening session is coming to an end.
GeoffBrown
It's mainly pop. Through swing doors, up a couple of flights of stairs,
But, as any of the DJs at Blackpool and Wigan are
the first to say, it's the dancers who matter. Ian andColin want to keep the music as pure as possible; Russ
Winstanley, Richard Searling and the others in Wigan
want to "please the kids; they're the ones, not our egos", asone put it.

.dye.09"The music's
been underground; I hate
to see it turncommercial"

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 119

JA

PM

-WU

1975

4

"4774,17r""

A',We're not
COIcalming

down"
Riots. Massive shows. A new

album. Even Jimmy Page's broken
finger can't derv. LED ZEPPELIN's
imperial phase. "We have a sty ide,"says Robert Plant, "a gait, that
if it was adjusted woukl be
detrimental to the way we are."- MELOUY MAKER FEBRUARY 1
T'S COLDOIJTSIDE, freezing, sub -zeroand hitter, but inside Chicago Stadium,a superstructure designed to accommodate
ocean liner.% 20,000 Led Zeppelin fans areroaring is unison as if some giant orgasm has
overtakes each and everyone.
They've recognised the opening notes to "Sta i rway To
Heaven", the sons they all came to hear. Even Robert Plant
made a reverent saeech before Page plucked the opening
strings on the lower 'retboard of his Gibson twin -neck.
"We... u h... recr rded... now let me see... 14 sides of music
including the new alum in our career... and u h... well, we
think that this song: s... uh... pretty bloodygood... eh,
Jimmy?" says Pla v.1 m my gri ns and t he crowd roar.
Danny Goldberg, a harassed -looking New Yorker witha ponytail who runs Swan Song Records for Zep in theStates, was telling me about "Stairway" on the way toe concert.
is amazing," he mid. "The FM radio stations in New
k have done a poi on what is the mast requested album
k and for two years it's been 'Stairway'. Nothing else
es close to it. They're always playing it."thereon stage Zeppelin are giving the song a newdim sion. Page is sabtly athering t he guitar feed -in

1975

JANUARY -0"

twisting a note here and adding an extra one there, but it's

Band andmanager

Plant's vocal that charges the song with drama.
It took about three numbers for his pipes to clear out and
now he's shifted into top gear. Spoken asides between lines,
building to a frenzy as Page moves up to the 12 -string neck andcrashes on open chords that ring out like echoes in a tunnel.

onboard the Starship,

PeterGrant(farright)
Zeppelin'srented
Boeing720airlinor"--"To bea rock and not to roll..."Lights everywhere, sparkling off a silver ball, and everyone ison their seats, cheering madly. John Bonham, in white boiler
suit and black bowler hat, stumbles off his drum podium andnods back to the crowd. John Paul Jones, demure in gold
embroidered waistcoat and fitted black pants, grins, and Page,
relinquishing the twin -neck to a roadie, bows very low.
"Thank you, Chicago," says Plant, and the group retire to an
ovation that continues for 10 minutes, building in waves ofhoarse cheering until t he group return, plug in and punch out
the definitive riff of "Whole Lotta Love". Page, guitar slung as
low as ever, duck -walks around, jerking out the notes that havebecome standard lesson number one in heavy guitar tuition,
long black hair covering the right sideof his face.
"Love" moves into "Black Dog" with
BILL GRAHAM PRESENTS
the aid of four explosions atop the fiveA
DAY
ON
THE GREEN "4.5
lighting towers that beam down on
1975
the band, and it's off again for fiveminutes before Zep return with"Communication Breakdown", tomake it almost three hours from thegolden boys of heavy rock; three hours
of incredible music that will be
repeated nightly until Zep's US tour,
the first major rock tour of the US in
1975, winds up at Los Angeles on
March 27.
tour, however, was almost
cancelled at the last minute, for
Jimmy Page is playing under a severe
handicap. The third finger of hisleft hand, the one that's used by all
guitarists to bend notes, was two
weeks before the tour, trapped in
3TADIUM.

A6057 2344

an interconnecting carriage door

,V NAM,*

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00t.. Al0 A h ,AILS OrtAl Al V A

Bostonwas actually they emit. of the first
US appearance by Zeppel i n, so the bandfeel bad about the cancellation. The realreason for the ban, however, was not somuch the rioting fans as the tense racialsituation in that city, where recently there
have been riots over school bussing

AND TAt MIJ4K START% AT lo M.
on a train in Victoria Station.
arrangements and the City Fathers are
The jolt broke a bone and specialists
reluctant to permit any large gatherings
say he won't be able to use the finger for
which
were just unfortunate to be in theof.
nr
1191215010.012 (Pun sot se mate ookstue.
=4(.114044 .-ZAITO...sZSO
AO" °Ass saubousaate Lixssetin 6,35
another two weeks. He takes a painwrong place at the wrong time.
PA/,1).411.1. IMAMS. oAkLAND fiOrr=ateflotfi 9r.
SOTIVit 5f if ALL MONTC.084
LOS
killer before going on stage.
f. WARR. ALL Ifat STeRe0
STORin .fiNgOrkriff
The tour opened this week with three
AlAr
AU MACY" TC"' R01%!..A71..f..rn:..*A?:% ,eye"I can't play any blues at all, can't
NOTE PLEASE NO ALCOHOL
concerts at the 20,000 -capacity Ch icago
OR sorn.es AND CANS....".^""
bend notes either," he told me before
Stadium, the third of which I saw. "It takes
going on stage at Chicago. "It's thethem a few concerts to get into theirmost important finger for any
stride," one of the roadies told me
guitarist, so I'm having to modify my playing to suit the situation.
backstage. "By the time this band gets to Madison Square Garden, it'll be
A shame, but it can't be helped.
one of the best rock acts ever to set foot there.""We've had to cut 'Dazed And Confused' from the set and substituteZep's three-hour set -there is no support act - includes five new songs'How Many More Times', which we haven't played in four years. I'm still
that'll be on the Physical Graffiti double album, due for imminent release.
doing the violin bow routine, but we've had to alter even that and I can't
The hold-up, as always with Zep, is because of the artwork.
do it as well as I'd like to. I can tell it's not as good as it usually is, but theTwo of the new pieces stand out. "Kashmir" is a long song, a builder withaudiences don't seem to notice.
a complex ascending riff, while "Trampled Under Foot" is an out-and-out"We almost cancelled the tour, but we couldn't, as we'd sold all the
rocker with a simple catch -line that would make an excellent single.
tickets and a postponement would have meant chaos. It couldn't have"Trampled", in fact, might eventually take the place of "Whole Lotta
happened at a worse time, either."Love" as a power finale.
Plant, too, was complain ing of illness. "I'm catch i ng flu and can't sing
Zep, in common with a few others in their league, have the ability to hit
properly," he said.
an audience right from the start, merely by their actual presence. In Zep's
Illness and broken finger bones are not the only problem that Zep arecase the number is "Rock And Roll", and the effect is like a steam -driven
having to cope with on this junket. There were riots when tickets went on
locomotive gathering speed fora long express journey from the opening
sale in several cities, and the worst incident occurred at Boston, where thestaccato notes.
council refused to grant a licence for the concert.
Plant, bare -chested and golden hair curling over his shoulders, is the
As a result the concert scheduled for February 4 has been cancelled,very epitome of the rock star, a superstud whose blatantly sexual
manoeuvres around his stage rival anything from Tom Jones' Las Vegas
z the first time in seven years of touring that a Zep concert has beencancelled. An extra date has been added at Nassau Coliseum to makeroutines to David Cassidy's more primitive but similar expressions of
up for the cancellation, and tickets are being distributed to Boston fansvirility. The slightly built Page, shy, sleepy features hidden behind a mass
by mail order. All mail with a Massachusetts postmark receivedof black curls, dressed in white silk su it and black embroidered shirt,zpreferential treatment.
prowls the stage with a Les Paul tucked in a little above knee height.
T

22 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

LED ZEPPELIN- MELODY MAKER FEBRUARY

1-

LED ZEPPELIN'S COLOSSAL US tour clicked into its
second week this week with one cancelled show in St

Louis and a major riot at Greensboro, North Carolina.
Controversy surrounds their every move.

John Paul Jones keeps out of the picture, alternating between three
Fender basses (one fretless) and only really making his presence felt
when he moves to the keyboard. His Mellotron work on "No Quarter" wasa coup de grace.
Two new songs follow "RockAnd Roll". The first, "SickAgain", isa trite comment on the LA scene and hangers-on that Zep accumulate
whenever they visit California. Another uptempo rocker. The second
is a reworking of the blues standard "In My Time Of Dying" whichfeatures Page on slide throughout. Then it's "Over The Hills And Far
Away" and "The Song Remains The Same", which moves into "The RainSong", the first opportunity for Page to play delicately and use his twin necked guitar.
Two more new pieces, "Kashmir" and "Wanton Song", come next before
Jones' solo on "No Quarter". Then it's "Trampled
Under Foot" before Bonham's tour de force,"Moby Dick", which now includes a 15 -minutedrum solo, a power drive extraordinaire thathas the audience standing time and time again
at its false conclusions.
"How Many More Times" is Page's new vehicle
for the violin bow scenario, modified slightly
because of his broken finger but still impressive,
especially the part where he uses a stabbing
echo and apparently duets with himself.
"Stairway" closes the set.
Hasty getaways, police escorts and armed
bodyguards are all part of the routine on aZeppelin tour. The band are hustled directly off
the stage into the usual waiting limousine while
the audience is still waiting for a third encore.
On arrival at the hotel the band locked themselves away for an hour'sconference with Peter Grant before venturing out into hotel lobby andbar, which were rapidly crowding with fans who'd heard where the groupwas staying.
This week Zeppelin take possession of the Starship, the personalised
rock'n'roll jet that will ferry them to and from gigs with Chicago as a base.
This method of touring, used byZeppelin on previous tours, is unique.
It's also extraord inarily expensive. Chris Charlesworth

On Monday of last week, Robert Plant, who was sufferingfrom a cold during the group's three concerts in Chicago, tooka day's rest and that night's show in St Louis was cancelled.
Plant stayed in bed in his Chicago hotel under doctor's orders
while the rest of the band and entourage decided to utilise
their free time with a two-day trip to LosAngeles aboard therented Starship.
On Wednesday, Plant had virtually recovered and the band
made a hasty return from California, picking up Plant in
Chicago before continuing on to the East Coast for theGreensboro concert, where ticketless fans clashed withsecurity guards and police in scenes outside the massive
20,000 -seater auditorium where the group were playing.
Five hundred fans attempted to storm the rear of thebuilding, brandishing broken bottles, stones and pieces ofscaffolding. Three of the group's five limousines were severely
damaged before police were called to clear the area. The othertwo cars were hastily backed inside the hall - otherwise theband would have had no means of escape.
Although the majority of the rioting fans had disappearedby the end of the show, the group were forced to make thequickest getaway seconds after leaving the stage. Zeppelinmanager Peter Grant took the wheel of one of the limousines much to the surprise of the official driver -while the other was
driven by Magnet, a British roadie employed by Deep Purple,
who had come along to the concert as an old friend of the band.
Heading the procession was a police car which cleared theway for the two limousines, sirens blasting, at speeds of up to
70mph in a heavily built up area. The three cars drove over red
lights and on the opposite side of the road in a scene that resembled a
Steve McQueen -movie car chase. The squealing tyres almost drowned
out the police siren.
Grant, an expert driver, who had offered to buy both limousines fromthe car company, said afterwards: "I didn't care what happened so long as
I got the boys out OK. That car I was drivingwas out of time; otherwise I'dhave driven faster still."
Relaxing on the Starship on the flight back to New York, which the groupare using as their base for the rest of the East Coast leg of the tour, Grant
admitted that it was one of the scariest nights in Zeppelin's career.
This week the group play three shows at NewYork's Madison Square
Garden and three shows at the Nassau Coliseum within the NewYork
area. The third Nassau show was added to accommodate fans from
Boston where Zep's planned concert wascancelled because of fans rioting when the box
office opened.

"I can't play
any bluesat all, and I
can't bendnotes either"

MELODY MAKER FEBRUARY 8 ITH TWO WEEKS of the current
Led Zeppelin tour under his belt,
Robert Plant is feeling the strain.

One show has been cancelled because hecaught 'flu and he's still sniffing and talking
like he's wearing a nose -clip.
Robert blames it partly on his particularly
enjoyable Christmas festivities and thechanges in climate involved in traversing theAtlantic. We're talking in his suite at the Plaza
Hotel in New York, the same suite just left bythe Chairman of Sonesta
Hotels, the chain that owns this particular chunk ofAmericana.
Love's Forever Changes album is playing on a tiny portable record player
and Plant spreads out on a couch, bare -chested as always, golden haircurling everywhere and sipping a fruit drink between assaults on a paper
handkerchief. We begin by talking about the new album, PhysicalGraffiti, due to be released anytime. It's Zep's first double album.
"I suppose it was about a year ago when we started, if I can cast my mind
that far back," he says. "It's always a case of getting together and feeling x.
HISTORY OF ROCK 19Th 123

1975

ARUM- *Aliout the moods of each of us when we meet with instruments for the firsttime in six months.
"We began as always, playing around and fooling about for two days,
playing anything we want, like standards, our own material or anythingthat comes to us, and slowly but surely we develop a feel that takes us
on to the new material. Some of t he new stuff came directly from thisapproach, like "Trampled Under Foot", which was just blowing out,
and some comes from Jonesy or Pagey or myself -bringing along somestructure which needs working on. Then the four of us inflict our own
venom on it to develop the idea.
"We intended to record as much new stuff as we could before we started
losing the fire, because we've always believed in not prolonging periodsof recording or composition to such a degree where we know we are not
up to our best. So we recorded as much fresh stuff as we could before
looking back at some th ings we hadn't recorded.
"Then we saw that t here was a lot of stuff we'd put down and we thought,'Why not put a double album out?' There's a lot of variation of material, so
it gives people a whole spectrum of style which is contained in one
package, and I think that's very good.
"It goes from one extreme to the other but at the same time it's very
evident that it's Zeppelin. You could playa track on the radio that you'dthink would never, ever be us, but then when you listened you'd hear little
things that couldn't be anyone else."
Recording took about four months, which was
strung out over a much longer period. "It sounds
a long time but the whole essence of the band isthat we do what we want to do when we want to
do it. It's no race for us. We've got no deadlines
to meet and when we finally do give something
then it's got to be just dead right. We have a
stride, a gait, that if it was adjusted would bevery detrimental to the way we are."and I really need each season as it comes. I like to feel spring and I got

back in August after that tour and realised I'd missed spring going into
summer that year. I don't want to lose these perspectives in what I
consider to be important for the lyrical content of what I write. I want totake stock of everything instead of going on the road until I don't know
where the fuck I am and end up like a poached egg t hree days old.
"But the time comes, as it does in recording and the record company
and every move that we make, when we know it's time to go out on theroad again. We all met and thought, 'What have we been doing?' Weal!
needed that time off but we cursed each other for having it and agreed at

the same time that we'd been physically idle."
The group hates rehearsing, says Robert, but they realise they have tolimber up to approach playing in the way they want. "The first hour isusually great, but then we think how much better it would be if there wasan audience there. A lot of the construction that we do on stage is fired by
the atmosphere of the actual instant.
"Obviously we had to rehearse the stuff from the new album to get it intosome viable shape. We played all the new songs at the rehearsal, but someof them take such a different direction that it would be difficult to employ
them live after being off the road for 18 months.
"We do 'SickAgain, which is about ourselves and what we see in Los
Angeles, but it's a pity you can't hear the lyrics properly live. The lyrics say:'From the window ofa rented limousine, I saw your pretty blue eyes I One day"We do 'Sick

Robert agrees that 1974 was a year of little
Z
1°,

o

public activity for the group, but maintains thatsetting up their own label, Swan Song, took upmuch oftheir time.
"After the last American tour I was so relieved
to be home again, because I'd missed a season

Again', which
is about us
and what we
see in LA"

soon you're gonna reach 16, painted lady in thecity of lies.' As much as it's pretty, it's sour really.
That's exactly what LA stands for. Joni Mitchellsummed it up best when she called it 'City Of
The Fallen Angels'.
"We do 'In My Time Of Dying', which is a reallyold, standard thing. 'Gallows Pole' was an old

traditional thing too, and 'When The Levee
Breaks' is something I have on an old album by
Kansas Joe McCoyand Memphis Minnie in
1928. There are so many classics from way, wayback which we can give a little of ourselves toand take them through the years."
It's now over two years since Zeppelin haveappeared in Britain. Well, Robert ... "We shall
.1

725.

1975:Lippolin

inrhoarsal,
Indianapolisdefinitely play England by hook or crook before Midsummer
Day this year. To say where and when at the moment is
impossible as we haven't found out anything. All beingwell
we shall definitely be in England soon during the summer.
"I play guitar now and again around Worcestershire, but it
isn't met by such tremendous outcries as it is when we all get
together on stage. I've been 75 per cent pleased with theshows we've done so far, even though we've got a new stage
set-up to get used to. It's quite hard to go out and confront
thousands of people with a new stage, so we have tocompensate for these new things.
"At the beginning of the tour I always feel nervous because
I've got a lot to stand up for over here. If ever I've given all that
I've got to give, it's been to an audience and the audiences
here can really drain you until you're almost in tears.
"It's not as if these kids are all 17 or 18 and going barmy.
These people have been going along with us for seven oreight years. Now I know there's people in England who'll say
they've been standing with us for seven or eight years, but
over here the whole motion is like a seven-year trek that's
charged with the energy that these people give. My nerves
are really through hoping that I can re-establish the contactthat I had before.
"The English promotion side of things has always beenarchaic. They didn't want to know us as the NewYardbirds
in the early days, so we had to come over here and makea statement that no one else had made before. Theneverybodywanted to know.
"I can see this happening again with The Pretty Things,
who have achieved so much abilitywith their writing andplaying. They get much more coverage here than in England,
but how much coverage can you get in England, anyway? It's
not too hot, and the promoters are a little reserved in what
they can promote."
Zeppelin have always maintained a reputation as outlawsof the road in the US. Talk of their excesses in the hotel rooms
ranges far and wide, and the faint of heart have been known
to cower when they approach with the twinkle in their eyesthat spells havoc.
"Like the music, the legend grows too," said Robert. "There
are times when people need outlets. We don't rehearse themand, let's face it, everybody's the same. Over the last few
years we've spent some of our time at the Edgewater Inn inSeattle, where Bonzo fishes for sharks in the sea from his
bedroom window. Hence the mudshark thing on the
Zappa album.
"No, we're not calming down yet. Calming down doesn't
exist until you're dead. You just do whatever you want to dowhen you want to do it, provided there's no nastinessinvolved, then the karma isn't so good."
Moving on to more serious topics, I asked whether Robertthought "Stairway To Heaven" was becoming heavily
identified as the group's signature tune.
"I don't know about that. We've always intended to try
and create a spectrum of music that captures as many
aspects of us as we could, although we never realised it at
the beginning.
"We try and do this on stage, too. We start off like songs ofthunder and then we take it down with a songlike 'Rain
Song' so you tend to develop a rapport rather than just a
blatant musical statement. It ebbs and flows through two and -a -half hours or so, and we feel it would be unfair for the
climax to be 'Whole Lotta Love' now, because that isn't
where we climax any more.
"It's quite a moving thing. I remember doing it at theGarden last year and I sang well away from the mic andI could hear 20,000 people singing it. I mean... 20,000 people
singing 'High Heeled Sneakers' is one thing, but 20,000
people singing 'Stairway To Heaven' is another.
"People leave satisfied not because of the violent aspectsof the music, which I don't think exists anyway, but because
they feel a satisfaction with the music they've heard."
Chris Charlesworth

In a completely

different vein
MM MAR 1

i s wai

iliu)

Ifiii8d from Zep.

Led Zeppelin
SWAN SONG

No other top band in the world getsas much stick as Led Zeppelin. Everytime they bring out an album there's
six months of carping because it's notfull of remakes of "Whole Lotta
Love"; followed by another six
months of moaning because they
haven't played any live dates;
finishing up with six months ofcomplaints about the time it's taken
them to make the new one.
Not this time, though, I suspect. By
allowing themselves the luxury of adouble album, they've managed tocram in a bit of everything and inenough quantity to keep that vocal
minority of moaners at bay.
For once they will have to admit thatthe wait since Houses Of The Holy has
been worthwhile; some may even be
moved enough to recognise PhysicalGraffiti for what it is: a superbly
performed mixture of styles andinfluences that encompasses not only
all aspects of Led Zep's recording
career so far but
also much of rockas a whole.
This is not just

Now they've taken electronic spacerock for "In The Light'', one of the twomost immediately striking cuts on
Physical Graffiti.
It opens with eerie keyboards thatsound like they belong to Pink Floyd's"Set The Controls For The Heart Of
The Sun", before moving on to morefamiliar Zeppelin riffing. What marks
it as the work of true craftsmen,though, is the linking: those spacesounds are not just a frill tagged on
for the hell of it, but properly joined
to the core of the song, first led in by
Robert Plant's voice, then led out fora reprise in the middle by Jimmy
Page's acoustic guitar.
"Kashmir" hits you just as
immediately. It's in a completely
different vein: heavily orchestrated,with a chopping string riff whichbuilds up to a crescendo at the end ofeach verse. The nearest equivalent's
the work of the classical composer
Moondog, who uses the same richly
descriptive style.
So effectively is it
used though on"Kashmir" that it
actually sounds likeyou're travelling on
a caravanserai
through the East.
But the band's
strength does notalways rest on the new. They takethat old, old theme of the blues on"In My Time Of Dying" and come up
with a fresh approach, by constantly
changing the pace, veering from thebreakneck to the dead slow. Plant
holds a note here, John Bonham
continues a drum pattern there, andit joins together as tight as a clam.
And it if's heavy rock you want,Zeppelin can dive a number along likeno other band on Earth. Listen tothem roar through "Custard Pie" and"Night Flight" and "Sick Again",always giving that little bit extra
that's the sign of class -a bubbling
keyboard here, a nifty riff there, an
intricate pattern elsewhere.
They can be wistful ("Down By The
Seaside", fun ("Boogie With Stu")
acoustic ("Bron-Yr- Aur"), melodic("The Rover")- just about anything infact. They can take as long as they Ike
with the next album: Physical Graffiti"It's a superbly
performed
mixture of styles
and influences"a collection ofgreat tracks, but aperfectly balanced
selection of musicthat weighs heavyrock with acoustic,
ballad with out-and-out rocker in sucha way that you can play the album
non-stop day and night without everneeding to pause for a bit of peace.
And for one of the world's heaviest
bands, that's some achievement.
Physical Graffiti has not just been"worth the wait"; it had to take a longtime to produce music of this calibre.
Unlike so many bands today, who hurlout albums like they were Frisbees inHyde Park, Led Zep can be bothered
to take the time and trouble to makethis one even better than the last one.
They are, if you like, one of the
few "progressive" bands left - youremember them, the groups who
were always going to move forward
and keep exploring new avenues.
Zeppelin have, and still are doing justthat. They established their base withheavy blues -rock on Led Zeppelin
and have constantly sought to buildon that, investigating new fields; fromthe folky "Battle Of Evermore" to thereggae -influenced "D'Yer Maker".

will last 18 months or 18 years. And
then some. m,rhaeioldheici

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 125

1975

May1e74:Harry
Nilssonatthe
Record Plant, NewYork City, d uring

sessionsforhisioth
album, PussyCats

26 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

"I'm a
ver
lucky

man"
John Lennon's pal
HARRY NILSSON is

working on a new album.
Still, he doesn't rate

himself as writer orsinger, especially now
he's damaged his voice.
"I enjoy the gravelly
sound," he says.
"I've got more thanI asked for now."

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 127

1975,JANUAII-OCH

Marcht2,1974: Nilsson
downsanother Brandy" Alexander asJohn
Lennon snogs his
companion May Pangat the Troubadour, LA

MELODY MAKER

3RUARY 1 -HARRY NILSSON IS a stocky, blond Californian andpleased that right now his age is thirty-three anda third. He came striding through the Pierre lobby
loaded with parcels after a morning's shoppingin New York, dressed in blue jeans, blue anorak
and white tennis shoes. On his head was a blue flatcap which failed to keep his hair in place. His light skin gives him theair of a Scandinavian.
But Harry was actually born in Brooklyn, New York, and didn't moveto the West Coast until he was 12 years old. It's a pretty well-known factthat he worked as a bank clerk before becoming a singer, that he doesn't
perform live and his discography now numbers 11 albums of mainly
self -penned material. Curiously his two hits in the UK -"Everybody's
Talkin'" and "Without You" -were both by other writers.
We had lunch at the Park Lane Hotel overlooking Central Park andwere joined first by Harry's Irish girlfriend, and secondly by Alice Cooper.
The head waiter at the establishment insisted we wore jackets; Harry
had to keep his anorak on, and remove his flat hat, much to his disgust.
He ordered a double Chivas Regal on ice, which he drank neat, and we
started talking, first about his new record.
"I'm having an argument with RCA about the album and at the moment
they're winning," he smiled. "They disapprove of the title God's Greatest
Hits, so we're arguing. For this album I have a major addition in my band:
Van Dyke Parks, who's dynamite.
"He brought with him a guy called Robert Greenwich, who is the finest
steel drum player I have ever heard and is equally brilliant. There's a lot of
percussion on this album, more than usual.
"Van Dyke sort of sat around and played piano and he has a credit ofmusical co-ordinator and maestro. His ideas were what ! wanted.
"Other than that I use the usual gang of musicians: Bobby Keys, Klaus
Voorman, Jim Keltner. Dr John played on one track and that's dynamite.
There's 10 new songs and one more which is actually a demo that I wrote
when the album was finished, so there's 11 tracks, and it's due the firstweek of March, depending on my arguments with RCA."

THE NEW ALBUM comes hot on the heels of Pussy Cats, thealbum released in the summer, on which Harry collaborated
with John Lennon, his long-time idol. "Yeah, it's not long after
Pussy Cats came out to release another album, but Pussy Cats didn't
last too long, anyway.
28 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

"I liked Pussy Cats, but to be subjective there's good and bad about
it. Unfortunately I was in bad voice at the time and that hurt. The
sequencing wasn't that great and the song selection was done a bit on the
spu r of the moment. We were sitting around with nothing to do, so we
said, 'Let's do an album.' As a result we picked songs off the top of ourheads and just did them.
"Neither one of us had any songs spare at the time; John had two but hewanted them for his album. I thought the album was OK. It's not as bad assome of the reviews that I've read, but time will tell. I think 'Many Rivers'
was a really good cut.
"We didn't think that I sounded like John on the songs. I think many
people made the association, but I can compare 'Many Rivers' to'Without You' and some of the old stuff that I did a long time ago. I had
a grating voice on Pussy Cats because my vocal cords were in bad shape.
I was seeing a throat specialist everyday before the sessions and we even
tried a faith healer and acupuncturist trying to get it fixed. It was almost

permanently damaged.
"I enjoy the gravelly sound. It's something I've wanted since childhood
and it's taken many bottles of brandy and cigarettes to get. I guess I've got
a little more than I asked for now. I used to try and get a rasp sound before,
but not lose the clearness of the notes in other kinds of songs.
"Now I've sure got the rasp and it'll take quite a while to get well; I abuse
my throat more than necessary. But also, I've never had that great a voice
anyway. I've always sung out of tune. You know, I don't think I'm that
good a writer, either. I'm just a very lucky man."
I mentioned that Harry's two biggest British songs were not his own
compositions. "Yeah... that's part of my dilemma," he replied. "It's OK,
I like being misunderstood. When I'm older the kids will discover me, thenext generation. But it was like a dream for me to make an album withJohn. I've always loved John Lennon. He's my favourite hero. We'd talked
about it in the past but never done anything. He first suggested it at a Phil
Spector session, but I passed that off as one drunken evening. Then wewere both together in Los Angeles last summer and we did it.
"We had a lot of fun. We spent a month at a beach house with the wholeband and a month at a hotel in New York and every night was a laugh. The
house belonged to Peter Lawford and everywhere we went there were
pictures of John Kennedy. Very spooky. It was like a musicians' commune,a laugh a minute.
"It was like OUR album rather than the normal producer/artist
relationship. We're both singers and both songwriters, so all decisions
were made on joint approval. We think alike, so it was easy to makedecisions about what we wanted to do.

.

HARRY NILSSON

r.,I3

ej

g

"We thought it had a sense of humour. I don't know...
I guess I'm just bitter about it. I think that sense of
humour is the single most lacking thing in popular
music. It's also the single most lacking quality in thepeople that present popular music to the public. It hurts,
because that's what rock'n'roll is all about -fun.
"'Acting lilce a man on a fuzzy tree. . .' It's humour. How serious can you
get about 'your baby, my baby'? Lots of musicians take it too seriously andit's dull and boring, and that's what's killing pop music. I like humour andI like songs that have humour. That's why I'm arguing with RCA.
"They don't get the joke about God's Greatest Hits. I asked them whether
they'd have turned down Jesus Christ Superstarfor the same reason. Mostof the lyrics on the album are a joke, anyway."Throughout his recording career, Harry has cut as many songs byother artists as himself. "Yeah, I'd always wanted to do 'SubterraneanHomesick Blues, and I'd always wanted to do 'Many Rivers'. I thoughtthat was going to be a hit, but you can't tell anymore. If I'd walked into
a room and someone played it to me, I'd have jumped. It's difficult for me
to find songs I like that I want to record. I don't like most songs and I don't
think anyone likes MOST songs. With 'Everybody's Talkin' and 'Without
You', I just heard them, liked them and did them. Very simple.
"I found 'Without You' on an old Badfinger album, and I first heard it
at someone's house. A day or two later I kept humming the hook andthought it was a Beatles song. It sounded like one, so I tried to find it bylooking on all the Beatle albums. Finally I said, 'I know... it's not The
Beatles. It's that group they have: Grapefruit', so I went out and tried toget a Grapefruit album. Finally it hit me. It was Badfinger.
"I brought it to Richard [Perry- Harry's producer at the time] and heagreed to record it with me. It wasn't that big a surprise when it took off
the way it did. It's actually more surprising when they're not hits. I thinkthey're all hits when I'm writing them, and if I'm singing it, it's a hit too. If
you don't believe that, you go crazy."
Conversation switched into comedy, one of Harry's favourite topics.
Alice Cooper arrived and the two of them discussed Mel Brooks, a mutual
favourite comic. Quick repartee ricocheted across the table for 15
minutes; coupled with record companygrievance stories triggered off
after Harry recounted a story about a single being withdrawn by RCA
because they didn't think it was commercial. The lyrics were about a TV
detective series and television sets, and they include a line about "19 inchbaby" and "twiddling knobs". Too suggestive, said RCA, and stalemate
exists at present. "I just signed a new deal with them for eight more
albums and this is the first. A stormy start, eh?"
I asked why Harry never appeared live andAlice, equally curious on this topic, craned
forward to hear. "I prefer playing dead."Cut the wisecracks. Seriously, Harry. "No,I don't want to play live. I don't really know.
Everybody asks me this. It started out as a joke
originally as nobody ever asked me to play live.
I never had a band and I didn't have an agent, so
nobody asked me to go out live. People asked me
about it and I decided it was original not to go
out live, so I thought I'd keep it that way a while.
I've kept it for seven years.
"It doesn't appeal to me at all. I don't knowwhether my performing live would help record
sales. I just look at the people who do
perform live and don't sell records.
More artists perform live than don't
and more of them don't sell records.
In Alice's case, I'm sure his sales
would double if he did a tour, butthat doesn't mean it will with me.
I've just signed a new deal with RCA
for $5 million and I've got a coupleof gold albums without doing anylive appearances. That's goodenough forme.
"I've done a couple of TVshows butthat was without an audience. Justa producer, myself and the crew.
That's controlled. You can do what
you want to do and take advantage of

ictor
things that the studio has to offer which you can't do ina live situation. I did some TV shows in America a longtime ago -the Johnny Carson show, the Mike Douglas
show -with just me and a piano.
"I was once advised to do live shows and appear on TV.
I agreed to the TV. 'Everybody's Talkin" had just come out andit was a hit, so I went on this TV show. I didn't have a suit to wear so I
borrowed my manager's suit, which didn't fit. As soon as it was overI realised I was making a mistake and stopped doing it. My reputation
is now unscathed.
"I've talked about it with the band that I use on the albums but I don't
knowwhat we'd do. It wouldn't be like a concert tour, because they're on
the way out anyway. Maybe we'd do a movie house with a new album. I'djust do one new album's worth of live stuff rather than all the old stuff."
At this stage Alice left, so I asked Harry why he didn't like giving
interviews. "I don't know. RCA want me to do a bunch of them soon, but
I don't recall when I gave the last one. It could be one year ago. No, it was at
the time of the Little Touch OfSchmilsson In The Night album.
"I don't knowwhat to say to people who ask questions. I loved thatalbum, though. That's a personal favourite of mine, mainly because
Derek Taylor produced it and because the songs are great songs. I didn't
sing too badly, either. I sang OK, for once. I like anything if it's good, andthose songs were go good. I have a deep respect for Burt Bacharach."Holding Harry to one topic is difficult: suddenlywe'd switched toastronomy- "what do I want to talk about music for?" - and his deep
desire to go to the moon. He's already bought a ticket through Pan Am,
and he says he'd swap 10 years of his life for the chance to go up there.
"Music? Well the only things that have made musical sense in my life are
The Beatles, Little Richard, Ray Charles, The Everly Brothers. That was

until I learned about some otherwriters from other generations. In my
generation those are the ones I look to.
"The Beatles beat everyone to the punch. On my first album I did acollage of 15 Beatles songs all together 'cos I wanted to do what they did.
That makes me sound like a groupie, but I was proud of the fact that ! did
that, that I recognised early on how good they were.
"As soon as ! saw what theywere doing I just backed off. They were doing
exactlywhat I wanted to do, but theywere there first. Theywere just at
the right age to be the 'lads' and I'd always considered myself to be a 'lad'.
I love them individually and collectively.
"Ringo is now a very dear, close friend and I love him and John too. Johnand I aren't quite as chummy because he's an individual, he doesn't hangout everywhere. Paul I don't know that well, but
George! know better. I respect and love themall, and there aren't too many people I can saythat about."
Harry admits to having seen just five live

"I decided it

was original

not to go out
live. It doesn't
appeal at all"acts in his life. Recently he saw Elton John,
whom he liked, though he's not too keen on

Bernie Taupin's lyrics. "I don't like theirsongwriting technique that much, but they're
nice guys. I never saw The Beatles, actually. I
paid to see Ray Charles. He's the only one I paid
to go and see. And I saw Randy Newman andLaura Nyro at the Troubadour because I respectthem both tremendously. I wanted to hear themand encourage them.
"Oh yes. And the Smothers
Brothers. I guess everybody knows
I saw them at the Troubadour." [Justabout a year ago Harry and Lennon
heckled the Smothers Brothers,
Lennon wearing a Kotex on his head,and made an undignified exit which
was heavily reported in the press.]"I saw The Who, too, 'cos Keith
is a friend of mine. I think Pete
Townshend is really good.
Townshend and Keith are reallystrong people and I sense a protection
thing going on there. Pete protects
Keith, and I like that idea. I always
thinkJohn would defend Ringo in
the same way." Chris Charlesworth

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 129

Bob Dylan:
missing that
healthy senseof rage

ALBUMSand most of those fans I would

say, in "Idiot

Bob Dylan

think, that feeling hasn't quite
been there.

Wind" - probably
the strongest song on this album,
however - that "Someone's got it
in for me/They're planting stories

CBSIn his liner notes to the new Bob
Dylan album, Pete Hamill, who
not so long ago was writing hisvery human articles for the New
York Post, says: "Here is Dylan,
bringing feeling back home. In
this album he is as personal andas universal as Yeats or Blake;
speaking for himself, risking thedangerous opening of the veins,
he speaks for us all."Hamill writes well. He's a Dylan
fan. So am I. There are lots of us
still left. And with each album
Dylan has released in the past few
years we've been hoping it's asgreat as Blonde On Blonde orJohn Wesley Harding or "TheTimes They Are A -Changing".
Maybe, when sufficient time
has elapsed to provide a proper
historical perspective, it will bepossible to mention Planet Waves
in the same breath, but for me,
30 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

And that, in a deep sense, isbecause it's not really true, as
Hamill says, that in speaking for
himself Dylan "speaks for us all".
Dylan long since ceased to dothat, except in the most clichedsense. Increasingly, indeed, withthe exception of the live double
Before The Flood, which had
memento value attached, hisalbums seem to narrow inuniversal appeal.
I doubt if his converts aremany or substantially so. The
man's hold on his generation has
slackened off, I would suggest,and this was one of his strengths.
After all, a fundamental rule ofpop success is to seize the time.
Dylan is an artist, above andbeyond chart positions, and yet
his self -involvement now, apowerful source of his fascination,
is not as frequently absorbing as it
was. I wonder that he bothers toin the press."
For him it's such an empty
gesture. His ability these days

to express broad truths out ofhighly personal emotions is lessin evidence than it was, alas,
Mr Hamill to the contrary.
And yet I feel instinctively that
Blood On The
Tracks will bebetter received
than Planet
Waves. The

latter, with The
Band helping
him out, had atough, sinewy
quality, butthere was also
an experimental
air in the way itveered sharply
in mood, fromthe tender hymns of"Forever Young" to thebitter almonds of "Dirge".
With Blood On The Tracks
Dylan seeks gentler ground.
The melodies are generally
softer, the instrumentation
more muted after the
fashion of John Wesley
Harding, the approach more
frequently narrative, as inearly Dylan, and the themes
more obviously those oflove songs. The album
could really have marked atransition between Harding
and Nashville Skyline.
This is ground that will befamiliar to his followers. And yetwith Planet Waves it did look as if
he were about to take off in a new
direction. Blood On The Tracks-a brutally inappropriate title,
somehow - sees him moving
laterally. If not too many of thesongs, however, are vintage
material, yet Dylan never fails tokeep the interest cooking.
"Meet Me In The Morning" isa slow, gritty blues, with sucharchetypal blues symbols as "thelittle rooster crowing'; "Buckets
Of Rain", which he sings very
effectively in a nasal rasp likethat of Lightnin' Hopkins, of all
people, reminds me of an old
Dave Van Ronk song, "Bad Dream
Blues"; "Simple Twist Of Fate",
which features him just on
harp and acoustic, is notablefor his whispery, studied
intonation; and "Lily,
Rosemary And The Jack Of
Hearts", almost a spoken
poem against a country &western beat, draws
judiciously on the traditional
song motif of love and cards.
He most perfectly brings off
the love song, though, with "If
You See Her Say Hello" and its
deep, bell -like bass resonating
along the lines; as Hamill says,"a simple love song... but aboutlove filled with honour, and a kindof dignity". But the two tracks
that impress me most express
other sides of Dylan. "Tangled Up
In Blue" explores a favourite

records as amusements.
The credibility of Young
Americans is hinderedfrom the start by his
passion for pastiche.

Worse, throughout thealbum I get a persistentpicture of patronisation
as Bowie flips throughhis soul cake -stall at
Sigma Sound, like someDylan role; that of drifter,
bumming from city to city.
But if he treated this theme
self-righteously in "Drifter's
Escape", and with a kind ofsorrowing poignancy in "I Am
A Lonesome Hobo", here heemploys a sense of gleeful, comic
absurdity as the narrator
recounts his kooky adventures tothe backdrop of a slappy beat.
"Idiot Wind", the obviously"different" cut, is a long andfierce account of its author's
hatred for those who invade his
privacy, and by extension, theprivacy of us all: "Idiot windblowing every time you move yourteeth", he sings.
However, as I've suggested
already, it's not easy to makethat extension and see beyond
Dylan's personal anger at gossipmongers. Yet he performs it withsuch conviction that for the only
time on the album he forces thelistener into an attitude.
It's just this healthy sense ofrage that I miss now in Dylan. No
one should want to stereotype
him, but BloodOn The Tracks is
not reassuring as a reconciliationof his past with the present.
Michael Watts, MM Jan 25

David Bowie
Young Americans RCA

If Diamond Dogs, with its
pretensions to literary
intelligence, was a sort of vinyl
version of future shock, Young
Americans couldn't be moreinappropriate: it's deliberately
basic, lyrically straightforward andnon -conceptual beyond the factthat it's designed to cast our heroin the mould of soul superstar.
Only the Barry White
inclinations of "1984" on his laststudio album could possibly haveindicated where Bowie washeading next. The problem with
Bowie is that he changes contexts
with such rapidity that he's hardly
entitled to feel sore when he's
accused of merely observing
passing fashion and of making

cocktail -party liberal.
This would matter lessif the album was up to
the mark, but it's
depressingly messy andvitiated, as if he knows
he's not quite hitting the note. Is
he forever doomed to flit througha variety of styles in a bewildering
St Vitus dance? So to speak, what
he gains from being roundabout
he loses in swing, because there's
no question that Young
Americans doesn't cut it as a soulrecord, which is its primary mode,
nor any other kind for that matter.
Not only are his hollow, frozen
vocals weirdly out of context, but
he patently lacks any deep
emotional commitment to hismaterial. He simply doesn't havethe feel. The abstract, stylised
schema that was so right for
Diamond Dogs here sounds
computer -processed. It's
mechanistic soul.
Luckily for him, his
accompaniment is generally
excellent. One cut, "Fascination",
is just about saved by a wah-wah
soprano sax solo from David
Sanborn, who also plays some

nice tenor on "Somebody Up
There Likes Me". Willie Weeks
and Andy Newmark are well in
there. And the vocal backups
strongly support Bowie's
mannered treatments; in fact,
where they're allowed moreleeway, as on "Right" - anuntypically compulsive track- they produce something
approaching excitement.
The single and title track isa reasonable, if unmemorable
discotheque record, but the final
cut, "Fame" which Bowie has
written with John Lennon andguitarist Carlos Alomar, is actuallyrather good - some splintered
guitar riffing and staccato
singing, "borrowed" from James
Brown, that's the closest Bowie
comes to being funky.
However, Bowie irrevocably
sinks his album for me with a direversion of Lennon's "Across The
Universe", which wrings theoriginal through the production
mangle in piteous fashion. It's a

Queen's Freddie

Mercury:gutsierand earthier

SINGLESqueen

Who are the most successful

British bands of the lastio
years? The Beatles, Rolling
Stones and The Who might
be a fair guess, and Queen
obviously reckon so too, forthis record is an unashamed
assortment of all three. Throwin a touch of early Floyd anda sprinkling of Bowie and you
have a Top 10 record.
Chunky guitar rhythms lead
us into the dreaded Freddie

opening fire with typicalvenom, with the lines echoingback and Brian May's lead

guitar taking command, likethe intro to "Daytripper". This
record, which is a cut from
Sheer Heart Attack, is moregutsy and earthy than theirprevious singles, although it's
still heavily stylised and the way
the drums and vocal chorus isarranged is pure Tommy. Ours is
not to reason why and soon thenation will be leaping aroundtheir bathrooms as this comesover the wireless. Hit. rim Mar as
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel

A crucial single for Steve in thelight of his recent flop, which
has made his rantings andmodest predictions a sick joke.
Wisely he's laid off the Ferry Bowie exaggerated imitations
to a certain extent andwhich sound like adefensive V-sign to his critics,
although his specific message
is obscure by the energetic
back-up vocals and Steve's

ludicrous enunciation. It'll betight but a likely hit. frIM Feb
George Harrison
PP1

Best single for quite a long timefrom the galloping guru.
Hopefully he's ding-donged all
the rubbish out of his system
now, and this agreeable record,
which integrates beefinesswith composure, indicates amore solid musical approach.
He sounds like a latter-day
Dylan wailing above an easy-

going backing that includes
some attractive guitar and acrisp rhythm. Well done, sir take another throw and collecta hit. Hfrifriart
The Goodies
HRADLEYS

Those loveable bounders
who weekly brighten our telly
screens have produced a spoof
on the "Funky Chicken" thatborders between the totallyobnoxious and the faintly
amusing. Bill Oddie hollers out
a string of puns over a sterile
rhythm and a tambourine thatrattles away like an out -of control stage -coach. It's all ver y
silly, but at least they do havesome musical base for theirnovelty records. Hit. MM Mariconcentrated on producing
a good song without relying

The Eagles

so heavily on his own style andBands of the Eagles' quality
are rare, yet they have widecommercial possibilities, being
more than capable of popping
up with a massive hit. Sadly this
ain't it. It's pleasant, close
harmonies blending well overa sleepy backing -just a bit too
sleepy. The song itself isinconsequential, and as

character to see it through. The
vocals are still excruciatingly
stylised and if anything that's
what'll bring it down, for thesong, a strongly Dylanish,tuneful thing, isn't bad. There's
some interesting lyrics, too,Pomo PIE SPIIGEAsYLdelightful as it is after Gilbert
O'Sullivan's rantings, I can't

new high in lows. And, as far as
Bowie's work is concerned, so is

see this stir,-ing any Chelsea

the album. Michael Watts. 1`414 Mans

and baccy. Miss. frifrimar/

pensioners from their beer

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 131

1975

ANUNN 0"4H

February25.1975: John

Lennonphotographedon the roof of his

apartment building, theDakota, New York City

"I'd do`Hey Jude',

the wholedamn show"
After a "psycho drama" with
Phil Spector,

iI

i; ti

's

Rock'n'RoII album is finished.
Meanwhile, reconciliation
with the past, Allen Klein, Yoko
and McCartney is in the air.
He's even paying royalties to--Paul. "I hope he gives mea good deal," he says.

MELODY MAKER
UP ON THE 16th floor of the Capitol

building, John Lennon is juggling
with as many telephones as he canhandle at one time. On the otherend of these telephones are no lessthan 35 disc jockeys sitting at theirvarious radio stations throughout the length andbreadth of the USA. On one line, the promotion manfrom Capitol is calling a roll call, and each jockanswers as his name is called.
John, in denim pants and shirt and wearing thoseslightly sinister, tiny round dark glasses, grins
absurdly at the other end of the room, smoking an
endless stream of Gauloise cigarettes and drinking
coffee from a plastic cup.
Setting up a conference call with people in 35
different cities is no small deal, but, then the artist
we're dealing with is no small deal either. Capitol are
anxious to sell plenty of copies of the new Rock'n'Roll
album, and this method is as good as any to spread theword across the nation.
"Hello, John Lennon 'ere," says John, picking up
an extension phone when the roll call is completed
satisfactorily. x.
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 133

1975

JANU ARV -111`Viell

Listening to answers without hearing the questions becomes aand one wonders which particular town jock wanted to know how long
fascinating experience for the next 30 minutes, as John yells down theJohn's hair had grown.
receiver in response to the nation's inquiries, which seem to cover"Let's saywe're just good friends, ho ho," he says a little later, and noeverything from the new album to the imminent reformation ofYou
prizes for guessing the question this time. "At least we're talking andKnow Who.
we're all happy with each other. If we got back together it wouldn't be for"Why not?" he shrieks (one assumes someone had asked him why he
one last show, right?
recorded an album of old rock'n'roll songs). "It's something I've been
"If we ever got together, my instincts tell me it would be more sensible towanting to do foryears. In between takes on all sessions, Beatle days andsit in a studio and get relaxed together and make some music before
since, we always messed around doing those sort of songs. We never put
stomping out on dates. I'm not saying that's in the offing, though."them out, though."
Fifteen minutes later, the US disc jockeys satisfied with their rap, John
Another silence. "Well, there was a psycho drama happening," heputs down the phone and relaxes before turning tome. He's always
replies to this one. "It was called Phil Spector..."willing to talk to the English music press, perhaps
Lennon began work on his Rock'n'Roll album infeeling that because of his lengthy absence from
October of 1973, doing a number of sessions with Phil
Britain MM merits special treatment.
Spector at the Record Plant in LosAngeles. By all"Well, I just finished Mind Games when I started
accounts the sessions became pretty wild, with
the new album, and I just wanted to have some fun.
anything up to 28 musicians joining in on the tracks.
It was so soon after Mind Games that I didn't have
When the work was finished, however, Spector
any new material. I wanted to just sing and not bedisappeared amid stories of a nasty car crash. Whenthe producer. I thought, 'Who's the one to do it with?'
he disappeared, he took the tapes with him and it's
and immediately thought of Phil Spector.
taken John almost a year to get them back. Handing"We went down to the Record Plant and started
VA VA
them over involved a deal whereby Spector received
cutting and, well, it got pretty crazy, as you mighta very substantial producer's royalty.
have noticed from some of the reports in the papers.
At the time John did get hold of them, however, he
It really got wild at times.
was working on the Walls And Bridges album, so they
"But we managed to cut seven or eight in the end
were temporarily shelved. On playing them
before it collapsed, which is the only way to put
after the completion of this album, John
it. Next thing, Phil had apparently had an auto
decided that only four Spector tracks wereaccident. Only he knows whether he did or
worth using and the rest were too crazy. Thendidn't, but that's what the story said.
he went back into the studio, this time using the"That was the end of it then, because he'd got
Record Plant in New York, and cut a further 10
the tapes and I didn't get them back until two
tracks that he produced himself. The completeddays before I went into the studio to cut Walls
14 make up the album, and asterisks on the rear
And Bridges. After the Spector madness I wentof the sleeve denote which songs came fromon to do the Harry Nilsson thing, and I pulledwhich sessions.
myself together in the middle of that andOn the subject of the sleeve, incidentally, it's
prepared for my own album.
interesting to point out that the photograph"I tried everything to get them back, evenon the front was taken in 1960 in Hamburg
just hanging around LA to see if Phil would get
duri ng The Beatles' Star Club days. This shot
better. I couldn't think what to do, so I did there-emerged at the Beatles Convention, heldalbum with Harry while I was waiting. Whenin New York last July, where the original
I got the tapes, I couldn't get into them because
photographer, a German named Jurgen Vollmer, was exhibiting a
I was all geared to WallsAnd Bridges.
number of very early Beatle pictures. The three blurred figures walking"When I did get into them, I found that out of the eight there were onlyin front of John are, from left to right, George Harrison, Stu Sutcliffe andfour or five that were worth using. The sessions, like, had 28 guys playing
Paul McCartney.
live and a lot of them out of tune, which is too much, even for rock'n'roll.
Trivia fans will also be interested to know that the royalties from John's"So I didn't know whether to forget it or carryon, but I hate leaving stuff
version of "Peggy Sue" will go to McCartney, who bought the publishingin the can. I thought about putting out an EP- remember them? -but theyrights to the Buddy Holly catalogue, and the royalties from "Bring It On
don't have them in America, and thought about a maxi -single.
Home To Me" will end up in Allan Klein's pocket. Klein owns the"In the end I decided to finish it off and produce the rest myself. I did 10
publishing to this song.
tracks in three days in October, all the numbers that I hadn't got around to"The project collapsed in Los Angeles," John is saying down the line towith Phil. I had a lot of fun and mixed it all down in about four or five days.
his 35 listeners. "Supposedly -you never know with Phil -he had a car"My one problem was whether it'd sound weird going from the Spector
accident, and I never got hold of the tapes. Out of about eight tapes, only
sound to my sound, from 28 guys down to eight. But they match pretty
four were worth using. I like 'Stand By Me, and 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' is one ofwell, I think. So there it was, I suddenly had an album.
my all-time favourites.""Then there was a complication with somebody in New York whom
On he goes. "There's been more trouble with this album than Soft Mick,"I'd given a tape to and he started advertising it on television, which
he says at one point, which shows that the scouse in Lennon is still there
we'd talked about at one point. Capitol and EMI heard it, though, anddespite three years away from home. He talks about the "other" album
convinced me it should go out as a regular album. They have the right toout on the market, a bootleg version of these same tapes that has been
do it and I couldn't stop them if they wanted to, but they convinced me it
advertised on television, but doesn't say much because of legal reasons.
was the right thing to do.
"My hair just happens to have grown down to my shoulders now. It's
"I've sent away for some of the other versions of the album, but they
always the right length for the right time," he replies after another silence,haven't arrived yet. They've used my name on it and there's a court case

if V

LENNON'"If we got back
together, it
wouldn't befor one lastshow, right?"

It's a busy time for JOHN LENNON- hit singles, a new album of oldies
and recording with Elton John andand David Bowie. Plus at last his

fight to stay in the U.S. looks likereaching an end. Between all this and telephone interviews with

35 Airrrican dee-jays - John foundtime to talk to CHRIS'
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going on. It's almost thesame, with a couple of slightdifferences. It'll become a little
collectors' item, I suppose, but
it's nowhere near as good."
IIHE IDEA OF puttingout an "oldies" album
has been inside Johnfor some time. "Every time
I make an album, whether it
was a Beatles album or oneof my own, I jam on oldies towarm up. There must be tonsof tapes around with me
doing songs like this just to get
the feel of being in the studio.
We'd do these numbers to
break the ice in case we were
getting too uptight about asong. If it wasn't a 12 -bar, it'dbe something like 'Stand By
Me', which everybody knew.
"With The Beatles, we covered
a lot of rock'n'roll on the early
albums, but we reallywere
loath to do it on record because
we always thought the originals
were so great we couldn't touchthem. We did them because

theywere our numbers on stage
and we didn't have enoughmaterial of ourown.
"We had no choice but torecord 'TwistAnd Shout' and'Dizzy' and all those things. We
had a sacred English thing
about rock'n'roll, but I've beenplaying 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' on
stage since I was 15. Mostly
they're my favourites, but 'Just
Because' was one I hardly everknew. Phil suggested that. 'Bony Moronie' was always a favourite, butthere's lot I've missed. I didn't make an attempt at early Presley.
"There was one of his I tried, but it was no good. I didn't touch
early Jerry Lee, and there's plenty of his I used to do. I also used
to sing all the early Buddy Holly stuff -in fact I was Buddy
Holly fora period, what with the glasses, even though
I didn't wear them on stage.
"There was a lot to goat, but there're 14 tracks oil

the album and most albums these days only have
10 tracks. I could have done more but I hate double
albums, even though some people like them. It's
too much, especially for one guy singing."
I mentioned how McCartneywould profit fromthe album...
"What a clever move that was. I hope he gives
me a good deal. Klein owns the Sam Cooke catalogue,too, which is 'Bring It On Home To Me. !don't
care who gets the money. With Paul it's cool'cos we're pals, and even Klein's all right really.
I'm not gonna get much money from thisalbum, anyway."
Conversation turned to John's recent
appearance on stage with Elton John, an
evening which obviously delighted him in thatthe audience gave him a conquering hero's
welcome as he stepped up to play.
"It was great. He was more nervous than I was,because he was nervous for me as well. Elton
used to be in the Dick James office when The
Beatles sent in their latest demo, so he had a realemotional feel for The Beatles. I went to see Elton

at Boston and I was nervous just watching him. I was thinking, 'Thank
God it isn't me' as he was getting dressed to go on.
"I went through my stage fright at Boston, so by the time I got toMadison Square I had a good time, and when !walked on they
were all screaming and shouting. It was like Beatlemania.
I was thinking, 'What is this!' cos I hadn't heard it since
The Beatles. I looked round and saw someone else
playing the guitar.
"It brought the roof down. It was déjà vu for me,
not like The Beatles screaming bit, but the place
was really rocking. We'd had a rehearsal, but weweren't that together. By the time we got to 'I Saw
Her Standing There', Elton's piano was jumping off
the floor.
"It was Elton's idea to do that song. We had to do'Whatever Gets You Thru The Night' because of a bet wehad. Elton played piano on the single and hesaid that if it got to Number One, would ! appear
on stage with him?
"I never thought it'd make Number One, but
it did and Elton called me and said ! hadn't to
break my word. So naturallywe did 'WhateverGets You Thru The Night'. And naturallywe did'Lucy, because ! did that with him at Caribou.
That's me out of tune in the background, doing
the reggae bit. I got it wrong just like I did theoriginal on Pepper.
"Elton wanted me to do 'Imagine, but I didn't
want to come on like Dean Martin doing myclassic hits. I wanted to have some fun and playsome rock'n'roll, and I didn't want to do more

"When I
walked on,they were all
screamingand shouting"

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 135

1975

JANUARY -MARCH

than three because it was Elton's show after all. He suggested 'I Saw Her
StandingThere' and I thought, 'Great', because I never sang the originalof that. Paul sang it and I did the harmony."
The experience, however, hasn't motivated John to go out on his own.
He says whimsically that it was good fun but he wouldn't like to do it fora living.
"I'm not against live performances, but I haven't got a group andI haven't put a stage show together. I'm just not keen on it right now, but I
may change my mind. It'd be dead easy to go out anddo this rock'n'roll material, but I'd have to do more. I'd
JOHNhave to do my old hits, which I wouldn't mind really."
John was expected to play at George Harrison's
Madison Square Garden show but didn't because he
had a row with Harrison over the signing of what hetime for rehearsal, and I didn't want it to be a case of just John jumping up
and playing a few chords.
"I went to see him at Nassau and it was a good show. The band was greatbut Ravi wasn't there, so I didn't see the bit where the crowd was supposedto get restless. I just saw a good, tight show. George's voice was shot but theatmosphere was good and the crowd was great. I saw George after the
Garden show and we were friends again. But he was surrounded by themadhouse that's called louring'."
Any bad publicity that George received throughdoing his tour hasn't affected John's attitude to live

Lamm
61MAGINE'

work. "I respect George but I think he made a
mistake on the tour. Mistakes are easier to spot if
you're not the person making them, so I don't want tocome on like 'I know better', 'cos I haven't done it.
"From what I read and heard, one of the basic
mistakes seemed to be that the people wanted tohear old stuff. George wasn't prepared to do that and
I understand him. When I did that charity at
Madison Square Garden I was still riding high on'Imagine', so I was OK for material. But when I did'Come Together', the house came down, which gave

calls the "Famous Beatles Agreement" -the final
dissolution of the group which required all four
signatures. John was the last to sign this document.
"George and I are still good pals and we always willbe, but I was supposed to sign this thing on the day of
his concert. He was pretty weird because he was in
the middle of that tour, and we hadn't communicatedfor a while because he doesn't live here. I've seen Paula bit because he comes to New York a lot, and I'malways seeing Ringo in Los Angeles.
"Anyway, I was a bit nervous about going on
stage, but I agreed to because it would have beenmean of me not to go on with George after I'dgone on with Elton. I didn't sign the documenton that day because my ast rologer told me it
wasn't the right day, tee hee. In the end I signed
it in Disneyworld in Florida with my son Julian.
I thought it suited the occasion.
"George was furious at the time because I
hadn't signed it when I was supposed to, andsomehow or other I was informed that I needn't
bother to go to George's show. I was quite
relieved in the end because there wasn't any

4 mean indication of what people wanted to hear.
"At the time I was thinking that I didn't want to"I respect
George but I

think he madea mistake onthat tour"

do all that Beatles shit -but now I feel differently.
I've lost all that negativity about the past and I'dbe happy as Larry to do 'Help. I've just changed
completely in two years. I'd do 'Hey Jude' andthe whole damn show, and I think George will
eventually see that. I f he doesn't, that's cool.
That's the way he wants to be."John is vague about his immigration situation,
which, of course, is still pending.
"There are all sorts of things popping up andthe whole thing is like a little teeny Watergate.
I think things are looking up because the oldguard have left and there's been a change inpolitics. But it's still down to a political decision
Arrivingatthe Grammy
Awards with Yokoand
David Bowie, who would
present Aretha Franklinwith the gongf or BestR&B VocalPerformancefrom the White House to let me off the hook. There's alotta people got into this country because there's beena special bill put through for them, and there's a chancethat may happen with me. They do it for Pakistanimaids and, for that matter, there're known Nazis living
here who're not being harassed.
"It was on the TV a week ago that Nazis are here,

including one who killed about 800,000 people in Poland.
There're drug dealers, too, who are in here. My lawyer has
a list of people who've committed rape, murder anddrugs dealing and they're hassling me. This is a lastresort but I'm gonna get that Green Card someday."jOHN HAS RECENTLY been involved in sessions
with David Bowie in New York. John met Bowie
at an LA party he'd attended, he says, in the hopeof seeing Liz Taylor. "Ringo knows her, so I went withhim and Elton, but I really got to know him throughMick [Jagger]. I see a lot of Mick when he's in town.
"David told me he was going to do a version of 'Across
The Universe' and I thought, 'Great,' because I'd neverdone a good version of that song myself. It's one of myfavourite songs, but I didn't like my version of it. So I
went down and played rhythm on the track. Then he got
this guitar lick, so me and him put this together inanother song called 'Fame' which is on his next album
too, I had fun and it'll be out soon."John says he's missing England. If he got his Green
Card tomorrow, he'd fly to London the following day.
He wants to see his Aunt Mimi again and he misses his
son Julian, although Julian was recently over for the
Florida vacation.
"We went to Disneyland on what must have been themost crowded day of the year. It's funny. I was sitting
on the monorail along with everyone else, not being
recognised, and I heard someone with his back to me
say that George Harrison was there today. The guy
was leaning on me at the time, and he'd heard that a
Beatle was there somewhere. He couldn't see the woodfor the trees.
"It was like the 'Which one of you is Ringo?' bit thatpeople used to say to us when we first started. I try not tomiss England and I make myself not get sentimental
about it. I say to myself that I'm gonna get this Green
Card, and when I do I'll be on the next plane."
Lastly, John mentioned that he's back with Yoko, after
a separation that has lasted over a year.
"I'm happy as Larry, and she is, I hope," he said. "We've
known each other for nine years. I met her in 1966. We
had a sort of breakdown last year, one way or another,
but we called each other often, even when I was going
crazy out on the West Coast, and I probably said a lot ofbarmy things to her which I'll regret. I was just goingover fora visit two weeks ago and it fell in place again.
"It was like I never left, although I'd been t herea few times. Suddenly it fell back into
place and I realised that this waswhere I belonged. I think weboth knew we'd get back
together again sooner
or later, even if it was
five years, andthat's why weROCK 'N' ROLL
never botheredwith divorce.
"I'm just glad
she let me backin again. It was

like going out
for a drink, but
it took me ayear to get it."

ChrisCharlesworth

Keep 'em

dancing
NME FEB 22

hew

LP is "the best s
Plastic Ono B
John Lennon
Huck II Ii1)11 APPLE"Re -lived by JL" it says on

the sleeve - and that's where
Rock 'n'Roll scores over last year's spateof retrospective enterprises.
Possessing no equivalent of Lennon's
crazily alienated youth to obsess them,
Bowie, The Band, Ferry et al could only
look back in warm nostalgia andattempt, with artistry, to recreate.
By comparison, Lennon is fixated. His
focus on his early teen years has thebrilliant gleam of genuine obsession.
He relives - and that's what preventsRock 'n'Rollfrom being charged with thearchness, the indulgence, the ambiguity
and the decadence that surrounded theattempts of Ferry and Bowie. Lennon
isn't into perspectives. Rock 'n'Roll iswhat it claims to be and no more.
And no more? Let's get this thing theright way up; this album is fine - the bestsustained effort on John Beatle's partsince Plastic Ono Band. (Although theparallel ends abruptly
there; Rock 'n'Roll's
twin principles arestrength and hilarity...
it's an "up" record...
party time, kids).
The quickest way to
become convinced is
to hammer into yourlocal disc vendor's den
and demand to hear Chuck Berry's"You Can't Catch Me" followed bywhen this came out. Or was it 74?"

I'm utterly disarmed and expect you'll
be also. Other points to watch include(1) an extraordinary
squealing guitar soloon "Stand By Me"(which I trust is by
Lennon, although thesleeve provides no
personnel); (2) "Do
You Want To Dance"
performed at adrunken lope; and (3)a rampaging "Peggy Sue" screeching
to a halt for Lennon to do his "Lookout!" bit before a manic rhythm guitar
charges in to take the central break.
Personally I'd have preferred apunchier version of "Sweet Little
Sixteen" and don't really care either
way about "Bring It On Home To Me","Be-Bop-A-Lula" and "Ya Ya", but
what's left ("Rip It Up"/"Ready Teddy-,"Slippin' And Slidin- and "Ain't That A
Shame") is, in the words of the ad man,sheer enjoyment.
One comes away from this album
with the hope that these old forms
are still viable; their simple strengths
are very much what's needed today. If
Lou Reed's oldies album hits it off (andhe must have a hell of a story to tell),
we might witness a complete changeof direction in the next year or so.
Meanwhile we leave Mr Lennon wishing
his listeners well from the final groovesof his latest fave album: "Everybody

His focus on his

early teen years
has the gleam ofgenuine obsession

Larry Williams'Bony Moronie".
Both have gigantic sounds - lots ofsnare, riffing saxes, chunking 12 -bar

guitars, and echo unlimited -care ofPhil Spector (who produced andco -arranged four of the best tracks inlate '73 before his car accident).
"You Can't Catch Me" isa powerhouse rock -outthat'd make a great
single with its"Come Together"references andall; "Bony
STER("An E.M.I.
Moronie" isRecording")
tackled at a
PCS 7169(YEA 943)
markedly slow
An
Apple
Mid. In U.K.
pace which
RecordSIDE
allows theCr)
SW Records
breaks to
1..d
I BEBOPALULA IDals--Y:ncerd) Carl,
Lys. Corp. 2. STAN°. BY
becomeME (King-Glick) Trio Deus. Ltd. 3. MEDLEY; (ittylIP(Blackwell-Marascalco) Maczneledles(b) MAO?
yawning gaps
(81acktvell-Marascalco) Cunt WA Coq.. 4. YOU CACATCH ME (Berry) Chappell A Co. Lid. S. AIN'T THAT A
ina mountain
SHAME (Dormno-Bartholorrwer) F. D. Et H. Lid. 6. 00 YOU
WANT TO DANCE (Freeman) ShrrwIn 61,61 titt
7. SWEET LITTLE SIXTrAh (Berry)1range of sound with Lennon left
suddenly alone in them, savouring lines
like "Rock'n'roll by the light of the silvery
moon" and "Making love underneaththe apple tree".
Both tracks are genuine rock 'n'roll
relived; Lennon simply accentuates thebeauties that were always there.
Anyone else would have felt obliged tocomment. The general scheme of thealbum is down to fast continuity (keep'em dancing); the overall moodconcerns Lennon's attitude to his own
enthusiasm (a song in his heart, a smileon his face). Witness the introduction of
Lloyd Price's "Just Because" with John
reminiscing over a swarm of mandolins:"Ali, remember this? Imust've been 13

here says Hi. Goodbye." lan MacDonald

Jewel ?Au L. J.

JOHN LENNO14-

4:Le=ratcor, jut.s.

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 I 37

THE HISTORY OF

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ROUNDHOUSE MIA RAU lova
SUNDAY- 5TH JANUARY -5.00.10.30
51..1 ilrlaC R116/11,

MM JAN -MAR qnh tangled up, ELO striking gold and a genuire nressing issue.
Dylan's fresh blood\V hen consideringI )ylan's Blood On The
I racks, could weplease resist comparisons withany previous albums and view
this set as a fresh statement. The
album dwells entirely on the
breakdown of man -woman
relationships. When has thisever been encountered soregularly as it is today -with thepathetic reasons showing an
increasing irresponsibility?
The warning and the pain of
consequence seem most evident
in "You're A Big Girl Now", with thelines like "What's the sense ofchanginghorses in midstream"
showing the downward path
which results from change
through idle fancy.
While wishing to refrain fromknown past descriptions, I cannot
help but feel that this album
mirrors a current mood and isalso an enormous artistic feat.
I do hope that the lukewarm
reviews will not deter people frombuying what I bel ieve will be seen
as a sane artist's attempt at
persuading us all to work harder at
our marriages and relationships.
DAVID R FRANKUM, Gaydon Close,
Lodge Park, Redditch (MM Feb 15)

a knife edge for two hours, where
it wasn't a case of predicting
what was coming next? Surely
they are similar to ELP in the way
they reproduce their songs notefor note on stage. However, ELP
have vast musical ability. Pink
Floyd have not.
As for musicianship, I can only
equate Messrs Waters, Wright,
Gilmour and Mason with the likes
of Sweet, but then at least I've
heard some fairly good licks bythem. I suppose I am grateful to
Alan Freeman in away, because
now I feel fully justified in calling
Pink Floyd the most overrated
load of rubbish i have ever heard.
PLUNNON, High Street,
Edlesboroug h. Beds (1,04Jan25)

Scratching the surface
Every record I have had from
Charisma has been faulty.
Ages ago I bought Foxtrotby
Genesis. It was faulty, I took it backto the shop and eventually I tried
all their stock (six records in all),which were all faulty. They sent
them back and got a new stock all faulty. That was all they could
do for me, they said, and gave me
one of the faulty records.
I sent that back to Charisma,
who sent me another copy (faulty)
but accused my stylus of damaging
records. What rubbish!Anyway,
the story goes on with mepurchasing more faulty records(by Genesis, The Nice, etc).
Yesterday I bought The Lamb Lies
Down On Broadwayby Genesis,
which cost me £4.49. It wasn't
worth £2 because most of it was

damaged. The shop assistant told
me that it was the second one
they'd had back that morning.
I also know fora fact that a shopin Sheffield has had 50 returned.
Floyd: dark side of the tunes
I'm sitting here listening to a live
Pink Floyd extravaganza on the
Alan Freeman show. Well, justwhat I expected. I haven't really
heard them since the days of
Syd Barrett, but really, to callthis band a leading contender
for the coveted title of the Melody
Maker Poll band of the year, does
an injustice to the bands thatreally deserve it.
The songwriting andcompilations !sic I must bequestioned for their looseness andlack of any substantial ability.
Whatever happened to the rockbands whose music kept you on

RP Walker, Victoria Street,
Ripley, Derbyshire

A spokesman for Charisma said:"We are fully aware of thisproblem and very much regretthat initial batches of the newGenesis album were, in manycases, faulty. If anyone with afaulty record writes to Charisma
we assure them that no letter willbe ignored. They can also send therecord direct to the company
which presses our material:
Dennis Watkins, EMI Records,
1-3 Uxbridge Road, Hayes, Middx.
All faulty records will be replacedby perfect copies." (MMJan 18)

Roy Wood defends ELO

After reading Melody Maker's
review of The Electric Light
Orchestra at London's Drury Lane
Theatre, I can honestly say I've
never read such a load of selfindulgent cocky reporter's shit in
all my life. I took some time offfrom recording to go to the concert
and feel that I can probably look at
it with more of an objective viewthan anyone else, having once
played with this band.
When they are quoted as beinga "singles band", obviouslyyou
haven't heard the Eldorado
album, which in my eyes could
be the most exciting work since
Sgt Pepper.
And to say also that they arepretentious, with no spirit ofadventure, makes me feel that
this bloke must have gone to thewrong theatre.
The criticism of the string
section was grossly unfair. It
seemed to enlarge on the factthat they were "whirling celli
over their heads" (which,incidentally, they only did
towards the end of the show),rather than explaining that they
are actually fine musicians.
The unbelievable violin solo
by M ik Kaminski wasn't once
mentioned. He ended up playing"Orange Blossom Special" ata hundred miles per hour, whileleaping round the stage on one
leg like a raving loony.
Well, that's entertainment, folks.
And how about telling
everybody what nice songs Jeff
Lynne is writing now, and how
well he and new bass player Kelly
sang them? Oh yes -Richard
Tandy's name was once
mentioned, but you forgot to tell
everybody that he was actually

GROUNDHOGS

711 STRAY .171ri

42 and"og,

laughingUV

Vtalaid&Iiialik.Irl,:Lek:

F WINNING POST0bo

HEAVY METAL KIDS
PRO0.1101.0411'NIITT'I ORE1101

Roam:iv X THE Minnplaying intricate chorus andorchestral parts simultaneously-which, for want of another word,
could only be described asabsolutely breathtaking.
What a shame the reviewer
has bad ears. It was the best show
I'd seen by any group for ages,
with plenty of excitement andgood humour.
Reporters beware -don't wait
until they become the biggest
band in the land and then write
nice things about them justbecause it's the "in" thing to do.
Clean yer bloody ears out andlisten to Eldorado.
ROY WOOD (MMMar 8)

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

39

1975
PR

O

LED ZEPPELIN, CAN,QUEEN, DR FEELGOOD,

PATTI SMITH AND MORE

A naturalprogression
MM JUNE 7 David Bowie begins
the Man Who Fell To Eartb
DAVID BOWIE LAUNCHED a film careert his week when he started work on a new
movie, The Man Who Fell To Earth. It is

Bowie's first film role, although two years ago
he was poised to star in the movie
version of Stranger In A Strange
Land, Robert Heinlein's bestselling science -fiction novel.
Plans for that movie fell throughduring the planning stages.
Nevertheless, Bowie has always seen
the cinema as a natural progression
in his career. The new film, being
shot on location in New Mexico, is
described as "a mysterious American
love story spanning 25 years".
It is being directed by Nicolas Roeg,
who was responsible for Mick
Jagger's film, Performance. Work on
The Man Who Fell To Earth started on
Monday and a 10 -week shooting

schedule has been planned. The film
will be released in the autumn -andbe accompanied by a soundtrack
album featuring at least two new
Bowie songs.

1975APRl -JANE
Scott -Heron:
determined tosay "something
really relevant"tremendous opportunity when you comeinto contact with thousands of people by
way of radio or a concert. I could never getover it if I found myself doing a concert
where I didn't say something really
relevant if I had the chance."
His poems that evening had included
various references to the recent CIA/
Howard Hughes -backed attempt to raise
the submerged warhead -carrying
Russian submarine; Frank Wills, thesecurity guard who originally discovered
the Watergate break-in; and thepersecution of several black extremists.
"Our [black] poetry has an oral traditionin terms of the fact there were poems
before there was written language. The
history of the tribes and the villages wasdelivered orally and verbally. A lot of things"Interpreter (if the

you can do orally really do not come acrossas well in literature, and there's something
about the dramatic presentation of a poem
that doesn't happen on paper."Scott- Heron attaches a great dealof importance to his teaching post at

black experience"

MAY 17 Jazz/soul poet Gil Scott -Heron signs a new deal - but his

teaching job keeps him "in contact with the things that create writing".
NEWYORK:1 hear they're asking
Rockefeller to investigate the CIA.
Well now, in my opinion that's stupid.
Asking Rockefeller what's wrong with the CIA
is like asking James Brown what's wrong withsoul music. -Gil Scott -Heron's small audience cracks up
at this statement of the obvious, one of many
that are flowing this evening in his motel
room in New Jersey. His energy level remains
intact even though he's just walked off stage
following a fiercely energetic concert at
a black college to minutes' drive away.
His set lasted well over two hours - long byanyone's standards - and my companions andI were amazed when we looked at our watches
as the house lights in the college gymnasium
indicated that it was over. We thought we'dbeen there an hour.
There were two highlights: a percussion
jam based. I was told, on an African fertility
dance that involved at least half of Scott Heron's band (The Midnight Band) on
a wide assortment of unusual percussive
instruments, and a half-hour segment during
which Scott -Heron recited his poems.

It cost just Si to attend Scott -Heron's
performance at the Livingston College in
New Jersey, a ridiculously low figure but one
which Scott- Heron's contract defines quite
clearly. At a more open venue he will charge
more, but he doesn't want to make money outof black people.
Clive Davis has just signed Scott -Heron to
his new Arista label, a move which is bringing
him to the attention of a farlarger public than his work
was afforded previously. His
Arista album (his second),
The First Minute Of A New
Day, made the Top 30 in
the US and a single, a jazzy -there were so many other things to singabout. At first I was letting the words
dictate what the music should sound likeand that was wrong. It should be the otherway round. Once I met Brian [Jackson],
who had a lot of tunes and didn't do muchwith lyrics, I learned how to play andhe learned how to do poetry. There's a

Washington's Federal City College,
partly because he feels strongly that thebest teachers are not available incommunity schools and partly because it
keeps him in touch with that community.
"I want to make sure that my input stays in thecommunity," he said. "And as I teach creative
writing, I want to make sure that my writing
keeps in contact with my art and the current
concepts. If I'm on the road for five days. I
can't keep up with my writing, but being in theclassroom a day or two a week will keep me incontact with the things that create writing. Scott -Heron cannot predict which way his
career is going and refuses
to be drawn on the subject.
"That's like separating yourlife from your career andall the other things you do,like putting everything intoa little box.
"I never think of myself
in those terms. I just dowhat I have to do today, andto say my career is going into one direction isto predict the future. In general I would like to
see the things we are doing now continue todevelop as they have over the last five years.
"I think we have consistently shown
progress both lyrically and musically and been
consistent in terms of the ideas that we
express within our interpretation of the black
experience. If you consider yourself aninterpreter of the black experience you havemuch work to do and many things to say. Among Scott -Heron's fans is Stevie
Wonder. After his recent appearance at
New York's Bottom Line Club, Wonder washeard to remark: "Gil says things a lot of
people are afraid to say." Wonder was right.

"I want to makesure my input
stays in thecommunity"

flavoured, conga -accented,
piece of funk called "Ain't
No Such Thing As
Superman", is still rising.
With his enormous writing talent and his
exceptional band (many of whom, like himself,
are college graduates) Gil Scott -Heron has it in
him to be the biggest black artist in the US
since Stevie Wonder. He refers to his musicians
and all black people as "brothers" or " sisters."
All the members of his stage band were
Lincoln students. "That was the first group
I was in that I was part of the direction of...
I'd played piano in beat groups and sungthe '000hs' and 'aaaahs' and whatever," hetold me as we relaxed in the motel.
"I'd sung songs like 'Ain't Too Proud To
Beg', 'Knock On Wood' and 'Soul Man',
which was all right, but I still felt there
were so many things happening, that

Chris Charlesworth,Lemmy(left)andMotorhead'sfirst

Elton John will
debut a new lineup
for his band at thehuge Wembley
Stadium concert
this summer. Nigel
Olson and Dee
Murray, thedrummer and bass
player with the
Elton John Band,
have both quit. But
replacements will
be found before theWembley concert

drummer. Lucas Fox

on June 21. The

departure of
Olsson and Murray"Your lawn
would die"

Wood (lef t)and Richards
backstage during the
Rolling Stones'1975 tourof the Americas

maws
nawkwind, forms new group.
MM JUNE 7I

Close friendshipwith Keith Richards
MM APR 19

rik,..,..... _.,.,......

_. ..,Jir...,.. ...... ...g guitarist... the Faces' Ronnie Wood.
RON WOOD IS to join the Rolling Stones for an American tour

this summer. But he is not becoming a permanent memberof the band. The tour, which encompasses both the Northand South American continents, starts early in June, and Wood
will be taking the place of M ick Taylor, who quit the band in
December last year.
A spokesman for the band said that Wood will be playing with theStones only for the tour, and he still remains a member of the Faces.
Thus any decision over a new permanent guitarist for the Stones
has been postponed until after the tour, which it is believed willend in mid -July. Among names mentioned for the job are Wayne
Perkins and Harvey Mandel.
Wood formed a close friendship with Keith Richards last year
when the Stones guitarist collaborated on Wood's solo LP project,lye Got My Own Album To Do. Richards also appeared at Wood's
London concerts, which were a prelude to the album's release.
The American tour, which is believed to start in New Orleanson June 3, will be probably followed by European and British
concert dates.

Found hanged 'I'm'
pETER HAM, GUITARIST, singer and songwriter with Badfinger,
was found hanged on April24 at his home in Woking, Surrey. He

was 27 and unmarried.
Born in Swansea, he began as a musician in a group called The Iveys,
who became Badfinger after sending a demo to The Beatles' Apple
company in 1968. After being signed to the Apple label, and getting a hitsoon after with "Come And Get It", they were always in the shadow of
The Beatles, and constantly suffered from the comparison. Ham wasalso the co -writer of "Without You", a Number One hit for Nilsson.
The group worked mainly in America, where in 1972 they had
a Number One with "DayAfter Day". They also played at George
Harrison's Bangla Desh Benefit concert there. Two years ago, the groupleft Apple and signed with Warner Brothers. The funeral is next week.

LEMMY, BASS PLAYER with cosmic
rockers Hawkwind, announced thisweek that he has quit the band. The
decision came midway through Hawkwind's
US tour. Lemmy flew back to Britain, and atemporary replacement was immediately
flown over to America to enable the band tofulfil all outstanding commitments.

splits up a musicalrelationship that
goes back to thebeginning of Elton's
career - each has
been with him since
the early '70s,

before the additionof Ray Cooper(percussion) and
Davey Johnstone(guitar) to the band.
Olsson ispresently recording
a solo album at the
Caribou Ranch in
Arizona, while
Murray has yet toannounce his futureplans. MM APR 19

Lemmy now plans to launch his own band,
Motorhead, named after the song of the same
name, which was the B-side of "Kings Of
Speed". A re-recorded version of this song
could be the new band's first single. No
musicians have been named, but Lemmy said
it will be a four -piece and that he would be
handling bass and lead vocals. "This will be a
step forward for me," he said. "The new band
will concentrate on, shall we say, very basic
music. I felt they were losing some of that

quality and moving in a different direction."
Several other songs besides "Motorhead"are being considered for release, and an album
is being prepared. A debut tour is scheduled
for August or September. "This band will be sodirty," said Lemmy, "if we moved in next door
to you, your lawn would die."

Cult New Yorkpoetess and songwriter Patti Smith isto sign an exclusive

long-term contract
with Arista Records,
reportedly for a six figure advance. It is

understood thatseveral othercompanies werenegotiating for her,but she felt that
Clive Davis' Arista
label could give her
the support andexposure sheneeds. Along with
Lenny Kaye (guitar),
Richard Sohl (piano)and Ivan Kral (bass),
Patti is performing
regularly in New
York, and it is likelythat she will visit
Britain to tie in with
her Arista launch
here. NME APR 5HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 143

"People want to dance and forget
their trouble,.,,0

MM APR 5 nn New York discotheques it's the record that's king,Int the grtiO hitt jt'e eta! nnnd npwe fnr Rnrrl, White and 1 ,hoincc

HEY'RE THE BIGGEST thing
since The Beatles, and it's going
to be like that for two years."
Billy Smith was screaming the above
sentence at the top of his voice, struggling to
be heard above the records being played at
Le Jardin, a New York discotheque opposite
the Diplomat Hotel on West 43rd Street.
"Rock is dead, I tell you. Kids wantsomething different and this is it," he yells,
spreading out arms towards a dancefloor
where well over a hundred dancers are
gyrating beneath strobe lights to an incessant
output of "new" soul music.
Billy Smith is a self-styled expert on
discotheques and discotheque music.
The "they" to which he was referring in
the opening paragraph is not a group or
singer, but a phenomenon that has been
directly responsible for much of the singles
chart in the USA over the past 12 months:
the discotheques.
Billy Smith is the first record company
promotion man - he works for 20th Century,
but the actual company makes little
difference - whose job involves working only
14 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

the discotheques. Previously, of course,
record promotion men, or pluggers, haveworked exclusively with radio stations,persuading programme directors and radio
jocks to play their wares.
Smith's appointment is just one pointer tothe growing world importance of
discotheques as a means of breaking arecord, and he's working a city where a new
discotheque seems to open every week.
"It's the economic situation that's
responsible," Smith is saying as Le Jardin jockBobby Guttadaro juggles between Labelle
and Gloria Gaynor and fights the switches on
the complex lighting system. "People want todance and forget their troubles, so they'returning to this type of music, music to dance to.
"This is the next big thing, the next Beatles
if you like. The Beatles arrived after a sort ofdepression, and disco music is now taking theplace of rock. I think it'll last two years at least
before something else comes along, but rightnow you've got to agree with me. Just
look at the charts."
Smith "broke" Barry White
through the New Yorkdiscotheques, Le Jardin in particular. Radiostations weren't prepared to play White'svariations on the Love Unlimited themes,so Smith tried servicing discotheque jocks,
taking the records round to the clubs
personally and building up a relationshipwith the jocks and club owners that had
never been attempted before.
Previously disco jocks in New York andelsewhere were lucky to receive freepromotional records from companies - evenby mail. Usually they bought their own andbuilt up jealously guarded record collections.
Radio, after all, is king in the States. With somany stations pumping out every conceivable
form of music hour after hour, it is not
surprising that bigger companies spurned
the discotheques as a promotional vehicle.
Now they are regretting it.
"Now promotion men from othercompanies come and ask me to help thembecause they're new to the scene," says Smith

Kids want something

different this is it!

STEREO

45 RPM

LADY MARMALADE
From cliqueygay
hangout topopular

dancdestination:
New York disco

LJardininte75

4with some satisfaction. "I
don't mind doing it. If a record
is good, danceable, then thejocks will play it anyway, withor without me recommending
it. I do know now what'll go in
the discotheques and what
won't. So do the disc jockeys.
They ought to be the A&R
men these days."
There are two types of
discotheque in New York.
Firstly, there are those like Le
Jardin which keeps regular
hours, opening at nine andclosing at four, serving
alcohol and catering for both
singles and couples. Entrance
costs $io (about £4), and that
includes a couple of drinks. Le
Jardin is currently enjoying
a tremendous popularity,
having been transformed
from mainly gay hangout toa crowded dance emporium
within the past six months.
The second type is thecultist discotheque thatcaters for the ultra -serious
dancers. These clubs open
later and stay open until six orseven the following morning.
No alcohol is served at all(bars must close at 4am in
New York) and the clientele
is mainly gay.

Entrance is membership
only, and membership cancost up to $100 a year (about£40). There's also anentrance fee of around $ioeach time you go, but members can bringguests with them. Both types are equallyimportant when it comes to testing andbreaking potential hit singles, says Smith,
who spends every night of the week cruisingaround discotheques until the early hours,
chatting up disc jockeys and delivering
records. He doesn't get to his office until wellinto the afternoon.
"Discos have really caught record
companies on the hop," Smith continues after
handing a white label of Barry White's next
album to the resident disc jockey. "Now I bring
my white label down here to have it played
first instead of on the radio. I can also watch
the reaction to various cuts on the album.
"If I see people stop dancing when one
track is played and start dancing to another,
then I'll know which one is Barry's best single.

Jocks work out their programmes that way,
too. If a record is a stiff it's simple to see
because people will stop dancing. If people
dance, it's a hit. The formula can't miss.""The jocks down here havebecome so good at telling.
which records will makehits that they're
starting to go into
studios as assistantproducers or
consultants when
disco records arebeing made. Theys."ra richer crowd and isadvise the artists or the real
LABELLEmembership -controlled.
producer whether or not it'll
Drinks are more expensive andget the dancers going."
the plush red velvet surroundings,
A glance at recent singles chart while initially resembling a Paris brothel, aretoppers confirms exactly the points Smithchic and comfortable too. They also feature
enjoys making. "Lady Marmalade", thea nifty line in waitresses -or hostesses -whoLabelle single, is an obvious dancing song,wear dresses slit up to the hip. The dancing iswith an irresistible hookline that bodes well
just as furious, though, and the music isfor events that may occur later in theessentially the same. Smith agrees it's theevening. "Shame, Shame, Shame", too, wassame everywhere.
obviously created with the discotheque"Clubs are opening up all the time
market in mind, with lyrics that spell out the
because of the craze, so it's not only record
need to dance if the rhythm is right.
companies who are creaming off money
To a slightly lesser extent there's been thefrom dance records. There's one opening up
recent success of black groups like the Ohio
tonight and I'll bet you there's lines around
Players, Kool & The Gang and The Hues
the block. Mainly it'll be gays, though."Corporation. All of them saw the light
The fact that New Yorkthrough danceable singles,
has probably the largest
and even our own Averagegay community in the world
White Band got in the act(certainly the most openwith "Pick Up The Pieces'',
gay community) is anotherthe single that led to thecontributing factor to theenormous success of theirdisco phenomenon. Gay
second album in the States.
men like to dance, and they
Gloria Gaynor was
like to dance to blackrecently crowned "Queenmusic, perfecting their
Of The Discos" at - you've
styles and impressing their partners. And
guessed - Le Jardin. Barry White threw awhile the sight of a dancefloor occupied solely
party at the same establishment when heby males is mildly disconcerting at first, you've
first rose from the ranks, and White felt so
got to admit they're great dancers.
strongly about the club's role in his success
The gay, late -night spots are mainlythat he presented a gold album of his Love
downtown in the vicinity of Greenwich
Unlimited set to Jardin DJ Guttadaro.
Village, and several of them are lofts
Dancing at Le Jardin provides a release
converted for the purpose. They're very
that few rock concerts can provide. Strobe
private, with word of mouth being the only
lights flicker almost all the time.
advertising. No more is needed, and theConversation is ruled out completely. The
clubs are not so much out to make a profit asrecords never, but never, stop. The jockprovide a meeting place for minority groups.
never speaks but does take requests. The
But dancing is the prime motive, and dancing
amount of records played seems to vary
goes on until well after dawn.
between 20 and 30, and favourites are
Vicki Wickham, who manages Labelle,
repeated at least once an hour.
is convinced that discotheques were"These people buy the records and dance
responsible for the initial thrust behind theat home," says Smith, indicating the swellingband. "We have made better records than
throng on the large floor."When 'Kung Fu'Nightbirds.,- she told me last week. "ButFighting' was big, there was a dance to go withthey were totally uncommercial. People had
it, and people practised their steps at home. It
to sit and listen to them. By doing a much
was a huge craze here for a while, withfunkier album, it got into the discos."
dancers chopping at each other karate style."
It was the Paris discotheques that were the
The record is all-important, rather thanfirst to pick up on "Lady Marmalade'', notthe artist, in the case of disco records. Whilesurprisingly in view of the French -language
trusted favourites like White will undoubtedlylines in the song. "When we saw what was
get a play on sight, a completely unknown act
happening in France, how the clubs were
is just as likely to get equal promotion if theplaying it, we got Epic to service thejocks - and the dancers - react to it strongly.
discotheques over here in the States," said
After all, whoever heard of George McCrae
Vicki. "We employed a discotheque
before "Rock Your Baby"?
promotion man in California to take it around"I'm still the only promotion guy who goes
LA clubs, and between him and Epic I thinkin person around the clubs.- Smith is saying
we covered almost every disco in America.
as we travel uptown to the Hippopotamus.
We sent the album to thousands of discos,"They must see the light of day soon, andand the two cuts they played were 'Lady
start appointing their guys to do a job like
Marmalade' and 'What Can I Do For You'.
me. They'll find it hard, though, especially if"It was definitely discos rather than radio
they're not prepared to stay out all night."
with us. Kids were going into the stores to
The Hippo is a cut above Le Jardin,
buy it because they'd heard it in discos andwhich offers fake plants for decor
not because they'd heard it on the radio.
and is, after all, slightly shabby
From the discos it went on to jukeboxes inbeneath the neon -lit facade.
N.
N.
bars and then on to the radio.
It's one of those places where"People want a good time and they can
you dread to see what itt
have it in a discotheque. It gets us back to thelooks like empty and withwipla idepression. but it's a fact. Ask Monti Rock or
1110217! ithe lights turned up full.
Gloria Gaynor. They'll tell you the sameo
Hippo seems to bething." Chris Char/esworth
couples only. It caters for"

Strobe lights
flicker all the time.
The records never,
but never, stop

NITC:TAwAt

Law* ailIM
A. $00101111

NOW

WHAT AN I GONNA 00 WITH YOU?

u. Wb.te

BARMY WHITEHISTORY OF ROCK 1975

I 45

APRIL

JANE

1975

"We'rerock'n'rollers

t heart"QUEEN work on a new

album. featuring a song
srcalled 'Bohemian
Rhapsody". But has
worldwide success gone46
to Freddie Mercury's
head? "I'm thinking of
being carried on stage by
Nubian slaves," he sa s.

MR.ODY MAKER
THE TOKYO FANS roaredas Queen swaggered
across the stage 'midst
flashing lights, smokeand dry ice. It wasa curious cry, butroughly translated into English
it meant "Get your knickers
off', and such debasement ofth langu rge was a direct
rc sult of c:.aching from one
Freddie IV.mTury and his
trt sty inter preter.
Freddie w3s inspired to introduce
his Japanesa fans to the art of

V

6

ep:.

'
'1/4!dcoarse sho _ t ing when he attended
a strip club one night during Queen's
recent highly successful tour of the landof the risi hi steel production. To his

surprise, the buxom Japanese wenches
were shedd ing kimonos to the swellingrhythms o' 'Killer Queen", the hit song that

ha:sent hmrts pulsing throughout
decadent wastern-style society.
' We wer :hooting, 'Get 'em off,' and ourinterpreterasked what it meant. When we
explained - ley fell about laughing, andtranslated it into Japanese. Soon Queen *111,,,

I

17

1975
APRIE-

JANE

audiences found themselves encouraged to shout not on ly "Yeah,
yeah" and expressions to the effect that they felt "all right", but suchdiverse variations as "Shag out!"
Freddie chuckled at the memory as he sipped tea from aceremonial bowl. He was clad in a dazzling kimono, and sat crosslegged on the floor of his abode, decorated with Samurai swords
and hand -made parasols, just down the road from Shepherd'sBush. Rather like the Victorian explorers, he had brought homethe lifestyle and artefacts of a foreign culture, and seemed anxious
not to lose the magic of a cou ntry that had obviously madea considerable impression.
"I loved it there, the life style, the art... I'd goback tomorrow if I could," insisted Freddie,
shooing his cats Tom and Jerry off a Led Zeppelin
album that had been carelessly exposed.
How has it been these last few months? Freddie
seemed just slightly enervated, not quite thegarrulous showman I first met on a dark night inLiverpool, on their British tour last autumn.
"It's been... fun. When we finished theEnglish tou r we went to Europe. We came backat Christmas and then we went to America,
which was quite a bash. Two months. That's
when I came a cropper. I had voice trouble,
these horrible nodules began to form on myvocal cords.
"I went to see specialists in England andAmerica, and they were talking about an operation, but fortunately they
seem to have gone down now a nd it won't be necessary. Thank God. In
America they were talking about giving me laser -beam treatment. They
just singe them off, but they still don't know about the after-effects, which
could be dangerous.
"I had experienced trouble before, and always thought it was just a sorethroat. But in America it really started hurting, especially after we did six
shows in four nights. A specialist told me I'd have to stop singing or I'dhave no voice left at all. And that really frightened me. So we had to cancel
quite a lot of shows. We seem dogged by bad luck."
Freddie worked out that he had done some 80 shows in the past few
months. Hadn't this led to any protests 'twixt group and management?
Freddie smiled his saturnine smile, and waved a gracious hand: "Well,there's been the usual, 'Are you trying to kill me?', and we protested ofcourse, but it didn't really kill me, and we had a week's holiday in Hawaii.
And you have to gauge the work against the success we've been having.
In Japan we're quite a hit [Freddie has a way with understatement]. It
started the moment we got there- riots at the airport, bodyguards, justlike the old Beat le days.
"The organisation was spellbinding, and we loved every minute of it.
Yes we needed protection. You couldn't go down into the lobby of thehotel, it would be infested, but really nice people, waiting for autographs.
"And I couldn't believe the crowds at the concerts, all milling about,swaying a nd smiling. I learnt a few Japanese phrases. It took a lot ofpractice, but the fans couldn't believe it. I used
to eavesdrop and pick a few things up. You haveto make it very fast and snappy."
Freddie broke off to issue a few fast, snappy
instructions to his lady, in Japanese. I think
he was asking her for some more tea andstrawberries.
How long had this been going on in Japan?
"Well, Queen Hwas the LP of the year, andsince then it just built up. We were given somany beautiful presents, dolls, lanterns,
and they're so into rock music. They've got
some very good groups of their own. They startout bycopying ours, and after a while they startto get better. We had a Japanese road crew, and-421/Awt

t hey picked up the routine in
two days."
How did Queen see their position
during this breathing space
between bursts of activity?
"We're in the process of seeing
how much money we've got. I've
been living in this flat for three
years and I'd like to buy a house, but
I'd still like to live in London. This
place holds a lot of memories. Al I thesongs for the first albums wereit ten on that piano."A ghostly note struck as hespoke. Thomas the Cat had leapt on the keys and was

knocking out an interesting improvisation.
"Yes, Queen hand Sheer Heart Attackwere bashed
out on that. This is kind ofstock-taking, and this is theworst possible time for me. Where do we go from here?
As far as tours are concerned, we're going to start thealbum, do anotherAmerican tour, finish the album
and then do a British tour. Japan again next year, but
I'd go sooner.
"By the way," (and here Freddie's thoughts again
turned away from the next LP despite my holding up
a large placard with 'What's the next LP like?' slashedacross it in red paint), "when we were in Japan we went
to a tea ceremony, like the one the Queen went to (THEQueen). And you noticed how she pulled a face after two sips? Well, it'sa thick green liquid, and it's bitter as hell! You're supposed to finish it inthree sips.
"We went to a reception. All the top Japanese businessmen were there,
and the British Ambassador, and his wife. She told us: 'Wewent to see Led
Zeppelin, but he was so loud!"
Very interesting, I rejoined, snatching up a Samurai sword andpreparing to disembowel the singer, but what about the next LP?
"So much has happened to us, all at the same time, and we are very fussy
and particular about everything we do. We've
been very successful worldwide, and that's one
thing I never did foresee, our success outside
Britain. There has been pressure on us andwe'll have to stand up to it. We argue after every
gig and there are rows in the dressing room.
That's because we're temperamental and"We're in theprocess ofseeing how
much money
we've got"..--Nt,11., MARL. My IS

1015

things go flying.
"I get frustrated and row with my manager,
and so many times he's threatened to leave.
No, I don't cover it up, or hide anything. I used
to seal it up and then explode all over the place.
But success has made us see the light at the endof the tunnel. It was more frustrating in theearly days, when the press were not very
favourable towards us. I got
very depressed as far aslaBritain was concerned.
"And then came a time
when I thought we wereover -exposed in all thepapers. I was talking toeve. bigigr!

E.0:1111,
Ah so-its Fleddie Mercury!
-PANT N1k
as

Queen

SWati.Kasessedstage nndst
across._.,.-- theIsesIst

eneekeQueen Elizabeth His not thewee. toemeet,

In'I ...re II, Me 01.
a
N*1 stsossiessks

sat seseee twi selells Y.l'eedelee
ear, et salt nest s slag eel

rr,morr, tret.

Apri122.1975: (I -r) John
Deacon. Roger Taylor.
Brian May and Freddie

Mercury in the gardenof their Tokyo hotel

Robert Plant about this in New Orleans. We
get an older audience in the States; it's rockas opposed to pop. We get a lot of listeners.
And in LA where we were told theywere all laidback and stoned audiences, they were
all rock'n'rollers. We had to cancel a lotof prestigious gigs because I was ill, but when
we go back, we'll be playing even bigger places."
What made Queen so attractive to world
audiences?
"I believe it's the music and not gimmicks. Yes,
it's our music actually." Freddie said it with justa glint of steel in his casual glance up from theceremonial teapot. "I just feel the music has

You'd all be scalded to death! I chuckled. "Goshyes," said Freddie without enthusiasm. "We'relearning all the time, and we're all getting ourshow more polished. Many's the time I've
dashed offstage fora costume change andheard Brian finish his guitar solo abruptly, while
I'm still putting my trousers on. I have to rush onstage half -undressed. I've been caught quite
a few times like that. All good fun, though."
British fans will experience this spectacle
once again next November, but meantime there
is wild talk of Queen playing Empire Pool,
Wembley, maybe at the end of August.
"I'm wondering whether to wait and do the
new LP first."
Ah yes, now about that album...
"We have been a longtime away. The States and Britain want a single,
y'know, and we won't pull another one off an album. But we never go
into a studio just to record a single. It always comes from a batch of songs.
I always get depressed when it all stops for us. Then you have to will
yourself back into the pace.
"Yes, I've been depressed and upset lately. Suddenly you're back homefrom a tour, and you have to make your own cup of tea again. And I'm used
to being pampered and cossetted..."Re the LP recording scheduled to follow up SheerHeartAttack...
"Did I ever tell you about the time a girl pushed a dog into my arms while
I was singing on stage in Toledo?"
Well, it was time to go, Freddie, thanks for everything...
"By the way, just one thing...""A girl pushed
a dog into myarms while I
was on stagein Toledo"

something sufficiently different about it, someoriginality and versatility. Our record company in America weren't
billing us as the Next Big Thing. They just said, 'Have a listen to this; this is
British rock in the raw tradition, not the newest rage. They also said ourstage act was very good.
"We do 'Killer Queen, but only as part of a medley, and that's because it
is only one facet of what we do, and to be honest, it's very hard to recreate

those harmonies. We have been thinking of revamping the show toprovide two climaxes- I'm giving away my secrets. I was thinking of
having the first part in all black and the second in white. We've learnt a lot
doing a two-hour show. You have to pace it out, or you get whacked."
Did Freddie still maintain his onstage aggression and ferocity?
"I feel aggressive during aggressive numbers, and subdued in subdued
numbers. We're rock'n'rollers at heart. We don't want a lot of props onstage. We do a lot of dry ice and throw the odd flower. By the way, we don't
use steam. Was it your man in New York who said we used steam? I hadvisions of us all boiling kettles backstage."

Yes, yes?

"You must come down and hear us record the next album." Chris Welch *HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 149

1975
APRIL

"Mynodulesarestill
withme-:Mercury
onstageint975,
sufferingforhisart

JANE

NME

PTEMBER .L i

IT'S EASYTO understand how "Queen to
split" rumours get underway. The band's
expected large summer gig never happened
and the non-appearance of either an album ora single kept the silence at deafening point.
From America we hear that Brian May wasoffered a job with Sparks and in England there
were stories to the effect that the band's
management situation was none too amicable.
And throughout all this time the band remained
schtum, giving no interviews and neither
confirming nor denying anything. Even a
promised visit to see the band at RockfieldStudios was "put off" at the last moment. Is all
well in Mercury's trousers?
Still, all is now resolved. Queen now have a new
manager, and their biggest headache is How The
Hell Are They GoingTo Finish The New Album
in time for November release? They are alsoplanning a major British tour for late November
and a single for October, so it's time to zip up
and get going.
It was three dishevelled members of Queen
who were finally brought to bay at the studios in
London. John Deacon was absent since they wereadding vocals and I was informed he doesn't
participate overly on that side of things. Twomembers of Hustler- a quite different group were sitting in the control room aghast at t hemeticulous way the band record.
If they sang "no no no" once, they sang it 20
times in the space of about 10 minutes. And oneach occasion someone would find fault. It must
get exceedingly
tedious. The trackin question is a
Mercury composition,"Bohemian Rhapsody";
very much an operatic
opus, taxing the vocal
cords to the hilt. On
playback it sounds
truly magnificent.
undeniably Queen yetwith greater depth thanon any previous efforts.
Mercury is bouncing
about saying "Hellodear" to newarrivals.
Brian May still looks fragile and Roger Taylor
sits down ratherwearily. They a re scheduled
to carry on recording till 2am. Mercury seems
like he's itching to talk and, yes, there's plenty
to ask. Like what happened with the oldmanagement, Freddie?
He takes a deep breath.
"As far as Queen are concerned they are
deceased. They cease to exist in any capacitywith us whatsoever. One leaves them behind
like one leaves excreta. We feel so relieved.""Brianacquired a
new guitar he can almost
make it speak"

It appears to be an almost rehearsed answer.
I plod on. How did the change of management
come about -why change?
"We felt there came a time when we had got far too big for them tohandle. We needed bigger handling. We needed a change. But I don't
want to delve into trivia..."And on to John Reid, new manager, also manager of Elton John.
"Actually, we were approached by- and we ourselves approached a series of top -class managers to make sure we made the right choice.
John Reid happened to be the choice because he flashed his eyes at me
and I said, 'Why not." Mercury laughs.
50 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

"He's great, actually. I thought he could dowith another piano player so we could play
duets all night. I said, 'What's better than one
piano playerrrwo piano players.' In away it's
just what we wanted and the combination isgoing to be startling. It's the sort of combination
we've wanted for years. The whole structure ofrecord deals and his whole method of work, hiswhole approach is so right. He came in tonegotiate the whole structure of recording,publishing and management."
Mercury was present at the recent much published John Reid birthday party last week("We're both Virgos, you know"). This hepronounced "lovely".
"I met his 'other client'. He said, 'You must meet my other client; myother client wants to meet you.' Elton John was wonderful -one of thosepeople you can instantly get on with. He said he liked 'Killer Queen, andanyone who says that goes in my white book -my black book is burstingat the seams."
The subject switched to the new a lbu m. Apart from the aforementioned"Bohemian Rhapsody", what other tracks are there? "Well, the album iscalled A Night At The Opera. We've finished all the backing tracks and it's

QUEEN

beginning to sound better than we expected. With 'Rhapsody' we'vesqueezed to our limitations for four octaves and not slowed down the
tape! John Deacon has written a lovelylittle ditty called "You're My Best
Friend" and Roger has written "I'm In Love With My Car", including lines
like: 'I've got a feel for my automobile...'"Brian has an outrageous, mammoth, epic track, 'The Prophet's Song',
which is one of our heaviest numbers to date. He's got his guitar
extravaganza on it. You see, Brian has acquired a new gu itar speciallybuilt so he can almost make it speak. It will talk on his track. Then there's'Good Company', written by Brian, a George Formby track withsaxophones, trombone and clarinet sounds from his guitar. We don't
believe in having any session men; we doeverything ourselves. From the high falsetto
to the low, bassy farts,itis all us.
"Another track is '39', a little spacey number
by Brian, a skiffle-styled number which
we've never tried before and the album ends
with something totally unexpected, a little
virtuoso track by Brian. There's also 'Sweet
Lady', a heavyish ditty in stupendous 314."
Apart from 'Rhapsody', Mercury h imsel f has
penned four tracks. "One is called 'Death On
Two Legs. I'm not going to say any more- justlisten to the words carefully, kiddies. A nasty
little number which brings out my evil streak.
The words came very easy to me. There's also a
lovely little ballad; my classical influence comes
into it. Brian is going to attempt to use harp, real life-size harp. I'm going toforce him to play till his fingers drop off. les called 'Love Of My Life'.
"'Seaside Rendezvous' has a 1920s feel to it and Roger does a tuba andclarinet on it vocally, if you see what I mean. I'm going to make him tap
dance, too; I'll have to buy him some Ginger Rogers tap shoes. 'Lazing On
A Sunday Afternoon' 'not The Kinks' or the Small Faces') is a short track,
just one minute six seconds. A very perky, spicy number, dear. Brian likes
that one."
Summing up, Mercury says: "There were a lot of things we wanted to do
on Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack but there wasn't space enough. This
time there is. Guitar -wise and on vocals we've done t h ings we've neverdone before."
In order to finish the album on time, Mercurysays they will "work till weare legless. I'll sing until my throat is like a vulture's crotch. We haven't
even reached the halfway stage yet, but from the things I can hear we havesurpassed anything we've done before musically."
All right. Now to the other stuff.
Is it true about Brian being offered a gig with Spa rks?Was there any
serious thought of splitting up the band? Own up...
Mercury is contemptuous of the whole thing.
"About nine months ago, Brian was approached by Sparks, who said
they would like him to join them as guitarist. But we all treat that sort ofthing as everyday and mundane. We're so involved in what we do -anyway
we've all had offers to join other bands. We don't give it a second thought.
"But while, say, Roger and I would tell them to piss off, Brian takes histime about being nice to people, so sometimes they get the wrong idea.
Brian is really too much of a gentleman,
which I am not -I am an old tart -but
not for one moment did he consider
leaving us. But that was nine months
ago, so long ago that that rumour wentout with the Boer War. Still, it's very
flattering to get offers."
The November British tour, however
should dispel any split rumours forever.
Preparations are already being madefor that.

"I'm thinking of being carried on stage by Nubian slaves and being
fanned by them -in fact I'm auditioning for them now. I shall personallyselect the win ners. But where to find a slave? I'm also looking for amasseur. The other one is no longer with us."
What happened to him?
"His fingers dropped off."
Trouble with Freddie, he's always concerned with his health. Still, there
are reasons. On the last American tour a couple of gigs were cancelledowing to throat problems.
"My nodules are still with me. I have these uncouth calluses growing
in my interior [throat]. From time to time they harm my vocal dexterity.
At the moment, however," (he allows himself
a smile)"I am winning."
How can he ensure the problem won't recur?
"I'm going to go easy on the red wine, dear.
And the tourwill be planned around mynodules. Actually, I came very near to having an
operation, but I didn't like the look of the doctor
and I was a bit perturbed about having strange
instruments forced down my throat."
After the British tour, the band go once again
to America and thence on to Japan. Japan holds
fond memories for Mercury.

"A young

American tart
pilfered myjewels andbracelets"

With a faraway look in his eye, he says: "I will
be able to be reunited with my bodyguard.
I must stress we all had one each -our own
personal bodyguards, that is. M ine was called
Hitami and he was the head of the Tokyo bodyguard patrol. His entire job
was to pamper and cosset me throughout the tour and make sure noharm was to come to my person. He was very sweet; he gave me this lovely
Japanese lantern, which I treasure."
Is there any likelihood that Queen may do some American gigs with
Elton John?
"Well, funnyyou should say that. We had an offer to do two gigs in LA,
although we're all
the same family, Reidy won't put us out as a package. He knows thedifference in the audiences we appeal to. He wants us to be a force of ourown in America to maintain what we have and to do everything bigger
and better."
Mercury is not quite sure if Seattle is on theirAmerican itinerary. He
remembers a young lady from that part of the world quite vividly.
"A you ngAmerica n tart," he starts getting very angry at the memoryof it all, "came in and pilfered my contents... my jewels, bracelets, etc,
and she was just evacuating the room when I accosted her by the elevator.
I pulled her by the hair, dragged her into the room, emptied the contents
out of her bag in the room and everything but the kitchen sink came out.
I retrieved my things and said, 'Get out, you Seattle shagbag.'"
Why hadn't there been any recorded material from Queen for so long?
(Yeah, I know that was an abrupt change of subject.)"Actually, that was the way we planned it, dear, but we should havea single taken from th is album out in October. The album comes out
in November when we start ourworld tour. We're planning on a muchbroader scale than before, dear." Julie Webb

Limp -wrist Section:(PLEASE READ WITH
t' AMP ACCENT, STRESSING
EVERY SECOND WORD)

Summing
were a lot of ti'Quccn II. a"
hut three watime there is.
we'N,r done th(bee

In older to
MCeCUrs, say
are legless. I'

like a vultut
even reachedfrom the data
surpassed an -musically."
All right.

Tel. 01-748-4081
O D E 0 N HAMMERSMITH
Manager : Philip Lsivers

IS IT TRUE

MFL BUSH presents

Own up ...

QUEEN in Concert plus support

EVENING 7-30,4Pas. Dec,- fti 1975

siALLSLI

92sn

a gig with Sp
MS thought
Mercury
whole thing.

"About ni

Forget those 'Queen split' stories --everything is just lovely. Elton is lovely as
well. FREDDIE MERCURY tells it like
it is. By JULIE WEBB

approachedwould like
can't. Rut w
as everyday

involved in

we've all I

bands. We

thouditThStonesat Madison
SquarGarden. June
1975. with Billy P-esten
on keys (far left).
Ronnie Wood replacing
Mick Taylor and 011ie E

Brown (behind Charlie
Watts) on percussion

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

ROLLING STONESShOWJUNE 28 Over several nights

at Madison Square Garden, theRolling Stones' arrangementwith Ron Wood continues
to pay dividends.
MADISON SQUARE- GARDEN

JUNE 22

NEW YORK: SO there's half the island of
Jamaica up there - drums, tambourines.
triangles, maracas, talking drums -justanything that comes to hand, right, and there's thisstringy dude in a denim frock coat and a beret thatfolks are saying is Clapton - but from a hundred
yards away, who knows?
And Mick's wearing Keith's leather jacket -thisis after he's poured the bucket of water over hishead and after the parachute -silk dragon has
spewed confetti and balloons over the front few
rows... Anyway, they're doing "Sympathy For The
Devil- for the first time since... since then, andwow, does it ever sound good.
Feels good, too, what with the house lights
up and most everybody dancing andclapping, and the star -shaped stage
flapping up and down, and fire crackers
exploding everywhere, but I guess theatmosphere at Madison Square Garden isalways pretty... electric and the Stones'
opening night could hardly fail, could it?
All the same, it took the group a while to get
into their stride, a half-hour at least, the sound so
strangled and mangled for "Honky Tonk Women"
through to "Star Star" that listening wasn't muchfun. "You Gotta Move" was the ice -breaker.
Jagger, Billy Preston, Ron Wood, Richards andpercussionist 011ie E Brown locked into uncertain
but enthusiastic harmonies - and Keith, in theabsence of Mick Taylor, pulled off a taut andemotional blues solo.
Technically, of course, neither he nor
Wood are world -class lead players, but they
complement each other nicely and the lack ofbone fide virtuoso only underlines all theessential earthiness that we used to associatewith the old Out Of Our Heads period. Plus,
Taylor never

fitted visually

Keith, in theabsence of Mick
Taylor, pulled off
a taut blues solo
DAYDREAM PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
-

z

4

.

W

with his shy,

student good
looks, while
the Face,

cigarette glued
permanently

to his lower
lip, resembles
some evolutionary stage between Wyman andRichards - all three of them, even in expensive
silks and leathers, coming on like Portobello
Road hustlers gone ape.

But the overriding impression gleaned
from the whole shebang is that they're having
fun. A lot of the macho -sadist excess has beenpruned back, and although Jagger cavorts andleaps and pouts as much as ever, he seems
more like an irresistible clown than any Lucifer
figure. Indeed, at times, he lets the image
slide entirely as he straps on a guitar for"Fingerprint File" and stands immobile behindthe mic stand as Wood and Wyman move tobass and keyboards respectively.
And these flashes of naturalness areinevitably at odds with the elaborate props- the notorious giant phallus, the dragon
head and, worse, a sequence where Jagger israised 30 feet about the stage on a high -wire,suspended -stirrup affair. Firing on all cylinders
as the vitriolic rock band, the very essence c)hard blues and boogie, such paraphernalia
seems exceptionally jive.
But not to bitch overmuch. It's still an
incredible show. Steve Lot,
i0,11-:',_;1

Avehttimy BILLY\: ;L.;PRESTON EN. RON WOOD

EAGLES & RUFUS

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

I 53

19750APR"Rock hasbecome aspectator,J
Just 30, "Captain
Powerchords"
ponders the stateof THE WHO, andMartapFI'li TOWNS! I IAD In DNA' die
before he got old. Yet death isn't his
problem; it's the passingof the years

and hiscurrent position in what hefeels is a younger ma n's occupation.
"I f you're in a group," hebegins, "youcan behave like a kid and not only gel away with it,
hut he encouraged."
The name Keith Moon schow springs to mind.
" I f you're a rock musicianrInwnshend continues,"you don't have to put on at ny airs and pretend lobe
- in inveriml emu mas-'normal' or even be asked
to behave like you'reamatureand a highly
resi ))))) sible person.These are just the trappings thatsociety poison most people- wit h I he result thatmost kidsa re burdened down wit h responsibilities
far too early in t heir life.
"You know the deal: as soon as you leave school
you'vegot to find a secure job and hangonto it.
I w rot e'M y Cenerat ion' when I was 22 or 23, yetthat song breathes of a I7 -year -old adolescence."

So what are you trying to tell us?

"Personally, I feel that the funniest thing -andalso t he szuklesi I hing-about ihecurrent slateof rock'n'roll is t hat it's the pretenders t hat are
suffering the mosi.Those people who, lora number .
511 IIrd(Ote ill HOC!' VIP,

rock itself. Is hegoing throughthe motions?
Are Ray Davies,

Mick Jagger, even
PETE TOWNSHEND

too old for thejob? "You won't
catch me rockin'in no wheelchair"
he decides.

n1975:"1 don't really feelof mycontribut onto
The Who.: stage show

is fundamentally partof my personali7y"

PETE
TOWNSHEND
K and :f I could
and snend,nI

Whurver they were, I'm certaml- not thine!, gang!

that's geared to tse *ay that I
write."

JANE
1975aPRftof years, have been pretending to be rock stars and have adopted
false poses. It's the difference between someone who has maderock an integral part of their lifestyle and therefore doesn't feellike they're growing old.""You want to know something? I really hate feeling too old
to be doing what I'm doing. I recently went to do a BBC TV
i nterview and when ! arrived at the studios there were all theseyoung kids waiting outside for the Bay City Rollers. As I passed
them by, one of the kids recognised me and said, 'Ooo look, it'sPete Townshend,' and a couple of them chirped, "Ello Pete.' And
that was it. Yet the first ti me The Who appeared at those samestudios on Top OfThePops, a gang of little girls smashed in theplate glass front door on the building.
"Anyway, as I entered the building, the doorman turned to me
and smirked. "Ere, what's it feel like to walk past 'em now andhave nothin' happen, eh?' I told him that, to be quite honest, it
brings a tear to my eye. Look, I don't want them to mob me,
because The Who have never been a Rollers -type band; what
I'm scared of is hypocrisy."
Hypocrisy? In what way?
"Well, nowadays it's considered very passé to admit thatyou've got a burning ambition to stand on stage and be
screamed at by 15 -year -old girls. But when we started out, thatwas something to be very proud of. If it didn't happen, there wassomethingwrong with you.
"Though I haven't all that much experience as to what ishappening contemporarily in music, I do feel that the 'world
owes me a living' attitude still prevails, not only in rock but
in every walk of life. So now
everyone's gotta look like they

really mean business and-11WhodJringthe
filming ,f Tommyin1974s,En Entwistle.
Pet eTownshend.Roger
Daltreyand Keith Moon

fiEWH0I3yomBEgs

every bloody singer I see on
The Old Grey Whistle Test
looks a -n -g -r -y."He breaks off the conversation
to pull relevant grimaces.
"When I see this I go into
hysterical fits of laughter.
"Sure, I know that I look angry
when I play, but usually there's
no reason for it. I suppose it'san adopted aggressive thing,which is in turn a subconscious
layover from those days when
I was angry. I don't quite know

What He Used To Be." Townshend pauses
yet again. "Everybody has a hump andyou have to admit that you've got to goover that hump."
Yes we have... no we haven't Townshend won't commit himself either
way as to whether The Who are over thehill, but he intimates in no uncertain
manner that the group are beset withwhat I was angry at, but I was

angry, frustrated, bitter, cynical-and it came through in themusic I wrote."C'mon Pete, you're either

evading the moment of truth
or approaching it in a very
roundabout manner. What's
brought on this manic
obsession about being too pooped to pop, too old to stroll?
"It's just that when I'm standing up there on stage playing rock'n'roll,I often feel that I'm too old for it."No kidding.
"When Roger speaks out about 'we'll all berockin' in our wheelchairs', he might be, but you
won't catch me rockin' in no wheelchair. I don't
think it's possible. I might be making music ina wheelchair- maybe even with The Who, but
I feel that The Who have got to realise that thethings we're gonna be writing and singing about
are rapidly changing.
"There's one very important thing that's got
to be settled." He pauses again. "The group asa whole have got to realise that The Who are
not the same group as they used to be. Theynever, ever will be, and as such... it's very easy
to knock somebody by saying someone used to
be a great runner and can still run but he's Not
58 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

acute problems.
"You've got to remember that there
was a time when suddenly Chuck Berry
couldn't write any more. He just went out and performed his greatest hits,
and I've always wondered what that was all down to? Jagger told me at hisbirthday party that he was having difficulty in writing new material for
the Stones, which is unfortunate because nowadays so much importanceisplaced upon writing songs.

"When I'm up
there playing
rock'n'roll, I
often feel I'm
too old for it""To a degree, you could call it front man
paranoia- and even Roger gets it from time totime. Let's face it, Jagger carries a tremendous
amount of responsibility apart from being theStones' frontman.
"Forget about that tired old myth thatrock'n'roll is just making records, pullin' birds,
getting' pissed and havinga good time. That's
not what it's all about. And ! don't think Roger
really believes it either. I think that's what he'dreally like to believe rock'n'roll was all about.
"Steve Marriott has chosen to live it like that
and, as far as I can see, he's havinga good time.
Fair enough -but in my opinion Marriott'sTHE WHO

pressure at the front of your mind that... not necessarily
your fans... but then, maybe your fans really are the mostimportant people... are actually sitting twiddling theirthumbs waiting foryour next album.
"Every time they wait, they become more and more
impatient. What Jagger said in that interview that he did with
NMEis that between the albums they are eagerly waiting for,he'd like to chuck out an R&B set to keep 'em happy. Fair
enough, if he thinks it'll make any difference- but of course
it won't. It's just like making alive' album. The fans will say,'Thankyou very much', but what we're reallywaiting for is thenext studio album, so get on with it."Phewhatascorcha! New subject: Townshend was once
quoted as stating that the eventual outcome of any Who
recording depended entirely upon whether or not he could
keep Moon away from the brandy and himself from imbibing
whatever it took him to get through a session.
"At the moment, what governs the speed of The Who is thediversification of individual interests. We would have beenrecording the new album much earlier were it not for the factthat Roger is making another film with Ken Russell. Roger
chose to make the film and John wanted to tour with his own
band The Ox, so I've been working on tracks for my next solo
album. Invariably what will happen is that once we all get into
the studio I'll think, 'Oh fuck it', and I'll play Roger, John andKeith the tracks I've been keeping for my own album andthey'll pick the best. So as long as The Who exists, I'll never get
the pick of my own material... and that's what I dream of.
"But ifThe Who ever broke up because the material was
substandard then I'd really kick myself."
But the way you're going on, Peter, old Meter, it sounds like
The Who is on its last legs?
"However much of a bastard it is to get everyone together inmusic falls short of his potential, which isa bloody shame because everybody knows
what he's really capable of... there's all those
old incredible Small Faces records piled up. For
me, Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake is one of the classic
albums of the '60s, and if it's the difference
between that music and having a good time,
I prefer that Steve Marriott suffer, because
I want the music.
"Believe me, I don't want to sound too crueland vitriolic, but I do think that you have to face
up to the undeniable fact that there's no point inyour life when you can stop working. You can't
suddenly turn round and say, 'We're on the crestof a wave, so now it's time to sit back and boogie.'
Deep down inside, everyone wants to do this, but it's tantamount toretiring altogether. And personally, I can't do it.
"It's not necessarily to do with standards," Townshend continues,
before! have time to fire another question. "The Who's Odds &Sods
collection would have been released even if it hadn't been allthat interesting, but it's all been put down in the past fora recording studio, things eventually turn out right. You see,though it has never been important in the past, we do havethis problem that everyone has been engaged on their own
project, so that the separate social existence that we lead has
become even more acute.
"I mean, if I just couldn't live without Moonie and if I could
go over to the States and spend a couple of months with him,
we'd probably be a lot closer. But as it happens, I haven't seen
Keith since last August. I may have seen a lot
more ofJohn, but as yet I haven't seen his newgroup or listened properly to his album
because, apart from working on Tommy, I've
been putting together new material. And thesame thing applies to Roger: as soon as
someone decides to do something outside of
the area ofThe Who, the pressure suddenly
ceases, because they are the people who put thepressure on me.
"Let me make this clear. I don't put pressure
on them. I don't say, 'We've got to get into thestudio this very minute because I've got thesesongs that I've just gotta get off my chest.' It's
always the other way around. They always rush
up to me and insist that we've got to cut a new
album and get back on the road."
So it's quite obvious that the pressures are back on and Townshend isfeeling the strain.
"In a sense, rock is an athletic process. I don't mean running about onstage, but as a communicative process it's completely exhausting. It's notnecessarily being a part of things," insists Townshend. "Like I said,
when I wrote 'My Generation' I was already in my earlytwenties, so I was by no means a frustrated teenager. And
that's what a lot of people often tend to forget."But you were an integral part of that generation?
"Right," he retorts, "but we're also part of thegeneration that we play to on stage today. Let me"While The
Who exists I'll
never get thepick of myown material"

being substandard."
Apparently the reason for its release was to make nulland void the increasing amount of Who bootlegs
currently being circulated, and once a second volume
has been prepared and issued, there will be no needto backtrack.
"If," says Townshend, "The Who were gonna wave
their banner for standards, Odds &Sodswould still
have remained unreleased. Standards have got
absolutely nothing to do with it. I feel that it's theclarifythat statement."
Yes!

"What I don't feel part of is not the generation ofage, but the generation of type. I mean, who the x.
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 157

hell were all those people at the Tommypremiere?
Whoever theywere, I'm certainly not in their
gang! Yet funnily enough, whatever the age group,
I feel much more at ease before a rock audience."
So why this current fixation about being too old
to cut le moutard?
"Because to some extent The Who have becomea golden -oldies band, and that's the bloody
problem that faces all successful rock groups at
one time or another- the process of growing old.
A group like The Kinks don't have that problem
because, theoretically, Ray Davies has always
been an old man. He writes like an old man who
is forever looking back on his life and, thankheavens, old Ray won't have to contend with suchproblems. But with a group like the Rolling Stones, there's this terrible
danger... now I could be wrong... but there's no question in my mind
that it's bound to happen... Mick Jagger will eventually become theChuck Berry of the '60s, constantly parodying himself on stage. And thisis the inherent danger that The Who are so
desperately trying to avoid.
"I can tell you that when we were gigging inthis country at the early part of last year I was
thoroughly depressed. I honestly felt that The
Who were going on stage every night and, forthe sake of the diehard fans, copying what
The Who used to be. Believe me, there havebeen times in The Who's career when I would
have gladly relinquished the responsibilities
of coming up with our next single or album toanotherwriter. There've been a lot of people
who said theywould have ago, but somehow
it never quite worked out."
Why?
"Like a lot of things connected with The Who, I really dunno. Maybe it's
because we've got such an archetypal style that's geared to the way I write."But by his own admission, Pete Townshend has always considered his
forte to be writing. The fact that he also happens to be a guitarist is, in his
opinion, quite irrelevant. Yet even now, Townshend isastounded when other guitarists compliment him upon his
Town,hend intsgs:
instrumental prowess. He isn't bowing to false modesty
To somecx tent The
when he insists that, after all these years, he still can't play
Whohavebecomea
guitar as he would really like to.
golden-oldicsbandIn his formative years with The Who, he compensated for
his acute frustrations by concentrating his energies on thevisual aspects of attacking the instrument. Every time hewent on stage, Townshend insists he bluffed his way througha set by utilising noise and sound effects which eventually
led to the destruction of many a valuable weapon.
"It's still true even today," he confesses without
embarrassment. "I maybe a better guitarist now than I waswhen The Who first started, but I'm far from being astechnically proficient as I would really like to be.
"What I like about the way that I play," he explains, "is what I
think everyone else likes. I get a particular sound that nobody
else quite gets and I play rhythm like nobody else plays -it'sa very cutting rhythm style. Sorta Captain Powerchords! I do
like to have a bash every now and then at a wailing guitar solo,
but halfway through I usually fall off the end of the fretboard.
I might have a go, but I've resigned myself to the fact that I
haven't got what it takes to be a guitar hero.
"Yet funnily enough I don't really respect that kind of guitar
playing. I've got no great shakes for Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page.
Sure, I love what they do, but it always seems to me thatthey're like the Yehudi Menuhins of the rock business.
They're extremely good at what they do, but I'm sure they'dgive their right arm to be writers- though not necessarily in
my shoes.
"I don't really feel the showmanship side of mycontribution to The Who's stage show is fundamentallya part of my personality. It's something that automatically
happens. Basically, it stems from the very early days when we
had to learn to sell ourselves to the public -otherwise nobody
would have taken a blind bit of notice of us. And like manythings, it's been carried on through up until today. Yet I haveno doubt that, if we wanted to, we could walk on any stage
and stand there without doing all those visual things and still
go down well with an audience."
So why this depressing down -in -the -mouth attitude?
Could it stem, I askTownshend, from the fact that a critic
once bemoaned that, in his opinion, The Who, once the true
essence of rock'n'roll, now just go through the motions.
"Well, that statement
W was true -but on the other
hand if it's unqualified
then it might as well be(I1)LEZE BOX '4/ )ditched. But you've put thequestion to me and now
I've got to try and qualify"I'm far frombeing astechnicallyproficient as
I'd like to be"

0
0

11.4e

that other journalist's
statement. Tome, thes, :%CI IMF Q`!

success of any truly greatTHE WHO

1975 TOURrock song is related to the fact that people
who couldn't really communicate innormal ways can quite easily
communicate through the mutual
enjoyment of rock music. And that was
simply because, for them, it was infinitely
more charismatic than anything elsearound at that time.
"For example, you're aware that there's
this great wall around adolescents andthat they can't talk freely about theirproblems because it's far too
embarrassing. Personally, I feel thatadolescence lasts much longer than mostpeople realise. What happens is thatpeople find ways of getting round it andputting on a better show in public. And as
they get older they become more confident
and find their niche.
"Now why I think that journalist said The
Who now only play rock'n'roll is because
on most levels rock has become a spectator
sport. It's not so important as a method of
expression as it once was. Today something else
could quite easily replace it."Townshend goes on to concede that rockdoesn't hold as much genuine mystique as it
did with previous generations, to the extent
that the stigma of the social outlaw has almost
been eradicated. Those who have tried to
become outlaws have failed miserably, hence
the last-ditch shock tactics of Alice Cooper andDavid Bowie.
"For many kids, rock'n'roll means absolutely
nothing." He compares it to switching on atelevision set, going to the movies or a football

all yelled out, 'Shhhrrruppp, Townshend,
and let Entwistle play "Boris The Spider-,and if that wasn't bad enough, during theother songs they'd all start chanting,'Jump... jump... jump... jump... jump.'

NairS:SINHO
1011.149015T9

( 7AI

THE
STEVE GIBBONSBAND"Rock musicas it was is
not reallyanswer for -in particular the Curse Of
The ConceptAlbum. Though concept
albums are by no means new to popular
music- Gordon Jenkins and Mel Torme
were churning 'em out almost a quarter of acentury ago -it was Tommy (as opposed to Sgt
Pepper) which unleashed a deluge of albums
built around one specific theme. These ranged
from the Fudge's horrendous The Beat Goes On
through to Mill's obscure Passion Play, up to
and including Rick Wakeman's DisneyesqueKing Arthur.

"None of which," says Townshend, as he bursts
into laughter, "work."
Yet as we all know, Townshend himself has had
no less than three stabs at the same subject. So
how does he view the trilogy in retrospect?
"I don't. And if you're going to ask me which
one I prefer, I don't really like any of them verymuch. 1 suppose I still like bits of The Who's original version, but thedefinitive Tommyalbum is still in my head."
Perhaps it would be wise to quit this line of questioning and leave
Tommywhere he is. But Townshend wants the last word.
"I think that everyone in rock shares the same basic urges, and therefore
that it would be very unfair to me to say it's all right for The 'Oo 'cos weinvented it. I have great doubts about that. For instance, when the Big
Feedback Controversywas going on in the mid -'60s, Dave Davies andI used to have hilarious arguments about who was the first to invent
feedback. I used to pull Dave's leg by saying, 'We both supported The
Beatles in Blackpool and you weren't doing it then... I bet you nicked it
off me when you saw me doing it.' And Dave would scream that he wasdoing it long before that. Then one dayI read this incredible story about
Jeff Beck in which he said -at this juncture, he adopts a retarded
Pythonesque android accent -"'Yeah, Townshend came down t'seed'Tridents rehearsing and he saw me using the feedback'... pause...
'and copied it.
Returning to his natural voice,Townshend scowls: "1 never saw
the Tridents and the man ispathetic. Obviously, Beck may feel
deeply enough that he invented
feedback -but for Chrissakes who
gives a shit? Why even comment on
it? It doesn't really matter, it's justa funny noise made by a guitar."Townshend goes on to explainthat the innovatory part of rock is
not necessarily the part that he's
proud of, even though he's regarded
as The Who's ideas man. "I wastrained in graphic design... to be an
ideas man... to think up something
new and different... like, let's give alemon awaywith the next album!"Thank you. x.

contemporary
to these times"

match. It's just another form of entertainment.
"Ifwhat the kids do listen to consists entirely of the Bay City Rollers andthe Top 10, then it must mean even less than most other similar forms ofmass -media entertainment because they're not really listening. The real
truth as I see it is that rock music as it was is not really contemporary tothese times. It's really the music ofyesteryear. The only things that
continue to keep abreast of the times are those songs that stand out due
to their simplicity."
Example?
"'My Generation'. A lot of people don't understand that there's a big
difference between what kids want on stage in relationship to what they
actually go out and buy on record. Perhaps the reason why so many young
kids can still get into The Who in concert is simply because it's a very zesty,
athletic performance. However, ifwe just restricted our gigs to performing
songs we'd just written yesterday and ignored all the old material then I'm
positive that we'd really narrow down our audience tremendously.
"I dunno what's happening sometimes," he bemoans. "All I know is thatwhen we last played Madison Square
Garden I felt acute shades of nostalgia.
All The Who freaks had crowded
around the front of the stage and whenI gazed out into the audience all I could
see were those very same sad faces that
I'd seen at every NewYork Who gig.
There was about a thousand of 'em andthey turned up for every bloody showat the Garden, as if it were some Big
Event -The Who triumph over New
York. It was like some bicentennialcelebration and they were there toshare in the glory of it all. They had
followed us from the beginning, 'cos
it was their night.
"It was dreadful," Townshend
recollects in disgust. "They were
telling us what to play. Every time I

tried to make an announcement they

I was so brought down by it all! I mean, isthis what it had all degenerated into?
"To be honest, the highest I've beenon stage last year was when we used toplay 'Drowned'. That was only because
there was some nice guitar work in it...
Roger liked singing it and both John andKeith played together so superbly. Really,that was the only time I felt that ! could
take off and fly."Pete Townshend may well have somecause to feel sorry for himself; when the
final reckoning comes he's got a lot to

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

59

"In the early days of The Who we were taggedwith gimmicks and subsequently it made mevery gimmick -conscious. Now if I might returnto Tommy fora moment..."But only fora moment.
"...What I think is good about Tommyis notthat it's a rock opera or that it's the first or thelast... That's, of course, if you assume that
there's gonna be any more!"
Don't worry, there will be. Have a copy of"Audiences

are very much
like the kids
in Tommy's
holiday camp"

Camel's Snow Goose.
"What I feel is very important about Tommyis that as a band it was our first conscious

departure out of the adolescent area. It was our
first attempt at something that wasn't the sameold pilled -up adolescent brand of music. We'd finished with that and we
didn't know which way to go. That's when we went through that very
fu nny period of 'Happy Jack' and 'Dogs'.
"It was also a very terrifying period for me as The Who's only ideas man.
For instance, though 'I Can See For Miles' was released after 'Happy Jack',
I'd written it in 1966 but had kept it in the can for ages because it was going
to be The Who's ace -in -the -hole. If you want the truth..."And nothing but...
"I really got lost after 'Happy Jack', and then when 'I Can See For Miles'
bombed out in Britain I thought, 'What the hell am I gonna do now?' The
pressures were really on me and I had to come up with something very
qu ick and that's how Tommy emerged from a few rough ideas I'd been
messing about with."
And whereas The Beatles had cried that it was impossible to perform
Pepper in public, the fact that The Who demonstrated that Tommywas an
ideal stage presentation quickly motivated other bands to mobilise theirmight for the NewAquarian Age. With more sophisticated electronic
weaponry than they knew how to utilise, the likes of Floyd, Yes, and ELP
adopted a more "profound" stance as, in a blaze of strobes, they began tobombard audiences with techno-flash wizardry, pseudo -mystical jargon
and interchangeable concepts.
Townshend may have had a helping hand in starting the whole schmear
rolling (it sure didn't rock), but he is adamant in his belief than many
allegedly "profound" music machines are working a clever con -trick on
the public.
"All that they're really doing is getting together and working out themost complex ideas they can handle, packaging it with pretentious
marketing appeal and unloading it on their fans. But" - and here comesthe get -out clause- "does everything have to hold water? Obviously, it
must mean something to the integrity of the band that's putting it
together, but it's results that count."

Robert Stigwood

A Fim 07 Ken Russell

Tommy..
Br The Who 8..4 O. T. Rock Om n. Pete Townshend-.

Elton John
Oliver Reed Ann -Margret Roger Daltrey
AN The Rnball Wd,
JackEric Cia ton John Entwistle Keith Moon Paul Nicholas.

Well, the result, as Townshend puts it, hasturned many a rock theatre into a dormitory.
"It might be difficult to fall asleep at a Who gig,
but I can understand why some bands send
their audiences into a coma. I don't like Yes atall. I used to like them when Peter Banks wasin the lineup, because apart from being
extremely visual, he also played excellent
guitar. With so many changes in the lineup, Yes
is Ion Anderson's band and he might be guilty ofmuch of that wishy-washy stuff they churn out,
because Jon really is a tremendous romantic.
Maybe he believes in the old mystical work, andmaybe poetry moves him along- but I'm notconcerned either way."lust wait until the letters come pouring in.
"It's like that line in 'Punk AndThe Godfather'... 'You paid me todo thedancing.' The kids pay us fora good time, yet nowadays people don't reallywant to get involved. Audiences are very much like the kids in Tommy's
Holiday Camp -they want something without working for it. That wasn't
the way it used to be. The enthusiasm that evolved around The Beatles
was enthusiasm, as opposed to energy generated by The Beatles.
"You talk to them now about it and they don't know what happened! It
was the kids' enthusiasm for them. Nowwhen you see it happening again
you can see how utterly strange it must have seemed the first timearound. For instance, take the amount of energy and enthusiasm that's
currently expended on, say, Gary Glitter... and Gary's just as confused as
everyone else. All he knows is which curler to put on which side of his head
-Gary readily admits this, and is all the better for it. Get in the middle ofa crowd of screa mi n' kids -it doesn't matter who they're scream in' stand there's a certain amount of charisma transferred to these people. But
then, that 's what fan mania is reallyall about.
"When the real charismatic figures like Mick Jagger came along, I thinkthat rock started to change and then the kids began to create their own
trends in fashion. The mods not only used to design their own clothes but
sometimes actually to make them; and the fact that they d id humdrum
jobs to get money to buy clothes, scooters, records and go to clubs built up
this elite. Therefore it wasn't too long before the artists let that rub off onto
them, and in that sense I think The Who were as guilty as anybody else.
"And I'll tell you why. Because in the end we wanted the audiences toturn up to see only us as opposed to the audience being the show andst rut t n' about like peacocks. We had to be the only reason for themturning up at a Who gig."
With rock and its peripheral interests having been systematicallyturned into a multi -million -pound consumer industry, Townshend has
observed t hat the customer no longer dictates youth fashion. That's all
down to some designer employed bya multiple chainstore.
"Everything nowadays ispremeditated. Within days the wholecountry is flooded with what someone
thinks the kids want."
He believes that the only invigorating
youth movement in this count ry appears
to be centred around Wigan's northernsoul scene.
"I wish that would spread more than it
has, because I see it as a direct link withthe mod thing. But what is more
important is that it's more philosophicalin its attitude about not fighting and notboozing and not smoking. Even though
they're ephemeral things, they arenevertheless states of m ind, which are
Very Good Things. Like the early modthing, this northern soul scene has afashionable aspect connected with it, butbasically it's concerned with the exact
opposite to the mod preoccupation withgetting pilled up and fighting.
"Funnily enough, I'm still not certain
why the original mod movement was so
obsessed with aggro. All I know is that at

Townshend Tina Turner
Nicholson Robert Powell Pete
Robert Stlgwood And Ken Russell
wetted By Ken Russell Produced By

October 27,197.5
The Who play the
Ahoy arena in

Rotterdam,
Netherlands

that time I felt an incredible amount offrustration and bitterness towards society, andmaybe everyone else felt the same."
But even as far back as 1968, The Who wereits impetus was carried off by the drugobsession. Everybody credited everything
innovative and exciting to drugs... 'Yeah man,it's pot and leapers and LSD, that's what makes
the world great.'"Then when things turned out to bemeaningless and people had missed the bus,
they quickly realised that they'd gambled
everything on something that had run away.
The same thing happened to rock. Rock got very
excited and flew off ahead, leaving most of its
audience behind. The Who went on to do what
I feel to be some very brave and courageousthings, but in the end the audience was a bit
apathetic. It was back to what I wrote in 'Punk
And The Godfather' -you paid me to do the dancing. That's why, when
I'm on stage, I sometimes feel that I'm too old to be what I'm doing."
Then, byway of contrast...
"Track by track, the new album that The Who are making is going tobe the best thingwe've ever done. But if people expect another grandiose
epic then they ain't gonna get it, 'cos this time we're going fora superb
single album."Townshend, make your mind up, squire. If the last couple of hours areanything to go by, you're either- by your own admission - past it, or you're
just after a bit of public feedback. Ouch. Better not mention that word.

"The Whowent on to dowhat I feel tobe some very
brave things"

somewhat trapped by their own image, whenTownshend states that the thing that had
impressed him most was the mod movement. He
had been fired by the excitement of witnessing
and subsequently taking an active part in what
he felt was the first time in historythat youth had
made a concerted move towards unity ofthought and drive and motive. "It was almost
surreal" was how he was quoted at the time.
Somewhere at the turn of the '60s, the youth
movement was derailed. Talk of a promised land
and the eventual greening ofAmerica became suffocated as theconsumer industry once again took command, and the business inshowbusiness grabbed the spoils.
When Townshend looks back in time, he can't help but laugh. "I don't
think theywere promises; I think it was just young people promisingthemselves something... having ambitions to do something... and, if
you like, certain rock people were acting as spokesmen. So they are theconvenient people to blame. That's if you want to lay the blame atanyone's feet.
"Basically, everyone had this mood that something was happening...
something was changing. In essence it did, but unfortunately a lot of

Roy Carr
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

61

1975
APR

0

"I'm not intowriting songs.

I find that real
boring"A scene is developingin New York, and it isled by fiti I Jiifill aim

Poet turned rocker,
her forthcoming
album has been

largely improvised
while John Cale looked

on. "We fought a lot,"says Patti, "but it was
fighting on a very
intimate level."

62 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

NME UNE 7 CBGBISA toilet. An impossibly scuzzy little club buried
somewhere in the sections of the Village that the cab
drivers don't like to drive through.
It looks as if the proprietors kick holes in the walls andpiss in the corners before they let the customers in; fo' theatmosphere, you dig. None of the low -budget would-be
elegance of Max's Kansas City in the final agonies of its death throes but
carefully choreographed movie -set sleaze.
The audience, who consist mainly of nondescript urban hippies, asmattering of heav-vy street bro's, rock intelligentsia and the occasional
confused tourist, are revelling in the tack and basking in their own hipness
just for being there.
Tonight, y'see, is Patti Smith and Television, two of the most droppable
names of the NewYork rock circuit. Patti Smith is a Heavy Cult Figure who
attracts the Cool Four Hundred, and Television are still on the verge of
becoming Heavy Cult Figures, which is even more attractive. The fastest
and most concise way to describe Television is that they're NewYork's
equivalent to the Feelgoods.
They're a lot younger, perform original material and Tom Verlaine, theleader, was evidently severely traumatised by Lou Reed at an impressionable
age; but outside of the obvious cultural differences between the Manhattan
and Canvey Islands, the similarities are astounding.
Both bands play chopped -down, hard -edged, no -bullshit rock'n'roll,
totally eschewing the preening Mickey Mouse decadence that poleaxed theprevious newwave of NY bands. Television don't dress up and they don't evenmove much.
The rhythm guitarist is spraddle-legged and blank -eyed, chopping at his
Telecaster like some deranged piece of machinery, braced so that he canPatti Srnithin1975.
a student of Arthur
Rimbaudandrock'n'rollrhythms:"thetwo roved
simultaneously for me"

1975

APRIE -JUNE"Scalecl.down birdlike movements":

lurch in any direction without falling over. He's
onstage with thePatti Smith Groupwearing a Fillmore East T-shirt, which is theat CBGB.New Yorkultimate in dressing down.
City.Apri11975
The bass player wears his shades on every ot her
number, and Verlaine, frozen -faced and zombie eyed, alternately clutches his mic stand with both
hands and blazes away at off -balance methed rine
speed -fingers lead guitar marathons on a gold topped Les Paul.
Television are a total product of New York,but like the Feelgoods they embody both thetraditional and the revolutionary, and they
represent an escape from the roller -coaster tooblivion into which rock is currently strait -jacketed- ie, an imaginative return to basics- and what theylose to the Feelgoods in energy and pacing, theygain in imagination.
That a band like Television are currently
happening and that people are listening to themis indisputable proof that rock is a hardier beast
than much of the more depressing evidence
would suggest.
Which brings us, quite logically, to Patti Smith,
who has lust Signed A Big Contract and is therefore
about to be massively publicised and fed into thestart machine. Right now, though, she andTelevision are still on display fairly regularly toanybody with three or four dollars to hand over as
CBGB's price of admission.
Her performing environment is a stage smaller
than Greg Lake's carpet, which places her less than
two feet away from the nearest customer and gives
her less than a foot's height advantage. The lighting
is, to say the least, elementary.
Which means that, in a club the size of CBGB,the tricks of the trade that the big guys use to
duplicate or replace real charisma are technically
impossible, and so the act has to either do it all bythemselves or else it doesn't get done at all.
CBGB
Patti Smith has an aura that'd probably show--- NEW YORK up under ultraviolet light. She can generate
more intensity with a single movement of one
hand than most rock performers can produce
in an entire set.
- APRIL 27
On the face of it, it's an unlikely act to team witha chopped -hog, hell -driven band like Television.
A lady poet, backed by a band who doesn't evenhave a drummer, sounds like an improbable expression
for any kind of definitive rock consciousness. But Patti Smith is in
the rock'n'roll marketplace and she knows the ground rules. More
important, she knows how it works.
She's an odd little waif figure in a grubby black suit and black satin shirt,so skinny that her clothes hang baggily all over her, with chopped -offblack hair and a face like Keith Richards' kid sister would have if she'dgotten as wasted by age 17 as Keith is now.
Her band (Richard Sohl on guitar and bass, Lenny Kaye on guitar anda kid known as DNV-an abbreviation of "Death In Venice") play like agarage band who've learned a few '30s licks to go with the mutated AM
rock. She stands there machine-gunning out her lines, singing a bit andtalking a bit, in total control, riding it and steering it with a twist of ashoulder here, a flickof a wrist there Path Smith Horses
scaled -down birdlike movementsthat carry an almost
unbelievable degree ofpower, an instinctive
grasp of the principlesof mime that teach thatthe quality and timingof a gesture is infinitelyLIVE!

more important thanits size.

Her closing tour de force, an inspired juxtaposition of "Land of 1,000
Dances" with a rock -poem about a kid getting beaten up in a locker room,
was undoubtedly the most gripping performance that I've seen by a white
act since the last time I sawThe Who.
For the duration of her set that night, Patti Smith embodied andequalled everybody that I've ever dug on a rock'n'roll stage.
Whether her records will be any good or not (or for that matter, whether
Television will be able to get it down on record) is another kettle ofswordfish altogether.
All that really needs to be said is that watching Television and Patti
Smith that evening was one of the most exciting rock experiences I've hadfora long, long time, and that both acts have something that rock'n'roll
desperately needs.
One more thing. In the audience at the Al ice Cooper gig in Detroit
was a kid done up exactly like Patti Smith. Something's happening.
CharlesShaarMurray

MELODY MAKEROVEMBER 29 ___LAST MONTH THEY caught Patti Hearst - and so ended thebiggest man (or woman) hunt in the history of the US. All thisis history now, of course, but it'll probably be the subject of atleast two best-selling novels in the near future, not to mention a major
screen movie.
But perhaps the first outside view of the Patti Hearst case was provided
by New York's sparrow-like poetess Patti Smith, then a struggling

tz
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personality in the underground rock scene of the city.
With considerable difficulty she raised $1,000 andheaded for Electric Ladyland Studios in Greenwich
Village and recorded a version of the traditional Hendrix

was a love -hate relationship and it worked. At first
I wanted an engineer producer, somebody like Tom
Dowd, but Atlantic wouldn't let him go, so I figured I'dget a top artist producerwho would act as a mirror.
orrtiair Csd... Inc
classic "Hey Joe".
13451,1011N, IL T. IOU*"The whole thing in the studio was us proving to John that
The inspiration for this move was provided by the words of
we could do it the waywe wanted, so we fought a lot but it was
Randolph Hearst, who on seeing the picture of his daughter holding
fighting on a very intimate level."a rifle, exclaimed to the anxious ears ofAmerica: "What are you doing
The result is an album that's actually far more melodic than the half with that gun in your hand?"dozen or so occasions I've watched Patti perform in various places in
Patti Smith's version of "HeyJoe" was a bitch of a record. Opening with
NewYork. The inclusion of a drummer- Dougherty was brought ina poetic dialogue about the Hearst situation, it gradually flowed into theimmediately before the sessions began -tightens up Patti's style no end.
regular song. It was chock-full of atmosphere and, for topicality, it really
Before, it was often shapeless and without discipline of any kind. Now
couldn't be beaten. Had it received more exposure, I'm sure that Patti
you can even dance to Patti Smith, or at least some of the tracks.
Smith would have been an overnight sensation.
Even words were improvised in the studio, she says. "I'm not into
It didn't, though, and it never will.About 1,000 copies of Patti's "Hey Joe"
writing songs. I find that real boring. All our things started out initiallywere pressed and made available by mail order through her management
as improvisation, but doing them over and over again got them into
company and selected record shops down in the Village. According toa formula.
Patti's manager, Jane Friedman, the project lost around $3,000, even
"I can't play anything at all, so Lenny and I work out tunes as they gothough the singles were sold at $2.50, a mark-up of over 50 per cent on thealong. I have words and know how I think they should go, so we just pull it
regular singles' price.
out and pull it out further until we get somewhere."
Today it's a collector's item, and no more are available. Also today, Patti
She and Kaye first got together in 1971. This followed a period of Patti's
Smith stands on the brink of success after a long, hard struggle. This
life when she lived at the Chelsea Hotel, writing poetry and spending
summer she signed with Arista Records, and her debut album is out intime with rock musicians in what she describes as a "tequila split life".
the States this month.
Before that she was at art school, which followed work in a factory in New
Thanks to Clive Davis, the boss ofArista, she is only the second of
Jersey, where she was brought up. It was Bobby Neuwirth who introduced
many artists in this (NewYork) fringe -rock fraternity to be recognised
her to the changing musical inhabitants of the Chelsea Hotel. (Neuwirthby a record company. The first, of course, was the NewYork Dolls, whose
is currentlyplaying on Dylan's tour of New England with Joan Baez.)recording career slumped after two albums.
"Neuwirth recognised my poetry and immediately introduced me
But Ms Smith cannot be placed in the same category as the Dolls, or any
to everybody he knew in rock'n'roll and kept pumping me to work at it.
rock band, for that matter. Some may call her a singer, but she is really an
I studied Rimbaud, too, but being surrounded by these rock'n'roll
improvising lyricist whose performances rushrhythms, the two moved simultaneously."with crazy momentum as each song, or poem,
It wasn't unti11972 that Patti started making
unrolls. She recites with a musical backdrop,
regular appearances in New York.
frequently breaking into song as the energy
In 1973, Lenny Kaye reappeared following
spirals, criss-crossing between the two and,a reading Patti gave on the anniversary oflim
more often than not, making up the words as
Morrison's death, and from then on things
she stumbles headlong forward.
accelerated. Pianist Richard Sohl joined the
Her band has been increasing in size over theranks and gigs followed at anywhere manager
years. Four years back it was just Patti and herJane Friedman could book them.
guitarist Lenny Kaye, an occasional rock
Which just about brings us up to where wejournalist and walking encyclopaedia on thebegan: the "Hey Joe" single recorded at Electric
last two decades of pop in America. Kaye, who
Ladyland. It was a deliberate choice of studio,
three years ago, incidentally, compiled thefor Patti strongly allies herselfwith Hendrix,
Nuggets album of relatively obscure US singles
another artist who took his art beyond
for the Elektra label, might be described ascontemporary strictures.
a free -form guitarist, as he plays random"We had three hours of studio time,notes at will according to the prompting
but I just did it like we were on stage.
of Patti's dialogue. They understandEventuallywe had 10 minutes left andone another and, as such, it's doubtful
no B-side, so I recited this poem andwhether any orthodox guitar player
the musicians just joined in and wewould fit.
had it done."
Pianist Richard Sohl is a similar
According to Friedman, that "Hey Joe"
performer. Like Kaye, nothing he plays
chapter lost about $3,000 as so manycan be predicted beforehand.
copies were given away to friends
Recently two other musicians haveinstead of being sold. Part of their
been added: a second guitarist, Ivan
deal with Arista was a clause that noNOV 14
Kral, who like Patti bears a striking
FRIDAY
more could be made, so it'll remain
resemblance to Keith Richards, anda collector's item forever.
NIGHT
drummer Jay Dougherty. There is no
Clive Davis' interest in Patti stems
bass player- Patti feels a drummer isfrom his days with Columbia, whenample rhythm.
Patti wrote the lyrics to two songs
John Cale was brought in to produce
recorded by Blue Oyster Cult, a CBS act.
her first Arista album, Horses, which is
The deal withArista is for five albums
released this month. It was on this topic
over the next three years, and meanwhilethat we began what turned out to be ashe has branched out from NewYork,very lengthy conversation last week.
playing concerts in California for the"It's a live album," she announced,
first time. In the coming months she willsquatting on the floor. "There's hardly
embark on her first proper tour, mainly
any overdubbing at all. We just went invisiting colleges across the country.
and did the songs straight away.
"We're a group now," she said.
"In the studio we went through hell.
ONE"We're together and that's it. I'm inI asked John to do it for me, I begged him
rock'n'roll now and I'm proud to be in it."
NIGHT PATTI SMITH
to, and we had nothing but friction, but it
Chris Chartesworth
ONLY"It's a live

album. There's
hardly any
overdubbingat all"Z

MU. C04;141TSMX,a`i 44.4ri

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 165

APR

YL\

1975

"Instantbedlam"JOHN BONHAM entertains on his rural estate,
and reveals how LED ZEPPELIN go about

rehearsing for a concert ("three days -a bitof rust remover"), while the band decimate
London's Earl's Court over five nights in May.

1975
APR

lk

MELODY MAKER JNE 1'!

_

GOSSIP IN THE village was running riot. John up at thefarm was going to buy The Chequers. The Americanin the bar of another pub a few miles distant was
adamant. So was the landlord, and a few grizzled
farmers, as they downed pints of the finest beer
known to men of science and agriculture.
Rut the object of the debate emitted a stentorian bellow that scotched
the rumours once and for all. "No I'm not buying the bloody Chequers!
Mind you... I was interested."
John Bonham, farmer, stockbreeder and drummer with the world's
heaviest rock band, was supping in a Worcestershire haven of low beams
and convivial company. The day before, his wife Pat had given birth toa baby daughter, Zoe, and there was plenty of cause for celebration. Andapart from a small matter of being banned from driving for six months(no rumours here -it was all in the local paper), John was feeling that
contentment and satisfaction most enjoyed by a self-made man.
A few weeks before, he had been pounding his massive dru m kit inanother world again. The world of thousands of admiring rock fans,enormous record sales and marathon, sell-out concerts. He seems
equally at home in both, and he applies the same direct, furious energy.
At the historic Earl's Court concerts, Bonham's bombastic, metronomic
drumming was an essential factor in a bandthat needs a regular supply of ad rena I i n.

Bonham summons his reserves of strengthfrom a tough, well-built body that was honed in
the building, as much as the music, industry.
John pours out his ideas, opinions andthoughts in a tone that brooks no argument,
and yet he has a fearless warmth and humourthat commands respect. He looks the world
straight in the eye, and expects the same
treatment. No shrinking violet then, this manof loud, aggressive drumming.
And yet it's hardly a coincidence that whenthe men of rock, who deal in volume, flash andfame, reap the rich rewards of their craft, theyhead for the hills and vales, far from the stink of
the city, there to enjoy the animals, earth andsilence. Bonham's spread is a bit like thePonderosa in Bonanza. After driving on stilted
motorways through the smog of Birmingham(a living memorial to '60s "planning"), thecountry's scars gradually heal, and theWorcestershire countryside blossoms.
A ranch -style nameboard appears arounda bend in a B -road, and twin white fences
accompany a long, straight driveway to themodern brick farmhouse, where the gaffer andhis family are ensconced.
Had John always intended to go into farming?
"Never- I was never into farming at all. I wasn't
even looking fora farm, just a house with someland. But when I saw this place, somethingclicked, and I bought it back in '72."
John seems to have been cheerfully accepted
into the farming community, and is anyway
guaranteed of one friendly neighbour. Robert
Plant lives just a few miles away, surroundedby goats that John avers "eat everything, oldboots, you name it".
John gave a great guffaw that could probably
be heard halfway round the hundred acres of
sheep and cattle that surround the house.
We set off fora stump round the fields. The
viewwas breathtaking, apart from a line ofrecently constructed electricity pylons. One ofthe old barns has been converted to the needsof the modern rock'n'roll farmer.
"This is the hot car shop," said John with achuckle, leading the way past a coven of cats
88 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Peak Bonham:bowler, boiler suit andtranslucent Ludwig
Vistalitedrumkit allpresent and correct

who had been following us at a discreet distance. And there, squashedtogether in the darkness, stood a trio of highly improbable vehicles.
An elaborately painted contraption that resembled a pre-war taxicab,
mounted on wheels a yard wide was, John explained, "a show car. I
bought her in LA. She can do 150mph. And that one is a'67 Corvette wit ha seven -litre engine. This one is a 1954 two -door Ford with an eight -litre
engine. You get guys coming past in a sports car who think it's an oldbanger, until I put my foot down. It's an amazing car -look at all thechrome inside. She'd only done 10,000 when ! bought her."Like many enjoying success for the first time, John once bought himself
a Rolls-Royce.
"It was a white one. I went to a wedding reception in Birmingham.
When I came out it looked like a bomb had hit it. All t hese skinheads had

jumped on it. They kicked in the windscreen, smashed everything. If it
had been any other car they would have left it alone."
Red rags to the bull, obviously. But John has worked hard, and still works
hard, for his seven -litre crust.
BACK IN THE house we talked about his early days and thedrumming career that has earned him world renown. "Thisused to be just a three-bedroomed house. My father did all
the wood panelling, and I did a lot of the work with my brother and
sub -contractors. If you have builders in, they'll make excuse afterexcuse about delays during the summer so that they
can have work inside during the bad weather. I know,
because when I left school I went into the trade with mydad. He had a building business and I used to like it.
"But drumming was the only thing I was any good at,and I stuck at that for three or four years. If things got bad
I could always go back to building. I had a group with
Nicky James, an incredible lead singer. But we had somuch of the equipment on hire purchase, we'd get
stopped at night on the way back from a gig and they'd'4

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"Nicky had a big following then, and he could sing any
Yew ems_style, But he couldn't write his own material. We used to
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MARCH 11146. I0-008"I was so keen to playwhen I quit school. I'd have played'Christ, if1 drop one, knit one and purl one -that's it.' You've gotta be fit tofor nothing. In fact ! did fora long time. But my parents stuck by me. No,
play that one, and if I don't feel too good, it's very hard. We keep tapes of
I never had any drum lessons. But I remember Carl [Palmer] went, he had
every show, and it's very useful afterwards, especially for my drum solo,
a lot of lessons. I just played the way I wanted, and got blacklisted inbecause then I can hear what works best."
Birmingham. 'You're too loud!' they used to say. 'There's no future in it.'Despite John's burly appearance and confident mien, it's a fact that he"But nowadays you can't play loud enough. I just wish there was away of
suffers from doubt and worryjust before every Zeppelin concert. He'll sit
wiring a drum kit to get the natural sound through the PA. I've tried sobackstage, nervously tapping sticks, anxious to get on stage and stuck
many different ways, but when you're playing with a band like ours you
into their exhausting three-hour show.
get so many problems with sound.
"I've got worse - terribly bad nerves all the time. Once we start into 'Rock"With Jimmy and John Paul on either side playing lead, they can leak
And Roll' I'm fine. I just can't stand sitting around, and I worry about
into the drum mics, and ifyou have too many monitors you start to getplaying badly, and if I do, then I'm really pissed off. If I playwell, I feel
feedback. I never get it the way! want."
great. Everybody in the band is the same, and each has some little thing
And yet Bonham's drum sound was fairly fantastic at Earl's Court,
they do before we go on, just like pacing about, or lighting a cigarette.
I thought.
"It used to be worse at festivals. You might have to sit around for a whole"I enjoyed those concerts," said John. "I thought theywere the bestday, and you daren't drink, because you'll get tired out and blow it. So you
shows that we've ever put on in England. I always get tense before a show,
sit drinking tea in a caravan, with everybody saying, 'Far out, man.'and we were expecting trouble with such a huge audience.
"We don't do festivals so much now because of the amount of"But everything went reallywell, and although we couldn't have theequipment we have. There's all the PA and lights and the black floor
laser beams at full power, I thought the video screen was well worth
for the stage. Imagine the changeover between us and the Floyd? Itdoing. It costa lot of bread, but you could see close-ups you'd never be able
would take hours! The Bath festivals were the only ones we ever played
to see normally at a concert. It was worth every penny."here, and they went really well."
Did the band rehearse for weeks before the concerts?
One of the features of Bonham's marathon"Nah, three days. Mind you, it was only a few
drum solos during the Earl's Court concerts
weeks before that we got back from the States.
was the special effects employed on the
We just needed a bit of rust remover. We had
tympani. Had he been using a synthesizer?
already done a lot of planning for that States"No, it was just phasing on the pedal tymps.
tour, because we like to change the show each
I was using them in '73. It's just a different
year. There's nothing worse than playing the oldsound. Not everybody likes or understands
numbers over and over again.
a drum solo, so I like to bring in effects and"You've got to keep in some of the old songs, ofsounds to keep their interest. I've been doing
course. I don't know what would happen if wethe hand drum solo for a longtime -before
didn't play 'Stairway To Heaven, because it's
I joined Zeppelin.
become one of the biggest things we've ever"I remember playing a solo on 'Caravan' when
done. When Jimmy plays the first chord in the
I was 16. Sometimes you can take a chunk out ofStates, it's like instant bedlam, until Robert
your knuckles on the hi -hat or you can catchcomes in with the first line. And we always playyour hand on the tension rods. I try to play
'Whole Lotta Love' because people want to hearsomething different every night on the solo, but
it, and I still get a great kick out of 'Dazed And
the basic plan is the same, from sticks to hands and then the tymps, andConfused'. I always enjoy the number because we never play it the same.
the final build-up.
"With the other stuff, we'll put one in, or take one out. On the last night at"It would be really boring to play on the straight kit all the time. On the
Earl's Court we played 'Heartbreaker', 'Black Dog' and a bit from 'Out On
last States tour I was really chuffed when I had some good reviews fromThe Tiles. With the songs from Physical Graffiti we've got such a wide
people who don't even like drum solos. I usually play for 20 minutes, andrange of material. It wasn't done on purpose. It's just that we went
the longest I've even done was under 30. It's a long time, but when I'm
through a stage where we were very conscious of everythingwe played.
playing it seems to flyby.
We felt it had to be a certain kind of thing for Zeppelin. Nowwe record"Sometimes you come up against a blank and you think, 'How ameverything that comes up, and of course, in the States they play it on the
I going to get out of this one?' Or sometimes you go into a fill and you know
radio, so the people knowwhat were doing.
halfway through it's going to be disastrous.
"In Britain we never get any airplay except from
"There have been times when I've blundered, andJohn Peel and Alan Freeman. In the States they'll play
got the dreaded look from the lads. But that's a good
'Trampled Under Foot' all day. When we first ran
sign. It shows you're attempting somethingyou've
through it, John, Paul and Jimmy started off the riff,
not tried before."but then we thought it was a bit souly for us. Then
11111111111011411=1
Was there any danger of John losing power in time
we changed it around a bit. It's great for me. Great
Trampled Under Footin view of his arduous years on the road? "I'm notrhythm fora drummer. It's just at the right pace andlosing strength. I'm less tired after a solo than I used
you can do a lot of fills.
Black Country /..-%to get in the early days. Of course, we didn't have
"But compare that to 'Dazed And Confused'. The
Woman
a break for the acoustic numbers then. a
speed of the thing! While we're playing, I think,

TICKETS

0111111"I just can't

stand sitting
around, and I
worry aboutplaying badly"

arriMigtiN

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 89

1975
APRIL-JpNE"But it was so cold at Earl's Court, we had
to have an electric fire in the dressing room.
The unions wouldn't let us use blow
heaters. I had a run-through on the Friday
night before the first show, and I was
playing in an overcoat."
One of the mysteries of Zeppelin is thatthey have never put themselves out for a hit
single, and Graffiti had obvious singles chart potential. Didn't theywant one?
"No, not really. It's because of the lengthof a piece like 'Trampled Under Foot'. It's
not worth cutting something out just forthe sake of a single. And if people like Led
Zeppelin they would have bought the LP
anyway. No-it would be pointless to put
a single out from the album."
AFTER A SOJOURN at the pub, wereturned to the farmhouse tosample some brandy and thedelights of a Quad sound system thatthreatened to stampede the sleeping herdof Herefordshire.
"Listen to this. It's great." John put on thePretty Things' new single 'I'm Keeping'.
They're a band who seem to be enjoying awhole new lease of life since they signed toSwan Song, Zeppelin's own label. He wasalso raving about Supertramp's album andadmitted a new interest in country music.
"I wish there were some more live bands
around here I could have a blowwith,"sighed John, tossing back a brandy, andbarely audible above the thunder of
speakers. "There's nowhere for them to play
- now it's all discos. God, I hate those places,
all those flashing lights. It's all right if you're
out fora night on the tiles. But I like to heara good live group. You've gotta remember-they're the backbone of the business."
But in case the rock business does start todry up, John is setting his nine -year -old son
Jason on the right path. He has a juniordrumkit set up in front of dad's jukebox, andpounds away to Gary Glitter. But John is not
sure if he'll take the right path to becoming
another drumming rock superstar. He
came home from the Cubs during theafternoon clutching his latest single,'Whispering Grass' by Windsor Davies.
"You can't teach him anything," warned
John. "He's got a terrible temper." Chris Welch

The definitive

rock performance
MM MAY 24 Led Leppelln scale theheights during a five -night stand.
IT'S NOT VERY often that the opportunityof experiencing the very best of somethingpresents itself; when it does come along,it's inevitably only appreciated in retrospect.
Yet before Led Zeppelin had got far into
their set at London's Earl's Court on Sunday,
it became obvious this was the definitive
rock performance; so much so that it's
inconceivable another band could do as well.
In the space of nearly three -and -a -halfhours, they covered virtually every variation
on rock and left no doubt they could triumphwith any style they had omitted.
They can do this because Zeppelin stand at
the very heart of rock: the blues/rock'n'rollbased style typified by "Whole Lotta Love",supported by a firm grounding in the English
folk tradition, evident on their acoustic
numbers. This is the base for development,
and as they improvise around these themes,
they draw in elements of jazz and classicalmusic to build up a complete picture ofcontemporary rock.
For fleeting seconds, it's possible to heartraces of every major British band around- not just more obvious examples like
Deep Purple or Black Sabbath, buteven Yes and ELP. Naturally, they
never fully explore these avenues;
should they ever do so it would beinteresting to see how they compare.
On the evidence of Sunday night, they'dprobably perform them better.
But the most immediately impressive
feature of Led Zep live is not so much thesuperb music as the assurance with which
they produce it. There's nothing apologetic
about them, no "little numbers from ourlatest album".
They're so big and so good, there's no needto plug albums or make excuses for songs
written long ago - and they know it. Somemight interpret this as arrogance; in fact
it's just part of the band's no-nonsense
approach. They go on stage to playmusic, not boost either their own or
the audience's egos.
This authority, though, manifests itself inan absolute power that few other bands
can even hope for, and that could sway an
audience any way the band wishes.
Wisely, they don't choose to use it thatway; there's no need to whip up the fans or
repeatedly ask if everyone feels all right.
Packing 17,000 people into Earl's Courton five separate occasions - never mind
those who couldn't get tickets - is all the
proof they need of their power.
Their self-assurance is no more evident
than in their stage act. With video cameras
beaming close-ups of every movement
on to a screen high above their heads,
Plant and Page pose and strut, proud as

peacocks, lords of the jungle. Plant thrusts
his navel into a camera lens and disdainfully
shakes the hair out of his eyes; Page makes
his gravity -defying backward bends anddescribes a 180 -degree arc with his arm
between a series of ear-splitting chords.
It goes beyond a mere stage act, and takeson all the exaggerated expressions andmannered stage "business" of classical opera.
Plant emphasises every line of the lyrics withhis face, while Page's actions anticipate his
next blistering solo. John Paul Jones and John
Bonham take no part in this performance,
Jones hugs the shadows, and when thecameras catch him, he's wearing a look ofquiet intensity; while Bonham is mostly grim faced as he piles on the pressure - the stokerof the Zeppelin express.
None of this would be worth much, ofcourse, if the music wasn't absolutely firstclass. With sound problems and endlesstune-ups utterly non-existent, they playedbrilliantly and with a practised ease that madethe music flow in such a fast stream it was
impossible to absorb it all in one sitting.
And there's that ever-present selfassurance: no one needs to look at anotherto find out how he's doing - he knows. Page

ARENAEARLS COURT EXIT
TUBE STATIONEARLS COURT(OPPOSITE WARWICK ROAD

411.4

14111111111111111.

REEL BUSH Ty arrsownont

with PETER GRANT presents

BLOCK

LED ZEPPELIN

CCSaturday, May 17th, 1975
at 8-0 p.m(Doors open 6-0)

ARENA £2.50
FOR CONDITIONS OF SALE SEE OVER

half hours on stage,
Jimmy Page soaks up
a io -minute ovation

meet and fit together perfectly.
So what of the music? As Plant gleefully
pointed out, the media had got it wrong(again) and this wasn't Zeppelin's Americanshow. After three shortish numbers - opening
with a rousing "Rock'n.
- they begana journey through the soul of the band.
It had little to do with chronology; both oldand new were presented side by side,
recording the highlights of their six -and a -half year "relationsh o". It reached anincredible hign with their reworking of theblues on "In My Time Of Dying" -and just kept
climbing higher and higher. Jones switched
onto keyboards for "The Song Remains The
Same" - Page proving with a beautifully laidback solo that he's not just the one -highenergy -solo man he's sometimes accused ofbeing - and stayed there for "Kashmir", surely
Led Zep's finest (recorded) hour.
It's an atypical Zeppe in song, highly

structured, with little room for extended
improvisation. Page, incredibly, found thespace and made full use of it.
Bonham pounded out :hebeat; Plant soared, his voice

spitting out lines like "thisbeen waiting for, Chris.
Remember that snare
drum?" What else could it
be but Bonham's solo,"Moby Dick"? Under suchcircumstances, it seems
inappropriate for me tocomment, other than toreport that it included some
remarkable quad effects.
Page's turn next for the super -soundtreatment. A completely restructured "Dazed
And Confused'', sounding even fresher thanthe original, brought out the violin bow. Laserlights cut through the hall while Page stoodcentre stage, cloaked in dry ice made all themore eerie by a green spot shining through,producing electrifying sound.
Only one song could follow; an immaculate"Stairway To Heaven", which rounded off
three hours (to the dot) of superb music. They
couldn't get away that easily, though.
A 10 -minute standing ovation, the lights
flashed, the name "Led Zeppelin" wasemblazoned in light across the back of thestage -and up came the strains of "Whole
Lotta Love". We came, we saw - they

It takes on all themannered stage

WAS TEDIand", and his
end -of -song credit - "JohnPaul Jones: a rather cheap
orchestra" - summed L p
Jones' swirling chords
that give the song its
atmosphere. Yet John Paul had just started.

"business" ofclassical opera

He moved intc "No Quarter", taking it
through the changes from rock to almost
classical and then pick ng out a funky riff the cue for Page to come in with a solo that,
judging by the smile that crept across his
face as the number retched its climax,
pleased him greatly.
Then, a new departu-e; four-part harmonies
for "Tangerine" No trouble. In keeping withthe gentle mood of thz t song, out came thefarmhouse chairs and acoustic guitars for apeaceful three -song break, Jones, Plant andPage just sittinc and playing simply.
They roared back with a stomping, driving"Trampled Under Foot", the very essence ofpure rock. And then -a surprise dedication for
MM's Chris Welch: "This is the one you've

SEA

M

3

TO RE RETAINED

Aftrderime-awd-a-

and Jones don't have to face each other andtrade licks; they both know what they've got
to do and they know they will do it right.
Led Zeppelin look very much like fourindividuals on stage. les in the music they

ROW

conquered. Michael Oldf ield

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 171

"Dirty
music,
Some strange nights
in the UK with,

who claim the whole
Stockhausen connection

is overrated. "If a drug is
a comparison, I like to be
the drug myself," says
Michael Karoli. "Thepeople should go out

her smiling or crying."

with
hairs
I' it"

tiSTORY OF ROCK 1975 I 73

- NME JUNE 21 CH LANA MAN East End lady with lotsof heart, soap opera principles, noself-confidence and no surname(she dropped it after her marriage
broke down). She could easily have been the subject for
a rather sad Play For Today, a peripheral pop person
whose role is not legitimised. Which is why she elected herself Can's
unofficial unpaid, unsupported fan club secretary despite the fact she
hasn't even got a record player. For the love of it.
So, Simon Puxley (who is handling Can's publicity on this tour) andmyself are left holding her shoes, and two extra glasses, while she goesoff. We also have time to marvel at the delightful incongruities of thesituation: (a) that Can, a much -praised, relatively obscure, highly
ephemeral German band, with a bass player who studied with and hangs
out with Karlheinz Stockhausen and a guitarist who claims his main
influence to be John Cage, should be playing Hastings Pier Pavilion ona wet Friday night to a half -full house of spotty 14 -year -old provincials in
Millets Afghans; (b) that you can get a tequila on Hastings Pier; (c) that
Can have a fan club; and (d) that Chiana is its secretary.
I mean, what is there about Can that could possibly support the usual
kind of fan sensibility that demands to know things like where the bass
player takes his pet poodles to be clipped?
Try it. We're backstage during the interval. Holger (the bass player)
walks in, still wearing the white gloves he always plays in.
Uhhh, Holger? Holger... why do you always
play with gloves on?
"Well," says Holger, a polite smile flickering
across his heron -like features, "it iss because
I can achief a better tonality" (here hedemonstrates how -with gloves- he feels hecan get a better purchase on the strings).
"In fact," says Michael the guitarist a coupleof days later, "Holger wears gloves because hehas a cleanliness fetish -I once picked up his
bass and started playing it and he wiped thestrings afterwards."
This is fanmag material?The bass player
wears gloves because he has a cleanliness fetish.
Try again. "Dear Chiana, I am very interested"On the newrecord we have
got much more
into magic

rhythm"in Can; they are almost as good as the Pink
Floyd. Could you please tell me where the organist bought his silver jerkin?
- Floyd Fan, Bootle." "Dear Floyd Fan, Irm in's silver jerkin might prove to
be a little hard to find. It is made entirely from beer -can ring pulls."

HOWEVER, THE REAL difference between Can and theircontemporaries in (supposedly) free -form astral doodlings(Floyd, Kraftwerk, Neu!, etc) is that they always remain
strictly rhythmic in an essentially danceable fashion. Both physicaland metaphysical. So that even if the elaborately ethereal
instrumental work leaves your average punter unmoved, at least therhythm section will keep his hip joints oiled.
Thus, the house (half full but keen) gets off royally despite the fact thatthe two German roadies are at loggerheads, trying their best to sabotage
each other's efforts so that the sound (emanating from a series of
speakers set into a 12 -foot baffle board behind the band) frequently
emerges like a symphony for spin driers.
Irmin Schmidt (keyboards, ring -pull jerkin) met Holger Czukay (bass,
gloves) in Darmstadt back in 1965 when both were studying under
Stockhausen. Czukay took him seriously, writing pieces in his styleand conducting small classes of his own. Schmidt, meanwhile, waslosing his rocks to Cage, Fluxus and La Monte Youngwhile taking firststeps in the direction of becoming a legitimate conductor of large
conventional orchestras.
Three years later, Schmidt teamed up with American avant-garde
flautist David Johnson and Czukay was invited to join them. The trio
decided upon a course of jazz nouveau and "beat music", the latter
reminding Czukay of a young law student to whom he'd taught someguitar two years previously- Michael Karoli, who was at that time playing
bass with a pop group playing the Swiss disco circuit.
He arrived the next day. The drum mer- Jaki Leibezeit- then with theeminent Manfred Schoof group playing free -form jazz, arrived from74 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Hamburg unexpectedly a couple of days later.
Enter Malcolm Mooney, a young black NewYorker,
a friend of a friend of Irmin's who'd just returned
from a pilgrimage to India. Irmin met him in Parisand invited him back to Cologne to singwith theband. Mooney had never worked with a band before.
Reports suggest that upon his arrival he simply strode into the studio,
grabbed the mic-stand and launched the band into "Father Cannot Yell",which opens Can's debut album, Monster Movie.
"It was," says Michael Ka roll, "the first piece we ever made."
Although, in fact, they had recorded two film soundtracks.
Mooney chose the name, always performed off the top of his head andultimately went completely off his head -to be replaced bywandering
Japanese street musician Kenji "Damo" Suzuki, who spoke no German
and left just before the last British tour to become a Jehovah's Witness inan obscure German hotel scullery.
The first part of the set has finished. The band are resting up in an ugly
backstage room with a window overlooking the beach. Michael is tellingsomeone how he had his guitar ripped off at the last gig in Liverpool. He
has had his haircut.
"And now I am finding that because they can see my face," he is saying,"the press have 'discovered' me. I get far more photographs now..."
Chiana is back in the bar with us.
"People keep asking for pictures of them," she is saying, "but I can't gethold of them. I wrote to the record company and they weren't very helpful."
The entire tour, in fact, seems to have been handled with an arguably
low -profile approach with an arguably erratic,
rather eccentric schedule that leaves the bandlying around picking their noses for days on
end and then suddenly heaves them into a
compacted series of geographically disjointed
dates. Considering the fact that the criticalresponse to the band here has been universallylaudatory, this seems a little strange.
Not that Can lose money here. They stay incheap hotels at special pre -arranged rates; theybring their own roadies and equipment in theirown van and travel overland in the group Cara Peugeot estate.
The second part of the set revolved around"Dizzy Dizzy" and "Chain Reaction", althoughboth are barely recognisable from the recorded
versions. "Set", anyway, is an inaccurate definition with regard to Can.
Generally they just wander on stage and play; this has been the first tour
where they used some modicum of stage planning. Basically, though,their approach remains true to the initial one.
"We made a concert three days afterwe met," says Karoli, grinning. "It
was the first time. We decided that there was nothing we could play; there
was no song we knew... so we just decided to play free. The flute player[Johnson) was into pure electronics of the Floydish kind and we had aradio on stage. It was completely chaotic.
"Halfway through, the news came on the radio and went out throughthe PA... and Irm in ruined a very beautiful piano completely by pureviolence. We took a pair of drumsticks and began beating on the strings
against me and Holger, who were both going over a stereo record.

CUT TO CHEAP London hotel room. Michael Karoli is putting
on his underpants. He has a big ass. I'm moaning to him
about the way in which everyone here "got funky", wentcompletely mindless for The Meters and forgot about carrying on
the old Small Faces tradition of the quintessentially English three minute single.
"What English music has in comparison to American or Germanmusic," he observes, spraying deodorant into his armpits, "is usually
English people are very thin. I mean," he explains, "there are manymen in England who are very slim. And theAmericans have a big ass.
So if English groups are trying to playAmerican rhythm, they just don't
get that... shake... because there is not enough ass."
Outside we hail a cab and run into Irmin and the roadies in a hamburger
house. Kate the photo lady arrives and immediately engages Michael inconversation about astrology. He immediately engages her in asomewhat fragmented conversation about orgies. He speaks very softlyand very articulately, gives the appearance of being perpetually stoned

CAN

and slightly hedonistic. He always has a half -smile on his face except forwhen you crack a joke which he always takes seriously.
But, to the roots...
"I've always been into funky things," a prone Karoli observes, "as far as
I know, 'funky' means 'dirty'... and I've always been into dirty music,
music with hairs on it. People like Oscar Peterson or Dave Brubeck neverfascinated me, and I never got into Charlie Parker -all this kind of musicis very flat."
He prefers Thelonius Monk, the Stones - especially "Just Wanna See
His Face" on Exile, the Staple Singers, Lee Dorsey... The Last Poets. Body oriented stuff.
"If a drug is a comparison, I like to be the drug myself," he claims. "Thepeople should go out of the concert either smiling or crying. I have thatwith films sometimes. I go out of a good film and I feel very close to
everybody else who has seen it. I want to go and shake their hand eventhough I do not know them. Excuse me, I must take a piss."
And Stockhausen?
"The Stockhausen thing has been very overrated. Only Holger has been
influenced by him -his Canaxis solo album is definitely inspired by him.
But he [Stockhausen] has been a kind of patriarch to us- he must be very
nice. He wrote a letter to German immigration when Damo was
supposed to get a working permit and hadn't.
"They had put him in jail and threatened to deport him. We couldn't get
him out. Stockhausen wrote them a very emotional letter. Like, 'Do you
know that you are bringing down the entire German culture with what
you are doing' -a really heavy, beautiful letter. In the end it wasn't his
letter that freed Damo, though; it was a television personality..."Karoli claims to have been more inspired by Cage -the originator of the"prepared piano" -wherein the old school prank of filling the works withbits of metal and toilet rolls is rendered as art.
"My idea," says Karoli, "is making rock music with the consciencethat John Cage has left. I am very much into accidents and coincidences.
I have two radio sets. I put them on at the same time; usually they'retuned to different stations. I then turn on the television, stand in the
middle and play my guitar. It's really beautiful. You know, I really like
listening to shortwave."
Karoli's closest musical ally he reckons to be Phil Manzanera.
"I don't know about his ideas, but I have been into South Americanmusic too. Also on the John Cale record he plays exactly the solos
I would be playing -which is comforting because often I feel veryalone with my style."
Which is a mite unorthodox? Possibly as much due to the fact that for
years he has taken a little pill and transcended his ego every time he's goneon stage. He now reckons to be at the point of omnipotence, although,three albums back, his lack of self-confidence almost killed him.
"I got very sick after EgeBamyasi. I developed an ulcer during recording
which then perforated because I had very big problems concerning my
ability to make music."
Nevertheless, "One More Night" on EgeBamyasi still ranks as one of themost beautiful things Can have ever done.
"For my taste," says Karoli, "the album is too spartan. There's too little
guitar -because I was too conscious about every little thing. Afterwards
I think the guitar on 'One More Night' is very beautiful, but much too soft.
This song was 'painted'.
"We put down a rhythm tape. I played a backing track that sounded likea drum. Damo came up with the idea that it sounded like people in New
Yorkwith knives. So we said, 'Ah, NewYork.' Irmin did a harmonic thingthat sounded like falling rain: I did a wah-wah thingthat addedtc it... wereally madea painting ofa rainy New

York night. 'Spoon' and 'Vitamin C' were old pieces, though. The whole ofthe second side we made in one day.
"I was completely despaired. We only had two more days left to recordand only three pieces to hand. On the new record we have got much more
into magic rhythm -like 'One More Night' is a magic rhythm."
He goes on to describe the construction of a piece for the new album.
It started with him having a conversation with an English electronics
expert as to why his Sony TVset should have a clearer picture than any
other brand. The guy told him that it was because the colour screen,rather than being composed of a series of tiny dots, is in this casecomposed of fine stripes. The term for this is "striped mask". Karoli
was musing upon this while watching it one night as a programme
on a Trinidadian street festival appeared.
"The dancers wore masks with beautiful names; for example 'the devil's
bride'. I had this curious chant running through my head -'striped mask/
whole mask/shadow mask'. I had alreadywritten lyrics about getting up
in the morning and being shaky and needing something to warm me up.
I put those in. We went into the studio, Irmin took an old broken-down
double bass and started beating the strings just below the bridge. I played
timbales. Jaki played bongos. Holger played bass. It has a rhythm like afish swimming slowly in water. It is extremely powerful. The mask text
gets completely magic."
Karoli then spends 20 minutes explaining the spiral of life tome...
complete with illustrated biro drawings that look like continuations on
the yin -yang symbol.
"I like to use everything I can to my advantage," he concludes, "evenif it is negative experience. Some people had a hard time at school," heexplains, "so they tend to subconsciously want to forget everything
to do with it. I have had teachers I hated, but still they have taught mesome things.
"Holger and Jaki are dealing more with ordinary life- especially Holger.
Jaki's approach is completely musical. He doesn't care about other things.
I am very lazy- Holger is very busy. That separates us quite a lot. Each oneof us wants to achieve power. I want to achieve power within myself...
Actually, my dream is to be able to wake up in the morning and make tea
without getting up," he sniggers.
"Holger's approach to life is not dictated by music. Holger denies
many of these things for himself, but he has learnt the form of music atuniversity. I have never learnt it -I just found out it was impossible to live
without it anyway.
"Holger's the working man. He does all the recordings. His wayof achieving power is that he has always kept us away from therecording machines."
Karoli's ambition is to write major lyrics about television, which he says
is one of his greatest influences -a new religion almost. He has also
written a multi -layered piece inspired by the soft latex rubber centre
found in golf balls.
"I would say that the Germans cannot help being deep. They are always
really deep. Like, before I was in Can I made much meditation. I did yoga,
played a lot of music... or I was sitting at the table -it sounds really crazy-trying to get the Cosmic Chord together. I finished up trying to compare
the mathematics of the distances between the planets."
Chiana is staggering towards us across the ballroom floor.
Having bundled her into the car through torrential rain, we spend 20
minutes cruising the sea front for the hotel that she knows full well she
never booked into. On the way back to London she wants to know if I will
join her in the back seat as she is getting cold. Finally we drop her at
Notting Hill Gate. The more she refuses to accept from you, the more
you give. Finally she accepts a couple of quid for the cab fare and makes
off through the rain.
One more night. PeterFrckine
I

So

der
first phase iss komplete.
Ve haff kaptured der NME
Tomorrow...der vorld!
Ja kinder, gather round while Krautrockers

Stockhausen

CAN getrockingat der Hastings Pier Pavilion. and rpupnt

with

1975
APR

\\I

Evolving slowly, with a closed circle around them,
the ALES are preparing for greatness. But, as

one reporter discovers, their jarring personalities
may not help them. "I love Bernie Leadon and I hatehim," says Don Henley. "You know what I mean?"`A certain

Westerncharisma"0

MELODY MAKER

rill 12N A CLEAR day in Hollywood, Glenn Frey can see from his livingroom right out to sea, right across the Pacific to Catalina, the island
off the coast of Southern California. On a not so clear day, he can see

layers of orange smog, the product of the internal combustion engine,which is God in this part of America.
Today is clear and the view is quite breathtaking. Certainly conducive
to writing those typical Los Angeles soft -rock melodies with which the Eagles havebecome synonymous.
It doesn't take a fortune teller to predict that 1975 is going to be the big year for the
Eagles. They've been clicking their boot heels for three years now, steadily building a
reputation in the wake ofThe Byrds, waiting for the breakthrough that their third album,
On The Border, has seemingly now brought about. Although it's easing down the chartsright now, it's established the band as a force to be reckoned with.
"On The Borderwas the best -sounding record we ever made, but that's also experience.
We're starting to learn how to become recording artists, which is a little different fromlearning how to be a member of a band or how to become a singer -songwriter.
"There're definitely things we've learned slowly over a couple of years of making
records. I knowwhen we made Desperado we were very conscious of having a group
identity running through the songs, and that was something we learnedout of doing the first album.
"After doing that one, when we went in to do On The Borderwe tried tobring in the best elements from both the albums. That probably had
something to do with it, but I think it was a better album anyway. I think
we just progressed and played with a little more confidence. But mainly
I think it's that we stayed together."Another factor which Frey credits as being important to the group's
recent success is the introduction of Don Felder on slide guitar. Felder,76 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

The Eaglesin1975:(-r)
Randy Meisner, Bernie
Leadon, Glenn Frey, Don
Felder and Don Henley'1/4111,I-

HISTORY OF ROCK 975 177

v

nc
ONE
OF
THESE

1975
APR

NIGHTSsays Frey, put extra punch into the Eagles' live show,with the added result that they picked up more
followers. "I believe in selling records on the road,and I believe that if you work hard and have a good
album out, it will sell.
"Since we got Felder in the band we've had
a much better second half, the rock'n'rollhalf, in our shows. The other part, the vocal ha rmony softer part, was always real good, but
Felder nails down the harder stuff.
"He's like Duane Allman: he drives the bandon certain songs. Some slide players, myself
included, just slide along with the song, butwhen Felder plays slide he drives the band andthe whole thing revolves around him. So theyear that we promoted On The Borderwe had
a much better show together."
Desperado was a concept album in as much as
many of the tunes dealt with the old West.
It seemed curious, I remarked, that a band
would travel to England from America to makethat kind of record.
"Well," mused Glenn. "I guess you're right, but Clint Eastwood madeall those cowboy movies of h is in Italy. Some of the best Western movies
have been made in Europe. You get a whole new perspective working in
England. All of a sudden you're a foreigner, and it put us and LA andeverything into perspective. Now I like staying here, although we tried
going to Miami for part of this new album. We got some stuff
accomplished there, but not nearly as much as we did recording here."
Another factor which possibly aided the success of the last album wastheir decision to tourwith some of the material before it was put downon tape. Thus not only were audiences already familiarwith the tracks,
but the band had an opportunity to work on them before they reached
the studio.
"I think we did about five songs on a college tour," said Glenn. "We wereout there testing them, mixing them in with the better-known songs.
I think it's good to do it that way someti mes, because it forces you to makeme and Felder a nd Neil trading solos for about 12
minutes. We hope to make it an annual event as
we're doing another one this May. I'm into doing
things for them because I figure we're living on theirland even if I don't have one iota of guilt about it.
"The Indians knew how to live here properly
and a lot of people are starting to think this way
and realise their Old West consciousness. I'm
into the western civilisation mysticism. Over
here people are always turning to the east, but
I figure it's all right here if we want to look for it.
"I'm sure some of this Indian and Mexican
influence was with us when we were doing
Desperado, as we had a great time doing thelittle links between songs, the banjo andtraditional things. I would like to do anotherconcept album, though I'm not sure what thepremise would be."Frey's song "Best Of My Love" undoubtedly
gave On The Border sales a boost. It was, hesays, an attempt to work off a guitar tuning that
Joni Mitchell had demonstrated. "Actually, I got into a totally different
tuning and that's how the song ended up.
"I had a little help from John David Souther, who worked on the bridge
and rang me up from LA when I was in England to play it over the phone.
We actually worked on it over the phone until he came to England to see
us. 'Cry Like A Lover' came about the same way, working on the phone
over all that distance."
Collaboration with other LA musicians is a way oflife in California, as
can usually be detected by reading album credits as well as noticing
various similarities in the actual music.
"On songwriting, I do it all the time," admits Frey. "If I get something
I can't finish by myself, it's always good to take it to someone else. We
collaborate among ourselves, but Souther helps us out sometimes.
"It's not so much calling up for help in an emergency as just calling andsuggesting we spend an even ingwriting together and picking up on
fragments. The funny thing that we find with the guys in the Eagles andSouther and Jackson is how much we think alike. Whenever anyone plays
something, we tend to pick on it right away."
This summer the Eagles are making their first trip to England in over 18
months. They're tentatively scheduled to appear with Elton John at
Wembley Stadium on June 21 alongwithstablemate Joe Walsh.
"What I like about playing in England," said Frey as we drew to a close,"is the attentiveness of the audience. In America we tend to play to very
boisterous crowds, but in England they sit and listen and I just thriveon that.
"We found when we played our first ever gigs in England that being
American helped us. Being an American unknown in America is a drag,but being an American unknown in England is cool. We found we hada certain amount of Western charisma. I didn't realise it until people
started looking at my cowboy boots and asking where I got them."

VISI"When Felder
plays slide,the wholething revolves
around him"a presentation immediately.
"It forces you to give a rendering immediately so vocal parts get
simplified, and backing parts and guitar parts get honed down to what
you can do best to present the song. By the time we get to the studiothere's a whole basic sketch already done.
"With this next album we haven't done that, but again this album so far
is nothing but our own songs. On the others we usually included a song byanotherwriter or called in a friend like Jackson (Browne) or John David[Souther' to help on a track. We may do that in the next two weeks, though.
"This is maybe a reason why it's taking longer to make than otheralbums, but another reason is that Don Henley and I are trying to change
the traditional symbolic rock'n'roll lyrics that most people use on albums.
"The songs have been finished for a while but we've sat around thinking
whether we ought to change them. All we have to do now is to go in andsing the parts, and that's when it'll begin to sound like an Eagles record.
Whenever I hear backing tracks, I can't think of it being the Eagles at all,a long way from 'Peaceful Easy Feel ing'."
Last summer, the Eagles backed Neil Young at a Nat ive American
benefit concert near San Francisco, an experience which maybe
repeated this year, and one
which Frey recollects withmore thana little pride.
"The guy that put it
together was our art
director, and he knows thenative California Indiansand he approached Neil
Young who said he'd do it.
He didn't commit himself
until three or four days
before the concert, though,because he didn't want it
to be advertised.
"We had a great jam on'Cowgirl In The Sand' with

ChrisCharlesworth- NME JUNE 28 WPRE SITTING IN a bar more or less opposite from
Rotterdam's Hilton hotel, Elektra Asylum's press officer
Monty Smith and me. Elektra Asylum (the label comesunder EMI's wing in Britain but when the contract expires very soon,
it's more than likely EM I'll no longer distribute the label over here)
have flown me to Holland to see the Eagles perform at the city's Ahoy
Halle, thinking that the Dutch gig'II put the group in a more favourable
light than their Wembley, London, gig some three days later.
There's also a faint chance that I'll get to talk to the Eagles, a rareoccurrence by all accounts, although the band'll be given the whole
Rolling Stone cover job a couple of issues hence.
In fact, the Eagles' drummer/singer/writer Don Henley has got word to
Monty that he'd especially like to meet me after the review that appearedin this paper a couple of weeks ago of their new album One OfThese
Nights. Prior to hearing the One OfThese Nights record I'd been anunreserved fan of the group, but on One OfThese Nights it seemed as
though they just weren't doing their best any more.
A few minutes later we're sitting around a dining table with Eagles
manager IrvingAzoff, a bearded, bespectacled gent, around five feet tall,THE EAGLES

who also manages Joe Walsh (appearing with the Eagles at the Ahoy
Halle), Dan Fogelberg and Minnie Riperton.
Azoff is eating his dinner. He refers to me as the band's ex -favourite
writer and suggests that we drive on down to the gig with the Dutch
promoter, a friendly enough gesture. But when the question of aninterview comes up, he says it's right out after that review.
And when the Eagles do an interview, all five have to participate,otherwise those who don't get interviewed get jealous; a situation that
arose when Henley and Glenn Frey (very much the band's leader judging
from the subsequent gig) used to do all the interviews.
"We're not over here to make money. We're over here to sell a few
records," says Azoff on the drive to the gig. "The Eagles are five times
bigger than Walsh over here. In England they both sell about the same."
Azoff asks if we've seen the band before. No, says Monty. Yes, say I.
Either way, he says, we'll be surprised at the difference guitarist Don
Felder has made to the band.
The Ahoy Halle is a cycling stadium. And it shows backstage, where
the dressing rooms are fitted with all the facilities a Hugh Porter would
desire. The atmosphere is very relaxed, not to mention casual, as Walsh's
band sit around waiting to goon.
Monty and I have been directed towards Walsh's dressing room. But
hang on. Isn't this an Eagle? Yes, it's Don Henley, denimmed and tired
after spending the previous night at Les Ambassadeurs, where hegambled away $2,500 with Elton John's mob playing blackjack (that's
pontoon to you).
"You're the guy who got the facts wrong"- Henley's opening words. He
explains what I got wrong and he's very serious about it all. "I'm trying not
to be nasty," he says.
The main thing that bothers him is that I said it was Glenn Frey whosang lead vocal on the title track of One OfThese Nights, whereas it wasHenley himself singing. But there's a couple of other things, too, like
where I said there were mandolins on the album, whereas in fact the
instrument being played was a 12 -string gu ita r. Also I was wrong about"Too Many Hands". "The song's about the planet," Henley explains. "It's
not about a woman."
I thought it was about a woman. One line goes: "There's too many hands
begin laid on her." But the "her" the hands are being laid is the cacology,
I think. I apologised. Henley refuses to be drawn into conversation andwanders off to his dressing room.
Joe Walsh and band play the opening set. We're sitting in the front row.
As Saturday's Wembley show proves, Walsh wasn't exactly giving his all at
Rotterdam and his guitar playing was lost in the overall mix.
Backstage, Eagle Bernie Leadon (there's a story that Leadon got tired ofbeing a pop star first, musician second and almost quit the band a year orso back) tunes his banjo. "We haven't played in 10 days. My fingers are outof shape and so is my voice."
It didn't really show in the band's subsequent set, since everything
except for bassist Randy Meisner's voice was record perfect. It wasn't
Meisner's fault. Something was wrong in the mix, causing his vocals tovery nearlyvanish.
Glenn Frey's first on stage, looking slightly athletic as he runs to pickup his guitar, wearing a sloppy baseball jersey with the figure nineemblazoned on the shirt's back. Frey sings lead as the group go into an
all -electric version of what amounts to their signature tune, "Take It
Easy", Leadon playing a solo on Telecaster. Frey switches to the
grand piano left on the stage and the band play "Outlaw Man",a great rock'n'rol I song from their Desperado album.
The Eagles are capable of performing their excellent songs withan admirable precision, yet they lack any real onstage presence or
facility for projection. One gets the feeling they're merely going

through the motions.
Fine moments aside, like rendering of "Peaceful Easy Feeling",a love song from their first album, the set gets pegged at one leveland goes on for far too long. The audience response, needless tosay, was ecstatic.
Azoff invites me up on stage for the last couple of encores, "BestOf My Love" and "Tequila Sunrise", and a close look at the bandgives me the impression that it is Leadon more than any others
who is attracted by what they're doing on stage.
(The Eagles' Wembley set was a much superior performance.
The show had more balance, climaxing with a particularly
astonishing delivery of thei r Number One America n hit "Best Of
My Love", the vocal harmonies being a true intestinal joy.)

Frey seems in good spirits after the gig and after we're introduced hesays, "I didn't mind your review."
How about an interview later, I ask, and he more or less agrees, saying:"I'll say 'yes' to anything, especially to her," pointing both retinas in the
direction of the golden -skinned blonde who's next to him. "Come back tothe bar at the hotel and we'll feel it out," Frey says, referring to an interview.
Azoffs hanging around outside in the corridor. I tell him that Glenn
seems to be into doing an interview. "No way," says the manager. "If one of
the group says they don't want to do an interview then there's nointerview and Don Henley doesn't want to talk to you." I see.
Back at the Hilton, Monty approaches Henley again. Henley withdraws.
We go on down to the hotel's discotheque where various members ofWalsh's band are already ensconced. Drinks are ordered and it seems
that the Eagles have either decided to take an early night or have slouched
off to some other habitat to do their relaxing.
Less than 15 minutes later Glenn Frey and I are discussing the newalbum and just why the group are so reluctant to do interviews. As
regards One OfThese Nights, Frey's attitude towards the review I'd
written seems to have changed a little since our brief encounter after
the gig.
He now defends the album, saying that every band should be allowed
some self-indulgence now and again, with particular reference to thesix -minute -plus instrumental on the album "Journey OfThe Sorcerer".
When it comes to the subject of interviews, he compares their attitude to
Joni's sentiment that it's all in the music, man. And despite herrecalcitrance, Joni's albums still get in the charts. True enough.
Henley joins us and we proceed to make friends. He says that he did
feel very bitter towards me but it's all better now. He appears very intenseand drunk, and suddenly discloses that members of the band don't getalong too well.
"I love Bernie Leadon and I hate Bernie Leadon. You know what I mear.?"says Henley.
Frey returns to the table and I once again requests a more formalinterview, perhaps later in the week in London. Frey doesn't want toknow, but Henley now seems keen to do an interview, saying not to takeFrey's word as final on the interview situation.
Two days later at a party for the acts appearing at Wembley, Henley, Freyand I meet again. Frey wishes to make clear something that he's said tome in Rotterdam about not giving a damn about record sales in England,saying he does care about the band's record success over here.
Another request for an interview is turned down since Frey has to leave
the country early to go and visit his folks in Detroit, where the Eagles areplaying their next gig. Henley, however, asks me to call him up at thishotel, the Inn On The Park (he's staying at a different hotel to the rest of
the band) on Sunday, which I subsequently do only to find that he's not at
it. I do, however, contact Henley on Monday morning and after
exchanging a few words with the drummer, Azoff is put on the phone.
He proceeds to call me to order for contacting an artist without going
through the necessary channels, and says that if I'm as unfair to Joe
Walsh (an interview has been arranged between myself and Walsh) as
I have been to the Eagles I'll never get near one of his artists again.
A couple of hours later, Walsh calls the interview off, fearing a hatchetjob. I'm just tired of the whole thing. I know they're sensitive people but
this is pushingit a bit. SteveClarke

Recalcitrant pop
star shrugs off
earnest request
for interview
This, says STEVE CLARKE, who
ran afoul of THE EAGLES in
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211

Pireere,STEREOlentt",",`.1VS'- NME JUNE 14 is0 WHAT HAPPENED to the mohairs then, Lee?
"I 'ave got a mohair. It's in shreds at the moment. Afteryou've sweated into it a few times it comes out like the
cardboard they put in shirt collars. It's all down to Terylene
now, I think."
Such are the strains of the Dr Feelgood stage act on
sartorial aesthetics. If you've seen lead singer, harp player and erstwhileslide guitarist Lee Brilleaux work out you'll know what I mean. And if you
haven't seen the Feelgoods by now I don't know where you've been.
Brilleaux, elegantly attired in a pair of denim drainies that taper down
into twin rubberised mounds of black suede brothel -creeper, is sat in
the offices of "Oil City Enterprises", alias the upstairs room of "Feelgood
House", a modest little detached pink -brick job nestling in the suburbsof Canvey Island.
As yes... Canvey, where the pylons grow tall and the oil refineries rise
and rust out of the flat scrubby landscape of the Thames Estuary, halfbuilt and now abandoned once the American oil companies had decided
they were no longer "commercially viable". A sore point with theresidents, that. Didn't Wilko Johnson himself get arrested at a publicdemonstration about the refineries?
Later for The Roots, though -enough of the Canvey/Southend
mythology has been chronicled elsewhere (not least by our own Nick
Dr Feelgood backstage in
London.1975:(1-r) John
Martin (AK A The B ig

Figure). Lee Brilleaux. John

BSparks.WilkoJohnson

Kent and Max Bell) not to need further elaboration here.
So Feelgood House, as well as being the home of manager
Chris Fenwick and Brilleaux since late last year, also serves as
the band's HQ, with a squat four -track studio out back. On the walls are
numerous Feelgood artefacts, including a poster for the band's upcoming
tour of Eu rope with the familiar logo figure of the "Doctor" himself.
Leering from the cabin of a roaring juggernaut.
The band have already launched a commando -style four -day foray into
France, culminating in an already legendary gig at the Bataclan, Paris.
This time, they'll be going in earnest, with gigs in "most every country
outside the totalitarian -state jobs".
But then there's a whole flurry of activity in the Feelgood camp atpresent. There was their party -stopping appearance at the post -Earl's
Court Led Zeppelin festivities (of which more later); and an offer toplay the Crystal Palace concert that was gratefully declined ("all that
arguing about when you got on"); and a new single -"Back In The Night"- out next week.
And all this hard on the heels of a British tour that should lay low theoft -voiced suggestion that the Feelgood stage charisma was too rooted in
the zeitgeist of early -'60s R&B ever to cut it in the arena of provincial
teendom. The "the kids" couldn't relate, in short -that's if you can still
give credence to a term that covers everything from the pubescentexcesses of Rollera ma to the karma -chewing docility of a Yes audience.
"The Kids" anyway. So what sort of "kids" go to a Feelgood gig?
"Well, ifyou'd have asked me six months ago who cameto see us," begins Brilleaux, "I would 'ave said it was theCharlie Gillett lot- revival crowd, y'know, art -school
types, students, that sort -which is roughly the categorythat us as geezers fall into.
"I mean," he points out, with a flourish, "we're not street
punks, y'know."
After all, there is Wilko Johnson BA on lead, while
Brilleaux himself spent th ree-and-a-half years as a law
clerk before going pro musician- law school and all.
"Canvey's a bit different to everywhere else," he explains.
"The law's a bit different too -the bloke I worked for has
been struck off now."
But to the issue... "Now it's the kids 'oo support Man Utd
who come to see us -the same sort of kids 'oo were in Paris
last week at the [Leeds] match."That's right, those kind of kids.
"Now the kids, who're 15 or 16, t hey don't know anything
about The Big Three or Kingsize Taylor, that's nothin' tothem -they just see it as four guys on stage now who area little bit punchy, who are giving a bit of stick."See, while the Feelgoods have had half the rockjournalists in the country scrabbling round for adjectives
graphically heinous enough to describe a stage act thatverges on the truly deranged, they've invariably also been
considered by some as some kind of fossil ised '60s curiothrown up by a time warp down there in Canvey.
I mean, never mind the music fora moment; just takethe collective Feelgood image. These blokes come on
like they're working a protection racket on seaside
amusement arcades. Street punks they're not, but equally
they're not the type you'd elbow out the way to get to thebar. Or let's just say that they suggest a lifestyle somewhat
less wholesome than the likes of those regularly featureon Top Of The Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test.

In an age of self -parody, though, originality can be anundervalued commodity -hence the notion amongchic London circles that it's all some kind of pose,a suggestion guaranteed to bring forth indignant
amazement from the group.
"It's like an actor has to
Dr Feelgood
exaggerate things," says Brilleaux,"and the bigger the stage the more'e 'as to exaggerate- 'cos thepeople at the back can't see. Inthat sense, we do try and transmit
an 'image, but we don't think,'Right, OK boys, let's go out there
an' lay it on 'em, we're gonna nti3Z

Lee Brilteata
performing at the
Roman amphitheatre
inOrange,France,w75

The best local group in thelie reeiguous lay waste
U wilier oilryitz Army and their like.

worldNME AUG 23 I

ANOTHER THING YOU should remember
about France, South of, in Claudius' dayor your own, is that the place boasts
abundant natural chauffage, a fair slice ofsoleil, and that in such conditions even themost placid of temperaments can be worn
down after a while and stimulated into themost horrific acts. One thinks uneasily of
Pamplona and the dreaded Noonday Sun - as
Dr Feelgood's privately commisioned four motored Handley Page monoplane touches
lightly down on the sweat -soaked grass ofAvignon Airport.
Airport ? Hah! Battle of France emergency
strip, more like. And a score of blue-overalled
douaniers leg at top speed out of a Nissen hut
and into the Feelgoods' plane. Looking foryou -know -what, one supposes, though one
does hear extraordinary things concerning
the local commercial pulling power ofmarmelade. Nixenheimer gefunden, tho', andafter a while one perceives that the dreadeddemi-f tics are actually not at all disgruntled by
the fearsome heat and are actually getting off
on the experience.
"Silly buggers, Frogs" snorts Lee Brilleaux.
And he's right. There's the usual panic overhire cars (there's actually too many, parbleu)
but before too long even that is sorted out tothe satisfaction of tour manager Jake - who is
adept in Frogspeak to a degree, mightily
unusual in Britbands - and the Feelgoods'
caravanserai is soon heading for the fabled
town of Avignon, on the bridge of which one
dances, etc.
Avignon is some way to the north ofOrange, home of the famed Claudianamphitheatre etc, etc, and it transpiresthat not even the environs of the smaller
town are penetrable by vehicles owing to
the extraordinary density of the legions ofSoufafrance youth packed therein. In theamphitheatre, on top of the amphitheatre in
the most unbelievable precarious positions,outside the amphitheatre...
They're not at all here specifically for theDoctor, mind you. But I've also got this feelingthat it's not T Dream who've
packed them in - 12,000 plus into a 200 -year -old
9,000 -seater, at grave risk
to life, limb and cul.
The Baker Gurvitz Army ?
Never. Procol Harum ? Wellon the cards, I should havethought, and yet it's the total
strength of this bill - which
has The Doctor in that key

the Marquee, Dingwalls-and I must confess I'dlong wondered how
Feelgood (recently andcogently described as"the best local group in
the world" by a coiner of
epigrams) would makeout on a high -velocity,
big -deal, maximum crowd occasion.

But the Feelgoods
have been SpeedingThrough Europe, andthe Orange gig is
one on a scale

they've recently
grown accustomed
to. Beingaccustomed to it,- AUGUST
they're in no fear ofdelivering. Delivering,
I'll remind you, is what the
F Goods do better than almost anyone else.
Mind you. there is John Martyn, who wehear getting applause for his last number
as our party enters the chariot stables(the backstage area). Martyn is apoplectic
with disbelief when he comes off stage.
"Couldn't believe it," he splutters to ZigZag's
Andy Childs."Play on one beat, they clap
on another. Couldn't see what was going

LIVE!
16 -

on, me eyes were shut, but I had to change
to get in time with them. Then they changed
back again."
The Feelgoods are next on, but there
seems to be about a 20 -minute timelag.
During that time a massive and belligerent
roar from the amphitheatre - of the sort a
vintage crowd would make after the Fisher
collected his thumbs -down, way back when summons all idle eyes on the spectacle of a

french petitfasciste being soundly booed by
the entire crowd for something or other.
He keeps his cool, but seems glad to makeit backstage unharmed. With typical logic,
his mates - about 20, all armed with pipes andcudgels - come charging
backstage to sort out
somebody (couldn't take on
the crowd, could they?) andfor a few moments there's"Johnson's
pickless righthand thrums andchops away at his
black Tele"mid -shot slot - which hasbrought the punters in such strength.
As all readers of NME will have twigged
long ago, Dr Feelgood is not exactly short ofadmirers among the editiorial staff of thispaper. Me, I've seen the band about a dozen
times on various occasions, but all of thesegigs were what you'd term small jobs - pubs,

ORANGE FESTIVAL- FRANCE -some ugly scenes.
Lee Brilleaux and the
Feelgoods' manager
Chris Fenwick watch fromtheir caravan door withnarrowed eyes, Oil City
natural reactions hoveringon the brink. No need. nobody gets mauled
and the clowns are ejected.
On goes the Doctor. The Doctor crunches
the crowd.As was predictable given theincredible acoustics, the odd atmosphere of
edginess -mixed -with -ecstasy, the setting and
The Figure, Spark°, Wilko Johnson and Lee

Brilleaux. Brilleaux is in white, Johnson - asever - in black. The interplay between the two,with the able Sparks grooving away in support
but not in competition, drives the audiencestraightaway onto its feet in rapture.
Brilleaux's ability to ignore Johnson's
splendidly crazed gyratious makes the frontline weave a kind of serpentine dance which
never, never, but never, comes to grief.
Johnson's pickless right hand thrums andchops away at his black Tele and every sooften he steps forward to add vocal support,
an act so oddly normal that it almost seems
out of place. considering who he is and all, andwhat he does and all.
In fact, Wilko tends to vocalise more on
his own numbers -and get this, punters, thecrowd, being mere Frogs, are unweaned on
the early R&B classics which are the Doctor's
original stock -in -trade, and not knowing what
they're supposed to to like (Christ, what anadvantage) plump in equal parts of approval
for Johnson's own compositions (featured
extensively on "Down By The Jetty") and stuff
like "I'm A Hog For You Baby" and "Riot In Cell
Block #9" - with the possible exception of"Route 66" the Doctor's closing shot. Johnson
is savagely elated by this when he comes off
stage. "Did you notice that?" he hisses. "And
Nick Kent knocked my songs!"
There's a general decision made notto remain for Procol, and besides, theGurvites are starting to look a bit fashionablebackstage, and "fashionable" in that sense
the Feelgoods are not. Anyway they're
knackered, and the grey mood of anticlimax
is beginning to settle.
Back in Avignon, an hour later, nothing ishappening. Mind you, there are two
picturesque sets of local churchtower clock
bells, each of which peals the time one -and -a half maddening minutes out of sync with theother, so nobody gets any real sleep. But you
don't want to read about that. Tony Tyler

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 183

Ccomedown there and wind bike chains roundtheir 'eads.'"It's not that that's the vibe we're trying togive to these kids; it's just that so much of theact is down to audience contact, even down tofacial expressions. You gotta go up there andbe a bit of a chauvinist bastard, be a wild,
violent nutcase. Which is something I reallyenjoy bein. I think it's great, I do it in the

supermarket all the time."
7,HE COROLLARY TO the idea that

the Feelgoods' hoodlum panacheand psychotic stage presence is a"put-on" is that musically they're bankrupt- merely a "revival band" recycling the R&B
without having too much new to say.
In particular, write-ups of the act a year or
more ago in their pub -rock period - the gigs at
the Holloway Road Lord Nelson are alreadyacquiring an almost mythic aura- invariably
homed in on their performance of such classic
black arias as "Riot In Cell Block#9" and "I'm
A Hog For You Baby", while passing over theless -familiar Wilko Johnson originals thathave since become the band's staple diet.
Brilleaux is adamant that the band "aren't
interested in reviving anything. I don't lookon it as just playing old rock songs. It was likethat at first maybe, but now... well, I ain't
never 'eard nothin' like us before."
Stop and t h i nk about it and neither have you.
There hasn't been anything. Sure, I've heard all
the comparisons to early Stones and Yardbirds- and sure, there's the same raw pounding
intensity and commitment -but beyond that,
the Feelgoods' instrumental prowess alone
puts them apart from what nostalgia mightremember of the past. Not to mention a stage
act that's pure '70s in inspiration.
"Like, I've listened to all that Merseybeat
stuff," continues Brilleaux, "'cos I didn't reallylisten to it much first time round the turned 23
last monthI, and obviously, there's fouror five English guys up there playing
American R&B and soon, there's bound tobe similarities. But because it's 1975 and not
1964, and we've all lived through a lot of things that have happened on theway, it comes out different.
"Like we were talking about reggae earlier I LB's something of a skank
fan, see], and once you've listened to that your ideas about rhythm arenever gonna be the same again."
And while Feelgood music is founded solidly on the black R&B tradition- "the spark, the flame ofwhat it's all about" as Brilleaux tells it - the way
they've interpreted that tradition is entirely their own.
Much of it is down to Wilko's guitar, which casts aside the usual roles oflead and rhythm and pours forward a constant chat ter of frills, fills, riffs,
runs and power chords that'd make Uncle Keith blush. All spilling out
from a churning right hand that never seems to vary its speed- a style thatpicks up where Cropper and Richards left off, with a cold metallic tone
that's a strictly personal feature.

IT'SA MISTAKE, though, tounderestimate the rest of theband. There's Sparko's nimble
bass chords and runs for a start,
providing a rumbling backdrop for
Wilko's expeditions, or the Figure's
pile -driving drumming which syncs
unobtrusively. Lee's harp -playing
has gone from strength to strength(Little Walter is the big influence),
while his gruff, almost sinister vocal
84 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Dr. Feelgood-40111".

Wilko chops out his
unique lead -meets -rhythm guitar soundstyle betrays the same South Side Chicago influences.
"I'm trying to get my way out of the shouting bit. It all comes from thedays of lousy PAs. I could sing better if I'd lay back a bit, but I can't do it.
I like shouting, it's fun."

Most criticism of the band, though, has been directed at and aroundtheir debut, Down By Thelenyalbu rn, where the band's preference fora lean, muscular sound that relies as much on energy and precision as on
the vagaries of production to make its impact. While the album has been
selling steadily, most Feelgood aficionados who had been fed on a diet of
their pub -rock gigs were disappointed with the band's showing on wax.
The chosen production technique was taken to the point of abandoning
all idea of overdubs -and even recording in mono.
Brilleaux's reactions to criticism of Down By The Jettyrange from theblunt -"We're not interested in a production exercise, we're a rock'n'rollband" - to the more considered...
"None of us had much experience inthe studio, and it can be a dangerous
thing for a band to go in the studiofor the first time and think they'resome sort ofAllen Toussaint. And
they've got all these marvellous ideas
they've dreamed up while they binsmashed outta their 'eads for the last
three years.
"Perhaps it does lack dynamism
here and there; perhaps we could 'ave

DR FEELGOOD

added an extra couple of guitars here and there, but I'd rather have taken
the riskwe did than to 'ave gone overboard with a load of guitars alltwangy and jingly, and the drums like a fuckin' military band 'cos of all
the overdubs...
"It's not a big commercial thing that's gonna come leaping out the
speakers of every car radio in the land; it's more like a John Lee 'Ooker
record -it's all balls and nothin' else and it takes gettin' into."
The simplest solution, in fact, is simply to play the bugger ever harderand turn up the volume control. As a first album, it's a classic in any case,far from flawless but with an identity (remember identity?) and a sizeable
clutch of original songs that put it way up on most of the last 12 months'

comparable first albums.
"A lot of people wanted something closer tothe stage act," admits Brilleaux, "but we had tosay, 'Look we're not a revival band', and putting
lots of originals on the album was one way ofsaying it. I mean, I don't want to listen to Dr
Feelgood doing 'Riot In Cell Block #9'.1 got The
Coasters' version downstairs, which is justdefinitive; there's nothing more to say aboutthat song except live, of course, when you can
get an atmosphere."
People who want a live Feelgood album

have broken most of the rules of what a '70s rock band should be and do,have made their own rules as theywent along, have inspired people to, as
Brilleaux admits, "stick their necks out for the band".
And that, I would suggest, you can't do unless you carry within you thegerm of what this whole rock'n'roll caboodle is all about.
But tell us, Lee, how come the Feelgoods were playing the Zep party?
"Well, Planed been up to see us a couple oftimes at this little club up in Dudley near where
he lives- it was 'im rather than the rest of the"I could sing
better if I'd lay
back a bit, but
I like shouting- it's fun"will get one eventuallywhen the time is right.
The next album, it seems, will be a different
pocket of ozone altogether. Fora start the
Feelgoods have been "experimenting with a few
overdubs" in their studio, and now feel sufficiently au fait with recording
techniques to take a few chances in that direction next time round. In
fact, Sparko is thinking of recording another local band by the name of
Eddie & The Hotrods.
There's also several Wilko originals in various stages of progression indeed the band were later witnessed after the interview getting theirchops together on one such number under the helpful guidance of
producer Vic Maile.
So far all the group's own songs have come from Wilko, the best ofthem, like "All Through The City", "She Does It Right" and "Keep It Out
Of Sight", taut, anguished three -minute numbers tailor-made for theband. "I know he could write songs that'll stretch out more," opines Lee.
"I think he will, eventually. He has a good sense of melody, but it's a simple
band, and what with me getting my singing style more from the blues
shouters than, uh, Nat King Cole, the melodies have to be restricted. They
add to the rhythm."
Brilleaux himself says he's rather write one great song than 50 album
fillers, but thinks the band may include "Rollin' and Thmblin'", whichfeatures him on slide guitar. It's an instrument he plays with all theconsidered violence of a demolition hardhat going up against a brickwall.
The way they play it, the Feelgoods' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" has more to dowith early Velvet Underground than with Skip James.
"I used to play slide when lwas 16," Brilleaux says, "on Elmore James
numbers, as was all the rage then. Then we got an advance, I boughtmeself a Guild and got into it again. It helps break the sound up."
Suggestions that the 'Goods are, in fact, in need of a fifth instrument
have not gone unnoticed.
"Sometimes I think it'd be good if we 'ad another instrument so
we could all lay back a bit more- 'cos the smaller the band, the'arder you got to work; it means you can't rely on anyone else to doyour job. But then, that's one reason why I like workingwith an
outfit this size -it means you got to give all you got every time."
Every time?
"Yeah, it's a golden rule with the Feelgoods that you give your last
bit to every gig. It has to be. Like in the old days when we were
greedy for bread 'cos we needed it to live, we often had to double
up and do two gigs in a night, and we'd say, 'Oh, let's hold back on

the first.'
But after five minutes you couldn't 'old back -everybody would
be, 'Oh, fuck it, I don't care if I die in the taxi on myway to the next
gig, this is where we are, this one.'"It's amazing. Sometimes you think, 'I can't get on that stage
tonight, my bones ache, I'm completely knackered.' But you getout there and the energy comes from somewhere. God knows
where. And it's got to be there, 'cos that's what it's all about -thatand nothing more..."

WHICH IS PERHAPS what Robert Plant had in mind when
he recently said that the Feelgoods were "the best band in
the world outside of Led Zeppelin".
All right, so there's a bit of drunken exhilaration in there (itself a prettyrare commodity these days), but when you think about it, Dr Feelgood

band that invited us, like -and it would havebeen bad manners to refuse anyway. I knew it
wasn't going to do us any harm to play there,
but the other business connections it had didn't
fall into place until afterwards."
The business connections referred to lie
mostly in the presence ofAtlantic bossAhmet
Ertegun at the gig, who together with Zep
manager Peter Grant was rumoured to havebeen more than a trifle interested in the boys.
Not that they're unhappywith the deal they
have herewith United Artists -on the contrary- simply that UA aren't planning to release
Down By The Jetty Stateside and, well, Atlantic...
"There wasn't a stroke pulled," explains Lee. "It wasn't a number
or anything like: 'Here's a chance for you boys to prove yourselves.'!wasn't even toldAhmet would be there till I arrived. I flipped. Actually,
we thought everyone would be into their pose, but it turned out to bea good gig."

WHATEVER THE BUSINESS machinations that ensue,
Atlantic or no, the Feelgoods remain the definitive stage act
in Britain and it must surely only be a matter of time before
they do crack the wider markets represented best by the singles andalbum charts.
But whether "Back In The Night" will be the single that does it for 'em
I have my doubts (B-side is a live cut of Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man" with
Wilko singing); which is a shame, 'cos right now one appearance of the'Goods on the likes of Top OfThe Pops could well change the Earth's axis
and project the UK into a tropical zone. Something would 'appen...
"We've done three TV appearances," said Brilleaux. "TV45, the Whistle
Test -I thought that 'ad a touch of class, meself- and The Geordie Scene,and it's doubled or trebled our door at gigs. Stupid.
"When we did The Geordie Scenethey put us all on elephant drums-circus tubs like -and I looked down and it was all these infants, thesenine -year -old girls! I thought, 'I can't do this act in front of these girls, it's
evil, there ought to be a law against it or something.'"I mean, I'm not that much of a pervert."Neiispencer

BRILLEAUXAGONISTES
There's an old tale they tell in Canvey Island on

moonless nights when the smell of the oil drifts in fromthe Estuary and the only sounds are the forlorn bayingof the super -tankers mingled with the chip -chip -chip ofWilko Johnson whittling his thumb. But you ain't gonna
read it here, Pancho. What you are gonna read, straightfrom the harmonica player's mouth, is the grisly tale ofDr. Feelgood's LEE BRILLEAUX and What He Thinks
Of It So Far. By NEIL SPENCER, who's Feeling Good.

NATIONAL AB

EMMYLOU HARRIS,BOB MARLEY, STEVEMARRIOTT AND MORE

88 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Lou Reed in

Amsterdam in
March1975. fourmonths prior to therelease of Metal
Machine Music"Limited appeal"
MM AUG 2 Lou Reed's record company

will not promote his new album. "I think
it's something that he wanted to get outof his system," says a spokesman.
LOU REED'S CONTROVERSIAL new album,
Metal Machine Music, is released by RCA thisweek- but the company will not be promoting it.
"We'll just let it wash through the system in a low keyway," RCA managing director George Lukan told
the Melody Maker this week.
"We're not pushing it because we think it's an album
which will have limited appeal. We realise we can't
build Lou Reed's career on an album like this."
The album has left reviewers all but nonplussed.
Metal Machine Music is four sides of al mostunrelenting electronic sound, without vocals or any
conventional structure -a complete departure from
Reed's previous work.
The Melody Makerlast week said of the album:"Metal Machine Music is so oppressive that it denies
any active participation on the part of whateveraudience it may eventually reach.
"I think it's something that he wanted to get out of his
system," commented Lukan. "It was actually due forrelease before Lou Reed Live. He started work on it 12
months ago, but it was delayed."

Lukan, however, refuted suggestions the album has
been put out by Reed as a way of fulfilling a contract he

Logge'd
MET,

MACHINEwas unhappy with.
"Relations between the artist and the record
company have never been better," he said. "He signed
a new contract about six or ninemonths ago, and there is still two and -a -half to three years to run onthat. When he comes over for his
European dates next month, weshall be giving him full back-up."
Reed, at present, is touring inAustralia and New Zealand before
embarking on the Star-Truckin' 75
European tour, which includes aconcert at the Reading Festival on

MiibiLkit

August 24.
He is also working on a new

album -which promises to bea return to his previous musicalstyle -for release in the autumn.
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 187

tir
1v tYs

ThetotersatTheElginpub,
LadbrokeGrowa,London,
1e75:(I-r)JoeStrummer,

Marwood"TheMole"
Chesterton, Richard"Snakehips"Dudanskiand
Sinnon"BigJohn"Cassell

KEYS TO YOUR HEART

S11,,11,1

THE IOVERs"The cat's knackers"
MM JULY 26 itroducing i he id iers, and their Troutman Joe Strummer.
s air doolit enerOvs" he says. "We flay until they throw us off..."
IT WAS SOMETIME back in Februarythat I first saw the 101ers. They had a-residency in the Charlie Pigdog Club inWest London. It was the kind of place which
held extraordinary promises of violence. You
walked in, took one look around, and wished
you were the hell out of there.
The general feeling was that something
was going to happen, and whatever thatsomething was, it was inevitably going to
involve you. After10 minutes glancing into
secluded corners, half -expecting to see
someone having their face decorated witha razor, the paranoia count was soaring.
The gig that particular evening ended ina near massacre. As the ioiers screamed their
way through a 20 -minute interpretation of"Gloria" which sounded like the perfectsoundtrack for the last days of the Third
Reich, opposing factions of (I believe) Irish
and gypsies attempted to carve each otherout. Bottles were smashed over defencelessheads, blades flashed and howling dogs tore
at one another's throats, splattering the wallswith blood... No one,lwas convinced, is goingto crawl out of this one alive...
The band tore on, with Joe Strummer
thrashing away at his guitar like there was
no tomorrow, completely oblivious of thesurrounding carnage. The police finallyarrived, flashing blue lights, sirens, the wholeworks. Strummer battled on. He was finallyconfronted by the imposing figure of the law,
stopped in mid-flight, staggered to a halt and
88 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

looked up. "Evening, officer,- he said...
The timers no longer play at the Charlie
Pigdog Club. "The builders moved in andstarted to wreck the fucking place,"
Strummer remarks caustically.
We find them now at the Elgin in Ladbroke
Grove, where they have a Thursday residency,
involved in a slight altercation with the
manager. Jules, their newly appointed
manager, and Mick Foote, their driver andunofficial publicist, are at the bar trying toplacate a band called Lipstick who've turned
up to play at the manager's
request. The manager isunder the impression that
he's hired the miers for
Monday nights, and Lipstickfor Thursday. Lipstick want
to play.
-Look-, says Foote, "whatare you doing on Monday.
Nothing? Right, you play onfucking Monday, then"The argument is resolved. The imers will
play, Lipstick can watch from the sidelines.
The band, according to Strummer (rhythm
guitar and voice), was formed "in a basement
early last summer. We had a couple of guitars
and a few Concord speakers and we thought
we were the cat's knackers... Hey, d'you wantto know howlgot my Telecaster? Well, I wasworking at the Royal Opera House carryingout the rubbish. A fucking great job. Only had
to work two hours of the day. There was thisP,erhole in the basement,
where I'd creep off to play
guitar. Anyway, the manager found me andfired me. Gave me £120 to get out as soon as
possible. So I went out and scored an AC 30.1 thought you were going to tell us about
your guitar.
"Oh yeah, yeah. I was working in Hyde Park,and I met this South American chick whowanted to get married. To stay in the country,
see? She paid me a hundred quid, solquit thejob, and got a Telecaster to go with the AC 30...
I'll get the divorce through in about two years."
The initial lineup of the band seems to havevaried from rehearsal to rehearsal, but
eventually a nucleus of musicians evolved
around Strummer and they played their first
gig at the Telegraph on Brixton Hill on
September 7 last year.
"We had this fucking
mad Chilean sax player,
Alvaro. He got us a gig at a"You want to see
someone tearing

their soul apart at
36 bars a second"

political benefit for Chilean
refugees. We had five days
to knock something
together, we could only
play six numbers. Then

our fucking drummer went
on holiday. That's when the
Snakes joined for the first time.Snakehips Dudanski, former head boy at
Salesian College and zoology student at
Chelsea University, had never played drums
before: "After a couple of days of frantic
practising I thought I could handle it. It wasn't
too difficult, (just bashed everything in sight.
I still do. There's only one difficulty... playing
with odd sticks. That, and having to buy themsecond-hand."He is now

permanently

Pop from the
beginningpit Genesii
installed in the rhythm section alongside The
Mole. Like Snakehips, The Mole had nevereven looked at a musical instrument until he
was invited to join the iolers when they wereshort of a bass player. For such a relatively
immature musical combination, Snakehips
and The Mole lock together magnetically,thrusting the loters along with vicious energy.
Strummer and lead guitarist, Clive WM
Timperley. are the only members of the bandwith any substantial musical experience.
Strummer once fronted a legendary outfit
called Johnny & The Vultures back in 1973, anerratic but occasionally stunning formationthat played a handful of gigs before sinking
without trace. Timperley. affectionately
referred to as Evil by Strummer, has beenplaying since the mid -'60s. starting with an
outfit called Captain Rougely's Blues Band,
which included Martin Lamble, the original
drummer with Fairport Convention(unfortunately killed in a road accident in1969). After that he worked his way througha succession of none -too -successful bands,
arriving on the ioiers' doorstep in January.
He's recently precipitated a minor crisis bythreatening to leave the band. He's had alucrative offer from some "tame -brained
singer -songwriter," as Strummer describes
him. "He'd be a fucking fool to leave us now.
But we've advertised for a new guitarist...
"We have to be careful. We want a guitarist
for a beat group, we don't want any bloody
acid casualties thinking they're going to join
the Grateful Dead. We want someone who
can whip their axe. I mean, if you go to see arock group you want to see someone tearing
their soul apart at 36 bars a second, not listen
to some instrumental slush. Since '67, music
has been chasing itself up a blind alley with allthat shit."
As you might have gathered, the lolers are
fairly uncompromising in their attitude
towards most contemporary rock music. They
are about energy: pure rock'n'roll dynamics.
They concentrate almost exclusively on
standard rock material, but their greatest
strength lies in Strummer's own compositions,like "Motor, Boys, Motor". and particularly"Steamgauge 99- and the stunning "Keys To
Your Heart", and in his own ragged charisma.
He's a naturally powerful performer, given tosudden explosions of passion.
"That's what it's all about. That energy. I

and to liberate the daddy in me.
Although I have seen and learned
a great deal in the last seven years,
I found I had begun to look at things
as the famous Gabriel, despite
hiding my occupation wheneverpossible, hitching lifts, etc...
I had begun to think in businessterms; useful for an often bitten,
once shy musician, but treating
Genesisat the
Academy0f Music
records and audiences as money
NYC.May.t.1975
was taking me away from them.
When performing, there were lessshivers up and down the spine.
I believe the world had soon togo through a difficult period ofchanges. I'm excited by some of theareas coming through to the
MM SEPT 6
surface which seem to have been
hidden away in people's minds.
I want to explore and be prepared
to be open and flexible enough to respond, not
THE VEHICLE WE had built as a co-op totied in to the old hierarchy.
serve our songwriting became our
Much of my psyche's ambitions as "Gabrielmaster and had cooped us up inside thearchetypal rock star" have been fulfilled-a lot
success we had wanted. It affected theof the ego gratification and the need to attract
attitudes and the spirit of the whole band.
young ladies, perhaps the result of frequent
The music had not dried up and I still respect
rejection as "Gabriel acne -struck public the other musicians, but our roles had set inschool boy". However, I can still get off playing
hard. To get an idea through "Genesis the Big"the star game once in awhile. My future withinmeant shifting a lot more concrete thanmusic, if it exists, will be in as many situations
before. For any band, transferring the heartas possible. It's good to see a growing number
from idealistic enthusiasm to professionalism
of artists breaking down the pigeonholes.
is a difficult operation. I believe the use ofThis is the difference between the profitable,sound and visual images can be developed tocompartmentalised battery chicken anddo much more than we have done. But on a
the free-range. Why did the chicken cross thelarge scale it needs one clear and coherent
road anyway?
direction, which our pseudo -democratic
There is no animosity between myself andcommittee system could not provide.
the band or management. The decision had
As an artist I need to absorb a wide variety ofbeen made some time ago and we have talked
experiences. It is difficult to respond toabout our new d irection. The reason why myintuition and impulse within the long-term
leavingwas not announced earlier wasplanning that the band needed.
because I had been asked to delay until they
I felt I should look at /learn about/develop
found a replacement to plug up the hole. It ismyself, my creative bits and pieces and pickup
not impossible that some of them might workon a lot of work going on outside music. Even
with me on other projects.
the hidden delights of vegetable growing and
The following guesswork has little incommunity living are beginning to reveal
common with truth: Gabriel left Genesis 1) totheir secrets. I could not expect the band to tie
work in theatre; 2) to make more money asin their schedules with my bondage toa solo artist; 3) to do a "Bowie"; 4) to do acabbages. The increase in money and power, if"Terry"; 5) to do a "Furry boa around my neckI had stayed, would have anchored me to theand hang myself with it"; 6) to go into an
spotlights. It was important to me to give space
fam ily, which I wanted to hold together
institution; 7) to go senile in the sticks.

"There is no animosity"

to my,

mean, we usually have to do a two -and -a -half-hour set here. If we're on a bill with some otherbands we cut it down to an hour and a half. Or
play until they throw us off. Playing that longevery night can kill you. Like. there's this line in'Roll Over Beethoven'... 'Early in the morning,
I'm giving you my warning/Don't you step on myblue suede shoes...' And if you're a classy Chuck
Berry kind of singer, you've got to do the wholeline in one breath to keep the energy flowing.

"Straight after that line I usually faint.
Everything goes white. If you haven't eaten
for a few days and you haven't had any sleep,
you just keel over backwards. But I always getback on my feet for the next line,'Hey diddle.
diddle I'm playing my fiddle/1 got nothing tolose.... That's just such a great line, you've got
to stay on your feet for that.
"And we'll always be on our feet. We're
gonna take this all the way." Allan Jon,.

"Seems to have been an overdose"
NME JULY 12
TIM BUCKLEY, THE 27 -year -old singer and composer, diedsuddenly in America last week. He had apparently played
a gig and returned to his hotel, where he was found deadsome hours later. Manager Herb Cohen commented: "It seems tohave been an overdose, but Tim wasn't into drugs, so I can only put
it down to misadventure."
Buckley played in various country bandsand, as a solo singer.
worked in folk clubs around Los Angeles. He was signed by Elektrain 1967. subsequently moving to Reprise. Of his eight albums on
release in this country, the best-known are probably Goodbye And
Hello and Starsailor, the latter marking a move into avant-gardejazz. His last appearances in this country were in 1974 when hetook part in the Knebworth Park concert and headlined a concert
at London's Rainbow Theatre.

i

Buckley tragedvi

1975
JOEY

s? MB ER

"Peoplemust havea leader"On tour in America, BOB MARLEY (with somehelp from Eric Clapton) is converting the people
to reggae. Positive vibration is his message, as
he opens up on love, the past, jail and Rastafari:"The greatest thing is life, mon, life..."- tM1 JULY19-

1

TMUST HAVE been around the 24th chorus of a seemingly endless"I Shot The Sheriff" that the audience finally cast aside whateverresistance they had left and abandoned themselves completely.
Fi nd i ng out that reggae is indeed another bag.
It's been an hou r-and-a-hal f or more since t he Wailers took t he stage

for thesecond show of the night and by now theoccupantsoftheclub
are wringingsweat out of their jeans. On stage, Bob Marley seemsoblivious tot he peoplestanding on the tables, theshouts, and the shadyglances his two
girl singers areexchanging. Ile's i mprov isi ng whole new verses tot he song,
getting into his weird knees-up/shank-up routine. Locked inside his personal
exorcism of emotion, gripped by Rasta spirits, lurching round the stage, hair
explodingout ()filial tautly featured head.
Behind him on the wall hangs a portrait of I laile Selassie, framed in the
Rastafarian colon rsof red, orange and green, presiding over the proceedings.
"This is theTrenchTown experience," sayscompere and I ights man Nevilleat the start of theshow, and it's no idle phrase: the Wailers are the sound of theKingston ghetto. Bob Marley is its finest street poet, and this is the most
excit ing gig I've seen in m nn ths.

00 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

IW

Bob Ma rley on stage-1975 - it's the last quarter

before the year 2000, andrighteousness must

ME WV' 11111110111
LIVE,-...rntar.

1

A% .11 tAru thinos for ,h. konal, of w.. fnr I

bade to ow to heck up what he andAND THIS IS also Boston, Massachusetts, US of A, a lengthy
port of call in a six -week-long tour of the States that's amassed
Marley and the Wailers a stack of rave reviews wherever
they've played and which is due to arrive in England this week for adisappointingly short set of dates prior to the band's return to Jamaica.
The band have visited the States before -once for a short tour on theirown; once playing back-up to Sly & The Family Stone -and each timereceived considerably more than a murmur of critical approval. In fact,
they already command a strong cult following among both black andwhite US audiences, a following that has widened with the release of theepochal "Natty Dread".
But it's Clapton's hit version of "IShot The Sheriff' that has introduced
Marley's name to most of the white kids who turn up to see the band. Thatand the buzz that has run along the hip grapevine; why, only two days
previous to this gig, NY's prestigious Village Voice has given a back pageaccolade to the band, headlining Marley as "The Mick Jagger of Reggae".
A bit misleading that -irrelevant even -but still.
On the whole though, reggae is still an unknown quantity in the States.
The only hit that could vaguely be called reggae is "...Sheriff'; they don't
even get the odd Ken Boothe or John Holt record in the chart to keep theirear in. And though "The Harder They Come" is a huge cult thing (it's beenplaying Boston for three years continuously now), only Marley- and to alesser extent Jimmy Cliff -have made any impact as individual artists.
In Boston the Wailers are playing a smallish club that turns out to be an
old hootenanny haunt a dozen years on ("The green pastures of Harvard
University") and which normally hosts its fair share of top-flight rock andsoul acts but never gets packed like this. The club's run by earnest
bearded men who wear their hair in ponytails and spend most of thesecond show each night trying to keep people in their seats.

July1e,1975:Bob

Marleyarrivingat
Birmingham Odeon

One turns angrily on a black couple dancing in the aisle and received
a torrid badmouthing in Jamaican patois for his troubles. He reels backconfused. Something is happening here...
And it's been the same wherever Marley has played -a hidden
underground of Jamaican immigrants has emerged from the ghettos andtransformed the atmosphere of the gigs into something more like the
FourAces, Dalston, than what you might expect in the likes of Clevelandand Detroit. In Chicago, for instance, a gang of JA rude boys refused toleave the club between shows, scaring the proprietor half out of his wits
with What They Might Do Next.
Imagine what the gig in New York's Central Park must have been like,with a crowd of 15,000, a sizeable portion of them from a Jamaican
population estimated "very unofficially" by the consulate to be around
250,000 but put nearer twice that figure by sources closer to the roots.
THERE'S BEEN IMPORTANT changes since I last saw the band
some 18 months back with the departure of Peter Tosh andBunny Livingston, founder members from way back when in '64
when the Wailers were a five -piece harmony outfit fresh out of school.
It was Bunny and Tosh who supplied the high, pure Impressions -styleharmonies that were the Wailers' trademark, matching their name while later, with the addition of the Barrett Brothers' rhythm section,
they played guitar and congas respectively.
Marley's reticent about the reasons for the split: "Mebbe they don't likethe tour too much," he says, "but they're still brethren, so... greeyat,
y'know, we still play together sometime. But music is music and me missthe music if the music leave -but the music stay..."He's right. The music has stayed. Some of the pastoral purity of the oldlineup on numbers like "Hallelujah Time" has gone, but the inclusion of

BOB MARLEY

the I -Three (Judy Mowatt and Rita Marley's back-up
voices) has re-sensualised the backdrop, while theband as a whole have an earthy, gutsy power in live
performance that's only hinted at on the albums.
The performance I'd seen last time round waslooser, more erratic, opening with a lengthy
bout of Rasta drumming and chanting, before
moving into a freewheeling set that had, forexample, Marley strutting up and down thestage playing a solo chaka-chaka-chaka rhythm
for five minutes before the rest of the band
would drop in behind him.
This time it's different. The band, now eightstrong and evidently drilled with commanding
professional thoroughness, surge with powerand breathtaking tightness, loading every riffwith poise and majesty. From the first casualclatter of Carlton Barrett's drums as they sync

"Y'call me`natty 'ead'...
reeyat. Me novex meself as
you laugh"

into "Trench Town Rock", it's obvious that the
aforementioned acclaim was no hollow praise.
Apart from the inclusion of Rita and Judy into
the lineup, there's been the arrival ofAl Anderson, a youngAmerican
guitarist who plays an almost surreptitious lead, and the equally
youthful Tyrone Downie, whose Hammond organ offers thoughtful
shadings on "No Woman No Cry", and who otherwise sets his clarinet
growling and murmuring in sympathywith the rest of the band.
The idea of a rhythm section is redundant here; everyone contributes
to the sway. Unobtrusive at the back of the stage is Alvin "Seeco"
Patterson, a constant elder companion to Marley for years, his face lined
and scarred with street experience, and now brought in on
congas. Marley himself plays thoughtful rhythm guitar (likeLennon said -"It's an important job... to make a band drive"),scrubbing chords out of his Gibson and subtly but surely
directing the band's energy flow.
Behind him is Aston "Family Man" Barrett, Marley's firstmusical lieutenant on stage and record, underpinning theconstant flux with bass figures that lope and stalk and aren't
afraid to leave gaps. His nimble runs contrast with an almost
studiedly indolent stance; he hardly seems to move, peering
under hooded lids from under his trademark woolly titfer.
Carlton Barrett (Aston's brother) is almost equallyinscrutable beneath the long shadow of his hunting cap.
He provides an unflagging metric for the rest of the group,
going round his tom-toms at most 20 times per night,
paradiddles extra.
But it's Marley himself who hold the stage and on whommost eyes are content to rest; a slight wiry figure crowned
with a gorgon's head of dreadlocks that bounce and flop andwhirl around a face undergoing a continuous process ofemotional contortion.
The voice. Its range from the buoyant whoops of 'Lively Up
Yourself to the heartfelt tenderness of "No Woman No Cry"
(slowed down to half pace and invested with spellbinding soulintensity) is truly remarkable.

0 WOMAN" IS the only downtempo item on thebill: otherwise things throb and churn throughN___ an exuberant "Get Up, Stand Up", the revamped"Trench Town Rock" (which Marley later tells me will appear
on his next album), a tremendous, sweeping "Stir It Up" andan irresistible "Kinky Reggae", for me the surprise of theshow. On record it always seemed a slight and strained joke
-live, it's archetypal dance reggae.
Finally, there's a growling, almost sinister "I Rebel Music"
which seems to go on forever. But then it's all "Rebel Music"

songs smoulderingwith the anger and lackadaisical humourof the ghetto -laced with ganja and shot through with the
apocalyptic undertones of Rastafarian idealism. Music thatstands up to anything that the '70s (or, for that matter, the '60s)
have produced -and which has never lost touch with its roots.
Backstage between shows, Marley, obviously enjoying hisstar status, holds open court to a procession of well-wishers:
loud American hippies who bring offerings of Colombiangrass, young Jamaicans who've moved to the States
to earn good money as welders and builders andwho exchange furious rapid-fire raps inunintelligible patois.
Street brothers, groupies -all milling about inthe sweet, heavy smoke of one tiny dressing
room. A young blackwith a cornrow haircut
sticks his head through the door and yells,"Pos'tive vibrations!" "Yeah, mon, pos'tive vibrations," replies
Marley, grinning fit to crack his face.
On the wall of Marley's motel room there's
a large hand -made poster for the Wailers' tour
that has the same phrase scrawled across thebottom, big and fat: "POSITIVE VIBRATIONS".

It's a phrase that he's particularly fond of.
More, it's a keystone in the man's approach tolife -a strong, straightforward approach thatreflects both the man's personal character andhis belief in the ideals of Rastafarianism.
You can't get far into roots reggae without
confronting the stumbling block of Rastafarianism. Walk past any record
store in areas like Stoke Newington or Brixton in London, Moss Side in
Manchester, wherever, and you'll hear the likes of Big Youth or Johnny
Clarke wailin' about "movingoutta Babylon", and about the youth whoare "dreader than dread". Or just check out "Natty Dread" itself, a brilliant
call to cultural arms -ask Bob Marley about Rasta beliefs and you'll get
lines from his songs quoted back at you.
You can't paraphrase the Rasta doctrine into a few flippant paragraphs-it's religion, revolution, lifestyle, music, fashion, even... a system ofbelief based on texts from the Bible that likens the black man's
estrangement from Africa, via slavery, to the tribes of Israel cast out of
their homeland into Babylon. And which takes Haile Selassie, emperorof Ethiopia (now deposed as "Ras Tafari" -the "Head Creator"; "The Lion
Judah who shall break every chain", as the Bible tells it.
Perhaps most of all Rasta is an inspiration for the downtrodden, an ideathat cements the brethren (who call themselves "I") together. You don't
have to be "natty dread" to be a Rasta, but the dreadlocks that Marley
proudly sports -in truth they're reaching epic proportions -are part ofthe belief, an outward symbol of his faith.
"Plenty people have the wrong idea about this locks thing," he says,
twirling a clutch of braids. "Like I read in a magazine: 'Marley came onstage with his waxed locks.' Now that is very much a lie, because ! could
never sit down and put wax on my 'air, mywool, to keep it together. It
would be clammy and stink, mon. Them blind, mon! This come natural."
The term "natty dread" itself is a verbal osmosis from "knotty head": thekind of thing the shantytown kids might yell after a Rasta ragamuffin.
"Y'know, people used to call you 'natty 'ead' as an insult, but me use it asa crown, cos me t'ink positive, mon. Me crown meself with it.
"Y'call me 'natty 'ead'... greeyat," he chuckles, "because who care what
you tink? Me no vex meselfwhile you laugh. Laugh and the world laugh,mon, so me dig it, so me live.
"Y'see, me personally jus' wanna live, y'know whtmean? That's all me
wanna do -t'ink positive about everyone and everything, pure and clean,
and me can walk and do things freely."
There's passion in his voice and laughter in his speech. The talk about
freedom is no empty mouthing; back home in JA, Marley lives the Rasta
lifestyle; footloose, fancy free... and constantly and righteously rippedon the fierce Jamaican ganja (grass) that the Rastas hold sacred.
Free too because of the Rasta faith that all things that Jah (God) does arefor the best. In this sense, the Rastas are passive, content to let the worldrush about its mad business while they concentrate on matters spiritual.
"Love and peace" was a Rasta greeting before the hippies were thought of.
It's a passive attitude that extends even to the recent deposition of Selassie
by the Ethiopian military.
"What Jah do well done mon... I'm do all these things for the benefit ofwe, for the benefit of the people of Ethiopia. It just a change, a cycle..."I mention that Selassie is now a very old man. Marley laughs in disbelief:"'Im ever young, the youngest man on Earth. "'Im control time."
Interestingly, Selassie himself has never acknowledged the divinity
bestowed upon him by the Rastas- though equally he's never denied iteither. In any case, his coronation in 1930 was taken as fulfilment of thefire-eating prophecies of Marcus Garvey in the '20s (the John the Baptist 3.
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 193

1975

JULY - SEPTEMBER

JunellE1,1975:Marley andthe Wailersattract a record
15,003 crowd to the
Schaefer Festival, held
annuallyatthe Wollman ice
rink inCentralPark.NYC

of the movement) that the black man in the West would not be free untila black king was crowned in Africa.
"People must have a leader. Them say the ants don't have no leader but
they gather food and move together, but I don't think people can do that.
You must 'ave a leader, and we choose a divine king instead of a politician.
'E's not just like one person; it's one way of thinking. Jah is your aim, oneaim, which is life and love..."Michael, a soft-spoken fellow, who is travelling companion and cook forthe band (many Rastas don't eat meat or salt), nods affirmatively. He's
been reading passages from his huge battered black Bible to me to backup what he and Bob have been telling me about the Rastas; Revelation 5
and 19 for example: "There shall be wars and rumours of wars... Efraim
shall not vex Judah.
"It's the last days without a doubt," he says quietly. "1975, it's the lastquarter before the year 2000, and righteousness -the positive way of
thinking- must win, good over evil, we're confident of victory..."Before the end of the century, see, comes the Apocalypse, the Second
Coming, wherein the "West shall perish" and "Righteousness cover theearth" -a message that's illustrated musically on tracks like "Revolution".
It's the sort of biblical interpretation that's caused deep enmity between
the Rastas and the established Christian church -an enmity that crops
up in Marley's "Talking Blues":"'Cos/ feel like bombinga church I Now l know the preacher is lying.""Politics and church," opines Marley, "are the same thing. Them keep
the people in ignorance, and Jah no goin' come and say, 'I am God and you
should praise me,- he cackled heartily at the thought.
"These guys who preach are false-y'don't 'ear the preacher say God
will return to Earth within 2,000 years -how come you don't hear that inchurch if it's in the Bible? The greatest thing them can say is about death- 'cos them say you die and go to 'eaven after all this sufferation. To go
through all sufferation for that! S'like after me sick, me go to the doctor.
No, the greatest thing is life, mon, life."
Michael quotes softly from Jeremiah 23: "Woe to the pastors who
destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, said the Lord...""Politicians," continues Marley with a vengeance, "they are devils,
devils who corrupt. They don't smoke 'erb [ganjal , because when y'smoke
y'think alike, and them don't want that..."Heavy stuff indeed, clearly not the sort of thing you kick around at aninterviewwith most rock bands, especially not on tour in America. But
with Marley it's an inescapable confrontation.
At one point during the proceedings, after Michael has murmured
Psalm 57, Bob reclines and gazes meditatively upward.
"Y'know, Jah appear to me in a vision - and every time he lookjust a bit
older than me. 'I m don't look 90 year old or anything -like if I'm 30 [which
he is [ , then 'Im look about 35. Man, it's so sweet; it's me brother, me father,me mother, me creator, everything..."94 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

It's an anecdote that might well lay behind a new song that Bob tells me
he's written called "Natural Mystic": "Many more will 'ave to die, many
more will 'ave to cry," he quotes.
"It's like people ask you plenty questions but you can't answer all ofthem, but you still try."
Hmmm. Very apt.

ONE WAYAND another, it's easy to see how the Rastas have been
wigging out the British -orientated middle and upper classes of
Jamaica. As an excellent article by Michael Thomas in Rolling
Stone some two years back put it:"The Rastas were making a bizarre public display of pissing on
everything upward that the middle class believed in, rejecting their
entire earthly existence wholesale... and they became for a time thescapegoats of a frightened society."
Since then the ruling elite and comfortable middle classes have realisedthat the Rastas are more interested in their own spirituality than inoverthrowing the government. "We don't consider the Rastas a problem
any more," said Jamaican foreign minister Dudley Thompson recently,"only a phenomenon." After all, with an apocalypse on the way, you don't
need to get involved with revolutionary politics.
"Me don't want fight no guy with no guns," confirms Marley. "We
mustn't fight for my right, my right must come to me. You stand up foryour right and don't give up the fight [a quote from 'Get Up, Stand Up'],but you don't fight for your right."
Still, phenomenon or problem, the Rastas are here to stay. "What wasonce Rasta culture is now lama ican culture," said Perry Henzell, thewhite Jamaican who produced and directed The Harder They Come.
"There's no dividing the two."
Certainly throughout the history of Jamaican music, it's been the
Rastas who have supplied the impetus for change, working against theorthodoxy of the hustlers and record company pirates that man the
cut-throat Jamaican music business, to evolve a new distinctive music.
From the roots.
Marley will tell you how it was musicians like Roland Alphonso, Tommy
McCook, Ernie Ranglin and most of all Don Drummond -a brilliant
Rasta trombonist who spent the last days of his life in a madhouse -whostarted the "ska" movement back in the early '60s; a pool of musicians
who often recorded under the collective name ofThe Skatalites.
(Remember the crazy brass of "Gu ns Of Navarone"?)The Skatalites played on some of the earliest Wailers tracks, when thegroup were cutting hits for Clement Dodd first as a vocal quintet, thena vocal trio. Numbers like "Simmer Down" and "Put It On", and later
still "Rude Boy", one of the first records to herald the metamorphosis ofska into the more earthy and compelling "rock steady" rhythms of the
middle '60s.

BOB MARLEY"Rude Boy" also started a craze forrecords, based on andappealing to the hard -living wild youth of the Kingston ghetto. The
outlaw Rudie was also an identity that Bob, Bunny and Tosh themselvesbasked in. The success of their records inspired the band to split from
Coxsone and start their own label -Wailing Soul- named after the
Wailers and a girlie outfit called The Soulettes, which was the basis forwhat are now the I -Three.
The label folded.
"I thought me no gonna work for no one again, so we split from Coxsone- we form Wailin' Soul, but like, I don't know 'owt about the business, andme get caught again," admits Marley. 'Bend Down Low' was Number One
in Jamaica at the time, but them press it and sell it -it was a black market
type o' business."
There was also jail sentences on first Bunny, and then Bob, on ganja raps
- events which, in the context of the JA music biz, are open to
Machiavellian interpretation, though later Marley glosses over theincident to me with a murmur about being held
for a few hours for driving without a licence. It's
typical of his enigmatic style.
No matter, the failure of Wailing Soul caused
a temporary hiatus in the group's output.
Marley left for the States, and later, after being
signed by Johnny Nash and his manager, toSweden for an abortive project on a film score.
No doubt, it was a bitter time for him.
Whatever, the group's '69 comebackwith crack
producer Lee Perry ushered in a new period ofcreativity, with songs like "Duppy Conqueror","Soul Rebel" and "Small Axe", some of whichhave appeared in revamped form on the Island
trilogy, and which scorched theirway into the JA
charts at the time.
Within a couple of years, the group were bigger than ever and had
split from Perry and established their own Tuff Gong label, which still
handles their material today, as well as that by the I -Three and thesolo output of Family Man, Bunny and Tosh.
Marley is bitter in his condemnation of the music scene at home. He
has a list of dues paid that are second to none- ripped off, exploitedstill a "soul rebel", an outlaw hero who stands alongside latter-day Rasta
idols like Augustus Pablo, I -Roy and U -Roy and the whole gamut of dub
and voiceover artists (and even producers like King Tubby and Perry)
who, unlike Marley, don't get covered in the white rock press.
Not yet at least. They're simply too far out. Until white ears get
accustomed to their bizarre production tricks and uncompromisingrhythmic concentration.
Whether Marley can escape from being merely a rock cult - albeit aheadily fanatic one -and make the kind of breakthrough that would takehim into the album charts remains to be seen. But as one commentator
remarked last week, that isn't likely to happen until his music is given theradio airplay now afforded to both black funkadelics and white rock. A hit
single might shake nations.
Though at the moment Marley says he's not really concentrating too
much on his next album, he already has a few numbers written and ready.
Apart from the aforementioned "Natural Mystic", there's a number called"Irie Rid in'" and another called "Turn Over" that
Marley describes as "a songlike 'Bend Down

"Them guys
h ave theequipment, so
you don't get
no moneyand conned.
"Them guys on the machine Ithe producers], all them wan na do is'ustle quick -like you find a guy put out 200 songs a year with 60
different singers (laughs). And like them guys don't play no music,
them only have the equipment, and them try and make it so you don't
get no money."He recalls with glee how the artists themselves -and not the allimportant production bosses -initiated the reggae rhythms of thelate '60s to escape from the crippling monopoly of the trade:"Them guys on the machine 'ave allthe rock steady, so we come up
with something new, we start to play reggae, and all the rock steadythem 'ave them 'ave to park it, 'cos reggae take over. But the type of
people who flood the market -it's like yer getting dregs of waterinstead of clean water, mon."Ask Marley who he likes on the current Jamaican recording scene
and he'll tell you: "Me love all the reggae artists, man, knowing thatthey don't understand the situation and that them can do better. Me
love all of them, 'cos them 'ave the same feeling as me."
WITH HIS SIGNING to Island in 1972 and prior to thatthe establishment of a regular self-sufficient lineupthat had imported the Barrett brothers' rhythm
section from Lee Perry's studio band, the Upsetters, Marley's
days of artistic frustration and being ripped off are hopefullya thing of the past.
Certainly the extended studio time that the Island deal allowed
him, together with decent production facilities, resulted with
Catch A Fire in a profound departure from the primitive production
standards that had been associated sometimes unfairlywith reggae
up to that time.
Unlike other reggae artists- Ji mmy Cliff is the most outstanding
example -who have lost both their musical roots and their roots
appeal in an attempt to "go commercial", the Wailers (or "Bob Marley&The Wailers" as the title goes these days) still get Number Ones on
the JA charts with disconcerting regularity. To the JA youth, Marley is

Low' or that intricate love song type o' bag."
There's also to be a restyled version of his first
Tuff Gong smash, "Trench Town Rock", which
already plays a prominent part in his stage act.
As I leave the interview, Marley's alreadyjuggling a football on his feet, itching for what
is apparently a lengthy dai ly workout (hisphysical condition is pretty impressive). Backhome, he tells me, they have a Tuff Gong teamthat has Alan Cole as skipper- a Rasta who spent
a time playing at top club level in Brazil. A teamfuelled on ganja could take over the world.
NeilSpencer

mormirmouningesumummui
July 24.1975.

Marleyat theoff ices of Island
Records. London

1975
SEPTEMBERJULY

"I've

been
incredibly
loyal"

aw

thr
frontman of the FACES

Celebrity, actresssquiring tax exile... it
the cap fits, he'll wear it.
"Me and Britt are free,"he says, compared-- MELODY MAKER AUGUST 2 HY DONTCHAPAY your tax

bill?... When
are you going tomarry Britt?...
When are you
going back to England?" Rod Stewart, Britt
Ekland at his elbow, backed away harassed andslightly stunned by a press conference that had
almost become a punch-up.
"What's it got to do with music?" called out Rod
to rock specialists as they too became embroiled
in the imbroglio, a confused heap of humanity
shoving 'midst blazing TV lights and flashguns,
and whirring, myriad sound recorders.
It happened in Dublin last week, theGeorgian city with built-in sea breezes,
which took a sudden influx of stars andreporters with admirable calm and aphilosophical glass of Guinness. Rod
Stewart's income tax affai rs are asinteresting as Rod Stewart's windowcleaner's bill. Both are of passing x.
96 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

ROD STEWART is devil

to his UK -dwelling
bandmates. "Free of allties, trousers and belts!"

THIS OLDHEARTOF MINE

"Ihope this won't 6ea
Farewelltour":Ronnie
WoodandRodStewart

onstageintheSta:esduring the Faces'
second tour of 1975

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 197

1975
SEPTEMBERJULY

concern to anonymous clerks in Manchester or Leeds, theaforementioned window cleaner and Mr Stewart's accountants. And yet
last week tax affairs had become a story, and one subject to accusations,denials, threats and apologies.
Apart from hurling a cue sheet at a persistent TV reporter anddemanding: "Will someone show this man the door?" Rod and Britt kept
their cool. In truth, they might have expected something of the sort,having made themselves available in spectacular fashion.
Rod, the Faces -less man of pop (until they get together for their nexttour) and Britt, the beautiful actress once betrothed to Peter Sellers andnow escorting Rod on peregrinations about the globe, had been on acountry -hopping promotion trip that kept them in the headlines for thebest part of a week. They headed from the Continent to Dublin, ostensibly
fora press reception to help launch Rod's new album Atlantic Crossing.
It was understood he couldn't come into Britain, and has to live abroadin order to avoid crippling taxation. But when newspaper reports claimed
Rod was avoiding payment of a specific bill, then apologies were called
for and received. Thus ended the matter, but said Rod after the Dublinpress conference: "They made me feel like a criminal." And according toMike Gill of Gaff Management, Rod's aide-decamp, one interviewer had confidently told
someone at the press conference: "We're goingto get this bastard." The "someone" happened to
be Rod's lawyer.
Rod and Britt sat behind a desk, and thenbegan to struggle round the room, Rod finallysinking into a cornerwith a protective screenof rock writers. But the haranguing continued.
Rod was especially startled by one voluble gent
who, it turned out, was actually making animpassioned case for his defence. Anotheryelled: "Why don't you make your contribution
to the British economy?They need the money!""I want touse a hugeorchestra I wanna do
it classy""I know they do," said Rod. "Of course they
do..." (mutter, mutter, repeated cries of 'Arrgh,
you're a big money -spinner," from Irish pressmen) "...look, can I get a wordin edgeways? When they ask me for the tax, I shall pay it, but I've not beenasked yet." Rod looked up, hollow-cheeked and glassy -eyed. "Doesanybody really feel sorry for us?" he said suddenly, as the barrage sunk in.
"Yeah, I feel sorry for you. I don't like to see a bloke knocked for most of
his bread." The PR hands of Gill emerged at this point and wheeled
Rodney out of the room, away from the confused babble and any further
questioning for the night. Rod and Britt spent the rest of the evening with
Rod's parents in the sanctuary of his suite, hidden in a part of the hotel
accessible only by a secret route through a service lift.
Next morning, Rod had divested himself of the less -than -attractive pink -striped suit in which he had first appeared. He was clad in far more
sober and pleasing attire, designed not to offend eyes tender from theovernight excesses. I met him up in the verandah suite, where Britt

floated around, a cool, unperturbed and charming ladywho seemedtolerant of the Stewart lifestyle, if not wholly enamoured with its
drawbacks. Rod sat on the settee and spoke quietly, his normal ebullienceslightly dimmed, but there were flashes of the old laconic humour.
He only became depressed on two subjects, taxation and Kenney Jones,
the latter having announced this same historic week that Rod's departure
to America had cost him many thousands in lost earning power fromcancelled Faces dates.
"There's not a tax bill," said Rod glumly and barely audible, on the first
matter. "There's no writ. I ain't been shown a tax bill, and when I am I shallpay it, like everybody else does, by the year."
But what about the alleged £750,000 tax arrears?
"There's not that much money in the world," quoth Rod. "The wholebusiness made me feel terrible. And yesterday that press conference
made me feel like a criminal. I felt
like Lee Harvey Oswald orsomebody. And as I said to you, it had
nothing to do with music. It was all
so sordid; I really felt like runningaway yesterday, but that wouldn't
have solved anything."
Tell us about the album then, Rod.
"Ah! It was done with the rhythm
section I've always wanted to record
98 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

with, the MG's, Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Duck Dunn, Muscle Shoals
rhythm section, and I even used Al Green's rhythm section.
"Tom Dowd got it all together. He's such an incredible producer. I played
him a song I wanted to do and he picked the rhythm section. I wanted to
do 'This Old Heart Of Mine', y'know, and it was his idea to use Al Green's
section and go down to Memphis, which was great. I can't wait to hear it
played in Tramps! Yeah, these were all the guys I used to listen to and Tom
Dowd -well, he's a legend, ain't he? It reallywas something to singwith aband and a producer that've worked with Otis Redding. Of course you've
got to mould them the way you want them to play.
"Apart from Steve Cropper, who plays a recognisable style, the others
don't sound anything like the MG's, or the rhythm section that made'Spanish Harlem'; they really play incredibly good white rock'n'roll.
There's only one soul number and that's the Al Green song. We started
work on it last April and finished about four weeks ago.
"It only took three weeks' solid recording time to do it. When an album
is only 40 minutes long, I'm a firm believer that it shouldn't take a year to
make. I think I could make another one before Christmas."
Did Rod feel he had been in good voice on this one?
"Mmm, yeah. I knew what the vocals would
be like 'cos I'd prepared all the tracks before
I went down there. There're five originals on it,
which is a record for me. Usually I can only
muster up two or three songs.
"But it's going to be awkward now in the next
fewweeks, what with me making this album onme own, and knowing that all the guys that
played on the album want to tourwith me. If theFaces are going to breakup, then they're goingto break up in the next few months; that's ifthey're gonna break up.
"Y'know, with Woody being with the Stones[Ronald Wood, guitar player, black hair, smiles
a lot] and me doing what I'm doing, there's no

So there'll be no official split, it'll just grind to a halt?
"No. If we're going to break up it will be official if Woody does decide tojoin the Stones."
It rests on his decision? "Well, it also hinges on my decision because
I want to recreate the sound I put on this record. That's why I'm aiming to
get Steve Cropper to play with us live, because I wanted two guitars. So it's
probably up to me and him. What are the odds? Well, I'd say there is a 20
per cent chance of us breaking up."Is there any bad feeling between Rod and the band, bearing in mind
Kenney Jones' reported outburst?
"I've really got to put Kenney in his place, because that was the most
unfair thing. I love him very much, but if Kenney remembers when wewere all in the States on the last tour, we all decided we were going to go
and live in America because it was better for the music, right?
"As it happens there's only me and Woody have decided to do it andI think he is going to live in Los Angeles, so Kenneywas completely outof order. And those English gigs he talked about were never really on,
because Woody was doing the Stones tour and he knew that."
So Rod had no plans to come back to England?
"To live? Nah. I'll be coming back to tour, next year."With theAmerican musicians?
"That's what I'd like to do. Not only that, I want to use a huge orchestra-1 wanna do it classy. It's the ambition of a lifetime and I'm halfway there,
having made a record with the guys I've always wanted to work with. But
to bring 'em over and play the Royal Festival Hall, I'd love to do that. I've
never done a solo concert and it's nearer now than it's ever been."
Why not in the past? Was it because of loyalty to other people? "Yeah,
I've been incrediblvloval to the band, and whether that's been a goodthing, I dunno. Yeah, it's been a goodthing, they're a good bunch of lads."
THE LADS SEEMED to playless a part in the affairs of Rod

now that Miss Ekland loomed
so large in his life. Had they in fact

already secretly married?
"No, we're not married, and if wedid, you would be the first to know.

ROD STEWART

We'd never keep that secret. We'll not get married yet-definitely not."No marriage; then how about some concerts, atouch of the rock'n'roll that brought us all together?
"We're just doing this American tour and when
that's finished ! don't knowwhat we're supposed to
be doing. That starts on August 15 provided Woody isstill alive. I don't know, he might have passed away.
"What I want to do is recreate the sound we've got on this album. I'll bereally pissed off if we don't. Tetsu has got to copy things that Duck Dunn
has playediTetsuYamauchi, Japanese bass guitarist replaced Ronald
Lane in 19731. Well, not copy note for note, but get some sort ofreproduction. They should have had a tape of the album by now, because
I wanted them to have copies before anybody.
"I hope this won't be a farewell tour, but if we break up afterwards, wellthat will be it. It's really up to the others and their attitude. I've told themthat today you've really got to put on a big stage production and really try
to recreate what you've got on records. It's no good doing it half-hearted
and jumping around all over the stage to cover up for what you can't play.
So it's up to the boys, if theywant to go along with it. We'll get an orchestra.
Costs a lot of money, I know, but they'll be travellingwith us on this tour."How did Rod think the new album would be accepted? Was it abreakthrough for him? Some scribes had already aired the view that it was
no Every Picture TellsA Story (Mercury 6338063, released 1971). He began
to pace about the room while Britt answered the ever ringing telephone.
"Musically it's a breakthrough, and anyway, everything about it isdifferent. Everything. And you never know how it's going to be accepted.
It might fall flat on its face. When I did my other albums I used to try to
explain to everybody what I wanted. You'd say, 'The song goes like this,'and play it and sing it -it was a real headache.
"I went down to Muscle Shoals to meet Barry Beckett, the big piano
player down there, and he'd listen to the song, and write it down infigures. They don't write music in the traditional way, they put four, four,
dash, dash, two, two, dash, dash... and they say, 'Is that how you want it?'and play it back to you.
"Then theyXerox the bits of paper and give it to the drummer and thebass player and the guitarist, and just play it. I don't know how it works,
but it's something they invented down in Memphis."What in blazes would the other Faces (Ian McLagan, Kenney
Jones, Ronnie Wood and Tetsu) do if the band does fold?
"I've no idea. But I definitely hope it doesn't come about, but I
must be honest, this is the nearest we've ever been to it. No goodbeating around the bush. Of course it's harder for them to leave
England and come to the States, because they're all married
and got kids and settled down in every sense. Me and Britt are
free: free of all ties, trousers and belts!"
Talking of ties, what happened about Rod's record company
wrangles, presumably all was resolved? "Yeah, I'm with Warner
Brothers now. It took a long time. It's nice to have a record
company behind you and I feel I have. Mercury Records did me
all right, I must admit... but oh dear, I feel terribly down." Rodslumped further in the settee. "Aren't you?" he asked, looking at
Britt. "What?" She raised an eyebrow. "Down.""We got such a beating," said Britt. "We didn't expect it; people
had been so kind to us everywhere. Here they are not sointerested in the creative side. In Europe they are happy to see
us together, and they don't care about his money or whatever."Said Rod: "Did you see that thing in the Sunday papers in
England a couple of months ago? It was about a window cleaning bill for 52 quid. Did you see it?
"It was a headline and half a page. That could only happen in
Britain. Ridiculous. There must be more important things towrite about than my bloodywindow-cleaning bills. And thathas happened to me so many times that it's pathetic!
"I like to be written about... but I'd rather not read about
myself if it's going to be this kind of stuff put down people's
throats. I'm getting a bit fed up with it. We wanted to come anddo this, to talk about the music."
Did Rod ever feel the desire to run his own label and recordor produce new talent? There had been rumours he was to buy
GM Records. He laughed.
"I wouldn't buy that!Wot, buy my manager's label? I was
thinking about having me own label, but no, I don't want to get

involved in all that. It would just be a headache. The
idea is good if you're going to try and get some newpeople together, and there are some good new
musicians in England.
"My nephew has got a really good rock'n'roll band.
He's only 18, and they play up in their attic. They've
got more than three chords, five chords between
four oft hem, which is a couple more than Jimmy Reed's got.
"There're a lot of good musicians, but not a lot of them have any charisma,
there's no charm about them. Ace had an enormous single and a fairly big
album, but ! can't ever see them playing Madison Square Garden.
"Bad Company are doingwell, and I went to see them at the Forum, andthey're going to be huge, and I'm pleased because they're my favourite
band. But the superstars seem to have come to a dead halt.
Frankie Miller is somebody I like; I think he'll probably do what Joe
Cocker did. He's the Scots boy- a lot of good things coming out of
Scotland just lately. Yeah, Frankie Miller I'd like to see happen. He's oneof the best singers I've heard for a long time."
But it was tax time again, Rod. National press boys and girls were
patiently waiting their turn for a cross-examination. As I filtered out,
they filtered in. How much of a saving had his tax exile been? Had hedone a deal with the US government?
"I'd be silly to tell you that," said Rod. "Look," and he spoke with thedetermination of a man having the last word, "compared to what many
Americans earn, I'm not a high -earner. There was no deal done. I justapplied fora residency, that's all.
"I'm NOT a millionaire. The number of times I've read that I'm amillionaire, and it's codswallop. And I'm NOT a tax exile. That's NOT
the reason I left the country. The fact that ! met Britt had a lot to do withme leaving."
But Rod's most startling, outburst came last. "I don't really want to makeany more albums with the Faces. We've had five good attempts at albums
and only made one good one, A Nod'sAs Good AsA Wink, and they're notaccepted like mine, and that's not through want of trying. We'll just haveto sit down and decide what we wanna do."If Dublin was a riot, then I've a feeling the real conference will be when
Rod and the Faces finally meet up again in Miami. But remember, lads don't do anything hasty. Chris Welch

Rodandgirlfriend Britt
Eklandin New York
Harbour to f ilma promo
for his cover of Gavin

Sutherland's"Sailing"

107,

46

0

f

Steve Marriott
about to cook his
goose at Beehive

Cottage, Moreton.
Essexog75

411

BP.'

STEVE MARRIOTTSTEVE MARRIOTT is sobroke, he's had to eat his
horse. Where's all the cashgone? "We earned a hell ofa lot of money," he says of
HUMP' E PIE, "but we spenta hell of a lot of money."I"I'm skint.
I'm asskint asskint is"- NME AUGUST 16-

T SEEMED LIKE a straightforward question to me:"Why are Humble Pie no more?" That's all I asked. And
back came Marriott's smart -ass retort: "They broke up",which has both Marriott and the rest of his gang swillingin their own laughter.
Some way to start an interview, huh? But then Marriott's
an aggressive little guy with the kind of punk ambience that often
surrounds ex -mod rock stars who don't exactly have to dip theirnecks to walk through doorways. Musicians like Paul Kossoff oreven Steve Marriott's old piano -bashing colleague from the Small
Faces, Ian McLagan, have that very same vibe about them.
In fact today Marriott looks just like an old mod caught up ina time warp. His hair is closely cropped to his skull and his sidies
stretch a good two inches below his earlobes. And his shoes are
straight out of '65. No stack heels for Marriott.
We're a mile or two down from Steve's gaff in Morton, Essex, inthe village itself. The pub's called The White Hart and it's about
as English as John Betjeman. Marriott and his new band, Steve
Marriott'sAll Stars, are all sat together like. They comprise
1 drummer Ian Wallace, Mickey Finn (not the same bloke who
once played with Bolan) on rhythm guitar ("He plays just like .

1

'ss:

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1101

1975
JULY

SEPTEMBER

Keet," are Marriott's words on Firm's musicianship) and one Greg Ridley,
who until a very short time ago, formed a third of Humble Pie's splintergroup, Strange Brew.
Brew never even got as far as the recording studio and are now looking
for two musicians to take Ridley's place.
"They never managed to get further than a few rehearsals because ofcontracts and financial situations. It was mostly me hanging everything
up because I was the only one that was contracted. It was impossible for it
to go any further than it did. Like everything else, it seemed like a great
idea at the time," says Ridley.
But how come you got that far into it if there were contractual problems?
"I found out that nobody could find out how long I was contracted for,"he retorts.
That has the whole table in near hysterics too.
But back to the Pie, who after seven years together, during which timethey toured America some 22 times and recorded nine albums, closed up
shop, though vile rumour had indicated for some time that all wasn't
well. Anyway, an American tour was planned -a "farewell tour" as theysay -completed and now Pie are no more.
In England, the band never fulfilled their expected selling potential,
although this doesn't worry Marriott too much at all; nothing seems
to worry him at all today, not even the fact that he's penniless and has
to worry about where t he next can of pet food is coming from for hisdogs (honest, guy, that's what he said). But more about the Marriottfinances later...
"They 'the Piel were big with the people who liked them in thiscountry," Steve says evasively. "That's what counts".
But they didn't sell a n awful lot of albums UKsville...
"Oh, I'm not worried about that. All I'm worried about was filling out
our gigs, and that's what we did. That pleased me."Actually, I remember going to a gig in Birmingham on Humble Pie's
last British tour that wasn't entirely filled out. Still, the band had their
moments in their native land, even if only a couple of their albums,
Smokin'and Rock On, entirely reflected Marriott's undeniable talent.
In America it was a different story, the Pie going gold with at least threealbums. Part of the reason for the band's US success is down to US
audience's seemingly insatiable appetite for boogie. For Pie were indeed
renowned for their ability in the boogie dept. Listen to their first US goldait album, the LiveAt The Fillmore set, and you'll hear it all. (In the current
5 Rolling Stone, former Pie member Peter Frampton says the band let theDecember31,1975:
Marriott a nd his All
Stars at the GreatBritish Music Festival,
Olympia. London

audience give the group their direction. Marriott doesn't agree and goesas far assaying that "Peter's full of shit. He wouldn't know. He was only in
it for three years. It went on for seven, so I don't think he's really qualified
to say that. Humble Pie did what Humble Pie wanted to do...")
But the band's last couple of albums didn't sell so well, even i n America.
And speaking aesthetically, it seemed as if the group had passed theircreative peak. For the last album, Street Rats, an exceptionally
undistinguished album contai n ing a n over -heavy version ofThe Beatles'"Rain", the band brought in Andrew Oldham, one-time Rolling Stones
manager/producer and former head of the now defunct Immediate
Record label (for which the Small Faces recorded, bringing out a wholestring of classic British '60s singles, most of which were more imaginative
than anything Marriott ever did with Pie) to produce. Oldham didn't
really pull it off, and although Marriott seems reluctant to put Oldham
down, he does admit Street Rats wasn't a very fine album.
"It's sad to say that, but it's true. It was too messy. I was tired of having
the responsibility of producing our albums. We didn't want Andrew to
produce anything. We just wanted him around. He was so nice. He
thought he had a job to do, though," says Marriott laughing again,
perhaps at the absu rdity of the situation.
"Andrew did use the wrong vocal on the title track, and that wasn't
intended to be on the album anyway. 'Street Rats' was a track with me,
Ian Wallace and Tim Hinkley playing piano. It was nothing to do with
Humble Pie. Somebody stole the 16 -track mix and put it on Humble Pie's
album. It was intended as the title track of my album," explains Marriott.
So you could say that Oldham cocked up? "It does seem that way. I can't
be nasty about Andrew, bless his heart. I I ike Andrew."
Seems like there's some good stories there, Steve? "Maybe I can tellthem all later." More laughter.
Throughout our conversation, Marriott offers these tantalising pieces
of info, but refuses to go into any of the subjects thoroughly.
"Right now it's best just to forget and get ahead with what's going onright now. There's a lot I'd love to say, but not right now. Maybe in six
months' time I can say a lot more than I can say now," he says without
spilling any beans at all.
Marriott says that the actual initiative in breaking up Humble Pie camenot from him, but from drummer Jerry Sh irley and Clem Clempson.
Marriott, though, had considered quitting the band over a year before
when The Blackberries (three black lady singers who for a time toured
with the Pie, recording witht hem for the Eat It album)
parted company.
"I thought that was the bestperiod of the band. They wereasked to leave," he says.
Asked to leave?

"Well, they weren't asked toleave. Some people didn't thinkthey were right for the band, butthey were giving a lot back to me."Marriott refuses to be drawn
into any situation any more,
but apparently other band
members weren't entirely happy
with the seven -way cash split thatwas being made while three
Blackberries were in the band.
And they said it was time forthem to go...
In fact Marriott himself has
produced an album for thesingers, recorded in his own homestudio (a place where the musician
spends a large amount of his time)and using Humble Pie as a rhythm
section. Like several other ofMarriott's recording projects(a joint album with Greg Ridley isin the can as well as a Marriott solo
album, plus enough material forthree Humble Pie albums), theBlackberries album never saw thelight of day. In fact Billy Preston

STEVE MARRIOTT

produced the singers after Marriott.
"I heard the results but they weren't
very good," says Steve.
He says that despite all theunreleased recordings lying around,
he doesn't get frustrated at their not
being released.
"The fun is doing it. I don't mind if
nobody hears it, which might soundvery smug. I don't know. I'll be very
pleased if it does get released, but it
doesn't really bother me if it doesn't."
But surely if the records werereleased they'd bring in some cash?
And we've all got to eat.
And now comes the bit you've been
waiting for. On NME's last visit to the

Marriott place, photographer Joe Stevens tooka few snaps of a placidly grazing old grey cobloitering picturesquely in a nearby paddock.
The Marriotts enthused about the animal, thejoys of equestrianship, etc, and Stevens forgot
the incident. This time, however, the alert
lens -artist noticed the absence of the beast.
He made enquiries. The storyyou are about tohear is true (and confirmed at press time by
Marriott's PR aide, BP Fallon).
It seems that one awful night, not too long
ago, the pangs of hunger smote the Marriotthousehold. The kitty was searched forprovender finance. The kittywas empty.
The pangs of hunger grew worse. Swallowing
hard, the Marriotts armed themselves with kitchen knives, etc, andfiled silently out into the night. Minutes later, a passing owl might
have heard the frantic pounding of hooves, a swift thud and a single
anguished neigh.
The stew took hours to cook.
This is true. Now back to the story. Marriott has just been asked about
making bread from LPs.
"Yeah, you make money out of it, but that's the secondary point, or it
should be. We're all skint, but it's still a secondary point."
How skint? "I'm skint. I'm as skint as skint is," he laughs.

"I blew all mymoney on astudio, but that
was a good

Marriott: "Dee hasn't ripped me off,
anyway. He's spent whatever money inthe best way he thought. He made us,
so we've got a lot to thank him for. He's
still about the heaviest manager to get
forAmerica. As a manager he's thebest. It's just the in-between times. It's
like sending packages to the Zulus."
So does Steve think he's received
money he's entitled to from the work
he's done?
"What I ain't seen I don't mind. I've
learnt not to mind. I've been doing it
for how long? For how many people?
You learn not to worry about it."
Does he owe you money, then?
"I've no idea. It doesn't matter if hedoes or he doesn't. I'm sure I owe him money.
I don't care so long as everything keeps flying
along and so long as you can keep on making
music, man. I wouldn't let that kind of bollocks
get in the way."
So back to music and the Pie split. As stated
before, it was Shirley and Clempson who

initiated the band's breaking up. In fact it was
Shirleywho called Marriott and said he wantedout, although the guy had said nothing about it
when the two met the previousday.
"We were talking about getting some breadfrom our respective publishing companies,
money dating back to the Small Faces, to keep
the band afloat. We were fed up playing thesame thing with the same people.
"I'm very proud of Humble Pie. I'm as proud of Humble Pie as I was of
the Small Faces. I enjoyed myself. I've been a very lucky boy. When Jerry
joined he was a novice. Now he's a professional."
So you're all still friends?
"Of course. It wasn't a sort of 'you did this and you said that' type ofthing. It was all very nice. There was nothing very nasty about it."Marriott laughs. "I was happier when I could see an end coming. We'dbeen constantly rehearsing, recording and playing without much rest.
I think this [the new band] can be planned from the outset where we dohave more rest, 'cos none of us are kids any more. We could all do with it,

investment"

But you have a good-looking Jag?
"How much do you reckon they are? C'mon. Own up. When I say I'm
skint. I'm not your millionaire pop star. I survive. I blew all my money ona studio, but that was a good investment for me because it's there forever.
It's a way of making music. Period. That cost a lot of money, you know.
I suppose that's why I'm skint. I bought me parents a house. That's
probably why I'm skint.
"I call skint when you're worried where the next dog food is coming
from. I prefer being skint to having lots of money. I'd never knowwhat to
do with it."
But surely out of 22 US tours you must have made a lot of bread?
"Mmm. No. Most of it is invested in Nassau in land. I've asked ourmanager [Dee Anthony' to sell it for me, 'cos I don't need it. I certainly
couldn't afford to go there," Marriott chuckles, "so I might as well flog it.
We earned a hell of a lot of money but we spent a hell of a lot of money.
The land is a bad thing. There's about 10 acres with six houses and a lotof beach.""Our managerlikes it there, too," interjects Ridley.
Marriott chuckles at Ridley's dry remark.

Marriott and Ridley are still managed byAnthonyforAmerica, but
in the British Isles they're looked after by one Dave Clarke - no, not thedrummer, silly.
"The situation between me and Dee is fine," says Marriott. "I mean, hedoes a good job i n America, but..." Marriott's voice became a chuckle yetagain and Ridley is just about to make a reference to Anthony when
Marriott shuts him up with something about being diplomatic.
"He's not ripped me off," says Marriott with reference to Anthony, towhich Ridley counters: "You couldn't say it even if he had it. You can't say
things like that to a paper."At which point Wallace chips in:"Yeah. Who's gonna get their legs sawn off?"'cos we all give a lot on stage.

"When I play I lose about three or four pounds -so I don't think thisband'll be as constantlyworking as Humble Pie. It's a good marriage
breaker, know what I mean?" winks Marriott, who has parted company
with his wife Jenny and now lives with a lady called Jan, who's expecting
Steve's child.
Steve Marriott's All Stars'll be gigging in late September with a couple ofdates at London's Roundhouse included. Marriott says the music they're
playing won't be that different from the very best of Humble Pie.
Before the tour the band will be recording in Los Angeles, hopefully with
Glyn Johns producing. Meantime, Marriott has a single in the can called"Soldier", written by Joe Brown (yes, he of the stand-up hair and Brothers).
"Soldier", recorded in LA with that city's Philharmonic Orchestra and achoir of black ladies, has more to do with the Marriott Small Faces period
than with Humble Pie, Marriott's singing is exemplary and the wholething is a gripping piece of music that builds from a mere acoustic intro
into something closely approaching Spectorian proportions.
Marriott thinks "Soldier" will surprise a lot of people, especially since
it was written by Brown, whose name is associated with MOR
entertainment, to say the least. It should put Marriott's name back inthe singles chart, a place where it hasn't been since Pie's very first single,"Natural Born Boogie".
Brown and Marriott are great buddies, it seems, and both come fromthe East End. "I identifywith the East End, I love it. Me and Joe go to the pie
shop regularly in Walthamstow, at least once a week. I goes to the markets
and rummages about. I loves it. But I don't think they identify with me."
So what effect has Humble Pie had on Marriott? "It's made me feel older
in a way, but I'm content with my lot. I'd like to earn a bit of bread and feeda few months. I wouldn't like to lose my studio, 'cos that's what I've
worked for for the past seven years." SteveClarke
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1103

"I'll neverput on asequinned

dress"Country? Country rock?

opens
in
up about her place

the scheme of things andtalks about her mentor
GRAM PARSONS, "themost vital, alive person".
"Gram was a big influence
on my life," she says.

it with Dylan at New York's Columbia studios, and she knows a thing or
two about what's a good song and what isn't, especially love songs.
Anyone familiar with her work with the late Gram Parsons on his
Grievous Angel album will realise that for a fact. Then there's her own
album, Pieces Of The Ng, which started selling all of a sudden in America
with no promotion at all. On that she had the good taste to include one of
McCartney's tenderest ballads, "For No One". Her next album's going toinclude "Here, There And Everywhere".
Emmylou Harris is a country singer who doesn't think "country rock"exists as a worthwhile musical genre: "1 love country music and I loverock music, and I don't see why you have to put them together and getsomething less than what the two of them are separately," she says in avoice not nea rly as brittle as her singing voice and with an accent that's
not particularly regionalised.
But with a name like Emmylou you'd expect a girl from the South. Andin Ms Harris' caseyou wouldn't be wrong. She was born in Birmingham,
Alabama. She didn't stay there long, though -her life's been pretty muchnomadic so far. "I don't feel at home any place on this earth yet, although
I imagine I'll stumble across it at some point," she says.
The name Emmylou also conjures up visions of a girl in pigtails, a little
on the dumb side. Not a bit of it. This Emmylou wears her dark, slightly
greying hair long with a parting down the middle.
She doesn't look exactly I ike her album cover portrays her (willowy andwith a face finelywrought in its fragile sensuality). In real life she's a bit
more well fed. But she's an attractive woma n. Presumably she must be
kind of nervous, because she blinks perpetually at the start of ourconversation, though she cuts down on that a little later on -and she hasa lovely generous smile. Her hands are finely manicured, but she's
dressed in sandals, blue jeans and a multicolour T-shirt with "Palomino" printed acrossthe front. "Isn't it so tacky?" she boasts. "1 love it.
Did you see the back?" The back displays agraphic of a horse. The Palomino, apparently,
is a country -music club in Los Angeles.
There are a couple of Harrods carrier bags onher bed, and apart from an elderly suitcase herroom at the Montcalm Hotel doesn't bear themarks of a very long stay. In fact, her visit toLondon is purely promotional. Tomorrow she'll
be off to Amsterdam for more promotion work,
which will include a TV show. Unfortunately
she's not doing any performi ng in Britain, butmoney permitting, hopes to undertake a British tour in November.

with me and we just did some singing. I drove him and hiswife back to
Baltimore. And we exchanged addresses and phone numbers."
A year or so later, Parsons contacted her again, and as a result she sangon his first solo album, GP. From January 1973 they toured together, rightup until the time of Gram's death later that year. "We did a lot of singing inthat time -a six -week tour of the entire country. We travelled in a bus, andwe did do much harmonising in the back of that bus," she laughs at the
memory. "A lot of the material for Grievous Angel was gotten together andperfected in motel rooms, in the back of that bus and on the stages ofplaces like the Smiling Dog Saloon, Cleveland, Ohio."Through Gram, who'd played with Bernie Leadon in the Burritos,
Emmylou got to know the Eagles. "We did a gig with them in May1973.
That was a great gig because it was just the two of us and a bass player at
the start, and ended up with the whole Eagles band. I'm just very fond of
Bernie. He's a good friend and I think he's an amazing musician. I thinkthat all the things I like about the Eagles are mostly Bernie and his banjo
playing. And the songs he writes.
"I know he writes very few songs on the albums, but they usually end
up being my favourites, like 'My Man' [Leadon's elegy to Gram] and'Midnight Flyer. That wasn't written by him but I'm sure it was his choiceof material, because at one gig I went to he was walking arou nd playing
his banjo and singing it. I dug 'My Man' because I know Bernie and I knowhow he felt about Gram. I think it was a beautiful tribute.
"Gram was a big influence on my life. As a person you just loved him,
because he just brought it out of you. He was a very wonderful person.
He had an incredible musical vision. I think it was unparalleled. There
area lot of people who are really good primitive artists, people who havean inborn feel for music, and maybe they don't understand what they're
doing. But they do it and it's great.
"Gram not only had that thing but he had
understanding of what he was doing and I think
he had a clear direction of what he wanted to do
musically. I don't think there've been too many
people who had all that together. I think I havea feeling for music. I think I've always had it andit was Gram who brought it out in me. I don't
think !have the vision that Gram had; I thinkquite a lot of my music was learned from him,
a combination of an instinct that he brought
out in me. I'm more of a plodder, just chisellingout what I'm trying to do because of the basic
feeling that I have. But I'm very slow at it.
"Like, as far as our musical relationship goes..." she pauses. "I was theenergy source; I was always saying, 'OK, let's do it.' And he was always thevisionary and the real leader. So we really complemented each other,because he needed my energy and I needed his direction. I really enjoyed
it. I was really very, very happy working with him.""Gram needed
my energy
and I needed
his direction"

AFEW FACTS. THE daughter of a serviceman, Emmylou moved
around a lot in her first 20 or so years, living in Virginia, Boston,North Carolina, New York, Washington and California. She
now lives just outside LA with her daughter, Hall ie, the result of amarriage that lasted just a year. "She sometimes goes on the road withme. I probably won't work that much in the fall when she's in school.
When I do have to go off, her governess will just come to my house andstay. That is the only hassle, being torn between riding this wave that
I'm on at this point and my daughter. Both are real important to me."Emmylou married in New York when she was 22. She'd been singing
since she was a kid, working in bars through her college years.
"In college I sang for $10 a night and all the beer I could drink and all the
popcorn I could eat. I didn't drink beer 'cos I was usually on a diet, so I got
just the $10."

She was attracted to musicians because they were a lot more fun thanthe other people she knew. After the marriage disintegrated, she wound
up in Washington. "You name it, anybar in DC and I'll have played it. I got
to be a household word in DC," she says self-effacingly.
"Washington was real good for me. I was able to rediscover why I got
into music in the first place. I really got high off it. In New York I developed
all these weird attitudes out of self-defence, like telling myself
I was great when I didn't believe it."
While living in the capital, Emmylou first met up with
Gram Parsons. She'd known his former band, The Flying
Burritos, and fora time they'd considered having her inthe lineup. But they broke up. However, the Burritos
did tell Gram about this lady singer. He came down to
Washington and the two of them did their first gig
together. "I met him at the station. He went to my gig

THE FRUITS OF the Parsons -Harris collaboration can be heard
to their full extent on Grievous Angel, an album on which theirsinging is backed by some of the finest musicians of thatparticular sphere; people like James Burton and Leadon himself.
The album's a classic, containing some extremely moving ballads,
genuinely bittersweet (I know it's a cliche, but the adjective describes themusic better than any other I can think of) in their emotional intensity.
Songs like "Love Hurts", "Hearts On Fire" and "Brass Buttons" areoutstanding. Ifyou don't know the album, get with it immediately.
Emmylou is credited with co -writing one of the songs -the closer, "In My
Hour Of Darkness".
"We didn't really write songs together. He always carried those songs
around in his head. He just needed a little prodding to get them out. That's
all I did; I helped him with a line here and there. I'd suggest something but
those were his songs. l ddispute the credit on "In My Hour Of
Darkness", which he gave tome. I think that was probably because at thesame time there was this big thing about that stupid album cover,"she says, her voice becoming angry.
"Gram picked out a picture of he and Ito be on the backof the cover. I got really upset when those people went inand got it taken off, because I just didn't want anyone
messing with his album. I mean ! didn't care if mydamn picture was on the back, but it just really pissed
me off that anybody would... I didn't feel thatanybody had the right to go in there and change oneri
OP TM( SKY

106 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

TNtisn.Fig
SW
u....in.6+1Mir_M
Harris in t975;"I'malyric writer;

IF I COULD

I'm not a melody

writer. I write
great choruses"

ONE! WIN

single thing, 'cos the album was totallyfinished when he died. There was no reason
101111 LOVEfor anybody to change anything."
So what sort of a guy was Gram? Did he haveany kind of death wish? "That's really hard totalk about. I don't think he did, but maybe thatwas just part of himself that he showed to me.
I can only speak for the Gram that I knew. To me hewas the most vital, alive person I've ever known- perhaps
because he did so much to bring me to life.
"And for that reason -a person can be many things to many
people -I just have too many good memories of Gram todwell on his death, to dwell upon whatever hang-ups hemight have had, whatever incidents followed his death. It's
just not worth it, because I have too many good memories
about our relationship and all that he gave me."r

AFTER PARSON DIED ("over -stimulation of theheart" was the verdict), his body was taken fromthe funeral parlour and burnt in the desert. Thisapparently was the way he wanted it.
Naturally his untimely death had a marked effect on
Emmylou. "I felt like I couldn't give it up. What ! did was justto plunge myself into work on a real anonymous level. I was
in Washington. Nobody cared. It wasn't like I was in LA or
something. I just got a band together and started doing all
the songs we'd done on stage. And I did it. It wasn't a very
inspired thing. It was like therapy. It was like, 'OK, get up on
the bars and walk, five feet every day, and maybe at the end of
the yearyou're gonna be able to succeed to walk by yourself."
Because of her association with Gram she was no stranger
to Reprise Records, and with Gram's former manager, withwhom she signed a contract last July, recorded her first solo
album, Pieces OfThe Sky, in October. "I couldn't believe how

fast things happened after the album came out. Although
I thought it was a nice album," she says, her astonishment at
the record's success showing in her voice. "I thought there
were a lot of nice songs on it, but I figured it would just be ignored 'cos it

wasn't a commercial pop record and it wasn't a basic country album.And
it definitelywasn't a rock'n'roll album. It's not a Number One record, but
without a single it's been bobbing around the charts now since February."
EMMYLOU REGARDS HERSELF as a purist when it comesto country music, and while she doesn't sound like Tammy
Wynette or Dolly Parton, her album was nothing to do with
pop and very little to do with rock, unlike Linda Rondstadt's Heart Like
A Wheel album, which certainly fits into the LA country -rock mould.
I ask her whether she thinks the success of Heart Lalce A Wheel (Number
One in the US album charts earlier this year) helped her at all.
I'm sure it must have. Because all of a sudden women are being taken
a lot more seriously, with people like Maria (Muldaur] and Linda and, ofcourse, Joni Mitchell. People are really taking their music seriously and notjust thinking of them as tits and ass any more like they used to... real exotic
album covers and stufflike that 'Yeah, but does she look sexy?'" she mimics.
Despite her purist country -music attitude she admits that Pieces OfTheSkyisn't country music in the normal sense. "Gram's albums are country
albums but they never got any country play. I'm definitely not going to put
out an album like Tammy Wynette, but ! think there are some things on
my album that are more country. I'll never tease my hair and put on asequinned dress, but I don't get uptight at people who do. It's just mypersonal taste. I don't believe in country rock. There's so much of it. You
hear it all the time. I can't think of anything specific. I just prefer to keep
my stuff pure. I am a purist, I really am."But surely something like Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (the Byrds album
which featured Parsons) is country rock?
"That had some really great country stuff on it. It's hard for me to talkabout people who were doing great stuff like that back when I was doing
diddly shit. Right? My God, Sweetheart OfThe Rodeo is one of my favourite
albums of all time. It's incredibly innovative. The Gilded Palace Of Sin (bythe Burritos] is my favourite album of all time. It wasn't played straight
country but I think Gram's involvement in it made the pureness of it shine
through. The playing on that album is definitely not the greatest in theworld, but there's some incredibly magic stuff on it.

"Gram never intended to invent country rock. I think what he wanted to
do was play country music with a rock attitude, which is what I'm trying
to do. All it means is that you get up there and you don't apologise one bit
for what you're doing. You just play it and you play it full volume and fullforce and you really kick ass, 'cos country music is really ballsy music."
Emmylou Harris is essentially a singer and there's only one of her own
compositions on her album - "Boulder To Birmingham", easily one of themost powerful cuts on the album. "Yeah, I do find it hard to write. I'm nota real good writer- I've written some awful things. I won't let anything
get out of my sight once I feel it's halfway good. I'm a lyric writer; I'm nota melody writer. I write great choruses.
"'Boulder To Birmingham' was written on my own except for the melody
to the verses, forwhich I couldn't get anything. I took it to Bill Danoff, sangthe chorus, showed him the rest of the lyrics, and he just took it from there.
Obviously that song is about different happenings. It's a collection of
scenarios, but theywere all from things I'd... it's kind of like the way I write.
I kind of get a picture, a photograph in my head, and sometimes the words
fall into place. I was out in LosAngeles during the Topanga Canyon fire. It
was right after Gram's death and I was really undergoing some strange
things. It was really kind awful being out there. I felt really kind oflost.
"It's real funny; sometimes people respond to a loss or a sadness bycrying a lot, but what happened to me is that I dry up inside and it
becomes very painful. That's what it was, what I was going through, andthat fire didn't help. I felt like I was being burnt alive."
Most of the songs she sings are sad songs. "Sad songs are more fun tosing. Everybody has the blues. I think that if you listen to Billie Holliday,
no matter how sad a song she's singing I always get the feeling that she's
smiling. It's kind of like you feel better when you cry. Music is a release.
But I enjoy singing happy songs too.
"There might be more uptempo songs on this next album, 'cos that's
what I've been doing a lot of on the road (since April she's been touringwith her own band, which includes James Burton on guitar]. I've reallybeen having fun with this band, but I think the songs on the first album
are really indicative of the past year of my life.
"I look on it as therapy. I think I'd be in the nut -house if I wasn't a singer.
In fact I'm positive I would be. Legally insane." She laughs. SteveClarke
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1107

1975

Apri1i975:PinkFloydat
theLAMemorialSports
ArenaontheWishYou

JULY - SVIWER

Wore Here TourIn suspended animation the
ALBUMS
Pink Floyd

sh You Were Here

This, space cadets, is IT. You've

been waiting for two years for it
to arrive, just so's you could
snatch it, shrinK-wrapped andshining, hot from the deck - Pink
Floyd's long-awaited successor
to their record -break ng Dark
Side Of The Moon (in the bestselling album lists for aver 30
months and sti I selling).
Wish You Were Here took six
months to reccrd at EMI's new
24 -track studic in Abbey Road.
I am not entl-ralled. I have, also,
to admit that its predecessor,
despite its eno-mous popularity,
left me equally unmoved. I didtry, though, to acclimatise myself
to its bleak, emotionally barren
landscape. Just as I have tried
to entertain the prospect ofembracing Wish You Were Hereas A Giant Step Forward For
Mankind, I keep missing theconnection, somehow. From
whichever direction one
approaches Wish You Were Here,it still sounds unconvincing in its
ponderous sincerity a -id displaysa critical lack of imagination in
all departments. It's reallyall quite predic-able,

and forces one to the conclusionthat for the last two years(possibly longer) the Floyd
have existed in a state ofsuspended animation.
It's really quite alarming thatthey should have remained so
secure in their isolation. While
the world turns in destruction
upon itself, the Floyd amble
somnambulantly along theirstar -struck avenues arm in arm
with some pallid ghost of
creativity. Wish You Were Heresucks. It's as simple as that.
The omission of two of thesongs premiered on their last
British tour - "Raving And
Drooling" and "Gotta Be Crazy"- is perhaps significant in that itsuggests the Floyd have afundamental lack of confidence
in their own material. Similarly,
the amount of time they havedevoted to this record shouldn't
be taken as a sign of theirconstant search for perfection.
Rather, it indicates a lack ofdetermination and resolution.
The constant embellishments
and elaborate effects whichadorn the album seem merely
artificial and contrived. A seriesof masks and facades to
disguise the crucial lack ofinspiration which afflicts
the whole project.
One thing is evident
from the moment thestylus hits the vinyl,
Wish You Were Hereis no progression
from Dark Side Of
The Moon. Just as
there has been no realdevelopment in the
Floyd's music since

11

- 10

1g020dSEPT
0 Floyd lackfull

Ummagumma. The slight
concept which holds the album
together is, essentially, a rather
petulant tirade against the
rockbiz. The attack is no morethan petulant because of Roger
Waters' rather dubious qualities
as a lyricist. EMI describe Waters'

efforts as "penetrating andsignificant". I refer you and yourgood judgement to "Welcome To
The Machine'', which closes side
one in a blur of electronic andcrowd sound effects. (The
Floyd's use of such techniquesthroughout the album displays
as much aural sophistication asa 1967 psychedelic band

embarking upon their first
concept album). Elsewhere, wehave the same wall-to-wall cliches
which have marked almost every
Floyd album since Saucerful Of
Secrets. Rick Wright's dawn -of -man keyboard atmospherics
became tedious enough on thatalbum. It's unbelievable that he's
not realised since that you can domore with a synthesizer thansimulate the winds of time
drifting across the face of theuniverse. The worst move he evermade was trading in his Farfisa
for a Mellotron.
As musicians, the Floyd havenever made any claims forvirtuosity, but here the overall
standard of their performance is
without exception extremely
poor. David Gilmour could never
be described as a graceful orinventive guitarist, and it's
unfortunate that for much of thetime the focus should be on his
contributions. He plays with adogged enthusiasm, but he's too
often ridiculously obvious.

I conviction, while
passionatel intensity.
Only on the introduction to"Have A Cigar" do the band playwith any real vigour. It's notmajestic, and it's no profoundspiritual experience, but at least
it's enough to convince me thatthey haven't stiffed out
completely. Yet. Roy Harper,
guesting here on vocals, adds
a little more interest to what isreally a rather colourless song.
Waters' lyrics again are painfully
mundane. He's simply unable
to invest his attack against
rockbiz manipulation with any
vestige of urgency.
Sample lyric: "Come in here,
dear boy, have a cigar. You're
gonna go far, fly high/ You're
never gonna die, you're gonna
make it if you try; they're gonna
love you." The title track dominated by some thoroughly
inadequate acoustic guitar andWaters' weakest vocal
performance - is curiously
lightweight, and almost instantly
forgettable "...year after year/
Running over the same oldground," sings Waters in the third
verse. I know how he must feel.
The Floyd's real attempt at
a magnum opus to rival pasttriumphs is the nine -part "Shine
On You Crazy Diamond". This is
Roger Waters' epic tribute to
fractured genius Syd Barrett.
It was perhaps inevitable,
within the context of thealbum and Waters' lyricalpreoccupation, that he shouldchoose Barrett, rock casualty
supreme, as a tragic exampleof creative innocencecompromised and all but
destroyed by the pressuresof the biz. The insensitivity of

VI

V

BOWIE

THE FIRST thing about thisalbum is that it doesn't makesense until you play it loud.
The second thing is thatit's a mean, hard, largely

There's also a moreadventurous use of
instrumentation here, with
Lee Brilleaux getting to wieldsome vicious slide guitar on twoor three cuts, piano by Bob
Andrews added on a couple
more, and Wilko playing
enough for two guitarists mostof the time anyhow.
And it's all in stereo.
Equally significant is thealbum's inner balance andcohesion. The ratio of Wilko
Johnson originals to hallowed
R& B classics like Bobby
Parker's "Watch Your Step" andThe Coasters' "Riot In Cell
Block Number Nine" is fiftyfifty, but feels like less since
Johnson material like "Going
Back Home" (which he co -wrote
with his guitar hero Mick Green)(whaddya mean, who's he?
Played with Johnny Kidd & The
Pirates, didn't he?) And "Back In
The Night" are straight out of
the mainstream R&B tradition.
But then the band in general
seem to have absorbed the"feel" of the R&B idiom. They
turn country blues like Skip
James'"Rolling And Tumbling"
into a pounding electric power drive that couldn't have comefrom anywhere before1975,
and stack it full of black -cat -uncompromising high-energy
R&B record. And I like it.
In short, Malpractice is thecure-all album that Feelgood
buffs always hoped the band
would make; not unflawed, but
far more immediate in impact
and finally far more rewarding

menace and power, easily
outclassing the hystericalattempts at screaming
savagery we're currently
witnessing from so many US
punk bands.
Similarly they hand out

Waters' lyrics borders on
the offensive in that they
completely trivialise
Barrett's predicament.
I can't honestly recommend
it for its musical content,
either, although the last four"movements" on side two havea vitality absent from the first
five which open side one. For
most of the ride it's the usual
Floyd panorama of sound, with
Wright's congregation of
keyboards adding ethereal
splashes behind Gilmour's
armour -piercing guitar forays.
The final effect is not unlikea theme from Quo Vadis being
piped into a supermarket.
Careful with those frozen
peas, Eugene.
Wish You Were Here willsell as well as Dark Side Of
The Moon, of course. And in
three years, when the next
Floyd album is released, I
wouldn't be at all surprised if
it's still in the chart.
Crazy, isn't it? Allan JonesDr Feelgood

than Down By The Jetty.
Essentially a live band, theFeelgoods' attempts on Jetty
not to lose their stage soundand identity in the studio - byrecording everything in monowith no overdubs - meant
substantial underproduction on
all but the fiercest numbers.
But, a few limp numbers
aside, the real failing of Jetty
was, as Nick Kent pointed out
at the time, its erratic pacing,
uneven distribution of material,and its ultimate refusal to gel
into a totality.
Malpractice is altogether
a more thoughtful and potent
prescription. That's clear fromthe moment "I Can Tell" comes
howling off the turntable andsets about your senses likepaint stripper. For a start there's
a fullness and depth to the
production (largely by the band,with four tracks produced by
Vic Maile) that's more justlyreflective of the riveting
Feelgood stage presence.

bone, put -a -spell -on -you"Don't You Just Know It" isthe other side of the blues
tradition, a comparatively
relaxed Huey "Piano" Smithromp that builds deceptively
into an infectious call -and answer choogie.
That leaves the Wilko
originals -"Going Back
Home" is relentless

than the rest of Malpractice,though Wilko's playing saves
it from becoming totallypedestrian.
And "Don't Let Your Daddy
Know" is... godawful. Well, if
you like obscure Stones B-sides
with sneery punk paranoid
lyrics (sung in deadpan Wilko
style), sparse production anddubious harp, you'll really go forit. Malpractice's equivalents to"Boom Boom" on Jetty and thealbum's worst lapse of taste.
Finally there's a brace ofJohnson songs that close side
two - "Because You're Mine" isa Wilko showcase, with vocals,bass and drums overshadowed
and dictated by the stuttering,jaw -clenched rhythms thatJohnson's guitar spits out.
The sound is eerie, grating
and sinister; the style is, as has
been noted before, an almost

complete synthesis of the
traditional roles of "rhythm"
and "lead" guitar.
Though theis called into play on almost
every track, it's particularly
in evidence on this and on the
two -and -a -half minutes of "Youlethal razor-edged treatments
to "I Can Tell" (a Bo Diddleysong) and "Watch Your Step",
the number with the mostextensively plundered intro inrock history, I should think, with
"Riot" every bit as transfixing as
the show -stopping treatment itgets on stage. Except there'reno visuals, of course.

"AnotherMan" is slight bycomparison, morein keeping with the
likes of "AnotherWeekend Of Your
Love" on the first album

Shouldn't Call The Doctor (If
You Can't Afford The Bills)"
which closes the album.
The latter is straight from the
Chuck Berry mould, bounding
insuppressibly along, behindlyrics which you can imagine
from the title. Could evenbecome a signature tune.
What's more left to say?
Figure and Sparko play tight,
mostly unobtrusive drums andbass respectively, Lee B blows
his usual exemplary harp (hey,remember harps?) and grates
his sandpaper vocal cords more
menacingly than ever. Wilko issimply stunning for most of
the time. It might even be a hit.
Neil Spencer

F
RIGHT
SINGLESDavid Bowie

The king of excess is at it again,
with lashings of overkill andexaggeration. The drumkit goes
through it most of all. a steadyclatter upstaging even Bowie's
eccentric vocals, while a raunchy
brass -flavoured rhythm drives it
along with considerable impact
and guts. Certainly one of thebetter tracks from Young
Americans, with Bowie launchinghimself body and soul into theturbulent fray and fitting quite
neatly into the guise of a blacksoul singer. There's so muchconviction and sheer hostility inthe performance that reaction
has got to be entirely positive.
Vastly better than the last
indifferent single and the bestfrom him for some time. Hit.
MM Jul /9

Bad Company
ISLAND

This track,
Straight Shooter album, shouldhave been released as a single
months ago. On a purelycommercial level, it beats thehell out of Bad Co's last 45,"Good Levin' Gone Bad". Good
hookline, excellent vocal fromRodgers, snazzy guitar runs,
even a melody line... a record
which, one must assume, will bea radio programmer's delight.
Trouble is, the lyric is appalling.
Lines like "If I had those golden
dreams of my yesterdays" comestraight from the Golden
Treasury Of Rock Poetry. A hit
nevertheless. MMAug76
Steely Dan

Buy this single. Taken from
Steely's magnificent debut
album, Can't Buy A Thrill,
released back in 1972, this song
has strangely neverbeen a hit in this12 -bar which suffers from acountry. But
everything about
it is right, fromthe arrangement
through to the
lyric. A record
which doesn't
insult the
intelligence.
Deserves to be
Number One. Hit.

lacklustre vocal treatment.

MNIAugup -tempo sinew -stretching boogie in thevein of Slim Harpo's"Shake Your Hips" and"Back In The Night- is
likewise straight -down the -line Elmore James

Dr. Feelgood

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1109

k
EXPRESSorsri- titulBER
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN,PETER GABRIEL, OZ2YOSBOURNE AND WIRE-LENNON STA YSAPPEAL COURT RULES

August 1975: John _ennon
soda pregnant Vol. o Ono

Not sufficientreason fordeportation
MM OCT 18 John Lennon wins his,c.., .o stay in the USA.

J

OHN LENNON HAS won his fightagainst deportation from the UnitedStates. The victory came last week
when the US Court Of Appeal decided
Lennon's British drug conviction was
not sufficient reason for the American
Immigration Department's deportation
order against him.
The decision came on the eve of thebirth of Sean Ono Lennon, John and Yoko's
first child. The Court's judgement marks theclimax to a three-year struggle by Lennon tostay in the States. He entered America on
August 31, 1971, originally intending to stayfora few weeks to attend a court hearing
concerning the custody of Kyoko, Yoko
Ono's daughter by her first marriage to film
director Tony Cox.
Early the following year Lennon retained
lawyer Leon Wildes when it became
necessary for him to apply for an extension
to his American visa. Since that time there
have been numerous attempts by thegovernment to have Lennon deported, butconstant appeals have enabled him toremain in the US.
He has not been able to leave America,
however, for fear that the immigration
authorities would bar him from entry if he

attempted to return.
The whole case was further complicatedby two actions filed against theAmerican
government by Wildes. The first and mostimportant of the actions claimed the
Immigration Department pre -judged
Lennon's case without giving him a fair
opportunity to state his reasons for wishing
to remain in the US.

attendaperformalceof the Broadway pity
Same Time Nei t Vitarat
the Brooks Atkinson
Theatre. New Von' City

waits: the great

white hope
Tom WaitsinLAin
1975:-Beforel
foundKerouaclwas

kindagropingfor
somethingtohang
onto.stylistically"

thrillOCT 4 Introducing... Beat generation heir and"the worst -dressed man I ever saw", Tom Waits.
THIS IS AN old diner on the funky end
of 8th Avenue, hung with grease stained cardboard plaques that say

with dandruff, voluminous torn T-shirt
decorated with axle -grease thumb prints anda flat cap with grimy brim which has been all
things like "Hamburg . french fries. coleslaw
but rubbed away by generations of usage.
= 95c" or "Try our soup of the day. Different
From underneath, straw-coloured curls
soup daily 20c." Green tiled walls and green
protrude, crowning a drained and pallidchipped Formica workbench -type counterface. Bloodshot eyes, hollow cheeks andtops, the dreary unifo-mity of colour broken
a whispy goatee.
by hulking and battered aluminium urns.
Although reluctant to admit it, Waits has
Tom Waits feels at Fome. Most of the... uh...
consciously styled his artistic and personal
clientele here are earthy working men, burly
development along the lines laid down in theconstructing crew workers,'50s by the so-called Beat
truck drivers and the odd
Generation - taking as hisderelict, most of these red model writers like Allen
nosed and grimy andGinsberg, Gregory Corso,
sporting the standard wino
and particularly Jacka melody to hang
trim -three days of stLbble,
Kerouac. And never mind
what remains of heads ofthat virtually all the writers
hair anchored down tc
involved in that very loose
scabbed scalps by months,
movement ultimately
years of sweat and dirt.
disowned their hobo
Nobody here realises
on -the -road years.
they're dining with the great left -field hope ofWaits is passionately committed to thethe David Geffen empire. Yes sir, from thespirit of the '50s and all that it entailed.
team that gave you the Eagles, Joni Mitchell,
In the grand Beat tradition, Waits
the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band and even (forsits in seedy luncheonettes anda while) Bob Dylan - Elektra/Asylum Records
crowded bars writing downpresents... (fanfare of trumpets)... Tom Waits!
conversations that he hears around
Tom Waits is the worst dressed man I everhim, and later turns these into songs.
saw. Impossibly crumpled, three -sizes -too And the Kerouac influence makes
big, dark -grey suit, collar liberally sprinkled
itself manifest in these songs in more

"I just can't findthe words on to.
I do it anyway"

112 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

than just general terms. Why, the very titleof Waits' second album, The Heart Of
Saturday Night, is in direct reference toa passage from Kerouac's book Visions Of
Cody, and the theme of the whole album isessentially little more than an elaboration,
albeit articulate, on this self -same passage(pages 80 through 85 in the McGraw Hill
paperback edition, if you want to check it
out for yourselves).
And when it came to selecting a'50s -style back-up trio for his New Yorkappearance at the swanky Reno Sweeney's
Club, who should Waits choose to front
such a band but tenorist Al Cohn, who justhappens to be the saxophonist who worked
with - you guessed it - or Jack Dulouz
Kerouac himself on a 1960 jazz/poetry
album called Blues/Haikus.
To be sure, then, pianist/guitarist/
singer/raconteur Tom Waits walks thatmost perilous of lines between idolisationon the one hand and downright plagiarism
on the other.
But what does Waits have that's his own,
you ask? Well, Kerouac never actually wrote
songs as such, of course, and thus, unlike
Waits, never got his material recorded by
the Eagles, Bette Midler, Ian Matthews, Lee
Hazlewood and Tim Buckley -to name but
five. Not that Waits likes any of the coverversions overmuch.
"The Eagles made '01' '55' reallyantiseptic, y'know, and that song's onjukeboxes everywhere now. When I hearthose songs and the real essence doesn't
come across, I figure that maybe the songs
just ain't strong enough."
This lack of conviction in his songwriting
ability has made Waits lean progressively
more and more heavily (onstage) on his
words: "If I can't find a melody to hang thewords onto, I just don't worry about it. I do it
anyway, without music.
"I got a thing on my upcoming album
called 'Spare Parts', which is a thing I wrote,
but in the final analysis it's a solo effort, it's
something you do by yourself and nobody canreally tell anybody else how to do it.
"It starts off as a vicarious sort of thrill.
Through somebody else's work you get the
feeling that you could do something like that,
but then later you find out how very difficult it
actually is to do something meaningful. And for Tom Waits, his most "meaningful"effort to date is his new album -a live double
recorded, paradoxically, in the studios. To get
the nightclub atmosphere, Tom moved tables
and chairs into his favourite studio, opened a
bar and invited his friends along. The record iscalled Nighthawks At The Diner.
"It's probably the newness of it that makes
me like it the most. I don't know - I never playThe Carpenters,
hadn't cancelled
a show in six yea -s

my old records, so it's difficult to be
objective. There's a new thing I've done
called 'Eggs And Sausage' which I'm reallypleased with, and another one called'Warm Beer And Cold Women'... Oh andthere's one called 'Putnam County' which
is a little vignette about a Naugahyde town
in Kentucky...
"I've always found it awkward to adjust to
the studio - that knowledge that you've got
the same facilities as any other artist at yourdisposal - you can go in and make a great
album or you can go in and suck raw eggs."
At Reno Sweeney's Tom Waits looks
absurdly incongruous. The T-shirt has been
replaced by a white, more conventionalvariety and a skinny lifeless necktie isknotted about halfway down his chest. Butotherwise it's the same sad suit and cap andpeeling chisel -toe shoes.
Reno Sweeney's, you should understand,
is what London's Biba's Rainbow Room is
supposed to be, stylised eleganza.
Al Cohn pushes his tenor through a few
genteel paces, blinking owlishly behind his
spectacles. Come to think of it, he hasn'tchanged much since the '50s either. He's
still sounding like a bluesier synthesis ofLester Young and Charlie Parker: not an
unhealthy combination, let it be said.
But Cohn doesn't get enough room tomove. This is Tom Waits' show and the music
is secondary to the imagery. Unobtrusive
background music, that's all that's requiredof one of the most important tenorists ofthe postwar years, a guy on a par with Zoot
Sims and Stan Getz. Which isn't to knock
Waits necessarily - the jazz -poetry fusions
throughout history have usually transpiredin the music losing out, relegated to abackseat role.
And Tom Waits is babbling. "Under thecircumcision this is pretty prophylactic," heblurts at one point to more titters, and later
I think I hear him cram a couple of stanzas
from Kerouac's "Mexico City Blues" into theproceedings, but I can't be sure, andnobody else seems to notice. Seems we
can't avoid talking about Kerouac. I prevailon him to explain the roots of this obsession.
"I'm interested in the style mainly. Before
I found Kerouac I was kinda groping forsomething to hang onto, stylistically.
"I was kinda lost in the '60s. Y'know I
kinda slept in the '60s. Knowing I wanted to
do something creative, not knowing how or
where to do it."
Living in California, Waits remained
immune to the celebrated San Franciscomusic explosion.
"I thought it was a waste of time, I knew it
was going to consume itself pretty rapidly. I
was more interested in the early beginningsof that scene than I was in its progress. I
didn't go to San Francisco until the whole
love -and -flowers bit was all over, and when
I did go, I was looking for the City Lights
Bookstore and the ghost of Jack Kerouac.
"Writing is a much more easy business to
discuss," he croaks, "than to actually get
down and do it yourself. You can talk fordays about how you write or where you
write or how you like the room or what you
write about." Steve Lake

"I couldn't getout of bed"
MM NOV1 Karen Carpenter's
causes concern.

THE CARPENTERS' TOUR of
Britain is off because of thecollapse from sheer exhaustion of
Karen. Ticket holders for the 38 -datetrek will have their money refunded.
In Los Angeles this week, Karen
told MMeditor Ray Coleman: "It'sannoying to feel that I couldn't
withstand what I was doing to myself.
You tend to say, 'Hey, no sweat. I canhandle it', but this time I couldn't.
Suddenly, a week or so ago, I went
whack -1 couldn't get out of bed. It
took me by surprise, because for six
years I have never cancelled a show inthe whole time, except when I had laryngitis

Carpentersoff- concerts

and couldn't talk. I've travelled with bronchitis
and fever and everything else."
Karen's illness, officially described by her
doctor as spastic colitis, finally hit her duringcabaret in Las Vegas, a month ago. It began asa sore throat. She took penicillin, which didn't
agree with her. "I kept telling myself, 'I'm notreally sick, I'll be better tomorrow.' When you
have a show to do, you just bear on through it.
But it kept getting worse and the last two days
there I don't know how I got through."
Back home in Los Angeles, her doctor sent
her to bed, where she slept for 14 to 16 hours
a day. "My mother thought I was dead; I
normally manage on four to six hours. It was
obvious that for the past two years I've beenrunning on nervous energy. So I spent thepast month in bed trying to get better, andhopefully ready for the British tour."
Karen got rid of the infection, but her brother

Richard and new manager lerry Ellis insisted
on a hospital check-up.
"Spastic colitis is apparently a condition
prone to occur in hyperactive or tense people,
and I've always been like that. I run 23 hours
a day. For the life of me I don't knowwhy it hasdeveloped this way, but I feel totally worn out."
Karen and Richard said they had not had aholiday during their entire career in the musicbusiness until midway through the Horizon
album. "I went away for four days then anddidn't knowwhat to do with myself," Karen
added. "I'm going to have to seriously try tocalm down, but it's easier said than done."
In Britain The Carpenters' record company,
A&M, stand to lose about £1 million worth ofrecord sales generated by interest in the tour.
The Carpenters were scheduled to do British
dates during a 50 -concert, 28 -day tour ofEurope. Richard Carpenter visited Britain to
explain the cancellation.

Rumours of disenchantment
MM DEC 20 Ata IiiG lt;t1ULlii ywiJ UK; Lar.'liGJI JUL-.
jrOE WALSH HAS replaced guitarist Bernie Leadon in the Eagles. He will be playing withthe band on their forthcoming American tour.
Rumours of disenchantment within the band have been rife for some time andLeadon is known to dislike touring. The choice of Joe Walsh as his replacement, however, isa complete surprise. He has established a considerable reputation as an artist in his own right.
Walsh and the Eagles share thesame manager, Irving Azoff, andboth acts appeared at Elton John's
May19.1975:JoeWalsh
Wembley Stadium concert lastat thePinkpopFestival
June -a performance which
in Geleen. Netherlands
climaxed with Walsh jammingwith the Eagles.
A new live album by Walsh will be
released in February, and after the
Eagles' US concerts, the band will
be embarking on a world tour withgigs in Britain on the cards.
Although Walsh is now a full-timemember of the band, it seems
certain that he will also continue
his solo career.

Walsh joins
EaglesHISTORY Of ROCK 1975 1 113

1975
0Ci06Efl

ERCEMBER"The sessions

were pretty loose"
MM DEC 27 Brunch in New York with

Bobby Womack: top songwriter,
Rolling Stones support act andlately... Ron Wood's producer.
BOBBY WOMACK IS the kind of guy who

I ights up a room when he enters, and thissuite in the Plaza Hotel is no exception.
Sunday brunch arrived first, and Womacka few minutes later, emerging from his
bedroom in a leather suit, bouncing acrossthe suite and talking 19 to the dozen.
It's been a good year for Bobby Womack,a fact suitably reflected in the lavish Plaza
accommodation, and next year things arelikely to get better. Some of this good fortune
can be put down to good management andsome can be put down to both the Faces andthe Rolling Stones.
This summer Womack played as the support
band for the Stones on a number of their US
tou r dates, and played with the Faces as aco-opted member of the band for a few songson their US tour.
In both cases the decision to invite Womack
along stems from a long admiration for thisveteran US rhythm & blues singer: Womack
once sang with Sam Cooke and no one needs
reminding how Rod Stewart idolises theex -leader ofThe Soul Stirrers; and Womack,of course, wrote "It's All Over Now", a massive
hit for the Stones in the '60s, and a featured
song by the Faces ever since Stewart recorded
the song on Gasoline Alley.
He also has a new albu m released, titled Safety
Zone, which features a sleeve of pictures of theartist posing with his own Rolls-Royce Silver

1111M1111111111111111111111111111111A111111111111111111111111111W

111111111111111
111111111111

1131111111111/11111111115111

SIIIM11111111111111111111111111111111
1111111111111111J111115111111111111111111M1

Bobby Womack:

touring withthe Face.
delayed work onhis
soloLPSofetyZone

III iII TORYOF

Shadow, and a newish band who'll be touring
the US soon and, hopefully, visit Europe for the
first time in the spring of next year.
Womack says, discreetly, that he'll be touringwith a "big British band", but won't mention
any names until contracts are finalised. One
must assume it's either the Faces or the Stones.
Apart from a visit to the UK earlier thisyear to
produce Ronnie Wood's second solo album, themuch -travelled Womack had never visited
England. He was a bit of a myth, he admits, butthere were plenty of people on hand to shakehis palm reverently when he finally arrived.
Womack was born in Cleveland, Ohio oneof five brothers who formed a gospel group
together. The Womack Brothers toured withSam Cooke and The Soul Stirrers, andWomack became Cooke's guitar player on
the dissolution of both groups. From thatmoment on he became a solo artist and writer,
contributing not only "It's All Over Now" tothe "classic" rock catalogue, but also....

mack: Safety first'
rth inew York

"Lookin' For Love",which has become a tour
de force of the J Geils
Band, and "I'm A
Midnight Mover" forWilson Pickett.

I'd never have to work
here now. People kept
coming over to see
what I was doin, andRon had to keep thedoors locked to get themout. I felt really proud
about it all."In the end Womack

Devouring bacon andeggs in the Plaza, hebecomes gradually more
ended up writing about
and more awake,
70 percent of the material
mentioning that his son
the Stones werefor Wood's album whileis photographed with him
doing 'It's All Over they produced it together.
on the album sleeve, and"It was me and the piano
he was married to Sam
player Mac (Ian Mclagan)
Cooke's wife, after Cookeand Ron, who was there
died, for several years.
all the time when the
Gradually he comes aroundothers split. We was up two
to his recent activities:
or three days at a time. Them sessions weretouring with the Faces held up work on thispretty loose, sure, but this time around Ron
new album; originally it had been thought
concentrated on his vocals a lot."that Womack's band would support them, but
Womack's own group have been together
eventually it wound up as Womack appearing
a matter of months apart from the relatively
as a guest Face.
casual brass section he's known for five years.
"I just went up on stage and we jammed
He would like them to work in the studio with
together," said Womack, pushing his plate
him - "I think when I playa song in the studioaside and pouring coffee. "I did 'It's All Overand they do it live, they do a better version" Now' with him, then a numberwith Ron frombut instead he used session guys.
his album that I produced, and then I did
Already this band has played a tour with
'Bring It On Home To Me' and then 'This Old
both the Ohio Players and Graham Central
Heart Of Mine', 'cos I like the way they do that."
Station, as well as a few dates with the Stones.
The relationship between Womack and the"When we came off that we was tight as a bug
Faces started two years ago when Womack
on a tree. I did a few new things and then myvisited the Forum in Los Angeles on theolder stuff... Sure, lesAll Over Now', 'Looking
invitation of the Faces' management.
For Love', 'I Can Understand It' and we'd
"I'd read somewhere that Rod was saying I
create things on stage... jamming till we
was one of his favourite artists and so I figured
found a groove.
I'd try to reach him. I called him one day and"I've rearranged 'It's All Over Now' because
said... 'Hey man, this is Bobby Womack.' andI hated it through hearing everybody do it the
he freaked out.
same way. Me and Bill Withers cut it together"At first we talked about doing a tribute to
and we changed it around, but ! think people
Sam Cooke type album and ! thought that wasprefer hearing it the old way.
fantastic, so I went down the Forum and...
"Y'know... I didn't digit at all when I knew
well, I must say I didn't know Ron from Rod."the Stones were doing that song. That was my
The "Tribute To Cooke" album neverfirst record and it was a hit and ! didn't want tomaterialised, of course, but Wood did windknow about no cover version. It was Sam
up using Womack as his producer this year.
Cooke that told me and he was happy because"Somewhere along the line... I don't know
he had the publishing, but I didn't care about
whether it was the company that got involved
the Rolling Stones... no... I said, 'Let them getor the manager or whatever, but it didn't
their own songs together, man, but they did itcome off. But I was sitting in a car with themand I didn't understand why Sam was happy
one day and Ron says... 'Why don't we cut myuntil I got the first cheque.
album?'... and I figured ! couldn't wait around"Then I thought, 'Great -the Rolling Stones
for ever waiting for Rod. So I went to Englandcan do eight of my songs.' I lived off that record
for the first time.
for about 10 years, and I'm not lying to you.
"The people accepted me so well in England,
The Faces did it and Ry Cooder, and I loved the
I figured that if I'd made it there five years ago
way he did it."
Womack, in fact, didn't get to meett he Stones until this year, and thisvas through Wood. During thecourse of their recording together in
London, Wood had to go to Paris tomeet the Stones for talks on the US
tour and Womack went along for the
ride. It was a trip that resulted in his
playing some of their dates, perhaps
the most coveted opening spot inrock'n'roll this year.
Of all the artists who have recorded
his material, Womack cites Wilson
Pickett as the artist he prefers most.
"He made the best job of the things
I did, like 'I'm In Love' and 'Midnight"I didn't dig it when

Now'... until I got
the first cheque"Mover'." Chris Charlesworth

Ron Wood and Rod

Stewart during theFaces' final UStourinautumn'75"I don't think
Ron knows yet"
NME DEC 27 he Faces finally fold.

'lye Ron Wood?
THE MOST WIDELY anticipated split
in rock history finally came to a headlast weekend, when Rod Stewart
officially announce that he has broken his
connections with the Faces.
Stewart said that his decision to leave thegroup, in order to concentrate on a solo

career, was taken after much deliberation.
He added that he could no longer work ina situation where the Faces' lead guitarist,
Ron Wood, seemed to be permanently "onloan" to the Rolling Stones.
Stewart now intends to form his own band,the lineup of which will be made known earlyin the New Year. However, it now seems
unlikely that Wood will join the new band, as
had been widely rumoured in the past.
There has, as yet, been no official word
regarding Ron Wood's future plans. It has
automatically been assumed that he will
now join the Rolling Stones -with whom
he toured America in the summer and has
recently been recording on the Continent- on a permanent basis.
When NME contacted Mick Jagger inParis on Friday morning, just before heboarded a plane for the United States, he
had only just heard of the Faces split. He
commented: "I don't think Ron even knows
about it yet. All I can say at the moment isthat no agreement has yet been signed
between the Stones and Ron Wood. There's
nothing finalised at all. But as I say, we've
only just learned of the split."
It seems logical that Wood will join the
Stones. But reports in the national andevening papers last weekend, suggestingthat he had already done so, were - at press time - still premature.
Jagger reaffirmed that the Stones areplanning a European tour in the early
spring, and expected to include British
dates in their itinerary. He said they wereaiming at March -April for the tour, butemphasised that no venues are yet set.
The NME understands that April 6 isbeing held for a Rolling Stones concert at
Wembley Empire Pool, but that the Stones
have not yet given their final approval.
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1115

1975
OCTOBERDECEMBER"Down toearth"In a world of stars,,
LOWELL GEORGE

0-Kik DECEMBER 6-

NCE UPON A time in the early '60s when

everybody suddenly started getting paranoid
about advertising men, and half the people

you met were convinced that t he" H idden
Persuaders" were secretly ruling the worldfrom Madison Avenue, you used to hear thiscute slogan attributed to some grey -flannel -suited wolverine
Machiavelli from one of the big ad agencies.
This bit of prefab folk wisdom went. "You don't sell the steak,you sell the sizzle."
The thing is, it ain't that easy to tell where the steak ends
and the sizzle begins. Obviously it's the steak that's sizzling,
and if you extend the metaphor so that Little Feat are the steak,then the sizzle is what happens when the stocky, bearded guy
with the tired eyes standing up front bears down on his white
St ratocaster with the metal t ube on his finger and makes itsound just so...
It's a sizzle, right enough. lie lays the sizzle simmering andbubblingover the chug of t he rest of t he band, and when he hits
the note, that's when you just naturally get upon yer hind legs
and put on your sailin' shoes.

remaiiv.

'fit`

AV,
14,

Ho( 1(

While hit. 11,,I1O

LITTLE FEAT vio vi

crowds, (his headeps( v,iod

his heart iii ih(;i ght
place. "I will (} elashowhe says, "i wo'i*

9

supposed io
opening to ,; H)that I de,11i((.,

Ladiesattd gentlemen, Little Feat. On guitarand vocals,
Mr Lowell George.

Obviously, something had to give sometime. If the first halfof the '70s were delineated by a desire for an excess of posturing
and extravagance -a succession of arrogant elitists moreconcerned with mimicking the worst and most inhumanman ifestat ions of old-style Hollywood stardom- then it wasinevitable that sooner or later the whole rhinestoned bubble
would burst and leave a sticky mess over the faces of a large
nu mber of bot It its perpetrators and its audience.
Hence the bu mi ng quest ion of the moment, asked in thepages of most thinking rock papers and in the homes of mostthinking rock devotees: "Is rock dead?" If the question isinterpreted to mean, "Is the music (and byextension the
makers and listeners thereof) stone kaput?" the answer isobviously,"Hell. no." If it's interpreted to mean, "Is rock in theprocess of streamlining itself by sheddi lig a tacky old skinwhich was d ra i n i ng too much energy from the parent
organism?" then the answer is, "Yes please -and can you putthat little Feat album on again?"
Ladiesand gentlemen, Little Feat. On guitarand vocals,
Mr Lowell George.

Maybe the time has come to sacrifice a few oft he old gods
- the ones who have become eit her too preoccupied by thecircumstances of their god hood, or too debil hated by thestresses and st rains of said godhood to be able to rememberor
act upon the memory of why we made 'em gods in the first place.
You know- the ones who're too busy h id i ng out from taxmen,
romancing movie stars and gett i ng t hei r blood cha nged to dorecords and toursand get the cru mbling remnants of their musicout to the peoplewho save up for the a Ibu ins and queue threedays to get tickets to see'ent on stage on their biannual tours. ,,116 I HISTORY OF ROCA 1975

,ts

rid

I

LowellGeorgeon
Apri122,19:5:"I'M
not anxious to playwhichiswhNewe're
ham:Wright now"

HISTORY ,-)f- ROCK 975

117

1975

DECEMBEROCTOBER

These people have consciously divorced themselvesfrom us to the point that what they have to say to us don't
matter any more. What Mick Jagger thinks about anything
is no longer relevant. What Rod Stewart thinks isn't
relevant. So who needs 'em?
Sure, if we're still assessing rock in terms of thesescrewed -up old dinosaurs and the likelihood of new
dinosaurs emerging, then yes, baby, rock is dead, and if itmeans an end to dinosaurs I'll be right up there lighting thefirst log on the funeral pyre.
But rock manifestly isn't dead -and in evidence I'll
call Dr Feelgood, the Wailers, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan(a potential dinosaur who, alone among his
contemporaries, cared enough to evolve) and...
Ladies and gentlemen, Little Feat, On vocals and guitar,
Lowell George.

LOWELL ISNTA star. He's a musician. You stand in
the corridor outside his second -floor room in the
Watergate Hotel in Washington DC, and as you
prepare to ring the bell you notice a single, solitarysqueezed lemon lurking on the carpet. He lets you in,

murmurs "Well, hey" and disappears into the bathroom,and you prowl around for a few moments.
It takes you a few seconds to realise that the two speakers
that flank the bed aren't part of the hotel furnishings because they seemto blend in so well with the decor -the same fake grain veneer plastic
wood beloved by the Gracious Living Departments of both hotels andelectronic equipment designers. There's a box of cassettes- Bach lutemusic, Ry Cooder, home -compiled bluegrass, the Stones -a folded NMEby the sofa, a fakeNational Enquirer front page made up by Warners.
Lowell George is MrAverage. He's not a glitter wimp or a cocaine pimp
or a street punk; just a stocky bearded guy with an air of bearlike
abstracted amiability in jeans, scuffed suede boots, a mauve shirt anda blue V-neck pullover that, if worn by an Englishman, would seem tohave space -warped their way st raight out of Marks & Spencer.
He offers you a choice of real and fake mineral water, tops it up with ice
and halfa lemon ("Uhhhh... where'd I put that knife?") and we sit down.
Before I can even think "interview", I realise that we've just spent 15
minutes talking about a mutual friend and 10 minutes discussing theMarx Brothers. How the hell do you "interview" a guy like that?
See, when the idea of going to Washington and doing a Little Feat piececame up, I hadn't intended to interview anybody at all. Little Feat's music
always seemed to speak for itself more than adequately, and rather thanruthlessly interrogate the creators thereof for musical minutiae andscabrous personal anecdotes about other famous people, it seemed more
appropriate to try and just hangout and write a documentary number on
the band and their associates.
It didn't work out quite like that because I'd bumped into Lowell George
in the lobby and had an incidental two minutes conversation whichconvinced me that t hey guywas so obviously enjoyable to talk to thatgetting in an hour's gab with him was going to be a pleasure in itself. So
I got back in touch with the PR wing of the operation and said that I'dchanged my mind, and could they fix up an i nterview after all. Borroweda tape machine, fought my way past the flattened lemon in the corridor,
rang the doorbell... it was quite an adventure.
So at one point we were talking about The Byrds, and how the first two
albums are so similar in content, technique and texture that they soundlike one album, and Mr George sez:
"The sound was very similar, because
the band had not gone through any ofthe monumental changes that occur
when a band gets very successful andeverybody gets a big head.
"I mean, that's one of the problemsof rock'n'roll, when a kid of twenty-two
or -three gets successful and goes toa $200,000 -a-year place in space andthinks, 'Shit, I can play the drums andearn $200,000 a year -fuck these guys'
And they go out on their own and theyfind out that it's all a mistake- ya
know? What a wonderful industry."
118 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Little Feat in LA,1975:(I-r)KennyGradney,Bill
Payne,LowellGeorge,
Paul Barrere, Sam Clayton
and Richie Hayward

What about the dissociation that occurs when a songwriter who d caws
on his environment is pulled out of that environment and placed among
the limos, dope, five-star hotels and trashy women of rock stardom?
"Of course. That happens to everybody. Springsteen will write songs
about all the press he's got. He's had more press than any living being who
hasn't sold a hundred thousand albums ever. It's amazing. Bruce is bigger
than a politician. I haven't met the guy and I haven't heard his records, so
I can't tell you what's going to happen to him. That happens to me too, but
I always have those cheesy Holiday Inns to bring me right back down toearth, and I don't think we'll ever escape them.
"Another thing is that I'm not anxious to play in gigantic halls, which iswhere we're headed right now. I don't relish that idea at all. I'd rather play tothree, five, seven thousand people and play for several nights, maybe threenights in a row ifwe have a huge audience. Play to a small audience where
the reality is much closer. You know, where there's still a com munication."
But what happens when the records start breaking big and the record
company starts pushing the band to play those bigger gigs and reachmore consumers with less outlay?
"It isn't record companies that say that, it's agents and managers. They'dlove that to happen because they make more money that way. Actually, itreally shouldn't be up to them. It should be up tome, and I'm working onthat right now, trying to have it be my decision and not be a nybody else's.
One thing is that I hate to come to a town and be out the next day. You
never get to find out about the street and what's going down and if there's
a song out there to be written. I mean, this city..."Washington. The band's PR say it's their "home town" (even though
they're from good ol' Ho -Lee -Wood, LA, Calif) and that night at the gig
the emcee will exhort the crowd to "Please welcome home, Little Feat!""This city is an amazing place and I love to stay around here, because
there's so much great music. It's very provincial. Twenty miles across thatriver right there is Virginia, where bluegrass music runs rampant in thestreets. There's players here that are as good as there ever have been -1
can think of two mandolin players that have lived in this town, and adobro player, Mike Auldridge, who isjust unbelievable, the dobro player of
all time, and John Starling, a singer songwriter who lives in the vicinity
who is also a doctor. I hate to exclude

all that.
"Jerry Garcia, you know, goes out
and gets back on the street again,
forms another group that is not quite
together and has no -an untogether

together band -and performs
because he wants to get back to thestreet again."
I allowed as how I thought thatthat was great of Garcia, but wishedLITTLE FEATthat a few people whose music was closer to my own street would do
the same.
"Name one." Led Zep?
"I love their music, but their presentation leaves a little to be desired.
Also they playa little bit too loud for 10,000 seats. It's so godawful loud. I'dlove to hear those guys come out with little cheesy Fender amps in a tinyhall some place under another name, but I reckon they're a little too
advanced to do that."
Yeah, but what Zep play has to be that loud to provide that overpoweringannihilation effect that H Metal depends on, especially fora band like
Zep, who are all about power of various kinds.
"That's a very sexual concept -volume as subjugation of the fern inine.
I wonder if that's a formula that those folks have arrived at."
The doorbell rings, and when we resume, Lowell is recounting the taleof a gig at "a horrible little auditorium in Vance, California" where all thebiggies arrived to catch El Feat.
"There was Phantom Fingers- what's his name? -Page, yeah, Plant
and Page; that warbler from Australia -what's her name?- Helen Reddy;
the Hagar Brothers from Hee Haw (USC&W TV show). We had Ringo- it
cracked me up that those people would be concerned about the idiomthat we were playing in and concerned enoughto go to Vance, California. I was impressed
pretty much despite myself.
"We have gathered a kind of what you mightcall an underground audience which is now
above ground. Sometimes the show might not
be very good, but it's still because we're six
people with six different feelings about whatshould be played. Sometimes it's on sometimes we're really great. But it's amazing
how overwhelming t his whole music thing is,that people should devote their lives to findingout what kind of aftershave Frank Sinatra uses.
"I think the first major music star to gain agigantic audience was Bing Crosby. Those oldmusicals were kind of what created this whole
massive record market. But now, heavy metal has had its day both interms of the music and those individuals who deal in that kind of lifestyle.

"The logic behind why you do it is something that a lotta people forget
too early on. I want to try and hold onto it..."Ladies and gentlemen, Little Feat. On guitar and vocals, Mr Lowell George.

HE CAPITOL IN Washington is a slick 10,000 -seater seemingly
constructed entirely out of recycled orange peel and old Action
Man dolls. The show double -bills Dave Mason and Little Feat as
co -headliners supported by Catfish Hodge.
Little Feat were brought on, up in front of a big audience in a plastic hall,and they got it on right from the opening "Apolitical Blues" (God, who
else plays a slow blues with satirical lyrics as an opening number?) rightthrough to the closing percussion shake -it -up of "Feats Don't Fail Me
Now"; they were sublime.
Right from percussionist Sam Clayton's screwdriver -jiver gi m me -fivewhy -ain't -I -with -the -Ohio -Players caperings through to Lowell's almost
abstracted sangfroid, their very disparity helped maintain the balance;
a balance upset only by co -guitarist Paul Barrere's bull moose parade ground bellows of ritual invocations like "Rrrrrock'n'roll!" and "Gitdaown!", which are OK for the likes of John ny Winter but seem almost
absurdly contrived and affected in the context of Little Feat.
But what made it happen is that Lowell andhis boys know what makes it work. They knowwhat sounds good and they play what sounds
good from an instinctive sense of balance andcontrol. When Lowell sends a lick skimmingand sizzling across the chugging, choppy
surface of the band's music, he does so simply
because he knows that it ought to be there
because it's right.
And then be comes out and sings "Willin'",and for the first time since I grew to love thatsong I realised why.
Ostensibly, the subject of the song is truck"When youstart to makeit you haveto to lose

something"People came to see Joe Cocker because he was gonna throw up on the

drummer, and oddly enough he did it almost every night. It was almost
like it was a plan. Now Joe Cocker doesn't seem to be in mind to plan
anything, so I wonder who did plan it. Maybe someone puts epicac in his
Southern Comfort.
"We did a coupla concerts with him, and they said, 'You haveta play for
55 minutes. If you go over we're in trouble.' And the reason for that wasthat theywanted to get him on the stage as quickly as possible. He's sucha fantastic singer, has such a fantastic style. He does amaz-ing things
with his voice.
"Yeah, who knows. Right now it's all going backwards. Pretty soon we'll
be back in the swing era. People are saying, 'We've had everything else,so...' I hate to concern myselfwith any of that. I'd rather just sit down andwrite, just try to write a good song, wherever it's supposed to be.
"Something else about what happens when you reach a certain stage:
one's life gets so taken up with airports and transportation and getting to
the gig on time that there's no time left for writing. Nowadays I'm reallyscrewed to come up with a page of lyrics, which is no fun.
"Sure, when you start to make it you have to lose something, andbasically th is is a business and I realised that none of the people in thebusiness see any reason why you should do it other than to make money.
I've realised that and now I have to deal with it daily and now I'm a real
negative factor to many of the people who have to deal with the band.
I will cancel a show -and have- if we're supposed to be opening fora band that I despise. I will not play for them.
"And then ! get the office, (he slips into a classic Lenny Bruce "agent"voice) 'Hey, whass goin' awn? Yuh cancelled th' gig!' and I go, 'Yeah!'"They say, 'But we gotta get to that town 'n sell re-cuds!' I say, 'OK, here's
what you do. Get a bass player and a curtain and I'll stand in back ofyou
and you do the show.' They say, 'No, that won't work.'

is just a song about truck d riving probably also

thinks that Raymond Chandler's Philip
Marlowe books are about a detective. In both cases, subject matter ismerely a metaphor; but whereas Chandler's theme is the hardship andthe necessity of being true to yourself in a world where everybody else issimply out for themselves, George's theme in "Will i n'" is life and love oflife and the knowledge that both the good times and the bad times comefrom the same place and that neither one can be denied in favour of theother because they are truly indivisible.
George's protagonist in "Willin"' has been through it all: he's weatherbeaten and bleeding and rootless and he misses his woman, but he's stillon his feet and still willin, not out of blind stoicism but out of a serene
realisation of a fact of life that's been staring us all in the faces since Day
One and is there to be built on ifwe can just bring ourselves to see it.
Listen to "Willin'" again; listen to the marvellous tenderness in Lowell
George's voice as he sings it and think on it next time God catches you
unaware with a blind forearm smash and you find yourself hurting.
Right now, too many of the biggies are too concerned with laying theirpitiful little problems on us to be able to still say someth i ng that can feedback into our own lives and help us share the weight. Neil Young can, Bob
Dylan can, but what has your local superstar said to you lately?

LDWELL GEORGE ISN'T a star. He's a musician. He's just thisbearded guy in California who doesn't look like a leper messiah,
who's probably no better in bed than you are, who's a good
conversationalist and probably fun to get wrecked with, who isn't
a hero and who certainly isn't a Leader or The Future Of Rock, or muchof anything except a guy who writes beautiful songs and plays guitara certain way.
It just seems that rock music is better off in the hands of unassuming
guys like Lowell George than with the elegantly and expensively wasted
household name of your choice. After all, he's still will i n'.
Ladies and gentlemen, Little Feat. On guitarand vocals. Mr Lowell
George. CharlesShaarMurraytheHello. And welcome to Washington, D.C.,home of
who featureof the popular group, -4P-4- - Aim
LITTLE FEhT

driving, but anybodywho thinks that "Willin'",Hotel, also

on guitar.

ot OB

1975
kB

111

"Fm noidiot"OZZY OSBOURNE Jossoms

as spokesman for BLACKSABBATH. Taxation prompts

4the band's departure fromEngland, but meanwhile
there's violence, Yuletide
stoat visitation and thefuture to ponder. "I can't
be doing Black Sabbath'when I'm 58," he says.

- 'A' OCTOBER 25
TDIED , OZZY.""What cat?""That horriblecolour e d t h n g you

shot inthegarage.""It's like bleeding
Daktariin our garage," mumbles the star.
"You could goon mi expedition in there andnever come back.'
This makes The I lorseThat Fed Steve

Marriott assumeL minorperspective. A little
later a friend who ives nea r Ozzy's stately home
reports that a Cenileinan'sShoot the star was
askingabout will be charging £1,000 per gun
per week. Too much.
"A thousand pot nds?" repeats Ozzy, mildly
disgusted."I'd do' let ter to pick off some moreof t he ch ickens."

We're into our sixth Pernod and water now,
but Wednesday night in Bradford still ain't
looking too wonderful. Geezer had some sense:
he shot off home to Worcester right after the gig. ).
HISTORY OF HOCK 1F75 1121

e...."

V

Ozzybeinginterviewedin
Londonint975.possibly
ponderingwhichconcept
Sabbath'smootedconceptalburnwillbeaboutI.

Ozzy and the Good Book

There's only one thing on Bill's mind right now: the sins of a music
journalist who's been less than complimentary in print about Bill's wife.
Bill reckons he'll sue.
Are you very angry about it, Bill?
"Me and Melinda are used to being slagged off in the press" -he stares
hard into my face-" but... well... No comment. I don't want to sayany more.
"My wife will, though," he adds glumly.

A YOUNG MAN reclines on a hotel divan. His long, fair hair crisscrosses the pillow and his triple -decker platforms are hurting his feet.
He lifts the telephone.
"Reception? Listen, how about coming up here to keep a lonely mancompany? No? Well listen, how does a sparrow make an emergency
landing? Eh? With a Sparrowchute!"
Tony lommi, I hear later, once punched Ozzy on the nose for repeatedly
ripping up hotel -supplied Gideon Bibles. I don't know if you remember
Tony with long hair. He's worn it short for a long time now, with a neat
moustache and knife-edge cream trousers. Oh yes, and the same oldsteel cross, resting atop the immaculate pullovers. In Bradford, when it's
time to change, he disappears from the bare, echoing school cloakroomthat serves St George's Hall as communal dressing room and secretes
himself in the upstairs chamber (with the star on the door) for more thanOzzy and the concept albums
GERALD IS SITTING alone on a hard chair in the middle of the room.
Gerald is rather a well -kept secret. He plays keyboards for Black
Sabbath, and every night he dresses up in his own version of thefringed costume -but he and all his equipment are always completely
hidden away from the sight of the audience.
Still, he's honoured to be playing with his local heroes, and soon he'll
have his own album to do; musical variations on TheAscentOfMan.
"Ozzy's going to help out with the singing," he confides.
The last time Gerald tried to make a record, the studio burnt down.
"Our next album's going to be a concept album," Ozzy remarks,
sometime during the next two days.
"What's the concept, Oz?"halfan hour.
Ozzy's still here: he didn't bother to hide while assuming his yellow
fringed shirt, tight trousers and painful white boots. Now he leaps
playfully round from one member of the band to another and pulls down
their panties at crucial stages of undress.
Bill Ward endures these onslaughts without excitement. Gnarled andtaciturn, looking very old, much older than the others, he's climbing intobright -red tights and the red, tent -shaped maternity coat he "found in
the wardrobe" this morning. He rounds off the tights with a pair of old
blue plimsolls.
He looks like the Frog Prince.
122 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

"We dun no vet."Ozzy and the young people of todayI

BRADFORD ISN'T A riot, not like Sheffield turns out to be, but the kids
still pile up over the front of the stage and no one sits down all night.

BLACK SABBATH

The imaginary axemen, who are present inlarge numbers and Sabotage T-shirts, turntheir backs on the band and get heavily into
miming lommi's riffs.
lom m i's manner is stately. No fringes for him;
in white satin, with gold braid and knee-length
trumpet sleeves, and slightly embarrassed
smiles at the other lads, he squirrels about on
the guitar like someone demonstrating aknitting machine; and these breaks are
generally the signal for relative hush. But it's
more fun when Oz doesn't leave the stage, but
totes his invisible axe as well; Ozzy's
performance is one unbroken act ofcommunication across the barriers.
So lommi's effective but a bit of a smoothie,
pretty Geezer camps it up like a King Charles
spaniel, Bill flails his drums like a demented
Thorin Oakenshield-but Ozzy is the naturalborn star, and the Sabs could never have
lived this long without him. Ozzy can howl
out lines like:"No more war pigs out for power! Hand ofGodhas struck the hour!"...And get straight back into bouncing up
and down, peace signing ("I just did it tothem one day and they all did it back") andinciting the crowd to boogie with the minimumof incongruity.
He actually notices individual faces in thecrowd below him. He bridges the tuning -up
gaps that straggle out numbers with "Are ya
having a good time anyway? So are we!" so thatthe audience won't feel ignored; and as the pain
threshold mounts, and the din in your head
becomes a blessed haze, the leaping yellow
figure and square, hurt -looking Ray Davies
features dominate the town hall's trance.

Ozzy and the fans that got away
"WE WERE PLAYING this baseball stadiumin the States. We're in the middle of a huge
field and there's a high wire fence all round it,with the kids outside. So I say to them, youknow, "Come on, come inside", and suddenly they're all climbing overthe fence and running towards us like ahuman stampede, and we're playing away,
waiting for them to get up to us.
"But when they do, they don't stop! They justtrample right over the stage, bust up all ourequipment, and rush away across the rest of
the field and out of the stadium doors! 'Cos thepolice are after them..."In Sheffield City Hall, Lady Tony Iommi seatsherself on stage. She crosses Aristockinged legs
and smooths her blonde hair. She must be all of
24. "Aren't you awfully young to be a reporter?"she enquires.
Tomorrow, the Daily Mirroris to interview theIomm is about their lifestyle. Like Ozzy and his
Thelma, they too have a country house. It's notquite so easy, though, to make the connection between Ozzy andgracious living.
Tony lommi has patented a system of cartridge -type pick-ups which
can all be slotted into one guitar. He says he may be appearing on
Tomorrow's World to demonstrate them. He doesn't know a similar device
has already been marketed in America.

be-T-shirted fan has been eyeing Geezer
Butler longingly from the next table.
Finally, he approaches.
"Geezer, will you dedicate 'Megalomania' tonight to Sandra, Glenys
and Bongo?""We're not playing it," counters a laconic Geezer.
"Ohr says the fan. "Oh, that's nice, innit?"
Geezer smiles seraphically.
The fan, nonplussed, backs away.
Why do you think it is, Bill, that all these really young kids like the bandso much?
"I'm not sure I could tell you."
Do they just like to get into a heavy daze and forget all their teenage
troubles fora while?
"Oh yes, I thought we were assuming that. I was trying to think of somemore profound reason why they get off on us."Ozzy rehabilitates himself"GRAND LARCENY. I was in Winson Green for two months. Once
I stole a telly and I was balanced on top of this wall, one of them withglass along the top, and I fell off; this 24 -inch telly was sitting on top of
my chest and I was screaming, 'Get me out, get me out!'"I had nothing to do inside; you did about two hours' work a day and therest of the time you were locked in your cell. That's when I did these tattoos,
with a sewing needle and a tin of grate polish."
Were you into music in those days?
"Not really -maybe just The Kinks and The Beatles."So how come you're a singer?
"When I came out of the nick... had to do something, didn't I?"
Geezer's back just in time for the gig. He clambers into dirty silver satinjeans and a white fringed shirt lately liberated from Ozzy. But he retains
the filthy blue braces that have been holding up his offstage trouserings.
"Those are disgusting," pronounces Ozzy. "Here, let me put themstraight foryou."At this point, the latest issue of NMEarrives in the dressing room.
It's a tense moment: the paper carries a lambasting review of the Sabs
last week in Birmingham. Lucas, road manager, is incensed. "To think
we've been looking after two of their girls for the last 48 hours," hemutters accusingly.
Ozzy, who has naturally good manners, turns his back and studies hisreflection in a glass at the other end of the room. He's not about to get
involved. When asked for an official reply to the review, he responds,
simply (and justifiably), "Bollocks." And that's all anyone's going to get.

Ozzy and the Christmas stoat
TWAS CHRISTMAS EVE, in the stately home, and Ozzy Osbourne,
opening his bay window, leaned out to survey the snowy countryside.
He sniffed at the icy air. Suddenly, right in front of him, he espied a tiny
stoat, sitting up on its hind legs, gazing into his
face (rather like a Sab-fan, in fact).
And what happened, Ozzy?
"Nothing happened. We just looked at eachother for awhile. Then the stoat went away."
And on to Sheffield.
Sheffield audiences are well known, nay
notorious, for enjoying themselves without
restraint, and one can excuse the elderly
security men at the City Hall for panicking a bit
last Thursday. They caused some unnecessary
trouble, it seemed tome, at the sides of thecrowd they could reach, but no one could havepenetrated the middle of it once the Sabs wereon stage, and the tiers of bodies in there were left
to sway and fall about at will.
lom mi scuttled up and down his instrument with this usual static
elegance, and Bill Ward's drum solo- that's the Drum Solo I'm talking
about- sounded more like the Approach of World War One than ever,but me, I got bored whenever Ozzywasn't on stage to vibe things up.
Ozzy gives the whole thing heart; Ozzy is power; Ozzy is the reason I'd
go to a Sabs gig any day rather than, say, the Hairdressers' Ball (RoxyMusic) I attended at Wembley the night after that.
Make no mistake- there's no two ways about it. And you can't say fairer
than that. Kate Phillips *"I stole a telly

and I wasbalanced on
top of this walland I fell off"Ozzy and the fans who got away?
SCENE IN THE pub across the street from the hall; a be -crossed and

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1123

1.1111Nlia111114P.1

1975

OCTOBER DECEMBERMMAI I ION MOM 11111111)
KIER SAIIIA111

T'S NO MERE coincidence that Ozzy Osbourne'ssong on the new Black Sabbath album is called "Am
I Going Insane?" Ozzy, who professes that all his songs
are about himself, is asking a question to which manyothers have already put an answer.
He stands before us, a rock star in all his resplendent glory.
Ozzy Osbourne-long, straggled hair, leather tasselled shirt
complete with the obligatory beads, metal cross and, of course,
denim jeans -has just arrived at London's Swiss Cottage Holiday
Inn from Birmingham. While rock music has achieved a fair degreeof respect in society at large, Osbourne seems to prefer to remain in
a time gone by when rock stars were rock stars and everybody over
25 hated their guts.
A meeting of the Black Sabbath co-op (the band now manages
itself and confers on everything) had decreed that Ozzy was to do
the interview. He thrives on the task.
The Sabbath co-op ("What's a co-op?" Ozzie innocently inquired)
has also just reached the painful decision that they would have toleave Britain for tax reasons.
"It's a very sad thing for me that we have to leave England," hemoans. "Because of the state of the economics in this country, we'rebeing forced to go. We cannot afford to function under these tax
things, so we'll have to join all the rest and wave bye-bye. I've tried
to avoid it for as long as possible but it's ridiculous.
"It really is unbelievable, man. It's a shame in a way and thegovernment in this country or whoever is doing it should beashamed of themselves.
"Look at the amount of talent that comes out of this tiny island, notblowing my own trumpet, and this country should be really proud of it,
but they're forcing the talent out. It's sick.
"It must sound as if everybody in the rock'n'roll business is tight andthey don't wasn't to share the money, but it's not like that. People in thebusiness have a limited amount of time. You're only young once and I
can't be doing Black Sabbath when I'm 58.1 don't expect to be the wild kid
from Ashton when I'm that age.

I

"I don't want to be wealthy for the rest of my life, I want to be comfortable.
I want to sit and dedicate myself to music in whatever way it comes out, butwith these tax laws, at the age of 38, we'll
probably all have to sign back on the dole again. I
don't think we deserve that."
Hasn't it given him a comfortable living
already?
"It has, but they've never done a nyt h i ng forme and I'm not going to do fuck all for them,basically. They've never done one thing for meapart from giving me a few qu id on the dole
which I probably paid them anyway. They're notgiving me any incentive to stay.
"They'll change it too late. I really don't wantto leave, but I'm being forced out. England is
the greatest country in the world as far as I'mconcerned, but I'm sorry, I can't live under these
conditions. I'm no mug, I'm no idiot. You've got
to be a dummy to stayhere and work your balls off all your life.
"Each and every one of us has worked bloody hard for whatever we'vegot. I wish a lot of peoplewould try and get that sunk in their heads a bit.
Its fun, but you have a lot of hang-ups, a lot of mental hang-ups, a lot of

September 7.1975:
Black Sabbathat
the Long Beach

Arena,California

year the market is going to be flooded for about two months. Theneverybody is going to disappear again and everything is going to be dead.
"It's going to end up like East Germany or somet h i ng as far as music
goes. Good old Radio One is going to feed everybody. Fucking hell, man,what a hope I'm going to listen to reggae music for two years."
But what is he going to do when he leaves Britain?
"I don't know, how about China?The roadies are good over there.
I don't give a fuck where I go. I'm just a gypsy anyway. I'll just get on andplay a nd get off. I'll just pitch me tent. I don't want to settle. I don't want
to be a country squire for the rest of my life."
Ozzy won't emigrate to the States.
"I don't want to go there. Everybody else hasgone to America. I don't wasn't to be at the endof the queue. I want to start somewhere else off.
How about China? That sounds good to me.
Or Russia. What a trip that would be!"Why not America?
"I like America, but I wouldn't live there
because (a) there's a lot of guns about and a lotof people who would use them and (b) I don't
want to be in the firing line. I'm frightened of
the violence."
Talk of the violence in the States sets Ozzy

"I wouldn't
live inAmerica. I'mfrightened of
the violence"physical hang-ups.
"The only thing that's going to suffer is that everyone is going to leave
the country and you're going to lose out on recording studios. There arethousands of recordingstudios in England, man, which are goi ng to foldup because t hey ca n't afford to run because of the tax situation. Everyre is WhitlAiNiSiOniii
.

K 197

off aga i n.

"The films! You want to see the films overthere, man!They've got this bizarre thingcalled Rollerball, have you heard about that? It's fucking nuts, man! Its
bananas! And the audience always start clapping and cheering when thegruesome bits come. They'll have gladiators over there soon, you wait. It's
like the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. It's incredible."
And the violence on the stateside tours doesn't help?
"It just freaks me out, man. You goon stage and see 15 people in thecircle battering each other to pieces. We've still gotta try and say, 'We love
you,' with this guy lying on the floor with a bottle sticki ng out ofhis throat.
"There's one thing that everybody has got to understand about Black
Sabbath's lyrics. They're not downer lyrics. They're just telling
everybodywhere it's at. That's all it us. People must thing we sleep
off the ra fter wit h wings on our backs every night, taking reds anddrinking wine. We're just people.
"We see a lot and we write about what we see. We have a coupleof songs about people getting stoned, but so have a lot of people. It'sa heavy, doomy thing but it's what we see. A love thing wouldn't gowith the style of music we play. It's like going to see Frankenstein with
TheSound Of Music soundtrack behind it. It wouldn't go.

"The way we write goes with the waywe play. We're not telling
everybody to jump off the cliff, and if anybody ever dies, I don't knowwhat I'd do. If that happened, I'd believe that I was the devil."
Isn't it true that Black Sabbath music incites people to getover -enthusiastic?
"If people can come to a Black Sabbath gig or listen to a Black Sabbath
record and get rid of their aggression, that's great. If they're miserable,
they can put on a Black Sabbath record and think that the band knows
how they feel. They've got something on Earth that they can relate to. It's
great to see those kids at our gigs enjoying themselves and they're notkicking shit out of each other.
"In the States, violence is the fashion. This month's fashion is hitting
people over the heads with bottles. Next month's might be wearing
pink socks."
Isn't the Sabbath stage act encouraging that violence?
"Listen, man, if Frank Sinatra played the next gig after us, they'dprobably have the shit there. They have lots of violence at everything, nomatter what the gig."
The energy exerted on stage by Sabbath has been one of the main reasons
they have lasted so long. They've been away from Britain now for over a
year and can still sell a tour out. It's been over a year since they released analbum and their new one, Sabotage, has reinforced their popularity.
"Sabbath is one of the greatest experiences of my life. We're stronger
now than everwe were as musicians. It has progressed a lot. We have a lotof ideas that we could put out, but it's a thing that once you take theplunge, you've done it. It's got to be a change drastically or a gradualchange. Whatever the change, it's
going to affect you one way or
another. The longeryou leave change,
the more chance you have of survival.
If you go 'whack' it's a bit gamble."
The new album, which has seena few changes in the band's approach,a touch of subtlety, but still the same
hard-hitting riffs, took longer torecord than any of the previous
efforts. Sabotagewas over a year in themaking and the band say they haveno intention of ever spending as longin the studio on future releases again.
"In the end, I felt like calling it'Crossroads' and having Meg
Richardson star on it. Every time
there was a session we used to call it

Chapter 99 - 'Will Black Sabbath complete the album this time?' It was
like a bizarre nightmare sometimes, but other times it was fun, especiallythe times when we started throwing custard pies at each other.
"At the end of it I was very confused because I had heard so much of it,
so I had to leave it alone for some time. When I heard it again, at firsthearing I hated it. I realised that because of the constant work on it, I had
built this barrier in my head, but I'm really satisfied with it now. It's notthat bad considering that we were all going through a lot of hassles with
our own heads, like 'Where can we go from here?, 'What are we going to
do to be better than the last one?'"To me, Sabotage does beat the last album, but I still have a liking for thelast one. The last album was our first album really, because it was the firsttime we had got into the actual studio production thing and it takes acouple of albums to get into that. You go through all the experiments ofbanging dustbin lids and running herds of cattle through the studio tofind out what it sounds like."
Sanity is resumed for a second or two with talk of the band's
forthcoming British tour. "We're doing two days in Birmingham now.
We're doing another one at the end of the other one." Make sense of that.
The tour is being done in sections, Britain, then Europe and back to
Britain again. Sabbath are aware that they haven't played Britain in sometime and, when fixing the tour, were a little apprehensive about how theywould be received.
"It looks as if we haven't played here since the old king died. I'm looking
forward to doing Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham
especially. In the stage act, we're trying to put in as much as we can.
People want to hear a lot of the stuff
from past albums, so nowwe have a
25 -minute medley of old numbers."
The interview almost ended
sensibly until Ozzy spotted what
was on the television of the hotel
room -the Labour Party conferencein Blackpool. And who's thatspeaking? Yes, it's Mr Dennis Healey,chancellor of the exchequer. Ozzie
goes mad - sorry, madder.
"That's him," he hollers, pointing
an accusing finger. "He's whywe
have to leave England."As I ease towards the door, Ozzytells me:the"By,way, don't use anyof the swearwords, 'cos me mam
don't like it." Harry Doherty
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

125

OCTOBER -DECEMBER

1975
August 21,1975:
Bruce Springsteen &the E Street Band onstageat Ales Cooley's
Electric Ballroom in
Atlanta. Georgia

"Gimme
some
damn
room"
Is he really"the future of

rock'n'roll"? BRUCESPRINGSTEEN has

his doubts. Post
Born To Run, the- NME NOVEMBER 15 _man his band call

BRUCESPRINC STEEN SAYS he just"The Boss" is waryof all hype. "Notonly have you got
to play," he says,"but blow thisbullshit out ofpeople's minds."

writes down his first impressions,whereas here in Hollywood, California,t here are peon le in from New York whobelieve otherwise. They tell you things
I ike, "Bruce ispurity." Bruce cuts
through grime in half the time. Bruce is what
America has been praying for ever since Dylan fell off
his motorbike and Brando get too fat to be in the
motorcade any more.
And it gets harder to decide what's best to believe,
because the people in from New York talk a lot louder
than is natural and so doouts.derswith a contrary
understanding oft he situation, coming on like a life
depended on putting down the"1 have seen mankind's
future and it's a short, skinny guy in a brown leather
jacket" theory.
Bruce feels more than a little sick when he hears
this kind of talk. His tendency, when it occurs, is toretire into a slow, agonised idiot drawl, the relevanceof which is not all that easily recognisable.
But that's to his credit. Dylan,
after all, never once said, "Sure,
1 know the environment. The
complexities of the human

BRJ
SPR %STE

BORN TO RUN

mindand things of thatnature." And neitherdid James
Deanor Brando when he wasthin. It was onlywhen Brando
started whangi ng off in thosekind of directions thatcretli til ity was suddenly andirre% ocably reduced. x.

HISTORY OF ROCK 19;5 1127
--s

1975

OCTOBER-00BER

No. The only way to make a legitimate claim to American folk -herostatus is to reject the candidacy as preposterous. Then clam up and spita mysterious spit And that's precisely what Bruce Springsteen from
Freehold, NJ, is doing. Or you assume that's what he's doing.
One thing's for certain, though, and that's the fundamental lack ofmodesty within the Springsteen camp on the subject of the attributes
and infinite potential of their boy.
Jon Landau, the celebrated American rock critic who quit worrying overan intestinal disorder to co -produce Springsteen's Born To Run album,
says that in the "rock area" Springsteen's not only a "great artist" but also
happens to be able to do "more things better than anyone else I've seen".
Also he's the "best performer in the history of rock'n'roll", with thepossible exception of Elvis P, whom he nominates mainly for"sentimental reasons".
Mike Appel offers scant contrast when hemakes claims to being manager of "the greatest
CC
artist in the world today, that's all" -a sentiment
he punctuates by attacking the palm of his left
hand with his right fist.
Appel is a curiosity even among rock'n'roll
managers. John Hammond, the Columbia
talent scout who signed Springsteen, describes
him as "offensive as any man I've ever met",a reference, no doubt, to Appel's boundless andsometimes absurd urges for conflict. Mostly it's
the press who get to feel Appel's pointed end andthis, it turns out, is no accident.
"I like to do things with integrity," he notes,"and since the media is not set up
for integrity but for their own ends,
my idea of how things should bedone and their idea of how things
BORN TO RUN
should be done clash. So what
happens is I'm the guy they focus all
their hate on."Appel and Landau's extremities
are matched by virtually everyone
else within the Springsteen inner
circle. Peter Philbin, Columbia's
New York -based international press
officer, can talk up his client with aheat approaching delirium, and at
the recent Springsteen concerts at
Hollywood's Boxy was not so muchthe impassioned go-between as one more nut ona chair howling his brains inside out.

came back for second helpings. (The renewed interest had probably
been spurred on by Springsteen's dates in August at New York's Bottom
Line Club, out of which came the most excessive Bruce -Is -Easily -The Greatest -Person -On -The -Planet coverage to date.) This time, Appel

explained, the rules were substantially altered. The game now was:"You give me a cover, I give you an interview.""...And they have to dislike you for it," he says. "They say, 'We're New
Musical Express, we're Melody Maker, we're Newsweek, we're Timemagazine, and who the hell are you to tell us it has to be a cover story?'
But I say to you, 'I'm giving you the most coveted thing I can give you. I'mgiving you an interview with Bruce Springsteen. There's nothing more
I can give you.
indefinable two returned and the net result was that double coversplash on October 27 (Appel's birthday), the first for an entertainer since
Liza Minnelli's Cabaret days.
Both articles where strangely impartial
considering the prominence they attached totheir subject. Lots of biographical data input, asmattering of the dourest kind of rhapsodising
and- in Newsweek's case- a few microscopic
insinuations that Springsteen might, after all,be the gravest kind of record -business hypola
which, by the laws of media cause and effect,would render themselves and Time the victims.
A few years back, the pair of them would
have hung majestically to one side until the
Springsteen legend knocked them down,then they'd have performed the gesture of thecover story.

I really
wanted 'Born
To Run' to be a
hit single, hearit on the radio"

BRUCE SmunGsTssait

EVEN WITHIN HIS band, there's anawestruck, almost religious regard forthe man they call The Boss. Clarence
Clemons, the 33 -year -old saxman, sees his
meeting with Springsteen as being no less thandivinely wrought:"Bruce is the greatest person I've ever met," hesays. "He's the strongest person I've ever met.
When I first met him it was like in the Bible where
this guy met this guy and he say, 'Lay down yourthing and follow me, and that's exactly the way
it felt, man. But I didn't. And I punish myself.
And I guess God punished me 'cos I got in thiscar accident and nearly got killed and shit.
Anyway. He came back lfrom California where
he'd been visiting his parents] and we got
together and here we are."No less extraordinary has been thecontribution of Time and Newsweek to theballooning Springsteen legend and the apparent
ease with which Appel was able to manipulatethese two indefatigable giants.
Time had previously run a piece on Springsteen
in their Apri11974 issue. Then a number of weeks
ago, Newsweek made approaches of their own
and Time, catching wind of the freshening scent,128 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Posing fora
photo shoot in
Los Angoles,1975

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

Rock's New Sensation
These days even Time and Newsweek arefearful of missing out on the very next American
sensation, even if it means lining up at the wrong
theatre before the box office opens.
It's crazy," says Springsteen. "It doesn't maketoo much sense and I don't attach too muchdistinction to being on the cover. It's a magazine.
It goes all the way around the world, but really...
you know."

IN Avacant room in the
WE'RE
Sunset Marquis, Hollywood.

Springsteen's eating a bowl of
Rice Crispies. Already he's got on his
brown leather jacket and he looks like hehasn't slept in maybe four weeks.
"It doesn't have that much to do withwhat I'm doing," he says. "I don't think
so. The main reason I went through with
it... you see one of the things I did want,
I wanted 'Born To Run' to be a hit single.
Not for the bucks but because I really
believed in the song a whole lot and I justwanted to hear it on the radio, you know.
On AM. Across the country. For me, that's
where a song should be.
"And they said, 'Well, if you get you

picture on Time or sumpin, programme
directors may think twice before theydrop it or throw it out.' So the only physicalreason lwas on that thingwas for thatreason specifically, you know. Otherwise,man, I'll probably regret it, you know."
RollingStone played an altogether cooler game. Still up in the air andblowing off over their Patty Hearst exclusives, their preference was toregard Springsteen as another of those East Coast phenomena, the kindthat blows in and out with the frequency of the Atlantic tide.
And Playboy... Appel also tried to hustle a Playboycover but was
told that the Big Bunny would rather take it in the eye than set that kindof precedent.
AND SO IT was to the Roxy in Hollywood that the Springsteen
entourage came October 16-19 to debunk the hype, perjury
and associated theories, and it was with a deal of noise andsmall regard for the agreed subtleties that CBS applied themselves tothe task. They began with a 50 per cent stake in the opening -nighthouse and bought in from there until your average man on the street
needed air and ground -troop support to get into the place.
Byway of consolation, a roster of Hollywood's brightest showstoppers
turned up to lend their support... a lineup that byweek's end included
Jack Nicholson, G Harrison, Jackson Browne, Neil Diamond, Jackie
De Shannon (backstage introduction), Carole King (backstage
introduction), Joni Mitchell (left early), Cher and Gregg (twice), Tom
Waits (hitched from his own gig 90 miles away), Dick Carpenter ("John,a margarita!"), Wolfman Jack (?) and Warren Beatty.
First night there was the usual pre -performance walking to and fro; theconspicuous nonchalance, Hollywood hugging and shouting across thetables and explanations as to the root cause and nature of the Springsteen
phenomena, and by the time Bruce actuallywalked out on stage,
everyone was so relieved at not having to exhibit epic boredom anymorethat the house lit up with a screaming and a wailing that must havescared him half to death.
He heads straight for stage centre, which is dark, empty and almost
eerie save for the screaming going on, leans his head and body against the
mic stand and, just to further irritate those Dylan comparisons, whips
out a harmonica for the opening of "Thunder Road".
He's got on a beaten -up leather jacket, a pair of tight blue Levi's. He's
small, he's skinny and his harp playing's every bit as dumb as Dylan's.
"The Screen door slams I Mary's dress waves/ Li k ea vision she dancesacross the porch..."A prelude to a number about a woeful girl waiting for her King Kong tocome along and make sense out of her dreaming and Springsteen as theguy who says, "What the hell, things might not be so perfect around here,

but let's jump in the old wagon anyway and takea ride along Thunder Road.""Hey, I know it's late, we can make it ifwe run..."There's just a piano pumping away and
Springsteen's knotty, out -of -tune voice... anddead still. Head bowed. Brando, in The Men, as
his girl's telling him she'll love him forever eventhough his legs don't work anymore. Actually, it's
all pretty embarrassing. And with folk throughthe house going, "Whoop, yeah... you sure canmake a guitar sing, Bruce," you feel kind of
ominously out of sync.
Then the band comes out for the "Tenth Avenue
Freeze Out", also from Born To Run, and thelights flash on and Springsteen starts whipping andwinding up his body, attempting to lend the appearanceof weight to what on record is a fairly inconsequential
moment. Cluttered, dense lyrics. A melody andarrangement that are a patchwork of some of the moredubious r'n'r mannerisms of the '60s.
"Spirit In The Night" is one of his few genuinely stirring
melodies, even though it leans too heavily on Van
Morrison. An early song from Greetings From Asbury
Park, a period when Springsteen was caught up with the
flash of the exploding metaphor... gypsy angels, mission
men and a preponderance of internal rhyme and linesthat get left hanging.
Crazy Janey, Wild Billy and a bunch more drive out toGreasy Lake "about a mile down on thedark side of route88", where Janey's fingers wind up in the author's "cake".
The love scene is played out in the dark with Springsteen
lying prone across a line of tables that reach out to thestage. Girls rub his back as he sings, "Me and crazyJane
was making love in the dirtl Singingourbirthdaysongs." Then the bandand the spots light up, Springsteen jogs back to the stage and the housegoes wild with delight (for Janey and her lover that night).
For the opening of the old Manfred Mann number, "Pretty Flamingo",
Springsteen delivers a rambling explanation -as -to -the -origins
monologue that's half -heard, half -grunt and a pretty fine enactment ofdumb barhouse literacy. The kind of punchy drool that Dean gloried in.
Everyone gets to feel mean in the presence of this kind of talk.
More sordid still is the way he frames the opening to "E Street Shuffle".
Here he tells the largely factual account of how he met up with saxman
Clemons, who'd been playing with a local Asbury Park R&B band whena girlfriend told him he'd best go down to the Student Prince and look inon this kid Springsteen.
The way Springsteen tells it, he and his guitarist Miami Steve were
shuffling through the cold and foggy night when they see a big man
coming at them. They hide in a doorway and fall to their knees as the big
man approaches. They're scared and they're cold and they're getting
ready to run when Clarence holds out a hand, Springsteen reaches out tomeet it. Theytouch. And sparks fly out on E Street.
The magic of Springsteen is right here... at the climax of this particularyarn. On the word "sparks", the stage flashes red, Springsteen leaps to a
standstill and the band lams in with the kind of precision entrance that
occurs onlywhen there's an operating consensus. From now on the
show's alive, more refined... a state of affairs that very nearly extends tothe music itself.
"Kitty's Back", "Jungleland" and "Rosalita" have that foggy West Side tilt
to them, and although neither is a miracle of construction there's enoughongoing momentum - and in the case of "Kitty's Back" a climactic
instrumental segment -to eclipse the dubious areas.
The band, in fact, is surprisingly adept at locating Springsteen's half concealed intentions. Excellent solos are forthcoming in both "Rosalita"and "Kitty's Back"... especially from pianist Roy Bittan... and only
organist Danny Federici, whose tendency is to grip the high end of theboard a lot longer than is attractive, is suspect here.
Just one encore tonight... a high drama mood piece with accordion andsometimes whispered lyrics. "Sandy" is about Bruce, or someone a lot like
Bruce, readying himself to quit the boardwalk life, and it gives Springsteen
the chance to open up on the reckless inhabitants of that whole scene. The
clairvoyants, the bikers, waitresses, someone called Madame Marie, eachof them shuffling back and forth from nothing to not much more.

eking
Of

A Rock/tar

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1129

-If you're looking
for someone to
lookhype wary Springsteenpressestheflesh

Lyrically it's one of his most interesting pieces, since it's one of the few
moments he chooses to lay bare the disillusionment he patently feels for
all the shucking from pin table to roadside manner to trash can which, inmost of his later works, he's inadvertently glorifying.
"Born To Run", he says, "was about New York. I was there for months.
I had this girl with me and she'd just come in from Texas and she wanted
to go home again and she was going nuts and we were in this room and it
just went on and on. I would come home and she would say, 'Are you
done? Is it over?Are you finished?' And I said, 'No it ain't over, it ain't over.'I'd come home practically in tears.
"And I was sort of into that whole of being nowhere. But knowing that
there is something someplace. It's got to be right somewhere."

Springsteen told him he'd read better but the piece was OK, and thenLandau introduced himself. The show he saw that night he describes as"astounding", although no more than a "rough draft" of what takes placethese days. The pair kept in touch and a month later Landau went into
print with that high -voltage review that Columbia subsequently spent$50,000 promoting... the "I have seen rock'n'roll's future and its name is
Bruce Springsteen" job.
Not that CBS didn't require an amount of cattle prodding before lining
up behind the Springsteen /Landau combination. Factionalism within
the company was rife... due partly to the flamboyance ofAppel and theintractable nature of his client and also because Springsteen was a
prodigy of "d isgraced" chief executive Clive Davis.
There were even reports of an alleged plot where the Springsteen myth
BORNTORUNhad already been eight months in the making
would be hatched solely to irritate Bob Dylan, who'd recently left CBS for
when Ion Landau (previous experience: MC5's Back In The USA
a two -record deal with David Geffen's Asylu m company.
plus two Livingston Taylor albums) moved in on the job. With
Appel himself goes more than halfway to conceding that such a planl.a ndau around, things continued to move at a deathly doze, althoughmight well have existed.
the further four -and -a -half months taken to complete the package"When you're involved in big-time record company management," hewas, by contrast, an exhibition of fire and lightning.
says, "there are powerplays. There's: how do you bring Bob Dylan into
Landau attributes the delays to Springsteen's fetish for detail: "He'dline; how do you bring his lawyers into line?
spend four hours," he said, "on one line. He'd say, 'Hang on, guys, I wan na"His lawyer comes in and asks for the world... asks for retroactive
check a line, and four hours later he'd be sitting there trying to make theroyalties on Bob Dylan's albums. Asking outrageous sums of money. All
most minute changes in one verse."
kinds of deals. All kinds of big spending. And then when the negotiations
The pair had met in April '74 in a Boston club called
fail, Clive Davis had left the record company and theCharlie's where the Springsteen band were playing.
whole world was looking at Columbia Records andIn the club window was a blow-up of a review
everyone was taking potshots at them. They were
Landau had just written for the local Real Paper
very nervous. Very upt ight at this particular time,-an A -minus piece that dealt with Springsteen's
trying to prove themselves. Naturally they might"many imperfections" as well as his considerable
tenth avenue have said, you know, in the heat of the moment,
potential for world domination.
Freeze -out 'Screw Bob Dylan, we're going to take Bruce
It was a cold night, Landau remembers, and he
Springsteen and use him and show that guy justfound Springsteen in the back garden in a T-shirt,
where it's at.' However, that wasn't to be the case,jumping up and down as he read the review.
because it took us a long time to get our album

BRUCE
SPRINGSTEEN

130 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

together and Blood On The Racks and all that had come out ahead of us.
And they did manage to get Bob back."
A suitably ironic climax to this particular episode was the request madethrough CBS by Time magazine for an interview with Bob Dylan on thesubject of Bruce Springsteen. The request was rejected.

SPRINGSTEEN IS BEWILDERED rather than flattered by themachinations on his behalf... the hoops he hopes he has to go
through for the front pages.
"They made the mistake," he says, "they came out with the big hype.
I mean, how can they expect people to swallow something like that?
(CBS's early ads comparing him with Dylan). And it blows my mind how
they can underestimate people so much. All the time, man, it's like...
trying to find some room, man. Gimme some damn room. Give mea break. I was trying to tell these guys at the record company, 'Wait asecond, you guys. Are you trying to kill me?' It was like a suicide attempton their part. It was like somebody didn't want to make no money.
"I was in this big shadow, man, right from the start... and I'm just getting
over this Dylan thing: 'Oh, thank God that seems to be fading away', andI'm sitting home thinking, 'Thank God people seem to be letting that lie,'
and- phw0000ee- 'I have seen...'"No, it can't be. So immediately I call up the company and I say, 'Get thatquote out.' And it was, like, Landau's article. And it was a really n ice pieceand it meant a lot to me, but it was like they took it
all out of context and blew it up, and who's gonna
swallow that? Who's gonna believe that? It'sgoing to piss people off, man. It pisses me off.
When I read it I wanted to strangle the guywho
put that thing in there. It's like you want to killthese guys for doin' stuff like that.
"They sneak it in on you. They sneak it in andthey don't tell you nuthin. It's like 'shotgun
murderer chops off eight arms'. It's that kind oftactic, you know. It's that kind of tactic and theypull it for themselves and they pull it for me too...
"It's a stupid thing. Ignore it, you know. Ignore
the whole thing, because it don't make any sense. So like I'm always 10
points down, 'cos not only have you got to play but you got to blow thisbullshit out of people's minds first."
It was beautiful, I feltJamesDean was back... When I saw James Dean for

The first time Springsteen stepped outside the Jersey state line was withTinker. Everyone in the band saved up $100 and drove out to California ina station wagon and a Chevy truck. Springsteen flipped from coast to
coast during the next four years before realising the best band he could
ever have was waiting for him in NJ.
In 1970 or '71 - he doesn't remember -Tinker took him to New York tomeet with Appel, and just like in a B -movie plot, Appel is knocked out by
the curly-haired kid with the wooden guitar, and within months has him
eyeballing with the big record company talent scout.
Springsteen at the time is readingAnthonyScaduto's book on Dylan
and is fired up over the scene where Dylan launches himself into John
Hammond's office, plays a couple of tunes and gets signed in a big hurry.
So Springsteen and Appel try their hand and it works a second time.
And that brings us through two low -impact albums, followed by aregeneration of Columbia's corporate faith, back to the Roxy in
Hollywood, where byweek's end Springsteen is being exalted to a degree
that puts you in the mind ofAppel's steamroller doctrine. By now even
Walter Yetnikoff, president of the Columbia Records group, is up on his
chair, stirred, possibly, by the avalanche of dollars that is mounting in
his imagination.
The kids too- and by now it's the punter class- have taken on ademeanour that bears more than a passing resemblance to the early
Beatle years, except these kids are older and so is Springsteen (26).
But the years are no insulation against the
Springsteen wall of faith as codified byAppel,
Landau and Philbin and expressed, if haltingly
by now, by Brucesteen himself.
Time and Newsweek believed, and thepunters believe because anything can bebelieved that is supported by the indomitable
will of unyielding faith as manifest by the"Yo u can't lay-an attitude on

people ICS like

aforementioned.

Springsteen could eat a camel whole, so longas he believed such a project wasn't outside
his range, so long as the camel believed andthe camel trader believed... or a king's new
clothes situation where no one notices the king's fat, naked legs until
a kid says, "Hey, where's his trousers?" and all that faith drains away ina second and a half.
Given that sooner or later someone's going to speak up, the deciding
factor remains whether or not Springsteen actually has anything to cover
his legs... that something being artistic substance, and I'll offer theopinion that Springsteen is indeed naked. That he's no more than a front
man for another good rock'n'roll band, composer of R&B -slantedmaterial that tips a little in advance of the mean average.
The supposed profoundly cerebral inclinations are also misleading,because Springsteen has neither the originality nor the intentions political or otherwise -of a Dylan, which leaves him with a sackful of
punk, loner mannerisms that he's already tiring of... A situation thatprobably caused the making of Born To Run to be such a vexed andanxious 12 -and -a -half months.
Springsteen has a will and a strong dramatic style and the air of the allAmerican lonerwho the guys in the gang ask of, "Where ya goin', Brucie?"and Springsteen grunts and goes off to the pier to meet his girl whom heloves with a loyal and refined urgency as opposed to, say, Jagger, who
could wake up anyplace and not remember how. And he exudes thatdumb animal wisdom that made Brando and Dean such attractive
propositions, even though Springsteen tries to upset the image withliterary pretensions.
Appel, Landau and Philbin think they have to protect and talk up their
man otherwise he dies, whereas Springsteen will be either musicallywiped out, or more likely, another averagely regarded also-ran
shouldering the resentment of punters and business types who by now
see themselves as being suckered and duped.
"I used to feel I always was in control," says Springsteen, "but now I'm
not so sure." Andrewlyer

a jive thinu"

the first time I fell on the floor. When I saw Bob Dylan for the first time I fell on
thefloor. When I saw Bruce Springsteen for the first time I fell on the floor -Jackie De Shannon over a cup of morning coffee.
"Nah, it's like... if anything, you know. All I do, like, I write down myimpressions of stuff, like, and what I see, you know. It's like... but if you're
looking for something to look to... if you're into the band it's like... I don't
know. I can't really see myself like that."Appel has a more adroit interpretation of the hype -versus -legitimacy
dialectic and it goes like this: "I just say to myself, 'Listen, fellows (of thepress), yourvanities may have been up, your ego might have been up, but
let's stop the bullshit. The kid's really good. He's really different. If you've
got any kind of talent you'll recognise him. If you don't you'll be run over.
It's like a steamroller. We'll win in the end. You've got no chance against
us; you've got no chance because we're right. We're good? Appel used to write commercial jingles. He was also in the marine
reserves, and if he comes on a little like Ed Sullivan meets Joseph
Goebbels that's roughly the way Springsteen sees it too.
"It's like you can't lay an attitude on people. It's like bullshit; it's like ajive thing. You can't come on like you're some big deal, you know. I ain't
into coming on like that, because it's a basic thing that's going on. It's asimple thing. It's a band, you know. It's a rock'n'roll band and you just sing
and write songs."
Appel got to meet Springsteen through an early mutual accomplicecalled Tinker. Tinker started out building drag racers in California, moved
to Nassau where he helped launch astronauts into space and wound up in
New Jersey. Springsteen met him in a bar. He was 18 years old and Tinker
said he could get him a
job as a guitar playerwith
Janis Joplin's band. "Iended up living with him
in a surfboard factory fora year and a half. It was
dynamite up there."

Bruce Springsteen and the

WALL OF FAITH.131c to tkt

motc titbeter than ilIJOM:1975

OCTOBER-DECEMBER

RenniWood- on* of several
high -profile auditionees fora full-time place with theStones during the recordingof Blaci,AndB/ue-andKeith
Richards backstage in 1975

ii

Bring on the girls!"
MM DEC 6

stepping the Rolling Stork.

,,t;ord a new albuiiiwith Ron Wood. What's it called? "I wish we could decide,"says Charlie Watts. "It's supposed to be coming out in February."
IT WASN'T ONLY the ice and snow slithering
down the mountains onto Montreux in
Switzerland that induced a cold shiver lastweek. The news that the Rolling Stones werebusy recording their next album in a brandnew studio secreted inside the Montreux
Casino was enough to induce trembling, evenin kneecaps wrapped up well against theplunging temperatures prevailing in thisexpensive millionaires' playground that
seems destined to become one of the newmusical capitals of the world.
Montreux is a beautiful town nestlingon the shores of Lake Geneva, with highmountain ranges pressed up closely against
the shore. There is barely room for two high132 I HISTOH`r OF ROCK 1975

streets, a railway line and a motorway. And

it's getting pretty used to the world's top
musicians descending on it. During thesummer they have TV awards and the famousjazz festival, bringing every conceivable artist
from America, Britain and the rest of Europe.
Now, with the construction by Alex Grob of
the new Mountain Studio inside the Casino(the £5m confection that stands on the site of
the old building which burned down a coupleof years ago during a concert by Mr Frank
Zappa and his band), artists will be lured byMontreux all the year round.
The Stones are among the first to use thefacilities, although Alex's wife, Anita Kerr, hasrecorded there and the 1975 Montreux Jazz

Festival was also captured on tape, utilising
the studio equipment.
Being in town to study the Swiss method of
brewing beer and local tram operations, it
was with some surprise that I found Keith
Richards and family occupying a suite ofrooms in a hotel only yards away from thecasino. Here Keith's children raced noisily up
and down the corridors, giggling occasionally,kicking a football and enjoying horseplay with
Uncle Ronnie Wood. wandering guitarist,
Face and part-time Rolling Stone.
Would Ronnie and Keith like to do aninterview, I asked at nine one morning as
they staggered bleary-eyed to breakfast.
"No -o -o!" said Keith. "Oh no -o," said Ronnie,"can you come back in two weeks' time?"
Understandable, really, as they had been
literally up all night recording without a break,and after breakfast were planning to sleep forat least eight hours. But it was kindly agreed
that a visit to the studio to see the Stones atwork, rest and play would not be too much of aproblem. After all, they didn't have muchtime, and privacy is of the essence when a new
album is being hatched.
Thus it was with a mixture of curiosity, fearand excitement that I entered the midnightSINGLES & ALBUMS

Mick, in cord trousers and jackets,
gyrated around to the music, not for
anybody's benefit, but simply because hecouldn't keep still, the old restless energy
filling him with desire to get into it andavoid the waste of precious seconds.
Ronnie Wood, in brilliant colours, pink
trousers and furry boots, smiled in ever cheerful fashion, and referred to the band
respectfully as "they", a clear indicationthat he considers himself still one of Rod
Stewart's men, on loan to the Stones.
And Keith Richards, for all his fame as
the wild reprobate of R&B, a charming
man with thin, boyish face and earrings,
toiling in expert fashion over the sliders
and switches of the control desk.
While in a corner, on a spare chair,Charlie Watts, his hair shorn and combed
back, looking like an early photograph ofPhil Seamen or Ginger
Baker, furiously
practising with a pair ofdrumsticks on his knees.
The sixth Stone

bustled around, after
14 years still loyal andworld of the Stones hidden bymassive soundproof doors in the Casino
complex. And in a way they were into
something new.for the tapes rolling back on
the machines and wiring their signals to thehuge speakers concealed in the walls, revealed
a whole new Stones scund. Still immediately
identifiable as the Stones, but with a precision
and attack tnat must herald a new era for oneof rock's oldest and most respected bands.
The riff that came blasting overhead wasfilled with pulsating drive, withCharlie Watts' drums brisk, tightand developinga marvellous
clarity and depth of tone that has
not always been presert on past
Stones' recordilgs. And there
were all the Stones, bar Bill
Wyman, smiling a greeting,somewhat surprised to see the
MM in their midst, and offering
the hospitality of the house.
"What are you doing here,"demanded Mick. But ,e didn't
seem about to hurl me into theslush outside, as it was rumoured
had been the fate of cther wouldbe interlopers.

It was time for Keith. Ronnie and Mick toquit the control room for the studio, hidden
behind a solid wall. Communication is by TV
camera, but Mick, finding that he could bewatched from the control room, insisted thathe should be able to see back the other way,
and another camera and monitor were
installed so that the artists could check up on
their engineers. If anybody was going to pullfaces, Mick wanted to be in on the act.
After the untitled stomper had been playeda few times, the vocal trio of Jagger, Richards
and Wood set about laying down a suitableversion of "Memory Motel", a song abouta girl whose memory was stamped on some
far-flung lodgings.
Over and over they sang:" You'rejust
a memory!" and increasingly going out oftune, as the lateness of the hour took its toll.
"I keep cracking that top note," said Mick
despairingly, while Keith
too had trouble, andeventually they sang as
flat as humanly possible.
"It sounds like a fart in abucket" says Mick. "Bringon the girls." Much laughterin the control room.
A look of pain
momentarily crossed Stu's
careworn features, andCharlie exchanged with
him the merest flickers ofa grin. Not a word was said, but inside thestudio the culprits collapsed with laughter.
"This is serious music!" insisted Mick."C'mon
now, let's try again.""YOU'RE JUST A MEMORY!" they
bellowed once more.
"This is going to go on all night," said
Charlie wisely. but somehow an acceptableversion was "kept" for future reference.
And amid the jesting. that unique Jagger
vocal style emerged - complaining, emotive
and mocking.
The Stone-ettes returned from the studiofor fresh supplies of throat lubricant. Mick,
while not crazed with alcohol, was certainly
high in spirits. "Why didn't you give a bigger
tribute to Al Jackson," he demanded, inreference to the late Stax drummer. "Ameasly news paragraph, and that's all."
Mick was also most concerned with the fateof the Bay City Rollers and their lead singer,
expressing a genuine anxiety about the perilsof Les McKeown and his brushes with the law.

"I keep cracking
that top note,"
said Mick. "Itsounds like a fartin a bucket"

a devoted servant: Ian
Stewart, once boogie
pianist and now
administrator, listening
keenly to the music.
"They've recorded a
lot of stuff in Munich," said Ronnie.
"We're here to record vocals and dub onsome more instruments. But most of
the tracks are finished. Billy Preston
is coming out soon, and 011ie
Brown, Stevie Wonder's drummer
is playing percussion withCharlie. No, that's not me on lead
guitar on this track, it's a guy
called Steve."
Did the album have a title yet?
Charlie Watts laughed: "I wish we
could decide on a title, because theyneed the LP cover. It's supposed to becoming out in February."

Apparently the working title at the
moment is "Hot Stuff'', one of the tunes on
the album, and one being whispered as a new
Stones classic. This could change, of course,
and the Stones never like to be tied down todetails. But Stu did say: "We may do somedates in Britain next year." Around when
the album comes out? "Be nice," said Stu
noncommittally.

Chris Welch

OCiOBEADECEMBER

1975

"."

a

%;;a.. -g-

1."

4 Oa

et me out!"
PETER GABRIEL ,asleft GENESIS, Jot

to grow cabbages,

it turns out, but
to investigate
completely new
ways of working.
"The Cosmic Cadet

Force", ghosts,
UFOs, mysticism
and stories will all
figure in his plans.
"Left to my own
devices," heconfides, "I can goa little haywire."

DECEMBER 6 pETER GABRIEL'S DEPARTURE from Genesis was oneof the biggest shocks of 1975 for those who admired,nay loved, the corr.binat ion of perverse talent they
represented. For Genesis with Gabriel was something
special, unique ininternational rock. Over six years they
had gradually bui t up their following and respect, andjust as they were reaching the heights of the supergroups, playing at
the sports itadiums and prestige halls, so it seemed to dash to pieces.
But Genesis have re-emerged. C rummer Phil Collins has taken over
vocals, at least until they can finds newsinger. Steve Hackett, their lead
guitarist, has found himselfwitha hit solo album.
That just eaves Peter -out in thecold of apparent exile in Bath.
Gabriel has not been moping orwasting his time. Instead, he has found- ime that %asdenied him by the t-ectic scheduleofa touringgroup and is
nvolving I- imseif in all kindsof research and study. He has beenabsorbing .verything from piano lessons to attempts at levitation and-elepathy. There is no doubt, thot_gh, that the pressures, howeversubtle,-hat led to hisdeparture from the band into which he poured hissoullave scarred him.
When wemet at a flat off London's Knightsbridge on Saturday morning
Or breakft_st, hestill had hisold wnseof humour and fascination with.he mysteries of the unseen world intact. But therewasan undercurrent
3f suppressed feeling that occasionally flashed to the surface. I could not
3e sure whet her he thought our degree of communication was adequate,
3rwhether he felt he had fully transmitted his feelings. He seemed to be
torn between adesire to be diplonaticand to let it all pourout.
He even suggested we do an interview in which there would be twoanswers to each question.
"It's up tc you entirely how you want to do it, but I thought we could havethe true -love, positive response t- nd the negative, true -hate response,".iaid Mr G enigmatically.
,
He feels that vital new forces will beat work during the second half ofthe 1970s.lfter we had chatted o'BruceSpringsteen over the toast and .
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

135

1975

OCTOBER DECEMBER

coffee ("Ile was magnificent- an animated pixie"), Peter adjourned to
the living room. Had he really been merely in hiding to grow cabbages?
"I had actually been growing cabbages at the time I wrote my letter tothe press. It was a symptom of a time when I had the opportunity to doa lot of things I'd not been able to do before. There were a lot of things
I wanted to follow up as part of the CCF-the Cosmic Cadet Force.
"I've been investigating more esoteric approaches to sound. Different
harmonics have different biological effects on people. I've also beentrolling around seeing different people in various communities. It's veryironic but I was doing an audition fora group of people the other day,called Genesis. One of the possibilities I've got on ice at the moment isjoining a commune.
"It's not your drug -ridden sex orgies, but a group of people working
together in a lot of areas, and one of the communes is called, by complete
coincidence, Genesis."That must have given Peter a shock!
"Yeah, I can't get away from them. Let me out! There's another place inFrance I'm going to have a look at. I'm thinking ofjoining with my family.
"I'm very excited about what's happening at the moment. In the same
way that the end of the '60s produced a lot of interesting ideas, the end of
the '70s is going to do the same thing. A lot of the people who didn't
actually end up as zombies at the end of the '60s have kept their idealism,
but buried themselves. Now they're beginning to surface again, withmuch more down-to-earth use of some of the '60s' idealism.
"A lot of things which interest me are coming to the surface. Inthemselves they aren't particularly important- ESP, telepathy, UFOs,
astrology, tarot, the rise in mysticism, the prospect of religious wars in the
1990s -but it's all very exciting. A lot of things written off in the past arecoming back in more credible and down-to-earth forms. There are
believable human elements in all this, rather than some alienating,white -robed, mystical figures.
"I'm fascinated by all t hese things and basic psychic research. There arequite a lot of children nowwho are able to do what Uri Geller can do, andsome of these are gathered together in groups."
Does all this herald an Era Of New Knowledge?
"Naw- I don't think anything is particularly new. But where people
were infatuated with all sorts of ideas in the '60s, they are now actuallygiving them practical use. I believe all people have experiences which
they can't easily relate into their own terms, whether it's seeing ghosts, or
premonition of an accident. They are regular occurrences, and you canlearn to understand what brings on these impressions, and how to makeuse of them."
Had Peter done any experiments?
"I have been working on various techniques which have produced
results I've found amazing. You try to pick up experiences recorded inrooms. The exciting thing is that anyone can do it. We restrict the powersof the mind very much and it's amazing what you can do if you try."
Couldn't that be very
disturbing to the mind?
"Yes, it can be. You aren't
given any more power than
you can handle. I don't mean
power in a black magic sense,but the internal experiencesthat are going on inside you.
There area lot of things done
where you shut off the senses,
like the Black Tank where you
float in water, unable to hearanything, see anything andminimise all sensory inputs.
"It allows the mind freedom.
That's why people write atnight -and I've been doingquite a lot of writing. The night
is my most productive period."
Has Peter's research andexperiments affected hismusical output?

"No-lhaven't gone allcosmic. Some of the stuff is
fantasy, as I was doing before,
and some of it is simple pop
136 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

songs which I've been writing with Martin Hall. I've been writing themusic and he's been writing the words. And some more stuff I've been
doing more recently which is a little more atmospheric.
"The stuff I've done with Martin is ready pretty well, and the stuff
I've done on my own will be ready soon. Martin is a poet and lyricist andI heard his songs a long time ago when John Anthony was producing
us. He put me in touch with Martin and we'd been meaning to getsomething together fora long time, and there wasn't an opportunity
until I left the band.
"Now we're hoping to get other people to perform those songs, andperhaps I may do some of them myself. Hopefully others will perform
and we'll just write and produce. Um- my own stuff... some are video
fantasies and I hope to be able to get those made for TVhere and abroad.
They're short things, 10 to 20 minutes, and one of them is suitable for me
to perform and the others concern older characters. I've no immediateplans for going on the road as such."That will disappoint a lot of people.
"In many ways that's why I left the band... if I get back into a full-timeroad situation again it will be self-defeating. Essentially, I see this asa learning period. I'm sure the fact I've made a change and had time tothink will benefit what I want to do.
"It means ! can respond to impulses as they strike me from day to day,which is good fora period, but I'm at the point nowwhere I want tointroduce some self-discipline and get things constructively organised.
Left to my own devices I can go a little haywire at times. So now I will workto getting things out and recorded, and they should appearearly next year."He hadn't recorded anything yet?
"No. Demos. But no final recordings. But I hope to start in December.
And I've been having piano lessons in Bath. I've now got a better
understanding of music, reading that is, and I'm trying to develop myplaying. In a band situation there are things I'd written that the others
were patient enough to work out forme. I'd do the whole thing by ear. If I'mgoing to be workingwith session people, it's going to be very useful if I canwrite out the parts. I feel very positive about everything at the moment."
Did Peter feel a weight had been lifted from his shoulders when he left
the band?
"I felt in many ways it was tying me down to one particular role, and it
was beginning to take out some of... urn... my creative instincts. In amusical sense I was proud of my involvement with Genesis, and in termsof the rest, taking it out on the road. But when things get to such a scale itdoes tend to drain the humanity out of it."
It became less pleasure than it had been in the early days?
"Yep," said Peter, clipped and guarded.
Which had been the happiest period with Genesis?
"Oh, I learnt a lot. Um, I regret nothing! (Laughter) Playing at Wembley
I didn't like too much, actually. Personally I wouldn't like to play there
again. I don't like that situation. It's curious, because one big hall inGenesis in London,

1975:0-0Phil Collins,
Steve Hackett,Mike
Rutherford, Tony Banksand Peter Gabriel

PETER GABRIELTHE CARPET CRAWLERSINAIINVG NNW--441

GEllEili

Germany, I think it was in Cologne, really had an
intimate feeling. There were 9,000 people there. But
the Empire Pool really wasn't intimate at all.
0
wirA
"In many ways the size of the audience wasenabling us to put on a big presentation, but it
became self-defeating. It was time fora change
for me internally, and externally with the band."How had his writing changed without theothers breathing over his shoulder?
"It was never like that really. Half our material
was written within the group and the other half
was done individually. What's coming out of me
now has changed. I've always written the pop song type things, some of which were allowed tocome through the band. Now I can fiddle about
with more poppy things that couldn't come out
with the band."Did Peter feel a responsibility towards thosefans who had supported and followed him forfive or sixyears? Weren't theywaiting for him to
do something?
"I think they'll be interested in what I come out with. Yes, there arepeople who liked what I put into Genesis. For seven years I put most ofmyself into Genesis. There was 100 per cent commitment.
"And now some of the songs that come from inside me I hope will get
through in the same way. I'd like to make albums important to me andthose who buy them, however many it is, and have some fun with singles.
I did a thingwith Charlie Drake. An entertaining song. Nothing
particularly arty. It was just fun doing it."Peter writing for Charlie Drake!
"Well, Martin and I had written a song that seemed suitable for an
animation thing. We wanted a cartoon character, and then decided ona character actor, and Charlie seemed ideal. We played him the song and
he recorded it. It came out last weekend. I don't particularly want mycontribution to Genesis to be judged purely on that, but it's good fun."Did Peter miss performing and being on stage?
"Oh, when I've been to see other people, I feel like being up there again,
but I don't miss it from day to day. I'm really excited about the prospects ofvideo and I would enjoy performing in a controlled situation like that."
Had he heard anything from Genesis since he left them?
"I've been to hear some of their new album at Trident Studios and it
sounds much better than I've heard them before -much cleaner."
It must have been difficult workingwith Genesis...
"I found some gigs very depressing. They didn't want me to say anything
until a replacement had been found. But I was getting very emotionalwith audiences at times. I'd come awaywet-eyed. On the last tour it did
feel an important chapter of my life was about to change. It was quite
highly charged with emotion."
It's going to be a testing time for both Genesis and Peter in the newfew months.
"I'm a bit non-competitive in my attitude at the moment... but in someways I want to get something out as quickly as possible, before thoseabsence has given them new-found energy. This
democratic thing -it didn't really work like that;
there was a playing of politics. One would pretendthat things were someone else's ideas to get themthrough. That sort of thing -which got a bit silly."
Very frustrating.
"Yeah. Well, politics operate in all bands tosome degree. With the writing thing, royalties
were shared out five ways when generally threepeople in the band did the words. Again, that
seems to have changed since I left."
Did people take each other for granted in theband, having been together for such a longtime?
"You begin to build up roles and ways of acting
towards people, intending to sidestep certain
challenges. Yeah... (silence). And in a living
situation, it's particularly intense. You're stuckwith them in the hotel as well! Mostly we werea happy band and you learn to live with andsuppress dissatisfactions.
"All bands are compromises to a certain
extent. We used to have arguments, but less so later on. Now they've got toprove as much as possible that they're a whole, strong band without me and they've done it from what I've heard of the album. I felt a little strange
towards it, but I haven't felt sad about it, and I think the album will be
successful for them and it will give them self-assurance."
Steve has done a solo album, and Phil has his own band. Couldn't Peter
have relieved internal pressures by doing his own solo album and staying
with Genesis?

miserable bastards."
We both laughed in shocked surprise at this sudden vehemence. Thiswas obviously part of the positive /negative interviewwe had discussed
earlier. It seemed wise to dispense with the miserable bastards and press"Yes. I quite often listen to Radio 4 in the bath, in Bath. I always want tobe grounded enough to be able to relate to anyone. In some ways I've beena self -orientated,
ambitious person, andI'm trying to make myself
more sensitive to otherpeople's feelings -withwhat success, I don't know.
"I feel more real now,
although I'm still adreamer in manyways."
Finally, what is he goingto do with all the old1111"In fact myabsence hasiven Genesis
new-foundenergy"on. Was Peter actually going to do a solo album?
"This week -yes. The writing side is something I want to emphasise, butyes, I would like to do some recording and get something squeezed out of
the middle of me rather than something off the top of the head.
"And I don't particularly want a Peter Gabriel solo career as such. I'd liketo develop the writing and the video thing. I want to develop my playing,
with a view to possibly going back on the road if the circumstances areright. I wouldn't go back unless I was doing something (a) very strongand (b) totally original. Different to what I'd done before and from whatanyone else was doing."
It was hard, surely, for Peter, having created such a strong image withhis followers?
"There will be a percentage who won't like what I do now, but maybe
some who will, who didn't like what Genesis was into -1 don't know. I know
there are still things inside of me that I've tried to communicate before.
"I don't intend to be that critical of the group, but there were certain
areas which weren't flexible. And for me, some of the fire had gone. In fact

"Oh, I see. Well not really. A lot of solo albums are diversions from thecentral direction -you can spread yourself too thin, and I don't think
I could have put my heart wholly into Genesis and into a solo album."
What was Peter's first move on leaving?
"Waited for awhile - then wrote about 20 songs with Martin, and thethe next item on the agenda as far as Gabriel
output goes. One story is called 'The Box' and the other is 'People In GlassHouses' -what's the other one called?" Peter dissolved once more andlooked somewhat helpless. He couldn't remember.
Did Peter think that a time would come when rock musicians utilised
some of the psychic powers that were waiting to be tapped, in theirperformances?
"Ah yes," he said, brightening up. "You mean the cosmic heroes? I'msure that a mystically orientated rock star will emerge in the next 10 years.
I'm sure it will be a particularly good thing, because I'm not sure if rockmusic brings out the best in people. But it would be interesting."
Had Peter used any of his powers or psychic abilities on stage?
"There are certain things I felt during some performances. The old
shivers down the spine when things were really happening. That mightjust be the old audience thing, but at certain times you feel it could becontrollable energy flows.At times there were things that seemed to behappening within me."Did Peter take an interest in politics and events in the outside world?

eltindcostumes and headdresses
and masks?
"I'll go down to thevillage and frighten all thechildren," he grinned. "Orbusk the queues outside
the next Genesis gig!"
Chris Welch

Peter

Gabriel'smask

OCTOBER DECEMBER

1975

`Rock is

no longera noblecause"
An enlightening trip round"a back alley off rock's main

centred on New York's CBGB,'AM*" the "thriving community"\,,itsti\t/4

1975
OCTOBERNME NOVEMBER 8"Beaton the brat, beat on the brat, beat on the bratwith a baseball bat..."
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, the Ramones.
The Ramones are quite ridiculous. They used toplay 20 -minute sets because they only had eight songs, but
now they're up to 45 minutes. At one gig they clocked inwith 12 songs in 26 minutes, instant classics like "Beat On
The Brat"(the complete lyric of which is quoted above),"Judy Is A Punk", "I Don't Wan na Go Down In The Basement", "I Want To
Be Your Boyfriend" and many more. Many, many more.
Tonight they're playing the Performance Studio on the Lower East Side.
You walk up a flight of stairs to get to the Studio, where a sign informs youthat it's a free gig, but a three -buck "donation" is requested, and ifyou
don't pay the "donation" ya don't get in, capeesh?
However, as part of the deal you get all the beer you can drink (if you're
prepared to draw it yourself), and sets by the Ramones and Blondie. You
also get the chance to sit through about an hour and a half of '50s tapes
memorising the faces of the other nine people who showed up. This isbecause Blondie's drummer had to be collected from the airport.
Fora while it looked as though there were going to be nearly as many
people on the stage as there were in the audience, because the
Performance Studio is pretty da m n small. l mean, I've been in bigger
living rooms. It makes me remember how d isappointed I was the firsttime I ever went to the Marquee. It was so small and scuzzy, not at all
the place of myth and legend that I'd built it up to be all those years,
and it came as a shock to discover that a highly touted NY flash like theRamones would be playing to a total audience of- at final count -27
people, nine ofwhom were photographers.
What had happened was that the Ramones -and, by extension, mostof their colleagues on the New York underground circuit- had received
such a lot of media attention from the NY area rock press that I'd assumed
they were getting to be quite big. What's actually happening is that
New York has a thriving local band scene, and they get coverage in theirlocal rags just as a hot new San Francisco band might
get coverage in RollingStoneor a good Detroit bandmight make it into Creem or a pub band with promise
might get a little space in NMEeven though they're only
playing to a hundred people a night. Or less.
CBGB, a small club on the Bowery round about the Bleeker
Street intersection, is to the New York punk band scene what theMarquee was to London rock in the'60s. It's where most of the bands dotheir main gigs and where they hangout to watch and/or heckle (thelatter activity a speciality of members past and present of the New York
Dolls) their friends and competitors.
So far, the nearest thing to a star to be produced by CBGB is Patti Smith- put it this way, she's the only one out of that scene to have a record deal
with a major company -and she was out of circulation around the time
I was there because she was closeted in Electric Ladyland with John Calemaking the Horses album.
Similarly, Television, regarded by the prime voyeurs on the New York
scene as being the Next Band To Happen, were conspicuous by theirelusiveness. Having been thoroughly knocked out by them earlier thisyear, I was hot to see 'em again, but couldn't find head nor hair of them.
Their bass player, Richard Hell, had teamed up with ex -Doll JohnnyThunders to form anew band called the Heartbreakers, and casual chatwith the locals revealed conflicting reports as to whether they wereactually still together.
Since then, I've heard a privately pressed single- "Little Johnny Jewel(Parts 1 & 2)" on the Ork label -and a tape. The single is rotten and thetape reveals only sporad ic flashes of the power they revealed the night
I saw them.

NME's TonyTyler-who, apart from being one of the three tallest men in
rock'n'roll, is also acknowledged as knowing a good band when he hears
one -saw Television a few weeks before I did and reports that they stunk
on ice. Still, Television are
known around New York fortheir wilful inconsistency.
(A piece on the band in New
York's Soho Weekly News bytrue life presents

TELEVISION

at C.B.G.B.'s

for four weekends

TelevisionatCBGBin
January1975:(1-r)
RichardHell,Tom
Verlaine,RichardLloyd
andBillyFicca(drums)

140 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

Alan Betrock begins: "Take two people down to see Television on
two different nights and the odds are that they'll return withcompletely diverse opinions.") And since they st ill haven't
recorded anything impressive (viz the debacle of the Eno Tape,a tale of al most legendary status in CBGB annals), it seems
unlikely that any of the major labels who've decided that they
can get along without Television are likely to change their minds
unless a particularly hip A&R man manages to catch Tom
Verlaine and his henchmen on a flamingly good night.
The Ramones, though, are a band that the London rockscene could really use. Jeez, I'd give a week's pay just to seethem explode over an unprepared audience at, say, Di ngwalls.
They're simultaneously so funny, such a cartoon vision of
rock'n'rol I, and so genuinely tight and powerful that they'rejust bound to enchant anyone who fell in love with rock'n'roll
for the right reasons.
I mean, if you started digging rock because it provided a vital
insight into the mood of the times, or because so many rockmusicians today are -what you say down there? -genuinely
creative (you know, like Rick Wakeman or Mike Oldfield),then forget it, Jack, 'cuz the Ramones will just make you whoops
your cookies.
The Ramones aren't worried about being genuinely creative,
and if you told them that they provided a unique insight into
anything they'd probably piss on your shoes, and you'd deserveit, too. They ain't glitter queens. They ain't a blues band. Whatthey do is fire off ridiculously compressed bursts of power chords
and hooklines, nuth in' but hit singles or what would be hit
singles if there was any just ice in this crummy world (well, well,well, take a look arowooned, etc).
C'mon up and meet the boys. That's Dee Dee on bass- he's theone in the black leather jacket, sneakers and torn -up jeans. Over
there behind the drums is Tommy -he's the short one in theblack leather jacket, beat -up jeans and sneakers. Johnny's theguitar player in the black leat her jacket, Captain America T-shirt,
torn jeans and sneakers, and the one in the black leather jacket,
torn jeans, sneakers and McGuinn shades is Joey. They all claim"Ramone" as their surname.
Joey Ramone isn't much over seven feet tall.
You see this unbelievably long and thin streakof dirty denim and scuffed leather up on stage
and when your eyes get to the top you find out
he's slouching. Joey Ramone slouches like atelegraph pole slouches, and what's more hestays slouched. At moments of extreme urgency
he performs this strange jackknife motion withhis right leg. It looks as though he's trying to kickhimself in the ass.
Each song begins with Dee Dee shouting"One -two -thee -four", followed by a headlong,full -speed rampage around the riff -whichever
riff it is. The Ramones not only don't play no
drum solos (thank you, Lord) but they don't
even play guitar solos -well, maybe one or two,but nothing lasts over three minutes top whack. It's more likely to be two
minutes and 10 seconds on the average. Nevermore than three-quartersof a minute between songs except in cases of equipment failure.
Joey spits out the title of the song, Dee Dee shouts "One -two -thee -four"and they're off again, maybe with "53rd And 3rd" ("53rd and 3rd waiting
fora trick/53rd and 3rd is making me sick"). They're great.
Coming on alternately like tough kids pretending to be innocent
and green kids pretending to be tough, the Ramones are pocket punks,a perfect razor-edged bubblegum band. They should never make analbum. They should make a single everyweek, 'cuz they've already got
enough songs to last them for the first six months.
Whether the Ramones will get that chance while they're still young
enough to take advantage of it is a whole different thing, though. White
hard rock is about the least commercial singles material currently extant
in this age of disco tyranny and MOR slop, and the Ramones area clear
case of a product existing well in advance of a market.
Which is probablywhy, at the moment, there's no sign of a record deal.
Supporting them, incidentally, on that epic night at the Performance
Studio, was Blondie (formerly of decadent Ladybirds -type vocal group

DebbieHarrra"cute little bundleof p atinumhairwithavoicelikea
squeaky bath toy"

The Stilettoes), who's this cute little bundle ofplatinum hairwith a voice like a squeaky bath
toy and quite the cruddiest garage -type garage
band I've seen since the last band I was in (andthat band was a fuzzbox pretentioso blues
band. This one is just cruddy.)
She has what could politely be described asa somewhat suspect sense of pitch, but her
charm lies in the fact that she's a kid who's
pretending desperately hard to be a star
and who's aware of it. Which is why it works
at all (apart from on account of she's so gosh darned cute); because her act has that homemade-ish quality.
Sadly, Blondie will never be a star simply
because she ain't good enough, but for the time being I hope she's having
fun. Whatever her actual age, though, she's spiritually a part of the Great
American Nymphet Tradition.
Down at CBGB itself, however, things are cookin'. The place is a lotbrighter and cleaner than it was last time I saw it. It's pretty solidly packed
out and the jukebox is pumping out classic stuff like The Animals' "Club A -Go -Go", Jeff Beck and Donovan's great "Barabajagal" -definitely thehippest jukebox this side of the Hope &Anchor.
There's a band setting up on stage, and the unpleasant -looking guy
who looks like Lou Reed wearing one ofWilko Johnson's suits who's
shouldering his way past the bar turns out to be the lead singer. The groupare called Tuff Darts. The bass player looks like Peter Tork on speed.
"/'m so sick 'n' tired of thecrap I gotta take in this town," they sneer
eloquently. "Ifit don't get no better I swear I'm gonna burn it down."
Well, really, boys... don't you think that's- uh - taking things a little too
far? I mean, the state NewYork's in right now you couldn't even claim theinsurance. Tuff Darts are more like your standard -issue rock band, whichmeans that the lead guitarist plays solos and the bass player goes zoom
instead of clunk. They conjure up more of a late-'60s/early-'70s heavy x.

The Ramones
are such a
cartoon visionof rock'n'rolland so tight

HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1141

1975
OCTOBERDECEMBER

metal roar than the trebly clang ot the more early -'60s -orientated CBGB

means that the Heartbreakers are forced to rely on Mach 9 volume andbands, but they sing in the classic acrid whine of the modem -day NY
punk, and they look great. Apart from the Ramones, they're probably thebest of the current crop.
Tonight they're supporting the Heartbreakers, the first (tadaaaaaaa!)
NY pu nk supergroup, formed by Richard Hell, former bass player wit h
Television, and the New York Dolls' Johnny Thunders (guitar, vocal andlurch) and Jerry Nolan (drums and sweat stains).
The lineup is completed by a morose -looking lead guitarist who looks
as if his name ought to be Gary, but is more likely to be Albert. They are
dreadful. Brother, are they dreadful. They make their entrances instandard NY punk uniform: black leather jackets, T-shirts, sneakers andjeans. Hell is the sole exception: he's got a short '65 -style British
moddycut, shades and a crumpled black suit.
Thunders is playing a huge, unwieldy Gretsch White Falcon guitar; Hella Felix Pappalardi-style Gibson violin bass, and the erstwhile Gary (orAlbert) an anonymous -looking Les Paul. Thunders is, I'm told, a fairly
inadequate guitarist at the best of times, but since no one's seen him atanythingwhich could possibly be described as "the best of times" since
the early stages of the New York Dolls it must reluctantly be assumed thatthe display of minimal ability combined with maximum arrogance that
he put on that night is the norm.
"Ooohhh, look! Johnny's taking his jacket off! YUMMMMM!!!" breathes
Miriam from Cleveland. Miriam and her sister (and/or best pal) Helenflew up from Cleveland just to see the Heartbreakers, and they weren't
disappointed, which either says a lot about Thunders' much -vaunted"charisma" or for Cleveland -a town where, according to Miriam, there isa group of people who get NMEsent over to them from England, all havethe first Feelgoods album on import and helped break Alex Harvey in thatpart of the world. Hi there, Cleveland!
The only thing theydid all night that got me
off was an enthusiastic if undisciplined
performance of the immortal Tommy Boyceand Bobby Hart song "I'm Not Your Steppin'
Stone" featured by The Monkees on the B-sideof "I'm A Believer", and that was GREAT
because the song is GREAT and therefore any
performance of it no matter how ot herwise
mediocre is GREAT.
The basic trouble with the Heartbreakers isthat while Richard Hell was an effective foil for
Tom Verlaine in Television and JohnnyThunders more or less functioned in the Dolls,
neither of them has either the personality nor
the talent to lead or co -lead a band, which

Mach 10 posturing, neither of which are any cu re for the summertime
blues. Unless you're from Cleveland.
However, Thunders' ex-Dollhood gives the group a little added cachet
around CBGB; after all, the Dolls made two albums and toured the world,
while most of the other Bowery punk bands haven't even played muchoutside of New York State and New Joisey, let alone Britain and Europe
and Japan. So that makes Joh nny Thunders a big man and gives him theright to demand to use the backdoor at CBGB so he doesn't have to walkthrough the audience like everybody else does.
Meanwhile, over on West 4th Street just past the Bottom Line, theorthodox wing of the New York Dolls (ie, vocalist David Johansen andguitarist Sylvain Sylvain) are holding court in a video studio and viewing
videotape of their Japanese gigs.
Sylvain- if I may call him by first name Sylvain - is wearing a blackleather jacket, T-shirt, sneakers and jeans and enthusing about Ibanez
guitars. He claims Ibanez make Fender and Gibson copies that are
better than the originals. He was particularly fond of their FlyingArrow,
which he can be seen playing on the big screen that dominates the far endof the room.
Equipped with an ex -roadie on bass, a session drummer they foundwaiting for work at the Musicians' Union Hall and a fairly nifty keyboard
player, they begin to sound like a fairly enjoyable high school R&B band,
though they still indulge in old-style Dolls cavorting, which now has acertain endearingly nostalgic quality.
Johansen is slumped up against the wall with his girlfriend Cyrinda
Foxe (a nice gal from Texas, natch), wearing red pants and boots and an
absurd red hat. "This band is more like me and Syl always wanted theband to be like, but the others couldn't play this stuff. What we did before
was a lot of fun, and I think it's great that a bunch of kids like us did thatmuch," he says.
It's a safe bet that the new -look Dolls (who, at
the time of writing, had not yet done any US
dates and are -you guessed -currently without arecord deal) will not be playing CBGB. Accord ing
to reports, Johansen considers that the Dolls are

The best of theclass of 75 aredelivering
what the Dolls
promised to_too big a name to play CBGB, bel ieving t hem tobe a concert rather than a club band.
Apparently nobody's told him how many
foreign tours and hit records some of the bands
who play the Marquee have had. Actually, theDolls were the most successful of an earlier
wave of New York bands, all of whom werefirmly attached to the glitter fiasco of a coupla

years back. There's a well-known line aroundto the effect that in those days "the hottest
band in town were the ones with thehighest platforms", and that's about theway it was.
Now, however, the best of the class of'75, like the Ramones and Tuff Darts, aredelivering what the Dolls promised to,but didn't.

TalkingHeads,whose

firstgigwasopeningfor
theRamonesatCBGB
on-Jun.5,1975:(I-r)

Tina Weymouth,Chris EL",
FrantrandDavidByrne

NI NOG III,The last CBGB double -bill I saw was
Talking Heads support ing Sh irts. They'rea bit oddball for CBGB in that neither
band is remotely in the dominant punktradition. Talking Heads are seemingly
aiming for an effect similar to the early
Velvets' more icily restrained material,
but their music is too thin and disjointed
to make it work.
They've got a lead singer who looks across between John MacLaughlin andBryan Ferry who scratches away earnestly
at a big acoustic and a Fender Mustang
with a Gibson humbucking pick-up wired
in to replace the original top pick-up on
account of Fender top pick-ups ain't as hot
as their back pickups for some reason.
(Take that, RexAnderson!)
Their bassist, however, is probably themost arresting single figure in any of these111 The Heartbreakers,"the f irst NY punksupergroup-. (I -r)
Jerry Nolan, RichardHell, Johnny Thunders
and Walter Lurebands, with the possible exception ofloey Ramone. Her name's Martina
Weymouth; she wears leather pants, grips her bass like it was the only
thing keeping her from drifting out into some weird, echoing warp phase,
has blonde hair and the most frightened eyes I've ever seen. She plays
mean, zonking bass, like the heavier she plays the more secure she is, theless likely to just float away or vanish or something.
Talking Heads' trip just didn't come through for me, possibly because
David Byrne was having a lot of trouble with his amp and I couldn't hear
the words, but Martina Weymouth ("Rock is no longer a noble cause," shetold the Village Voice) is some sort of star and as long as she needs that
desperately to keep playing the bass like that, she stands a good chance ofbeing Heard Of.
Shirts were the lead act that night, and they were far and away themost conventionally commercial act in their league. They were oddly
reminiscent of the kind of act that CBS were signing in their RockMachine phase: keyboards, horns, congas, two guitarists and a girlsinger. The latter, Annie Golden by name, works by day in the promo
department at ABC Records, and sends out neatly typed handouts on theband to anybody who expresses an interest.
They play less interesting music than their colleagues; nohow andcontrariwise, they're also the best musicians by
far and, given the non -visionary nature of theaverage A&R office, far the most likely to getsigned and Make It. Ms Golden, however, is abetter -than -average white female rock singer
and an energetic live performer (to get academic
fora second); and with or without the band,
someone'll pick up on her.
It would be cruel, though not strictly
inaccurate, to remark that if all these bands
were doing their scuffling out of Tulipville,
Arkansas, no one would ever hear of them(though it would require a major genetic
mutation for Tulipville, Arkansas, to produce
a band like the Ramones in the first place).
At the present moment, the Dolls and Patti
Smith are the only acts to emerge from the '70s NewYork into the national
and international rock market from the NewYork club scene, though
Kiss, Bruce Springsteen, Todd Rundgren and the Blue Oyster Cult all haveassociations with New York and its immediate environs.
The areas whose bands seem to be judged most appealing by the
Yankee rock lumpen seem to be the South, Midwest and West Coast.
Basically, it's a tight, thriving community scene, aback alley off rock's
main drag, and CBGB is home turf to the whole host of bands, many morethan I had a chance to see (like the Fast and the Miamis- same theoreticalbasis as the Ramones, I'm told -and the Stilettoes).
The reason that CBGB makes it is that it offers a forum for hopefulswho
have something going and plays host to those bands' audiences, not tomention turning one band's
audience onto another band andhelping to broaden the field. It
genuinely -pardon the lapse into
'69 London Ladbroke Grove-ese- provides a genuine service tothe community.
3U BOWIUST d L/1X1/ T11111114 -I1)14 JI1X11
People talk about "CBGB bands"
the same way that they musta used
to have talked about "Max's type
bands". It's one of those rare rock'n'roll venues which has a character all
its own and has taken it upon itself to nurture a specific scene; a specificschool of music. Plus the bucks ain't bad, either. On three bucks a throw
and a two -drink minimum, nobody's hurtin'.
The New York bands probably don't play as well as their British
counterparts; they're much lower on the conventional virtues and ain't
no way as consistent. But there's a kind of spark in the best of them, like
Television on a good night (I assume what I saw was a good night) or theRamones (ditto) or even Tuff Darts (ditto again), that I haven't seen in any
post-Feelgoods British bands at all.
What makes them happen is a generally
abnormally high energy level, the desire to
combine traditionalism with experiment by
cutting rock right down to the basic ingredientsthat made 'em like it in the first place and thenrebuilding from there. Maybe they just have a
different- and therefore more novel- line incliches from their British counterparts, but
their humour, vitality and simplicity are
engaging indeed.
Mostly, they have eschewed blues, country
and jazz flavourings: they don't play no folkrock, jazz-rock, funk -rock, country -rock,glitter -rock or nuthin' like that. They playrock -rock; rock'n'roll stylised, interpreted,refined according to personal preference andperspective and then fed back into itself.
Maybe the present decade is less of a specific area in its own right thansimply a viewpoint from which to reassess the '50s and '60s. Seems thatway in NewYork, because when it comes right down to it, what all of thesebands have in common is that they're re -presenting the '50s and '60s in a
way that could only be the '70s.

There's aspark I haven't
seen in any
post-Feelgoods
British bands"In spite ofall the amputations I You could still dance to a New Yorkstation."

Lou Reed said that. Something like that, anyway.
"I'm goin' back to New York City I I do be-leeeve I've had ee-nuff." Bob

Dylan said that.
"Somebody better record these bands (and do it right) before they
become extinct." I said that. CharlesShaarMurray
HISTORY OF ROCK 1975 1143

11-11

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-PP 1975

Readers' letters

OCTOBER -DECEMBERMM OCT-DEC The lure of big bucks, Floyd's self-defeating satire and other gripes.
Wish you wouldn't
From Allan Jones' first abusive,
smug and belittling comment,
it was obvious what sort of
putdown his review of Pink Floyd's
Wish You Were Here was to be. He

states that it took six months torecord, and later amplifies thisstatement by saying this shows"a lack of determination andresolution" and that it "shouldn't
be taken as a sign of their constantsearch for perfection".
But it should! Six months is
not a particularly lengthy time
for recording an album in thisday and age, and the superb

production and masterful
technical quality of the album
surelyvindicates this. Maybe the
Bay City Rollers did record"Rollin'" in four days, but it's

hardly a masterpiece.
CHRIS FERRARY, Coolgardie Ave,
Highams Park, London (MMOct 4)

The Who (and?,veryone else)).y rimers
Having just listened
to Keith Moon on the radio"discussing" the new Who album
with John Peel, I'm left wondering
if Moon has any interest in musicor The Who at all. Such apathy isnever shown to America, though.
The Who are doing not one but
two American tours in the coming
months, compared with themiserably inadequate number ofconcerts British fans can go to.
Of course, they're not the
only ones...
The Rolling Stones have notappeared in Britain since
September 1973, but havecompleted a huge coast -to -coast
American tour. It's doubtful
whether they will appear in
Britain at all next year.
Led Zeppelin are probably not
due to return here until 1978,
when they will no doubt do their
obligatory five dates at a major
London venue to coincide with therelease of their new album.
Bad Company are currently
doing nothing in the South ofFrance.
Pink Floyd (cough, next...)Yes will do their open-air football
ground routine next summer,
where 60 per cent of the audience
can't see.
The list is endless: Elton John
(remember him?), Jethro Tull, Eric
Clapton and George Harrison

have all turned their backs on us.
The bands' usual reply to thisis shortage of good venues, nopossibility of making a profit,
tax problems and soon. But if
somebody who earns as muchmoney a nd pays as much tax asPaul McCartney can keep on theroad on a regular basis, I see noreason why others can't.
"Oh, but our shows are too big
to keep on the road for anytime!"
I hear Robert Plant cry. Well, makethem smaller!
COLIN ROBINSON, Hartslock
Drive, Thamesmead, London(MM Oct it)

The doctor is in
ioday's top rockmusicians tend to
bemoan playing the"same old music" repeatedly atconcerts. Well, OK, even I, as asimple liker of good music, canunderstand that this must causeboredom and the inevitable
lowering of musical standards.
Consider, however, the relatively
unknown group's position. TakeDr Feelgood, who play the same
music at every concert and seemto enjoy it more every time theyplay. The audience reaction isinvariably electric and the groupindulge vigorously in thestimulation they provide.
Of course I do appreciate thatgroups like Deep Purple and Pink
Floyd have been through thisexhausting circuit, but surely

this doesn't give them a ticket
to be complacent and to sit on
their behinds?
Roger Waters of the Floyd does
this, and produces sardonic music
like "Welcome To The Machine"
on Wish You Were Here. I think thisis particularly significant, because
if he is so bored with "the system"and "playing the same old tunes",
why the hell doesn't he devote histime to writing more beneficial
lyrics that can inspire instead ofinducing apathy as he does?
If this song is also a "profoundcomment" on society today, thenif the rock musician can offer nomore than criticism on his own
medium that he has created, one
wonders why he bothers at all.
Satirical comments cansometimes induce a beneficial
reaction from authority, but as it
is a comment on his own musicalworld, where is the logic?
CHRIS VINE, Bellmeadow, Sutton
Road, Maidstone, Kent (MM Nov 22)

Meet the new boss
Every 10 years or so, the musicworld suddenly realises it has
a giant in its midst. We are allvery fam iliar with thesemilestones- Presley, Beatles,
Dylan, etc, etc. Now add Bruce
Springsteen to the list.

kihasZpAcIKAIRATotisilS

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Springsteen is unquestionably
a unique talent who will finally
alleviate our frustrations fromdozens of so-called "superstars"
who never got past first base.
TONY ZETLAND, Corri Ave,
Southgate, London (MM Nov 22 )STONSUI=11141611

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Fans but no fansI, for one, am fed up
WINNER'
with the wailings ofthe "fans" whocomplain because Zep, Floyd,
ELP, etc, have not appeared lately
at their local church hall. The

LP

Fattie Bum -Bumby The Diversions

argument that the fans "made"these groups and are therefore
owed a visit by them does nothold water. Basically, it is themusic that makes super groups not the fans. Fans only buy records
if they I ike the music, not to makethe creators and purveyors
wealthy people.

Supergroups are establishedbecause their music is
consistentlyof a high order. Theirmusic comes from whatevercreative ability they have to callon. Having transposed thisinspiration to wax, their debts
to fans are paid handsomely.
To insist that they then appear
personally at Tewksbury Town
Hall is arrogant greed.
If Zep, etc, decide they'll do fivenights in London then thank yourlucky stars, cough up and travel-or else top the "real fan" talk as
you obviously do not know theirworth (Mohammed went to themountain and not vice versa).
RICHARD SHAW, Courtlands Drive,
Watford (MM Nov i)

LOW ON HUMANS?
Two Mon and a Dog
at your last Gig;
EnSone teen

Went, -g l'.

shapes and snas merry aro

FILL UP HERE!
Tel.: 01.240 2266. ext. 30
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HISTORY OF ROCK 1575

115

1975
MON MN1MONTH

Coming next...
in 1976!
O THAT WAS 1975. Hope you did it right.

Certainly, that's

on the beat. The

staffers of NMEand Melody Maker enjoyed unrivalled accessto the biggest stars of the time, and cultivated a feel for therhythms of a diversifying scene; as the times changed, so did
they. While in pursuit of the truth, they unearthed stories
that have come to assume mythical status.
That's very much the territory of this monthly magazine. Each month,
The History Of Rockwill be bringing you verbatim reports from the pivotal
events in pop culture, one year a month, one year at a time. Next up, 1976!
DAVID BOWIEMUSIC STAR? MOVIE star? A meeting with a multi -faceted artist
pondering his own status. "I didn't want my enthusiasm for rock'n'roll
being mixed up with my own dissatisfaction with becoming a rock'n'roll
careerist," he says.
PUNK ROCKWRITERS ATTEMPT TO define a fast-moving scene; even the name isunsatisfactory. "The name is too old, too American, too inaccurate,"
writes Tony Parsons. "The teenage kids in the Hot Rods who shake thefoundations of Wa rdour Street every week ain't 'punks. That makes themsound like refugees from West Side Story."
NEIL YOUNG

OVER A PLEASANT London dinner, Neil talks about his reputation andhis fans. "Remember, all those people who say Neil Young songs are a

drag because they bring you down - it's a sign of strength rather than
weakness if you, the listeners, can cope with them."

PLUS...
BOB MARLEY!
THE EAGLES!

ABBA!

146 I HISTORY OF ROCK 1975

FROM THE MAKERS OF UNCUTTHE HISTORY OF

Every month, we revisit long -lost NME and Melody Maker interviews
and piece together The History OfRock. This month: 1975.
"Oh let the sun beat clown upon myface/Stars to fill my dream..."1?"
LOU REED
GIGS; ALICEJULY TOUR11111 T:

tretive the year

LED ZEPPELIN ROCKED THE WORLD,AND DELIVERED A HEAVY DOUBLEBOB MARLEY BROUGHT TRENCHTOWN TO AMERICAPATTI SMITH AND TELEVISION LED
THE CBGB REVOLUTION...and JOHN LENNON, PETE TOWNSHEND,PINK FLOYD, QUEEN and many moreshared everything with NME and MELODYMAKER

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