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■M tv I W T. Rex's Slider' 9 Alice Hatches I This Years Marc Bolan Biggest Rock k - j! ' Extravaganza! U ■i' 71 <’> 'r >< •M”’ I“ I ifc* ■ , Id 7 f « StMjvl Ik * #1 i y |r ■ V ' ' '■ *' -4' . - ft6 % I *in■ ‘ * A ANNIVERSARY ISSUE! .• The Most Incredulous Alice Cooper Poster Ever! Bare-chested, Bulging-Snaked and Autographed c1 \ "t A \\ 1
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you should see what they’re planning for the fall. HF WEED THAT PUT CHEECH AND CHONG , I SuddNen™heir LP's are selling faster than furnaces 42 in Alaska But why’ THE PHLORESCENT LEECH AND-EDDY- THE i SAC,A OF THE GREAT ZAPPA ESCAPE .46 Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan started out to leave the Mothers and ended up pulling the biggest band member heist in the history of rock. THE UNDERDOG IN ARCHIE BUNKER’S SHADOW SAILY STRUTHERS Archie Bunker has been touted as the most honest reflection of American values ever to hit the living room screen But the real life of his TV daughter, Sally Struthers, gets far closer to the heart of what it’s like to grow up in the States feeling ugly. THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF CHICAGO V’— LAMM DIGS IN AGAINST NIXON 64 The band was glad enough to sing the three songs on Chicago V that criticized war But when Bobby Lamm wanted to do more than just sing, they weren’t so sure they wanted to go along. SNOWBIRD BLACK SABBATH TUMBLES INTO MANTOVANI’S ORCHESTRA PIT 68 So^XtXT’11 cur‘ THE ALBUM REVIEW Scrappy Ed Kelleher socks ELP in the organ, kicks Chicago in the horns, and tickles Rod Stewart in the tonsils , °NArgem . ambjuo^looking Glass’s problems. Jim I Crorx s tokes Foghat’s origins, and Mama Lions HOT WAX 48 The Circus Top Twenty—4.000 readers pinpoint the highest octane albums of the month I HE RECORD LOVER’S GUIDE A tantalizing glimpse of the month’s twenty-five
THE PICK OF THE MONTH 62 The one album that stands out like a whale in a pondful of minnows. BODY MIND AND STARS LETTERS -1s XXX8^ s • NAtlONAl SCENES 14 1 S lethro Iull tours with a gian rabbit, and Cat Stevens travels w.th a cailoon This month’s calendar of Editor: How. concerts guaranteed to short-circuit your cerebellum Editors: Pe’ i ? rector: Nor 50 gional Cor ‘^“^MtlmVroad Bowie hit, the tube And Jacoba At FOA; Co* London'and N'e'w^k™Uble NCWS fr°m L A Norris.
does CIRCUS’ residem °' ' Reader? welner; ip his sleeve for your coming month’ Shafer lem that made the Seven Dwaoes°* ' CIRCl 3 3 :s by miller FROM OUR READERS back of poster * FROM THE READERS back of poster $ 1 of Thunder stalks tin ighL liXJLK
Mickey Finn: T. Rex’s drummer is there mostly to get Bolan over the rough spots.
The Human Side Of 'Slider' —Has Bol,qn Bittprf Off * A^dre Th
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T. Rex’s fall tour may hit the big gest concert halls in America. But when he Rets onstaRe, Marc Bolan copid find the halls far from sold out / ’‘milling, he has the flu IV 1 Silling in i rather g.uiJv hotel suite ini flic I'Mli llooi .netlooking Manhattan s ( cnU.il I’.uk. i’\ after Jai k I lie suite iisiialh i* iiscJ b\ Bob Dvl.ui (ic.’igc llaitison. Iml n«‘w il houses Mastci ll.»l.ui .mJ hi* wile and then a**.*ilcd lag dolls which sit »»n the km • m/cJ bed in :he nev room SiUinc sialiii;* •ml lhe window of ihi* Italian Piouncial Jcc.'tcd r«Mm huddled in a chair. Marc is showing sonic of 'he weal and tear ol being one of ihi* teal’s biggest Bnfish and I iiiopc.m stats. and ol h it in-.* charm cd ovcinc.is audiences with the com billed audience and sales appeal of David ( assidv. I hree Dog \icht and the (iia'clul Dead. I aslclc'tslv dressed in turquoise blue s-jfiu iroiiscis and a gold lame leopard jy'iht Jacket‘he isn't being rhnt Mare
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• ’i . *1 • 4 by Janis Schacht K ® -A 1 Marc Bolan- Few people notice that; be hind the volcanic activity is the tired.^con fused son of a London fruit vendor^ And. even fewer realize that Marc has poured . , all of his confusion into THE'SLIDER. uct of that surface image. Irs^frud that he’s yery delicately triggered to turn into theft riionstet at any moment, anything. “Mjjake me up,” the tiny tired musician implores, ”"come on, White’ The^lider7%e^$ZiThe Slider are the most personal ly just bending the facts a little—a habit rics I’ve ever written,” Marc explains. that undoubtedly does more than its “They’re relevant to what has been share to dull Bolan’s perception of his happening, like a diary, I seem to be American position. Bolan says Lennon w doing more acoustic things again,” he loves his music, that he was called to continues, “not acoustic-acoustic, but his bedside in New York to play his using quieter songs as well as electric. songs for him. Lennon says Bolan The personal songs arc the best mel called him and asked if he could come odies I’ve ever written.” over. Mick Jagger went to a T. Rex Combat with fame: It’s true. Lyric concert in California, so Bolan takes ally Bolan is really letting everything it as an indication that he’s in the he feels inside out. “The Slider,” same league as the Rolling Stones now. “Baby Boomerang,” “Spaceball Ric But when Jagger is asked about Bolan, ochet,” “Main Man,” they all show he’s a little less positive than Bolan the hazards of being a teen-age idol, would probably like to have him: the fears and the joys. On one hand “I’ve known him a long long time, Marc is saying he has no time to when he was a nymph, or whatever write seriously (“New York witch in he was. Yeah, an elf. That’s it! Now the dungeon of the day/I’m trying to he’s a rocking elf . . .or a gnome maybe write my novel but all I do is play ... I could say he’s a flash in the pan, . . .”) and then moments later in but he’s not though, cos he’s ever such “Main Man” he’s chanting, “Bolan a nice guy, but you know. I like what likes to rock now, yes he does.” It Marc does but I only wish it was some places Bolan where he really is, on a thing I never heard before. Something kind of see-saw. When things are go entirely new. I wish it wasn’t based ing well he’s up loving every minute on those simple riffs.” Still, though of it: but as soon as things start to Marc isn’t as big as Jagger, when the get rough, he wonders how much long Jagger interviews came through, all er he’ll have to endure the trials of the British headlines read “Jagger on fame. Bolan.” Jagger spoke about many other things, but the English press As a child I laughed a lot knows what sells papers, and this year Oh yes I did, yes I did the name is Marc Bolan. Now it seems I cry a lot Metal Guru: Sitting in his chair Oh tell me true, don't you overlooking beautiful 58th Street, it “Main Man’’ (The Slider) is very obvious that this room is not home. “Glamor has got to be bull shit In the States, though, there’s a dan if this is glamor,” he smirks “I think ger that potential listeners will dismiss this room is cheap looking.” Then Marc’s combat with fame as a mere suddenly he exclaims, “that ‘Ballrooms figment of “crack-pot Bolan’s” in Of Mars’ track we cut for the new flated ego. album is dynamite,” and at last he’s The real Bolan: But when examin off on the only subject that keeps him ing Marc Bolan and the T. Rex phe sane in the days of complete chaos: nomena, when looking at the sure-foot music. ed almost smug young man who is the “star,” remember this: there is a Metal Guru is it you twenty-five-year-old man named Marc Sitting there in your armor-plated Bolan who was born in a poor Jewish Chair section of London as Mark Feld. He Metal Guru is it true had .the great fortune to possess a A ll alone without a telephone, beautiful face and the intelligence to Oh yeah . . . see a way to sell it for all it’s worth. “Metal Guru’’ (The Slider) Marc’s mother won’t go to concerts very often. It’s not that she isn’t proud “For me,” he says, “my songs are of her son, because she is very proud. not abstract. ‘Metal Guru’ in the con She still remembers when she chided text of that song is about godhead, I him for not being capable of earning suppose . . . someone said to me to money. He went out and got a job as day, ‘What is ‘Metal Guru’ about?' a model and earned enough in a j and I said I don’t know. He said month’s time to keep the family going W for a year. When Bolan wasn’t a ‘what’s a metal guru?’ and I said well, w W like a jeepster actually. So he said, young mod, picture-perfect in the pages of Town Magazine, he was help Marc Bolan: In England and Europe, where ‘what’s a jeepster?’ I said it’s like Marc sold 14,000,000 records In the last riding a white swan and he went ‘oh.’ ” ing out at the fruit stall his parents year, the young girls who ring the stage Marc Bolan is his own “Metal Gu- ran in Berwick Street and making his are so close to the man of their dreams ru,” he has a wall built around him first guitar out of old orange crates. that they must keep their hands to their “The madness freaks her out,” Marc mouths to stifle the sobs. self; and the phone, though always there, is very rarely for his use. “The says softly, thinking of his mother’s songs I’ve recorded for the album reaction to concerts. “Oh, she comes. 8 ORCUS MUSIC But she gets very worried for me. She pose and grin for all it’s worth. He Marc’s biggest obstacle: Maybe ends up crying.” Mrs Feld standing has perfected the Marilyn Monroe that's the problem. Because Ameri in the corner watching England’s youth chccsc-cake smile. “A-one and a-two can T. Rex fans have not struggled fall at her son’s feet. Every mother and a bubbly bubbly boo-boo,” Marc with Marc since the very beginning, drcams of a time when her son will will shout out. The drums will come they cannot associate with his pain. become a household word, but none in behind him, filling the air with a Can you associate with him when he expect that when it happens the effect strip-tease beat, allowing Marc to get asks, “What can I do, we just live in will be so devastating. into his bumps and grinds. The girls a zoo. All I do is play the spaceball All by himself: Often Marc admits in England would now be screaming ricochet?” that as a child he had virtually no with delight. “I don’t care if they Now Marc is putting on his ratty friends. A natural-born leader and a scream or cry,” Marc admits, “they fur coat again and preening his multi bully, he used to frighten the neigh shout actually. I wouldn’t dictate to million dollar corkscrew hair. It’s borhood children away. Now the world people what they should do. It’s just time to go and do that WMCA inter wants to be Bolan’s friend because emotion you know.” t view. Leaving “de freakos suite,” as of his gentle face and open nature, “But,” he continues shaking his mop he calls it, walking out into a lobby but now there's no time for making of frizzy ringlets, “I do want emotion filled with red carpets and crystal friends. “People don’t realize that from people, at a concert if I sing a chandeliers, the real Marc Bolan is when it gets to the point of being num song which is painful to me, I’d like already fading from view. A huge ber one, there is no time ... no time. them to appreciate my pain and may black limousine with a chauffeur is There arc so many people that I love be associate with it if they can and waiting to take the Bolan entourage dearly that I haven’t been able to give me back something through the two blocks to the station. Did spend time with; and some of them them.” someone say “pain?” • feel like they’re neglected, which is very unfortunate.” Here in America, Marc has no need to isolate himself, but the state of his life everywhere else has made him overly suspicious, overly protective of his privacy. EXTRA EXTRA Stamping and pouting: Onstage is the only place that Marc can release his energy, and though in the UK his Read All About It I very presence is enough to send off shrieks of joy, here Marc has to work for his applause. But the T. Rex con cert here is virtually the same: instead of altering the program for the consid erably less hyper audience, Bolan will continue to rave in the hopes that the enthusiasm will be contagious. So, oblivious to uncomfortable laughter, Marc will exercise his cha risma thing. He will sit cross-legged center stage all alone playing his guitar. No longer surrounded by Mickey, Steve and Bill, Marc will be at his best: RMI HAS DONE IT AGAIN ! Pm just a man RMI, producers of some more keys on the upper I understand the wind of the finest electronic A nd all the things end and a bass boost to That make the children cry musical instruments, give you even more range I With my Les Paul have a new innovation! and better sound than 1 know Pm small but There is a new Electra ever. Don’t miss this one. I enjoy living anyway . . . Piano and harpsichord. Try it at your nearest “Spaceball Ricochet” {The Slider) The 368. It has seven Progressive Music dealer.
When Marc performs “Baby RMI, Dept. CM 1072 Strange” he will stamp and pout and Macungie, Pa. 18062 I want more than the headlines on the RMI Electra Piano & Harpsichord 368. Name Cigarettes can kill you. Keep smoking ’em and they may. Address We’ll miss ya, baby, City .State, Zip american- _ cancer society 9® CIRCUS 9 CHARGE IT! ON ORDERS OF $7.50 OR MORE. BANK AMERICARD & MASTER CHARGE " FABULOUS BARGAINS IN AMERICA'S BEST ITEMS super values use form on bottom opposite page
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Specify size small, medium, large. GENUINE SUEDE PATCHES (P-1) in USE THIS FORM TO flowers, hearts, doves,i, guitars, animals, etc. are the newest way to ■ -A V - national scenes "Concert” indicates location not available at OCTOBER 15 KANSAS p res's time. Check your local newspaper for Auditorium Theatre CAT STEVENS exact location. (Chicago) OCTOBEF:r 6 OCTOBER 15 Washbi>urn Univ. BREWER & SHIPLEY McCormack Place — GUESS WHO (Chi- (Topeka) cago) ALABAMA OCTOBER 7 OCTOBER 19 State Univ. — BREWER & SHIPLEY (Man I Concert — CHUBBY CHECKER (Danville) hattan) OCTOBER 1 OCTOBER 20 Concert — CHI-LITES (Birmingham) Concert — CHUBBY CHECKER (Quincy) OCTOBER 20 KENTUCKY ARIZONA Concert — CHI-LITES (Champaign) OCTOBER 7 Concert — FUNKADELIC & PARLIAMENT OCTOBERI 5 (Frankfort) Commuimity Center — CAT STEVENS CTuc- OCTOBER 25 son) Convention Center JETHRO TULL OCTOBE''IER 6_ Best Bets (Louisville) Statej Uni.^.Umversity — CAT STEVENS (Tempe) OCTOBER 26 OCTOBER 10 W. Kentucky Univ. JETHRO TULL Concert — REX (Phoenix) (Bowling Green) OCTOBER 11 Of The Month OCTOBER 26 Concert — REX (Tucson) Concert — CHI-LITES (Moorhead) OCTOBER 27 * ARKANSAS Eastern Kentucky Univ. — ROBERTA FLACK (Richmond) OCTOBER 23 Barton Coliseum — JETHRO TULL (Little LOUISIANA Rock) OCTOBER 13 CALIFORNIA Concert — CHI-LITES (Shreveport) OCTOBER 13 Loyola Univ — STEVE MILLER (New Or- SEPTEMBER 29 Shrine Auditorium — CAT STEVENS (Los leans) OCTOBEI:r 28 Ange.les) State Unh JETHRO TULL (Baton OCTOBER 1 Rouge) Concert — GINGER BAKER (Los Angeles) I OCTOBER 2 MAINE Community Theatre CAT STEVENS I (Berkeley) OCTOBER 15 OCTOBER 3 Auditorium — JETHRO TULL (Bangor) Sports .Arena — CAT STEVENS (San Di ego) OCTOBIIER 13 MARYLAND Conc<:ert — T. REX (Los Angeles) OCTOBIIER 15 OCTOBER 7 Conci;ert — T REX (San Francisco) Concert — CHUBBY CHECKER (Salisbury) OCTOBIIER 19 OCTOBER 22 Music Center ROBERTA FLACK Civic Center — MOODY BLUES (Baltimore) Angeles) OCTOBER 25 OCTOBER 27 Concert — CHEECH & CHONG (Gaithers McCabe’s Guitar Shop — STEFAN Cat Stevens: The mellow balladeer will burg) MAN (Los Angeles) OCTOBER 28 spice a handful of shows with his 'own Concert — CHI-LITES (Baltimore) COLORADO cartoons of Teaser and the Firecat. MASSACHUSETTS OCTOBER 2 JAMES COTTON BLUES Tulagi's — OCTOBER 9 (Boulder) Paul's Mall — HARRY CHAPIN (Boston) OCTOBER 10 OCTOBER 16 Sports Arena CAT STEVENS Coliseum — JJETHRO TULL (Springfield) OCTOBER 21 OCTOBER 25 Gallery — JAMES COTTON BLUES Garden — MOODY BLUES (Boston) (Aspen) DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA MICHIGAN SEPTEMBER 29 OCTOBER 2 REX (Detroit) Cellar Door — HARRY CHAPIN Concert — OCTOBER 3 ton) W Concert — GINGER BAKER (Lansing) OCTOBER 22 I Concert — FUNKADELIC & OCTOBER 4 I (Washington) Concert — GINGER BAKER (Lansing) OCTOBER 27 OCTOBER 7 Concert — CHI-LITES (Washington) Cobo Hall — CHI-LITES (Detroit) OCTOBER 19 FLORIDA Masonic Au"Auditorium — CAT STEVENS (De- I a troit) OCTOBER 23 I OCTOBER 15 CHEECH AND CHONG (Ypsl- 5 Jai Alai Fonton — STEVE MILLER Concert — (Miami) lanti) OCTOBER 25 I Curtis Hixon Auditorium — CAT ST MINNESOTA (Tampa) OCTOBER OCTOBER 29 s Auditoriilum — CAT STEVENS (Miami) Metropolitan Sports Center MOODY Jethro Tull: Aqualung-man will leaf through BLUES (Minneapolis) GEORGIA his newspaper while gorillas and rabbits scramble across the stage. MISSISSIPPI OCTOBER 25 „ Concert — ALLMAN BROTHERS (Ma OCTOBER 14 OCTOBER 30 Concert — CHI-LITES (Jackson) Coliseum — CAT STEVENS (Atlanta) OCTOBER 15 INDIANA Concert — CHI-LITES (Hattiesburg) OCTOBER 27 ILLINOIS OCTOBER 7 State Fair Building — JETHRO TULL (Ba- Purdue Univ. — B. B. KING (Lafayette) ton Rouge) SEPTEMBER 30 OCTOBER 24 Concert — 1T. REX (Chicago) Concert — WISHBONE ASH (Muncie) OCTOBER 6 OCTOBER 25 MISSOURI Concert — JONATHAN EDWARDS (Peoria) Concert — WISHBONE ASH (Ft. Wayne) OCTOBEl.E------o(1Hllnol« — CAT STEVENS (Cham- OCTOBER 26 OCTOBER 3 Univ, Concert — WISHBONE ASH (Indianapolis) Concert — REX (St. Louis) paign) 14 CIRCUS OCTOBER 4 Concert — REX (Kansas City) OCTOBER 13 Kell Opera House — CAT STEVENS (St. Louis) OCTOBER 21 Concert — CHI-LITES St. Louis) OCTOBER 26 Arena — MOODY BLUES (St. Louis) NEW JERSEY OCTOBER 15 Latin Casino DANNY HATHAWAY (Cherry Hill) OCTOBER 22 Concert CHI-LITES (Camden) NEW MEXICO OCTOBER 21 Physical Ed Center CHEECH AND KC 31102 CHONG (Poi•rtales) NEW YORK SEPTEMBER 23 Colgate Univ. — BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS (Hamilton) OCTOBER 6 L.l. Univei■rsity FLEETWOOD MAC (Stoneybrook) BBS OCTOBER 7 Harper College — MALO (Binghamton) OCTOBER 13 Madison Sq. Garden — CHUBBY CHECK ER (N.Y.C.) OCTOBER 13 lfc Memorial Auditorium JETHRO TULL (Buffalo) OCTOBER 13 Concert — STEFAN GROSSMAN (Buffalo) OCTOBER 14 War Memorial — JETHRO TULL (Rochest jsgHt er) OCTOBER 18 Max’s Kansas City STEFAN GROSS- MAN (N.Y.C.) OCTOBER 23 Madison Sq. 1Garden MOODY BLUES (N.Y.C.) OCTOBER 27 Philharmonic Hall SEALS & CROFTS (N.Y.C.) NORTH CAROLINA OCTOBER 1 CumberlandI Co. Auditorium FLEET- WOOD MAC ((Fayetteville) OCTOBER 1 Concert — McKENDREE SPRING (Fayette ville) New Chicago OCTOBER 3 Concert — (CANNED HEAT (Cullowhee) OCTOBER 3 Coliseum — YES (Charlotte) An incredible one-record set OCTOBER 5 Concert — GINGER BAKER (Charlotte) “Chicago V' '.-Some of the most OCTOBER 6 Concert — FLASH CADILLAC (Hickory) unrelenting and vibrant new music they’ve ever OCTOBER 14 N.C. Wesleyan Univ. — FLASH CADILLAC recorded. Nine songs for today. (Rocky Mount) Included are individual color photos of the OHIO members of the band and a gigantic poster. New Chicago. An album that’s as exciting SEPTEMBER 26 Concert — T. REX (Cincinnati) as all the other Chicagos. SEPTEMBER 28 Concert — T. REX (Cleveland) OCTOBER 2 On Columbia Records* and Tapes Scot’s Inn — BOBBY GOLDSBORO (Col- umbus) OCTOBER 20 Music Hall — CAT STEVENS (Cleveland) OCOCTOBER 21 Public Audilitorium — JETHRO TULL (Cleve- ■ land) OCTOBER 21 Veteran’s /Auditorium CAT STEVENS (Columbus) OCTOBER 28 Ashland College — MALO (Ashland) OKLAHOMA OCTOBER 5 Concert — REX (Oklahoma City) PENNSYLVANIA SEISEPTEMBER 27^ Concert — REX (Pittsburgh) OCTOBER F Carner Tt.Theatre — GUESS WHO (Erie) OCTOBER 7 Carnegie Mellon Univ. WINTER CON- SORT (Pittsburgh) ©1972 James William Guercio OCTOBER 14 «»-COlU*«»:A. S“*’CAJ »IC- PKMILDMUXA. Community Theatre MALO (Williams- port) CBXLS 15 OCTOBER — JETHRO TULL (Pittsburgh)! TEXAS Civic Ar< OCTOBER OCTOBER 6 Spectrum MOODY BLUES (Philadel- Best Bets Concert — T. REX (Austin) phia) OCTOBER 7 REX Houston) OCTOBER 28 Concert — OCTOBER 8 State College — YES (Charlotte) T. REX (Arlington) OCTOBER 29 Of The Month Concert — CHI-LITES (Philadelphia) OCTOBER 9 Concert — I Municipal Auditorium STEVE MILLER OCTOBER 30 (Austin) Spectrum — JETHRO TULL (Philadelphia) | OCTO B El;R 14 Castle Creek — JAMES COTTON BLUES BAND (Austin) RHODE ISLAND UTAH OCTOBER 29 OCTOBER 13 Concert — CHEECH & CHONG (Kingston) State Univ. — GERONIMO BLACK (Logan) OCTOBER 31 Salt Palace —__ MOODY BLUES (Salt Lake SOUTH CAROLINA City) OCTOBER 31 (Hampton OCTOBERt 8 Coliseum — CAT STEVENS Rhodes) Chariest;ton CHI-LITES (Charleston) n ■ OCTOBER 20 WEST VIRGINIA Baptist College FLASH CADILLAC (Charleston) OCTOBER 7 GUESS WHO OCTOBER 20 Institute of Technology Coliseum — JETHRO TULL (Columbia) (Montgomery) OCTOBER 21 OCTOBER 18 Concert — FLASH CADILLAC (Clemson) Civic Center JETHRO TULL (Charles- I ton) WISCONSIN TENNESSEE OCTOBER 28 OCTOBERt 12 Arena — MOODY BLUES (Milwaukee) State University FLASH CADILLAC (Memphisis) OCTOBER 22 CANADA Mid South Coliseum JETHRO TULL (Memphis) T. Rex: This tour should prove once and OCTOBER 21 WISHBONE ASH (Alberta) for all whether Bolan can transplant his Concert — OCTOBER 23 OCTOBER ^Lutheran26 — TAJ MAHAL (Ontario) Concert — CAT STEVENS (Knoxville) fans’ record-breaking hysteria from Eng Waterloo Lui land to America. OCTOBER 27 orCTOBER 24 Western__ Ontario University — TAJ MA- Coliseum ■ JETHRO TULL (Nashville) HAL (Ontario)Intarlo) i THE CONCERT THAT'S GOOD J i ENOUGH TO STAY HOME FOR ! "The Guess Who Live at the Paramount." The Guess Who takes the live electricity of their night at Seattle's Paramount and lays it down on vinyl. They play great old numbers like "American Woman" and "New Mother Nature" in new super-extended versions, and great new numbers like "Runnin' Off to Saskatoon" and "Glace Bay Blues." The Guess Who. "Live at the Paramount." The concert that's good enough to stay home for. Produced by Jock Richardson RCJI Records and Tapes lor Nimbus 9 16 CHXUS I We’re not the only ones talking about to Electro Harmonix^^ Vol. IV No. 14 THE ROCK CULTURE NEWSPAPER N.Y.C. 35« Jhin Amazing Little Boxes > by Peter Stampfel <’ A few months ago I saw an ad in him? No blame. It costs more than the Crawdaddy! for the Electro Harmonix average fuzz. It is more than an aver Corporation, a New York firm which age fuzz. They also make an average makes amazing little boxes and a fine fuzz which gives the sort of distorted portable amplifier. Our band, the sounds tube amps from the 40’s and Rounders, has been standing in great 50’s gave. need of these exact things and since These folks also make an excellent the advertising copy looked so inter portable amplifier which should be on Every Beatle fan. every rock-record esting, we decided to check them out. the market about now. It’s going to be collector will want this super-spec They did have indeed just the thing called the Hendrix or Clapton (we tacular book. Dozens of stories and for us—the Big Muff. The Big Muff is suggested Beck) Freedom Amplifier (amplified freedom! Right on!) and photos of Paul. John. George and the finest fuzz-sustain-distortion box I have as yet been a witness to. It has it’s small, light, powerful, and plays for Ringo Their climb to fame, their mov three dials instead of the customary a couple hundred hours on a battery ies. their marriages Why they broke two and the extra one isn’t just window pack which is repackable. It sounds up the group! Their lives today! Full dressing. You can adjust the Big Muff great and is really loud; it kicks a color photos! to play whole chords. An ordinary fuzz whole bunch of ass. Besides which, can only do a single note; play more it is so well engineered that it’s a na *** than one note and you get tural for recording. It doesn’t garbage noise. The Big Muff — have the hum an ordinary delivers sweet dirty notes B amp has. Boon in the studio. with that clear light clarity. To top it all off, it’s reason- Order todayl Only 75c for this Collec A musical boon! Jimi Hen VlF ably priced. tor's Treasure Include 25c for pos drix used one. Who can blame BIG MUFF tage and handling. TF Send to: LAMPLIGHT PUBL. Cl 1002 271 MADISON AVE taining device will make e electro •harmonix your guitar sing like a hum------—- -- NEW YORK. NY 10016 ming bird. It is designed • 15 West 26th Street, New York, New York 10010 for the professional lead • guitar player who knows . Please ship: Factory wired Complete kit how to use his axe. J Send me Try the factory wired * Rip- Muff vr $39.95$26.95 copies ofI Big Muffrr for two weeks. If • 1V1U“ I you aren't satisfied, ser■fund*. ' '* ’ O Enclosed is a total check for $------I THE BEATLES magazine, at back for a complete refw.v.. . •------I *. Ship C. O. D. J 75£ plus 25^ postage each. I I • Q Please place me on your new products announce- ■------I ’ ment mailing list at no charge. 1 NAME I (Also available at your * Name I I ■ STREET retail music store.) , I Address. I I *. City. Zip. I CITY STATE ZIP I State. record reviews Ed K ell eh er Harry Nilsson: Harry, you’ve gone mad! Son Of Schmilsson—Nilsson (RCA) T n the movie business there's a I time-tested adage that sequels are never as good as the originals. But Harry Nilsson isn't in the movie business—not yet anyway—and his follow-up to Nilsson Schmilsson is Chicago: Too much wind in the windy city. his best work to date. Nilsson has long been respected as a studio wiz Chicago V—Chicago (Columbia) the Transit Authority instead of idl ard (he never performs in public), It looks like Chicago is running ing in the station like they sure are but on this LP he is given absolute out of steam. Maybe instead of re doing now. free rein to create absolutely any leasing all those multiple record sets, thing his heart desires. Lurking be they should have spaced things out hind this man's placid appearance over a longer time period. Chicago V and devil-may-care manner is the is a first for the group in that it is Trilogy—Emerson, Lake & Palmer soul of a poet but with an important a single LP . . . though, of course, (Cotillion) little extra. Nilsson is mad. In fact, there is the usual assortment of post Once more into the breach, dear he's a stark raving lunatic. Lucky ers and boss photos. Even these ap friends, as we examine the new help for him he's a recording artist. Other purtenances aren’t up to snuff—no ing from ELP. This time the boys wise they might lock him up. They where near as interesting as the ones have turned their sights away from might still lock him up and use Son which accompanied the box. At least Modest Mussorgsky (having left him Of Schmilsson as evidence. Enough there you got a terrif photo of Car riddled with their last venture) in of frivolity. The album is a beautiful negie Hall. As far as the record is favor of some original material plus journey down the twisting corridors concerned, Chicago has never sound a dash of “serious” composer Aaron of Nilsson’s mind. With unflagging ed more listless. And on one track, Copeland. Side one opens with “The energy and uncanny accuracy, Harry entitled “Dialogue,” they arc down Endless Enigma,” an aptly-titled num shoots his poison-tipped arrows at right soporific. This one is supposed ber that attempts to compensate with many of society’s foibles. He also to be terribly relevant—it's all about lyrics for what it clearly lacks in making it happen and changing the musical substance. With a better lyri I does some great impressions. Listen to “Take 54” for a T-Rex soundalike world and saving the children, but it cist than Greg Lake it might have and “You're Breaking My Heart” for just drags on, piling trite platitude worked, at least up to a point; but I I a taste of the Beatles. Speaking of the upon overblown cliche until you alas poor Greg only contributes to the Beatles, Ringo is here too, thinly dis could scream. The rest of the album tedium, though his rhyming diction I guised as one Richard Snare. Also in is remarkably predictable. Gone is ary must really have gotten a thumb the chorus line are Nicky Hopkins, the element of surprise which dis ing. “From The Beginning” is an Peter Frampton, Klaus Voorman and tinguished so many of the arrange other plodding opus written primarily Jim Price. Oh, and George Harry- ments on the earlier Chicago LP’s. for the guitar. It’s followed by some song. Catch on? Quite a lineup, and One exception: “Saturday In The thing called “The Sheriff,” which is a only the indefatigable Dr. Phibes of Park,” which despite some rather tale of the Old West that will prob music could have assembled them. mundane lyrics still manages to gen ably have you humming “Rocky Rac One of the year’s most brilliant ex erate some of the old Chicago magic. coon.” The side winds up with “Hoe travaganzas. But that’s small comfort for anyone down,” from Copeland’s “Rodeo.” who wishes that Chicago could go on Though the album jacket notes that cooking like they did when they were it has been “taken” from “Rodeo,” it 18 CM2CUS LETTERS IAN AIN’T THE ONLY TULL From Electro Harmonix, makers of I regret to inform you that your Circus poster #12 from your July ’72 the Mike Matthews Freedom Amp. edition is not of Jethro Tull, but of Ian Anderson, ONE of the members Floor Boosters of a GROUP called Jethro Tull. I am LPB-2 This is a new floor model of the sure you are quite aware of this, or LPB-l, enabling you to cut it in or out at least you should be. instantly with your foot. Since all ampli fiers arc overdesigned to more than handle I do believe that Ian Anderson may the most powerful pick-ups, the LPB-2 be one of the greatest flute players of will let you derive optimum results from our time if not the greatest. He also your amp. may be the only survivor of the origi nal Jethro Tull and writer of all their Screaming Tree similar to the Screaming Bird but with a heavy-duty foot material, but he is not the entire group. control switch, this ultimate treble booster Here are some of Anderson’s own gives your rhythm or lead playing more words from an article in your April Plug-in Boosters balls than you thought possible—by em edition: “As far as playing goes, the phasizing the BITE you get just when your other guys in the group are every bit LPB-1 This linear power booster is a pick plucks the strings. as good as me, if not better. But every compact solid state preamplifier that can Like the Muff but in a one writes about me: I suppose it’s be up to quadruple the acoustic output of any Little Muff n amplifier. It will increase guitar sustain floor model that features a foot control cause I have the longest hair.” I find switch. you guilty of (his. and improve the performance of all wah- wah pedals and distortion units. After personally being able to see Hogs Foot A bass booster for profes them several months ago, I can vouch SCreaming BirdA treble booster that sionals who want the thick, heavy sound necessary for blues playing. Technically for Anderson’s statement. They are will give your instrument the razor sharp similar to the Mole, but with foot switch. great, if not the greatest. They arc also cut of a screeching harpsichord whose a group, each contributing to the strings are whipped instead of plucked. overall sound. They are not one per Use two Birds and turn your guitar into an electric banjo. son. So the next time you have a pos ter of Jethro Tull, I would like to see Muff This funkiest distortion device IX a poster of Jethro Tull, the group, not will give you that dirty sound reminiscent ■ one member. of the natural distortion of the tube amps Other than that you run an excellent used by the Rhythm ’n Blues bands of magazine. I also think it would be yesteryear. worth your while to check into a group Mole The mole bass booster will ex that goes by the name Ted Nugent tract the highs and amplify the subhar and the Amboy Dukes. I think they monics, giving your instrument the depth, are worth writing and reading about. resonance and heavy penetration of the Also available at jour retail music store. foot pedals of a church pipe organ. Jon Culligan All Electro-Harmonix accessories are Brillion, Wisconsin Ego This microphone booster is designed guaranteed for ten years. They are com for the vocalist whose PA system isn’t patible and modular. Any combination of Editor’s note: JFe’ve been in touch strong enough to cut through the noise more than one unit will give you an infinite with Ted Nugent’s management for generated by the other members of the variety of sounds. band. The Ego will match any microphone fully six months now, waiting for the Enclose a check and Electro-Harmonix and up to quadruple the output of your will pay shipping. Or. if more convenient, day when the group is ready to re PA system. v lease a new LP. When that time order C.O.D. for cost plus shipping. En close a 10% deposit on C.O.D. orders. comes, you may well see a CIRCUS (C.O.D. orders are limited to the con story on the lad. tinental United States.) GOOSE CREEK GETS THE CROWN Money back guarantee. Try any of our Recently, I was lucky enough to at boosters out for two weeks. If you don’t tend an all-day out-door concert in think they’re the greatest, send them back the small town of Seneca, a commu for a complete refund. nity nestled deep in the hills of upper South Carolina. The billing boasted dectro-harmonix 15 West 26th St., New York, N.Y. 10010 CI-1003 such notables as Cactus, White Trash, Please ship: quantity quantity and Wishbone Ash. $14.95 LPB-1 (plug into amp) $19.95 Mole (plug into inst) 14.95 1LPB-1 (plug into inst) — 14.95 Ego (2 female jacks) SNEAK ATTACK 17.95 Bird (plug into amp) Last week, while in a local drug 17.95 Bird (plug into inst) 23.95 LPB-2 23.95 Tree store, I chanced to see the new issue 18.95 Muff (plug into amp) 18.95 Muff (plug into inst) 23.95 Little Muff of CIRCUS. Knowing what a great 19.95 Mole (plug into amp) 23.95 Hogs Foot magazine it is, I decided to pick up a couple of copies. Today I got a six Enclosed is check for total amount $ month suspended sentence for shop Ship C.O.D. Enclosed is 10% deposit $ lifting. Please place me on your new product announcement mailing list at no charge. #156079 Name______Smedly Frink Address. r City. .State —Zip. RECORD REVIEWS is apparent from the start that a piece) and many of the same musi hated the early Mothers but are curi more fitting word would have been cians, including, of course, the smil ous as to what Zappa is capable of “wrenched.” Better watch out, lads, ing Faces. He even goes back to the when he joins some fine musicians Aaron Copland is still alive! The early Sixties to show that a good tune for a free-form blowing session, take most interesting cut, and the one can exist outside of fad madness. a chance on “Big Swifty” and which saves the album from instant Yes, he does a searing version of “Waka/Jawaka.” If you love Zappa’s delegation to the rubbish pile, is the "Twistin' The Night Away.” The current capabilities and loved the title piece. Each member of the Dylan number is once again from early Mothers too, play the whole group is given ample opportunity to the vintage Zimmerman catalog—it’s thing. If you hate Zappa and every really work out, and they do just “Mama You Been On My Mind,” time variation of the Mothers, pluck that, creating eight minutes of swirl and Stewart brings to it the same the album out of the bin and stomp ing and frenetic excitement. It’s gritty appreciation that he did to it into the linoleum of your favorite short-lived, however, as ELP slips “Tomorrow Is Such A Long Time.” record store. back into the morass via “Living But it is the fresh material that really Sin,” on which Lake does an Arthur sparkles. Stewart scores right at the Brown imitation. The trio finishes off outset with “True Blue,” an amiable the proceedings with "Abaddon’s Bo disclosure of just how down to earth Saint Dominic’s Preview—Van lero,” an innocuous bit of fluff cred a man can be. “Los Paraguayos” Morrison (Warner Bros.) ited to Emerson but owing to half a finds our hero making a getaway to Here’s Ireland’s greatest rock and dozen composers. And there you points South, happy to be free of a roll singer with a collection of seven have it: Trilogy. Save for one track, girl of “ridiculous age.” “Italian songs. Morrison has always had high it’s pretty much of a bore. Or, Girls” is in the same vein, if a dif regard for jazz and blues forms and to put it another way, Emerson Lake ferent locale. And so it goes—Rod has usually incorporated them into & Palmer have done it again! Stewart stamping himself onto every his records, but never more so than thing in sight like a raving subway on this LP. Still he maintains his scrawler and the band charging customary stance—that of a good right along with him. The record time songman—even while he lays surpasses its predecessor because we down some of the most caustic lyrics are now more familiar with its per of his career. The six-minute title petrator. Stewart is Stewart and he track must stand as one of the most has outlined the perimeters of his eloquent commentaries on just exact personality and sketched his ac ly what sort of life remains for one quaintances for us all before. Now who purveys musical supplies. Van he is simply taking us on another draws you effortlessly into a web of go-round, confident that we have misplaced cities and record company grown to like and accept him. And galas, punctuating the verses with for those of you who have, Never the sort of tag phrase which Dylan A Dull Moment is a pure and un worked to perfection in so many of varnished celebration. his early songs. Yes, Van, it is a long way to Belfast, no matter where you are—even if you’re in Belfast. This cut, and a protracted mystical masterpiece called “Listen To The '♦ compelling en- . ” featuring .... extended o— * jui ieu close on which he breathes the words members of that notorious congre deftly into one’s car, achieving vo gation do make their presences felt, cally the sort of effect which jazzmen Rod Stewart: A geyser of gravelly pleas particularly on side two, which is ures. often strive for instrumentally— 1 much more of a Mothers type side namely a total dependence on the Never A Dull Moment—Rod to begin with, as opposed to side listener’s part for the next phrase. Stewart (Cotillon) one on which can be detected many “Domino” lives again in the grooves In between touring with the Faces of the aforementioned jazz threads. of “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In ! and producing records for old If all this sounds confusing, what Heaven When You Smile).” This friends, Rod Stewart still finds time do you expect in a review of a Zappa and “I Will Be There” are as easy to do magnificent solo LP’s and record? Anyway, by this point in as falling off a log for Morrison, but Never A Dull Moment is only the your life, you’ve surely taken a stand that doesn’t make them any less grati latest. But it’s also something else— on Zappa, so let’s put it this way. fying. Still it is in the longer tracks, the follow-up to Every Picture Tells If you loved the early Mothers, try where everyone loosens up, that Mor ! A Story, a record which many critics “Your Mouth’’ and “It Just Might rison really shows his mettle. Chalk felt could not be topped. Well, Rod Be A One-Shot Deal.” They’re chock up another triumph for the Man has topped it, using pretty much the full of the aggressive satire which From Them. same ingredients (several original made the mid-Sixties so palatable for songs, a couple of oldies and a Dylan so many new-turned freaks. If you 20 CIRCUS Produced by Denny Cordell and Leon Russell On Shelter Records & Tapes by Howard Bloom and Hal Aigner Grace Hijacks The Jefferson Airplane ■j Jorma Kaukonen‘= . Pappa John Creach T?rom an old repair garage, its white sional machine. Jorma Kaukonen, she’s tired and wants to take a rest. IP walls heavy with the dust of dec looking imposing and powerful with She sits down in an overstuffed chair ades, polished hard rock makes itself the most striking brow in all rockdom in the corner and begins drinking beer barely heard over the considerable din and a massive rose tattoo on his left and smoking one cigarette after an of the busy San Francisco thorough bicep, stands close to Jack Casady other. Despite her exhaustion, she fare outside. In a spacious upstairs picking rhythmic notes that leap from looks better than ever—slim, rosy- loft, its floors covered with an enor the piles of speakers like chromium an cheeked and fresh as spring wildflow mous oriental rug, its periphery clut telope. A few feet away, Paul Kantner ers. Paul Kantner one of the Plane’s tered with aging office furniture, the and Grace Slick stand shoulder to two only remaining original members, Jefferson Airplane rehearses, putting shoulder thrusting out the eerie wail walks to the front of the room and in long hours of preparation for the that makes the Airplane’s sound one swings his leg over a chair. He’s been national tour with which they intended of the strangest in the rock world. touted as the group’s spokesman, nay, to promote their new album Long Anarchist marauder: Finally Grace, almost its leader—but when you ask John Silver (on Grunt Records). dressed in a suede vest whose lace-up him about Long John Silver, he has as For three-quarters of an hour they front gives a tantalizing glimpse of her little to say as the Sphinx. Every ques play like a well-oiled highly-profes- bare breasts, tells Paul quietly that tion you ask he parries with a ques- 22 CIRCUS Paul Kantner says that the hero of Long John Silver is the “anarchist outlaw,” and that the anarchist outlaw doesn’t exist. But Paul is wrong, Photos: Chuck Pulin dead wrong. Grace Slick: No heads have rolled, no thrones been erected, no palaces built, but Grace has taken over as the rebel queen of the Airplane’s lyrics. The Jefferson Airplane: The new album may look Innocent enough, but Its words are harsh as boiling sulphur. tion of his own. The most he’ll say Yet inside, the Jefferson Jet seemed much the same, but the words have about the album is that its hero is to soften its roar with touches of become as harsh as boiling sulphur. “the anarchist outlaw.” “He doesn’t sw.eetness. But whoever may have What’s turned the soaring Airplane really exist, I think,” says Paul . . . been lulled by Bark into thinking the into a strafing fighter? The answer is but Paul is wrong. Long John Silver's plane was growing soft with age was easy—Gracie has taken control of the anarchist outlaw does exist, and his wrong, dead wrong. The new LP, lyrical pilot seat. On Bark, she had name is Gracie Slick. Long John Silver, may look innocent her hand in less than a third of the Boiling sulphur: When Bark came enough, with its cigar box cover, its album's songs; on Long John Silver. out almost a year ago it began to look generous stash of simulated marijuana, she has penned the words to more than as if the Airplane’s cold, harsh sound and its picture of a gentleman se half. And when it comes to pungency, of outer-space echo and ruthless elec ducing his maid, but the songs inside Grace’s lyrics win the medal hands tric guitar had warmed up and come hit like a fragmentation bomb, lashing down. down to earth. True, the cover hit like out at the Pope, accusing Jesus of Seductive rebel: Grace Slick may a slap in the face—chilled by a photo promiscuity, and sarcastically order be the daughter of an investment bank of a dead fish with bared human teeth ing the listener to swallow some poison er, she may have been sent to society protruding grotesquely from its mouth. oak. The music may sound pretty schools like Castilleja, she may have CIRCUS 23 attended Finch college with President abandoned her enormous wooden cot It's little wonder that the LP laces into Nixon's daughter Tricia, and she may tage by the sea to move to a small some of the most amazingly sexual have put in time as a fashion model, mansion in the grimy heart of San lyrics since Bessie Smith begged for but she's every bit as outspokenly anar Francisco partly because she missed a little sugar in her bowl. (“I don’t chistic as Long John Silver himself, being surrounded by growling, snarl have to pay for your open mouth and/ the pirate captain hero of the LP’s ing automobiles. Having her own You don’t have to buy it—1’11 give title track. Porsche, Mercedes and Aston Martin you a free milk tongue bath.”) It’s Last year she blasted her way into wasn't enough! little wonder that they praise the free the papers by trying to take Abbie Have some poison oak: It’s little dom of men who are above the law. Hoffman and 600 micromilligrams of wonder, then, that the songs in Long And it’s little wonder that they knock acid to a tea party at the White House. John Silver lash out at anti-auto na authorities like Pope Paul. After all, “I was going to nail Tricia with it." ture addicts with words like the words arc the product of a five- she announced with glee. Six months foot-six-inch lady rebel who gained a later, when she and Paul put out the pocketful of headlines for having a Put a little starch in the old Corvette solo LP Sunfighter (on Grunt) Grace baby by a man she hadn’t married, Then give it a feel squirmed her way into a gory ditty then for trying to name the infant after Smooth-moving steel—give it a feel about eating human flesh. “It was easv God. Man-made mechanical mover—it'll to get into that song,” she admitted Ancient discontent: How do the move faster than with relish, “you know, oozing blood five men in the group feel about hav You can, vegetable lover. and so on.” She loves the savage mas ing the command of the organization’s culinity of machinery, and has just words taken over by a woman? Jack Paul Kantner Jack Casady i 24 CIRCUS MUSIC Casady, Jorma Kaukonen and Pappa John all seemed to welcome the brown haired songstress’ aid. “A lot of peo ple just wrote instrumentals and said, Mike Matthews Freedom Speakers ‘Here, Grace, put some lyrics on this,’ ” says Paul. There were no fights, no & uprisings, no outbursts of jealousy. There war once a shade of suspicion that Hot Tuna leader Kaukonen was Mike Matthews Freedom Cabinets growing more than a little restless with the shifts in the group’s power cen The same speakers found in the world famous Matthews Freedom Amps ter: but that was eighteen months ago, can now be purchased individually. The speakers are available in three when Bark was being written. Back models: Guitar, P.A., and Bass. All speakers are 8 ohms and matched, and then Jorma seemed to announce in his come in either the well known 10 inch size or the larger 12 and 15 inch song “Third Week In The Chelsea” models. that his soul had grown hungry to These finely engineered Freedom Speakers are the most powerful, efficient bail out of the Airplane: speakers developed to date. Whether you need 10, 12, or 15 inch speakers All my friends keep telling me that for your amplifier, columns, or extension cabinets, the Mike Matthews it would be a shame to break up Freedom Speaker will deliver the ultimate in raw power and fidelity. We such a grand success and tear apart a name are so sure of this that we are making these great speakers available on a TWO WEEK TRIAL BASIS. Try the speakers out for two weeks, and if for But all I know is what I feel when ever I’m not playing any reason you are not satisfied, return them and you will receive your And emptiness ain’t where it’s at and money back. neither's feeling pain Also available for the first time are the extension speaker cabinets used in On the surface it still appears as if the celebrated Matthews Freedom Amp. These rugged cabinets come Jorma’s pain is making him wince, or equipped with two external plug-in jacks and are available for 10, 12, and at least turning his manner peculiarly 15 inch speakers. For use with multiple cabinets, there is a convenient cool. As the group skates through its switching system for hooking up either series or parallel connections. new songs, trying to overcome the acoustics of a loft so big that they can’t As with the Mike Matthews Freedom Speakers, the Extension Cabinets may hear themselves sing, Paul holds up be purchased on a TWO WEEK MONEY BACK GUARANTEE. For your his hand, stops the pounding of the convenience, if you buy speaker and cabinet combinations, we will install rhythm, and complains that Jorma is the speakers at no charge. the only one who gets things right. But Jorma snaps back, “as long as it came (Also Available At Your Retail Music Store) off, don’t worry about it.” Yet sources close to the group swear that Jorma’s r“ 1 testiness is just a normal human mo i I ment of irritation, and that the “pain” i CI-1004 I he complained about a year and a i eiectro-harmoni* @ I i 15 West 26th Street, New York, N.Y. 10010 I half ago has been cured, soothed by i the potent anaesthetic of “functional PRICE QUANTITY I i Please ship: I anarchy.” i 10" Guitar Speaker $39.00 I The anarchy square dance: “Ideal i I ly,” says Paul, slinging his arm over i 12" Guitar Speaker 45.00 I the back of his chair while Grace lights i 15" Guitar Speaker 52.00 I another cigarette, “an anarchy is some i 10" Bass Speaker 42.00 1 i I thing where everybody does what he i 12" Bass Speaker 49.00 wants, gets along with everybody else.” I i 15" Bass Speaker 58.00 I And that may be the secret that holds i 10" P.A. Speaker 39.00 the group together. While Grace sud I i 12" P.A. Speaker 45.00 I denly commandeers the verbal steer i 52.00 I ing wheel on the group’s LP, Jorma is i 15" P.A. Speaker I planning to strike out on his own with i 10" Extension Cabinet 39.00 I an acoustical album, Papa John is put i 12" Extension Cabinet 42.00 I 4 ting the finishing touches on his second i 15" Extension Cabinet 50.00 I i I disc, and Slick and Kantner propose i I to head into a second round as a duo. i □ Enclosed is check for total amount $------I It still remains to be seen how long i □ Ship C.O.D. (U.S. only) Enclosed is 10% deposit. I the outlaw queen can successfully i Q Please place me on your new product announcement mailing list at I keep her lyrical throne and her fellow i no charge. I anarchist heroes can still carve out i I their own kingdoms, all within the i I belly of the Airplane’s mother hull. i NAME. I But at least one thing is certain. No i I i ADDRESS. I one can say that Grace Wing Slick i I is growing less ambitious now that i CITY. STATE. .ZIP I she’s sailed into her seventh year of _l stardom. • CIRCUS 25 ON THE HORIZON Mama Lion Opens Her Blouse /^immickry and rock have always late Sixties. The guitar solos are all too overtly on occasion, distracting the vJT gone hand in hand. “Hoak sells appropriately whining. The keyboard listener’s attention from the song it albums!” has long been the cry of work is hot and heavy. And the afore self and focusing it instead on the balding advertising executives, and is mentioned zestful, breastful, Ms. banal lyricism. In “Mr. Invitation,” still apparently tatooed in their minds. Carey, delivers her vocals in a semi- Ms. Carey croons (?) the musical Exile On Main Street, for example, orgasmic style that is attention get statement of the century: is sold with a set of fab Rolling Stones ting (to say the least). Yet, there is postcards suitable for saving, trading, something missing from the raw sound You don't want me or collecting with your friends. The lat of Mama Lion . . . originality. But you want to make me over est Alice Cooper release comes pack Tangled in its roots: Like many oooo dartin' I know you do. aged in a pair of girl's panties, giving new groups prowling the record jun rise to a host of new theories on the gle for the first time, Mama Lion gets Novel, eh? Happily, this particular aesthetics-of rock. Not to be outdone tangled in the underbrush of other tune is kept above zzz-level by Jim by the biggies, newcomer Mama Lion artists’ styles. Most of the band’s orig Howard’s superb piano intro, smack display on their debut disc (on the inal material, while not imitating a ing of classical influence. Family label) an earthy portrait of specific performer’s work, does fall How far can sex gb? Cheap-thrill voluptuous lead singer Lynn Carey into the “now where have I heard that fans may get a kick out of Lynn’s suckling a lion cub. And you thought before?” category. Bassist Merry butchering the lyrics of “Candy Man” being in a rock band was easy, right? weather, who arranged the album (as into a leering "Come on baby, let me The Big Brother formula: Un well as writing the bulk of it), has re take you by the . . .” but most music fortunately, the contents of Mama lied heavily on rock cliches to push lovers will probably save their saliva Lion’s first effort do not quite live up his ideas across. While double timing for a better occasion. to the rather large expectations pictur endings and accenting measures with In spite of all the stereotyped stress ed on the record jacket. The four-man sudden stops and drum rim-shots on sexism (via overly-torchy vocals), one-woman group is cast in the same work occasionally, in excess they be the band does manage to get off the mold as such “classic” rock bands as come rather a bother. ground frequently; and, mama, when Big Brother and the Holding Com Surprisingly enough, Merryweather they do there’s no stopping them. On pany and Ten Wheel Drive, wherein and crew fare much better with other their debut LP, Mama Lion prove the gutsy girl vocalist is pushed into people’s material than they do with themselves to be a cage full of spirited the limelight with the band working their own. Mama Lion's rip-roaring young people bursting with talent, feverishly behind her to give an ample treatments of “Ain’t Too Proud To drive and potential. What is lacking, and powerful backing. Sometimes this Beg,” “Candy Man,” (of Roy Orbison is musical direction. But, as is often formula works. Sometimes it does not. fame) and “Can’t Find My Way the case with embryonic bands, (check Or, as in the case of Mama Lion, Home” are quite up to par and will out early Humble Pie and Airplane sometimes it hovers in between. please most rock devotees. albums) that comes only with ex Mama Lion is hard rock with a Vocalist Lynn fares well with the perience. In the meantime, given the capital H. Composed of guitarist Rick varied material she is asked to wade fact that she has been saddled with Gaxiolla, drummer Coffi Hall, pianist through. Her voice is refreshingly the task of offering her breast to the Jim Howard and bassist Neil Merry throaty and strong, reminding one group’s mascot, vocalist Lynn should weather, the group does its best to cap (quite intentionally it seems) of the get down on her knees and thank the ture the-sound that launched so many late Janis Joplin at times. Sadly the heavens above that the band wasn’t raunch-rock groups to fame in the “boy, am I sexy” bit is flaunted a bit named Mama Rhino!!! Mama Lion: Mostly purr, but little roar as yet. by Ed Naha n the span of one short year, Look I ing Glass has gone from an un known group playing ultra-plastic booze parlors to an up-and-coming rock band with a hit single under their belt. “Brandy,” a Young Rascal- ish pop ballad about a shipwrecked sea romance, has catapulted the New Jersey quartet into the AM (and strangely enough, the FM) radio spot I light. Yet, despite the furor caused by their “dynamite-boss-hit-bound” sin gle, Looking Glass keeps away from the hubbub of the music business. Larry’s living room: Sitting in the living room of the group’s 82 acre Jersey farm, organist Larry Gonsky has time to reflect on the origin of the band and, more specifically, the story of “Brandy’s” rise to the Top Forty radio. “The whole ‘Brandy’ thing be gan in Washington, D.C.,” muses Lar ry. “One DJ gave us a chance. He liked the record enough to give it a shot, and other stations started picking up on it after that.” Audience response to the sea chanty single was quick in coming. “Whe. ever we play,” smiles Looking Glass’ Looking Glass: Hoping “Brandy” will boost keyboard ace, “people scream ‘Bran them out of glorified booze joints. dy.’ Van Morrison wanted to record the song after he heard it. Now that we’re doing pretty well with it, I doubt How Looking Gloss Hopped he’s still interested, but he was really impressed with it.” The road from college: The history From College To Pop of Looking Glass is a surprisingly made up of intelligent and tasteful dates and move their sound to a more short one. Meeting in Rutgers Uni musicians, does the possibility of be appreciative atmosphere. versity in New Brunswick, N. J. ing labeled a “commercial group” be “We’d like to do a lot more con (where they were students at the cause of their AM airplay irk the certs,” Larry states. “We played this time), lead guitarist and chief song group? No. according to Larry. one place last night in Detroit, and it writer Elliot Lurie, bassist Pieter Swe- “We are a commercial group in the turned out to be a glorified booze val, drummer Jeff Grob and organist sense that our music sells. Anything club. We’re up there playing and a Gonsky decided to get a group to that sells is commercial. The Beatles fight starts. You won’t believe this, gether. The year was 1969, the peak are commercial. The Stones are com but the bouncer threw the first punch. year of Woodstock Nationdom. mercial. Neil Young is commercial. Anyhow, we’re up there playing and “We started playing frat parties and And I dig them all. Actually, the before you know it, there’s a real dances,” Larry recalls. “Soon we were group hopes that people find our piss-riot going on. It was kind of a playing other schools and hip clubs. songs attractive. Our tunes are catchy bummer.” We knew that this wasn’t really where and, hopefully, done well.” “Somebody asked me later what I things were at, playing for hip greas Gonsky doesn’t feel that the group thought about Detroit. I said I thought ers and all. So, after we finished runs the risk of being categorized as it ranked with other great American school we decided that with that re a “Singles” group either. “Our music cities like Cleveland and Newark . . . sponsibility out of the way, we’d do goes in a lot of directions,” he ex whew!” something with our music. We moved plains. “It’s rock and roll to some Looking Glass has high hopes that out into the country and did a whole extent. Some of the stuff is straight “Brandy” and their multi-styled album rehearsal thing there. About a half rock. ‘Jenny-Lynne’ (a foot stomper will lift them out of the rock valley a year later we met our manager and first class) is, but it might be called of fatigue ... or battleground, as the we worked another seven or eight country by some folks because of the case may be. Larry sums it up. “At the months before we were signed by harmonies. ‘Brandy,’ on the other point we’re at now, things can get Epic.” hand, is sheer pop. It’s kind of New pretty boring when we’re on the road. The net result was Looking Glass, York City influenced, you know, like Like last night, somebody invited us an album chock full of tunes done in the Rascals were. ‘From Stanton Sta to a party. We all show up, and there a myriad of musical styles. Out of this tion’ (an infectious lament) is plain are two people besides the group. initial reflection of the group’s varied old country. No one label could really TWO PEOPLE! That’s a party? How talents arose “Brandy,” and the four apply to the group.” can we stand such excitement?” man band was off and running in the Booze clubs: With success looming Even if Looking Glass’ touring isn’t Top-Forty race for popularity. hopefully in the very near future, the earth-shattering . . . their album cer The singles risk: Since the band is boys hope to cut down on their club tainly is. by Ed Naha • CUQCUS 27 nee in a great while, a folk artist V7 comes along who is able to Don't Mess With Jim Croce touch your innermost thoughts with his or her music. In the Sixties min by Ed Naha strels like Tom Paxton, Eric Ander son and Tom Rush were around to “We had a good time,” Croce recalls. “Yeah, that’s EXACTLY how it create medicines of melancholy; and “We ate what the people ate, lived in feels!” What Croce has done on his lately, .Carol King and James Taylor the woods, and played our songs. Of album is take situations everyone has have done quite a bit of sensitivity course, they didn’t speak English over been through and set them to lilting sharing. Now, with guitar slung over there . . . but if you mean what you’re melodies; by no means as easy as it his shoulder, along comes Jim Croce. singing, people understand.” sounds. Utilizing a gentle, James Taylor-ish Returning to hometown Philadel Lump in the throat: Yet, somehow voice which somehow doesn’t fit his phia to pursue a “serious” music Jim always manages to hit the nail construction-worker frame, lanky Jim career, Jim discovered that the easy right on the emotional head. How Croce (on his debut ABC-Dunhill LP going sound of folk ballads was not in many times, for instance, have you You Don’t Mess Around with Jim) great demand and began a series of ever been tempted to call up an old concocts a collection of folk-oriented odd jobs which eventually led to a flame, but then decided not to at the ballads that are brilliantly moving. All hitch in the Army. Summing up his very last second? Who could sum up the tunes on the album are penned time with Uncle Sam, Jim shrugs, “If the situation better than Jim, who by Jim, and all of Jim's tunes are there’s ever a war where we have to sadly sings in “Operator (That’s Not about people. While some are tales of defend ourselves with mops, I’m pre The Way It Feels)”: happiness and others reflections of a pared.” Operator, could you help me place man on his own, all of the songs show Better than jackhammers: After this call the listener how Jim feels about the leaving the service and playing guitar Cause I can’t read the number way things arc and the way things in hundreds of breakneck booze halls that you just gave me could be in this of world. (“I can still get my guitar off faster There's something in my eyes- African start: Croce’s compositions than anybody else.”), Jim joined You know it happens every time are totally devoid of excess instru forces with former schoolmate Tom I think about the love that I thought mentation and metaphysical fluff. You my West, who, together with partner would save me . . . Don’t Mess Around With Jim presents Terry Cashman, helped Jim begin his Operator, let’s forget about this call a singer and his songs . . . plain and long climb toward album-dom. The There’s no one there 1 really simple. “I’m no missionary,” says Jim finished product, You Don’t Mess wanted to talk to about his straightforward approach to Around With Jim, is a milestone in folk music, “I just have to be the way Jim’s rocky career. (Or as he puts Or what about the feelings you get I am.” it, “It’s a heli of a lot easier than inside when you find a remembrance Jim’s rather impressively simplistic working jackhammers.”) of an old friend? In “Photographs and style of music first gained attention ■ The strong point of Croce’s music Memories” Jim warbles: when the budding singer was still in lies in its inherent honesty. When Jim college; in fact, it earned him a State sings about feeling lost in the big city, Photographs and memories Department sponsored tour of Africa. you want to chime in and agree, Christmas cards you sent to me Ar gent is a very modest band, they Argent Aims For Beotledom 1~\. don’t ask very much out of life. They only want to be bigger than the Beatles. “Of course it’s all a struggle,” Rod Argent admits realistically, “but I don’t mind that at all. See, it’s not • just done with pure achievement . . . if we’re going to be bigger than the Beatles, then we’ve got to have a few hit albums. But we’ve got to work all the way through first, developing mu sically and developing in the right di rections.” Argent are moving in a clear upward direction: they are mov ing towards the sky with their eyes focused on the stars. It’s not really out of the realm of possibility. Rod Argent used to be the keyboard man for The Zombies, and everyone knows that their very first record, “She’s Not There,” was a mil lion seller. “We went on to have ‘Tell Her No,’ a big hit in the States too, then the next number one we had was ‘Time Of The Season,’ but that was released in 1968 after the group had Argent: “Hold Your Head Up” has spun an ambitious ex-Zomby back into the broken up,” Rod remembers. 28 CIRCUS spotlight. HOMZON The Missing Savoy Brown: Foghat T?or a while, it looked like the JT blues-rock thing was getting out of hand. Sure, Butterfield, Mayall and Clapton had been doing it for years and doing it quite well. But before you could say “Muddy Waters,” Led Zeppelin was stealing arrangements from Chicago Blues Today albums, Mick and the Stones were sticking in bottleneck guitar wherever they could, and the Doors were busy butchering Willie Dixon’s “You Need Meat, Don’t Go No Further.” It was enough to turn a bluesman purple with rage. Why, even Cactus was trying to blooze it up. But mercifully, as suddenly as they had appeared, the new wave of blues-influenced bands disappeared under the waves of country funk. And it came to pass that bluegrass was IN Jim Croce: Perhaps the best sensitivity slinger since Carol King. and blues-rock was OUT . . . tempo A ll that I have are these rarily. _ sic should make people want to sit Out of Savoy’s past: Now, along To remember you . . . back and touch each other,” says Jim, Somehow it just can't be true comes Foghat, a collection of new smiling about his first solo album. That's all I've left of you familiar faces, offering a surprisingly “I just hope people get a kick out fresh approach to blues-rock, with the* Maybe it’s old fashioned. Maybe of it.” accent falling heavily on rock. Actu it’s overly romantic . . . but it’s one And when it comes to music, Jim ally, Foghat is as much a musical re hundred percent sincere. “I think mu- doesn’t mess around. • union as it is a blues revival. Three Climbing from the Zombies’ heavily influenced by American R&B pace. “I am the dance of ages/the grave: It took Argent a year after the musicians,” Rod explains, “for myself drummer and the wine,” the song Zombies split up before anything real I’ve never been conscious of it.” chants. “Keep On Rollin’ ” is a rocker ly fell into place. Rod went on the Chart invader: “Hold Your Head from the old school. Get up and road playing piano for Gene Pitney. Up” is the record that put Argent boogie with it, it will carry you along By the time the year had passed, Russ back on the pop charts in England. It and never let you down. Ballard (vocals, lead guitar), Robert was originally released as a taster for Power split: Onstage, there is a Henritt (drums), Jim Rodford (bass) the album All Together Now. They continued division of power in the and Rod had all found each other and had ideally wanted to release the al band. Rod sits over on the left behind had been in the studio working on bum before the band set out on a his organ, face half-hidden under his their first album. Called Argent major British concert tour. But as only shoulder-length dark brown hair. Russ (Epic), the album didn’t stray partic three songs were completed, they re Ballard stands over on the other side ularly far from the old Zombies leased a maxi-single to tide the fans of the stage bowed over his guitar, his sound. The most important thing that over. Now they expect to release eyes hidden behind sunglasses. The happened was that Three Dog Night “Tragedy” as the follow up single. light reflects off the darkened lenses as pulled the Russ Ballard song “Liar” Like “Hold Your Head Up,” it’s pul Russ rocks out with great flair. Rod off the album and made it a smash hit. sating, commercial rock and roll, sings in the captivating voice that is The group’s second album, Ring Of much the same way “Liar” had been his alone. The two are not vying for Hands (Epic), was less derivative; and so long ago. the spotlight, it just shifts back and now with the group’s third album All The album has several experiments forth between them, and the effect is Together Now (Epic) the band has too. “Pure Love” is a four-part epic breath-taking. finally come into it’s own completely by Rod Argent and ex-Zombie and At any rate, what can you say about unique sound. Different than the other producer Chris White. It is the first a band that puts everyone—then- two, the previously gentle Argent time that Rod has given himself a wives, roadies, managers^ publishers, sound has been replaced by some chance to run with the possibilities of and children—on the cover of their funky music with a bite to it. the organ. “I Am The Dance Of album? You could say that they must “I think it’s because Bob (Henritt) Ages” follows the heart-beat rhythms be very happy with each other. The and Russ (Ballard) have always been of man: it moves along at a hypnotic music shows it. by Janis Schacht HORIZON of the four band members were once Foghat needed to get rolling . . . rock two screeches out with “Highway highly respected cogs in the R&B ing and rolling, that is. (Killing Me)’’ before getting into the charged machinery of Savoy Brown, A storm of slide guitar: After a group’s hot and nasty handling of one of the first British groups to cash Stateside audition for Bearsville rec Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene." There in on the modern blues movement. ords, the group returned to the U.K. are very few rock bands around who When bassist Tony Stevens, drum to record their first LP for the Ameri can perform an oldie like this and not mer Roger Earl and guitarist “Lone can label. The finished product, en sound like a mob of twelve-year-old some” Dave Peverett decided about titled Foghat, is an outrageous assort cretins at a junior high mixer (or a year ago to sever their relations ment of R&B-flavored foot stompers worse yet, like Flash Cadillac and the with the hard-driving Brown group which starts off with a rousing rendi Continental Kids!). Foghat doesn’t and go out on their own, they knew it tion of Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want To just “play” Berry’s song, they arrange would be hard. But, after seeing their Make Love To You.” Beginning with it, adding new insights to the old while share of hit albums and world tours, a staccato bass-line, Foghat lays the retaining all the classic Berry riffs. the trio decided it was time to try for groundwork for a mountain of blues Switching from the sound of the something new. something different. rock . . . twin wah-wahs begin trading Frantic Fifties to that of the Seventies, For several months the boys wood- licks, the drums begin to churn and, the boisterous blues-rock band offers shedded, trading licks, collecting before you know it, a writhing Dixon “A Hole To Hide In," a standard songs, constructing lyrics. Although shuffle bursts forth from the four-man rocker which, while not outstanding, the results were encouraging, the ex band. is handled very tastefully. Finishing Savoys realized there was still a piece Before the listener has a chance to the album up with a low-keyed pow missing from their pop puzzle of recover, the quaking quartet lashes erhouse, “Gotta Get To Know You,” sound. out with four more jolting jams Foghat puts the icing on the musical The musical missing link was found (“Trouble Trouble,” "Leavin’ Again," cake they began to bake a year ago. in the personage of shaggy-haired Rod “Fool’s Hall of Fame," and “Sarah Foghat has done what they set out Price, an ambitious guitarist who Lee") that are guaranteed to leave to do. A little bit of blues, a hell of a could handle a glide the way most you caught up in a storm of slide lot of rock ... the band has created people handle a toothbrush. His clean, guitar. a sound that is fresh, funky, furious polished rock riffs were just the thing by Ed Naha Foghat: Savoy Brown’s Tony Stevens, Roger Earl and "Lonesome" Dave Pever- rett were restless to do something new. 'T'hey're beginning to refer to them- By Bob Chorush 1 selves as seven separate fools. And for Three Dog Night the em phasis, whether talking about the 'Seven group or the album, is on separate. Separate cards inside the album. Sep arate directions and interests outside Separate the group. And apart from concerts and recordings, separate lives. “We got so crazy,” said shaggy- Fools' - headed Jimmy Greenspoon recently, “that we were thinking of building a rest home for freaks. We were going Three Dog to commit ourselves and just call each other up every day and say ‘How are you doing? How are your crazies?’ ” Jimmy, Three Dog’s hard-working or Thumbs ganist, has chosen writing new mater ial for himself and for the group as his separate direction and escape from Its Nose the crazies. Seven Separate Fools (on ABC Records) features the first Greenspoon composition and solo, '4 At “Prelude to Morning.” Other of the i. i Dogs have gone and are going other ways in efforts to maintain their sani Oneness ties now that they’ve finished the “Tour of Tours,” the largest money The album title making rock and roll tour ever under taken. Seven Separate Shotgun shy: Powerfully-built drummer Floyd Sneed has developed Fools is more than feelings of paranoia after a man was apprehended in the Dog’s hotel ele just a catchy vator concealing a shotgun. “I check behind stage before every concert phrase, it’s now,” said Floyd. “At hotels, I check Three Dog Night’s exits and fire escapes. There’s a lot of crazy people out there who don’t way of whispering like me or found out that I went out with their daughter. It’s possible.” in the public’s Floyd is negotiating doing a television commercial for milk as his link with ear the fact that sanity. “Everybody needs it,” he says, not quite referring to sanity or milk. sticking together too Perhaps the most dramatically sep arate fool is tall, pensive lead singer much is driving them Cory Wells. Cory’s background is out of their bird. strangely typical of the three vocalists nJ o M ni n | MUSIC Danny Hutton: Ever since they started in Three Dog Night, none of whom having AM hits, the FM fans have slam was a Laura Nyro gem, and the new grew up with their natural fathers. med them. But Three Dog Night doesn't single, “Black and White,” was the In Cory’s case, his childhood was an think It deserves the punishment. product of a pair named Arkin and emotional tug-of-war between his Robinson. Cory and his six leather- mother and his stepfather which left fringed cohorts arc more than sensi Cory completely insecure about him tive about their right to lean on the self and about his musical career. “I talents of others. Cory maintains with thought about all the people that stubborn determination that what snickered at me and made fun of me Three Dog Night actually *does is to when I wanted to get into music.” expose new artists and earn money Cory told road manager Joel Cohen. for them. For instance, “Midnight ‘‘They laughed and said, ‘Who are you Runaway” from the new album was Cory Wells? Who do you think you written by a young kid who used to are? Nobody ever made it big from sweep up at the studio where the Buffalo.’ ” Because of this insecurity, Dogs record. “At one time,” said Cory has always taken bad press re Cory, “we sat down and decided that views personally, although when the we were going to write too. But then group started winning trade magazine we decided that we would be jiving polls and gold records hand over fist ourselves. Why push a lot of material he realized that Three Dog Night's on people just because we wrote it primary responsibility is not to the for our own egos? The main object critics but to the fans. is to record music that people enjoy. The AM hot seat: “We were very Outscoring Bing Crosby: “I can fortunate when we first began. We had only speak for myself. There are seven a hit record. Once you have a hit rec separate fools in this group and that's ord the magazines who liked us in what we’ve tried to portray on the the beginning abandoned us. Like you album. I’m more of a slow person. become alienated to them because now Apparently a lot of people still want Although I love show business, there’s you’re an AM group. It's unfortunate Three Dog Night more than they want another side to me.” You can see that they hold a policy like that. almost any other group in the world. Cory’s other side on his Buffalo- CSN&Y and Chicago were the sweet The harmony-laden septet racked up backed card enclosed with the album. hearts of the rock magazines at one $5,000,000 in concert sales during Cory is an avid sportsman and hunter time. As soon as they became popu 1971 alone. They were the first rock who claims to be more proud of a lar the magazines dumped them. Now band ever allowed to visit NASA’s recent letter congratulating him on an that’s very weird because every musi high security Houston space center; American Sportsman television show cian is in it to at least make a living. they were the only rock act in this than he is about the dozen gold rec And if no one wanted a hit record year’s Rose Bowl Parade; and they ords he has helped to earn. Cory is then what the hell are they in there were even honored by the mayor of the first long hair ever to appear on the making records for? To hear them Tampa, Florida with an official Three celebrity sports show, which is usually selves playing? The way I figure now Dog night. Not bad for a group that reserved for the likes of a Bing Crosby is that if people want us, we’re there many critics won’t even take the or a Phil Harris. Cory spends much and we’ll perform. The day the people trouble to sneeze on. of his free time away from the group say we don’t want them, then we’re Give the janitor a chance: Cory involved in outdoor sports which he out of business. It’s very simple.” began to learn that he was slowly feels probably reflects his personality Chuck Negron: They've just come off one growing immune to criticism when he more than the rock and roll money of the biggest money-making tours the went back to his home in a run-down making machine known as Three Dog world has ever seen. section of Buffalo, New York, and Night, Inc. revisited the people who had originally “If I was just in it for the money,” scorned his desire to be a musician. said Cory, “I would have quit long “1 waited so long until I could go back ago. We’ve had to sacrifice too much there and show them I had made it,” for Three Dog Night. I have to like he told Joel Cohen. “I waited for years what I'm doing for all the shit we and years to prove that point. Then go through. Money alone is not really I went back and saw those same peo worth it. You always leave a piece of ple—and it wasn’t worth it anymore. you or your brain somewhere because I had nothing in common with these of all the hassles and all the pressures. people that laughed at me. It wasn’t But it’s all worth it. This is very necessary to prove anything to them.” hokey, corny bullshit . . . but it’s all Yet Three Dog Night continues to worth it when I get onstage in front lake it on the chin from rock purists, of an audience and the audience ap not just because they have hit singles, preciates what I just did. Every enter but also because they’ve scrambled tainer feels that way no matter how he to the top by relying on songwriters hates to admit it, but that’s really the outside the group. Three Dog’s award whole thing.” winning single, “Joy To The World,” For Three Dog Night the whole was a Randy Newman spectacular, thing is change. Because of the up “One Is The Loneliest Number” came surge of individualism within the from Harry Nilsson, “An Old Fash group, Seven Separate Fools is a part ioned Love Song” sprang from the of the change. Neither the beginning pen of Paul Williams, “Eli’s Coming” of the change nor the end. Just-a part. e z" I ©VAT I CM ©EEPS CN TRPCEIN with the "Breadwinner Ovation's first solid body guitar is everything you would expect it to be. It’s the start of a whole new era in electric guitars . . . . . . We started by taking all of the best features that have been brought forth to date. Then, after listening to the needs of many pro fessional musicians, we con ceived the "Breadwinner." It has innovations that make it different from every other solid body ever built. First, we simplified the controls and then, improved the per formance by adding a small FET pre-amplifier to the cir cuitry. These features, com bined with Ovation's new Toro idal pick-ups give you a power ful clear sound, a full-bodied treble with maximum sustain and no hum or squeal. Take it to a gig and you'll be the "Breadwinner." v '■ - cMW * ‘ * After Alice sang his way through the gang fights of the earliest SCHOOL’S OUT show, he talked enthusiastically of a fall Broadway spectacle that would come off "like a combination of THE BOYFRIEND and A CLOCK WORK ORANGE.’’ The gang wars and garbage-can fights were Alice’s ultimate rebellion against the confinement of school. 36 CKCUS \ -• H, • : a, -.TJi . ■■•■•a zwrj. ■ ■ ■.-s • ■:.. A<'- ■ > i ¥ it - ’ j: y N > A ■ . W^ ' .' i AA^ -1' aju. 111 nL» > '^7'j ■ \ / .■ / <7* fS: mi ■ ■ X 1.1' ®sP|§j ’?'-;■ « ?■ >i # L‘t * I S ! fA ■ ’ w - I ■ / w’ "■ 1 V-' J '• ■' < >: m. yk '1 ■' '.'T ■ . k’v v\’ J 1 ikvl i CIRCUS POSTER #15 f . -i fX V’; I T ■ I ■ ■ ■ ‘*723 '■ j <;' ■ ■ ■ i- : ■ K- - VjwX i . 7 Ii T t began with the absurd sight of 1 infamous DJ Wolfman Jack in sultan’s pajamas swaying precariously on a camel s back in the center of the immense crater known as the Holly wood Bowl: and it ended with the sight of five skinny rock and rollers decked out in spangle-studded zoot suits slashing at each other with knives, dipping and twirling around each others’ blades, and finally drag ging the one named Alice to the gal I lows for a little old time lynching. In between, the aisles were filled with men in gorilla suits and Mickey Mouse costumes handing out report cards, and the air was flooded with 5.000 paper panties dropped from a cooperative helicopter. One irascible critic from the Los Angeles Times came determined to belch and yawn with boredom. But when he filed out with the rest of the crowd, he had to admit that the show 5 8 £ MUSIC had knocked him out with its prepos terousness. Little did he realize that the whole preposterous extravaganza was just a pallid preview of the spec tacles to come. Yes, Alice Cooper, the sultry mas ter of shock rock has got another grisly trick up his sleeve . . . and this time it’s a lot more than just a bleed ing baby doll and a set of gallows. Alice and the flashing fivesome are bound for Broadway with an October show guaranteed to outrage the Great White Way. There’s only one small problem. The show has not been put together yet. Oh, the raw ingredients are all there. Three enormous neon props are sitting in a plant on Long Island, wait ing for the truck ride to the bright city lights. One prop shows a cat jumping on a fence, another shows a coyote howling at the moon, and a hi third shows a schoolhouse bobbing back and forth with its tongue hang ing out and its bell absurdly ringing. The sizzling switch blade, gang war music of School’s Out and the air of political put on in the new single “You Will Be Elected” are both burst ing with the seeds of some satire-and- violence-riddled plot. And visions are. looming lustily in the minds of Alice, Mike Bruce—visions of a phalanx of musicians in tuxedos, a tap dance fan tasy with all the thirties glitter of The "Ladies gentlemen," one English Boy Friend, and a gorey battle with paper shouted, "you’ve seen him elec all the space-age sadism of A Clock L trocuted, you’ve seen him hung, and now work Orange. But until the last few the Warner Brothers prop department weeks, the demands of toting a trans supplied a gargantuan weapon that some times dribbled a test dummy halfway out sexual carnival across the face of two of its barrel, sometimes splattered it fero continents has kept Alice from pasting ciously against a distant wall, and some all the elements into a show that can times merely melted its own innards. truly send shudders down the spines The result? Alice was forced to go back to the gallows. Said one Alice spokesman of disapproving parents everywhere. when it was all over, "Do you know any one who wants to buy a cannon?" by Howard Bloom CIRCUS 39 ne stumbling block in the path o of lhe new show was Alice’s recent trip to England, where Cooper and his cronies made headlines for precipitating a minor barrage of nudi ty. There they were under the big tent in London’s Chessington Zoo, watching the fire caters, dancing horses and clowns entertain the party of 200 which had been invited to fete Alice’s invasion of the Queen’s king dom. Il was just an ordinary circus— i L ordinary, that is. till a curvaceous blonde look her cue from the ring r- di master and turned the whole celebra tion into what London's Evening News dubbed “a strip show riot.” Sheila pranced around the ring perplexing lhe astonished circus manager by peel ing off one layer of clothing after another. But that wasn’t quite enough. A tipsy young American damsel in lhe bleachers—struck by the urge to bathe her bare skin in- the open air— suddenly dashed from her seat into lhe ring and began unbuttoning her wraps, soon reducing her wardrobe to a pair of panties. A few seconds later lhe bare-skinned American lass was joined by a young man clad only in a shin who immediately begn to chase her across the sawdust. The audience was delighted. Many threw bottles and cans of beer, and a few sprang into the ring and tried to grab the girls. But sitting quietly in the bleachers nursing his Guiness stout, Alice ultimately had the last laugh. The blond stripper who had started it all wriggled free of the crowd, dashed up to Cooper’s seat, threw herself into his lap. and purred, “Keep this mob away from me!” Alice’s managers were delighted when the British truck hauling a twenty-foot billboard of Cooper and his favorite snake stalled twice, snarling London’s daytime Photos: LF1 traffic and startling the cream of her ma jesty’s newsmen. 40 CIIXIJ* MUSK ack at the Fillmore East, where B Alice and the gang arc trying to pull the new show together, only a few fake knives and a couple of police hats scattered casually about supply a clue to the spectacle to come. Alice and the band huddle on the bare stage trying to settle on the skeleton of the act. Matters are slightly com plicated by the fact that the group hasn't really decided what their first song would be; but they have it nar rowed down to something “that will really grab the audience.’’ Eventually Alice walks back to the fourth row of seats and sits attempting intently to judge the music while the band breaks into a jam. “I don't like.” he exclaims suddenly. Back to the drawing board. Michael Bruce sits down behind the keyboards and begins alternating between the piano and his guitar, which he is still holding in his lap. Alice gets a great idea. “Why don't you do a riff on your guitar and then do it on the organ?” “Because I'm not that good of a piano player,” Mike replies . . . and that kills the idea. After the 9:30 break for a beer, the seeds of a new plot begin to emerge. I Alice will be mugged by the other band members and hung on a huge meathook, then stuck up on a lamp post. A black cloth will be dropped in front of the body for a few seconds, and when it is torn down, the crowd will be greeted by a skeleton hanging in the exact same place where Alice dangled only a few moments before. But swinging murderous meathooks I turns out to be a bit too threatening to the health. By the end of the even ing. the idea has been tossed aside, and the new act is once again just a bewildered gleam in Alice Cooper’s eyes. What rhinestone flecked son of a horror flick will Alice finally fling on to one of the most dignified stages of the Big Apple? Only those who avoid the undertaker until this October will ever know for sure! by Jim Esposito Photos: Larry Singer CIMLI* 4i seems to feel a bit ambivalent about the man eating weed. On BIG BAMBU he has Ashley Roachclip call his local radio station to protest against an editorial which claimed that marijuana wipes out your memory. Prob The Weed lem is, Ashley keeps forgetting what he called about. That Put Cheech And Chong * % On Top A funny thing has happened to co- 1A medians on the way to the bank. It seems that somewhere between the gig and the payoff someone turned them on—in every sense of the word —to the fastest growing audience around. The counter-culture has come into its own: stoned-out funny-freaks. It had to happen sooner or later, especially if it’s true that you laugh most at the things you know best. Like, it’s been a long time since any of us have identified w«th Shecky Green’s mother-in-law problems. And late night talk-shows are only good for the average drinking-man's diet of put- down artists. It was only a matter of time before somebody realized thaT* there were a lot of people out there m - audience-land who just weren’t laugh ing anymore. The first stop: And that’s /when it happened! From the cocoo/jm comic sanctum of Jewish jokes yi the Catskills and boozer jokes id Las gas, there emerged a new stand-up comic. For George Ctfflin? the metamorphosis was comH the time that it takes to gro hair to twelve inches and tu fc *■ '■ • V. * of the v •• Ji * Firesign The y <• * are in bin a pan poll IJ kill, r- li.rrl II and flJn>ll2 Not all the fans are freaks. In England the cult of followers included Peter Sellers. by Leah Laiman team” wasted no time with the outer ater group, which subsequently dis ence understands our position, they’re trappings of the counter culture; they banded. But having started on the act ready to listen to what we have to say dug straight down to the marrow of ing trip, neither one of them was about about other things.” the hip funny bone—the subject of to give it up. So they decided to be Nixon is sick: While the team is the drug experience. On their first LP, come a team. willing to immerse itself in the cul Cheech &. Chong, one hero went out “We had a lot of trouble with our ture, they are staying away from poli to cop an ounce of weed only to dis name,” says Tommy. “We tried Tom tics. Crunching on celery, Cheech ex cover that his roommate was too ston my and Richard.” “Uh-uh,” says Rich, plains, “You can’t make fun of some ed to let him in again. The man with right on cue. “Too cute. How about thing that’s really sick that’s happening the weed, Dave, banged frantically on Marin and Chong?” “Nooooo. Too now. It’s too present. Maybe years the door, but merely aroused his bud heavy sounding.” “Well,” says Rich, from now you can look back and dy’s lethargic and uncomprehending “My family’s nickname for me is laugh, but right now it’s happening, Who is it? Cheech.” “Great,” shouts Tommy. so how can you joke about it.” “Nix It’s Dave, man . . . will you open up “Checch and Chong. Nobody will on’s not funny,” adds Chong. “That’s I got the stuff with me. ever be able to pronounce it. We’ll sick humor.” “It would be like mak Who? be a big hit.” ing fun of crippled kids,” ends Cheech, Dave, man . . . will you open up! And he was right, nobody could as he starts on a carrot. Dave? pronounce it and they were a big hit. Although they are very together, Yeah, Dave. Even after introductions like Gleck they actually work independently, pro Dave's not here. and Glong or Dccch and Jong, and gramming the acts in their respective In another skit, the two swallowed reporters who called Richard Marin heads. Earnestly wiping his beard, more pills than Dr. Kildare had hand Richard Checch, they still managed to Chong goes on. “It’s like music. The ed out in five years. The second al climb the charts as Checch and Chong. band will start off together, and some bum, Big Bambu (on A&M records), Branching out: Sitting in a fancy one will take a solo, play a few riffs plunged even deeper into the world restaurant on Fifth Avenue, and mak without knowing exactly what it’s go of dopedom. The cover was modeled ing nasty comments about the inor ing to be. Then the soloist’ll give a sign after a package of rolling papers. In ganic menu offerings, they look like a and they’ll all come in together. Same side were skits like “Let’s Make A Cheech and Chong. Both long-haired with us. We have our solos, our bits Dope Deal” or a rebuttal to the claim and droopily moustached, they play we do together, our greatest hits that that marijuana dulls the memory, de off each other, always listening for an we play toward the end of the show. livered by ultra-forgetful speaker Ash opening to a line, each ready to carry It’s all in the balance. A good joke has ley Roachclip. The result was a brand on where the other left off. Asked why to have the right timing and so does a of comedy that reeked of everyday they bill themselves as rock comics, good show. We structure our whole life in the chemical 70’s, comedy that Tommy replies, “We wanted a catchy show the way we would one joke. It’s had finally come to grips with the big phrase.” But Cheech continues, “We like foreplay, the act of love and the 1 gest preoccupation of almost every are to the rest of the comedy world climax.” body under 25. what Led Zeppelin is to Moody Blues.” Selling Peter Sellers: Cheech and The birth of Cheech and Chong: And Tommy adds, “We appeal to Chong have had some pretty good But unlike George Carlin, Cheech and the same people who listen to rock.” climaxes in their short past. They did 4 Chong didn’t just become hip, they “Right,” says Cheech, “I don’t imag a tour of England where they discover grew up that way. Tommy Chong ine us playing on a bill with Lawrence ed a growing cult of C and C freaks, (who is half Chinese and half Scot Welk.” which included the like of Peter Sel tish, which is already hipper than be There’s more to Cheech and Chong lers. Undoubtedly, the high point of ing middle-class WASP or Jewish) than meets the dilated eye. Between the tour was the Bickershaw festival, started out as a guitarist, writing Mo mouthfuls of mushroom omelet, Tom where they followed a full day of the town sounds for a group called Bobby my says, “We want to get into more Grateful Dead, playing to an audience I Taylor and the Vancouvers. Despite meaningful routines. There are so sitting in the pouring rain. Remember one Cheech-written hit and a jam ses many aspects of the culture we haven’t ing, Cheech smiles dreamily, “Have sion with Hendrix, the Vancouvers touched yet—like communal living, you ever heard the sound of 20,000 collapsed and Chong trotted off to and the holiness of hippiedom, spare people laughing? It’s incredible.” As Vancouver, Canada, to take command changers. But first we have to estab the waiter clears away the dishes, of his parents’ topless nightclub and lish ourselves. We have to let people Tommy Chong feels he has to clarify run an experimental theater group. know where our heads are at. The a point. “We’re not Rock Stars. With Enter Richard Marin, child of El dope thing was convenient to start us Rock Stars there is a mystique. Our Barrio, fresh from an English degree off because it’s easiest to relate to. honesty is our act.” and a draft-dodge. He joined the the Everybody does dope. Once the audi “. . . We allow ourselves to grow in front of the audience and grow with them. They’ve watched us change, and they’ve changed themselves. . . .” “Yes,” sums up Cheech or is it Chong, “There’s not much mystique to getting down on your knees and acting like a dog.” Well, maybe there’s not much mys tique to rock comedy, but there’s a hell of a lot of something to the sound of 20,000 people laughing. Maybe it’s the fact that a few million dope smok ers are finally having their funny bones tickled . . . with a double-barreled roach holder. • - In a world filled with GTX’s, ATV’s and SST’s, we still make the Old Standby, Marine Band, Blues Harp and Chromonica. Why fool around with names? Marine Band, Blues Harp or Chromonica, it's the We've been making Hohner harmonicas best sounding, easiest playing harmonica you lor over a century. Some models have remained can own. unchanged for decades. And when you come right down to it, We still concentrate on building the best there's only one name that really says it all. harmonicas instead of fancy names. Hohner. That's why it takes over 50 individual hand operations to assemble a Marine Band. That's why we only use the finest brass for our reeds. So whether it's called an Old Standby, HOHNER® KEYBOARDS • GUITARS • AMPS • DRUMS WE ALSO MAKE HARMONICAS. by Howard Bloom The Phlorescent Leech and Eddy: The Saga of the Great Zappa Escape. Mark Volinan and Howard Kaylan may have pulled off the biggest act of band-member snatching in the history of rock Preston, used them to make a Zappa- Mothers,” he admits frankly. “We less LP called The Phlorescent Leech wanted to do the Mothers thing, but 'I when they snuck off with and Eddie (on Warner Bros. Rec we always had this thing in our head ords), then signed up the ex-Mothers that, you know, we wanted to do it I half the stalwarts of in an independent group of their own. ourselves.*’ It was probably the greatest act of Stifling a hiccup from a stomach Frank Zappa’s Mothers group-member snatching in the entire that’s sending up distress signals for history of rock; but why did it all breakfast, Mark explains that the and formed the happen? Why did they sneak out of Phlorescent partners’ itch to ‘‘do it Frank’s grasp and cart off half of themselves” actually started way back Phlorescent Frank’s crew while they were at it? in ’69 and ’70, when he and Howard The whole truth: It is 11:30 in the were still the core of the Turtles, the Leech and Eddy. morning in West Alice, near Milwau group that made “Happy Together” TTight months ago when Mothers kee, on a hazy, lazy day when Mark and nearly a dozen other harmony- I1 > Mark Volman and Howard Kay Volman tells the tale during a break loaded super-hits. lan stood alone and ignored in the :n the Phlorescent Leech’s first tour. Meeting Zappa: “Howard and I corner of a wood-beamed, bare-brick- He is still asleep in his hotel room were doing all this writing. We had all walled, tastefully decorated living across the street from Bob’s Big Boy these tunes. They were all being chop room where party-goers like comic hamburger stand when you wake him ped up by the record company. They actor Terry Thomas were celebrating from a sound sleep. Slowly conscious were all being changed to fit what the emergence of Frank Zappa’s film ness comes to him as he lays between everybody believed to be the Turtles. 200 Motels, the normally cheerful the sheets realizing that the day of And Howard and I one day said, “Lis pair seemed ever-so-slightly bitter. judgement has come . . . and he must ten, man. this is just a load of shit. “It’s Frank's film and Frank’s music spill the beans on The Great Zappa Here we are being kept down by an and Frank’s party and Frank’s Moth Escape plan. The engine of his brain image that we don’t believe in any ers,” complained Kaylan in a sar begins to turn over painfully—chunka, more. So we broke up the band. Two castic tone. “Yeah,” piped in Volman, chunka, chunka—but as he warms to weeks later, we went to a concert at as he leaned against a piano, “Frank the story, it works up to a racing pitch. the Poli Pavilion with the Mothers thinks he’s got us in his movie. Well, He rolls his large, round self from one and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and he’s got a surprise coming. We’ve got elbow to the other. The eyes in his we sat in the back. We reeeeally got him in ours.” innocent-as-a-baby face narrow with off on the show, and afterwards we Last month the mysterious musical naive conviction and a desire to let went backstage to see all the guys. It scheme that Volman was subtly hint you understand, to bring you in on sounds silly to say this, but we really ing at finally tumbled out of the bag. the whole thing. “The main thing all always thought that some day we’d He and Kaylan had pirated Mothers the way along, even from the onset be Mothers.” Aynsley Dunbar, Jim Pons and Don of joining Frank, was not to be in the In less time than it takes to sing 46 MUSIC Frank Zappa and the Phlorescent Leech fought a minor skir crazy. It's not funny. It’s not loaded mish over Aynsley, and Frank lost. with weird images. It’s emotion rock, aimed at the tear ducts and a lump in the throat—a creamy return to the sweet harmonies of groups like the Association and, you guessed it, the Turtles. “I want people to know that we have feelings,” protests Vol man, “I want people to know that I’m not just the fat guy with the glasses, the funny guy. These songs are all things that we’ve really suffered. They are an extension of love. Like there’s one song called Thoughts Have Turned’ which is one of the first songs we ever wrote. It evolved when I left my wife because I fell in love with this chick who was really beautiful. And she’d really learned to give her self to everybody, you see. I had this idea that if she knew I loved her, it might ruin it. So here I was, really paranoid about her knowing ’that I loved her, and yet I wondered whether if she gave me the opportunity to make love to her I would be able to let her live this life of freedom that she has now. Ultimately,” Mark goes on with a tone of resignation, “I just wrote the song and went back to my wife. I never even slept with the girl.” Suddenly when Mark explains it, the formerly murky, almost senti mental lyrics take on a fresh dimen sion: “Eddie, Are You Kidding,” Howard was getting too much of his girl and Mark had been snapped up and friend’s attention, strode onstage and Walking with her in the garden anointed as genuine Zappa employees. knocked Frank into the orchestra pit She seems closer than a friend At first getting up onstage without the twelve feet below. Zappa was in a If she ever finds I love her pop star image and the string of hits state of shock for three days with a Will this seeming friendship end? was a welcome change, a deliriously broken leg and a fractured ankle, * ♦ ♦ exuberant taste of freedom. Mark then was forced to lay off his musical Teasing, pleasing, such a free one could step into the spotlight in a T activities for nearly another five Always leaving open ends shirt, munch some nuts, toss a few months. “We didn’t want to sit around If she ever made it my turn into the crowd, then strip to the waist and wait,’’ says Mark. “We had al Could I give her to my friends. after his first few hundred notes. How ways said we wanted Aynsley (a “Thoughts Have Turned'* ard could get his humorous rocks off Mcther) to play the drums if we ever singing about the super-hero who cut an album, and we wanted Don The payoff: There’s no denying that poured maple syrup between his legs, (another Mother) to do the piano Volman is finally getting a chance to waited for the flies to come, then took and Pons (yet a third Mother) to freely bare his soul in his music. But off like a rocket on insect power. But play the bass. When Frank went into has it been worthwhile leaving the by the time a year was up, Volman this pit, it was time.” Mothers and the comic scripts that and Kaylan began to realize that Mark glides diplomatically around took Frank, Mark and Howard to the they’d been caught in a trap as in the question of how Zappa felt about giddiest heights of fantasy? Was it sidious as the Turtles’ old cage of having half his Mothers yanked out worth going out as an opening act to i hits. from under him; but it’s obvious there Alice Cooper and the Doors? Was it were moments of conflict. One of those worth facing audiences who kept Growing discontent: Mark rolls moments came when Howard and shouting over and over again, onto his left elbow and nearly knocks Mark offered to take Aynsley Dunbar “Where’s Zappa?” “The other night,” ! his glasses off the table as he explains, on the road. Frank countered with an recalls Mark with a gush of exhuber- I “Every night you’d have to go up and toffer of his own . . . and lost. So ant enthusiasm, “we played in front create this slovenly kind of image that Aynsley stepped out of the belly of the of 80.000 people for the first time. the Mothers had. But that wasn’t Mothers and into the gullet of The It was only our sixth or seventh con really us, that was what Frank was Phlorescent Leech and Eddie. cert, after the clubs and the rehearsals making us do. Even in the last year and everything, and at the end the au we were just dying to create our own dience was on their seats screaming album, but we knew that if we did Emotion rock: The LP Mark and and clapping and calling for encores. it through Frank, it would never come Howard created on their own (The All of a sudden, we weren’t creating out serious.” Then came the chance to Phlorescent Leech and Eddie) is an an image that wasn’t us, and they‘d‘ill escape. At a London concert a burly act of total rebellion against Frank’s accepted us. Man, we just walkeo vff fan, jealous that the skinny guitarist brand of musical insanity. It’s not the stage hugging each other.” • I CIRCUS 47 7 A • a. hese are the twenty hotLP’s that the CIRCUSwax Poll shows predictions are winning the race for rock popularity this month. The hype, the over-promotion, the publicity don’t mean a thing on this exclusive CIRCUS chart. It is compiled directly from letters sent by more than 4,000 serious rock listeners living in every corner of the U.S. and Canada. (A star shows that an LP is shooting rapidly toward the top of the chart.) 1 School’s Out—Alice Cooper 11 Never A Dull Moment—Rod Stewart^ 2 Exile On Main Street—Rolling Stones 12 Flash—Flash 3 Honky Chateau—Elton John 4 Thick As A Brick—Jethro Tull 13 Eat A Peach—Allman Brothers ★ 5 Trilogy—Emerson, Lake & Palmer 14 Carney—Leon Russell 6 Chicago V—Chicago 15 Free At Last—Free $ 7 Some Time In New York City—John 16 Eagles—Eagles < &Yoko s 8 Demons And Wizards—Uriah Heep 17 Big Bambu—Cheech and Chong $ 9 Machine Head—Deep Purple 18 Son Of Schmillson—Harry Nillson 10 The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars—David 19 Sail Away—Randy Newman K Bowie 20 Obscured By Clouds—Pink Floyd K A selection of the most-played LP’s 2 Ramatam—Ramatam 11 Toulouse Street—Doobie Brothers $ as monitored off the air by CIRCUS lis 3 Like A Seed—Kenny Rankin 12 Live At The Paramount—Guess IK tening posts. The top FM rock stations 4 White Witch—White Witch Who $ this month include: 5 Mid Mountain Ranch—Banana and 13 Never A Dull Moment—Rod Stewart » K WNEW FM New York City the Bunch 14 Superfly—Curtis Mayfield KSAN FM San Francisco 6 Argus—Wishbone Ash 15 Trilogy—Emerson, Lake & Palmer KMET FM Los Angeles 7 Rory Gallagher Live—Rory 16 Ambush—Marc Benno WNCR FM Cleveland Gallagher 17 Carney—Leon Russell CHUM FM Toronto 8 The Slider—T. Rex 18 A Song or Two—Cashman & West WKTK FM Baltimore 9 Summer Breeze—Seals and Crofts 19 Radio Dinner—National Lampoon 1 Long John Silver—Jefferson Air 10 Peace Will Come—Tom Paxton 20 Saint Dominic’s Preview—Van plane Morrison $ To make sure that your favorite albums make it on the CIRCUS Top Twenty, fill out the ballot below with the names of three NEW records, then send it to CIRCUS Top Twenty, 866 United Nations Plaza, New York, N. Y. 10017. i % 2. 3 Your name Age Address BETTER THAN A RESERVED SEAT AT JAGGER’S BREAKFAST TABLE ...Peter Townshend lounged in a newsstand ten minutes after the swanky restaurant and rapped to last copy of Circus disappeared. us about how synthesizers and mov You could have been in bed sick ie cameras could put the adrenaline with no one to run out and pick up back in rock. Circus for you. You could have been ... Ringo settled himself by a swim standing by the magazine rack with ming pool in Spain to tell us about out a penny in your pocket while the days when Paul was hounding the last Circus walked away with him with a lawsuit. someone else. You could have been off in the woods or up in the mountains or just plain all-day spaced while that newsstand man blew his last copies. Man, how high and dry you could have been. BUT if you’d been clever, you could have had it easy, safe, sure and secure. With that man who's never stopped by rain or sleet or slush or snow slipping a fresh and I shiny Circus through that slot in CT^Bcore Sheet ■TTrilogy' your door every month. Pink FldJI Kicks a 4 Two-Year Slump ROCK N ROLL INTRODUCTORY OFFER {“Mail to: i c-io i ..Alvin Lee fiddled with his clogs i I CIRCUS MAGAZINE i in a record company office and ask I P.O. Box 4552, Grand Central Station> i ed us to point out that “I’m Going [ New York, N.Y. 10017 i Home” is not where Ten Years After i } Enclosed is $...... i is at. • i I Please rush my subscription. i ...Dr. John The Night Tripper sat I n$6 —1 year □$10-2 years i down to a telephone in L A. and told i us how he got Mick Jagger and Eric j Name . Age . . i Clapton to play on his latest album. I Address i J City ... i i And you could have missed it all. I State . . . Zip i You could have gotten to the i______ourby Janis Schacht back pages * Manassas ❖ Gallops Through S: ❖ Monster Tour * ❖ ❖ I Ahere,s a new band called Rama- 1 lam that started playing around the ❖ U.S. this summer; and though there is a chance you might not have heard of them yet, they are a super-group of sorts. The group includes Mike Pinera, V lead singer and guitarist from the Blues Image, Mitch Mitchell, who will 5: still be the major draw as all of his fans from the old Hendrix Experience get out to cheer him on, April Law ❖ ton, one of the first girls to play lead guitar, Brooklyn Bridge member In Tommy Sullivan on keyboards and David Bowie: Sonny & Cher fans are t reeds and Carlos Garcia on bass. for a shock. Atlantic Records, who have issued f the Ramatam album, plan to do every Bowie Booked thing they can for this act ... so when Humble Pie or Emerson, Lake ❖ and Palmer hit your neighborhood For The Tube take a look and see if Mitch Mitchell is on the bill. David Bowie will be playing New ❖ MANASSAS York at last this month. He’s been Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young may booked foi' Carnegie Hall. Bowie will t have made themselves scarce when it be playing concert dates in key cities came to personal appearances, but all around the country, but for those I Stephen Stills has other ideas now fans who won’t get to see him in that he’s fronting Manassas. Back in person this time he is slated to make July they did one huge tour; in Au Sonny and Cher’s Comedy Hour and X gust they went out on another one; Flip Wilson. There are going to be and now the boys—Steve, Chris Hill a great many shocked viewers the day X man, Dallas Taylor, Paul Harris, Fuz Bowie hits the tube. X zy Samuels, Al Perkins and Joe Lala Carly Simon has dropped Paul Sam- X —are off to Europe and Scandinavia well-Smith as her producer, a possibly to see what kind of interest they can foolish move after the beautiful job x Stephen Stills: Not afraid to show himself stir up. If you still want to see them he did on her Anticipation (Elektra) Xl In public. and haven’t yet had the chance, they album. Her new producer will be the X < will be back at the end of October man who does all of Nei] Diamond’s touring college campuses in the Mid sessions. Perhaps this means she is X west and South. Whoever said mil now seriously looking at the very top X lionaires don’t work hard too ? of the charts. Carly, by the way, has just re1t i turned from a holiday in Hawaii with * I a musical friend of hers, James Tay I lor. x *♦*♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ *♦**♦**♦**♦* 50CWMXS Another Hound Hits Grand Funk's Trail Ask the average man-around-the- away from home, just a realtor who music-world who Willaid Kehoe is, decided that it was worth seeing if and his face will wrinkle up in total the Fillmore is still the place to “get perplexity. But Kehoe is busy ban it on.” ishing that “who’s he” look by indulg Morgenstern feels that nostalgia ing in a great new game all the alone will set New York’s rock devo nation is buzzing about—the super- tees back on the road to the East star lawsuit. It seems Mr. Kehoe Village. But the East Village is a far managed Grand Funk Railroad once worse place to visit than it ever was upon a time, or so he says, in Bay before . . . and it was never very good. City, Michigan. Now, after all this So the Fillmore, with a new name time he is suing the band for breach and a good scrubbing, will be back in of contract. Terry Knight—who’s business this month. Who knows what gone out on a limb to chase Don, will happen there. Mark and Mel with his own 55-mil- There’s a new band to watch for lion-dollar pack of legal complaints— called Bulldog; and the wonder of the should feel better hearing about this; year is that with a name like that after all. misery does love company. they have absolutely nothing to do Meanwhile, the throbbing three with Kim Fowley. The band is actu some have slipped out of the litiga ally made up of ex-Rascals, Dino tory hammerlock Knight swore he had Dinelli and Gene Cornish. This means them in (Terry once implied that he that the Rascals have officially had the boys wrapped in so many broken up. legal knots they’d never be able to SLY record again). Their first single with Sly and The Family Stone are the out their old producer-manager came only band around that get busted as out late in August, and their first often and with as much publicity as LP under the new regime, along with The Rolling Stones. This time Sly their first tour, were due this month. was arrested by the California police It seems that what Knight hath built, when they entered his house trailer no man can tear asunder—not even and found what they chose to list as Terry Knight himself. a stash of “dangerous drugs.” No one What will... ill 1happen______now______that1______a busi: has said exactly what “dangerous nessman named Frank N. Morgen drugs” were found, but the two stern has bought the Fillmore East? pounds of marijuana and the rest Grand Funk Railroad: Back on the road No longer will Bill Graham be around were enough to get Sly and five other with a pack of lawsuits in hot pursuit. to make the place feel like a home people arrested on the spot. There was a time when you could later in New York before a rather be sure at least Jerry Garcia would surprised audience Garcia, Kreutz- turn up at New Riders concerts, but man and Weir returned the compli New Tonsils now it seems that The Dead have ment. bestowed their favor on the Allman The Dead were always a band to Brothers as well. In Hartford, Con practice stargazing with. At yet an Join Beck's Bond necticut, recently when the Grateful other concert along the Dead’s sum Jeff Beck’s new band is already un Dead were scheduled to play the All- mer touring trail Bob Dylan dropped dergoing changes. The first trans mans came out to stomp the stage in. After the concert he was seen formation is a brand new lead singer with them. Then only a few days talking with Jerry Garcia. named Kim Milford. Kim is coming to Beck after playing Judas in the touring company of Jesus Christ The Dead Link Elbows With The Allmans Superstar. Beck, by the way, is on this way to finish a new LP. This Greg Allman: Tickling the Ivories while time he’s recorded at Hendrix’s Elec Garcia flicks the strings. tric Lady in New York. One illustri ous name at the sessions was none other than Stevie Wonder, who took a weekend away from the Stones tour to go into the studio with Jeff and play while bad boy Beck recorded one of Wonder’s tunes, “Suspicion,” for his next album. There’s a chance that this will be the next single Jeff Beck puts out . . . only the version of the same song track that Stevie’s cut for his next album is so good that he’s tempted to put it out himself. CIRCUS 51 Crimson's london by Kenneth Howards Not Caput! Any King Crimson lovers who may have donned dark suits of mourning to commemorate the group’s disap & Bowie Tops Bolan? pearance from the face of the earth can cast off their black outfits and he new word is “Glam-rock.” It rather amusing because it was just rejoice. Robert Fripp, perennial Crim started with Rod Stewart (whose about a year ago that Marc comment son center pin, has gathered a fresh $ new LP Never a Dull Moment is be ed, “David Bowie had his chance at set of disciples and lifted his old ing touted as best album of the year) stardom and blew it.” It looks like group back into the land of the living. . . . then it moved to Marc Bolan, and Bowie has more durability than Mr. Fripp, wearing so many crosses now (though Marc is still Britain’s Bolan gave him credit for. David has around his neck that only a miracle biggest seller) the new contender already recorded his new single, called kept him from toppling over on his for most talked-about/most-written- “John (I’m Only Dancing),” but that face, announced with glee that he about English superstar monster is won’t be released until the current had nipped Yes’ extraordinarly inno David Bowie. David is causing as “Starman” and Ziggy Stardust are vative drummer Bill Bruford, and much frenzy as Marc now, which is faded memories, which may be never. Family’s bassist Jnhn Whetton, com <8 bined them with percussionist Jamie Muir and violinist David Cross (billed 52CJKCIS C$9C^C^C^C^C^C^C^C$9C$3C$> There’s been a lot of talk around London town about what The Hollies Plugging A Hole are going to do when they go on a tour of the States in October. “Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)” and In The Hollies the album it was pulled from—Dis tant Light— didn’t do anything here, but they were both huge chart suc cesses in America. Now, the group will have to go on the road and play these songs without ex-lead singer Allan “The Voice” Clarke, the man whose throat made the songs what they were. Load guitarist Tony Hicks reveals that the new policy is really very simple; he and rhythm guitarist Terry Sylvester will sing the old established Hollies hits onstage, and new Hollie Mikael Rickfors (who’s still having trouble with his English) will sing the new material from the next album Touch and the band’s hit song “He Ain’t Heavy—He’s My Brother.” But Terry Sylvester will be saddled with the heaviest burden of all—singing “Long Cool Woman.” Terry was hired to imitate Graham Nash's high har monies. Now he’ll have to do Allan Clarke imitations too. In the mean time, Allan is getting ready to go out on the road with his new band The Hollies: How do you go on the road when the man who sang your biggest hit so that he can properly plug his new is gone? album My Real Name Is Harold. Joe Cocker: Even a single is better than nothing. First Shower The Move Stops Dead After A The Move are the Move are The Move? Well now there’s a new varia Cocker Famine tion on that old theme, and it’s not Is it a mirage? Is there really a the group’s ’-ecent Electric Light Or- I new single by Joe Cocker? Indeed, ches ... • The new I the 45 does seem to exist. Called “Woman to Woman,” it was recorded in America during Joe’s last tour. cellos , . ■ ’ • - bass. Move stalwart Jeff Lynne is going Written by Joe and Chris Stainton, to be continuing with Electric Light it was released in the UK on a Orchestra without Wood, and plans strange label called Cube Records and produced by those old standbys Nigel an Autumn tour of America. Thomas and Denny Cordell. (The flip There’s a chance that a few of you remember a remarkable album from side, “Rider,” was written by none 1969 called Give Me Take You (Im othei' than Duane Allman! The nicest thing about the song is mediate), produced by ex-Stones/ Humble Pie producer Andrew Loog that it sounds different. The famous Cocker croak is brought right out Oldham and brilliantly executed by a front, where it struts mightily over young Britisher named Duncan the sounds of three girl singers call Browne. Well, Duncan has a new ing themselves The Sanctified Sisters single out for the first time in all and a rhythm section featuring Jim those years. The new single is on the Keltner on drums and Felix Falcon RAK label, and was produced by on congas. A funky R&B song. It’s chart-whiz Mickey Most, the man nice to have a new contribution after who produced all those hit singles two years that must have felt like for the Animals and Herman’s Her two decades to Cocker fans around The Move: This time, it’s really the end. mits. The name of the new mini-disk? the globe. “In A Mist.” CIRCUS 53 1 Mick's Next Immoral Flick t ; 7\ west coast by Jacoba Atlas Crosby Hops Back To The Byrds n’ 1 he original Byrds — including David Crosby, Chris Hillman, Gene ftpf Clark and Roger McGuinn—will be back together this fall under the aus pices of Asylum Records. The master mind behind the project is David Gef- fen, who also arranged the temporary release of McGuinn from Columbia records (for this one album only). According to a spokesman for the Joey Heatherton: Can she say no to , label, the album will be recorded this I Jagger? fall during a hiatus in the Manassas tour, to which Hillman is committed. Sandford Leiberson, who produced Performance (the Mick Jagger/James • The final product should be ready and '' 5* released by the end of this year. In > z, Fox film), is now putting together the the meantime, Crosby will hop over movie version of the controversial ' to the Columbia label to cut a new play The Beard. When The Beard was LP with McGuinn and without the originally produced in Los Angelos, it k Byrds. was closed down every night by the David Freiberg, who was once with police force, who charged that the Quicksilver Messenger Service, has play was flagrantly pornographic. I helped Mickey Hart (of the Grateful The plot revolves around a two char Dead) produce a solo album and is acter situation in which none other k now planning to go out on the road than Billy the Kid meets Jean Har L F with the Jefferson Airplane. Hart’s low. The play ends with a sexual act album draws on the services of a rare which in some quarters is not only | constellation of heavies—members of considered illegal, but immoral. Leib the Dead, Quicksilver and Santana, erson wants Performance director ► plus the effervescent efforts of Gracie David Crosby: Back with Roger McGuinn Donald Cammel to direct the film and ► Slick. . . . temporarily. Mick Jagger to play Billy the Kid. On tour with the Rolling Stones black man (Carl Anderson) as Jucias Mick and Leiberson want Joey Heath l was Truman Capote, author of such in the film version of Jesus Christ erton to play Jean Harlow; but Ms. memorable literary monuments as Superstar. However Jewison defended Heatherton says she does not want In Cold Blood, who followed the his choice (Anderson has played the the part if the ending is not altered. ► Stones like a journalistic neophyte on role in both the Broadway and L.A. We’ll see how much power of persua his first big story. Not to be outdone productions) and said he cast the sion a heavy Stone can bring to bear. ( by the Rolling Rockers, he brought roles in Superstar without regard to Dave Mason performed at the Santa along a friend who vied with Mick racial considerations. Jewison is also Monica Civic Auditorium to a sold-out for jet-set glamor—none other than under a bit of difficulty with the house and a delighted audience. Ma the Princess Lee Radziwcll, sister to casting of Ted Neely in the title role. son, who has had more than his share Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Neely has the lead in the L.A. stage of label difficulties, and finally wife of an English financier who once production; and although some re straightened them out by switching belonged to the now defunct Polish viewers have been kind, all agree that from Blue Thumb Records to Colum royal family. Capote, who joined the he lacks the necessary charisma to bia, was in excellent form, backed up tour in the South, described Mick as have (which helps onstage) is a by Mark Jordon on organ, Lonny “androgenous,” meaning that he is have (which helps on stage) is a Turner on bass, Richie Jaeger on at once both masculine and feminine. good, strong singing voice. But he drums, Rocky Dezaveau on congas I and a group of singers called Pebble Capote also declared that he’s fol lacks stature in appearance. You can Sisters. lowed rock music quite a bit over the dub in a voice in a movie, but dubbing Kris Kristofferson is back in the last few years, and believes the Roll in stature is a little more difficult. studios in Nashville producing his ing Stones to be the best there is. Awarded a gold album: Simon and next album. “Sunday Morning Com Showing up at the Washington, D.C. Garfunkle’s Greatest Hits, number ing Down” is being used in the movie concert were Robert Kennedy, Jr., the two that is. Art Garfunkle is still re ported to be in the studios working Fat City which has already garnered Jackson Five and David Brinkley. excellent reviews from the Film Fes Director Norman Jewison is already out some solo music for an eventual album. tivals of Europe. Fat City is loosely being called to task for casting a about boxing in the Salinas Valley of California and stars Stacey Keach and Jeff Bridges (from The Last Pic ture Show). 54CM2CLS BACK PAGES Block Oak Grabs Some Land Black Oak Arkansas is doing what everyone says they always wanted to do: the group has purchased 1,300 acres of land up in the Ozarks to w build their own city/home. Butch Stone, the group’s manager (the band see themselves as a commune without divisions of status), says “the land is ecologically balanced and set up as our own little world, where all the members of the band and our other employees can live. We hope to be there by next year and have it set up so that we can live off the land.” In all, there will be twelve A frame Black Oak: 1,300 ecologically-balanced houses to house the folks. acres. Two Mothers Wriggle Free Jlr One of the best groups to emerge Cheech And Chong: Can two hippies make album of Groucho Marx to coincide in years is the Phlorcscent Leech and it in Dean Martin Land? with his concerts in Los Angeles and Eddie, starring Mark Volman and San Francisco this fall. The Music Howard Kaylan, formerly of the Center concert by Marx is already Turtles and the Mothers. They couch becoming “the” industry event of the some beautiful music in offbeat and year, with promoters Concert Asso- totally insane theatrics, and once ciates wondering if they won’: have claimed they could never be pop stars to put on a second show for the gen- because “we’re not skinny enough.” eral public. Groucho is now 82. HT* Mark and Howard have played with • David Cassidy was cancelled out _^hx T. Rex as well as those two famous of a Hollywood Bowl appearance by American groups, and now boast Eng- his managers when they said the ad- xjk, lishman Ansley Dunbar in their ranks. vance ticket sale was not up to Cas- Also joining the group is another sidy’s usual standards. Sight and Mother, Don Preston (not to be con Sound, which was to have promoted jee fused with Leon Russell’s man Don the concert, said that after the Roll- Preston). They describe their music ing Stones everyone is expecting jr, as “totally normal schizoid rock.” Ex- every concert to sell out in a matter ■■^k actly what we all need. of hours. The promoters further esti- gr* • Mike Nesmith, who used to be a mated that the way L.A. buys tickets, ^x Monkee back in those dark days, has Cassidy’s concert probably would have now formed a label deal with Elektra grossed $97,000, in the end. ^=k records to find and produce local (Los • Doug Clifford, Creedence Clear- Angeles) country and western music water Revival drummer has his own talent. Nesmith notes that the excite- solo album due out this fall. James ment over C&W music is spreading Taylor, they say, is back in the studio faster than last summer’s floods, and after sharing a summer TV appear- says that Linda Rondstadt outdrew ance on the David Steinberg Show any Country and Western star ever at and a Hawaiian Vacation with leggy the Palamino club (L.A.’s only large Carlee Simon. Will James and Carole country arena). So now he’s out to King continue to work for McGovern find other Linda Rondstadts. now that George has the nomination? • A&M Records is releasing a live No one is saying. CIRCUS bs tackles a more personal project with yet another equation of success/ failure. Images is a challenging con by Paul Ring* versation-piece of cinema that ulti movie reviews mately comes unglued. The question is, what comes unglued first—you or z | x he Black Experience is treated The New Centurions the film? JL from ghetto to White House in Stirling Silliphant, who brought Before the camera almost every Super Fly and The Man; the police some of New York’s eight million minute, Susannah York is captivating are treated sympathetically and the stories to TV in the Naked City series, as a schizophrenic who no longer can army with anger in The New Cen applies his expertise to render a maud discern between real and unreal and turions and Parades, and a psychotic lin movie about the L.A. police. The thus deals with sex and murder— lady and a beaten man are unveiled New Centurions is a crowd-pleasing imagined or not—with equal dispatch. in two different kinds of horror stories, cavalcade of crime and chuckles that Her performance is sanguine and Images and Fat City. is insidiously ingratiating in a time chilling. Super Fly when law and order is a serious issue. Vilmos Zsigmond’s cinematography Aluminum foil is the star of this Engaging, slick cinema,—due mostly of primeval Ireland and Leon Erick cheap exploitation flick about a Har to George C. Scott and Stacy Keach sen’s sensitive art direction are major lem cocaine dealer who seeks one last as stars, Scott Wilson, Erik Estrada contributions to the fascinating com haul before getting out. There’s a and Clifton James as felow patrolmen position. Still, the subject matter has whole lotta sniffin’ goin’ on, but all and super deadpan support from James been treated more effectively in films that’s conjured up is a morally repre Sikking as Sgt. Anders—the film is such as Repulsion and Three Faces hensible pennybag of bull shit. not nearly as good as two earlier Col Of Eve. Gordon Parks, Jr., son of the fa umbia releases about police: the Kris mous life photographer, author and Kristofferson-starred Cisco Pike, with director {Shaft), displays limited vis Gene Hackman as a rogue cop; and ion and talent as he directs the cast the Oscar nominee as Best Foreign Fat City through its snorts. The performances Picture, Investigation Of A Citizen, Once a boxer of some promise, now are ham, the script sham and the pro which analyzed the kind of person an itinerant California fruit picker duction amateur, which adds up to who seeks the job of enforcer. This just passing through life, Stacy Keach something like shamateur. Its best kind of psychological focus is sadly observes: “Before you get rollin’, your scene is a junkie getting beaten up lacking in The New Centurions. life makes a beeline for the drain.” In and vomiting in a roomful of kids, Leonard Gardner’s adaptation of his and its worst scene is a porno bathtub novel, boxing symbolizes a world duo during which Parks’ camera is whose lost sheep are brutalized in virtually transfixed by the brown wob their quest to better the hand-to-mouth ble of Sheila Frazier’s sensational but Parades existence they have been bequeathed. tocks. Curtis Mayfield’s sounds are Parades is set in a U.S. Army stock When Keach returns to the ring, okay, but his appearance is inserted ade and emphatically portrays the in wins a bout and collapses from ex I awkwardly. humane side of army life. George Ta- haustion, he asks with an eloquent In its forthright linking of crime bori’s script is shallow and tepid, but dazed and vacant look in his serpen and the cops, Super Fly resembles the effectively staged by Robert J. Siegel tine eyes, “Did I get knocked out?” B pictures of the ’30s, but it’s nowhere in his directorial debut. In addition, Winning and losing feel the same to near as diverting. For all its highs, it’s cinematography and make-up are of a him. In the melancholy hands of the the lowest! surprisingly high quality for a produc great director John Huston, this ma tion of limited financial resources. terial becomes a sentimental trip. It In a mode of the absurd more suit could have benefitted from a colder able to theatre than to film, the char hand. acters are overdrawn silhouettes of prevailing views. Russ Thacker and Lewis J. Stadlen are effective as stock ade inmates, and Brad Sullivan as Sgt. Greaser’s Palace Ek I Hook is dynamite in the only role At presstime, I saw Robert {Putney r * 1 with dimension. Swope) Downey’s latest. He follows The catchy ad line “. . . a lot of Pound, in which he portrayed various people arc gonna be pissed off” is human types as breeds of dog, with right on—except it’s guaranteed to be this number in which Christ is a zoot- the “wrong” people. To suggest that suited song-and-dance man and The an Establishment advocate would ever Father and The Holy Ghost are all go to a film like this is highly unreal decked out in familiar Western garb, istic. The only necks that’ll turn red at all in a Western setting with gobs of this film will be steamed-up liberal violence, obscenity and symbolism. .folk angered by the obvious. Greaser's Palace is a clever but cumbersome meshing of the elements of our religious culture with our pro pensity for cowboy histrionics and Images show biz groovincss. When it’s work Robert Altman, who assayed a vari ing, it’s imaginative and funny. When ety of subjects in Mash, Brewster it’s not, it’s either elliptical or beyond McCloud and McCabe And Mrs. Downey’s ability to concretize his Super Fly: Drug-stuffed failure. Miller with varying degrees of success, script on film. I would recommend it. 56CMMX* The Underdog TELEVISION In Archie Bunker's Shadow: Sally Struthers Archie Bunker would derisively term the house. happiness I felt. I had a terrible in ' her West Los Angeles apartment “You might think that Portland is feriority complex. Up until the time a “hippie pad.” He’d sneer disapprov a cosmopolitan city and that people I was five or six, I was considered a ingly at the graceless furniture, the there would be broad-minded about cute little girl . . . short, round with vintage refrigerator converted into the separations and divorces. Maybe they a mass of blonde hair, like a tiny lone chair stuffed comfortably with were. But I wasn’t then. I felt that Cupid doll. But then I went through bloated cushions. He’d bellow at the my parents’ separation followed by a period of my life where you really single unshaded light bulb that glares their divorce was a disgrace.” start caring about what other people unmercifully at intruders. Strategic sore throats: Medical think. I became chubby; I broke a But Sally Struthers—known as emergencies, she soon learned, brought tooth and the dentist put a horrible Gloria Stivic to millions of followers her father running home to supervise. silver tooth in its place. I also had of CBS’s All In The Family—is no So the insecure child took advantage trouble with my feet and had to wear hippie. Though her television father of these meager opportunities to re corrective shoes.” Archie Bunker gets all the credit for unite the family. “I was sick a lot,” Any developing sense of worth was being the most honest reflection of she admits. “I had all kinds of illnesses further diminished by the actions of American prejudices ever to hit the as a child.” Some, like a severe bout an older sister described by Sally living room screen, the real-life Sally with pneumonia and pleurisy, were “evil.” —the product of a strict Lutheran real. But psychological trauma brought home—probably reflects 1972 Ameri about many. can values and traditions in an infinite “Perhaps some were due to the un- ly more accurate way. Struggle to be herself: When she’s Sally Struthers: Her sister used in front of the cameras Sally finds to tell her she was short, herself relegated to the shadows of stubby and ugly. But in the weekly series, cast in the role of high school “ugly” Sally learned^ a frizzy, onesided, rather predictable to crash the cliques of creature of whim, caught mid-way in pretty, popular people by the web of comedic put-ons and put- being too funny to resist. downs woven between her husband (Bob Reiner) and her father. But a Gloria’s onstage fight to preserve her identity in the Archie-Mike battle ground mirrors Sally’s own offstage By Barbara Graustark efforts to assert her individuality. Sally’s fight began as an uphill ■71^' < struggle against a childhood sense of inadequacy and inferiority which has left still-festering wounds. A native of Portland, Oregon, she remembers an unorthodox, unhappy childhood bred on family grievances. Her father, a doctor, deserted the family when she was eight. “I was ap palled. I refused to believe it was real,” she remembers. “I refused to accept the fact that he wasn’t com ing home to be with us every night. But I stopped inviting friends over because I couldn’t bear for them to see that there was only one parent in Sally never had a chance to be liked for 1 just what she was because she was too busy pushing her way to popularity with 1humor. 1^/ Archie Bunker has been touted as the most honest reflection of American values ever to hit the living room screen. But the real life of his TV daughter, Sally Struthers, gets far closer to the heart of what it’s like to “Susan picked on me constantly,” grow up feeling ugly. thing and most likely I'll do it.” she vividly recalls. "She told me I was While residing in the famous Holly unattractive, that 1 was short and stub meet me.” wood Studio Club, she turned to the by and ugly. She called me Packy, Yet in private she refers to Gloria Holmes-Hill Agency. There she was short for Packyderm. I’m an emo as “stupid” and tells friends, “I’m told for the umpteenth time that she tional person, and when she was trying as hard as 1 can to prove 1 can was all wrong for a leading lady: her mean to me, I took it all to heart.” do other things besides ridiculous face loo plump, her cheekbones ob High school popularity ploy: It Gloria Bunker . . . you’ve got to keep scured, her body too short. Determin was in high school that Sally found proving yourself, or you’re out!” ed, she learned to comb her hair a way to crash the cliques, to gain ac Cleaning ladies’ rooms: Sally around her face, almost totally obscur ceptance with the pretty, popular peo Struthers has had a strong sense of ing her features. Four over-eager ple—by assuming the mien of the survival, and a need to prove that she roommates pinned her down to shear clown. She explains. “I would do any can do it ever since she was a teen her long, blond hair. “When they fin thing for a laugh. I guess I fell that ager. She convinced her mother to ished, you could barely tell I was a 1 was ugly and the only way I could send her to the Pasadena Playhouse, girl.” Sally complains, but their ef have friends was by impressing peo where she followed the typical Holly forts were not in vain. Her new Or ple with my sense of humor. When I wood success story: selling popcorn, phan Annie—Shirley Temple face at went to high school, I was afraid to cleaning ladies’ rooms, and waitress- tracted agents, and landed her a com sit down and speak seriously with any ing. Her family pleaded with her to edy role on The Summer Brothers body about anything, so I clowned. return; she staunchly refused. Smothers Hour. Her favorite role soon “I didn't give myself a chance to “There’s something in me that re followed, that of the cheap bowling become popular with people who acts negatively to any suggestion. The alley pickup in Five Easy Pieces. And might like me for whatever I am on best way to manage me is to use child finally a summer stint on the Tim the inside, down at the gut level. I psychology. Tell me not to do some- Conway Comedy Hour. made myself popular by pushing into every area and every group, by being Sally’s parents pleaded with her to come The theatrical agencies told young Sally home from a theater life of cleaning la she was all wrong for a leading lady: her so funny that people couldn’t resist dies’ rooms and selling popcorn. But she face too plump, her cheekbones obscured, me for my humor.” resisted like blazes. her body too short. Shades of Gloria Stivic! Sally ac cepts the similarities between her high I school guise and the Dumb Bunny comedic role she must now play. For Gloria, too, has to rely on her kinki ness, her clowning ability for laughs. Caught in the personality conflict be tween father and husband, and unwill ing to compete with either, she be comes the willing buffoon, the malle able tool manipulated into a situa tion comedy fall guy. Sally resents this role today. Be hind the outer garments of the frothy personality and the scatter-brained kid lies a shy, sensitive person. “I know it doesn't show in front of the cam eras,” she admits, “but underneath I'm an overly sensitive and overly emo tional girl. The bright facade is just a front to hide my true emotions. When I’m at home in Los Angeles, I take off the mask and my friends y 1 know what I’m really like—just an ordinary girl trying to make it in show business.” Yet insecurity leads her to adopt the Dumb Bunny defense outside the studio as well; these remnants of child hood weakness force her to cling to • a role she knows well, and of which she is assured acceptance. “I can Pjay that part; people expect it when they Ati ss CIRCUS Itching to ditch Gloria: While she From Electro Harmonix, makers of is today grateful to the Family series for giving her national exposure as a comedienne, the relevancy of the the Mike Matthews Freedom Amp. Gloria role appears to be wearing thin Floor Boosters —both in substance and character. LPB-2 This is a new floor model of the Sally has recently completed Sam LPB-1. enabling you to cut it in or out Peckinpah’s The Getaway for Na instantly with your foot. Since all ampli tional General Pictures Corp., due for fiers are overdesigned to more than handle release around Christmastime. She the most powerful pick-ups, the LPB-2 feels it is a role she can sink her teeth will let you derive optimum results from into, and wonders if there is even any your amp. thing left to project into Gloria Stivic Screaming Tree Similar to the anymore. Co-starring in The Getaway Screaming Bird but with a heavy-duty foot with Ali MacGraw and Steve Mc- control switch, this ultimate treble booster Queen, she portrays a bank robber’s gives your rhythm or lead playing more lap doll in a Bonnie and Clyde take Plug-in Boosters balls than you thought possible—by em off. “I have to be a loose woman, a phasizing the BITE you get just when your LPB-1 This linear power booster is a pick plucks the strings. trampy Texas lady,” she explains. It is compact solid state preamplifier that can a role that fits her own under-cover up to quadruple the acoustic output of any Little Muff 7T Like the Muff but in a frowziness to a tee. amplifier. It will increase guitar sustain floor model that features a foot control Sally hopes desperately that this and improve the performance of all wah- switch. picture, as well as the summer stock wah pedals and distortion units. dOgS foot A bass booster for profes productions she appeared in last sum SCreaming Bird A treble booster that sionals who want the thick, heavy sound mer, will give her serious acting career will give your instrument the razor sharp necessary for blues playing. Technically a needed boost after the financial, but cut of a screeching harpsichord whose similar to the Mole, but with foot switch. not dramatic, oasis of Family. Her strings are whipped instead of plucked. , -.r —“""r need to liberate herself from the vapid Use two Birds and turn your guitar into an one dimensionality of Gloria Stivic electric banjo. seems to be growing ever more ur Muff This funkiest distortion device ■ ' /PS-* gent. Batting her eyes seductively, she will give you that dirty sound reminiscent * affirms that she’d like nothing better of the natural distortion of the tube amps than to play the lead in a strong com used by the Rhythm ’n Blues bands of edy musical role. “I would love to yesteryear. sing and dance and do a whole Barbra Mole The mole bass booster will ex Streisand number.” And she drcams tract the highs and amplify the subhar- on in Technicolor: “I’d like to have a monics, giving your instrument the depth, Las Vegas act like Ann-Margret; I’d resonance and heavy penetration of the Also available at your retail music store. like to dance like Ruby Keeler; I’d foot pedals of a church pipe organ. All Electro-Harmonix accessories are like to write and direct like Elaine This microphone booster is designed guaranteed for ten years. They are com May. I’d like to do so many things for the vocalist whose PA system isn’t patible and modular. Any combination of that there just isn’t enough time. But strong enough to cut through the noise more than one unit will give you an infinite for the moment I’m satisfied with just generated by the other members of the variety of sounds. acting.” band. The Ego will match any microphone Enclose a check and Electro-Harmonix Gimme a man: Family has ful and up to quadruple the output of your will pay shipping. Or, if more convenient, filled many needs for impetuous Sally, PA system. order C.O.D. for cost plus shipping. En “The show has paid my rent, bought close a 10% deposit on C.O.D. orders. me two new tires for my car, and (C.O.D. orders are limited to the con made me a somebody.” It has also ful tinental United States.) filled the need to be loved and ad Money back guarantee. Try any of our mired that first set her about her act boosters out for two weeks. If you don’t ing pursuit. think they’re the greatest, send them back Yet, in a day when women are for for a complete refund. saking their traditional roles and turn ing toward more fulfilling means of ex : electro harmonix 15 West 26th St., New York, N.Y. 10010 CI-1003 pression, she is notoriously conserva • Please ship: quantity quantity tive about her role as a woman. She • $14.95 "LPB-1 (plug into amp) $19.95 Mole (plug into inst) admits that she would give up a career : 14.95 LPB-1 (plug into inst) 14.95 Ego (2 female jacks) for the right man, and lists her goals : 17.95 Bird (plug into amp) as “buying a blimp, building a tree : 17.95 Bird (plug into inst) 23.95 LPB-2 house, being happily married, having • 18.95 Muff (plug into amp) 23.95 Tree children, doing musical movies, not : 18.95 Muff (plug into inst) 23.95 Little Muff necessarily in that order.” : 19.95 Mole (plug into amp) 23.95 Hogs Foot “When I get married,” she dreams, • Enclosed is check for total amount $. ‘‘I want to wait on a man. I already I Ship C.O.D. Enclosed is 10% deposit S have enough decisions to make in my ’ Please place me on your new product announcement mailing list at no charge. career. It’s really frightening to me to live alone. Women’s Lib, pooh, pooh.” • Name------Archie would yell approvingly, • Address. “Right onl” • • City. .State .Zip. the record lover's guide by Ed Naha Cheech & Chong— devastating. Probably Aretha’s most An A to Z listing Bib Bambu (A&M) exciting performance yet. for the ravenous /—Hey, amigo, this new \__ 7 Cheech and Chong al Kosoff, Kirke, Tetsu record buyer. bum is one funny rec and Rabbit (Island) ord. I mean, they kill just about EVERYBODY on this one. Ha ha! When Free disbanded You should hear what they do to the early this year, guitar Love it! nun named Sister Mary Elephant or ist Paul Kosoff and (hee-hce) the guy who says he drop drummer Simon Kirke got together ped out of society because he played with a bassist named Tetsu and an a Black Sabbath record at 78 rpm’s organist called Rabbit and recorded and saw God! or (chuckle) . . . the an album. The finished product sounds old man who . . . (giggle) . . . can’t like the soundtrack of the last wake sign a paper . . . (hahaha) because you went to. United in the sound of Worth one listen Listen to it ’til the . . . someone . . . (hehheh) broke palsy-rock, the four boys explore new at least. grooves grow old. . . both . . his . . hahahahahahands! horizons in boredom, implementing grade-school lyrics, washed-out vocals and generally dull melodics. Thank Leave it! God Free regrouped, saving the world Gene Clark—Early from the likes of Kosoff, Kirke, Tetsu, L.A. Sessions Rabbit and sleeping sickness. (Columbia) Savory, but for special tastes. When Gene Clark left the Byrds back in the Arthur Lee— mid-Sixties he began a musical career Vindicator (A&M) Argent—All Together that would eventually lead to the cre Now (Epic) ation of Dillard and Clark and later, At one point in his the Flying Burrito Brothers. This solo . career, Arthur Lee was T Tot on heels of LP, Gene’s first, was originally re considered one of the 1 1 their popular sin leased in 1966 and can now be con most prolific rock writers in America. gle “Hold Your Head sidered a collector’s item. Much of As lead singer-composer with Love, Up,” Argent (led by ex-Zombie Rod Gene’s country material was far ahead Lee catapulted both himself and the Argent)) has put together an album of its time and featured such then un group into the category of “under of tight,t:~*“ albeit simple, rock tunes. known sidemen as Glen Campbell, ground legends” back in the late Six .1! Relying mostly on Rod’s ”” Leo" Russell, Clarence White, Van ties. Sadly, his new release, Vindica organ wor1' ~ 7?’”Mdanec,idancc, __l ■ J.^up Dyke r*arks and Chris Hillman. L.A. tor, is a collection of grunters which pred' sometimes Sessions is a star-studded collection are slightly better than junk. Devoid smacks c. ...cues, but is of ten tasty country tunes from one of taste and originality, the album tinged with a large dose of R&B a la of the pioneers of down-home rock. proves itself to be totally worthless (may God forgive me) Rhinoceros. except when used as a Frisbee. Argent makes for pretty good listening for the average rock phile. Aretha Franklin— Lennon/Ono—Some Amazing Grace time In New York (Atlantic) James Brown—There City (Apple) It Is (Polydor) Lady Soul gets back When Captain E. Ed into the gospel groove James Brown, like old die Edwards, resident on this double LP set. Recorded live drooler and record critic at the Little man river, just keeps at a Baptist church in LA, Amazing Xy rolling along . . . leav Doggie Home For The Wicked lis Grace proves that Aretha is best when tened to the new Lennon/Ono double ing quite a few stagnant puddles as being Ms. Franklin, gospel singer sans album he was very much surprised. he goes. Hear James sing “Here It Is hype. Forsaking lavish arrangements He liked it . . . even though he re Part I.” Hear James sing “Here It Is in favor of the churning piano of alized that Lennon was very much Part II,’’ “I’m A Greedy Man Part I,” Reverend James Franklin and the passd and considered an artist to be “I’m A Greedy Man Part II,’’ “Public backing voices of the Southern Cali ignored. Sure, a lot of it was garbage Enemy #1 Part I,’’ “Public Enemy fornia Community Choir, Aretha (the Zappa jam was too moronic to # 1 Part II.” . . . Get the picture? dives into a slew of traditional hymns even be funny) and most of the songs with maniacal zeal. The results are were a bit too long; but gosh, the rest 60 CIRCUS Gerald Rothberg presents iiit11 The American Funny Book Number 1 0°^'- THIS NEW LITERARY POKE AT THE ESTABLISHMENT IS ON NEWSSTANDS Ik NOW! Full of sharp satiric wit, barbs 'bout everything—politicians, TV heroes, super movies and cartoons like you never saw *£>l /1 in the Sunday Edition of The Twin Oaks Gazette. In this Special November issue of GRIN, k , Ge1; in keeping with the political atmosphere, a big bonus—A Full Color Election Year V *e^<*e* V Poster! Also: Find out What Happens When Nixon Visits Harlem Or— • What You See Ain’t What You Get”. • GRIN pokes at a very popular movie with its tale of the real power in Amer The EnHmolher OR ica—"The Godmother". IT’S NOT NICE TO FOOL WITH MOTHER’S NATURE • A noteworthy, newsworthy account of FMA NO Henry Kissinger’s many trips abroad omw> t>. KXiuwcue —why he has to take so many. a vejTE«P>«r. • An evening with “Artsy Bumper” of that Family show on TV. erararKkJ COMP. *OU COMBI J • And lots of up-dated comic strips— . r >who-sa rue . U— kjih Ntrr to gZrxr fioc-Aon**® "Blandie In The Capitol" and wwrrj '*rs* soncki Ht "Peanu's In The Ghetto". Gckwnlt- Kest ^rrsATHe ou.v / chance nt arr ’ TO PUT HiS HAMP SO, GET GRIN AT NEWSSTANDS EVERY WHERE. YOU CAN HAVE A GRIN-ING DAY. Photos: Chuck Pulin T t had everything you'd expect from by Howard Bloom ard Nixon.” and Terry Kath began to 1 a concert by Chicago. The seven grind his raw guitar strings against the men strung across the stage between speakers at the rear of the stage, tor mountains of black amplifiers played turing his instrument into a long, grim The Practical with all the frenzied magic of demons solo of battle-field screams. A few of joy. Guitarist Terry Kath slashed minutes later the entire group sprang at his strings with mind-squashing into a deceptively delicious song from rapidity, wringing out solos that would the new Chicago V LP (on Colum Side Of have left Andre Segovia with his jaw bia), a song that quietly lashed out hanging. Trombonist Jim Pankow at college students for letting war and screwed up his shoulders and face then poverty drag on and on and on. 'Chicago V' blew a blast of melody sweeter than It was then that some of the braless a mound of fresh whipped cream. girls and long haired youths first real Drummer Danny Seraphine pounded ized the 25-foot-long American flag — Lamm Digs his polished, copper-colored drums draped above the stage and the Mc with his eyes rolling like a man pos Govern stickers on Lamm’s organ sessed. The audience in the red plush were no mere decorations. The seven In Against scats shook the ceiling with earsplit musicians whom a critic for Life Mag ting shrieks as hit after hit came thun azine had dismissed a year ago as dering from the stage. And the tunes frivolous makers of updated Muzak Nixon pierced bone and marrow, sending had something extremely serious on The band gladly backed the wild listeners to their feet in a their minds. bursting agony of bliss. Political heartburn: The world Bobby Lamm on the three But there were some things going is going to hell on a hot rod, and down that the casual Chicago follower Chicago is not happy about it. The Chicago V cuts that might never have expected in a million new Chicago LP makes it plain as years. Twenty minutes after they’d day that the seven lads from the city criticized war and piled “Docs Anybody Really Know of slaughterhouses are not the least indifference. But when What Time It Is,” “Beginnings,” “25 bit content about the war that Mr. or 6 to 4” and “Color My World” into Nixon has been “unwinding” for three Lamm wanted to support a four-layered ice cream parfait of long years now, and that they’re equal- genius that utterly stunned the imagi ly impatient with the urban problems McGovern, they wouldn’t nation, the stage grew dark, Robert the war is sucking attention away go along with him. Lamm announced a “Song For Rich- from. “While The City Sleeps” takes Terry Kath, guitar: If Dick Nixon listened carefully to CHICAGO V, he would walk off with his ears burning. f . ■ ■ DannyDannv Seraphine,Spraohine drums: Last year Chi- give them the courage of their convictions. cagcTou^so^d. . . every_____ other group inIn Amerl-fimprl- Says Bobby Lamm about their success, ca. But that fact alone Is not enough to It s scary. 64 CIRCUS ______MUSIC a stab at the double-talking political uct of the one member of the group . gauntlet by openly opposing the Viet leaders who have rammed the killing who looks the least committed: not Nam war in his lyrics to "It Better down American throats: student-like Terry Kath—the one with End Soon:” the carpenters’ overalls and lumber They say we gotta make war Men are scheming jack shirt—but tall, slender Bobby Or the economy will fail New ways to kill us Lamm—the one with the fashionable, But if we don't stop And tell us dirty lies. almost self-consciously glamorous lay We won't be around no more “State of the Union” starts out as ered haircut, the one girls might be Then he went one step further and the story of an Oklahoma concert expected to swoon over. convinced his six cohorts to devote the that was interrupted by a revolution- Lamm has been the group's political inner flap of the LP's jacket to a minded fan. but ends up as an outcry gadfly ever since the days when they statement that “we dedicate ourselves, against the idiotic blindness of a sys first wormed their way out from under our futures, and our energies to the tem whose police will yank a perform the wing of Chicago’s "Mafia-type" people of the Revolution.” Political er off to jail for using a four-letter managers, switched from calling them honesty paid off. In September, 1971, word, a system that runs on bribes, selves "The Big Thing” to the less the men of Chicago were invited to bail, and indifference to the starvation schmaltzy title of “Chicago Transit dinner at the Washington home of among the people it rules. And “Dia Authority,” and let Blood, Sweat & author Phillip Stern, and actually met logue" chides a college student for Tears’ producer Jim Guercio take some of the power brokers on whom walling off his mind against the killing them from the windy city to the gold a positive revolution might well hinge and for letting his feelings go totally en paradise of L.A.. In those days —figures like Ralph Nader, the FCC’s numb. This doesn’t mean the new long Bobby talked politics; but it took some crusading head Nicholas Johnson, and player is a depressing bundle of leaden time before his interest in the state the outspoken head of the Senate for lyrics and heavy-handed sermons. In of the world actually bubbled to the eign Relations Committee, Senator fact, songs like “Saturday In The surface of his music On Chicago’s William Fulbright. Park" and "Dialogue" will get your first LP, he contented himself with the Practical measures: Two albums vocal chords humming and make your harmless message of “Someday,” a and two years after Chicago’s first body ache to move. But under the song as rich in melodic content as a timid LP, Lamm actually tried to do i luscious layers of melody and the thick strawberry milkshake, but as bland in something about his beliefs. He and i frosting of rhythm are words that are its message (“We’ve all got to get to the group made sure that the enor meant to prod you into action—politi gether") as a vanilla soda Lamm mous box of records known as Chica cal action. didn't really stick his neck out to say go IV contained—in addition to a 1 Who's behind it? The political something politically pungent in his Volkswagen-sized poster of the group, lyrics and the McGovern stickers plas songs until Chicago’s second LP, Chi a lavish book of pinups and a pair of tered on the organ are both the prod- cano II, where he flung down the expired Carnegie Hall tickets—a com- Peter Cetera, bass: Lamm says McGovern Is the first candidate he’s seen who wants to accomplish the goals Chicago has put In their songs. But Peter doesn’t seem a plete chart of state-by-state voter reg It turned out to be a very interesting he follow his own advice on Chicago istration information. But it was not evening because he said all the right V and turn his power against repres until Chicago V emerged that Lamm things—about ending the war. about sion, war and starvation by supporting really had a chance to put the might involving people in the grass roots a candidate he believes in? Will he of a group that had sold close to ten level in government. throw the force of his money and his million records where its mouth had “I met the guy, talked with him. I talent into the “peaceful fight” his been. America was in the throes of a wanted to see the look in his eye and songs have urged his listeners to wage? presidential campaign, and one of the get a feeling from him. I rely pretty As of this writing, Bobby is looking candidates, George McGovern, was much on my own instinct as to how a into putting out pro-McGovern radio trying to make the changes Lamm had person is. He really impressed me. spots. But it seems like he’s going- to so often wrapped his songs around. The people there at the dinner im have to do them on his own—the rest Meeting McGovern: “I wasn’t real pressed me. both with their ideology of the band doesn’t feel quite ready ly interested in supporting a Presiden and what I knew of their professional to take the plunge and put its might tial candidate a few months ago,” lives. behind the senator from South Dakota. Bobby admitted over a breakfast of “McGovern really cares about peo Whether Bobby rolls up his sleeves seltzer and Eggs Benedict in his sump ple. He’s a populist . . . almost a so and pitches in any further to unseat tuous New York hotel suite. “But we cialist. He really wants to give the the man in the White House and whe had been involved in activity regis average guy more of a say in the gov ther he convinces .the group to go tering 18-year-old voters. Most of the ernment. He wants to take power along with him still remain to be seen. voter registration boards made it as from large corporations, have them But even if Lamm sits back and difficult as they could for people to pay their fair share of taxes. He says does almost nothing for George Mc vote, so we concentrated most of last all the things I want done. He may Govern’s campaign, one thing is for ~ year on that. I didn’t really think about have to mince words to get into office, sure. Life Magazine pundit Albert £ presidential candidates until someone but that’s the game.” Goldman may have made the biggest said George McGovern is coming to How far will he go? Now that boner of his career when he suggest j? L.A., would you like to meet him. I Bobby Lamm finally has a chance to ed that Chicago’s music was so blandly said sure. I’d like to hear what he throw his muscle into the fight he’s All-American that a collection of its 8 has to say. So I went to a dinner to been singing about for so long, it’ll be LP’s should be presented to, of all see who else was attracted by him interesting to see just how involved people. President and arch-McGovern and hear what his platform is to be. in the election he does become. Will rival Richard Milhous Mixon. • Jim Pankow, trombone: “Everybody knows everybody else extremely well; that's un derstating it," says Lamm, explaining the group's closeness. Bobby Lamm: The words to “State Of The Union" were born when Bobby was yanked off the stage In Oklahoma City for using a four-letter word to counter a member of the audience who was shouting “Tear down the system." 66 CIRCUS MUSIC /V A I i 17 PUlM IL bp Ul i X S? L by Michele Hush Snowbird — Black Sabbath Tui es Into Mantovani's Orchestra Pit Do I In* billowing strings on Snowblind spell curtains for the doonn sound I Black Sabbath? A Slippery suspicions ed in : and latest blind Bi y •w H d & I I - ! 68 CIRCUS MUSIC L ir bourne’s eyes first saw the light of Recalling the countless hours spent day, and his mind prepared to wrestle wailing into microphones in half a with the question of the band’s future. Sabbath’s Romantic dozen studios, Ozzie laughed, “It Ozzie. Black Sabbath s front man and Heart Attack drove me nuts in the end; I used to vocalist, has a face you last saw in Ireak out. I was dreaming there was grammar school on the kid who was I Ahe crowd is half-naked, bathed in like ;i tape machine coming into my JI sweat, lit by a hellish red light, always throwing spitballs at the prin room and eating me.” Yet Ozzie's cipal. On this particular afternoon he grinding their hips, singing along at comments about one of the new songs. was having a little trouble with his the top of their lungs to the music. “Changes” add weight to the suspi voice: it was a bit hoarse, due to the It's been said that they have come cions that though the group has had acrobatics it had executed during the for a taste of terror and death, and up to three I. P's on the charts at once shows of the night before. Actually, it they get it. But when the concert’s and the fans have been frothing for was a wonder that he had any voice over and they go home to slip the new Black Sabbath long player onto more, perhaps a splinter of dissatis at all. considering that he'd been bel faction pricked the Black Sabbath the stereo, they’re in for a shock. lowing away like old Leather Lungs ranks. “1 sing on it and I’m so pleased himself nearly every night for the past Their favorite demon-rousers have turned romantic! with it because I’m able to sing in a three weeks. different way than like, screaming;” SnowbUnd, the spanking new Sab Shades of Mantovani: Although Ozzie laughingly admitted, “Il's very bath LP, definitely gives the impres slightly the worse for wear from travel un-Black Sabbath.” Now, the question sion that the Dark Princes of Downer fatigue. Ozzie was untlaggingly en is just how un-Black Sabbath can it Rock would rather be White Minstrels thusiastic about the new areas which get before the band loses its identity? of Melancholy Rapture. Ozzie Os Black Sabbath had dived into on their The parking lot of Hell: Lyrically, new album. For the first time in their bourne, the group’s whirling lyrical mastermind, likes to think of the song Ozzie says the group is still down in recorded history, the members of the same old dumps—“depression ■’Laguna Sunrise” as a “Spanishy type Black Sabbath have insisted upon a rock” is the phrase he himself chose. of thing, very romantic.” And he wist few very necessary freedoms, includ In a recent interview the shaggy lyri fully labels the cut “Changes” as a ing unlimited time in the studio of cist revealed that he has spent a good “gentle, sad song.” Why such quiet their choice. Since they, along with deal of time running from psychia sounds from the heavyweight cham their manager Patrick Meehan, have trist to psychiatrist in hopes of find pions of throbbing thunder? Says Oz produced this album themselves, they ing some escape from his black moods. zie, leaning his elbows on the counter exercised complete control over what But paradoxically, when Black Sab of a busy hotel lobby, “How will any went into it. bath was just beginning the climb to thing get done if you don’t experi But what of all this talk about a stardom, the band members believed ment?” I mellower Black Sabbath? Ozzie’s state that their music was that much-need ments seemed to indicate that there ed escape route. Seated in a shabby is more here than a mere rumor. When the album. Tony also decided to toss little room where sunlight visits only I the band went into the studios this in a bit of versatility, which turned on the rarest of occasions, their heads time, their creative juices started flow out to be some surprising handiwork were filled with dreams. This room, a ing in unexpected directions. Geezer, on the piano. Throwing all caution dusty little corner of a public rela who learned to play the mellotron at to the winds, the band finally went so tions office on London’s Denmark some point during the past year, start far as to import a ten-man string en Street, had been visited by dozens of ed coming up with places to use it on semble for a few tracks. musicians with just such dreams. But below, down the three flights of nar row, winding stairs, was a street popu lated by failures and cast-offs. No one slays on Denmark Street too long, if he can help it. It’s a tin pan alleyway, a place to be made or broken. But the members of Black Sabbath didn’t seem to care about their surroundings; their only concern was the music which had brought them this far. Musical napalm: That music, which at the tifrie was only about six months old, had been concocted from a basic brew of anger and outrage. Ozzie, at tempting to explain it, had said, “Eng lish bands tend to play dirty, earthy, vicious type of music. Like our type of music, it’s like trying to get back or get at or blow it out at someone. When I’m on the stage my feelings come out when I’m singing. Like for Tony lommi: The mellotrons may sound tranquil, but the anger against war, hard drugs and “warp heads” rages on. 70 cnxus MUSIC And, perhaps more importantly, those noxious elements which trigger their lyrical tirades—war. hard drugs, pol lution—arc still with us. Unfortunate ly. Ozzie can visit every shrink on the face of the earth, but if it’s the world that's driving him nuts, he'll slay nuts Back in London that day, two years ago, reclining in a shabby armchair, Ozzie’s eyes had wandered across the tacky carpet, up the barren walls and then had come to rest at some unde termined point outside the door in the hallway. “When you are playing,” he said, “you can build a little wall around yourself, you can build a wall. You just play and your emotions come out . . .” Then, still staring off into the void, he sighed, “You know, you really go mad ...” . Ozzie says SNOWBLIND eventually began to drive him nuts: “I used to freak out. I was dreami.ig there was like a tape machine coming into my room and eating me.” rI instance if we’re playing the song refurbished life-style. They have, of ‘Black Sabbath’ and somebody annoys course, left the slums behind them. us or something goes wrong, I just Ozzie, for example, now owns an old sound against the guitarist. Bill once— converted mill outside Birmingham. we were just playing a jam, and Bill, Along with his wife, Thelma, and their he thought we were going to kill every two children, he is having a grand old body.” time making the place livable. He is “You see," he said, “we’re just four ver}' emphatic about family life, by ordinary guys and we come from a the way, and considers it “a thousand really rough area of Birmingham . . . times more important” than running you know, all the Irish people fighting, around being a rock’n’roll star. everybody always fighting everywhere. Planet of the nuts: All things con It shows in our music. Our environ sidered, however, it doesn’t seem like ment shows in our music.” ly that the changes in Black Sabbath Ozzie in Wonderland: Bearing all can possibly be that drastic. The ad this in mind, the new, gentler side of justments of the present are actually Black Sabbath which is suggested in relatively minor—as Ozzie said. “It's Snowblind seems jarringly out of not a change from heavy to soft. It’s place. It just doesn’t seem to fit. One heavy, it's still very heavy, but it’s can only speculate as to how much just going in a different direction. It’s of the change is due to the band’s more . . . worked out, if you like” Gilbert O'Sullivan Himself. He'll be compared to many. Ho has been already. But, in fact, his kind of talent is undeniably unique. Sensitive. Melodic. Adventurous. "Alone Again (Naturally)" has made us all aware of > (mi)■ a new dimension in today's music...Gilbert O'Sullivan "Himself?... Register. AND VOTE. ■