October, 1978
Publisher
Durand W. Achee
Advertising Director
Jeffrey A. Dickey
Editor-in-Chief
Judith Sims
Music Editor
Todd Everett
Art Director
Catherine Lampton
Production
Rick Bauer,
Marya Blackwell,
Mel Rice
. Contributing Editors
Colman Andrews, Jacoba Atlas,
John Hatch, Lynne Manor,
Del Porter
Advertising Offices
Los Angeles
Jeff Dickey -
1680 N. Vine Street #2Ol
CA 90028
213/462-7175
New York
Barney O’hara, Joan Dorbian
Barney O'Hara & Associates
105 E. 35th Street
New York, NY 10016
212/889-8820
Chicago
Frank Avery, Jane Jeffrey
' Barney O’Hara & Associates
410 N. Michigan Avenue
, Chicago, IL 60611
312/467-9494
‘ New Contributors
ART FEIN (on Disc) writes about music in Hol
lywood.,He likes to live sumptuously and dine in
the finest restaurants. He is in the wrong business.
FLO (Mark Volman) and EDDIE (Howard Kaylan)
(In Print) use other names and other voices;
among them Turtles, Mothers of Invention, radio
people, rock critics, interviewers and all-around
good guys.
DON SNOWDEN (On Disc) has been known to go
by the name of “Mr. Chivas.” As in “Regal.”
When not surveying the music scene from one of
Hollywood's higher class gutters, he dreams of
playing John Steed to Diana Rigg’s Emma Peel.
TOM VICKERS, (On Disc) former ghetto corre
spondent for Rolling Stone, is a Bostonian now resid
ing in L.A. He shuns razor-blade jewelry and
wishes that Dyke and the Blazers we’re still around
to add some reality to an otherwise d’voidofiunk
scene.
©Alan Weston Publishing, Inc., 1680 N.
Vine Street, #2Ol, Hollywood, CA
90028. All rights reserved. Letters be
come the property of the publisher and
may be edited. Publisher does not as
sume any responsibility for unsolicited
manuscripts. Published monthly at Los
Angeles.
IllustratorHarold“Hal” Vettika,perpetratorofthe
art for our Bavarian Illuminati Conspiracy article
last issue, has disappeared. He was last seen relaxing
on Ampersand’s spijfy sundeck (above), where we
found his book and ashtray and afew other personal
effects. Someone had written the name Weishaupt on a
nearby dirty window. Wefearfoul play.
Nag, Nag
I’m a journalism student at Purdue Univer
■- sity. It’s in Indiana. Indiana is by those big
lakes, near Chicago. Will you read this letter
and heed it? Probably not. You fascist pigs. I
don’t know what sort of manic fit caused me
to write this letter. What gives you the right
to throw this letter in the garbage? “Hell, Joe,
here’s another one of those goddamn letters
from some farmer back east. Some poor soul
twisted pn cowshit and jimson weed. I’ll toss
it like the rest.”
Sorry about that. I also tend to ramble a
bit at times. I’ll try to stay calm and refrain
from launching into bits of Thompsonism.
No sense in going Gonzo too early in life.
What I wondered was if you have' enough
record reviewers. Why don’t you bastards
pull yourselves out of that cocaine stupor and
give a poor, braindamaged journalism stu--
dent a chance?
As for my musical experience, I don’Uike
Barry Manilow. If some of you like him, you
probably won’t comprehend this letter any
way. Just hand this letter to the nearest long
hair with sunglasses on; he’ll know what to
do.with it
PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Our cocaine stupor? We handed your letter to our
shorthaired music editor, who’s a Barry Manilow
fan. He says that he knows what to do with it, if
you’ll just turn around and bend over. (Note to other
aspiring Gonzos: it’s been done. Find your own
approach. And learn to type.).
Of all the recordings of con temporary Am
erican music (Good American Music, Sep
tember ’7B) you did not mention, one stands
out in my mind as deserving praise. It is the
Ampersand
recording of Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, done
by the N.Y. Philarmonic and the Swingle
Singers (MS 7268 Columbia). I believe this
piece represents a perfection of the compos
ers uniquely individual style. As for with
standing the test of time, the piece was just
played a few months ago by the conservative
Chicago Symphony Orchestra!
Champaign, 111.
Your nomination of Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia to the
list often best” American compositionsforces me to
concede the point immediately. (Hell, 1 would bow
away to another half dozen works that come to mind
immediately).
The trouble with the Berio work is that it was
written for the uniquely gifted Swingles. Without
them, it cannot be performed—or so Ernest, Fleish
manrt, executive director of the L.A. Phil, told me.
Assuming that condition still pertains (other “un
playable” works have, in time, become routine reper
toire pieces), lean only wonder if the Berio work can
survive in the concert hall.
Thank Columbiafor preserving itfor us. A record
is better than nothing'. Ed Cray
Merrill Shindler, author of “Raised on Kane:
A Connoisseur’s Guide to Obscure Classic
Films” in the September issue, is described in
your author’s note as “the proud owner of a
master’s degree in film aesthetics and criti
cism.” He ought to send it back, at least
based, on the degree of familiarity, with film
classics he betrays when he describes Roman
Polanski’s Cul-deSac as “starring Shake
spearean actors. Jack MacGowran and
Donald Pleasance as a pair of wounded
gangsters who terrorize a middle-ageed mil
quetoast and his beautiful young wife (pla
yed by Jacqueline Bisset).” Disregarding the
matter of whether or not Shindler’s identifi
cation of the aforementioned actors as
“Shakespearean” is correct (MacGowran
was Irish, for Chrisssakes), I would like to
point out that (a) the gangsters were played
by'MacGowran and Lionel Stander (Plea
sance played the’milquestoast); and (b) the
MICHAEL BACKUS
beautiful young wife was played by Francoise
Dorleac (Bisset had a rather minor role as a
visitor to the Milquetoast’s keep).
In Here
. Features
Richard Dreyfuss Is Hot q
In more ways than one O
Bloated Budgets ' 1 o
The high cost of recording lO
Joni Mitchell C\ 1
She walks, she talks, she gambles £ A
Departments
In One Ear j-
Letters J
& Out the Other s'
News & Gossip O
On Disc i p.
Latest Lacquers 1 (J
In Both Ears ■< a
Keeping clean It
In Print 00
Monk, Benjamin, etc. AVJ
On Screen q n
Days of Heaven, etc. 4 4
Amperchart n Q
Rock, jazz, soul & country hits 4,0
On Tour Q
Foreigner, Paul Winter O U
Our Cover
Joni Mitchell in the desert, photographed by
Henry Diltz.
DOUG OSBORNE
Colman Andrews
Los Angeles,Ca