New Wave Rock #2

We return again to a prime example of one of my favorite recent discoveries, which has been the mere existence of high-circulation, newsstand-friendly punksploitation mags from 1977 and 1978. Right there, right in the grocery store’s magazine aisle, next to Creem, Circus and Rock Scene. I’ve written about previous examples here, here and here. Despite whatever moderate corporate backing was propping them up, they have the same immediacy and documentative relevance of nearly any given fanzine of the era. Yeah, you’ll certainly have to excuse some of the artists featured, In this one, new waver and cover star Bruce Springsteen is said to be “Walkin’ Streets of Fire”, and is also the creator of “the most exhilarating and passionate rock ‘n’ roll you will ever hear”. Arguable. But get past that, and you’ll find some real ore to mine in November 1978’s New Wave Rock #2. 

As I talked about when we discussed New Wave Rock #3, this was produced by Whizbang Productions from their offices on East 43rd in New York City. Diana Clapton was executive editor. While I can’t find anything online about Whizbang (I’m talking nothing), Ms. Clapton wrote a Lou Reed/Velvet Underground book in 1983. She did a fine job corralling the talent. For most folks, the linchpin piece here is a continuation of a long Lester Bangs article about “The Roots of Punk” that was originally started in another publication, a 1977 fanzine from San Francisco called New Wave. The only way to read that, the editors say, is to order a copy from Aquarius Records in San Francisco. I don’t think it’s going to work anymore.

Bangs says his piece, and it’s a good piece, about The Sonics, Troggs, Count Five, Music Machine and so on, and posits that San Francisco’s dominance over rock and roll sounds in the late 60s led directly to the “punk backlash”. Speaking of the 1960s, there’s an interview with one Michael Hollingshead, who apparently turned Timothy Leary and various rock stars onto psychedelic drugs in the 60s. He believes that they “will become increasingly popular among those associated with new wave music”. I’m not sure it happened. New wavers I’ve known tended to drink, drink and drink some more. Some smoked illegal marijuana cigarettes. A couple were into “horse”. But psychedelics were for disco turds and hippie-hangover creeps.

“Scene reports” are a big deal in New Wave Rock #2 – only it appears that the only scenes worth reporting on are in NY, London, LA and SF. London’s is chock-full of color photos from a “Carnival Against The Nazis”. Paul Grant’s column about the LA scene, “Hot Stoopids on the Sunset Strip” has a bit of effortlessly casual anti-Mexican racism. He also talks about how The Cramps played “with Kim Fowley’s awful Dyan Diamond, who was pelted with ice by an unappreciative Kickboy Face (Slash’s pet frog)”. In the SF report, Howie Klein actually blames President Jimmy Carter for why The Nuns, Avengers and The Dils aren’t signed to record deals, and unfortunately it doesn’t sound like he’s joking. 

Over in New York, there’s been a big benefit for Johnny Blitz of the Dead Boys, after he was stabbed on the street and couldn’t pay his hospital bills. John Belushi is pictured sitting on drums in his place; tons of photos from this thing. This issue’s got a quartet of small, colorful features on “New York’s finest”, who happened to be the Helen Wheels Band, Nervus Rex, The Erasers and the Slander Band. I seriously don’t think I knew what Helen Wheels looked like until today. And then stepping outside of the scene reports, there’s a big thing on Generation X’s “sexy singer” Billy Idol by Pam Brown, as well as a boring piece on XTC, who are said to have “a complete dislike, bordering on contempt, for the punk movement as a whole”.

Best of all – even better than the Bangs piece – is Mary Harron’s article interviewing Nico in Paris. Yeah, it’s the very same Mary Harron that would go on to direct I Shot Andy Warhol and American Psycho. We’ll end this wrap-up of New Wave Rock #2 with two gems from her piece on Nico:

“Nico has no tact. She says whatever comes into her head, and it can be frightening. The first indication I had of this was when she was explaining why she was dropped by Island Records. ‘I made a mistake. I said in Melody Maker, to some interviewer that I didn’t like negroes. That’s all. They took it so personally. I had no idea that Island was a Jamaican company. They took it very personally, although it’s a whole different, entirely different race. I mean, Bob Marley doesn’t resemble a negro, does he?’. She then goes on to describe Idi Amin eating people and believes it’s indicative of the “entire race”.

Nico: “I think I’m a terrorist actually. Maybe I would like to spend the rest of my life in prison. Just shoot somebody and just do what Andreas Baader did. But that would be a pity because there’s no other singer like me. And if I’m in prison I can’t appear on stage, right?”