I bought two old magazines that both had a great affect on my life. I purchased them at Speaking Volumes, a great record/book/art store here in ol’ Burlin’ton. I went there initially to get an old Playboy but found a copy of an old Rolling Stone I’ve been thinking about lately.
The Playboy. September 1971. I wasn’t alive yet, but Olsen was. Somehow when I was 23 this issue fell into my hands. The centerfold is Crystal Smith, who is stunning in both her beauty and her taste in American Flag bell bottom pants. Among her favorite films at the time are M*A*S*H and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. So, there’s that. Whenever my old band Bag Of Panties would play I would always put this centerfold up. There’s no bush, so it seems sort of innocent. And cool. If a gig was going bad or if I just needed some inspiration to play better than I was, I’d just look at Crystal. I know I’m way too young for her, but…Then there’s an interview with Jules Feiffer, a weird “surrealistic nudes” pictorial, movie reviews of Two Lane Blacktop and Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (which I’ve sampled many times), a negative review of McCartney’s “Ram” (lame, but fun to read) and the ads. My god, the ads. Apparently in the early 70s the kind of man that read Playboy was into leisure suits, Hush Puppies, and newfangled stereo equipment. TONS of ads offering new turntables, reel-to-reels, portable 8-track players, etc. There’s also a Datsun ad in there that I once used to design a ticket for a Wide Wail CD release party. Anyway, the centerfold is getting custom mounted and framed tomorrow.
The Rolling Stone issue which just happened to be there also changed my life. It’s the Best Albums Of The Last Twenty Years issue, August, 1987. When I was 14, the upstairs college student neighbor (C.K. Walls) gave me this issue. All I listened to at the time was metal and The Beatles. It’s an informative issue that explains very well why each album is great and why you should have it. It also has impressive reproductions of the album covers which is what drew me in initially. Through this issue I found The Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground, Television, Otis Redding, New York Dolls, R.E.M., Todd Rundgren, The fucking STOOGES…they turned my feeble little mind on to great shit. I spent years finding these albums. Looking through it today I realized I don’t own 6 of them. Someday I will.
One Comment
1 Debilicious wrote:
I thought her centerfold was very..stand by I just got back from a cubs/padres game and I might be speaking debineze. which by the way, was a language way before drunkeneze or Fergalicious hit the stage. I was born in 1969 — yes it would appear that I am old but I’m not. Splain later if needed. Any f’ing way I wanted to see what kind of grooming she had back then — did I miss something? I did not see any hoohaa. Who’s her Pop — obviously some one kept the hubba hubba out.…