An alternative shot from this Michael Ochs session appeared in Daisann McLane's famous Rolling Stone cover story on Cheap Trick from June of 1979. If you can't bypass the paywall to read the entire story, don't worry. I have kept every screenshot and jpeg from my research for American Standard. I will also be posting all the pics, all credited or with watermarks intact, Backbeat Books didn't have the budget for. In fact, I have so much material left over there is enough for a second book on this band. We'll see how this one does. The publisher just told me they are soon going into production on it, so stay tuned.
So much about Cheap Trick is based on image versus reality. Shots like this weren't really their favorites. Sure, they had many of the same vices most bands have. They enjoyed the company of a pretty lady, though Bun E. Carlos points out that he and Rick are still on their first marriages. Photos like this, especially running in Rolling Stone during their "homecoming" stand in Chicago were instrumental in promoting America's newest rock stars. But it was certainly staged, like so many others in Creem, Circus, Crawdaddy, Rock Scene, etc.
Bun mentioned that a stripper took her top off just as they were introduced at the El Mocambo in November '77. I know it's a NSFW shot, but I can't imagine any of you are letting your co-workers look at this. The promotional panties were often in black and Ken Adamany had a drawer of them. He's still got a bunch, actually. I believe it was a Cash Box article from the Can-Am '77 tour with KISS where the idea of promotional skivvies was first brought up. Did Cheap Trick truly get the idea after seeing undergarments hurled onto the stage like it was a Tom Jones show? Who knows.
1977 was a huge year for establishing the band both on the road and in the studio. Speaking of "In The Studio," here's an interview with Chris "Redbeard" Hill with Rick and Robin. Listen here at about 24 minutes in where Robin suggests that the band was ejected from the second of their January dates opening for Queen in Wisconsin. Brian Kramp very tactfully alludes to it in his book, but Robin claims they were booted for hazing Freddie Mercury and using the "f word." There's no corroboration of this story and also none that the band was in any way homophobic. They had the exact type of humor and slang that any 1970s Midwestern band would. Rick, in particular, has had the personality of a Friar's Club comedian all his life. Cheap Trick mocked the artifice of bands such as Queen and KISS while appreciating their music for what it was. I have no doubt the band would razz Queen and use in jest language we'd all now see as slurs. However, these guys were pretty fucking accepting in reality, not that anyone asked.
Of course, there was no aspect of their career that was more mythologized than Budokan. Much like all the other exaggerations and outright lies, the folklore of the shows and the album that followed. It worked for and against them, in 1978 and onward. No one will ever fully debunk every untruth about the band, though it is amazing how many of them have become accepted. I have tried as best as I could to point these out in the book. Anyway, I will try to update this site every so often as we approach the publication date of September 15. Feel free to leave comments and tell me if this is worth it or if you'd like to see any other kind of ephemera from my numerous trips down the rabbit hole.
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