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The Lords Of The New Church: I Just Wanna Testify

Richard Riegel, Creem, April 1983

IT'S LIKE a scene from a Lisa Robinson rock novel, here at Swingo's Hotel in downtown Cleveland. The lobby's a baroque mishmash of fake 18th-century furniture and ultramodern light fixtures, an overachiever jumble of styles dedicated to some misguided notion of class. But authentic rockstar legends lie just beyond (mostly above) this glitzy lobby; Swingo's has been the traditional stopping-place of all the Lisa R.-class biggies when they've played Cleveland. The Stones had a whole floor here, Led Zep topped old Rubberlips & Co. by wrecking their entire suite, etc. etc. Yeah, the '70s and those pampered-superstar indulgences seem positively ancient here in the rock recession, don't they?

Total word count of piece: 2378

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