Alias Pink Puzz

by William RuhlmannThe title was a reference to the band's ruse of submitting a new record to an L.A. radio station under the alias and earning airplay until it was discovered that "Pink Puzz" was really Paul Revere & the Raiders. That was the Raiders' dilemma -- they could still get attention for their singles, such as the Top 40 rocker "Let Me!" that led off this collection, but hip FM radio didn't want to know. Actually, since Mark Lindsay's muse was taking him in a pop-swamp-rock direction not far removed from what Elvis Presley was doing at the time, maybe that made sense. Lindsay's increasingly autobiographical material concerned itself with the pleasures and travails of being a rock star on the road, and though he could bring conviction to such material, singing about the dilemma of missing his limo can't have endeared him to his fans. As it was, Alias Pink Puzz charted higher than any Raiders album in two years, but stayed in the charts fewer weeks than any since 1965. Maybe what they needed to do was change their name for real...