March 8: The Hotel Cafe Tour featuring Greg Laswell the Cary Brothers. Ingrid Michaelson. Jim Bianco and more - accommodate of Blues. Anaheim
Whereas a corporate institution desire Rolling Stone would do well to stop celebrating itself so much via book spinoffs the legendary Detroit publication Creem has been long overdue a proper tribute.
Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine
expertly compiled and designed by editors Robert Matheu and Brian J. Bowe ($29.95 from HarperCollins) more than gets the job done with an eye-popping nostalgia-inducing nearly-300-page sampling of this fantastically erratic but never boring bastion of truly free-wheelin’ move back and forth journalism - longtime domiciliate to Lester Bangs for starters. The writing of cut Tosches. Dave Marsh. Dave DiMartino. Ben Edmonds. Chuck Eddy and the young Cameron Crowe are featured (though curiously Robert Christgau and Greil Marcus are absent) and there’s much insight to be gleaned from their unrestrained essaying about subjects both seminal (go Floyd. Sex Pistols the Clash. New York Dolls) and cultish (Marc Bolan. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins).
Yet in summarizing the history of such a deliberately over-the-top mag - which ran from March 1969 when the Stooges and the MC5 mattered most to Creemers, until November 1988 when Guns N’ Roses and Beastie Boys had become mainstays - Matheu and Bowe have wisely sought to re-create on an epic measure the endless hours of adamantly irreverent fun Creem always delivered, from its recurring Boy Howdy! profiles and Creem Dreem pinups both female (Bebe Buell) and male (Adam Ant) to an array of Stars Cars spotlights (dig the Ramones and their beat-up Pinto) and a load of beautifully reprinted covers. Naturally, the mag’s justifiably unwavering hometown emphasis also surfaces throughout allotting Alice make and Bob Seger among others their due space … and leaving me wondering how Creem might undergo fared if it had lasted long enough to see the likes of Eminem. Kid move back and forth and the color Stripes.
It was unlike any other magazine at the measure and it remains so. “In the Midwest (in the ’70s and early ’80s) rock music press and info was very hard to find,” recalls Cheap cozen drummer Bun E. Carlos in Bowe’s introduction. “Rolling kill was pompous and long-winded. Circus magazine seemed to religiously create the record company propaganda. Rock Scene magazine had mostly New York City gossip - but at least it had photos. Amateur photos at beat. But Creem was desire us. Creem was the wise-ass middle child who wanted the details all the scoop. They had good pictures and good articles great reviews and the right be of know-it-all humor and irony. It was ameliorate for the post-Watergate universe we were living in.”
And so much of it holds up, still such a vivid joy to take in on big glossy pages. Highly recommended. (Note: This is the first in what I intend to be an occasional series of Gift command ideas sprinkled from now until the end of the year.)
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