Creem
Encyclopedia
Creem "America's Only Rock 'n' Roll Magazine," was a monthly rock 'n' roll publication
first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid. Lester Bangs
, often cited as "America's Greatest Rock Critic," became editor in 1971. The term "punk rock
" was said to have been coined by the magazine in 1971, and the term "heavy metal
" was also first used in its pages.
, and later the Detroit suburb of Birmingham
. This geographical separation from the entertainment industry in the United States
, then focused primarily in Hollywood and New York City
, along with the British upbringing of original editor Reay, resulted in a certain irreverence, a deprecatory and humorous tone that permeated the magazine throughout its existence. The magazine became famous for its comical photo captions, which poked fun at rock stars, the industry, and even the magazine itself. Its location also meant it was among the first national publications with in-depth coverage of many popular Detroit-area artists, such as Bob Seger
, Mitch Ryder
, Alice Cooper
, The MC5, The Stooges
, Iggy Pop
, and Parliament-Funkadelic
, as well as other Midwestern acts such as Raspberries
and Cheap Trick
.
(which many claim the magazine, and especially Bangs, helped to conceptualize if not invent) and New Wave
movements early on. Creem gave massive exposure to artists like Lou Reed
, David Bowie
, Roxy Music
, Blondie
and The New York Dolls years before the mainstream press. In the '80s, it also led the pack on coverage of such upcoming rock icons as R.E.M.
, The Replacements, The Smiths
and The Cure
, among numerous others. It was also among the first to sing the praises of metal acts like Motörhead, Kiss
, Judas Priest
, and Van Halen
. Kurt Cobain
once stated to RIP Magazine that he had first learned about punk rock
from reading Creem as an adolescent.
, formative early editor Dave Marsh
, Billy Altman, John Morthland, Ben Edmonds, Ed Ward, Richard Riegel, Ric Siegel, Robert Christgau
, Richard Meltzer
, Nick Tosches
, Greil Marcus
, Jeffrey Morgan
, Richard C. Walls, Rob Tyner, Patti Smith
, Peter Laughner
, Cameron Crowe
, Linda Barber, Charlie Auringer, Judy Adams, Jaan Uhelszki
, Penny Valentine
, Susan Whitall, John "The Mad" Peck, Robot A. Hull, Edward Kelleher (aka, Edouard Dauphin), Rick Johnson
, Bruce Malamut, Lotta D. Blooz, John Mendelssohn, Jon Young, Lisa Robinson, Vicki Arkoff, Deborah Frost, Cynthia Rose, Mike Gormley, Sylvie Simmons, Gregg Turner, Chuck Eddy
, Mark J. Norton, Dave DiMartino, Alan Niester, Robert Duncan
, Alan Madlane (as Alan Madeleine), Bill Holdship and John Kordosh; the latter two edited the last versions of Creem in the late '80s.
The magazine moved its base of operations to Los Angeles
shortly before it ceased publication. Holdship and Kordosh were both involved in Creems move to Los Angeles after it was purchased by Arnold Levitt, but both had already left the magazine before its move to New York City
after Levitt licensed the name to a publisher there, and its ultimate demise. Former William Morris agent, musician and journalist Mark J. Petracca (aka Dusty Wright) became the editor during its New York City residence from 1992 - 1993. And Chris Nadler was the last editor before the magazine was shut down. Steve Peters and David Sprague were the last members remaining in the original editorial chain that reached back to 1969.
, reportedly for $50. Both appeared on the cover of the second issue as a black and white drawing titled Detroit 1969. For the December 1971 issue, Wilson colored the drawing, which appeared in every following issue in a Creem's Profiles, a parody of the then-popular Dewar's Profiles
, featuring musicians and bands holding cans of "Boy Howdy" beer.
Matheu and Brian J. Bowe, original managing editor of the Creem website, compiled an anthology of Creem articles and photographs into a large-format book published by Harper Collins in October 2007. There has been some controversy surrounding the book and its selection of material, although it has received numerous positive reviews.
There is currently a dispute being litigated between J.J. Kramer, New York-based lawyer and son of Creem founder Barry Kramer, and Creem Media, Inc.
Publication
To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...
first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. It suspended production in 1989 but received a short-lived renaissance in the early 1990s as a glossy tabloid. Lester Bangs
Lester Bangs
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock 'n' roll criticism....
, often cited as "America's Greatest Rock Critic," became editor in 1971. The term "punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
" was said to have been coined by the magazine in 1971, and the term "heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
" was also first used in its pages.
History
Creem was based in Detroit, MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
, and later the Detroit suburb of Birmingham
Birmingham, Michigan
Birmingham is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan and an affluent suburb of Detroit. As of the 2010 census, the population was 20,103...
. This geographical separation from the entertainment industry in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, then focused primarily in Hollywood and New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, along with the British upbringing of original editor Reay, resulted in a certain irreverence, a deprecatory and humorous tone that permeated the magazine throughout its existence. The magazine became famous for its comical photo captions, which poked fun at rock stars, the industry, and even the magazine itself. Its location also meant it was among the first national publications with in-depth coverage of many popular Detroit-area artists, such as Bob Seger
Bob Seger
Robert Clark "Bob" Seger is an American rock and roll singer-songwriter, guitarist and pianist.As a locally successful Detroit-area artist, he performed and recorded as Bob Seger and the Last Heard and Bob Seger System throughout the 1960s...
, Mitch Ryder
Mitch Ryder
William S. Levise, Jr , better known by his stage name Mitch Ryder, is an American musician who has recorded over two dozen albums in more than four decades.-Career:...
, Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades...
, The MC5, The Stooges
The Stooges
The Stooges are an American rock band from Ann Arbor, Michigan first active from 1967 to 1974, and later reformed in 2003...
, Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
, and Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadelic is a funk, soul and rock music collective headed by George Clinton. Their style has been dubbed P-Funk. Collectively the group has existed under various names since the 1960s and has been known for top-notch musicianship, politically charged lyrics, outlandish concept albums...
, as well as other Midwestern acts such as Raspberries
Raspberries (band)
Raspberries is an American power pop/pop rock band from Cleveland, Ohio. They had a run of success in the early 1970s music scene with their crisp pop sound, which Allmusic later described as featuring "exquisitely crafted melodies and achingly gorgeous harmonies." The members were known for their...
and Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of members Robin Zander , Rick Nielsen , Tom Petersson , and Bun E...
.
Influence
Creem picked up on punk rockPunk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
(which many claim the magazine, and especially Bangs, helped to conceptualize if not invent) and New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
movements early on. Creem gave massive exposure to artists like Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
, Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
and The New York Dolls years before the mainstream press. In the '80s, it also led the pack on coverage of such upcoming rock icons as R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
, The Replacements, The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
and The Cure
The Cure
The Cure are an English rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member...
, among numerous others. It was also among the first to sing the praises of metal acts like Motörhead, Kiss
KISS (band)
Kiss is an American rock band formed in New York City in January 1973. Well-known for its members' face paint and flamboyant stage outfits, the group rose to prominence in the mid to late 1970s on the basis of their elaborate live performances, which featured fire breathing, blood spitting,...
, Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest are an English heavy metal band from Birmingham, England, formed in 1969. The current line-up consists of lead vocalist Rob Halford, guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, bassist Ian Hill, and drummer Scott Travis. The band has gone through several drummers over the years,...
, and Van Halen
Van Halen
Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. The band has enjoyed success since the release of its debut album, Van Halen, . As of 2007 Van Halen has sold 80 million albums worldwide and has had the most #1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart...
. Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
once stated to RIP Magazine that he had first learned about punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
from reading Creem as an adolescent.
Staff
Editors and writers for Creem included Lester BangsLester Bangs
Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock 'n' roll criticism....
, formative early editor Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh
Dave Marsh is an American music critic, author, editor and radio talk show host. He was a formative editor of Creem magazine, has written for various publications such as Newsday, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone, and has published numerous books about music and musicians, mostly focused on...
, Billy Altman, John Morthland, Ben Edmonds, Ed Ward, Richard Riegel, Ric Siegel, Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
, Richard Meltzer
Richard Meltzer
Richard Meltzer was one of the earliest rock music critics. His first book, The Aesthetics of Rock, evolved out of his undergraduate studies in philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and graduate studies at Yale University...
, Nick Tosches
Nick Tosches
Nick Tosches is an American journalist, novelist, biographer, and poet of Albanian and Italian descent.- Life :After different odd-jobs, Tosches started writing with poetry and rock-'n'-roll magazines, including Creem, Fusion, and Rolling Stone.Tosches' second book, a biography of Jerry Lee Lewis...
, Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
, Jeffrey Morgan
Jeffrey Morgan
Jeffrey Morgan is a Canadian writer, musician, photographer, and poet who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Morgan is best known for being the authorized biographer of both Alice Cooper and The Stooges.-CREEM:...
, Richard C. Walls, Rob Tyner, Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, Peter Laughner
Peter Laughner
Peter Laughner was an American guitarist, songwriter and singer.A native of Bay Village, Ohio, Laughner remains a rather little known figure; nonetheless, Richie Unterberger described him as "probably the single biggest catalyst in the birth of Cleveland's alternative rock scene in the mid...
, Cameron Crowe
Cameron Crowe
Cameron Bruce Crowe is an American screenwriter and film director. Before moving into the film industry, Crowe was a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine, for which he still frequently writes....
, Linda Barber, Charlie Auringer, Judy Adams, Jaan Uhelszki
Jaan Uhelszki
Jaan Uhelszki is an American music journalist and co-founder of the music magazine Creem. She is one of the first women to work in rock journalism.- Early influences :...
, Penny Valentine
Penny Valentine
Penelope Ann Valentine was a British music journalist, rock critic, and occasional television personality....
, Susan Whitall, John "The Mad" Peck, Robot A. Hull, Edward Kelleher (aka, Edouard Dauphin), Rick Johnson
Rick Johnson
Rick Johnson may refer to:* Rick Johnson , American actor and director, and former CFL quarterback* Ricky Johnson , American motocross, NASCAR and off-road racer* Rick Johnson , American musician and bass player...
, Bruce Malamut, Lotta D. Blooz, John Mendelssohn, Jon Young, Lisa Robinson, Vicki Arkoff, Deborah Frost, Cynthia Rose, Mike Gormley, Sylvie Simmons, Gregg Turner, Chuck Eddy
Chuck Eddy
Chuck Eddy is an American music journalist.He was born in Detroit, Michigan. After starting his journalism career with The Village Voice and Creem, where he published one of the first national interviews with the Beastie Boys in the mid-1980s, Eddy then wrote for Rolling Stone, Spin,...
, Mark J. Norton, Dave DiMartino, Alan Niester, Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (writer)
-Career:Robert Duncan was part of the 'second wave' of writers for Creem magazine, becoming managing editor from 1975 to 1976. In Creem's 1977 Reader Poll, he finished third in balloting for "Best Rock Critic" behind Lester Bangs and Robert Christgau...
, Alan Madlane (as Alan Madeleine), Bill Holdship and John Kordosh; the latter two edited the last versions of Creem in the late '80s.
The magazine moved its base of operations to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
shortly before it ceased publication. Holdship and Kordosh were both involved in Creems move to Los Angeles after it was purchased by Arnold Levitt, but both had already left the magazine before its move to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
after Levitt licensed the name to a publisher there, and its ultimate demise. Former William Morris agent, musician and journalist Mark J. Petracca (aka Dusty Wright) became the editor during its New York City residence from 1992 - 1993. And Chris Nadler was the last editor before the magazine was shut down. Steve Peters and David Sprague were the last members remaining in the original editorial chain that reached back to 1969.
Graphic design
The CREEM logo was designed by Bob Wilson, who also wrote a regular comic strip, "Mike and Barney". The "Mr. Dreamwhip" and "Boy Howdy" icons were designed by underground cartoonist Robert CrumbRobert Crumb
Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
, reportedly for $50. Both appeared on the cover of the second issue as a black and white drawing titled Detroit 1969. For the December 1971 issue, Wilson colored the drawing, which appeared in every following issue in a Creem's Profiles, a parody of the then-popular Dewar's Profiles
Dewar's
Dewar's is a brand of blended Scotch whisky.-History:The Dewar's whisky brand was created by John Dewar, Sr. in 1846. Under the control of his two sons, John A. Dewar Jr. and Thomas "Tommy" Dewar , the brand expanded to become a global market by 1896...
, featuring musicians and bands holding cans of "Boy Howdy" beer.
Dispute
Robert Matheu, a regular Creem photographer since 1977, and his business partners, Ken Kulpa and Jason Turner, who together formed Creem Media, Inc. in 2001, led an online resurrection with a new staff.Matheu and Brian J. Bowe, original managing editor of the Creem website, compiled an anthology of Creem articles and photographs into a large-format book published by Harper Collins in October 2007. There has been some controversy surrounding the book and its selection of material, although it has received numerous positive reviews.
There is currently a dispute being litigated between J.J. Kramer, New York-based lawyer and son of Creem founder Barry Kramer, and Creem Media, Inc.
External links
- Boy Howdy: The Creem Story by Margaret Moser Austin ChronicleAustin ChronicleThe Austin Chronicle is an alternative weekly, tabloid-style newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demographic...
- Can't Forget the Motor City: Creem Magazine, Rock Music, Detroit Identity, Mass Consumerism, and the Counterculture by Michael J. Kramer