CREEM

Uh-oh---my TV is from the early 90s, and it can do bad things to captions and credits---but could have sworn I saw "Richard Riegel" in there somewhere---was looking for it because he's a friend---but maybe there was a re-edit for this release??

I may have missed him. I've met Richard once, sometime in the mid-'90s; obviously he would have looked different 15-20 years earlier. In any event, there's a lot of time spent on Barry Kramer--more even than Bangs or Marsh, probably.

My first office job was in a suburb of Detroit in the mid-80's, right across the street from Creem HQ. I had not read the magazine for several years at that point, but I still harbored a fantasy of seeing various rockers coming and going, if not Alice Cooper or Patti Smith then at least Bob Seger or Rick Nielsen. Never saw anybody. I did see Barbie Benton in the art supply place next door! I don't think she was in town on Creem business.

I haven't seen the doc yet. Do they get into the latter incarnation of the magazine based out of NYC that some consider Creem in name only but was a great place for fledgling aspiring music journos, at least until they went out of business owing said fledgling aspiring music journos several thousand dollars?

I watched the doc last night. Focus is on Michigan years and the differences and fights between Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh, plus the owner Kramer with rest of staff. It acknowledges sexism issues, and the dislike that some had for Lester Bangs. Greil Marcus talks a lot in it. A handful of Creem writers do talk as well, though various ones are left out. Lots about Kramer, his wife, and his son who inherited the magazine at age 4 when his dad killed himself. I would also have liked if it had touched on some journalism business stuff like the circulation over the years, and how the ad sales department functioned while crazy madness was going on with the contributors.

Clemenza is right that it should have had more Creem writers in it.

1973: The one where the great Rick Johnson reviewed the reviewers in CREEM magazine via the letters section!

Including... C+hristgau - R. Meltzer - Lester Bangs - Patti Smith - Nick Tosches - Robot Hull - Greg Shaw - Ed Ward - and a bunch of other biggies! pic.twitter.com/PMipPziA4M

— Darren Viola (@RRepoz) August 2, 2020

That's great--led me to ordering a copy of the Rick Johnson book, which I'd forgotten about (I'm guessing it was a little expensive when it first came out).

"the bob seger of rock writing" :D

i enjoyed it, it's written by jaan uhelszki (who was there and is a good thing): it softballs a lot of things probably and definitely doesn't talk abt the actual writing on the page enough -- i've never made a documentary so i don't know how hard it is to do this well, i've watched a ton of arts crappy documentaries about novelists so i'm guessing it's quite hard

it also blurs the timeline a little, when i think the changes in ethos and practical approach are a real thing to be grappled with: this was the magazine that defined what "rock'n'roll" was by acting it out on the page blah blah, so it needs to confront the fact that ppl were responding just to the words "rock'n'roll" very differently in 1970 (when it was assumed to include e.g. sun ra and pharoah sanders) and 1980 (when it was in some quarters simply bad and hated bcz of what it was shutting out)

the magazine as it mutated after barry kramer died and control was lost is touched on but not enthused about. they shd definitely have interviewed frith…

Totally forgot Frith's "Letter from Britain"...That was for Creem and nowhere else, right?

some time later he wrote a monthly (?) mini-column for the voice: i'm not sure it had that title but that is basically the burden of its contents

(after frith quit cynthia rose also wrote a "letter from britain" kind of thing for creem iirc) (i have never held a single live copy of this magazine in my hand so my memories are extremely distanced)

a nice little serendipity is that in frith's piece for MY book, on the invaluable backstage-work of editing, he singles out susan whitall at creem, and she is alive and well and pleasingly evident in this documentary :)

tho she is not quizzed abt the tribulations of editing the gonzo boys into useable shape, which i wd definitely have asked her lol

also someone shd ask ppl abt bangs purely as an editor, as it feels somewhat distinct from the derogatis lens on his work!

"line by line, bangs worked yr copy like xgau on broken-open asthma-inhaler cylinders" — robot a. hull

mark s slipping in ref to his book shocka---as well he might: that's A Hidden Landscape Once a Week: The Unruly Curiosity of the UK Music Press in the 1960s-80s, in the words of those who were there, folks, got its own thread and British as Dickens but readily available for 17 bucks and change in God Bless The USA.
Now to promote my previosu posts upthread: Yean Frith's Letter From Britain dispatches were great, then Holdship editorially denounced all writers, especially foreign, who got too far from roots and didn't pray sufficient number of times a day in the direction of Graceland, and then, coincidentally or not, Frith quit, but they did get some more LFB contorbutors like yeah Cynthia Rose, also Penny Valentine, Ian MacDonald (and Frith got tortured by xgau's version of the line-edit while writing his visibly depressive Voice column, as told in mark's book.)
Seems like Creem did try to keep covering different kinds of music, more succesfully in the reviews section, incl. those tiny valuable rock-a-ramas, but then Spin came along, with more money and space and easier to find, even down in the boondocks, let me tell yall. Also, as mentioned in the doc, MTV, which Robbie Krieger jumped to at some point, but Spin was ahead for a while, back when indie rock could be really really indie. (ALso MTV at one point specifically said, had a guy say it on camera, that they knew about SST and shit but weren't having it.)

robbie krueger strangely difficult to look up under any spelling tbh -- even roberta gets hijacked by some professor of french medieval romance, but the doors guy jumps in way before that -- and also not listed on the wikipedia page, which seems rude

Sorry for the name of the Doors guitarist, duhhh----she prob got that more than once----here she is:
http://robertacruger.com/?page_id=2 Clippings file no longer there, but all the links I checked on the right side of the page still work---don't go back to Creem times though. Looks like she's still got a good sense of humor and inquiring mind.

"a journalist for more than 15 years"

i mean true but ??

(and thx for link, i too was googling her with a k)

right, that's odd---think she was mainly editor at Creem, but I recall some bylines on reviews---maybe making distinction between those activities and reportage, which seems to be her main thing for this century, judging by links (written wearing covid gloves, no typos! Maybe should always wear them for typing.)

ah ok maybe that's a distinction she's making: "journalist for 15 years! before that? rock journalist for 30 years!"

Yeah---and reminds me of a cartoon in Columbus Journalism Review: a Test Your Strength set-up with mallet and weights, like at old county fairs: the lowest, wimpiest classification was for Rock Writer. An attitude some of us picked up on over here, so maybe she doesn't want to be thought of that way, for professional reasons (ditto not wanting to be thought of as old enough to be a Creem pioneer). Think her job at early MTV, mentioned in the doc, was more to do with commercials and press releases.

the film spends more time highlighting the snarky humor of the magazine’s captions, headlines, and photos than focussing on the ambition and ideas of writers such as Nick Tosches, Richard Meltzer, Richard Riegel, Richard C. Walls, Robert Duncan, Bill Holdship, J. Kordosh, and Rick Johnson.

From Jim DeRogatis in New Yorker

Amplifying Kramer’s contributions seems to be a goal shared by Crawford and J.J., but, although the film praises him for giving his writers the freedom to make a mess on the page, it misses the opportunity to follow his transformation from an idealistic sixties hippie to an eighties capitalist.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-overlooked-influence-of-creem-magazine?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned

It's a good doc-u-scrapbook, but about two-thirds of the way through I realized I'd find it more interesting to flip through old issues of Creem rather than learn about Kramer family drama. I wish Greg Shaw was still alive because he always had an uncanny talent for distilling much of the magazine stuff down into some historical context.

time it spends highlighting captions, headlines, and photos except as a backdrop too fast to read: maybe two lines? it's true that this is more than it spends on tosches, meltzer, riegel et al, or writing and ideas in general

kramer declares himself as a merchant early on (after reay is kicked to the kerb), crappy staff pay is raised as a routine point of friction, and as for 80s capitalist, well, he died of nitrous oxide OD in 1981 lol: the immediate exemplar of the yuppieness is apparently that the building housing the 80s creem also housed a dentist (!) and a hair salon (oh no!), plus lester's usual ornate beef abt how the world did him wrong…

it absolutely misses historical context and muddles the mid-80s (post-all-kramers) feel with the early 70s sensibility but is jim d of all ppl the man to sort this out clearheadedly? he too skips right over the ideas of tosches, meltzer, riegel et al

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_3W6f6QuSM

I had signed up for this but messed up the start time; it's on YouTube anyway.

Jaan Uhelszki and Susan Whitall are excellent. I almost wish the whole Creem documentary had been just them in conversation--they're able to talk about those years in a way that doesn't sound dated at all. (Because they don't dwell on the party; they don't ignore that part of the story, but it's not front and center.) Chuck's good too--at times it felt like he was deferential to the two women, being someone who came to the magazine much later.

The one time Whitall does sound dated to me is her contention that if you want music writing to again mean what it mean then*, people need to stop writing for free. Agree totally with Chuck's resignation: it wouldn't matter at all, they'd (whoever "they" is) just move onto the next person. You either put your thoughts out there for free--here, on Facebook, on a blog, on a year-end ballot, wherever--or you keep them to yourself. I realize some people make some money, and maybe a handful of people make more than that, but basically that ship has sailed.

*Someone will tell me I'm old and that there's music writing now that means just as much to some readers as anything written 40 or 50 years ago. I don't believe that, but it's not a view I have the energy or interest to defend.

I also thought Marsh himself was part of these panels--not the two I've seen, and that's disappointing.

Okay, the link doesn't work, you have to watch it right on YouTube.

Just watched the Detroit panel, which was fascinating (and John Sinclair’s cranky crustiness/crusty crankyness was on full display). These panels are meant as a tribute to Marsh, hence his non-participation thus far, but I believe he’ll be part of a later panel or two.

Also, everyone on the Detroit panel — writer-activist Marsha Music, Sinclair, Wayne Kramer, writer Peter Werbe — agreed that Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels were one of the greatest bands to come out of that city (which is to say, the US), and are sadly and criminally underrated.

I'll definitely watch some of that once it gets posted.

JJ Kramer's current top tiers:

https://www.billboard.com/business/business-news/creem-entertainment-john-martin-ceo-1235065835/

Trying to make sense of that--what they actually plan to do--would require a much more careful read than I gave it.

"Future plans for the brand will be announced soon."

The only thing worse than them not getting something off the ground would be them getting something off the ground.

I got my first issue of Creem when I was probably 11 years old, around 1976. I remember Mick and Keith were on the cover. It would be hard for me to count the number of bands I learned about through that magazine--sometimes more than I wanted to know. "Backstage" was always a little weird. And Lester Bangs was incomparable.

Just to clarify...Old Creem was sometimes great and, if you go back today, sometimes dated in ways you would expect. But it was 100% of its moment. The idea of trying to relaunch it today, in any kind of guise, is preposterous.

Yeah, it was lightning in a bottle. Impossible to recapture.

the xpost ideas of Bangs, Meltzer, Tosches preserved in their collections, although in the context of Creem, their writing was most notable for the savory details of reviewing, stirring the music---Bangs the most inclined to test tags and formulations (is early 70s James Taylor a punk? Is Helen Reddy?) and givens, including his own: "But still the jade in the marrow must bob up and snarl." Could be a stunt, to an extent: he approvingly quoted his friend Ivan Julian's take on the long-running love-feud (somewhat one-sided) with Lou Reed as "wrestling scripts," but then he finally moved to New York and made it his soapbox bitch and so on (I was so glad when he took it to the stage, hoped he'd keep it there)
What I saw of the Creem doc tended to the Lestercentric, not too terribly much, but I'd really like to see is the camera slowly patrolling, savoring the pages of Creem, up and down, like in the Crumb[ doc, we get some of the pages of his comics and sketchbooks like that. Also, of course, close-ups of the captions, of lucky stars photographed while (presumably) savoring their Boy Howdy! beers.

They've just announced (to their mailing list & online fanclub) an online archive with every issue.

whoa

cool i've never seen those early newspaper style issues.

would buy

Certainly much more sensible than trying to relaunch it.

I wonder if they will have the NYC-incarnation of the mag that I wrote for in the early-mid '90s.

I haven't dug into the archives yet (though the publicist for the relaunch has offered me access) but this seems like a mag that would have aged about as well as Gerard Cosloy's or Steve Albini's old zines. And why exactly is it coming back?

https://www.creem.com/pages/archive

(xpost) I came to the magazine late, around 1980, so I don't know the early years beyond the occasional reprint. My guess is it's a mix of the typically dated and some stuff that holds up just fine. There was lots of good writing in those early '80s issues from Richard Riegel, Robot A. Hull, J. Kordosh, etc.

Anyone seen the first new print issue?

it's.....not embarassing? they haven't really found their voice, the yuks aren't really there, but only a couple of the pieces read like they could have been written by publicists and the level of writing is decent for what seems like a bunch of newcomers. only one writer tried the bangs schtick. bandwidth is pretty wide. don't love the oversized format. gutsy move, though, introducing a rock mag in this day and age. i basically subscribed for access to the archives, so the print publication is a nice extra.

plus where were the record reviews? i guess they figure that they wouldn't be timely enough in a quarterly? what's creem without record reviews?

I've seen reviews on the website. Most of them are capsule length and get updated weekly.

ok yeah i should take a look there. the bowie supplement they sent along with the first issue is interesting. it prints their legacy reviews of the successive bowie lps. the first one to get a fullthroated thumbs up is "pin ups," from lester bangs. i haven't read the "trixie a. balm" ones yet (aka lauren agnelli of nervous rex / washington squares fame). plus the casual denigration of groupies and that fellow with the hispanic accent in cameron crowe's piece! the rules for hipster discourse have sure changed.

I've been totally geeking out on the archive. They did a great job digitizing (though the interface is a little bit painful).

https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2025/03/19/john-peck-rip/

RIP Thr Mad Peck who did cool comics reviews for Creem magazine, sometimes in collaboration with others

Oh that's too bad. I have a trade paperback anthology Mad Peck Studios: A Twenty Year Retrospective By The Mad Peck (Dolphin/Doubleday 1987) intro by Nick Tosches that collects his comic reviews for Creem and other outlets. Flash Burn Funnies, The Adventures of Polly Promo and so on. Always reminded me of working in a record store, reviews of instantly forgotten C-list albums, almost-inside-the-biz in jokes, celebrity guest walk-ons from the Muppets, Fred Flinstone etc, you couldn't do that today kids or you'd get sued.

Marcus gave that a nice write-up at the time:

https://greilmarcus.net/2015/07/01/real-life-rock-top-06-02-87/

Love the doo-wop joke at the end (Mad Peck's, not Marcus's).