CREEM Magazine Returns
You kids these days with your cell phones and internets and instant access to every song ever mastered! Sure, you have it good in 2023, but in 1973 things were different. We had to walk uphill both ways in the snow to the record shop, only to find it closed because the counter guy ran out of cigs. Rock and roll information was hard to get, and we subscribed to a monthly magazine to hear about the newest bands and hottest sounds. Seeking out the cool music was a full-time job involving late night FM radio and word of mouth. You could subscribe to a paper called The Rolling Stone. It was a bit pretentious and refused to acknowledge punk for many years, and it went from hip to not very quickly. Your only other option was the quirky mag CREEM, with its suggestive cartoons, obscure band interviews, and European top 40 charts. From 1969 to 1989, it came out monthly. Just ONCE a MONTH! Wrap your digital brain around that delay! Ink 19 didn’t even exist for CREEM’s first run.
CREEM became a fountainhead of cool info and fast-moving trends. Now it’s back in all its ink-stained glory with quarterly updates. Of course, it’s online where updates happen almost daily, but its print magazine format is so totally old school it’s actually gone around the block twice to be hip once more.
So, should you care? Yes, certainly. Let’s cruise the last issue and see what hipness we can find. There’s a nostalgia piece about how Hole formed after a backstage meeting with Smashing Pumpkins. Next we find a long think piece from Black Flag’s Henry Rollins about how he works to stay relevant even as the old age and midlife crisis attacks his inner hipster. Then we have an interesting piece on Creedence Clearwater Revival and their tax problems in the anti-war days. Honestly, it’s a fascinating peek in to the realpolitik of how bands get paid. Next we hear about a bunch of rich guys attempting to become cool rock stars with the bassackwards process of starting out as rich kids and trying to become cool. It works out about as you would expect.
Do magazines make any sense in today’s everything everywhere all-the-time world of publishing? I like to think so. The magazine format allows longer articles that can be consumed over a longer period and explore details you may initially miss. And if you are looking to build a fuller understanding of a band or a genre, getting the details right matters for both your own self-education and for converting it for others. CREEM has boldly stepped back to its roots and now presents an old, but still relevant path to building your musical and cultural knowledge.
Heck, I’ve learned a thing or two about bands I like just leafing though the press. Think how smart you might be with this retro training.
