When CREEM Magazine arose from the ashes of the Detroit riots in the late 1960s, it helped invent the art of rock ’n’ roll journalism. Now, the 21st century online version of the magazine has returned to reclaim that most American of art forms.
The same social milieu that spawned CREEM gave the world the chest-pounding aggro sounds of the MC5, Amboy Dukes, Bob Seger, Grand Funk Railroad and The Stooges. Nowhere else in the world was the music — or the journalism — as loud and aggressive. Both reflected their surroundings: as powerful as a Hemi engine, as loud as a stamping press, and as dirty as the smokestacks of Zug Island.
From that cacophonous beginning, CREEM enlisted, encouraged and empowered a coterie of writers whose names today read like a rock journalist hall of fame: Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, Dave DiMartino, Ben Edmonds, Chuck Eddy, Bill Holdship, J. Kordosh, Rick Johnson, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh, Richard Meltzer, Jeffrey Morgan, Richard Riegel, Nick Tosches, and Jaan Uhelszki. Punches and typewriters were thrown as CREEM invented a style of rock journalism that was filled with irreverence and self-importance. Fittingly, underground perverto artist R. Crumb was enlisted to do an early cover and create the beloved CREEM mascot — an outlandish and naughty glass milk bottle named Boy Howdy! Later on, Boy Howdy! started his own fictitious line of eponymous beer that was hoisted by stars from Rod Stewart to Kiss and from the Rolling Stones to the Go-Go’s.
CREEM embraced the artists and the artists embraced CREEM — either they got the joke or they became it. The magazine’s horizons quickly broadened beyond the local scene to include androgynous (though no less ferocious) artists like The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and T. Rex. CREEM championed bands that hadn’t yet broke into the mainstream like Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, Blondie and The Clash.. And while most rock critics now acknowledge the greatness of the above artists, in many cases only CREEM recognized their excellence at the time.
But interest in CREEM and its legacy remains strong. In 2000, former CREEM contributor Cameron Crowe wrote a love letter to those innocent days of rock, before managers, publicists and business controlled and manipulated images. His movie, Almost Famous, prominently featured the magazine and its hero, Lester Bangs.
Written for fanatics by fanatics, CREEM delivers High-Energy, American-Made Rock Journalism. Accept no substitutes! CREEM is back!
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© CREEM MEDIA, INC.
