Creem‘s Rock and Roll Dream

Detroit-based Creem magazine helped to shape the face of rock ‘n’ roll. It served as an inspiration to rock music fans as well as those who were making the music themselves. Some, myself included, feel that Creem invented rock music criticism. Many of the industry’s greats, such as Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh and Ben Edmonds, got their start at or the near the inception of Creem in 1969.
So when a review copy of the first ever book about the magazine billed as “America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine” arrived on my desk, it sent my mind spiraling down memory lane.
As a kid in the early ‘70s, I spent my allowance each month on Creem. Sure, there were other magazines, most notably Rolling Stone, but it was filled with a lot of non-music crap I wasn’t interested in. Then there was Circus, better than Rolling Stone, but it was straightforward do-it-by-the-college-journalism-textbook-reporting-style, and to put it simply, it was boring. I thumbed through those and other magazines and then flipped my coins on the counter and walked the 12 blocks home, reading Creem from cover to cover.

MUSICAL ESCAPE
Creem resonated with me. I was a Midwest boy from a factory family. Rock ‘n’ roll was raw and industrious in those days. So was Creem. It was funny too. They poked fun at everything and everybody, including the magazine and its personalities. Rock music was my drug, my escape from the world; when times were tough, I headed to my bedroom and cranked up the stereo and Creem was my dealer.
Now, as I started paging through the new book about Creem (the magazine was named after the band Cream), my mind drifted back to how I entered this wacky world of music journalism.
Most, though not all, music critics are frustrated musicians themselves. That wasn’t the case for me. It was obvious by the sixth grade that I was no musician. I was the eighth chair violinist in our school orchestra that only had five violinists.
Despite my inability to play music, I wanted to be a part of it. I was living in East Lansing around a bunch of college students during the time of the peace, love, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll movement. The field near my home seemed like a mini-Woodstock every weekend with bands performing and flower children hanging out. After finishing the fifth grade my father cut my allowance off and told me “it is time to make my own way in the world.” I started delivering papers and mowing lawns.

JAM SESSION
Well, one of the lawns I mowed was that of a rock star. I didn’t know it at the time. He was on tour and hadn’t paid me all summer. I contemplated not mowing his lawn but my father insisted that I continue saying the guy had to come back sometime.
He did; it was around Labor Day and I noticed a bunch of cars at his house (he lived four doors from me). So I ran down to collect the $35 he owed me. As I arrived I heard loud music coming from the house. A very attractive woman let me in and there was a jam session going on.
When the guys stopped playing, one asked what I wanted. I was scared and nervous but mustered up the courage to blurt out, “I have been mowing the lawn here all summer and the guy who owns this house owes me $35.”
Well everyone starting laughing and a guy got up from the piano, opened his walle,t handed me a $50 bill and told me to keep the change. Then he proceeded to introduce himself. “I am Bob Baldori the homeowner, and these are the guys in the band.”
As he started naming everyone, he got to the guitar player and my jaw dropped. “And this is Chuck Berry.”

THE WOOLIES
Bob Baldori and his band, The Woolies, were part of the Detroit ‘60s and early ‘70s music scene. They even charted by covering the hit song “Who Do You Love,” and often toured the Midwest as the backing band for Berry, Muddy Waters and other legends. Baldori took me under his wing and we spent hours talking about music.
Then one day I told my grandparents (my grandfather was an author) that I wanted to write about music for a living. They were supportive when I said I was going to submit articles to the local paper and to music magazines. My grandmother even agreed to type up my articles for me.
I contacted the Lansing Star (the Northern Express of Lansing). The editor thought I was cute and agreed to publish an article if I could score an interview with a major band. I started calling record companies and was striking out. Then I looked down at my Creem and an idea hit. I would grab a name of one of the writers from Creem and call and say I was that writer wanting to do the interview.
As a kid, I loved Creem, but guys like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs were faceless to me. I read their work but really never thought much about them -- I was simply intrigued by their subjects. I had no concept of their greatness at the time -- hell, I was just 13. So I opened up the current issue and came to Lester Bangs’ name.
I saw that Ritchie Blackmore was coming with his new band Rainbow, so I called the record company and said: “Hey this is Lester Bangs from Creem and I want to interview Mr. Blackmore after his concert.”
Much to my surprise they agreed and said they would provide two tickets and two backstage passes (one for my photographer). After the concert I headed backstage, scared, nervous and with my cheap cassette recorder just purchased from Woolworth.

BUSTED
I was escorted along with the photographer from the Star who didn’t know the stunt I had pulled to a room to interview Blackmore. There were a lot of people around and the room became silent while I set up my recorder. I asked my 10 questions and when I finished, a guy who I thought was a manager said, “Great questions, and who are you again?” I blurted out “Lester Bangs from Creem.” Everyone in the room busted out laughing. He responded, “that’s funny, my name just happens to be Lester Bangs and I work for Creem.”
As my face reddened, I thought I was going to jail. Bangs pulled me aside, laughing, and told me the record company had called the magazine, so he was tipped off. He wanted to be there to see his impersonator. Bangs thought my stunt was funny. He talked to me for awhile and took my phone number. He never called me; I never spoke to him again. Bangs did give me this advice: “Don’t try to write like me or anyone else; for that matter kid, find your own voice.” Later I learned he told that to many a burgeoning music journalist.
After getting a few articles published in the Star, I had lined up an interview and backstage passes for an Ian Hunter (of Mott the Hoople fame) concert. Well, the publisher and editor of the Star were tiring of me getting to go to all of the shows and they wanted to come along. Security wouldn’t let them in. So when I submitted my article, they didn’t publish it as retaliation.
I was angry and called Creem and spoke to publisher Richard Creamer to see if he would be interested in the piece. I explained to him what had happened at the Star. He wasn’t interested. He gave me this piece of advice: “The same thing happened to me and I was so pissed off that I decided to start my own magazine. Maybe you should start your own paper.”

‘THIS PAPER SUCKS’
So a week later at the Lansing Star editorial meeting, I blurted out: “This paper sucks and I am going to start my own paper.” I turned around and walked out. As I was heading to the elevator, the business manager grabbed me and asked if I was serious. I said, “yes.”
He asked me to go up on the roof of the building to talk privately with him. He also was frustrated and wanted to start his own paper. Along with his girlfriend who was a sales rep for the Star, we plotted out our own paper.
At the age of 15 I co-founded the Michigan State Variety (a weekly that was similar in format to the Express). The paper had no money and no staff, just the three of us. I bounced around Lansing, and East Lansing covering local entertainment and wrote articles under various aliases (to give the appearance that we had a large editorial department) like Reggie Ontario, Dick Allen, and Rich River to name a few.
It was great -- as a high school kid I was given access to area nightclubs. The school thought it was cool and let me work co-op (I attended school half days and worked at the paper half days). My connections as a journalist enabled me to bring rock stars to my high school. I even won the MTV essay contest and our high school became an MTV high school in my senior year. Twice, MTV personalities came to my high school to debut new videos and pass out free albums and other memorabilia. I even had a weekly appearance on the local rock station.
But all good things come to an end and times were tough in those days with Michigan leading the country in unemployment. After four years the paper, folded. After the paper I continued to write, went to college, worked for concert promoters, became a concert caterer and eventually found my way to the Northern Express.

INSPIRING RAG
So what does this have to do with the new Creem book? In one sense nothing -- in another sense everything.
Creem magazine inspired a chain of events for me that shaped my life. If Creem never existed I probably would have ended up a doctor or an attorney. Whether I am cognizant of it or not, each time I sit down to write, I draw from inspirations of Creem.
At the time I met Lester Bangs I was just grateful that I wasn’t going to jail. His words at that time didn’t mean much to me as they do today. But as I writer I have strived to find my own voice. It is a collection of voices. I am asked why I don’t write criticisms or reviews. I don’t feel qualified. I am not a musician so I don’t understand all of the intricacies of creating music. Anyways is some guy sitting at a computer really able to determine what sounds good for everyone? I don’t think so.
Sure some might see might approach, that lacks critical statements, as merely an extension of the bands publicity office. I view my voice as an attempt to capture the passion of artist. Essentially I ask the question what is the band or musician trying to accomplish? Then in words I capture that and put it out for the reader to decide if they want to explore the subject further.
Laster Bangs would rip me a new one for this approach. If he were alive today he would call me a pussy for my style. But he might have to eat his own words. In the movie Almost Famous, the semi-autobiographical tale of Cameron Crowe (a former “Creem” writer) reaches out to Lester Bangs for advice (the Crowe character, a high school kid has an assignment for Rolling Stone). Bangs warns Crowe not to get to close to his subjects, not to become their friends or to take drinks from them.
But Bangs did exactly opposite of what he would preach; he accepted their free food and booze. Bangs had balls as he would drink with bands and then would wake up and take them to task in his writings. Bangs, Marsh and the other great critics at Creem wanted more out the subjects they wrote about, hence the criticism. That’s what made those writers from Creem so great and why rock music fans and musicians alike read the magazine. There will never be another Creem, most of the articles hold up today as great works and are still great reads.


A Look at the Book

The book, Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine, strikes a chord, which, depending on your perspective, is in tune with some and out of tune with others.
The book was compiled by Robert Matheu, who owns the rights to the magazine and its back issues, and Brian J. Bowe, a Grand Rapids freelance music journalist.
Creem magazine, while comical and crafty, spanned nearly 20 years and took on various personalities. The magazine mirrored the music industry. Its early contributors had the hard-charging Detroit bands to write about, along with the Stones, The Who, and Led Zeppelin, among others, that created cunning journalism. In the final years of Creem, writers were challenged by the ‘80s music scene.
So creating a book to capture one of the most important publications in rock ‘n’ roll history is virtually an impossible task.
For fans of the magazine from its early days, this book will probably fall short. The early writers, Bangs, Edmonds and Marsh, who not only shaped the personality and direction of Creem, but are also responsible for creating modern music criticism, are essentially footnotes in this book.
In fact, Marsh has gone on record as such, stating to the New York media: “It sounds like my involvement in the magazine was a drive-by, and this guy Matheu who was a freelance photographer, who was never on staff, he’s all of a sudden one of the important photographers. I feel like Trotsky being rubbed out of the photograph.”
Other former editors, like Susan Whitall (now the music writer for the Detroit News), who was with the publication during the late ‘70s was and its first female editor, told the New York Observer: “It’s not Creem as it really was. I look at it and it’s like looking in a funhouse mirror, because I’m looking at something I was involved in, but it’s not quite right, it’s not quite in focus.”

FANTASTIC COLLECTION
But all that aside, for the casual reader, the Creem book is a fantastic collection of some of the publication’s best articles in its 20-year history. Equally impressive is the photography. The book, to the best of its ability, captures the spirit of its mascot, Boy Howdy (an icon drawn by the great R. Crumb for $50). But at the same time, when you have heard the Rolling Stones in concert, compared to seeing their tribute band, it’s just is not the same.
Bill Holdship, who was the final editor of Creem and is now the music editor for the Detroit Metro Times, put it best in a recent two-part series about Creem in the Metro Times: “the new book is neither as bad as its detractors, nor as good as its champions say it is.”
Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine truly does fall somewhere in the middle. Funny, because as a magazine, Creem was never about the middle of the road. But then again, when Creem started, rock ‘n’ roll was never in the middle of the road. It was about trying to pass 20 cars while driving 90 miles an hour with a semi-truck coming at you. For some of us who have been around for a long time, rock music has comfortably found its way in the middle of the road -- so it shouldn’t be surprising that this book has found its way there too. View On Our Website