Creem, Crawdaddy, Circus & Trouser Press - the golden age of Rock mags

I was a devoted reader of Creem from 1979-1988, when it went out of business. I didn't like the revived version from the 90s; they were trying way too hard to be Spin's twin. I loved Mad Peck's cartoon reviews of new albums, as well as Robot A. Hull's occasional histories of rock (bubblegum, rockabilly, psychedelia, etc.).

Speaking of Spin, I actually read them, too, from their 1985 inception straight up to 1994. Quiet as it was kept, I loved their sense of diversity, which went far beyond some regional indie-rock band - they also covered world music, and were possibly the first mainstream magazine, black or white, who did in-depth features on rap. Oddly enough, during the post-Nirvana years when alt-rock went mainstream, that's when they started focusing on the same white-guy grunge bands as everybody else.

I didn't follow Trouser Press month by month, but I read it regularly. Even today, I'll pick up the odd old issue I see at a record show, and if I have time to kill, I'll check out back issues at the local library.

Not mentioned so far: Musician which has aged amazingly well considering their heyday was in the eighties, which was NOT a golden age for music writing. They managed the difficult feat of writing about jazz and rock equally without embarrassing either side.

Also...Goldmine. As a teenager in the 80s who was backtracking through the history of the music, those issues from 1979-83 filled in a lot of blanks for me, and triggered a lifelong interest in Cub Koda (the former Brownsville Station guitarist/singer who had a running column, "The Vinyl Junkie," in that mag for a number of years).

 

Neil Bogart spent a lot of money on those back cover ads I'm sure, but he did the same for Kiss. Creem also wrote about Angel...mostly to make fun of them though. Lol.

 

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But it WORKED for Kiss.

 

I started with Rolling Stone, then introduced Circus in junior high school (especially liked the source for posters), then added Crawdaddy (loved the Crawdoodah Gazette).

In the late 70's, I started to buy Musician Magazine as it was aimed at musicians (go figure) and started to buy Keyboard Magazine as soon as it hit the stands... subscribed to it 1980 and never let it lapse to this day...

 

I owned a dozen of those albums. I'll bet some here owned more!

 

For anyone who is interested, here is an archive of early Crawdaddy issues:

Crawdaddy Magazine Archives »

 

I read Creem regularly and mags like Fusion and Crawdaddy on occasion. Later subscribed to TP after buying an early issue and kept it up until around 1981. I also used to read the UK paper Music Maker a lot (I liked it better than NME) and also used to get Record Collector, although those were expensive.

 

Nice! Thank you.

 

I remember that issue and the Ray Davies interview specifically.

 

Nobody could do 'elegantly dissipated' like Keith.

 

Those early trail blazing mags had depth and substance to them - I used to learn a lot. As time went on they faded and others came along claiming to have something new to say - all I learned from them was stuff I already knew and stopped buying them. They were birdbaths compared to what once was.

 

I was really into magazines during Jr. High and High School, mid '70s. Hit Parader, Rolling Stone (it was actually still relevant at the time), Creem, and Circus were far better educational tools for me than any text book. I did happen upon a copy of Zoo World from time to time. I cut out a drawing of Elton John that Steven Conforti did for ZW, it stayed on my wall for years and years. I think I still have it archived somewhere. Spending my HS years in Germany gave me access to several fine German magazines as well. Great posters for my bedroom wall. I think the best one was called "Pop", if I recall correctly. Wish I had saved more of those magazines than I actually did.

 

I read them all voraciously from the mid-'70s til about the mid-'80s and still have a musty stack in the basement. I mentioned this in another thread, but I bought Hit Parader in 1977 for its Beatles cover and it ended up introducing me to punk. The coverage of the NYC and UK scenes was amazing and refreshingly ignorant of the charts. Looking back, you would have thought Patti Smith was outselling the Captain and Tennille.

My sentimental favorite was Creem, but Musician was just stellar all around. It spoiled me for rock criticism. I still follow the work of most of the guys on their staff--just a very thoughtful, knowledgeable bunch.

 

I eventually left Circus in the early 70's. They had, I thought at the time, too many fluff articles that were not interviews--just an album review expanded to an article with stuff off a press release. I remember they did a whole Tull article and the quotes form Ian were taken from the live tracks from Living in the Past. Creem was always entertaining, even if the pieces were fluff. They culd doa Stoens article with no one interviewed, but if they had 10 pictures you could bet the captions for all 10 were funny or even hysterical. You had Lester an Christgau. I do remember I started with Hit Parader, but that got old real fast. I didn't really care about lyrics at age 14.
I didn't get into Trouser Press until much later. Only one store would carry it (a drug store) and their availability was spotty. I would buy Rolling Stone on and off after flipping through the issue. Too much non music writing, I passed. (Which of course, I came to regret as I became addicted to Hunter in Masters School)

 

Never cared for these other than Trouser Press, though I picked up some issues. Preferred Rolling Stone on the whole.

I also liked Guitar Player, Keyboard, Frets, Musician and later Music Sound Output and Mix.

 

My dad had a heart attack when I put up the poster from one of these magazines of David Bowie as the Diamond Dog!

 

Hit Parader was a strange mag. It actually had pretty decent writing and articles on a wide variety of bands in the first 2/3...and the last 1/3 was pretty much wasted on lyrics to songs. They also had the lamest advertisers...."Draw Sparky"..,,"Longer Nails in Minutes!".." Big Muscles in 7 Days"..,it really brought down the credibility of the mag. Well, and the name was bad.

 

As a teenager in the 70`s, I used to enjoy the "Creem Dreem" section of the magazine...

 

I think it was a big 5 or 6. Rolling Stone was indispensable and I always got New Music Express at A&A 's in Canada. Kept me up on those punks over there in England...

 

Surely was the golden age of rock mags - I used to buy them all. Zygote (could be sic) had
a rave review of `Third' by Soft Machine, which I had never heard of. I bought it and it is
to this day one of my favourite recordings by any artist. Canada had a great little mag out
of Toronto called Beetle that I really enjoyed (early seventies). I bought my first issue of
Rolling Stone in 1970 (I think it was the Charles Manson cover) and I'm proud to say that
I've bought every edition since from the newsstand. Never missed one and I still have them
all. Every two weeks for, what, 46 years?!

 

As a teen in the late 80's, it was all about hair bands. (not that we called them that back in the day)

CIRCUS and HIT PARADER were the mags with all the pics and interviews. I don't recall much of substance. But then, we weren't really allowed to read them in my house. Instead, we made do with Heaven's Metal. Any good Baptist kids of the day remember that one? They also had a video magazine.

What were some of the other ones Axl calls out in "Get in the Ring"? Kerrrang? (sp?)

 

I don't know if anyone mentioned (Who Put The) Bomp! (America's Only Bi-Annual Quarterly) but it was great (when it came out, which was occasionally). Helmed by Greg Shaw, he did more in-depth pieces on groups than any other mag. I got lucky w/ Trouser Press. I found them fairly early in their existence, which coincided with the NY Punk scene, my gig in a record store and getting my drivers license. I was 30 minutes outside of NYC and was there every weekend from late-75 to Sept. 77 when I left NY. Great mag, great writing, turned me on to more music than all the others combined. Find back issues!!!! They're around.

 

I only have a few Creem mags, but i think i have almost 700 of other mags :
Zigzag
Rock & Folk almost all from 1971 to 1987
Best
Musica e Som all from 1976 to 1987
The Face
Musicalissimo
music musica
Popular 1
VOX
Uncut
Mojo
Record collector
ROCK
PROG Mag
trouser press
Q
sounds
and a few others