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

July '78 issue of Creem:

 

Circus was bi-weekly for a while, here's the November 25, 1975 issue:

 

Crawdaddy, November '74. (Sorry, most of my old rock mags have Stones covers! )

 

This is one of my all-time favorites, the May 1970 issue of Hit Parader. Fourteen pages on Apple Records, with news on a bunch of upcoming Zapple releases! Probably came out in March, so no mention of a Beatles breakup.

 

That actually must be the very first bi-weekly issue, as I have the rest of 1975, including a November issue without the "now bi-weekly verbiage".




Edit....ok now this is strange. You might have yourself a bit of a collectible there. Exact same issue, although now it's the Dec issue of Circus Raves

 

Crazy! I know I had some issues of Circus Raves at the time, but don't have them anymore. I wonder if there were regional differences? I bought my Circus Bi-Weekly in Philadelphia.

 

TeenSet.

I'm serious. There was some good writing and they changed their name to A.U.M.-America's Underthitry Magazine.

It didn't work and they folded soon after.

 

Yeah, that could be as they phased out Circus Raves, and went to the bi-weekly format. I never really liked the design changes they made mid-year. That Top 20 I was so fond of looked like absolute crap, as the way they had it laid out...so many words had to be hyphenated to the next line. Even though I was only 14 when this came out...it drove me nuts. Look at the last column for a good example....

 

Wow. I had forgotten all about Heaven's Metal! Didn't they shorten it to " HM" at one point? Good little magazine for those who were into it.

 

Mojo is the best mag going now.

 

It's the only one I currently buy.

 

I'm only familiar with Crawdaddy in its 1960s and 1990s incarnations, when original editor Paul Williams was at the helm. He sold it in the 1970s and I never even saw a single issue of this version. I got a subscription offer around 1978 which featured a Springsteen cover and sent it in, but the magazine folded and I didn't get anything.

I read Creem every once in awhile. I bought a Rock Scene once, but it seemed like it was mostly pictures.

 

We always had mom bring home the new Creem from the supermarket and we'd fight over it when she came home. We also had a bookstore that sold foreign newspapers and magazines, so we regularly read Melody Maker and NME. In late '76/early '77 we knew about the new British punk scene before anyone else did.

 

I can't remember which of these covered David Byrne's solo album and the Tom Tom Club in the same review, pointing out that Byrne needed a really great rythym section, and the Tom Tom Club needed a lyricist and a quirky lead singer.

 

Creem and Circus for me. My two essential rock reference sources.....

 

In the late '70s and early '80s I learned most of what I knew about music from Creem, Hit Parader, and Circus. A debt which I can never repay.

 

This picture seemed really interesting to me when it was published in Creem...

 

That's the best top 20 I could ever imagine!
It just go's to show you what an amazing period of time the 70's were, absolutely magic.

 

I'll tell you a funny story (that I've told on here before). I used to love these Top 20's so much that I'd often create my own....and sometimes I'd do it in church. I always took some paper and a pen to doodle while the service was going on. One Sunday I was working on my Top 20 during the sermon, and I had decided that Black Sabbath-Sabbath Bloody Sabbath had captured the #1 spot. My Dad, looked over at what I was doing....leaned over and whispered...."what's Black Cabbage"? I thought I was gonna throw up from keeping the laughter in.

 

My friend and I in Junior High would always be writing up a top 10 or what we called concert "jams" where we would list off like 5-10 albums that we would later play in a row and imagine that they were concerts.

 

Had subscription to Circus in High School and Trouser Press in college- fond memories esp. of TP

 

I won a bet with my brother once when he challenged me to find a picture of Stevie Nicks wearing pants and I pulled this one of my box of old magazines

 

I would have thought their spelling her name "Nix" would have been an automatic forfit, like "Find me a picture of a sober Grace Slick" and the one you found had her name spelled "Grays Lick".

 

Hit Parader and Rolling Stone lead to. Cream and Circus, stRted seeing them in the stores then subscriptions.

Circus was twice monthly

Guitar Player had some nice if technical mG

Allowed a kid in his teens in the midwest to keep track of brit them nyc punk scene
Rolling Stone became less musical in the late seventies

Musician magazine in the early 80 was nice

Mojo mid 90s on

 

Ha ha. I have no recollection of the misspelling but my brother did try to argue that based on the angle of the photo it could conceivably be a jean skirt and not pants, which I called B.S. on.