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

That's an interesting bet. It's amazing how we passed the time before computers!

 

Weird..in all the years I've had that mag...I've never even noticed.

 

Look at that Top 20- they don't make 'em like they used to!

 

Circus and Circus Raves were my Bible back in the early 70's. Aside from my siblings, those two magazines defined my listening tastes for a lifetime

 

"Song Hits" and "Hit Parader" actually had good interviews, even though they looked like "teen" magazines and had rather cheap graphics. Rolling Stone was king until they moved to New York (around 1973) and went to tabloid form, Crawdaddy was also good, a short-lived competitor was called "Rock", I think it only published 1971-1972.
Circus and Creem were OK, they gave a voice to the metal and glam scene that was missing elsewhere, but they seemed to be written for high schoolers. It wasn't until the late '70s that good writing came back, in Musician and Trouser Press.

 

I was wondering when someone would mention "Song Hits". I looked forward to each issue, and still have many of them. I also would pick up Creem regularly. Crawdaddy occasionally, as well as Hit Parader. Trouser I hadn't heard of.

I became aware of Melody Maker across the pond when I did research for a biography paper in junior high. My subject was Jeff Beck.

Those were the days!

 

Originally the Transatlantic Trouser Press, with a Anglophone slant to their writing.

 

The bulk of Song Hits was just lyrics to the big pop, soul and country songs of the day. The articles (three per issue) were short pieces on the big pop, soul and country stars of the day, and usually read like press releases. (I've seen one issue from 1971 that had a wildly outdated piece on Canned Heat, mentioning members of the band who were either dead or replaced.)

 

Trouser Press simply killed me. I still have a handful of issues. Uncut and Mojo are as close as we'll ever get to that high water mark ever again.

 

I listen to Todd all the time both then and now - but I was introduced to him by a friend 7 years my senior, not by the radio.

 

It's a crying shame that Todd doesn't get the multigenerational attention that so many of his peers do. He's pretty much ignored by "classic rock" stations, probably because he jumped around in different genres too much. As far as I can tell, no School of Rock has done a Todd or Utopia show, although the Chicago one has done a couple of Todd songs as a present for me.

 

Except for Elton it seems a little blues-heavy, not that I disagree with you.

 

I'm reading the Oct 1968 issue from this archive.

Some of the writing is a bit immature/self indulgent, other parts are much stronger. More than one article about The Doors - the second article suggests that their debut lp will be regarded as important as any Dylan or Beatles' release in the future - surprisingly prescient.

My favorite part though is the label-placed ads for bands and singers who are completely forgotten today.

 

I love everything on this chart, but it's fantasy, you know that right?

 

This chart is from an alternate universe where rock & roll kids live and rule the world. It's not really what was selling in the order of top sales or radio play. It's all about fun.

 

Interesting framing comment by the OP about the "golden age" - I totally understand the sentiment and related context but have to respectfully disagree with the idea that there was a high water mark of music journalism which we have now passed and will not see again (assuming that is the meaning of the reference "golden age"). I believe that there is both good and bad writing about music published, that this has always been the case, and that any affinity that we we may feel for a "golden age" is (perhaps) unfortunately the result of nostalgia for the writing we enjoyed in our youth (I freely acknowledge I am guilty of this bias).

To give a bit of background, I am of the age to have personally bought many issues of Creem and Trouser Press directly off the magazine racks "back in the day", followed later on by Punk, Option, The Face, Magnet, Big Takeover, Q, Uncut, Mojo, The Oxford American (music issues), The Believer (music issues), Decibel, The Wire, Record Collector, Shindig, etc.

The writing about music and the culture surrounding it (both good and bad) in these publications has often been of a very high caliber up to the current day - to not acknowledge this is to rattle your cane and insist that music was better back when you were growing up.

 

Led Zep and Z.Z. Top were the only vaguely blues-oriented bands I saw on that list. Otherwise, calling Queen, Kiss Pink Floyd and Bowie "bluesy" is a stretch.

 

Well, they tell ya right there it's made up from their readership writing in. Good enough for me! It's still the stuff I listen to 90% of the time today.

 

A guy at work gave me some of his old rock mags. This one was in the stack.

 

One of the first Creem mags I bought had a Stones quiz with some tough questions. The issue where they published the answers had the right answers and 3 or 4 of the funniest answers, some of them were so funny, I had tears in my eyes. Some were incredibly tasteless, but still really funny.

 

Creem! That and Hit Parader and Rolling Stone were all I had to keep me up on music, albiet 1 or2 months after the fact. Who Remembers BOY HOWDY beer! I Still use that phrase "Boy Howdy". Drives my kids nuts!

 

What a time to be alive! Look at that list!

 

I always wondered if that was real beer.

I'm drinking this these days...

 

That's the Trans Oceanic Trouser Press, "America's Only British Rock Magazine".

 

Did the name come from the Bonzo Dog Band song?