Just when you thought you’d never escape today’s hit parade from hell, Creem, billed as “America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine,” is back to save the world from bad music.
And music fans in Toledo are celebrating the return of the legendary music periodical, which was originally published from 1969 to 1989. It’s relaunched as a subscription-only print magazine, with its first issue hitting mailboxes on Friday.
Take Brian Bedee, for example. As a teenager in 1976, he won a Creem contest where a random winner would receive a picture of KISS without makeup — a big deal at the time, since KISS didn’t “unmask” until 1983.
“I used to buy the magazine all the time. It was my go-to rock magazine growing up,” Bedee, of southeast Michigan, said. “I was a huge KISS fan like all male teenagers in the mid-’70s. Seeing KISS without the makeup was a big mystery, and there was this contest where the prize was this photo, so I filled it out, mailed it in, few weeks go by, and lo and behold I get this 8 by 10 from Creem, and there it was.”
Promoted by its mascot Boy Howdy, created by legendary underground artist Robert Crumb, Creem was founded in Detroit in 1969 by Barry Kramer, who was inspired to start a music magazine after the local alternative weekly paper refused to run a concert review he had written. Irreverent in its attitude, Creem wasn’t afraid to be rude or crass. Birthed in the wake of the 1960s riots that nearly leveled Detroit, Creem was by and for the working class, operating out of a dingy office in the Cass Corridor, a part of town you didn’t want to be caught in after dark.
Jon Stainbrook, founder of Toledo punk group the Stain, wrote for Creem shortly before it shut down in 1989.
“You have San Francisco, the Summer of Love, and Woodstock in 1969. In Detroit, you’ve got Creem starting while all this stuff is going on, like Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop,” Stainbrook said. “All this stuff is germinating in Detroit after the city was burned in the riots. It’s just so seminal.”
Matt Donahue, a teaching professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University, put Creem into a broader pop culture perspective, looking at what made it different from other music magazines of the time like Rolling Stone and Hit Parader.
“Creem was always groundbreaking,” Donahue said. “Creem was always for the little guy, if you will. Creem gave a leg up to genres that Rolling Stone wouldn’t touch — heavy metal, punk rock, alternative, New Wave. That was super important. They gave bands a shot in the arm. They could use those articles in their press kits and their hype machine.
“Then Creem got this cult following among rock ‘n’ roll fans. It not only branched out in terms of covering the so-called subcultural aspects of popular music, like heavy metal and punk. They covered a lot of mainstream artists as well. Rolling Stone really weren’t very interested in heavy metal and punk rock.”
Donahue recalled buying copies of Creem at the local drug store on his walk home from middle school.
“Creem was hugely influential,” he said. “It’s something I was personally drawn to in terms of what was happening with a lot of the underground and regional bands that were coming out of Detroit and the Midwest and that was really important in terms of our neck of the woods in northwest Ohio.”
Creem has been building up to a relaunch for the past few years. The documentary Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine revitalized interest in the brand in 2019. Creem memorabilia and a 50th anniversary commemorative issue went over well the same year, and new articles about bands like Amyl and the Sniffers and Bikini Kill started appearing on Creem’s website, fueling speculation that a relaunch of the magazine was nigh.
Earlier this year, Creem made it official: It was coming back as a subscription-only print magazine. All subscribers get digital access to the complete Creem archives.
“They’re allowing subscribers to access the old issues of Creem, which is such a great idea. It encapsulates both worlds — folks who are interested in the digital spectrum of things, but also people who are into the print spectrum of things,” Donahue said. “So many people who are into music are collectors. They’re collecting records, CDs, and magazines. So for the music fans, this is great.”
Creem editorial director Dave Carnie said that many of the features from the classic Creem canon will be returning in the new incarnation, such as artist profiles, album reviews, and Star’s Cars, which features rock stars with their automobiles. Carnie said that hopes were high for the new edition of Creem.
“We’ve been getting a really good response and people are really excited,” Carnie said. “We’re already hard at work on the second issue, and we think people are going to like this new version of Creem.”
Donahue said Creem’s revival is part of a larger nostalgia for print music media.
“I do feel that print is coming back, particularly for music publications. There’s definitely been this kind of resurgence of print magazine publications particularly around popular music.”
Contact Jason Webber at: jwebber@theblade.com.
First Published September 16, 2022, 12:00 p.m.
