Home United States USA — Music This essential CREEM documentary gets to the rock magazine's irreverent, outrageous heart

This essential CREEM documentary gets to the rock magazine's irreverent, outrageous heart

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CREEM wasn’t really “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine.” That’s just something it said on the cover. But that same irreverent…
CREEM wasn’t really “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine.”
That’s just something it said on the cover.
But that same irreverent spirit that drove the team behind the ‘zine to make such an outrageous claim played a key role in making it read like “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine.”
From the time it rolled out of Detroit in 1969, CREEM tapped into the very essence of the music and the culture that surrounded it.
The writing could be brash, irreverent, raw, at times hilarious, often cruel and frequently offensive. It was very much the print equivalent of the bands its writers loved, from Iggy and the Stooges to the MC5.
That’s how it managed to outrock the competition.
In Scott Crawford’s documentary, fittingly titled “CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine,” Detroit native Suzi Quatro says, “It wasn’t just a magazine. It was a rock magazine with a capital R.” (The film is available at virtual cinemas on Friday, Aug. 7.)
If Rolling Stone seemed somewhat desperate to grow the music up, CREEM chose instead to revel in the qualities that tied the music to the soundtrack of the untamed youth.
As Robert Christgau, wearing a Ramones shirt, says, it was very hard for Rolling Stone to admit that punk was happening in New York when the CBGB scene exploded.
“That was not a problem for CREEM,” he says. “CREEM was ready for punk. CREEM loved punk.”
It didn’t hurt that CREEM was spawned in Detroit the same year Michigan was giving rise to proto-punk, with the release of classic debut albums by the Stooges and the MC5.
That meant their offices were pretty much ground zero for a cultural revolution.
And as Alice Cooper, who moved to Detroit in the early ’70s recalls, “CREEM was as synonymous with the rock scene as any of those bands were. It was so much a part of our life.”
CREEM’s most notorious writers were brutally honest.

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