Go ahead and judge that book by its cover! This maneuver often gets a bad rap, but it’s something we are all programmed to do.
One of the ways we appreciate the good things in life is through our proclivities for certain aesthetic environments. Interestly, music is no exception. As much as we use our ears as auditory devices—and as much as we like to tell ourselves we don’t—we are most certainly impacted by the visuals provided to us by the music industry. Whether we like it, or not, it’s a part of the package. What would our favorite albums of the ’70s look like without the graphic design of Hipgnosis? The modernist Blue Note graphic designs of Reid Miles coupled with the photography of Francis Wolff are as iconic as the sonic touch of Rudy Van Gelder’s engineering style. Can you imagine a Deutsche Grammophon album without its ornate cartouche yellow banner? How has the photography of Annie Leibovitz impacted your connection with the artists?
If you’re serious about delving into your music collection thoroughly, the pictures, graphic design, and words (words just like these words that you’re reading at The Vinyl District) are necessary parts of the music appreciator’s toolkit. In the digital age, however, where does that leave the good old magazine? Things aren’t what they used to be in the print industry, but a small resurgence of periodicals dedicated to music and vinyl exists because there’s nothing quite like seeing pictures of stuff: a musician’s face while they let loose on stage, or perhaps a few moody shots of your favorite artist during the recording process. Our experience with music is uplifted and underscored even more when those images are coupled with thoughtfully analytical words from excellent writers.
Have you ever subscribed to Creem? The fabled music rag was originally published from 1969 to 1989 with a focus on the wilder side of rock and roll. Editor and writer David Marsh even allegedly coined the phrase “punk rock” in a 1971 issue of Creem. The magazine soon became known as the edgy, sarcastic—and fun—voice on the music magazine racks and boasted the second largest circulation of all music magazines (of course, you know who came in first). Of note, Creem’s pages hosted many of the world’s best music writers of all time: Lester Bangs, David Marsh, Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, to name but a few. The magazine even boasted its own bespoke mascot! Robert Crumb created “Boy Howdy” whose likeness was emblazoned upon the fictitious beer cans that a myriad of rockstars modeled with in Creem’s pages.
The founding publisher, Barry Kramer, died in 1981 and the magazine went through many changes of ownership and legal battles. Finally, however, in 2022, the legal authority to reboot the magazine was granted to JJ Kramer (son of Barry). Though Creem was—more, or less—dormant for three decades, and while it’s back and featuring all of the multimedia accouterments that you’d expect in this day and age, it has primarily returned in a surprisingly familiar format: paper. The CEO of the relaunched magazine is John Martin who with his pedigree as the one-time publisher of Vice magazine seems a valuable fit. Martin was kind enough to spend some time to answer some questions about why Creem’s relaunch is significant and also to reflect upon the recent one year anniversary of the magazine’s reboot.
Creem is celebrating one year since its reboot. Congratulations! What have you learned over the course of the last 12 months? In retrospect, what are you glad you did from the get-go and is there anything you might have done differently? What was the learning curve over the last 365 days of production?
Thank you! Learned a ton, and had a ton of fun. Biggest lesson was probably not to try to do everything at once. Build slowly, and don’t get distracted by shiny objects. What works at bigger companies might not work at a startup. Also we learned that there are very different types of Creem readers—ones who remember us from their youth, ones who missed Creem but probably knew of it, and ones who view it as something totally new. We look at our editorial that way as well—stories and artists from the golden era that Creem existed—’69–’89, the era that Creem missed roughly ’90–2020, and the present day 2021–now.
Your press releases tout that readership of the magazine is bigger and even more engaged than originally imagined. What leads you to reach that conclusion? What did you initially expect and what has readership become? What are your expectations going forward from here?
We reach more people digitally every month than the original Creem did via newsstand. We print 10,000 copies and almost all of them go to paying subscribers. We don’t want to overprint because we don’t need to—there’s no newsstand distribution, we hope to grow steadily as more people learn that we’re back or fall in love with Creem for the first time. While we steadily grow the magazine, we add on events, video series, podcasts, merchandise, etc. Everything we put out in the world should bring new audiences our way.
The original staff of Creem was sometimes referred to as “a band.” Do you feel as though the magazine has come close to achieving that feeling with today’s staff? Society and the workplace are vastly different than they were in the 1970s—people are working from home, individuals are much more used to living in their own cultivated universe over the last year—have you maintained that “band” feeling in the reality of today’s work culture?
Working from home definitely sucks for team building, morale, all that. It’s important for people to get together in person, especially in a creative environment. A lot of our staff is in NYC, so they see each other often, and we all gather together when we have events like we just did with our first Summer Sunburn party in Brooklyn. This feels like a band that contributes to making an album every quarter, writing their parts, mixing it, then gets together to record and play a show. The benefit of not all being together is we can pick the best people from anywhere to be in the band, and not just people who live close to the practice space/office.
Lester Bangs’ music writing, to me, is hard to match. I have a few other favorites, but Lester is really the man. His brutal honesty—for better, or worse—was what set him apart, and continues to. Creem has always been a rock and roll magazine and much to your credit you appear to be doing everything possible to maintain that particular rock and roll thrust with the rebooted magazine. However, the corporate concept of “rock culture” can sometimes be a little too…corporate. What’s your personal rock and roll philosophy and how do you try to encourage it in the pages of Creem? What’s the mantra or battle cry for the writing staff? How do you ensure that the brutal truth is being written by your writers? What is the magazine’s current manifesto?
We want to be your funny and well informed friend who entertains you for hours at the bar. We want to tackle smart subjects in stupid ways and stupid subjects in smart ways. Thankfully, rock ‘n’ roll has a lot of both. Polished corporate rock is always pretty terrible, so we encourage pisstakes and the writers to not be afraid of taking aim at anyone who takes themselves too seriously.
An annual subscription to the print version of Creem is currently $79.00. That’s for four, quarterly issues a year, so about $20.00 an issue—which, compared to many other specialty ‘zines and journals, isn’t out of the ordinary. But, how have subscribers and readers reacted to the price of a physical subscription, especially during this time of inflation?
The vast majority of people get that it’s a collectible, and closer to a coffee table book than a newsstand rag, but some people balk at the price because they expect a traditional magazine—what Creem was in the ‘70s and ‘80s—cheap printing, frequent, and throwaway. But most people when they actually hold an issue get that it’s a substantial piece of work and not an inexpensive one to produce.
I read an article the other day about a segment of society and their current lean toward incorporating analog things into their lives. One of these things, of course, were vinyl records, but magazines were mentioned as well. I always loved getting magazines, flipping through the pages (even the ads) and then revisiting them when necessary. I felt a guilty pang when throwing out a magazine that I loved, but sometimes it’s necessary to declutter. In addition to the physical subscriptions currently offered, there is a digital-only subscription at $60.00 per year. How have you grappled with the magazine existing in both the analog and digital realms over the last year? Have you received feedback from subscribers about whether they prefer to consume Creem in digital or physical formats? Has there been a challenge sharing the multimedia components (Spotify playlists, etc.) of your coverage with the physical readers, or vice versa, has it been necessary to sway subscribers in one direction, or another?
It exists in both realms because not everyone wants to consume it in the same way. Far more of our subscribers are print than digital, but we want to provide a way for people to read the editorial even if they don’t purchase a subscription. Digital subscriptions are actually more profitable for us as there aren’t any printing or shipping costs so I’d love to sway more people in that direction, but, well, we’re America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine so we have to make a magazine. We actually see a lot of international subscribers to the digital because shipping the magazine overseas is expensive. We’re working on some things that may make that better. Sharing components of stories for promotion, etc. is easier now than ever via social media, and we get instant feedback that way. The only downside is a lot of people read the headline on social media and don’t get much more, whether it’s laziness or convenience or just no desire for a longer story. That and the cost of producing content for socials are the only downside to producing multimedia type content.
Creem featured compelling artwork on the covers of the magazines over the last year. However, you still haven’t had a band or superstar on the cover. Will that change? What’s the aesthetic mission of the magazine today?
Bands are boring. Just kidding, kinda. But we don’t need a band on the cover to sell a magazine on newsstand because, well, we’re not on the newsstand and it’s not 1977 anymore.
Part of Creem’s identity in the classic years was its irreverent, unfiltered, not politically correct tone. How has the magazine managed to be on the edge yet survive in today’s social and cultural climate? Is it possible to find the shock and the controversy in rock and roll of the 21st century? Or, have we seen it all? What article generated the most controversy this year?
We don’t have to be politically correct if we don’t want to—we report to our subscribers only. If we publish articles they like, we thrive, if we publish articles they don’t, we die. But we’re beyond worrying about being beholden to any concept of social or cultural climate. It’s been awhile since actual criticism was prevalent in rock magazines—nowadays it’s mostly puff pieces as they all scramble for whatever little ad dollars remain, but we don’t care about making friends. Zack Lipez went after Mac DeMarco in our first issue, and Hether Fortune took on Tom Waits recently too.
I really like the “Dusty Fingers” section that highlights an underappreciated record from years gone by, a sort of “lost treasure.” Recently, Brian Turner from WFMU wrote about Colin Newman’s A-Z album from 1980. The latest issue also featured an article about how to build a record shelf. Creem and Vinyl Me, Please have partnered to celebrate the launch of a “rock” subscription that they are currently offering. How does the vinyl record—and vinyl/analog culture—fit into the pages of Creem?
We’ve always thought that there’s a lot of crossover between the Creem reader and vinyl collectors, so obviously we want to connect with that community and contribute whether that’s a column in the magazine, a partnership or even something new. Stay tuned for more to come on that.
I recently learned about Sleaford Mods while interviewing Stewart Copeland who mentioned that he is enjoying their latest record. Creem has also recently profiled this group. Over the last year, have there been any acts that you didn’t know about, but learned about—and enjoyed—through the coverage of Creem writers?
Personally I’m only familiar with at best 50% of the artists we profile in the magazine, and that’s a good thing. The Australian band CIVIC is featured in the latest issue and I learned about them a few months ago from when they played the Creem party in Austin during SXSW, and they are a new favorite for sure. But in that same issue I also learned something new about ZZ Top, who I’ve been a fan of for years—there was a big feature on the making of Eliminator and a story I wasn’t familiar with. Music discovery can work in many directions, that’s what’s so cool about it.
Your latest issue only has about four or five advertisements in its pages which is a good thing: more killer, less filler. How do you approach advertising and marketing partnerships?
We love them, and we seek out like-minded partners that care about rock ‘n’ roll as much as we do. We look for opportunities to add value to the audience experience, as opposed to distract them and shift their attention away from what they come to Creem for: being entertained by rock ‘n’ roll journalism.
We’ve looked at the last year in Creem’s history, but what about going forward? What will readers expect to see in the next year, how is Creem evolving?
You’ll see Creem expand into more events and video/audio content—we know people like the magazine and the merchandise, and are asking for more content and more IRL experiences. So why not? We like to party, too.
Subscribe to Creem here.
John Martin Photo: Margarida Malarkey
Creem Staff Photo: Richard Lee
