'CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll Magazine' Trailer Follows The Rise & Fall Of The Great Rock Magazine

CREEM Magazine music critic and editor Lester Bangs once remarked, “Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity.” This driving principle, while it should be behind all forms of criticism, especially drove the work Bangs and others did at CREEM Magazine during the famous rock magazine’s twenty-year stint. Started as an alternative to the more famous Rolling Stone, CREEM allowed critics to take an edgier approach to criticism that matching the energy of the rock music which they wrote about. 

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Now, more than thirty years since the magazine’s last issues (not considering the short run CREEM had in the ’90s), a recent trailer for the documentary from Greenwich Entertainment titled “CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” has been released. 

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The documentary follows the birth of CREEM Magazine in Detroit as an underground paper all the way through to the magazine’s final issues in the wake of the young deaths of Bangs and founder Barry Kramer. Director of the documentary, Scott Crawford, previously directed “Salad Days” (2014), which focused on the punk scene in Washington D.C. in the ‘80s. 

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Here’s the official synopsis:

Capturing the messy upheaval of the ’70s just as rock was re-inventing itself, the film explores CREEM Magazine’s humble beginnings in post-riot Detroit, follows its upward trajectory from underground paper to national powerhouse – spotlighting iconic features, interviews, and anecdotes along the way – then bears witness to its imminent demise following the tragic and untimely deaths of its visionary publisher, Barry Kramer, and its most famous alum and genius clown prince, Lester Bangs, a year later. Fifty years after publishing its first issue, “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” remains a seditious spirit in music and culture.

“CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine” includes interviews with rock stars Joan Jett, Gene Simmons of Kiss, The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, Pearl Jam‘s Jeff Ament, R.EM. frontman Michael Stipe, and Alice Cooper among many others. Also included are interviews with filmmaker Cameron Crowe, who famously brought Lester Bangs to the big screen in “Almost Famous.” You can watch the trailer for the new documentary now.