Creem magazine has relaunched as a website and quarterly print magazine. The new site features an archive of every issue from the magazine’s original 1969-1989 run and a weekly newsletter called “Fresh Creem”; the print magazine is set to launch in the fall. The new Creem Entertainment is be led by Chairman JJ Kramer (son of original Creem co-founder & publisher Barry Kramer), CEO John Martin (a former Vice publisher), and Jaan Uhelszki (one of Creem’s original editors). Editorial staff for the new Creem magazine includes vice president of content Fred Pessaro, senior editor Maria Sherman, and editor at large Zachary Lipez.
Founded in Detroit, Michigan, Creem earned a reputation throughout the 1970s and ’80s as an irreverent tastemaker and foil to its main competitor Rolling Stone, helping promote local artists like the Stooges, MC5, and Alice Cooper. Contributors to the the magazine included Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, Patti Smith, Cameron Crowe, eventual Pitchfork contributor Greil Marcus, and Dave Marsh, an early Creem editor who is credited as the first to use the term “punk rock” in a 1971 article on Question Mark & the Mysterians. “Having a certain sense of humor in the rock’n’roll culture–Creem nailed it in a way that nobody else has. It informed a lot of people’s sensibilities,” Thurston Moore said in a statement.
Creem’s digital archive, which comprises 224 issues & 69,000 photos, articles and reviews, can be accessed with a 30-day free trial until August, when it will be bundled with subscriptions to the print magazine.
This is not the first attempt to reboot Creem since the magazine folded in 1989. New York publisher Arnold Levitt—who purchased the rights to the magazine in 1988—licensed the intellectual property in the ’90s to a group of Florida investors who unsuccessfully attempted to relaunch the title as a glossy bimonthly. In the aughts, photographer and former Creem contributor Robert Matheu attempted another reboot with his cousin Jason Turner and a Michigan businessman named Ken Kulpa, but they failed to secure investors and were plagued by legal disputes with JJ Kramer—who helped fund Matheu’s acquisition of the IP in 2006—that were ultimately settled out of court. A licensed attorney himself, Kramer currently serves as associate general counsel and global head of intellectual property for the apparel company Abercrombie & Fitch, in addition to his duties as Creem Entertainment’s chairman.
In 2016, Kramer crowdsourced a documentary on the magazine’s history; it was released in 2020 as Creem: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine. In May, Creem Entertainment announced it had secured funding from the venture capital firm BMG Cypress Ascendant Holdings.
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