Greenwich Entertainment has announced that CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine, which premiered at SXSW in 2019, is finally getting wider distribution. The documentary feature is now available for streaming. It’s also being released on DVD.
The film celebrates the irreverent publication out of Detroit, 50 years after it debuted in 1969, and features interviews with Alice Cooper, Cameron Crowe, Joan Jett, MC5 founder Wayne Kramer, Suzi Quatro, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Wolf and many more, including CREEM contributors and famous fans.
Early reviews have been highly favorable. To stream the film, which runs just 73 minutes, click here. To pre-order the DVD, click here.
The documentary is produced by JJ Kramer (son of CREEM co-founder and publisher Barry Kramer) and Jaan Uhelszki (a CREEM alumnus, and one of the first women to work in rock journalism). It’s directed by Scott Crawford (Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington DC, 1980-90), and scored by MC5 founder Wayne Kramer.
The film’s producer, JJ Kramer, with Alice Cooper
From the distributor’s announcement: CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine captures the messy upheaval of the ’70s just as rock was reinventing itself. The film explores CREEM‘s humble beginnings in post-riot Detroit and follows its upward trajectory from underground paper to national powerhouse, and much-needed rival to Rolling Stone. Along the way, we meet the rock critics who would influence a generation — Crowe, Uhelszki, Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Susan Whitall, Sylvie Simmons and Patti Smith — before bearing witness to CREEM’s imminent demise following the tragic deaths of Barry Kramer (in 1981) and Bangs (in 1982).
“It was a rock magazine with a capital ‘R’,” says Quatro.
Watch the trailer for CREEM: America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine
When the film premiered at SXSW last year, Variety wrote, “this compact, well-crafted documentary will no doubt make viewers comb eBay and garage sale print stacks for all the old CREEM issues they can find.”
1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationIt was a great magazine. I wondered what happened to it.