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Before the internet, before ROLLING STONE, before Dylan Lewis's masterful hosting of RECOVERY, there was BOMP! Music nerd Greg Shaw founded the first free music press in the mid sixties in the form of hand-printed A4 zine MOJO NAVIGATOR, which was distributed around San Francisco, the epicentre of everything at the time.

These underground zines morphed into BOMP! - a ‘proper' colour magazine that was still independent as hell. This amazing book catalogues every issue and the birth of rock criticism as we know it, in turn tracing the evolution from 60s psychedelia to 70s glam, punk, new wave and garage rock.

There is the first ever interview with the Doors, in which they discuss the different strains of LSD available at the time. Five pages about the Ramones trying to find good Chinese food in London. And epic, sprawling rants on the colossal significance of the New York Dolls.

Writing like this came before everything was rehashed and cynical, when music actually meant everything. It's an exciting read, passionate and wild.

By Max Olijnyk / Read