Bomp! Saving The World & Born In The Garage

New York Waste

2010-04-10T15:43:00.001-07:00

Vintage Guitar

2010-04-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

Corazine

2010-04-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

This second volume Bomp comp is a WEALTH - and I do mean WEALTH - of material. It could take you, like, forever, just to read through all this. Which isn't a knock, man. What this means is that you've got all the reading you want. This book will last you for-freaking-ever! Keep it on your coffee table or on your nightstand - or, if you're like me and the bathroom is your reading sanctuary, keep a copy in there.
Doesn't matter - JUST DO SOME READING IN THIS PUPPY!
The extensive info rolling around Shaw's head and his equally extensive opinions are a testament to the fact that he got - totally GOT - the whole rock fan thing. I mean, really, the whole fandom/fanzine thing was as much about the fanship as the rock itself. You could almost say the rock was just a McGuffin for the fanpower to have something to focus on.
But, of course, that wouldn't be fair, given the power and significance of the rock. Shaw loved - LOVED - the garage rock scene. And "garage rock" is one of those terms that spreads far and wide its net. So much stuff falls into this category and there's just a TON of great tunage on tap for discussion in this book's generous offerings.
Shaw waxes eloquent about the rock, the fan scene, what makes a fanzine a fanzine, what defines fannishness and so much friggin' more.
An enthusiastic publication of enthusiastic writings by one of indie rock's most enthusiastic supporters! Come on, dude, this stuff is from back in the day when fanzines didn't have the internet. SHAW USED MIMEOGRAPH MACHINES AND SUCH!
This is a document of true devotion. Grab it and go for it! - Corazine

Punk Vault

2010-04-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

Bomp 2: Born in the Garage collects the best of Greg’s various fanzines, most of which he would produce on his own mimeograph machine in his home. The book starts out with a history of Greg and his various writing endeavors written by various friends and associates who contributed to the many zines Greg produced and wrote for, many of whom became quite famous writers of rock music for much larger publications, those names include Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, and Richard Meltzer among others. It then reprints the best of his various zines that pre-date the 1970s punk rock explosion. Those zines include Alligator Wine, Liquid Love, Metanoia, and of course Who Put the Bomp! The zines were true fanzines and contained articles about record labels and various bands including very detailed discographies and record listings as well as various articles about record collecting. It is pretty amazing how much of these tiny little zines were preserved over the years.

The book was compiled by Suzy Shaw, who was married to Greg at the time all these zines were produced and would bail him out when he’d get in things way over his head by taking on a number of tasks including carrying on the label and mail order after Greg’s passing, and Mike Stax who put out a wonderful zine of his own called Ugly Things. The music covered in the various zines compiled here include 60’s garage, Surf, British invasion, girl groups, rockabilly, psychedelia and a little bit of punk rock. There’s a ton you can learn from these various articles and listings and it made me start to compile a list of bands covered here in this book that I want to check out.

The book weighs in at 311 pages and since the pages are jam packed with stuff to read, much of it in small type, it will take you quite some time to read it. There’s lots too look at too as the book also contains many pictures. The chapters are broken down by what zine is being reproduced and are presented in chronological order, which made it pretty easy and interesting to see how Greg’s tastes and interests changed over the years and how either accurate or inaccurate his predictions were.

Overall Bomp 2: Born in the Garage is a wonderful compilation of zines from a time long gone and is as educational as it is entertaining. Any fan of the music covered in this book, or just those of fanzines in general looking for some history would do well to pick up this book, which will give you a lot for your money. - The Punk Vault

Video Watchblog

2010-02-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

Three years ago, Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren produced a book called WHO PUT THE BOMP: SAVING THE WORLD ONE RECORD AT A TIME (Ammo Books, 301 pages, $34.95), which collected the cream (or creem) off the top of the late Greg Shaw's seminal rock fanzine WHO PUT THE BOMP (1970-79). To be honest, I still haven't seen that book, so I must imagine its pros and cons from the largely enthusiastic customer reviews at Amazon.com, and some idea of that book is probably necessary to reach a fully accurate assessment of the recently released follow-up volume, BOMP 2: BORN IN THE GARAGE, subtitled "Greg Shaw and the Roots of Rock Fandom 1970-1981," edited by Suzy Shaw and Mike Stax (Bomp & Lit Publishing, 312 pages, $15.95). That said, I found myself completely and utterly absorbed in reading its articles and perusing its discographies, first as a reader and music buff, but foremost as a former fanzine publisher myself.
I don't know how the first BOMP book handled the backstory of the fanzine that, along with Paul Williams' CRAWDADDY!, launched serious rock criticism and inspired the likes of CREEM and ROLLING STONE, but BOMP 2 does a very thorough and self-contained job. The Foreword is by rock reissue producer Alec Palao (you can thank him for the ZOMBIE HEAVEN CD set), which in itself already says something about the fertile impact of WPTB on its readers; he reminisces about his early exposure to photocopies of the zine circulated among friends, which he consulted like "an oracle, where discographies are ancient runes, and the fragments of commentary, pearls of an ancient, knowing wisdom." The introduction by Kinks biographer Jon Savage deals more specifically with WPTB as a product of Greg Shaw (1949-2004), and as a product of its time, a time that also saw the issue of such classics of rock archaeology as the NUGGETS compilation, an album that might have been unthinkable without the audience Shaw had organized. In just a few pages, Savage covers a lot of frontal ground and also subtle subtext, such as how Shaw's enthusiasm was dissipated over time by the fluctuations of what was happening in music in the present tense, as a business and as a mutating beast of the music he loved. Then there's Mike Stax's amazing 12-page overview of Shaw's entire publishing history, including WPTB, the APA zines METANOIA, LIQUID LOVE and ALLIGATOR WINE, and the newsstand-circulated BOMP (including its unpublished 22nd issue).
Ken Barnes follows this with a detailed history of his own long involvement with Shaw and his creation, and other key personalities behind the scenes, capturing perfectly the feel of a time when records were a rare addiction and knowledge of bands like The Velvet Underground or The Seeds was like a secret handshake among a cognoscenti only able to identify itself being cultivated by rallying points like WPTB -- an audience largely recruited from the subcultures of comics and science fiction fanzines. Much of what Barnes writes about Shaw strongly resonated with my own memories of meeting and working with Frederick S. Clarke of CINEFANTASTIQUE, which was in its own way a cinema analogue to what Shaw was doing for rock. Artist William Stout (who also provides a magnificent cover) writes about Shaw's tenebrous involvement in his past life as the artist for some classic bootleg album covers, such as TALES FROM THE WHO. And then Greg's widow, Suzy Shaw, offers her own compelling, frank memoir of Greg and what has happened with the Bomp empire (which went on to include its own record label) since his death. All this accounts for only the first 40 pages of the book, which amply rewards your $16 investment (cheap)!
What constitutes the bulk of the book are scanned pages from WPTB's ten-year history, focusing on material germaine to what Shaw considered the bread and butter of his musical ethos: garage rock: The Kinks, The Small Faces, The Seeds, The Flaming Groovies, The Shangri-Las, The Cryan Shames and Dave Edmunds -- but also curiosities like Shindig, producer Jack Nietsche (Ken Barnes delivers the definitive study of this guy), Dutch rock and Beatles novelties. There's a LOT of information here, perhaps not ideally organized for quick retrieval, but the book certainly projects a world you can get lost in.
As a former fanzine publisher myself, and as someone who used to swap my rags for a great many sf zines, I was especially moved by what this book recaptures of that subculture in terms of its fannish mindset and cartoons (many of them by William Rotsler, who I didn't realize at the time was the director of MANTIS IN LACE, THE GIRL WITH THE HUNGRY EYES and many other genre-tinged sexploitation flicks) -- some of which my experienced eye recognized as having been traced onto mimeograph stencils! That said, for many readers, the most compelling aspect of this retrospective may well be its collection of Shaw's editorials (which chart the growth of his brainchild as well as the scene it helped spawn, and the friction between his quixotic musical sensibilities and what was happening in music at the time) and -- something evidently omitted from the first volume -- samplings from WPTB's legendary letters pages, which includes correspondence from such luminaries (and later luminaries) as John Peel, Lester Bangs, Lenny Kaye, Greil Marcus, Kim Fowley, Richard Meltzer, Ed Ward and Jay Kinney. (Might that letter from Tom Miller on page 160 actually have been written by the future Tom Verlaine?)
Any book that brings back to my nostrils the fragrance of mimeo sheets, typewriter ribbons, staples and fresh vinyl warrants my highest recommendation. I guess I'll be heading off to Amazon for Volume 1. - Tim Lucas / Video Watchblog

Left Of The Dial

2010-02-01T10:59:00.000-08:00

When I was a scrawny, curious kid trying to wrap my head around punk rock history, I would spend hours milling around a towering dusty house known as Toad Hall, a rambling series of rooms stuffed-to-the-gills with LPs, books, comics, magazines, and related ephemera. Literally a rabbit hole, the place attracted Japanese tourists that maxed out credit cards for rare jazz records found on the under lit second floor. The basement, though, contained a real black vinyl hive: oodles and oodles of loose 45s, most without any more management and organization than a single letter – say S – followed by a confederation of hodgepodge, piled up records. For me, this was Eden, land of the lost and lovelorn, where I first put my grimy hands on Troggs singles. Reading the Bomp collection Part II reminds me of those days, long before the hyper-segmentation of today’s ‘here today gone tomorrow,’ self-conscious alternative music. When garage/psycho teen/frat rock/raw psych music held sway for tiny groups of rock’n’roll insiders, Bomp was the Bible, literally. It was the conduit for news and info on Mexican blasters, British underground electric soulsters like Creation and the much-lauded, stirring Small Faces, a repository for all things Seeds and Standells, and a place where writers like Lester Bangs began to popularize their righteous critiques with zest and vision. Sure, it didn’t quite have the hip downtown writerly sway of Creem, or the interview-rich terrain of Rolling Stone, but it held firm to fanzine roots, kept all matters close to the ground. Where else could one, in 1975, read about the savvy style of Paul Revere and the Raiders, considered has-beens meant for the dustbin? My own sister spun their records alongside Iggy Pop and 999 and never winced. To her, such feisty, interesting music was a continuum, a shifting paradigm from one decade to the next. Nothing lost, just built upon. Bomp has that kind of kindred spirit – Mersey Beat and the Weirdos. Just like Greg Shaw insisted – “in rock’n’roll a good idea is always good.” This compendium is not for the punk subset who think the Sex Pistols were pure original carnage; this issue is for the dudes and gals with bigger ears, who know that punk rock was being spanked and shaken by bands long before, just as early issues of Bomp testify. Punk fills the pages, long before the British adopted day-glo and safety pins. If anything, the sheer pleasure of music is entombed here – not just the original joy of hearing the right tune hit your inner ear, but the sizzling fetish for discourse, the fetish for collecting, the fetish for touching objects: worship-lore and fandom. “Pure now for pop people,” intoned Shaw as well, reminding us that rock’n’roll, in its best form, never tires, always transcends, to meet us in the here and now. - Left Of The Dial

Mass Movement Magazine

2010-01-28T10:33:00.000-08:00

A fantastic collection of editorials, articles and discographies from the seminal fanzines Who Put The Bomp and Bomp; lovingly edited by Suzy Shaw (wife of Garage Rock Guru and founder of Bomp Greg) and long time contributor Mike Stax.
The book comprises of articles written between 1970 and 1981 by a variety of contributors including the infamous Lester Bangs and David Meltzer and includes the King of Surf himself Dick Dale, the legend that is Roky Erikson, an in depth analysis of the British Invasion of the 60s and some true underground Garage nuggets such as the Seeds and the Standells. If you’re an obsessive fan of underground rock and roll you will undoubtedly have heard of Bomp, and if, like me, you were too young to have collected these gems when they came out, this collection is all your xmases, birthdays and bar mitzvah’s come at once. Sure some of the Xeroxed articles are hard to read but hell this scene was all about COMMITMENT, so quit your whining and enjoy the Roots of Fandom and indeed fanzines themselves. Articles written about real bands by real fans. What more could you want? What do you mean friends? Forget that nerd. - Ian Pickens / Mass Movement magazine

Steve Says

2010-01-28T10:24:00.000-08:00

Bomp! was a fanzine that was originally titled Who Put The Bomp after a 1961 doo-wop hit. The circulation was very small and just 21 issues were published from 1970 until its demise in 1979 (a 22nd was shelved for financial reasons in 1981), but its influence was remarkable.

Bomp! became a bible for fans of garage rock, punk, power pop, British invasion, girl groups, new wave, rockabilly, surf, rock 'n' roll and psychedelia, and the mag featured early work from such notable music writers as Richard Meltzer, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs.

The zine begat Bomp Records, which launched in 1974 and following a hiatus is still going today after releasing music from the likes of the Flamin' Groovies, The Modern Lovers, Iggy Pop, The Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, Dead Boys, Devo, The Romantics, Spacemen 3, The Germs, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Warlocks and Black Lips.

All of this was the brainchild of music fan and collector Greg Shaw, who died in 2004 at age 55. But his business partner and ex-wife Suzy has kept the Bomp label going and edited Bomp! 2 Born In The Garage with music writer Mike Stax, the editor and publisher of Ugly Things magazine.

The 311-page follow-up to Bomp! Saving The World One Record At A Time features retrospective essays from the two editors, cover illustrator William Stout, Jon Savage, Ken Barnes and Alec Palao. But it's the page reproductions from the original magazine, which was originally produced on a mimeograph machine, that are the heart of the book.

Even after it became a glossy magazine, Bomp! still looked somewhat amateurish. But it served its niche readership well by covering big and small-name bands from the '50s and '60s and more current acts that shared their rock 'n' roll spirit.

Flip through the pages and you'll find a Kinks discography and a Troggs article from 1971, a Gene Vincent tribute from 1972, examinations of '60s British rock and American rock 'n' roll television shows from 1973, retrospectives on The Standells and The Seeds from 1974, a history of Michigan rock, a look at Beatles novelties, a discography of California surf instrumentals and a Roky Erickson interview from 1975, a look at Dave Edmunds, the Shangri-Las, Mexican punk rock and '60s Swedish sounds from 1976, and a treatise on the aesthetic of psychedelic music from 1978.

The type is pretty small, so you'll need good eyes or a pair of glasses to read much of the reproduced material. But if you're into any of the aforementioned music genres or artists, you should consider picking this up whether you remember Bomp! or if reading this overview is the first you've heard of it.

The internet has totally changed the way people disseminate information and find out about music, but Bomp! 2 Born In The Garage acts as an interesting time capsule of the way things used to be. - Steve Says

Blurt

2010-01-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

OK, listen up kiddies! Back in the dark days before the electron-pushers moved all the even remotely interesting content to websites and blogs, we old folks used to have something known as a "fanzine," kind of like a magazine but usually published by an individual or small group of friends. Grandpa won't bore you all with the lengthy history of these "zines," as we called 'em, but they began circulating back in the 1930s among science-fiction fans, and were instrumental in underwriting the homegrown, hardcore punk rock movement of the '80s once photocopying technology made the damn things ubiquitous.

One of, if not the first, music zine publishers was an elfin rock 'n' roll fanatic by the name of Greg Shaw. A rabid record collector, and a pretty darn good writer for somebody that considered himself an amateur, Shaw brought an insight to his work honed by thousands of hours listening to the right kind of music - '60s-era garage-rock, three-chord punk (think The Seeds, not the Sex Pistols), British Invasion bands, classic soul, and R&B.

Shaw was also nothing if not a prolific publisher of various zines, and little was beyond his bourgeoning publishing empire and seemingly pathological need to put some words in print (an obsession shared by many of us of a similar bent). A familiar figure among science-fiction circles, one of Shaw's earliest publishing efforts was a Lord Of The Rings fanzine, and by the time that he graduated high school he had cranked out over 200 issues of various zines on the trusty mimeograph machine he had bought for just that purpose.

In 1966, however, influenced by the exploding San Francisco Bay area music scene, Shaw began publishing the zine that would arguably launch this entire "music journalism" thing. Mojo-Navigator Rock & Roll News began as a mere two-page mimeographed gossip rag, but quickly grew into a respectable full-color tabloid. Mojo-Navigator served a valuable purpose, documenting a vital music scene and writing the rules for music criticism.

Shaw's friend Jann Wenner would "borrow" heavily in style and substance from Mojo-Navigator when launching Rolling Stone magazine in 1967, and all sorts of out-of-the-mainstream music rags like Creem, Rock Magazine, and others would follow shortly. Meanwhile, Shaw pulled the plug on Mojo-Navigator after a couple of years when it became too big to manage, but this was really just the first step towards creating what would become the writer and publisher's lasting legacy - Bomp! magazine.

All of this, of course, is merely back story, a way of letting you young 'uns know that something IMPORTANT and EXCITING was happening long before your dag-nabbed Internet, and the Jonas Brothers reaching puberty, and all that Perez Hilton-approved rubbish. Greg Shaw moved from SF to LA and around 1970 or so, and with that familiar itch rising up again like the black cat moan that it is, he began publishing a new mimeo zine called Who Put The Bomp.

By this time, mind you, Shaw had become an in-demand rockcrit writing for esteemed publications like Creem and Fusion and others, as well as editing the beloved corporate music zine Phonograph Record Magazine, which was published under the aegis, and with the checkbook of, United Artists Records (yes, sometimes major record labels have gotten it right). Shaw still managed to publish two or three issues of Who Put The Bomp annually during the early-70s, featuring writers like Ken Barnes and the legendary Lester Bangs.

Who Put The Bomp evolved into Bomp! and grew, albeit slowly, throughout the 1970s until it became a full-fledged music magazine on the newsstand alongside relative latecomers like Trouser Press. Exhibiting Shaw's record-collecting interests, Bomp! often included full discographies alongside artist interviews and album reviews, and the one-time fanzine spun off a record label and a successful mail order business, both of which still maintain a healthy existence today.

As for the magazine itself, it became a victim of its own success, growing too large and popular and outgrowing Shaw's fanzine roots, so he pulled the plug on it in 1979. It was a wild ride while it lasted, however, and for those of us who were loyal readers, much of what we knew of British punk, new wave, American power-pop, 1960s garage-rock, and lots of other music came from the pages of Bomp!.

All of which brings us around to the fine tome Bomp! 2 - Born In The Garage (Bomp!/Ugly Things Publishing; www.bomp.com), the second collection of material culled from Greg Shaw's many publications. The first volume, Bomp! Saving The World One Record At A Time, was published in 2007, edited by Mick Farren and overseen by Shaw's ex-wife Suzy. A beautiful hardback collection, it included reproductions of pages from Mojo-Navigator Rock & Roll News and Who Put The Bomp mixed in with a lot of photos and commentary and such, all laid out rather artfully edgy, a design befitting a coffee table book meant to be seen and admired, but seldom read.

For Bomp! 2, Suzy Shaw has enlisted the help of editor Mike Stax, publisher of the obviously Bomp!-influenced music zine Ugly Things. The differences between this second, paperback collection and the abovementioned hardback tome are like those between a favorite indie-label rock album and a slick, overproduced major label release. Befitting its garage-rock roots, the pages of Bomp! 2 are untarnished by artifice and pretension, instead presenting pages and articles from Shaw's various zines in all their lo-fi glory! This is a book meant to be pored over, read and re-read until the wheels fall off.

The core of the book is, naturally, bits and pieces of issues of Who Put The Bomp and the wealth of material that Shaw published during the zine's tenure. Guided by the acronym "R.I.A.W.O.L." (rock is a way of life), Shaw offered commentary on favored bands, often assisted by readers like future Patti Smith Band guitarist and rock historian Lenny Kaye, and many others. Bomp! 2 also includes segments of zines like Shaw's personalized Karnis Bottle's Metanoia and zines within zines like Liquid Love and Alligator Wine.

The importance of Bomp! was in its early, prescient musical coverage of artists now considered as important touchstones in the evolution of rock music. Shaw was the consummate fan, and his writing brims over with enthusiasm, while long-time contributor Ken Barnes offers a perspective and insight in his contributions that is too often missing from his more recent work for the USA Today newspaper.

Folks like Dave Marsh, Nick Tosches, Greil Marcus, Richard Meltzer, and Lester Bangs - the first generation of honest-to-god rock critics - often wrote interesting and sometimes lengthy letters that appeared in the zine's "Feedback" section, while articles like "Ahead of his Time: Gene Vincent's Influence in Rock & Roll" and "The British Invasion," featuring bands like the Pretty Things, the Dave Clark Five, and the Nashville Teens, helped readers get a handle on the music in this pre-Internet era.

As the fanzine evolved into a bona-fide music magazine, Who Put The Bomp expanded its coverage of bands like the Kinks, the Standells, Sky Saxon & the Seeds, the Easybeats, the Flamin' Groovies (who Shaw briefly managed during this time), and many others, all of which can be found in Bomp! 2. Articles providing comprehensive overviews of city-specific "scenes" in places like San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, and Boston not only offered invaluable glimpses into young local bands (many of which would go "national"), but were also accompanied by lengthy discographies. Surf music (Dick Dale, etc), "Girl Groups" (The Shangri-Las), power-pop (Dwight Twilley), even Abba and Mexican punk music were all grist for Shaw and company's diverse and far-reaching musical tastes.

The many bands covered by the publication are timeless, and Greg Shaw's biggest strengths were his recognition of talents that were often unheralded at the time, and his unyielding belief in the music. Shaw was never trying to sell ads on his blog, nor was he angling for an appearance on a reality TV show. He never lost sight of the music he revered, collected, and fretted over for decades. This unbridled passion infects both his writing and that of his contributors through the years which, freed from the expectations of their journalistic "day jobs" at typical music magazines and newspapers, allowed them to pursue their own musical passions in Bomp!

Bottom line: if you care a whit about rock 'n' roll music prior to 1980, Bomp! 2 belongs on your bookshelf. This is vital, exciting music writing for the rock 'n' roll fan in all of us, and hopefully a modest success for Bomp! 2 will lead to the publication of a third book offering more great stuff from the Greg Shaw archives.

Note: A word should be said about Suzy Shaw, Greg's ex-wife and long-time friend and the person responsible for keeping the Bomp! legacy alive. Suzy took the reins of Greg's early record mail order business when he lost interest in the late-‘60s, and it has been her commitment and business sense that supported the magazine, and kept the Bomp! family of record labels and the accompanying mail order business going strong all these years. If not for Ms. Shaw, Bomp! zine might have been lost to the ages. Thanks, Suzy!

Blurt

Frankenstein Sound System

2010-01-11T08:39:00.000-08:00

“…You ain’t fat, you ain’t nothin’.” – Weird Al -

All right. Lemme explain this quote and it’s relevance to this article. Nowadays to be a nerd is not only acceptable, it’s something to aspire to. It means now to be an extreme enthusiast about something. Movie nerds, comic nerds, tech nerds and lots, lots of music nerds. Cats who know, or think they know a lot about a subject. In this age of rampant half-assery, devotion to something, anything is laudable. Fine. Only most of these cats are straight fronting. Fronting about being nerds. They ain’t fat they ain’t nothing. I just like saying that.

What I mean by this is that I recently got finished attempting to finish Bomp!’s biblical “Born In The Garage”. Edited by Suzy Shaw, present head of Bomp! and Mike Stax, some cat who I don’t know. This book is the realest of real deals where music nerdship is concerned.

It is 300 and 11 pages long. Dense, dense text of Rock and Roll research. Would you like to know more about Swedish bands attempting to sound like they were from Liverpool in the mid to late ‘60’s? Want to track down some Mexican garage band? Wanna read some guy from Garfield, New Jersey’s 35 year gone impassioned plea for old Decca singles? You can read all that and more here.

Anybody who ever wrote for Greg Shaw’s Bomp! zine between the years of 1970-1981 is reprinted here, in the creepy original mimeographed text. This is so thorough it is damn near unreadable. It spans the rockabilly revival through to garage rock experimentation to the birth of punk and everything in between. All of it written by fans, people like like Mr. Shaw himself, Lester Bangs, Ken Barnes and a nameless horde of vinyl buyers. Now, let me get back to the point I made earlier. Bomp! The Fanzine was conceived way before the intertubes, all of this business, every painfully researched, borderline autistic bit of fandom was dug up in record shops from here to Tijuana, banged out on typewriters and then rolled out on those machines in blue ink that we used to take quizzes in back in grammar school days. Think you’re clever cuz you know when Kajagoogoo put out their first single? Think you’re devoted cause you ordered The Arcades Fire’s Japanese singles? Think your deep cause you wrote your thesis on The Donna’s debut album? Fuck you. In them old days people drank harder, loved harder and nerded harder, without a router in sight suckas. You ain’t fat, You ain’t nothin’. - Frankenstein Sound System

The Agit Reader

2010-01-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

To say that without Bomp! what you are reading now wouldn’t exist, is more than likely an understatement. Though this publication has been preceded by the zine explosion of the ’80s and ’90s, the form largely owes its existence to Bomp! and, more specifically, to one man: Greg Shaw. In these days when public expression is just a few clicks to blogger.com away, it’s hard to remember a time when the printed word wasn’t so readily available. (And perhaps even harder to remember when it actually meant something.) When it took some doing to get one’s point of view out there, those who were doing so for little financial reward really had something to say.

Back in the early ’70s, Shaw toiled away in his home in Fairfax, California on a labor of his love of rock & roll. Setting his and a select handful of compatriots’ opinions to type on a typewriter (Google it, kids) and a hand-cranked mimeograph machine (again, Google it), Shaw created what became the prototype for music zines: Who Put the Bomp. (His history with the form actually dates back further, when he created a Tolkien publication, Entmoot, and a sci-fi and music hybrid Mojo Entmooter in the ’60s.) WPTB was to magazines what Nuggets was to records: an indispensable ground zero for what was becoming known as “punk rock.” This was not the spiked and safety-pinned brand of punk to which we’ve all become so familiar, but rather a wide swath of primitive rock made by garage bands across the USA and abroad that were familiar only to a small, but ever growing, tribe of in-the-knows. For Shaw, who used the term in reviewing Nuggets for Rolling Stone in 1973, “punk” was a word used to endearingly describe a certain breed of rock & roll that could be traced throughout the ’50s and ’60s in unchartered surf bands, backwoods axemen, and uncelebrated foot soldiers of the British Invasion. To him, the Shadows of Knight or the Chocolate Watchband were just as punk as the Ramones.

For those attuned to the sounds Shaw and his band of brothers celebrated, WPTB was a wealth of information. Each issue, they delved deeply into their subject matter, whether it be the Kinks, the Standells, or little labels like Autumn Records. They provided extensive discographies and erudite historical information coupled with astute opinions that separated them from mere archivists. And laced within each sentence was a purity of passion that showed that this work stemmed from a gut-level embrace of the subjects at hand, an appreciation that was neither scholarly or geeky, but almost instinctual.

Indeed, Shaw himself was obsessive, but as a listener and disseminator of information, not a collector. (In a humorous anecdote in her introduction, Greg’s ex-wife and business partner Suzy Shaw tells of how his notoriety for the poor condition of his records and the shoddy packaging he used in his mail order business led to record collectors using "Greg Shaw Minus" as the lowest mark for grading a piece of vinyl’s condition.) His guiding hand and voice could be read in every page of Bomp! (to which WPTB had been shortened by 1976) and his other endeavors, most notably the Bomp record label.

A small portion of Shaw’s legacy can be seen in Bomp! 2: Born in the Garage, the second Bomp! book. Assembled is a selection of his work from 1970–1981, including some of his small run, personal zines, Liquid Love and Metanoia. Even amongst this small portion of the issues of Bomp!, the amount of information is vast, so much so that it would take anyone at least several months to digest it all. Just as enjoyable as the reprinted material, though, are the introductions from long-time contributor Ken Barnes, Suzy Shaw, and Jon Savage. It’s an amazing recounting of a period of time perhaps best-suited for Shaw’s endeavor, but that also needed it most. Sadly, Greg Shaw died in 2004, but fortunately he left behind a legacy that speaks for itself, and which can appreciated in all its pre-blog glory here. -- Stephen Slaybaugh / The Agit Reader

Hartford Advocate

2009-12-31T11:59:00.000-08:00

The birth of the fanzine

When Greg Shaw died in 2004, rock fans should have declared a day of mourning, with freak flags flown at half mast. Shaw was the fan's fan, creator of pioneering pre-Rolling Stone rock fanzines like Entmoot, Mojo Navigator and Who Put the Bomp that mixed erudition with enthusiasm and made readers ecstatic to be included inside the sultan of swing's tent.

Shaw's fanzines, and his later record label Bomp! — still in existence — were templates for the 'zine and D.I.Y. revolutions that paralleled the arrival and partly explains the longevity of punk rock. His Bomp fanzine was also undoubtedly the inspiration for reissue labels like Rhino, Sundazed and Norton, and his fanzines were the incubators for great rock critics like Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Dave Marsh, Ken Barnes, Billy Altman and Phast Phreddie. That rebellious torch was carried forward in magazines like Creem, Punk, Big Takeover, Razorcake, Roctober, Flipside, etc. In short, Shaw is the one who, as the song goes, put the Bomp in the bomp bah bomp bah bomp.

Bomp2: Born in the Garage (Bomp/UT Publishing), edited by Suzy Shaw (his former wife) and Mike Stax, is the second compilation of the best writing from Shaw's various late, lamented fanzines. The first, Bomp!: Saving the World One Record at a Time (AMMO), was a hefty, handsome hardcover filled to the brim with archival photos, artifacts and contemporary essays that looked back on the times and music that shaped the magazines. Bomp!2 is a more Spartan affair, with pages from the fanzines reprinted as they originally appeared (some typed on an Olivetti and hand-cranked from a mimeo machine). This is not to say that Bomp!2 is any less entertaining or vital than Bomp!1; it may in fact be more useful as a reference tool. You are getting the original sources, my friends, some of which were, prior to these two anthologies, going for hundreds of dollars on eBay. You not only get profiles of bands and firsthand accounts of scenes that shaped them, you get "obsessively detailed" discographies and label listings that you can't get anywhere else. At $15.95, this may be the steal deal of the year in publishing.

Every one of the 312 pages of Bomp!2 contains a highlight, but among the most noteworthy are Ken Barnes' definitive piece on Sky Saxon & the Seeds and Barnes' equally detailed profile of the elusive Jack Nitzsche (this may be the only non-hostile interview the stranger-than-Phil-Spector Nitzsche ever gave); the British Invasion issue, reprinted in its entirety; the issue on California Surf Roots (ditto); and the continuing series on regional music scenes of the 1960s that covers Chicago, San Francisco, Michigan, Sweden (!), and Boston. "Bosstown in the Glory Years" will open (or reopen) some ears; it even contains a section on Connecticut bands like the Wildweeds, Van Dykes, Shags, North Atlantic Invasion Force and a Hartford group that went by two names, the Blue Beats and The # 1. All in all, a noble effort to chronicle scenes that shifted constantly like the blobs inside lava lamps.

Mike Stax, former lead singer of the Loons and an expat-Brit now living in San Diego, contracted the rock fandom disease from Shaw. The latter's obsessions are on ample display in every issue of the former's twice-yearly Ugly Things, subtitled "Wild Sounds from Past Dimensions," each issue of which is book-length and filled with similarly fan-charged chronicles of bands past, the more obscure the better. The latest 225-page issue (Winter 2009), for example, includes articles on the Masters Apprentices, Wildflower ("San Francisco's Lost Band"), loving remembrances of Sky Saxon, and tons of reviews of the greatest reissues, books and DVDs out there.

Stax jumped the shark with The Misunderstood. His 2-issue saga of this proto-psychedelic band swept through three continents and more epiphanies and crack ups than a Kesey acid test. Perhaps seeing the band as embodying the strange days of the 1960s, Stax expanded the story in Like, Misunderstood, a memoir co-written with band member Rick Brown. While the band's psychedelic rock sounds great — their "I Can Take You to the Sun" single is included on nearly every "nuggets"-style reissue — they never attracted the following a band called "America's Yardbirds" deserved. They were sidetracked, for starters, by the Vietnam War, from which Brown was a "stateless fugitive."

Open your ears to a new level of rock fandom by visiting bomp.com and/or ugly-things.com.

Alan Bisbort / Hartford Advocate

Crawdaddy!

2009-12-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

Bomp! 2: Born in the Garage
Edited by Suzy Shaw and Mike Stax
(Bomp! / UT Publishing)

Taking its name from the Barry Mann hit of the same name, Who Put the Bomp (later called Bomp!) was one of the earliest rock ‘n’ roll fanzines, run by the late, luminous rock enthusiast Greg Shaw. In its ’70s heyday, the ‘zine was an early outlet for writers like Lester Bangs, Ken Barnes, and Richard Meltzer, taking the obsessive fan approach to both emerging rock artists and bygone underground sensations.

The first Bomp! book, 2007’s Bomp! Saving the World One Record at a Time, was a full-color combination of writing, photographs, interviews, and personal correspondence. To follow this up, the soft cover collection Bomp! 2: Born in the Garage buckles down to focus on the ‘zine’s written content itself. It features 300 pages of black-and-white, full-page reproductions of the magazine’s best material during its 1970-81 run, and alongside Who Put the Bomp and Bomp!, it also features several excerpts from Shaw’s private ‘zines like Metanoia and Liquid Love, originally only circulated among his friends and colleagues. The book also features new articles from Alec Palao, Jon Savage, Mike Stax, Ken Barnes, illustrator William Stout, and Suzy Shaw, Greg’s ex-wife and business partner, who co-edited this collection and provides a moving introduction.

These reproductions are fascinating, especially for the way they show how print music magazines functioned as an early form of social networking—bringing people together who might never otherwise meet, and providing an outlet for those inclined to typewrite complete discographies for their favorite band or label. Along with detailed scene reports, some of the most fascinating stuff here are the readers’ letters in the ‘zine’s “Feedback” section, which range from nerdy clarifications to outpourings of love for bands or particular articles. Although the book features several other great writers, the lion’s share of the writing here is by Greg Shaw himself, documenting his various rock fascinations. Bomp! 2 is a terrific value, providing a very deep overview of an iconic ‘zine and an influential voice in the realm of rock journalism. – Michael Harkin / Crawdaddy!

Musoscribe

2009-12-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

The printed fanzine phenomenon was the precursor of today’s blog. While the form got its beginning covering science fiction, by 1970 one of the medium’s most (ultimately) influential outlets was Who Put the Bomp by Greg Shaw. From 1970 to 1981 Shaw wrote and/or edited many issues of WPTB (eventually shortened to Bomp).

While early issues were typed and mimeographed affairs with readership in the mere double digits, later issues were typeset, color productions with circulation in the tens of thousands. And while Shaw’s championing of some styles and groups meant that he was prone to predictions that wouldn’t pan out (the commercial success of powerpop and the mainstream success of the Flamin’ Groovies to name two), the obsessive fandom and attention to detail kept the sprit of rock and roll alive through some lean years.

Now comes the second volume in trade paperback compilations of WPTB material, Bomp 2: Born in the Garage. Edited by Suzy Shaw (ex-wife of the late Shaw and head of Bomp Records) and Mike Stax (editor of Ugly Things). This 330-plus page edition reproduces much of the content in the best quality imaginable.

The homespun charm of the early WPTB issues comes through every bit as clearly as Shaw’s love for rock and roll. Shaw — and his eventual contributors — were writing about groups like the Remains, the Standells and Roky Erickson in the early 1970s. While those artists are all now legendary and oft- and widely-covered, in 1970 nobody but Shaw was writing about them. The garage revival of the 1980s can be traced in part to Shaw’s influence.

A long parade of later-to-be-famous writers wrote for WPTB. Ken Barnes was co-editor for a time, and WPTB included essays and review from Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Dave Marsh and many others. Many issues — especially in the zine’s earlier days — were packed full of extensive discographies. Again, nobody else was doing this work in those days.

In addition to the reprints — including many of those hopelessly rare early issues — Born in the Garage also includes an exhaustive chronology of the zine’s development, plus lively and illuminating modern-day essays from Mike Stax, illustrator William Stout, Suzy Shaw, Ken Barnes and others. For anyone who appreciates good writing and/or the lesser-known reaches of rock and roll, Bomp 2: Born in the Garage will make an excellent addition to the bookshelf. Me, I’ve already ordered a copy of the earlier compilation Bomp!: Saving the World One Record at a Time. - Musoscribe : Bill Kop's Music Blog

Examiner L.A.

2009-12-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time before there was an internet and bloggers who wrote about rock 'n' roll, the only way fans -- us fans -- could keep up with the news and the times was through the print media -- magazines.
There was, of course, Rolling Stone. But RS, in its move to the mainstream, started to veer away from the real excitement of rock 'n' roll in the '70s. It was left to magazines like Who Put the Bomp (and later Bomp!) to take up the slack.
"Bomp! 2 - Born in the Garage" is a great way to jog memories of the days when a new issue of Who Put the Bomp! was an exciting time.
Bomp's guiding light was the late Greg Shaw, whose love of rock 'n' roll was obvious in the detail in his publications. Bomp was truly his labor of love.
Bomp started out as a typewritten magazine. It wasn't until later that it was actually typeset. I remember my excitement in seeing Vol. 3, No. 1, a full issue devoted to the British Invasion. It was almost an encyclopedia with all the various entries discussing the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans, Wayne Fontana, the Stones, the Dave Clark Five, the Kinks, the Nashville Teens, the Pretty Things, the Downliners Set, the Yardbirds, the Small Faces, the Troggs, the Who and the Easybeats. And those were the more well-known names -- the issue also explored lesser knowns -- the Hep Stars, who included keyboardist Benny Andersson, later of ABBA, the Rockin' Berries, Denny Laine and the Diplomats, the Escorts and more.
The next issue, summer 1974, was even more interesting -- it turned to the American scene. It had articles on the Standells, the Seeds, the Knickerbockers, the Leaves and the Beau Brummels and several pages on the Bay Area rock scene, including the Golliwogs (later Creedence Clearwater Revival), San Jose's Count Five and Syndicate of Sound.
And it just kept getting better. Bomp never published often, but when it did, it was great.
This 300 plus page book features full page reproductions of extensive portions of Who Put the Bomp and Bomp! issues from the '70s. It features vintage writings by such rock scribes as Lenny Kaye, Ken Barnes, Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, Dave Marsh and more -- names that inspired yours truly and many others, plus a cover by William Stout, whose vinyl bootleg collectors will remembers as the artist for many releases on the Trademark of Quality label.
All in all, they don't make 'em like Bomp anymore. 'Nuff said about that.
-- Steve Marinucci / Examiner

Read

2009-12-07T08:59:00.000-08:00

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

Iowa City PL

2009-07-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

I recommend this book for anyone interested in the counter-counter-culture, the true under-ground of Rock as it existed from the ’50s through the ’70s. And, yes, Lester Bangs’ "James Taylor Marked for Death" is reprinted, possibly the most important polemic in all of Rock criticism. - Charlie / ICPL

Rich's R'n'R Rants & Raves

2009-03-04T09:53:00.000-08:00

After reading this great book, I realized that Bomp has been a part of my life for over 3 decades now – considerably longer than most people that I know! Greg Shaw was a true believer in r’n’r and despite any faults that he might have had, he did his best to bring his visions to the world through his writings and his records. Of course, he was helped by many people along the way, especially his ex-wife, Suzy Shaw, who continues the business to this day.

This book is a collaboration of excerpts from the zines, writings from Greg and other contributors and anecdotes from people involved, including many remembrances from Suzy.

Some of the most interesting segments for me comes at the beginning, with pieces from Greg’s original zine, Mojo Navigator, that he created with collaborator David Harris. I have never seen these and found the pieces written in the mid-60’s to be fascinating bits of r’n’r writing. There is the Grateful Dead talking about Big Brother’s “new singer” (Janis), Big Brother talking about 1st single ("Blindman" & "All is Loneliness"), club gigs in Chicago where no one knew them (maybe their first out of town gig), first recordings, and recording studios, a very long Country Joe & the Fish interview – apparently they were a local fave that never really reached the acclaim of their counterparts - and a cool Doors interview from just after the first record came out but before “Light My Fire” hit, talking about clubs, dances, ballrooms, etc – and drugs, which seemed to be the part that excited Jim the most. Mojo Navigator dissolved and Greg & Suzy left San Francisco, relocated to LA and moved on.

By the 70’s Shaw started Who Put the Bomp zine, along with the Bomp! label. Tales abound about these days and a number of articles are reproduced. Some of the reproductions are a little small and grainy, making it difficult for me to read with my lousy eyes. But, there are tons of super writings - the zine published the legendary “groin thunder” Lester Bangs amphetamine fueled lengthy (and ultra cool) Troggs rant. There are great articles on the Standells, the Runaways, the burgeoning punk scene, a cool bit about the early '70's “New New York” scene, which at the time meant Blue Oyster Cult and the Dolls!

A couple articles on Sky & the Seeds are included, which is especially appropriate as Greg got Sky to come to Shaw’s Cavern Club and sit in with just about every band that appeared there – sometimes whether they wanted him to or not! This is how many of the local scenesters appeared on the 80’s Sky record and how Redd Kross hooked up with him.

A British punk special is something I specifically remember from my pre-LA days, when I was reading any r’n’r zine I could get my hands on. Of course, Greg took up the flag for the new punk bands and there are plenty of articles on Blondie, the Ramones, the local LA bands (several of whom recorded for Bomp) and plenty more.

Also included are the lay outs for the last, “lost” issue #22, which they thought had disappeared. It’s a shame that this never saw the light of day before now.

My favorites sections are definitely Suzy’s recollections and behind the scenes commentaries. She understands and appreciates the importance of the business that she & Greg ran, but she doesn’t try to deify Greg – she brings up as many of his infuriating traits as his endearing ones. But, she is never mean, she is funny and factual and for someone who has been involved peripherally with Bomp at times (mostly through friends), the tales are revelatory at times, bring back memories other times and often just make me laugh!

One of Greg’s most annoying traits for Suzy was his avoidance of all aspects of the business side of the music business. But if not for this “fault”, he might not have helped Lee Joseph start up Dionysus Records in LA, which helped start my “career”, such as it was. While I never recorded for Bomp specifically, I did appear on a compilation or two, as well. Greg always encouraged bands and I will always appreciate his help.

For anyone who is interested in the evolution of r’n’r writing, fanzines and independent labels, this is a terrific read! - Rich's R'n'R Rants & Raves

Record Collector

2009-02-24T08:43:00.000-08:00

American indie pioneer

Greg Shaw was a charismatic Brian Jones/Keith Relf lookalike who became a legend of American indie rock. He helped launch San Francisco fanzine Mojo Navigator in 1966, mainly because he knew how to operate a mimeograph – the forerunner of the photocopier. But his musical tastes were less hippie, more garage-rock, as he proved with his next fanzine, Who Put The Bomp!. Launched in 1970, it attracted writers such as Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, and was an early champion of the New York Dolls, Stooges, Blondie and English punk. Bomp! spawned an LA record shop and a label of the same name, home to Stiv Bators, Iggy Pop, Devo and Plimsouls. As a label, Bomp! became a much-revered stalwart of the US indie scene, even though Shaw’s penchant for power-pop meant that some of the records were more written about than bought.

Along the way the energetic Shaw also edited Phonograph magazine, wrote prolifically, and was an executive with Sire, where he discovered and managed The Flaming Groovies. He died in 2004 and his story is told with self-deprecating good humour by his long-suffering partner Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren, who helps to put it all into context. But what gives the book its piquant flavour are the many facsimile pages from Mojo Navigator and Bomp!, plus great photos. A true time-capsule of the American indie scene in the 60s and 70s, which can be found at www.ammobooks.com.

ISBN 0978607686, 304 pages

Reviewed by Alan Lewis

Record Collector

Terrascopic Rumbles

2008-12-05T09:12:00.000-08:00

Something else that has me hitting the superlatives button has got to be ‘Bomp’ (“Saving the world one record at a time”), a hardback supertome that details the pioneering publishing work of the sadly missed Greg Shaw. Edited by Greg’s widow Suzy and our old friend Mick Farren, the reader is taken on a culturally rich, seat of your pants ride through beautiful reproductions of the once renowned (and rarely seen, I might add) ‘Mojo Navigator’ and the more pro layouts found in ‘(Who Put The) Bomp’. This is combined with essential and insightful preambles by Suzy, Mick and Greg (the principles) with secondary pieces from the pens of Brendan Mullen, Peter Case, Lester Bangs, Alan Betrock, ‘The Ig’ and Lenny Kaye! Add to this a truckload of evocative photos (like when “ a Weirdo” met members of The Germs on page 246 for example) and Bomp #22, reproduced on its original paste-up boards, which if you’re a zine-o-phile will know, was never actually issued. Wow. This comes as a glorious and fitting epitaph to one of the founding fathers of the underground music press. Without Greg’s endeavours over the years, I’d guess that this opening splurge on music publications would be considerably smaller or even non-existant. Bomp (the book) is a veritable treasure trove of left-field rock ‘n’ roll history which clearly avoids the chemical tang of coffee-table lit. Check out the publishers on www.ammobooks.com asap! - Terrascope

Harp Magazine

2008-10-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

After Greg Shaw died in 2004, his former wife Suzy Shaw decided it was time to resume work on a project that had been back-burnered for two decades: to assemble a book chronicling her ex-husband’s journalistic legacy and resurrecting crucial early writings of some of rock writing’s greatest voices—among them, Lester Bangs, whose notorious Troggs screed “James Taylor Marked For Death” originally consumed a whopping 24 pages of Shaw’s seminal publication Who Put the Bomp.

WPTB was one of the premier rock fanzines of the ’70s, aesthetic sibling to the likes of Crawdaddy!, Fusion and CREEM, and an oasis for kick-out-the-jams-minded fanboys and collectors who had little truck with corporate-hyped swill. Early issues featured the Bangs classic, stories on the Seeds, Flamin’ Groovies and the rockabilly revival, and all manner of left-field minutiae (take the 26-point test to learn if you are a “rock and roll trufan”[sic]; point #13 inquires if “you squeezed Robert Plant’s lemon”). When punk and new wave dawned, Shaw eagerly dived right in, doing cover stories on the UK punk explosion (“England’s Screaming” blared the headline, over an image of a leering Johnny Rotten), power pop, the Ramones, etc., and foreshortening the mag’s name to just Bomp!. Regardless of the coverage—Shaw’s late-’60s pre-WPTB zine Mojo-Navigator Rock & Roll News included—there was never any whiff of complacency. This was rock criticism as activism.

For the Bomp! book, Suzy Shaw and author/Deviants frontman Mick Farren have deftly anthologized the Greg Shaw oeuvre, culling the best features as direct reproductions so one can see exactly what the magazine’s pages looked like, right down to the typos, the quirky layouts and the close-ups of Joey Ramone’s ripped jeans. The editors have also penned fresh essays and added unpublished photos to contextualize Shaw and his magazine as both evolved with the times.

In 1974 Shaw also launched Bomp! Records, and along the way he had a hand in the careers of Stiv Bators, Flamin’ Groovies, Plimsouls, Warlocks, Black Keys and others. But whether he was writing about music or releasing it, his overriding manifesto was saving the world one record at a time. As he told me in 1984 when I interviewed him for my own zine, “I don’t find much essential difference in producing a magazine or producing an album. It’s our shared opinions, expressed through records or writing, that it boils down to.”

By Fred Mills

Mojo

2008-10-06T17:31:00.000-07:00

Moli

2008-10-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

Rock 'n' Roll Salvation

By Wendy Case/MOLI

Immortalizing California's legendary Bomp! label and rag

I knew I'd get a kick out of AMMO press's new tome, Bomp! Saving the World One Record at a Time. But the truth is, I haven't been able to put it down since the UPS guy had me sign for it.

A scrapbook on the evolution of the oldest continuously operating indie label in the United States and the rock magazine that preceded it, Bomp! gives me the same thrill I used to get pouring over my sixth grade yearbook back in the '70s. But instead of pining for Jonathan Mansberger from fourth period study hall, I gush hopelessly over Joey Ramone, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, Sky Saxon and the myriad punk, rock, pop, and new wave bands that changed my life forever.

Bomp! founder Greg Shaw was an anomaly when he founded his first magazine, Mojo Navigator, in '60s San Francisco. Instead of casting out the early heroes of rock (Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent, Elvis), he began construction on a traceable road map — visual, aural, and intellectual — that connected them, and us, to the future. With the help of wife and Bomp! co-founder Suzy Shaw (who co-authored this book with rock journalist/former Deviants frontman Mick Farren), Greg revolutionized rock journalism and initiated the format that everyone recognizes today as "indie rock."

Suzy still runs the label (which relocated to Burbank in the '70s), along with partner Patrick Boissel. And though Greg succumbed to kidney failure in 2004, his legacy — which includes everyone from the Germs and the Romantics to the Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Black Keys — is a legacy of love. The man loved rock 'n' roll. The book, basically a compendium of clippings from Mojo Navigator and its successor Who Put The Bomp, along with pictures and artifacts from Bomp! Records and its many subsidiary labels, is a fitting tribute to his passion and enthusiasm. In its pages you'll find early writings by fellow rock devotees Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus, the first-ever fanzine interview with the Doors, the original advertisement for Runaways auditions (hosted by Bomp! and Kim Fowley), and heaps of other fun stuff.

You can order a copy for yourself (along with an unrivaled catalog of music both old and new) from Bomp!'s online store. Also be sure to drop into the label's brand new MOLI profile and say "Hi" to Patrick and Suzy. They're awesome. - Wendy Case / Moli

Victim Of Time

2008-10-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

by Todd Killings

If you're looking for one of the most satisfying cultural curiosities that's surfaced recently in the publishing realm, it's no doubt that the Bomp book: Saving The World One Record At a Time is the guaranteed lock of the year. Whether it's for your own selfish indulgence or as a holiday gift for the rock'n roller who has everything, it's as impressive and gratifying as any other book you hold dear in your library, and deserves to be in every home that considers itself complete. In its lavish hardcover exterior and page after page of original Mojo Navigator, Who Put The Bomp, and Bomp! reprints and anecdotes from Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren, it's a truly incredible homage to the man that had the vision to wrap all of his festering fanaticism into what became one of the most important underground voices in rock'n roll history, Mr. Greg Shaw himself.

From the earliest evidence of his obsession, which can be read in reprinted pages from Greg's Mojo Navigator (turning in the first interviews with The Doors, Country Joe & The Fish and the Grateful Dead), it's an epic journey of a true behind-the-scenes pioneer of music journalism, multiplied by an unwavering enthusiasm that was unmatched in the earliest days of so-called "rock criticism." Interestingly enough, in the early 1960s, still years before Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone were started, adult magazines such as Escapade and Cavalier were the only nationally-circulated publications to feature independent rock journalism within their seedy pages, merely as a way to fill up the blank space between the pictorial layouts and blase' fiction that were the typical fare of these randy periodicals. As Greg's passion and drive for creating an alternative universe reinstated itself during the late 60s when imitators started to pop up along side Mojo Navigator, his life mission was firmly established, and the groundwork for the independent music community network we all know and love today, was forged.

As Mojo Navigator fanzine changed into Who Put the Bomp in the early 70s, it was Greg Shaw who trail-blazed the true rock'n roll path to salvation by rounding up the founding fathers of what would become the golden age of rock journalism (Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, 'Metal' Mike Saunders, among others), and let them loose in the unhinged and wide-open period of post-60s, pre-punk free-form writing that changed the way we all look at music today. Most of the top-notch epic articles (Bangs on The Troggs is timeless) are reprinted in their full glory, along with an abundance of rare snippets (you even get to read the unpublished 22nd issue of Bomp! still on the pasteboard) and cover images of long gone back issues. All tied together with Suzy Shaw's insider commentary interspersed throughout, it lends an endearing tone to the whole experience, which fills more than just the void of not having copies of these original issues.

As the times changed and Bomp! emerged in the streamlined format that it was best known for in the late 1970s, the Shaws found an even more solid niche and expanded the publication into it's logical and evolutionary second phase, which was the formation of Bomp! Records in 1974. Possibly the first to successfully take an underground rock'n roll publication into the next level of the process by actually producing the medium they were covering may seem to be an obvious move now, but in the formative years of independent music fandom, and well before 'punk culture' deemed it an affordable possibility, this was literally a groundbreaking step that would inspire the next generations more than they could have possibly imagined. Tracing everyone from Touch and Go and Subterranean Pop in the very early 1980s, to Flipside and Forced Exposure a few years later, the 'fanzine, turned record label' phenomenon finally had its clear and undeniable progenitor in Bomp!

This essential book includes tons of unpublished photos, along with titillating hook-up details (Suzy and The Stooges' James Williamson??), and dirty laundry aired in an effort to clear up old rumors surrounding the financial and business sides of the Bomp! operation, which refreshingly humanizes their iconic stature in the seedy world of rock'n roll. If you've ever wished you could just flip through the pages of a few of their vintage issues, this is the chance you've been waiting for, and it's well worth the price of admission. Check out some page images HERE and buy your copy today to ensure delivery before the holidays, and to quench your insatiable appetite for more musical minutiae that you sorely can't live without. - Victim Of Time

Spin

2008-10-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Classic Rock

2008-10-05T09:40:00.000-07:00

Record Collector

2008-09-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

Carbon 14

2008-08-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

This isn’t a photo book, per se, but it’s big and yellow and distracting, and you can get wrapped up in its 306 pages for a long time, browsing through a yummy-yummy assortment of interviews, rants, essays, photos, cartoons, reviews and fabulous artwork from Bomp magazine, going back to the ’60s. I even like to smell its woody pages. This book is just the tip of the iceberg from the magazine’s long run, but what a tip it is, including features and interviews with Janis Joplin, the Doors, Ramones, Blondie, Sky Saxon, the Runaways and (eek!) the Grateful Dead. The writing by Lester Bangs (riffing unrestrained for thousands of words about the Troggs, among other things), Greil Marcus, Lisa Fancher, Iggy Pop (favorably reviewing a Bowie album, if you can believe that), Mike Stax, Lenny Kaye, Suzy Shaw (humorously recounting the mag’s many obstacles), Mick Farren and Greg Shaw is crazed, prescient, intelligent, fannishly spirited and thoughtfully trippy. Along the way, Suzy and Mick also fill in the story of Greg’s life with eloquent tributes to his resolve and five-years-ahead-of-his-time vision. Who put the Bomp? He did, but now it’s your turn. - Falling James / Carbon 14

Magnet

2008-07-11T08:09:00.001-07:00

RocknReel

2008-05-18T18:10:00.001-07:00

Shindig!

2008-05-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

Real Cool Time

2008-05-05T09:11:00.001-07:00

Who was that man, I'd like to shake his hand...

Real Cool Time Podcast, 12/11/2008: Bomp Tribute Pt. 1
Real Cool Time Podcast, 12/18/2008: Bomp Tribute Pt. 2

Couldn't help but celebrate the release of the book.

Part 1

The Romantics--First In line
The Flamin’ Groovies--0You Tore Me Down
The Breakaways--One Way Ticket
The Plimsouls--Million Miles Away
*The Pointed Sticks--Apoligies
The Mystery Machine--She’s Not Mine
*b-Girls--Fun At The Beach

The United States Of Existence--Return To The Psychedelic
The Things--Can’t Get Enough
The Vertebrats--Left In The Dark
The Slickee Boys--Glendora/Going All The Way
The Miracle Workers--Already Gone
The Stooges--I Got A Right
DMZ--Intro/The First Time

*Les Sinners--Nice Try
*The Good Feeling--Tale Of A Man
*Les Lutins--Laissez-nous Vivre
*The Shondels--Every Day, Every Night
*The Haunted--Shake

Part 2

Stiv Bators--L.A. L.A.
Wombats--Utter Frustration
Nikki & the Corvettes—He’s a Mover
20/20--Screaming
The Weirdos--Life Of Crime
The Zeros--Beat Your Heart Out
*The Barracudas--Somewhere Outside
The Poppees--Jealousy

The Pete Best Four--The Way I Feel About You
*The Quid—Wrong Line
*The Free For All--Show Me The Way
*It’s All Meat--Feel It
Teddy & His Patches--Suzy Creamcheese

The Embrooks--Not A Priority
The Vipers--Nothing's From Today
*The Tell-tale Hearts--Just In Case You Wonder
The Pandoras—Why
*The Milky Ways--Guillotine
*Plan 9--Frustration

Ike & Tina Turner--It’s Gonna Work Out Fine [R.I.P.--he'd died a couple days before.]

Real Cool Time Radio blog

Goldmine

2008-03-09T18:21:00.000-07:00

“Bomp: Saving The World One Record At A Time”: “From psychedelia to garage punk to power pop.” With those words, we are ushered into one of the most fascinating worlds ever to orbit Planet Rock, the story of the tiny little label that could… the perpetual underdog, the permanent under-achiever, the wide-eyed boy next door who always wanted to be a part of the music industry, and who went a long way towards reinventing it.

From fanzine writer to record label mogul, from music critic to rock ’n’ roll editor, Greg Shaw nailed down his hobbies while he was still in his teens, and spent the rest of his life making them work for him. The result is this gorgeous, lavish compendium, by Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren, of thoughts, notions, manifestos and photos, and page after page of glorious reprints from the greatest fanzine American rock ever read: Who Put The Bomp, successor to Mojo Navigator and sire of plain ol’ Bomp. Great swaths of the ’zine’s original pages are reprinted here, dating back to Shaw’s earliest encounters with The Doors and the Dead, forward through his lifelong love of the Flamin’ Groovies, and on to the dedication that led him to launch the Bomp label, his private shrine to the bands that he loved so much that he knew that you would, too.

Latter-day contributions from friends, admirers, co-writers and more are wrapped around the vintage pages; previously unseen photos are unearthed from the Bomp vault. This isn’t a book you sit and read in one sitting, it’s one to browse over for weeks on end, a massive magazine to which you will keep on returning. Greg Shaw’s own life story still needs to be told, and you emerge from these pages with a few questions of your own. But, the most important thing you need to know is nailed down from the outset. He believed in rock ’n’ roll. (Hardcover, 306 pages, $34.95, American Modern Books, www.ammobooks.com)
— Dave Thompson

Rock of Pages

2008-03-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

This “yearbook-sized” hardcover tells the story of Bomp!, an independent record label, record store, mail order (and now online) record outlet, magazine and life-work of owner/genius Greg Shaw. Lovingly compiled by Greg’s life and business partner (and ex-wife) Suzy Shaw, and co-edited by Mick Farren, the book is a smorgasbord of creativity, with generous helpings of artwork, memorabilia, plenty of anecdotes, and some fantastic rock journalism by some of rock’s best writers. These include Farren, Greil Marcus, Lester Bangs (whose legendary “James Taylor Marked for Death” essay is reprinted here in its entirety), Lenny Kaye, and Greg Shaw himself. You get archival material – such as articles and features from Shaw’s pre-Bomp! ‘zine “Mojo Navigator” (which featured the first published interview with The Doors, also reprinted here), and the renowned lost and previously unpublished “Issue #22” of the magazine - along with new essays that put the entire project in perspective. In short, “Bomp!: Saving the World One Record at a Time,” tells the story of rock ‘n’ roll better than any biography or other rock treatise you’re likely to read. – Una Persson

LA Weekly

2008-02-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

La Luz hosted the book signing for this more comprehensive page-turner a couple of weeks ago with authors Mick Farren and Suzy Shaw (wife of Bomp's dearly departed mastermind Greg Shaw), and the occasion, which also featured an acoustic performance by The Last's Joe and Mike Nolte, brought out a jovial crowd of Shaw pals and admirers, including "label whore"Jim Freek, Silver Lake scene queen Kari French and DJ Audrey Moorehead (who spun after the band). The book covers Shaw's journalistic endeavors, which extend from his LSD-enhanced explorations of San Francisco's scene in the '60s to the insider critiques of later music styles such as N.Y. punk and Brit pop (all photocopied straight from his zines Mojo Navigator and Who Put the Bomp) to Shaw's role as "guru of the new garage scene" with Bomp record-label signees the Black Keys, the Warlocks and, of course, the Brian Jonestown Massacre. It's a fittingly raw and passionate tribute. - Lina Lecaro / LA Weekly

Dk Presents

2008-02-20T14:16:00.002-08:00

Greg Shaw was some kind of music fan. As a teenager in the mid-60s, he helped found the fanzine Mojo Navigator - one of the first publications to present serious writing about rock music, and a prime inspiration upon the birth of Rolling Stone. During this time, he secured the first published interview with The Doors. After Mojo Navigator folded he partnered with future wife Suzy to start up the highly influential magazine Who Put The Bomp! (later known as simply Bomp!), which Shaw then spun off into Bomp! Records, his Los Angeles record store and label of the same name.

Shaw was a true believer in the healing powers of rock & roll, and one of the early champions of the 'garage bands' of the 1960's. In his world, The Standells were as big as The Beatles, and The Seeds were greater than The Stones. Incredibly, he predicted in print that the sound of his beloved garage bands would lead to a mid-70s music revival, accurately describing the punk movement three years before it happened.

Bomp! Records produced albums by many punk and post-punk luminaries, including Iggy Pop, Devo, and The Dead Boys. Shaw: "I know how to find good music that isn't getting any exposure, and I can give it a little bit of exposure, and that gives me more pleasure and satisfaction than anything else I can think of doing." He worked tirelessly doing just that until his death in 2004, along the way providing a guiding hand in the careers of modern retro rock groups such as The Black Keys and The Black Lips.

Bomp! - Saving The World One Record At A Time serves as a scrapbook of - and tribute to - Greg Shaw's work. Here Suzy Shaw and Bomp! contributor Mick Farren compile highlights of Shaw's various publications, from his beginnings as a Tolkien/Hobbit geek all the way up to the lost mockup of the final, previously unpublished issue of Bomp!. It's all presented in facsimile form, so it feels like you're flipping through the original publications. This is a revealing look at the essence of a guy who believed that "fans should have absolute control over the direction of rock & roll" and lived his life as an example of how to make it happen. - dk presents

New This Week

2008-02-20T14:16:00.001-08:00

Finally got a copy of this book, which came out late last year, and I heartily recommend it to fans of music, magazines, great writers, and popular culture. Lovingly assembled from the pages of the historic Bomp! magazine (ca. 1966-1978) and eye-opening in its breadth of coverage and overall editorial open-mindedness, it's a great testament to the devotion and enthusiasm of founder Greg Shaw and a worthwhile package for any fan of pop music. For additional fun, readers can stare at its cover for several minutes then shift their gaze to any nearby white wall! - Dave DiMartino / New This Week

Nylon Guys

2008-02-20T14:15:00.001-08:00

The Next Big Thing

2008-02-20T14:10:00.002-08:00

Can't even begin to tell you all how effin' cool it was findin' this here book on the doormath earlier today. Finally the long promised Bomp anthology has arrived, and it has turned out a fittin' tribute to the late Greg Shaw, mastermind behind both the magazine and the label. Suzy and Mick have done a great job mixing original articles with personal recollections and putting Greg's work in perspective. What you also get are contributions by Lenny Kaye, Mike Stax, Peter Case and others, plus a look at Greg's pre-Bomp Mojo Navigator and sci-fi 'zines, not forgetting the Lester Bangs classic "James Taylor Marked For Death" in facemile (all 24 pages!) and best of all the unpublished issue #22! Droolin' is what I did on notechin' that...
The entire roots of what you people worship is spelled out here in great detail. The only thing missin' is a discography of the Bomp group of labels, and all the other discs Greg's been involved with. But you can mark this as an essential part of your edumacation and order it a.s.a.p. anyways. Get it direct from Suzy, the coolest kitten in transatlantic mail-order...

The Sentimentalist

2008-02-20T14:10:00.001-08:00

BOMP's latest tome is a vibrant history lesson of biblical proportions, touching on some of the most inspiring moments of the independent music movement, going back as far as the 1960's. If you weren't there, after reading the book BOMP: Saving the World One Record At a Time, you'll wish you had been.

Indie music: what does that term mean today? Does it in fact, actually have any relevance given the high dollars that today's "indie" bands are demanding from their, ahem, "indie" record labels? There are certainly tons more "indie labels" today than when Greg Shaw, BOMP's owner/idea man, was turning kids onto new music back in the day, but a good portion of these are just major label imprints. To think that Greg used the readership of BOMP Magazine as a distribution channel was ingenius. That was truly being independent; doing things on your own, based on an idea that came from your cerebral cortex.

Suzy and Greg Shaw had the original idea for this book right after the original BOMP Magazine folded, circa 1980. I can't imagine the enormity of the undertaking; going through all the old articles and contacting the writers and photographers, choosing what to include and what not to include. No wonder it has taken this long to finish the project.

Much like the long defunct BOMP Magazine, the book includes original photography, articles and text laid out with a "fanzine" feel (and in BOMP's trademark colors: yellow, red and black). Think of it like a compilation CD but in book form, with all the best band articles of the day included.

Reading the book is an event; you are a active participant and not just a passive reader. The book is a living, breathing, artful documentation of an era that makes the reader feel that they were actually a part of what was going on at the time.

For instance, there's the original 60's British Invasion (not that of the Libertines' 90's), complete with carefully typed fan reports and photos detailing the highs and lows of events as they unfolded. Or there's the story of the early 70's, with the first part of the decade detailed as a "Preamble to Punk" in one chapter. Of course, it's not long until Iggy Pop pops up, with a full-page, young and shirtless live shot next to his own record review of David Bowie's Pin-Ups.

On page 183, there's a picture of the BOMP Record store in LA from yesteryear. Looking at the sign above the door that says "Oldies/Imports/Punk Rock" brings back memories of my misspent grammar school days, spent skulking around the seedier used record shops of New Haven CT, with their smell of dust, Chinese food and BO. It just gives me chills to see photos like that.

There are far too many historical treasures captured in this book to go into detail, but suffice it to say, if you have any interest in knowing about the origins of independent music, you owe it to yourself to pick up this historically significant and entertaining BOMP lovechild. Where else could you find an article on Elvis Presley right next to a review of the Sex Pistols? Oh yes, hard to believe, but both were around at the same time.

The Doors, The Standells, The Ramones, Iggy Pop, Blondie, Stiv Bators, The Germs, from garage to punk and beyond. It's all in here, giving you first hand accounts and crazy artifacts from the time.

It's said that Greg Shaw has long been thought to be at least partly responsible for the birth of the independent music press. After flipping through BOMP: Saving The World One Record At A Time, you will be convinced of it. We owe a debt of gratitude to Suzy, Mick, Patrick, Ammo Press and everyone else involved in the project for compiling all the original articles, stories, photographs and excepts into a hardcover, fully bound, 400 page, easy to read history. - The Sentimentalist (posted on Amazon)

Entertainment Weekly

2008-02-20T14:08:00.001-08:00

We made Entertainment Weekly!

Funtopia

2008-02-20T14:07:00.001-08:00

This great anthology takes in the very best of Mojo Navigator, Who Put the Bomp, and Bomp! Numerous full page reproductions from the archives of the aforementioned organs are interspersed with essays by Mick Farren and Suzy Shaw. Being the erstwhile wife, lifelong friend and business partner of the late Greg Shaw, Suzy Shaw's pieces add a certain poignancy and intimacy to this history of the Bomp! music empire which Greg Shaw founded in 1966 by producing Mojo Navigator. Although Shaw extended Bomp's tentacles to include the Bomp! record label and a successful mail-order business (still running today under the auspices of Suzy Shaw), it is with the magazine wing that this tome is primarily concerned.

Although Mick Farren must be well used to commenting on the emergence of rock'n'roll and subsequent evolution of rock music his writing is as engaging as ever, and he provides a colourful introduction, as well as several other pieces including his "Preamble to Punk" essay. Adding a further element of gravitas, other notable contributors include the likes of Greil Marcus, Lenny Kaye and Mike Stax. Excellent though they are, the essays only tell part of the story and it is the original material that really speaks for itself, both in the literary sense and visually.

Lavishly illustrated throughout and benefiting from the addition of extra photographs and pictures, Bomp's large coffee-table format also lends itself perfectly to the faithfully reproduced full-size articles, reviews and covers from the magazines' archives. Although perhaps not as visually striking as the later Bomps! the earlier mimeographed editions of Mojo Navigator and Who Put The Bomp still have a certain rudimentary DIY fanzine charm to them nevertheless. But, overall the juxtaposition of contemporary essays and graphics with the original material is truly a sight to behold. - Funtopia

The Book Depositary

2008-02-20T14:07:00.000-08:00

A Must For The Fanzine Generation. Rating:5
Around the 'Punk Era' in the UK, we had someone shoving a copy of their fanzine up our nose, either at ever gig we attended, or sometimes, during the Saturday High Street shopping rush in town. Usually written on an enthusiasm driven by the band's they had been to see at local venues, then printed, as cheaply as possible, and tacked together with a staple; they were sold for ten or twenty pence each to (with luck) enable another one to be created.
And created they were, yet by accident more so than design, one fanzine-ist had a key missing from the typewriter, so this became his trademark; as his work had the letter 'K' (for example) missing. Other's creating fanzines thought this was 'cool,' so they ripped a key out of theirs as well. Today, British fanzines like 'Sniffin Glue' are famous and have been reprinted in book form.
So, too, 'Bomp!' except Greg Shaw was doing his thing in the 60's, and he was interviewing the likes of Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison when their bands were still playing support on the circuit, and a far cry from the legends they became; and he didn't have a missing typewriter key, either, that was a 'British peculiarity.'
So this book presents those long-ago-and-precious-interviews with these and many more stars besides, and on occasion, even the original 'paste-up' pages of those now legendary fanzines are reproduced here. It's one of those books, well, if you're like me, anyway, who appreciates things like this, which takes your breath away. It's a knockout book, and an amazing tribute to Greg whom, little did he know at the time, was carving his name out in Rock History.

The Rock'n'roll Report

2007-12-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

“The point of a music revolution is not to replace today’s pop stars with a new slate; it is to kick out the jams! Riot in the streets! Do it now! Etc. It’s all about direct engagement, and the result of all that activity should be a better time for all, a party that will keep everyone coming back to do it some more. This is what rock & roll at its best can provide – leading to the idea that perhaps rock & roll itself should be seen not as a genre, not as a mere noun or even a verb, but also as a process.”

Greg Shaw

Prophetic words from a man that embodied rock and roll, with all of its contradictions and complexities, pure and simple. I have actually quoted these words on this very blog before and it always gives me solace to read them in this day and age of niches and genres and sub-genres. That it was uttered by Greg Shaw, a poster boy for independent rock and roll if there ever was one makes it that much more poignant.

(...)

Greg Shaw’s passion for rock and roll was legendary, especially when held against the examples of this day’s processed cheese, American Idol crap that attempts to pass for music. Co-creator and creator of the seminal Mojo Navigator Rock & Roll News and Who Put the Bomp magazines, chronicler of both 60’s rock and roll bands like the Doors and Grateful Dead in addition to garage rock originals like the Seeds and the Standells as well as the punk rock heyday of the Ramones, Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop. Arguably the inventor of the genre called Power-Pop which Greg described as a “hybrid style with the power and guts of punk, but drawing on a pop song tradition with wide popular appeal.” The man responsible for probably one of the greatest, true independent record labels in Bomp! Owner of the legendary Bomp Records store and mail order company (still ably run by Suzy Shaw for all these years) in LA, promoter and instigator of the original garage-rock revival through his Voxx record label and Cavern Club rock club. Compiler of obscure ‘60s garage bands in his voluminous Pebbles series and numerous other cool compilations, the man lived and breathed rock and roll to an extent few can comprehend and now you can get a sense of that passion with the publication of the brand new book Bomp! Saving The World One Record At A Time by Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren.

Bomp! is an incredible read because it brings out the passion that rock and roll can instill in, not only Greg Shaw but his ex-wife and long time business partner Suzy Shaw and writers like the legendary Lester Bangs and Greil Marcus. Featuring priceless original reproductions from the pages of both Mojo Navigator (which predated Rolling Stone by a year) to Who Put The Bomp and interspersed with essays from those who worked closely with Shaw, the enthusiasm contained in these pages is infectious. While some may bemoan the era covered by the majority of this book as rock’s “Golden Age” I would have to beg to differ. In some ways, this age of blogs, podcasts and MySpace are breathing much needed fresh air into rock and roll and allowing widely dispersed groups of music fans the opportunity to share in, discover and converse about the music that turns their crank, much the way fanzines functioned in Greg’s day.

Read the complete review vy Mark Boudreau here