by Scott Roos
I've been sitting on this video podcast I did with former Creem managing editor Robert Duncan for a few weeks. I'm not even sure why. Duncan is a great guy and has an immense knowledge of the music business and had a ringside seat at the legendary Detroit 'zine CREEM. He was friends with the late Lester Bangs for crying out loud. This was a fun interview to do and we explored many subjects with essentially Duncan's book Loudmouth being the focal point.
My interview with Duncan involved me doing research on a wide swath of subjects related to his life including watching a documentary on Creem magazine called Creem: America's Only Rock n' Roll Magazine. The result? I was blown away at how brash the staff of Creem magazine was in the 70's. They basically just went out and did what they felt like doing in the journalism world. They had swagger. They wrote how they wanted to write. They had flash, panache, pizazz. Whatever the word you want to use to describe how kickass Creem once was likely fits the bill.
Fast forward to right now. We are on the eve of our first NSMZ issue "going to print" (in a digital way, of course). It feels so strange to say that out loud. But before that issue comes out I wanted you all to check out the interview that was, in part, sort of responsible for inspiring the reality that is now in front of me. NSMZ is a thing. It lives and breathes and continues to evolve. Anyways, check out this interview. It's almost an hour of your time but it's worth it.
Fun facts: Robert actually suggested we call our zine NSMZ instead of The Northern Saskatchewan Music Webzine. He also saw the potential cover for our first issue a few weeks before anyone else had seen it. He's read a few of our initial articles along the way too. We are so appreciative of his support.