With the publication of the splendid, encyclopedia-sized volume of retreads released last fall and the ability of the internets to indulge effortlessly both the consumer's facile curiosities and the merchant's pandering banalities, CREEM has crept once again to the edge of the the firelight of popular consciousness. Still reeking of stale cigarettes and cheap beer even through a slow dial-up connection, CREEM was, in its heyday during the late-mid and early-late 20th century, recognized as the standard by which music journalism was judged, an amalgam of savantish insight, Curly Howard buffoonery, otaku/Asperger's obsessiveness, and P-town/meangirl bitchiness.
Older patrons of MOPA, those who remember print media and brick-&-mortar retail, may recall seeing the cryptic covers and the odd, confusing feelings aroused by headlines and photo captions inside. Few readers, even those somewhat familiar with the magazine in this period, though perhaps vaguely aware that it predates Mitch Ryder and the MC5, realize the long and storied history of this publication.
First appearing in in the Langue d'Oc region, possibly as early as the 11th century and well established by the end of the 12th, CREME began as a hand copied 'zine of sorts, covering the activities of the troubadours who were gaining popularity in the region, and featuring extensive reviews of area cheesemakers. Many scholars, in fact, claim that if CREME (as it was then rendered, nearly always in capitals, reflecting the importance of the local dairy culture) did not invent the very idea of the troubadour, then it was seminal in the development of the troubadour aesthetic and attitude.
It is also claimed that the remote geographical location in the market village of deTrois, near the modern Spanish border, conferred on the publication both access to the local musicians and cheeses that were in those days its raison d'etre, as well as the outsider status that would be so important conceptually throughout the publication's many incarnations. What is mentioned less is the importance of the local scribe's college/monastery, l'Ecole Bryman del Jesu, where the scribes-in-training would reproduce illuminated copies of the publication for distribution on a national scale, giving exposure to the music, cheeses, and styles of the region.
It is believed that one of these nameless scribe/monks created the first of the snarky captions which would become the publication's trademark, under an illustration of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras, possibly as a joke for the benefit of one of his co-scribes. This was mistakenly reproduced and included in distributed copies of the final manuscript. The same, or perhaps another, nameless scribe would sometimes include a doodle of a milk bucket on his copyings, which Barry Kramer would later pay a young R. Crumb $50 to rework into the highly recognizable "Boy Howdy" logo.
Exact dates are lost to antiquity and largely unimportant before the advent of rail travel in the 19th century. Sometime during the early ascendancy of the French throne, and coinciding with the widespread use of the Guttenberg press, CREME moved operations to Paris. The capital was never a perfect fit for the provincial attitudes of the magazine. It further seemed to founder when coverage of dairy products dwindled. All of this, along with a certain hostility from the court, whose individual members claimed to appreciate the irreverent attitude when aimed at their peers but not their person, and an editorial interest in the raucous theater scene that was exploding in London, prompted another move.
By the time Titus Andronicus premiered at the Globe, CREME had been Anglicized into CREEME, and the magazine was well-established in London. Globe Theater records show a large outstanding bar tab from 1592, and Shakespeare himself includes this passage in his personal diary around the same time:
...with regarde thee gentlefolke frome thee revue Creeme, methinks they be certainlye not gentle and mayhap be not even folke, but instead some manner of wolfe-orang amalgam bred for thee pits and 'scaped in thee streete with stronge taste for ale, tobaccoe and titte...
No positive record can be found of CREEME in London after the death of Elizabeth I. Speculation is that the publication fell from favor with James I, perhaps over an unflatteringly captioned cartoon, or perhaps because excessive tobacco bumming off of the king and his lover, Sir Walter Raleigh, and all connected were beheaded, but this remains fanciful theory with no actual supporting evidence. Ironic, given that the review was ardently supportive of the so-called Jacobean Phase of Shakespeare's career.
Indeed, claims that publishing of a periodical called CREEME, or CREEM, continued are largely apocryphal or even wishful, and could almost be dismissed, except for the fact that shortly before the American Civil War, a publication now called CREEM, appears, published in the Midwest for readers in large, eastern cities like New York and Philadelphia. In addition to the name, that magazine's tone and editorial stance implies a continuity with CREEME, even though no direct links can be found connecting one to the other, and no known articles or issues remain from the years between the London disappearance and the US reemergence.
CREEM cataloged the adventures of wild west gunslingers, generally preferring outlaws and Native Americans to settlers and lawmen, for an audience trapped in the choking miasmas of cities undergoing the pangs of industrialization. With the war, the closing of the West, and the extermination of the native, editorial focus shifted from tales of scalphunters and renegade to the new entertainments being offered in places like St. Louis and Kansas City, where everything was said to be up to date.
Once again, they favored and gave exposure to the more innovative and confrontational forms. It is said that the term "donkey show" first appeared on the pages of CREEM in this era, and in the middle 1880s, they extensively covered the tour of a sensational family act known as The Aristocrats. The substance of this act is unknown but many pages are devoted to the family and its members, including a CREEM Profile of little Sarah, the youngest of the group.
In the 19th century, CREEM coverage favored minstrel shows to the prevailing light opera most other entertainment publications covered. It was issues from this period, uncovered by a young Barry Cramer while looting a Detroit library basement, that prompted him to resurrect the magazine. Plenty has been written and revised about this period of the publication, therefore we may ignore it.
We hope you have found this brief overview of the near millennium of CREEM enjoyable, or at the very least persuasively neutral.
