Greg Shaw: The Father Of Rock Journalism

Most of you who read Fufkin every month are aware that the great Greg Shaw passed away in the last few weeks. This month, we also lost the great John Peel, another man whose influence affected so many lives.

For me, Greg Shaw had a real, tangible influence on my life. What I have done is collected some of the better links on the Internet following this piece. These do a good job at giving you information and details regarding why Mr. Shaw, to many, was the father of rock and roll journalism and the inspiration for, in part, the power pop and punk movements in the seventies.

As a teenager growing up in Buffalo, New York in the 1970s, like many, my world revolved around my monthly issue of Creem, Bomp! and weekly trips to the record store. I listened and always searched for new sounds, records that I knew would give me a thrill, that extra jolt, the feeling that we all have had when listening to certain records for the first-time. I discovered Bomp! in 1976. The magazine chronicled rock-and-roll in-depth and treated it as the important cultural event that it was. With whole issues on the British invasion, power pop, punk and other genres, the magazine gave complete discographies and insight like no other. It was a serious magazine, a magazine for those who knew that every time they got a new issue in the mail, they would learn something: they would, more than likely, enjoy a rock-and-roll moment when they finally would find that record described so eloquently in the pages of the magazine.

Many of us went from a passion for the Beatles into the discovery of power pop, punk and other genres. For me, my post-Beatles musical world began, in large part, when I first heard the Bomp! single, "You Tore Me Down", by the Flamin' Groovies. You see, this record was the first record that I had ever owned that had not been produced by a major label. It seemed incredible to me that there was a record company that would have the vision to release something so amazing. What absolutely blew me away was that the recording had not been released by a major label. What I learned in that moment was that no major label would ever have this kind of vision. It would be persons inspired by Greg Shaw to form their own record labels which would in the future give me that rock-and-roll jolt that can't really be described but only can be felt.

I had a three-piece Beatles-influence band. As all young musicians do, they meet new people and for me, I met a lot of really cool older musicians and people who comprised the music scene in Buffalo, New York. One of those persons who had recently returned from Los Angeles was Gary Sperrazza! In meeting Gary at a club through a girlfriend at the time, I realized soon after that Gary had actually edited Bomp! and was responsible for the punk issue.

As he did with so many other young musicians in Buffalo including the Goo Goo Dolls and others, he made cassette tapes and helped school an entire music scene regarding great music of any genre, most of which flew far under the radar. I remember getting cassette tapes of Wipers, early Elvis Sun recordings, and the two tapes of all tapes: a definitive Zombies collection and the first two Big Star records. I learned from Gary, as I learned from reading Bomp!

The reason that this is relevant to musings about Greg Shaw is that, to me, people like Gary embodied that Greg Shaw attention to detail and seriousness about what rock-and-roll means to so many people. If you're going to write about rock, you do it right and you do it accurately and with passion. You treat the subject with the utmost respect and in the process, you teach what has been taught to you and you pass it on.

That is what we try to do here with Fufkin and Greg Shaw is a big part of that. For many of you, your expertise far exceeds ours as it relates to rock-and-roll history and related matters. What I am confident about; however, is that there are people out there who can learn from the collective Fufkin pool of knowledge just as I learned from my friend Gary and from Greg Shaw himself.

Thank you Greg for giving me the inspiration to write about music and to start Fufkin. You set the bar for everybody else, and I, for one, am very grateful for it.

The Facts About Greg Shaw

Greg Shaw Tributes: RockCritics.com

An Interview With Greg Shaw: Black to Comm

An Interview With Greg Shaw: Scram

New York Times

The Guardian (UK)

London Times

Rock's Back Pages

LA Times/Detroit Times

Blog Critics

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