He Buys Every Rock 'n' Roll Book On The Magazine Stands, Part 1: The Circus And The Stone

The first rock 'n' roll magazines I recall seeing were issues of Circus and Rolling Stone. I found them around the house, and I presume they belonged to one of my older siblings, probably my sister Denise. I am reasonably certain that neither of my parents would have been into either magazine. On the other hand, my Dad worked at the post office, so it's equally plausible that these were dead-letter subscription copies that had been discarded, and that maybe Dad brought 'em home. Either way, these magazines made their way to our living room in North Syracuse.

Circus never meant much to me, and although I occasionally flipped through new issues on the magazine racks when looking for rock 'n' roll reading material in later years, it wasn't something I cared about. Until a couple of days ago, I'd largely forgotten that Circus was my first, from 1973. I remembered that Carly Simon was on the cover, and a bit of Google sleuthing led me to the likely culprit pictured above.

Okay, I do remember this picture.

I liked Simon at the time. I was an AM radio fanatic. I enjoyed her singles "Anticipation" and "You're So Vain," as well as "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," and I would continue to like a few more of her hits before I lost interest in the mid '70s. I'm sure I read the Circus article about her, and I would imagine I at least glanced through the other cover-mentioned pieces about Deep Purple, Yes, Black Sabbath, Stevie Wonder, Tommy, and Colombo's Peter Falk. But I remember virtually none of it. Not even the Uriah Heep calendar! Though it is fitting that my first rock magazine should presage my first live rock show: my first concert was KISS with opening act Uriah Heep on December 16th, 1976. A coincidence, sure, but a cool connection nonetheless.



My second rock magazine had a little more lasting impact: Suzi Quatro on the cover of the Rolling Stone, January 1975. Swoon! I was instantly smitten with Quatro, even though I'd never heard of her before seeing this magazine. I read the article about her, but didn't get an opportunity to hear her music until much later. When I finally got to hear and see Suzi Q sing "I May Be Too Young" on the British TV show Supersonic in 1976, it verified the veracity of my smitten nature. Did I mention swoon? Thanks, Rolling Stone!



Most rock fans of my age or older had some affection for Rolling Stone at some point, and I was no exception to that. Other than a 1976 issue with The Beatles on its cover, I don't think I read the magazine much (if at all) before starting college in 1977. But I devoured Charles M. Young's cover story about The Sex Pistols. My roommate Arthur had a subscription to Stone, despised punk, and eventually passed his copy of that Pistols issue to me (with the disdainful expression of one handing over a sack of poopy diapers). I bought Rolling Stone sporadically; I enjoyed "Bang The Head Slowly," Timothy White's 1979 piece about The Ramones, but bemoaned the fact that The Ramones never rated an RS cover feature during their blitzkrieg-boppin' lifetime.

I eventually subscribed to Rolling Stone, but I grew increasingly and frustratingly aware of the annoying polar opposites that characterized the magazine's approach: one half rooted in a smug, condescending rote-hippie consciousness, the other not rooted at all, but embarrassingly eager to chase and embrace whatever shiny Next Big Thing mirage flits across pop culture's short attention span. Come on--Rolling Stone's putz swine-in-chief Jann Wenner still insists on blocking The Monkees from The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, but he's fine with cover-featuring Kardashians? Sorry, even introducing me to Suzi Quatro doesn't earn sufficient gravitas to compensate for that. Rolling Stone and I parted company a long time ago.

But let's get back to the '70s. In spite of being initiated via Circus and Rolling Stone, I don't really recall reading many rock mags during my high school years. I was certainly into the music. I mean, I listened to radio nearly all of the time, bought records when I could afford them, tried to catch rock 'n' roll on TV when the opportunity presented itself. But the meager spending cash I had for reading material went to comic books, pulp paperbacks, and the occasional Playboy or Penthouse. The latter resource did include a little bit of rock 'n' roll coverage amidst its more celebrated, y'know, uncoverage. I remember reading the lyrics to The Kinks' "Here Comes Yet Another Day" in a Penthouse article, at a time when I was just beginning to learn about The Kinks. Penthouse also published an extremely dismissive piece about The Bay City Rollers, and an interview with Patti Smith that was the first time I'd even heard of her.





The only other rock-related magazines I remember from my North Syracuse High School days were Welcome Back Beatles, a series of fanciful scenarios detailing fictional Beatles reunions, and a Bay City Rollers one-shot fan magazine. Oh, and Marvel's KISS comic book. And there was still one more bona fide rock 'n' roll publication that did matter to me, and it mattered a lot. I only saw two issues of this during my senior year, plus one more back issue the following summer. Even so, the impact of those tabloid pages was far greater than any other rock read I'd experienced to that point.

This was something new. This was something different. This was Phonograph Record Magazine.

TO BE CONTINUED!

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