Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is the second installment of my rock magazine reminiscence He Buys Every Rock 'n' Roll Book On The Magazine Stands, this time spotlighting Phonograph Record Magazine.
I cannot overstate the importance of Phonograph Record Magazine in my development as a rockin' pop fan. I was 17 when I first read PRM in 1977. I was already deeply into the sounds of the previous decade, especially The Beatles and the British Invasion. I had already seen my first rock concert, KISS with Uriah Heep. I was listening to the radio, AM and FM, buying as many records as I could afford, new and used. I was beginning to read rock 'n' roll histories. I was becoming a serious rock and pop fan, at least to the extent that I could be serious about anything. Clearly, music mattered to me, and that interest was only going to intensify, with or without PRM.
Phonograph Record Magazine introduced me to punk. Everything--everything--that followed for me was influenced by that flashpoint.
How different would my path have been without PRM? It's impossible to say. I'm sure I would have been exposed to much of this stuff eventually...but timing, man. I was 17, a high-school square peg, looking for something extraordinary. A tabloid rock rag provided access. 1-2-3-4. Hey ho, let's GO!
This blog is littered with examples of PRM's influence. The Ramones. The Sex Pistols. Patti Smith. Elvis Costello. The Damned. Cheap Trick. The evolution of the music I loved the most, album by album and song by song. My first attempt at rock journalism. The Flashcubes. The Flashcubes and The Ramones and The Runaways. Writing professionally about pop music. I owe a lot of this--maybe all of this--to the flame sparked by Phonograph Record Magazine when I was 17.
Read all about it. My memory of Phonograph Record Magazine provides the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.
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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
The many fine This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio compilation albums are still available, each full of that rockin' pop sound you crave. A portion of all sales benefit our perpetually cash-strapped community radio project:
Volume 1: download
Volume 2: CD or download
Volume 3: download
Volume 4: CD or download
Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio: CD or download
Carl's writin' a book! The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1)will contain 165 essays about 165 tracks, each one of 'em THE greatest record ever made. An infinite number of records can each be the greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Updated initial information can be seen here: THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (Volume 1). My weekly Greatest Record Ever Made! video rants can be seen in my GREM! YouTube playlist. And I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
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