The Resurrection of Creem Magazine : Publisher Marvin Jarrett revives rock ‘n’ roll’s outrageous ‘70s monthly. But now it has slick pages and a trendy ‘90s style, and some people wish Creem had stayed dead. They say Jarrett has created a monster.

Creem magazine was born kicking and screaming into the year 1969. A young man named Barry Kramer scraped together $1,200 to open an office in Detroit and pay the likes of Lester Bangs and Dave Marsh and Cameron Crowe to write for his monthly, which he had the nerve to call “America’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll Magazine.”

While other music magazines sang the praises of pop idols, Kramer gave his writers the freedom to trash John Lennon’s politics or brand Bob Dylan as “the stubby former king of folk-rock.” He let them write essays that wildly extrapolated beyond music, spinning outward to pop culture commentary and often dark personal philosophy.

Bangs, if anyone, served as a persona for Creem’s madness. He praised the Troggs for “churning out rock ‘n’ roll that thundered . . . so insanely alive and fiercely aggressive that it could easily begin to resemble a form of total assault which was when the lily-livered lovers of pretty-pompadoured, la-di-da luddy-duddy Beat groups would turn tail just like the tourists before them and make for that Ferry Cross the Mersey.” He castigated James Taylor: “if I hear one more

le-the-dilemma-of-existence-crashes-like-a-slab-of-hod-on-J.T.’s-shoulders song, I will drop everything . . . and hop the first Greyhound to Carolina for the signal satisfaction of breaking a bottle of Ripple . . . and twisting it into James Taylor’s guts until he expires in a spasm of adenoidal poesy.”

You wouldn’t have read such writing in Rolling Stone. While that magazine may have won attention as a pioneering oracle of rock ‘n’ roll journalism, it quickly latched onto the counterculture--the Angst-filled politics of the 1960s--and lost its grip on the sheer fury, rebellion and plain old fun that has always stamped rock music, particularly rock music made with loud guitars. Creem was the voice of the counter -counterculture, a magazine dedicated to the principle of enjoying music without necessarily putting it into sociological perspective. Sure, Creem would bundle culture and music--but the music always came first. The credo was, as Bangs once wrote, that rock ‘n’ roll is a joke and the joke is on anyone who takes it seriously.

“The whole idea was that you could tell the truth about your favorite rock star no matter how pathetic that truth might be,” Marsh said. “We trashed our own sacred cows and we trashed ourselves. It was the place where we learned not to pull our punches.”

That place, in a physical sense, did not last long.

Kramer overdosed on laughing gas in 1981. Bangs died of the flu and Darvon a year later. The magazine decayed, slowly and painfully, before finally shutting down in early 1989.

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Now comes the new Creem.

Marvin Jarrett, a Valley entrepreneur and former stereo salesman with no publishing experience, has purchased rights to the magazine’s name and impish mascot “Boy Howdy” and has begun printing a revamped version.

This incarnation is big and glossy--”oversized” and “upscale” as they say in the industry--with lots of color photographs and Billy Idol sneering from the cover of the first issue, which hit the stands in August.

Modeled after trendy magazines such as Interview and the slick L.A. Style, the new Creem has no taste for its predecessor’s rage and outrageousness.

“It’s the ‘90s and this magazine had to change,” Jarrett, 31, said. “You and I might have been sarcastic kids when we were 15, and Creem was great for that in its peak. But we’re not sarcastic kids anymore.”

The new emphasis is easy to spot. The bimonthly magazine’s second issue, which came out last week, offers 110 pages dominated by photographs and equally colorful advertisements. There are about 40 pages of large-sized text. A story on the band Soul Asylum consists of three full-page pictures and two pages of words. A 12-page cover interview of Chrissie Hynde is split evenly between photos and writing.

“I wanted to create something that would be as visually exciting as MTV,” Jarrett said. “Nobody’s ever approached a music magazine like this.”

Perhaps David Was--whose band Was (Not Was) was profiled in the first issues--best characterized the editorial shift when he said: “It’s like opening the Berkeley Barb and seeing an Absolut vodka ad.”

Indeed, advertisers have fallen in love with this glitzy package. Record companies too seem to like Creem’s eclectic reviews and band profiles. “It’s dealing with all types of music,” said Bob Merlis, a Warner Bros. spokesman. “The editorial policy is open-minded.” As for readers, Jarrett said the first issue virtually sold out at stands in Los Angeles and New York.

But like a handsome hunk or a knockout blonde, the new Creem is so good-looking that some people figure it can’t be too smart. And the writers from the old Creem sneer at the mere mention of this upstart. Their voices rise in volume as words such as “hollow” and “exploitation” leap from their tongues.

“It’s empty. It’s hideous,” said Marsh, who graduated from Creem to start his own publication, Rock ‘n’ Roll Confidential, and write several books, including a biography of Michael Jackson. “One can only hope that it will last exactly as long as its quality deserves, which is about another week.”

The writing in the new Creem is, at the very least, professional. But comparisons with the old Creem are inevitable, and the new version’s straightforward style can’t help but appear tame under such scrutiny. There is simply less grit to the modern version.

Take, for example, an old Creem story in 1976 on the seminal Southern rock band, Lynyrd Skynyrd. Jaan Uhelszki sat in a bar with the band as they got falling down drunk and bragged about fistfights and fooling around on their wives. The writing was infused with a tragic sense of rock ‘n’ roll machismo.

Uhelszki’s piece also included a chilling prophecy from band leader Ronnie Van Zant: “I don’t expect to live very long . . . I have the same problem Janis Joplin did, but worse.” A year later, Van Zant and several band members were killed in a plane crash.

In contrast, the new Creem ran a profile of Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie’s youngest brother, that was simply 15 paragraphs of quotes, Skynyrd recapitulation and a review of the younger Van Zant’s new album.

Robert Seidenberg, the new Creem’s 30-year-old editor, said he is hoping for increasing personality and atmosphere in his articles. Detractors, meanwhile, insist that the brevity of pieces so far is proof that the magazine is merely a primped-up receptacle for advertising revenue. A slick-looking layout is sure to turn a profit, they say, and Jarrett is looking to make a quick buck off a rock ‘n’ roll legacy forged from sweat and insanity.

“There’s a trademark and somebody bought it,” said Robert Christgau, whose record reviews and Village Voice consumer guide appeared in the old Creem. “That’s as far as it goes.”

Jarrett defends himself with the words of a businessman, not a writer: “If we were to do Creem like it was done back then, I don’t think we would have been able to get the circulation company we got, which is one of the biggest distributors in the world. I wouldn’t have been able to get so many advertisers.”

And Seidenberg considers all the vitriol a tad premature. He says Creem will grow stronger as the writers grow familiar with a style and tone that he and Jarrett desire (though he and Jarrett are still forming their ideas about that style and tone). The magazine, he promises, will find a voice.

Of the detractors, Seidenberg said, “They are doing exactly what the old Creem didn’t want. They are taking it all too seriously.”

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It’s Friday morning and Jarrett is in the living room talking on the phone. There’s trouble with a Neil Young photo session, and he’s trying to straighten things out. The publisher works from home because that’s where Creem’s office is--in his two-bedroom apartment in The Grand, a luxury building next to the Sherman Oaks Galleria shopping mall.

“I want to be like Hugh Hefner,” Jarrett said. “I heard he started on his kitchen table. I’m starting on my coffee table.”

One bedroom has been turned into an office with a home computer. But most of the work, in fact, gets done around the coffee table. Seidenberg has arrived wearing a Young Fresh Fellows T-shirt and carrying a folder full of manuscripts. He sits on the carpet and spreads them out. Across the room, a dark-haired receptionist named Lorraine sits at a black-lacquer desk where the dining-room table should be.

Don’t be misled by the homey setting, though. Jarrett’s bankroll is exponentially larger than what Barry Kramer had to start with. All the money that isn’t being spent on office space is being poured into the magazine’s appearance--the color and shine of it.

“I love a magazine that looks good,” Seidenberg said.

He also professes a determination to make Creem a rock journal of substance. He figures the editorial content can fit somewhere between Rolling Stone’s pretentiousness and Spin’s gonzo. At 30, Seidenberg comes off as far less profit-minded than his boss and excited by the work of starting a magazine.

“You kill yourself getting one issue out and when you’re done, you can’t wait to get to the next one,” he said.

The Billy Idol profile in the first issue has, so far, come closest to the intelligent and humorous tone that Seidenberg says he’s pointing toward. And Jim Macnie, the free-lancer who did that piece, said he’d love to make a career of writing as crazy as the old Creem did. Unfortunately, he said, that’s not how you make a career these days.

“Most magazine profiles are puff pieces. All this happy nonsense. That’s what editors want,” said the Providence, R.I., writer. “I’m 36 years old and I don’t want to be writing about what song is on what album when I’m 50. Hopefully I can be a better thinker and writer and write about pop culture.”

Like the old Creem did, he said, Macnie sees hope that the new Creem will steer wide of the prevailing Pollyanna-ish “rock ‘n’ roll is always great” attitude.

“It has the option,” he said. “I’m waiting to see.”

No need for guarded optimism among photographers. The old Creem was published on newsprint with generally small photographs and few of them in color. The new Creem is a photographer’s dream.

“The pictures run big and the quality is terrific, so your photos reproduce really nicely,” said Pamela Springsteen, a Los Angeles rock photographer and sister of Bruce. “I think it’s great.”

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Frank Zappa once said that rock ‘n’ roll magazines are written about people who can’t talk, by people who can’t write, for people who can’t read.

Maybe so, but rock writers take their work to heart.

“Creem was my magazine when I was a kid,” said Bill Holdship. “I became a rock writer because of Lester Bangs. Other kids wanted to be rock stars. I wanted to be Lester Bangs.”

Holdship eventually became co-editor of the old Creem in its final years, after Bangs died. He was expected to continue on as head of the new version but pulled out several months before it went to press.

“I’m kind of disappointed,” he said. “I would like to have seen Creem come back in the old style. But when Marvin started talking to me about Adam Ant fashion spreads and Lisa Bonet fashion spreads, I had some trouble with that.”

Indeed, where the old Creem might have poked fun at rock fashion, the new version runs a monthly photo spread.

“The old Creem would have made fun of the new Creem,” Holdship said.

Jarrett seems somewhat bothered by such remarks. He’s already received hate mail from loyal, old-time readers. They begin with “Dear Mr.” followed by words that can’t be listed here.

Seidenberg, for his part, shrugs and says he expected a little heat.

“Some people say it’s blasphemous that we didn’t want to have a dozen Lester Bangs write-alikes,” he said. “The idea here is to be smart and have a sense of humor and be loose. I think that’s what we can share with the old Creem.”

If the new Creem can be smart and funny, if the magazine’s voice can grow as personal--albeit different--and vivid as its predecessor, then Jarrett and Seidenberg will have the last laugh and the detractors may come off looking like bitter old men whom time has passed by. But that’s a big if .

“I challenge anybody,” Seidenberg said, “to give us a little time.”