Scott Crawford
Scott Crawford is no stranger to an interview, although he’s more accustomed to being on the other side of the questions. From starting his first punk fan ‘zine in the sixth grade and interviewing Hüsker Dü’s Grant Hart and the Dead Kennedys’ infamous Jello Biafra, to conversations with Jeff Daniels, Joan Jett and Michael Stipe for his documentary Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine, premiering August 7, it’s accurate to say he’s built a career from conversation.
Crawford’s work is based on an unadulterated love of music and of its transformative strength. Growing up in the Washington, DC punk scene of the 1980s (in a far less gentrified version of our capital), he was at ground zero for the birth of American punk and hardcore, pioneered in DC alongside cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. His documentary Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980–1990) is a spine-tingling ode to that moment.
Our conversation finds Crawford preparing for the the release of Creem, and looking toward his next project Something Better Change.
“I want to believe that you’re going to see some incredible music, art, protest… a new sense of activism, a new sense of urgency… all of that is gonna, I hope, come out of this.”
When I worked as a music journalist in the early 2000s, Scott Crawford’s Harp Magazine was my holy grail. Before Rolling Stone, Spin or any other mainstream publication, it was the one I wanted to write for. Helmed by Crawford and senior editor Jaan Uhelszki (a Creem alumna), it featured some of the best music writers covering what was to me the most exciting music of the time.
Although Harp was only in publication for seven years, it was a benchmark magazine at a time when print journalism needed one.
Scott’s music journalism career began at the age of 12, when he was first introduced to punk rock and created his own xeroxed fan ‘zine dedicated to the genre. “I did it from summer of the sixth grade all the way to my freshman year in high school,” he says. “There was no real publishing schedule. But I took a lot of the photos in it and just documented what was going on … it was really very DC-centric, and then I expanded it and started interviewing folks like Grant Hart from Hüsker Dü and Jello Biafra and Jack Grisham.”
When asked what it was like to be a 12-year-old interviewing Biafra, Scott says, “He wasn’t the nicest guy. Just put it that way. But then agin, if you had to answer my questions, you might not be so nice either, because they were really dumb.”
‘Zines gave way to magazines and titles like art director and editor-in-chief as Crawford’s career progressed. As print journalism went up in flames, he cast about for a new path. Building on the DIY spirit of the ‘80s hardcore scene and his ‘zine roots, he set out to make a documentary even though he didn’t know the first thing about filmmaking.
“When I told people I was doing a film, it was just the same as when I told people I was doing a magazine,” he says. “I got so many people laughing at me like, ‘you? What do you know about making a magazine? What do you know about making a film?’”
Alongside photographer and cinematographer Jim Saah, Crawford created his first documentary, Salad Days, which went on to become a favorite of critics and punk fans alike.
Crawford’s new film, Creem: America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine, documents the seminal rock publication that was in its heyday second only to Rolling Stone. Steered (and sometimes driven into the ditch) by brilliant, unruly rock journalism trailblazers like Dave Marsh, Lester Bangs, Jaan Uhelszki, Robert Christgau, Susan Whitall, Greil Marcus, Ed Ward and so many others, it was instrumental in the careers of hundreds of artists and the perception of music for thousands upon thousands of music lovers.
Creem was a rock ‘n roll flag planted in the broken pavement of downtown Detroit by Barry Kramer in 1969, dedicated to the grit, blood and struggle of rock. The staff epitomized the sex, drugs and rock ’n roll lifestyle, to the magazine’s eventual demise. But, in the years it operated before Kramer’s death in 1981, it broke ground in the music journalism genre and opened up America’s youth to acts they may never have heard, from Patti Smith, Lou Reed and David Bowie to the MC5, the Stooges and Parliament/Funkadelic.
The documentary is, in Crawford’s words, “a warts-and-all” story with the blessing of Barry Kramer’s son, JJ. For all of the magazine’s genius, it’s a problematic body of work today. Sexist, homophobic and sometimes just downright mean-spirited, the writing in Creem can turn off a lot of today’s readers. Crawford deals with these issues elegantly, bringing them to the fore and allowing the writers themselves to address them however they can. Scott says, “it’s important to show that there was language used that thankfully is not acceptable anymore … we’ve evolved and we’ve addressed it and we moved on. But I don’t think there’s any crime in showing that at one point in time, we did use this. It’s actually important to show that this was the way it was at one point, but look how far we’ve come. We’ve obviously got a long way to go.”
The Creem doc premieres in August, but Crawford already has his eyes on his next project. Something Better Change is a documentary about Joe Keithley, aka Joey Shithead, guitarist for D.O.A. and, as of 2018, city councillor in Burnaby, British Columbia. Crawford’s plan is to tell the story of Keithley’s election while along for the ride on his re-election campaign.
Our conversation turns, as all conversations do these days, to the news. Crawford shows a cautious optimism. He sees the DIY spirit of early ‘80s punk inside today’s young activists, including his own kids.
“I’m not even sure if it’s even a conscious decision like ‘we need to do this.’ I think it’s coming out of ‘we have to because we’re home.’ A lot of these people are unemployed, they don’t have an outlet. Going back 30–40 years, it’s very much the same where there wasn’t an outlet. You had to create the outlet. And then things came from that … I want to believe that you’re going to see some incredible music, art, protest… a new sense of activism, a new sense of urgency… all of that is gonna, I hope, come out of this.”
