RIP Greg Shaw

Dear Friends,

It is with deepest regret that I must tell you that my husband, Greg Shaw, passed away in the hospital Tuesday night.

Greg had a vibrant spirit, but his physical health was always fragile. Last week, for reasons that are unclear, he developed an extremely high blood sugar and was rushed to the hospital. The level of blood sugar was so high that all of Greg’s vital functions were subjected to trauma, and he developed complications as a result. Nevertheless, for several days he remained in stable condition. He was conscious the entire time, and his doctors were quite optimistic that he would recover. Sadly and shockingly, he went into cardiac arrest on Tuesday night around 11:30pm. The wonderful people at the hospital worked for a long time to try and save him, and Greg fought very hard too. He was tenacious to the end.

Greg was given the very best care, and during his stay in the hospital he had the constant love and support of his family. His passing was not gentle, but I am comforted by the feeling that he is now at peace and free of all pain.

Tristan and I are grateful for the sympathy and support we have already received, and we ask for your prayers for Greg and for us throughout this difficult time. We also send our condolences to everyone who is sharing our grief.

Very best wishes to all of you,

Phoebe Shaw
Tristan Shaw

This is so touching.

Chelsea, hope you're doing OK.

Happy to hear good things about the wake. We did the same thing when my friend Carol died -- just lots of good talk, records, alcohol.

He was the Flamin' Groovies manager. And a kick-ass journalist whose work appeared in Rolling Stone and in his own BOMP Magazine, the first widely distributed glossy mag dedicated to the emerging punk and new wave scene. Bomp Record Store in LA booked Blondie in-store before anyone outside of CBGB knew who they were, and the label took its inspiration from early Rough Trade, distributing records from the back of a station wagon. This was at a time when majors had an absolute lock on every form of distribution, and Greg built an alternative system from the ground up- he supported the bands, gave them press in the magazine, sold their records in his store, and later supported them when a label of his own.

When I was doing promo for BOMP, the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame called up and requested issues of BOMP! magazine and a lot of other stuff. The cover of the Sex Pistols issue is pretty well known. Bomp put out an early DEVO single, the New Wave classic "Johhny Are You Queer?", the Plimsouls amazing first album, Iggy Pop/Stooges singles and albums, and tons of garage rock from the 60s to the 80s. He wasn't an A&R guy, he was a *curator* of the most exciting of everything, from the Pandoras to Brian Wilson-- it all had its place in the magazine and later, the label.

He was also a tireless supporter of local bands and international bands that embodied uncensored rock and roll madness, like the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spacemen 3. He would rather give a band its own imprint and control of its own music than lock them into a contract with him--if that isn't the spirit of fan and musician-controlled music, I don't know what is. He taught me how to write a record contract that was two pages long, and reasonable for both Bomp! and the artist, who had *complete* artistic control. I learned contracts, distribution, and promo from Greg Shaw, who somehow taught without teaching.

These loose contracts are probably why the label didn't make a trillion dollars, but Greg didn't care about that- as long as the music was getting out and the mailorder of rare and amazing rock from the 60s to present chugged along, he was content. The fans were the people who mattered, and he left the music to the bands, supporting them by hooking them up with a fan network that truly cared about music. There was no well-oiled promo machine-- it was a well-oiled DIY network of people who gave a shit, a very strong shit, about the music and the people who made it. Greg *was* Maximum Rock and Roll before MRR existed.

He had the forsight to sponsor the ill-fated 1989 Spacemen 3 _Playing with Fire_ US Tour (the band broke up) but continued to work with Sonic Boom on reissues and new solo projects like EAR. His support of the Rugby scene included work by SP3 alums Darkside, and friends blair1523, one of the most amazing Manchester-esque psych records I have ever heard.

He coined the term garage rock, and Gary Stewart of Rhino credits him with inventing the term "punk rock" in his journalism at the time. In terms of the 60s, his Pebbles series is legendary. In a way, Bomp was the Brill Building of punk and garage--you kind of had to already know something about the scene to know how important it was. He was, as Seymour Stein suggested he would be if he started his own label, "A king among kings".

This is just what I can think of off the top of my head. When Greg died, a part of the origin of what is now conmfortably esconced as "the underground" died too, but also lives thanks to the foundation that he, among others, quietly laid, without fanfare or broadcast press releases. Because that's the way he wanted it. Music for the fans, fans making and writing about the music.

People who wonder what the hell I'm on about can read something about Greg and Bomp here:
http://bomp.com/Facts.html

From:  Evan Davies
Date:  Mon Oct 25, 2004  1:09 pm
Subject:  Fwd: my tribute to Greg Shaw on WFMU last night

hi everyone,

sorry for this spam-ish bomb, but I thought this would be of interest to many
of you on these different lists...

Evan

--- evan davies wrote:

> Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 12:25:35 -0400 (EDT)
> Subject: my tribute to Greg Shaw on WFMU last night
> From: "evan davies"
> To: evan@wfmu.org
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> Last night/this morning I did the overnight 3am-6am shift on WFMU. I only
> found out late last week that I'd be doing this show, so I decided to wait
> until afterwards to send an email out about it, since I think about 90% of
> you are normally asleep at that time anyway.
>
> At about the same time I found out I'd be doing this show I heard that
> Greg Shaw had died earlier in the week. As many of you know, Greg was the
> hugely influential founder of Bomp! magazine, and then Bomp! Records
> (among many other accomplishments). He was widely credited with coining
> the term "punk rock," and subsequently launched the Powerpop movement of
> the late 70s with a cover story on Bomp! Magazine. He reissued tons of
> amazing music from the 60s on his Pebbles and Highs In The Mid 60s"
> series, and launched the first garage revival in the early 80s through his
> Voxx label. To his credit -- and all of our benefit -- he continued to
> release music from new bands right up until the time of his death,
> including bands like the Embrooks, Beachwood Sparks and the Brian
> Jonestown Massacre. In fact, Greg shows up a few times in the
> recently-released BJM documentary, "Dig."
>
> You can use the links below to access the playlist and archives for this
> show:
>
> playlist:
> http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/12976
>
> MP3 archive (online for 2 weeks):
> http://www.wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=12976&archive=16338
>
> RealAudio archive (online in perpetuity):
> http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=12976&archive=16337
>
> I hope you'll be able to listen to at least a part of it, and to take some
> time to appreciate the amazing musical legacy that Greg Shaw left behind.
>
> Evan

I’ve just heard the sad news, Greg and his work, relentlessly documenting and promoting indie music ,will be sorely missed .

I don’t usually post to this message board but since someone here asked for reminiscences to be posted I’d like to recall something about Greg here.

I first met Greg in the 1970s when I was working for Sire Records. He came in to our office to go over some details on a couple of reissue projects he was working on for the label. I ended up producing a couple of early Bomp singles for him and one of the bands I later demoed for Sire ended up releasing those demos on Bomp. Over the years,especially after I moved to Europe, I lost touch with him but I thought of him virtually every time I ever played a garage 60s 45 from my collection.

One nice memory of mine about Greg, hopefully different from the usual tribute stuff that will appear:

In the mid 80s I was producing an album for Jeffrey Lee Pierce in London. His manager,Denny Bruce, Cassell and I were walking back from the studio to my house in Holland Park after a session one night At Notting Hill Gate we passed by a 60s revival clothes shop that featured a window full of velvet ,Edwardian, swinging London era suits. It looked like a photo set for a Kinks story in Tiger Beat. Denny commented, “This sure looks like a shop that Greg Shaw would appreciate.”

We stopped in front of the window to check things out. I started telling Denny about one of my favourite incidents that involved Greg and Sire from the time when I worked there: When he was managing the Flamin’ Groovies and they were all over in London recording and touring .Greg managed to get them all (including himself) outfitted in Edwardian velvet suits head to toe and also managed to have the bill sent to Seymour Stein at Sire through the label’s European distributor. Seymour hit the roof when he got the bill but somehow it was paid. The bottom line of the story was that Greg actually got the bill paid and the band got to keep the suits. Not as easy as it sounds during those early,cash free days of Sire.

Immediately after I ended the story a blond, Brian Jones like figure turned the corner and started walking towards us. Literally mind blown, we saw Greg Shaw walking over to join us in front of the shop window. We’d had no idea he was anywhere near London,much less right here as we were speaking about him and this subject. Greg walked up to us and started looking in the window. After a couple of seconds he turned to us and said “Hi guys, nice suits,aren’t they.”

Cheers, Greg.

Craig Leon

Greg Shaw, 1949–2004

It’s difficult to remember now what a pervasive wasteland the early ’70s were for fans of real rock & roll. Dinosaur acts guarded the concert halls, and cover bands ruled the few nightclubs. There was almost no trace of an underground scene until Greg Shaw, a former West Coast editor of Creem who’d self-published numerous fanzines while attending high school in San Francisco, debuted his influential zine Who Put the Bomp in 1970. Shaw, who died from heart failure at age 55 on October 19 in Los Angeles, wanted Bomp (the title was eventually shortened) to be, he once wrote, “a kind of revisionist rock history” celebrating the spirit of the ’60s garage-rock bands. Frustrated by the mainstream record biz, Shaw issued a Flamin’ Groovies 7-inch, “You Tore Me Down,” in 1974, the first of hundreds of vital releases on his still-thriving Bomp label, which eventually included classic recordings by the early punks (the Dead Boys, the Stooges, the Weirdos), power-pop bands (the Last, Nikki & the Corvettes) and ’80s garage-rock revivalists (the Pandoras, the Miracle Workers). More than just a visionary label owner, though, Shaw was passionate about sharing his subversive rock & roll discoveries with the rest of the world. As longtime friend and former Bomp staffer Lisa Fancher aptly wrote, “However you choose to honor Greg’s memory, do it with anything but a moment of silence.”

—Falling James

Thursday, November 4, at 7pm, folks who were touched by Greg Shaw as a
person, a writer, a label head and a phenomenon are invited to convene
to share memories and toast him into the next Bomp-worthy adventure.

Location: Upstairs at The Red Lion Tavern, 2366 Glendale Blvd. LA 90039,
opposite Rockaway Records where Silverlake Blvd hits Glendale, phone
(323) 662-5337

Please spread the word to Greg's friends and fans. Everyone is welcome.

thanks,
Kim Cooper
--
Scram

More well-known as a label guy, though.

Was searching for something else and ran across this thread. I should have posted... Greg gave me an avenue from civilian life in suburbia to this weird hybrid career I have now. Ian's "He had a way of hating your band and still showing you respect" comment upthread particularly OTM. Negative side-effects to being a visionary I suppose. I miss his crazy world.