The end of Circus Magazine

I always saw Circus as the NME, to Creem's Melody Maker...or Cracked, to Creem's Mad...or Stylus, to Creem's Pitchfork...or ILM, to Creem's Dissensus...

i didn't know circus when it was like creem, it was bascially a coke/pepsi battle betwixt circus and hit parader in the late 80s for metal mags, with Rip kinda being the fancy-pants alternative....then i guess maybe metal edge was the dr. pepper...what the hell am i talking about again?

dissensus is the board that takes itself even more seriously than ILM right?

do you remember the guy that wrote the back page of circus? i keep wanting to say leg mcneil but it def wasn't...it was sort of a stream of consciousness thing, a "man about town" type thing where he talked about new albums he heard or hanging out with bands, etc....i can't recall the guys name...seemed like he'd been there forever, like he was the last vestigal tale of the old creem-style circus...

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This is what I remember:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y175/pharmer4a/Metallica_Photos/Circus_Magazine_James_2.jpg

dude I know...he actually kept it up into the mid 80s though...i wouldn't have remembered him if it was in the 70s....

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I remember the occasional R. Meltzer record review. This was how I found out about the Dictators' "Go Girl Crazy." "Go Girl Crazy" got a rave from him, or as much as a rave as he could do, and it subsequently became Epic's worst-selling rock LP ever. Epic virtually couldn't give away "Go Girl Crazy," but it remains my favorite Dictators record. And it scored a rave in Circus.

One of the first rock and roll pieces I ever pitched was to Circus. I had an interview with Van Halen just after the release of their first album. I had front row tickets at the Tower in Upper Darby to see them open for Journey as the entertainment editor of the college newspaper. I took a photographer and he got some excellent shots of Roth and Eddie from the lip of the stage. I had interviewed Roth, he was a riot, and sent in a spec story complete with photos.

They sent it back. [ta-dump!] But I didn't take it personally.

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http://www.procolharum.com/raves_ebaf.htm

Imagine! A feature on Procol Harum's "Exotic Birds & Fruit." Imagine!

Released by the Office of Policy Planning
December 19, 2005

Lou O'Neill focuses on Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Caucasus.

Prior to joining the Policy Planning Staff, Mr. O'Neill was a White House Fellow assigned to the State Department's Office of Russian Affairs, where he handled issues of counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics, law enforcement and legal cooperation. From 2001 to 2004 he was a financial- and organized-crime prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. In the 1990's he was in private practice with White & Case LLP and the Falconwood Group. He also spent several years working in Russia at The Moscow Times and advising the Russian government on legal and economic reform through the Harvard Legal Reform Project.

Mr. O'Neill received a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1996 and an A.M in Russian and East European Studies and A.B. in Slavic Languages, both from Stanford. He is a Term Member in the Council on Foreign Relations.

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ihttp://www.foghat.com/articles/art1.htm

hahaha the Circus columnist was of course Lou O'Neill JR.

he was the mag's grizzled veteran of the promo wars, a guyzz rawk version of Lisa Robinson.

in the mid-8os this one rec co publicist used to circulate L O'N's columns to a circle of writers for a group snicker behind his back. i always thought this was excessively catty, esp. since the same publicist undoubtedly sucked up to Circus when it was time for an Armored Saint story or wahtever. wait and see what we're all doing in twnety years I thought when my peers called L O'N an old man.

anyway, I never read Circus much but interestingly some wellknown music writerz like David Fricke, Kurt Loder and Daisann Maclain all got a start there in the later 70s.

Oh, and as for Lou... No relation.

A lesser version (if you can believe it) of what he did on the "Back Pages" of Circus.

Right after he left Circus he moved over to the competition. Never heard why or what happened.

I do remember that right up until the end (which was either in the late 90s or as late as the early 2000s) Lou used to drop off his typewritten column to the Circus offices! The man had no computer! The editors of Circus told me that when I interviewed them for my rockcritics.com oral history.

I tried to interview Lou but he never returned my calls.

Steven

circus seemed bigger, at least in my age 12-15 circles, around 78-79 than rolling stone. rip

http://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/jethro-tull-circus-magazine-1978-011e2.jpg

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Actually met when Lou O'Neill
Jr. back in the 70s when he worked at The Long Island Press when I went to pick up a copy of Wings Over America that I had won by answering a Beatles trivia question he had posed (this was pre-Internet so I had to look it up in a book). He totally gave off this vibe of loving to be the rock and roll dude, so that the effect was that of a TV hippie showing up on an episode of, say, Dream Of Jeannie

this was pre-Internet so I had to look it up in a book

??? I'm googling this phrase right now.

It's not a quote

He asked me "did you get your Eagles tix yet?" I was only in the eight grade and had not started attending rock concerts yet, but appreciated being treated with such respect.

Kidding, James--I meant googling the concept of looking something/anything up in a book.

OK, now I get it

the diversity of artists named on that Peter Criss cover is kind of astounding

Jesus Christ this is bringing back some very intense and personal memories, Circus Magazine, fucking wow, didn't really see that one coming

I read Circus on a monthly basis from 1984 to 1988. Got good bang for your buck (great concert photos, and the writing was halfway decent). Canada's Metallion had a bigger impact on me personally, but Circus was good for more mainstream stuff.

I think Circus was originally Hullabaloo. The 60s pop variety of that name did spawn such a magazine and franchised Hullabaloo teen clubs were at least proposed, although I've never met anybody who mentioned going to one--oh yeah, here's one
http://www.garagehangover.com/images7/LocalTraffic_HullabalooNovember1967.jpg

also a band named the Hullabaloos, "exclusively on Roulette Records," it sez here, uh-oh. Anyway, I don't remember seeing Hullabaloo, but may still have some Circus from the late 6os/early 70s. First encountered Meltzer there; he wrote the cover story on Sly (great cover, they always had the glitz) Started with a tiny old white shop owner casually directing reporter Meltz to all the Sly gear way up along his long tall narrow Lower Manhattan wall. Cool, also remember a good picture of the Kinks, visiting California, pretty good tans for Englishmen. Gramp Parsons, having recently emerged with the Flying Burrito Brotheres, asked if they were getting it together in the country, man (like the Band in Big Pink, Blind Faith in their ritzy cottage). GP: "No, we don't all live in the same house, 'cause we're not faggots." Great picture of the Incredible String Band, in black robes on a beautifully stark blue winter's day, pointing urgently at nothing, nothing at all (that I could see)! That's all I remember (oh, yeah the Greta Groupie comic strip, she looked sort of like Janis Joplin with a blonde perm, a head of her time)

GP = dead homophobe

Do you think that kids listening to "Get in the Ring" now have any idea who/what Axl is ranting about?

kids listen to axl?

What is it about? Don't recognize the title. Parsons' crack reminds me of Bangs quoting a female record company executive, voicing a then-too-predictable reaction to Moe Tucker: "The drum is not a feminine instrument."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJfOJ85j15M