But there may have been no higher rock and roll honor back then than to shamelessly shill for CREEM's "Boy Howdy! Beer," as the subject of one of CREEM's Profiles (based on the similiar liquor ads for Dewars). The Ramones, Todd Rundgren, Rod Stewart, Cheap Trick, Keith Richards, and Blondie are among the CREEM's Profiles reproduced here.

CREEM: America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine also has many of the best articles that originally ran back then. I particularly enjoyed revisiting such gems as the "Androgyny Hall of Fame" (where everyone from Dylan to the Beatles to David Bowie and Marc Bolan are fair game), and "Alice Cooper's Alcohol Cookbook." I was also pleased to see the great Lester Bangs represented here with his original review of the Rolling Stones Exile On Main Street, and an excerpt from his classic piece, "Psychotic Reactions And Carburetor Dung."

Still, I can't mask my disapointment with the curious exclusion of any of Bangs' original, highly confrontational interviews with Lou Reed — which for my money, represent Bangs at his absolute best.

Of course, there is no way an undertaking as ambitious as this was going to hit on everything. For that you would need things like Lisa Robinson's wonderful rock and roll fashion column "Eleganza" (mysteriously missing here), as well as the best of the letters section and even the ads.

I mean what original CREEM reader could ever forget those odd advertisements for someone named Jay Gatsby who was touted as "the most wasted boy alive"?

Still, CREEM: America's Only Rock 'N' Roll Magazine comes as close as you could expect, and at least for this aging fan was the most inviting, if somewhat bittersweet, trip down memory lane since my last high school reunion.

And yes, the fact that you are reading this review some 35 years after the fact is proof that CREEM did indeed ruin me for life.