''BAM'' (short for ''Bay Area Music'') was a free bi-weekly music magazine founded and published by Dennis Erokan in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

from January 1976 until June 1999.

History

''Bay Area Music'' magazine was first published in January 1976. It was a free bi-weekly magazine that was funded by advertisers. In the mid-1980s the magazine reached its largest circulation of 130,000 biweekly throughout

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, after opening an office in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

. After the opening of the Los Angeles office, separate Northern and Southern editions of ''BAM'' were published. In October 1994, the magazine got a new publisher, Earl Adkins. Adkins resigned in spring 1995. In 1995, Bam magazine's parent company, Bam Media, bought the copyright to the '' Seattle Rocket''. The final edition of the print magazine was published in June 1999. The paper's circulation at the time of closing was 55,000. The ''BAM'' logo was used as the music section of ''This Week'', another Bam Media publication, after the paper folded.

Relaunch

In 2011, ''BAM'' returned as an

online magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer magaz ...

at BAMmagazine.com, operated by Dennis Erokan.

Bammies

In 1977, Erokan founded the Bay Area Music Awards, better known as the Bammies, a yearly awards show for musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Winners were voted on by ''BAM'''s readers. In 1998, the Bammies name was changed to the California Music Awards. In March 2018, there was a Bammies Reunion Concert in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

''MicroTimes''

''MicroTimes'' was a free regional computer magazine, focused on industry personalities, founded and published by Dennis Erokan in the

starting in 1984 and sold in 1999.

References

Biweekly magazines published in the United States Music magazines published in the United States Online music magazines published in the United States Defunct magazines published in the United States Free magazines Magazines established in 1976 Magazines disestablished in 1999 Magazines published in the San Francisco Bay Area Online magazines with defunct print editions {{music-mag-stub