Greg Shaw (January 1949 – October 19, 2004) was an American writer, publisher, magazine editor, music historian and record executive.

Biography

Shaw was born 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 ...

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 ...

. He began writing about

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

music as a young teenager. His first

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very sma ...

were

Tolkien John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''. From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...

-related, but among them was also a mimeographed sheet called ''Mojo Navigator'' (full title, "''Mojo-Navigator Rock and Roll News''") which he founded in 1966 with David Harris. ''Mojo Navigator'' is said to have been an early inspiration for ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, as its co-founder Jann Wenner befriended Shaw and learned how to produce a rock magazine. In the 1970s Shaw moved to Los Angeles with wife and partner Suzy Shaw and started the fanzine called ''Who Put the Bomp'', popularly known as simply ''Bomp!'', or ''Bomp magazine''. He was hired by United Artists as assistant head of creative services. Shaw's writing appeared in ''Bomp!'', of which he was editor and publisher, as well as in ''Creem'', ''Phonograph Record (magazine), Phonograph Record'' (where he again served as editor) and occasionally ''Rolling Stone''. During this time, he pursued a long-time project ''The Encyclopedia Of British Rock''. He also later wrote a book about Elton John. ''Bomp'' featured many writers who would later become prominent, including Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Richard Meltzer, and Ken Barnes. During the 1970s, Shaw worked for Sire Records, and was instrumental in the signing of Flamin' Groovies, a band that he also managed for a couple of years. In 1974, Bomp! became a record label, and Shaw released records by Devo, the Weirdos and Iggy Pop, and worked with several artists including Stiv Bators and the Dead Boys. He signed, and distributed, power pop and new wave acts such as Shoes (band), Shoes, the Nerves, the Plimsouls and the Romantics. Bomp! Records was an LA record store for a couple of years, as well as one of the first independent distributors in the U.S. In the 1980s, Shaw helped launch the garage rock, garage revival scene with bands such as the Miracle Workers and the Pandoras. He also released music by Spacemen 3 and the Brian Jonestown Massacre in the mid to late-1990s, and appears in the Sundance award-winning documentary ''Dig!''. In 1994, he associated with Patrick Boissel's Alive Records, a label with music by the Black Keys, Two Gallants (band), Two Gallants, the Bobby Lees, Radio Moscow (band), Radio Moscow, Swamp Dogg and many other artists. In addition, he was known as a record collector, and historian, and started the ''Pebbles (series), Pebbles'' collection album series in the early 1980s. Greg Shaw died of heart failure in Los Angeles at the age of 55.

References

External links

Bomp: Saving The World One Record At A Time (by Suzy Shaw and Mick Farren)
*[http://bomp.com/ Bomp! Records website] 1949 births 2004 deaths Journalists from San Francisco American music critics American music industry executives Record collectors 20th-century American journalists American male journalists {{US-journalist-1940s-stub