CIRCA 1977, DETROIT

I was 22, photographer’s assistant and girlfriend of the famous concert photographer Michael N. Marks. So many memories.

More trivia, somewhere around 1967 Bob Seger played at the skating rink across from my house. For a crowd of 200. I was at Cobo Hall when Live Bullet was being recorded.

Kristi Anne Brooks

Kingman, AZ

Sorry, were you saying something? We got distracted. —Ed.

MAIL FROM A NONSUBSCRIBER

Geriatric punk here.

I haven’t purchased/stolen CREEM magazines for several decades just to get told I always made the right choice when hovering above some grimy record store clearance rack. CREEM was (and is) contrarian in a way that the culture needed (and needs).

Notwithstanding that, I found myself nodding my noggin to several of Zachary Lipez’s ruminations in his ‘Punk Turns 50’ yarn, namely:

• the Brudders’ first LP “wasn’t a virgin birth"

• “...For the first two albums, the guitars sounded like engines taking off...”

• “...The Ramones took the end-time as a given rather than a branding exercise.”

• “[Kurt Cobain] made the all-too-common mistake of doing what punk says rather than what punk does...”