HIRED GUNS
JOEL GION, WRITER Joel Gion has played tambourine center stage with the Brian Jonestown Massacre for the past 30 years. He’s that good. The band was formed in 1990 and immediately established itself as the torchbearers of the classic ’60s “San Francisco Sound” and the most prominent U.S. chapter of shoegaze and Britpop.
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HIRED GUNS
JOEL GION, WRITER
Joel Gion has played tambourine center stage with the Brian Jonestown Massacre for the past 30 years. He’s that good. The band was formed in 1990 and immediately established itself as the torchbearers of the classic ’60s “San Francisco Sound” and the most prominent U.S. chapter of shoegaze and Britpop. His first book, In the Jingle Jangle Jungle: Keeping Time With the Brian Jonestown Massacre, was published by White Rabbit Books in 2024.
See: Last of the Big-Time Backups, page 40
SHEVA KAFAI, PHOTOGRAPHER
Sheva Kafai was born and raised in Los Angeles and has recently returned to the city after many years in the desert. At any given moment, there’s a 100 percent chance that her fridge at home has more film than food in it. When she’s not taking portraits, photographing shows, or reciting the first page of Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon (“beware thoughts that come in the night’’...seriously), she’s pacing with her luggage and passport, awaiting the next tour.
See: Jim James, page 84
STEVE MILLER, WRITER
Steve Miller is a journalist and the author of eight books, including four true-crime titles. He was a member of Touch & Go bands the Fix and Blight. Miller is an inveterate traveler, fed by his first exposure to the road as a touring musician. He lives in Dallas. His latest book, Laughing Hyenas, which is about the band Laughing Hyenas, comes out on J-Card Press this July, and CREEM highly recommends you buy it.
See: A Life of Crime, page 44
ALI SMITH, WRITERPHOTOGRAPHER
Ali Smith is a portrait, documentary, and commercial photographer and writer, contributing regularly to The Guardian, The New York Times, and other publications. Her memoir—The Ballad of Speedball Baby—is about being the only woman in an influential ’90s New York band, surviving the slings and arrows society reserves for women who refuse to comply. Kate Pierson, Nick Zinner, and more are avid supporters.
See: Gone, (Speedball) Baby, Gone, page76
PAUL CAMPAGNA, WRITER
Paul Campagna is a writer, record collector, sports fan, live music aficionado, and NYC resident affectionately known as “Sweats” or “Sweatpants” due to a misguided hatred for the “industrial denim complex.” You can usually find Campagna punishing CREEM editors and ex-baseball players, eating dosas in the basement of a Hindu temple, on the hunt to “get weird,” or selling Screeching Weasel records to the new wave of Floridians who discovered punk yesterday.
See: Obscured by Volcanic Clouds, page 52
MARIS TURNER, ARTIST
Maris Turner, born outside Detroit to a Latvian-American family, lives and works in Los Angeles. His practice involves collecting discarded dime bags—some found, some generously donated by friends—and collaging them with vintage smut magazines. The result is a gritty, playful take on intimacy, waste, and what we leave behind. CREEM used to be displayed with the porno rags on newsstands, so we knew he’d deliver.
See: the cover of this issue
