I was saddened when CREEM magazine folded in 1989, not only because it was a truly vital voice in the pop/rock scene, but because the voice of my favorite rock critic had been silenced. Iman Lababedi was a staff writer for CREEM, having cut his music journalism teeth with his own early 80’s magazine New York Rocker. I started reading Iman’s column and record reviews after we met in the mid 80’s. He smoked too much, drank too much and had a beard. He was also acerbic, witty, irreverrent, fearlessly opinionated, deeply immersed in the world of pop and rock and one FUCK of a rock critic.
Some of the exploits he shared with me in drunken sessions at whatever Queens, NY bar we happened to stumble into included his infamous dis of Bananarama; his mind-numbing interview with Samantha Fox, and the highwire interview with Ray Davies (I fawned over Ray, I admit) which didn’t implode. But it wasn’t just talk. His reviews were literate, infused with passion and always provocative. Iman always insisted on winding up his readers, even if just a little bit. And that’s why I liked reading him. One of his best columns ever was a thoughtful and reasoned defense of The Cure, who were under fire for a song they’d recorded called “Killing an Arab”. And in the same issue he could humorously skewer a lame punk act he’d seen the night before. He was that kind of writer.
A year ago today, some 20 years after the demise of CREEM, Rock NYC Live and Recorded launched. I’d like to say Iman has mellowed with age, and to some degree he has…but not much. Now he has an able staff of regular contributors, because even he isn’t prolific enough to meet the content demands of a daily blog.
By any measure Rock NYC Live and Recorded is a complete success. It provides news, information, gossip and random rants and raves about the pop/rock music world. That’s all it has to do and it does it brilliantly.
Please, our lad, another year! Nay, another ten!