Greg Shaw

Who was Greg Shaw?

Greg Shaw was a Los Angeles-based fanzine publisher, music historian and record label owner. He grew up near San Francisco, California.

It was as a young teenager that he started writing about rock and roll music. His first zines were Tolkien related, but among them was also a mimeographed sheet called Mojo Navigator started in 1966 by David Harris with Greg's help, and is said to have been an early inspiration for Rolling Stone magazine. In the 1970s he moved to Los Angeles with wife and partner Suzy Shaw and started another fanzine, called Who Put the Bomp, popularly known as simply Bomp!, or Bomp magazine. Greg's writing appeared in Bomp!, of which he was editor and publisher, as well as Creem, Phonograph Record Magazine, and occasionally, Rolling Stone. He also wrote a book about Elton John while on staff as a writer for United Artists records. Bomp featured many writers who would later become prominent, including Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Richard Meltzer, and Ken Barnes.

During the 1970s, Greg worked for Sire Records, and was instrumental in the signing of The Flamin' Groovies, a band that he also managed for a couple of years. In 1974 Bomp!