BAM (magazine)


BAM was a free bi-weekly music magazine founded and published by Dennis Erokan in the San Francisco Bay Area from January 1976 until June 1999.

History

BAM magazine was first published in January 1976. It was a free bi-weekly magazine that was funded by advertisers.
In the mid-1980s the magazine reached its largest circulation of 130,000 biweekly throughout California, after opening an office in Los Angeles. After the opening of the Los Angeles office, separate Northern and Souther editions of BAM were published.
In October 1994, the magazine got a new publisher, Earl Adkins. In 1995, Bam magazine's parent company, Bam Media, bought the copyright to the Seattle Rocket.
The final edition of the print magazine was published in June 1999. The paper's circulation at the time of closing was 55,000. The BAM logo was used as the music section of This Week, another Bam Media publication, after the paper folded.
In 2011, BAM returned as a web-based magazine at BAMmagazine.com, operated by Dennis Erokan.

Bammies

In 1977, Erokan founded the Bay Area Music Awards, better known as the Bammies, a yearly awards show for musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area. Winners were voted on by BAM's readers. In 1998, the Bammies name was changed to the California Music Awards. In March 2018, there was a Bammies Reunion Concert in San Francisco.