Bomp! Records Founder Greg Shaw Dead at 55

"However you choose to honor Greg's memory, do it with anything but a moment of silence." Thus declared a press release eulogizing rock writer, label-owner, and superfan Greg Shaw, who died of heart failure Tuesday. He was 55.

A San Francisco native known to some garage/punk enthusiasts as "the anti-Dick Clark," Greg Shaw is best known as the founder of Bomp! Records, which began in 1970 as a homemade fanzine and soon blossomed into a full-blown imprint responsible for 250 albums and singles since releasing The Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down" in 1974. But Shaw also had a hand in countless other nascent rock mags, from founding the late 60s pioneering zine Mojo-Navigator Rock 'n' Roll News to subsequent freelance writing gigs with Creem and Rolling Stone.

"Greg was the ultimate fan... and in the very best sense of the word," writes Sire Records kingpin Seymour Stein as part of a share-your-thoughts guestbook compendium currently online at Bomp.com. "His love for rock & roll was unequalled by anyone I've ever known! His knowledge was beyond encyclopedic. His enthusiasm was probably what kept him so young-- both in spirit and appearance."

As a label head and music archivist, Shaw's crowning achievement remains the Pebbles series, a compendium of obscure and often unheard 60s garage/punk tunes (first conceived as a Nuggets sequel) that took on a life of its own and ultimately spawned 28 volumes. More recently, Shaw had worked with Spaceman 3, The Warlocks, and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

Bomp! will carry on as a label (as part of a family that also includes Alive and Total Energy), with upcoming releases from several bands Shaw had just recently signed: Black Lips, The Dreadful Yawns, The Konks, and The BMX Bandits, complementing a Bomp! reissue fleet that includes records from Stiv Bators and Iggy & the Stooges. "Though his roles often varied, two things were absolutely consistent," Bomp.com notes. "His impeccable taste in music and the ability to be there first."