BAM (short for Bay Area Music) 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.^[1]

Bay Area Music magazine was first published in January 1976. It was a free bi-weekly magazine that was funded by advertisers.^[2]

In the mid-1980s the magazine reached its largest circulation of 130,000 biweekly throughout California, after opening an office in Los Angeles.^[3] After the opening of the Los Angeles office, separate Northern and Southern editions of BAM were published.^[3]

In October 1994, the magazine got a new publisher, Earl Adkins.^[4] Adkins resigned in spring 1995. In 1995, Bam magazine's parent company, Bam Media, bought the copyright to the Seattle Rocket music magazine.^[4]

The final edition of the print magazine was published in June 1999.^[3] The paper's circulation at the time of closing was 55,000.^[3] The BAM logo was used as the music section of This Week, another Bam Media publication, after the paper folded.^[3]

In 1977, Erokan founded the Bay Area Music Awards, better known as the Bammies, a yearly award show for musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area.^[4] Winners were voted on by BAM's readers.^[7] In 1998, the Bammies name was changed to the California Music Awards.^[8] In March 2018, there was a Bammies Reunion Concert in San Francisco.^[5]

MicroTimes was a free regional computer magazine, focused on industry personalities, founded and published by Dennis Erokan in the San Francisco Bay Area starting in 1984 and sold in 1999.^[9][10][11]