Okay, last trip we’ll take in the MRR time machine for a while, but this one is a DOOZY! Layla dug up these photos from the cobwebbed confines of the Maximum Photo Vault:

The Wipers (photographer unknown)

Black Flag (photographer unknown)

Tim Yo and Grant Hart (photo by Murray Bowles)

As promised, next week we’re gonna go back to the future, so if you’ve taken some killer photos this summer, send them!!!

If you shoot shows and have photos you want to submit for the MRR Blog, send to: markmurrmann {at} gmail(.)com. Be sure to put “MRR Photo Blog” in the subject. Include your name, the band, where and when it was shot. Just send your best photos – edit tightly. Three to five photos is plenty. We will be exercising a little quality control here…not everything sent in will be posted. Please size your photos so they are 500 pixels (72 dpi) at the longest side.

There are a lot of awesome photographers out there shooting shows…and there are a lot of unseen archives of old shows. Show us what you’ve got!

Aaah, the ’90s. Right around when this batch of photos was taken, MRR was about 10 years old, give or take a few years, depending on the photo, and hell, punk itself was just crawling into puberty. This week we have four photos from four very different bands around in the early 90s…

Bikini Kill (photo by Justin Demetrick)

Born Against (photo by Justine Demetrick)

The Mummies, circa 1990 (photographer unknown)

Next week we’ll have one more installment from the archives, (with two very special treats!) then it’s back to the NOW scene.

Wanna submit a photo for the MRR Photo Blog?

If you shoot shows and have photos you want to submit for the MRR Blog, send to: markmurrmann {at} gmail(.)com. Be sure to put “MRR Photo Blog” in the subject. Include your name, the band, where and when it was shot. Just send your best photos – edit tightly. Three to five photos is plenty. We will be exercising a little quality control here…not everything sent in will be posted. Please size your photos so they are 500 pixels (72 dpi) at the longest side.

There are a lot of awesome photographers out there shooting shows…and there are a lot of unseen archives of old shows. Show us what you’ve got!

A lot of cool photos have been sent in to MRR over the years. While the filing system for that treasure trove of photos hasn’t always been meticulously kept (and many were returned), the Gang at Maximum has turned up some real treats lurking in the archives. Today we have some old hardcore pics, and a special bonus photo!

Dead Kennedys

The Dicks

Corrosion of Conformity (photo by Claire Ashby)

Crucifucks

Frank, reading MRR. (photo by Eldon Baldwin)

We don’t have any photo credits for many of these old photos. If you took the pictures without credits, or know who did, or have any information about when/where they were taken, please get in touch!

Wanna submit a photo for the MRR Photo Blog?

If you shoot shows and have photos you want to submit for the MRR Blog, send them to: markmurrmann {at} gmail(.)com. Be sure to put “MRR Photo Blog” in the subject. Include your name, the band, where and when it was shot. Just send your best photos – edit tightly. Three to five photos is plenty. We will be exercising a little quality control here…not everything sent in will be posted. Please size your photos so they are 500 pixels (72 dpi) at the longest side.

There are a lot of awesome photographers out there shooting shows…and there are a lot of unseen archives of old shows. Show us what you’ve got!

I was doing my review of a German band called Kellerasseln and the vocals kicked in my memory of a comp that I sadly still have back in Chicago with the rest of my records. The comp I thought about is called Welcome to Montana…Come Die With Us, put out by Poisoned Candy Records in 2005, and the band I had in mind is called DERANGED DICTION. Originally from Missoula, Montana, they moved to Seattle, WA, in 1983. Deranged Diction changed singers three times, but still managed to put out some awesome tunes. I would be lying if I didn’t say that my favorite era of theirs was when Tom Kipp sang on their first batch of songs, including “Pruning,” which appeared on the We Got Power comp put out by Mystic Records in 1983, and one of my favorite punk songs ever, “Periscope.” Their guitar player, Jeff Ament, went on to form Pearl Jam, which is pretty much the antithesis of what I am into, and I guess they  jumped on the reunion show bandwagon last month, but shit guys, Deranged Diction’s Montana era is rad and there is no denying…

While visiting my hometown of Chicago, my girl Nicole slapped the SORELLA MALDESTRA LP on and it occurred to me that I hadn’t pulled this out of the MRR collection yet. SORELLA MALDESTRA (translated Clumsy Sister) is part of the zeitgeist of Italian punk bands from the mid- to late-’70s era. Their demo tape, Cadavere, was put out by Harpo’s Bazaar, then Italian Records, Bologna in 1979. In 1997, Flowers of Grain released the tape onto vinyl, which, for us scumbag record collectors, can thankfully still be found. The vocals are raw, just the way I like it, and the music is punk and fuzzed out. The album has some weird audio effects, using synths and crowd cheers in the mix, adding a little new wave flavor. The result is some killer tracks, like their “hit” “Cadavere.” This band captures the creativity that existed in the proto-punk days, drawing influence from Zappa and Stooges rock that was prevalent at the time, while delivering a premonition of the awesome punk-as-fuck Italian sound that was to come. They have recently reformed and have twelve new songs out on a CD called Bad Weather that can be found at www.banksvillerecords.com. I haven’t heard it yet, but what ever your opinion of old bands reforming, their first album is worth checking out.

Tigran, a kind reader from the former USSR sent in this rad selection of Soviet-era punk rock for your listening pleasure. Tigran writes, “It contains great ’80s Soviet punk bands that were really innovative and talented. They created a unique sound not even heard of in western punk at that time.” Take that, Mykel Board!

He also sent these great pics! Here’s the download. Playlist at the end of the post — насладитесь!

[Update from Tigran & Facebook readers: A few bands here are actually post-Soviet — Grazhdanskaya Oborona, Chimera and Nyurnberg are from the '90s. Thanks nerds!]

Grazhdanskaya Oborona (1984)

Adolf Gitler, 1986 (not a Nazi band)

Putti (1983)

Soviet mixtape playlist:

1. mi sjadem na tanki / ADOLF GITLER
2. rejgan provokator / AVTOMATICHESKIE UDOVLETVORITELI
3. rukoyatka / CHIMERA
4. serij golub / ZVUKI MU
5. totalitarizm / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
6. vintovka eto prazdnik / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
7. budushego net / INSTRUKCIJA PO VIZHIVANIJU
8. opredeljonnije / MATROSSKAJA TISHINA
9. deklosirovannim elementam / YANKA
10. epidemija sili / NJURNBERG
11. na blazhennom ostrove kommunizma / KOMMUNIZM
12. novobranci / ARMIJA VLASOVA
13. tretij reih / ADOLF GITLER
14. trezvost / BRIGADNIJ PODRJAD
15. zagovor / GRAZHDANSKAYA OBORONA
16. zoopark / POSEV
17. davaj vojnu / PIZHEVIJE OTHODI
18. radiodiversija / AUKCION

Straight outta Brookings, South Dakota — that punk rock mecca — comes a modestly presented yet invaluable treasure trove of punk history. It’s called Operation Phoenix Records and what you’ll find there is an amazing selection of classic zines available as PDF downloads in their entirety. These include most issues of Flipside from #1(!) thru #58, every issue of 10 Things Jesus Wants You To Know, almost every HeartattaCk, Suburban Relapse, Suburban Punk, Suburban Voice… the list goes on. Oh, and did we mention you can download everything from the first few years of Maximumrocknroll??

Operation Phoenix archives: the hard copies

Operation Phoenix is run by Adam Miller, an aficionado of early punk who writes, “I first got into punk when I was a teenager during the 90′s, but it was older stuff like the Stooges, Ramones, Black Flag, Germs, Circle Jerks — all of the usual suspects.

“The inspiration for the zine part of the site was due to the difficulty I had finding old zines to read. During the late 90′s, I contacted one of the zine libraries in the US to see if they would mail me zines if I’d cover postage and send them a deposit until I returned the zines. They said no. I understood the reason, but I thought an online site would fix that problem for a lot of people.”

Originally conceived as an online store (hence the name including the word “Records”), the site soon found its niche as a zine and flyer archive, with an online punk discography that Adam hopes to further develop. The zine archive is definitely the star of of show here though. I’ve been downloading zines from this site for months and still don’t have everything I want. And Adam says there are around 250 more zines he is still preparing to upload to the site.

Does this sound like a lot of work for one dude?

“The site absolutely takes a lot of work, but when I think of all the time that went into publishing all of these zines, it puts everything in perspective.”

Don’t miss the decades of perspective to be found at Operation Phoenix. Adam can be contacted thru the site. As a bonus, here are his recommendations for more punk archives.

Break My Face
Flex!
Kill From The Heart
45 Revolutions
Collector Scum

Happy treasure hunting!

Thanks to Helge for responding to our last post with these photos of Tim Yohannan and SF’s late, great record store and hangout, Epicenter. If you have more photos of Tim or Epicenter, please send ‘em our way! webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com

This week we’ve got a different type of From the Vaults post. These photos were loaned to the magazine by former coordinator Martin Sprouse, to be printed along with an interview we ran for the 25th Anniversary issue in 2007 (MRR #291, available in Back Issues). I found them in a folder on my old computer last week as I was clearing everything off before leaving it on the sidewalk. Now you get to see ‘em in color! (Well, except for the black and white one…)

Martin Sprouse and Tim Yohannan at the MRR House, 1987

Martin and two unidentified people, building 924 Gilman St., 1986

Martin interviewing Tim for Leading Edge fanzine, 1984

Martin and Bones (of 76% Uncertain), 1984

No particular reason why I chose this 1988 single from the UK’s Mega City Four for this weeks’ From The Vaults post, aside from the fact that it’s a great melodic punk record — and while not necessarily obscure, the band might be unknown to some readers of MRR. In fact, I’m not all that familiar with the Mega City Four myself. I do know this is their first proper release, and there were a lot more to follow; from what I’ve heard of their later stuff, it’s even more in a pop direction.

Anyway, Miles Apart/Running in Darkness is a very cool little single, and any fan of late-’80s melodic punk bands from the UK should give it a listen. To my ears, it’s got more of a Stiff Little Fingers feel than, say, Leatherface, who were heavily influenced by Hüsker Dü. But what do I know? Check it out for yourself:

1. Miles Apart
2. Running in Darkness

Sadly, frontman Darren “Wiz” Brown passed away in 2006. Here’s a link to an unofficial (but very comprehensive) Mega City Four webpage: www.megacityfour.co.uk