One of the less-cited-in-lazy-reviews (never in MRR, natch!) ’77 lady singers, Pauline Murray of PENETRATION handles herself here with graceful aplomb, despite the infernal rain of what we can clearly assume to be Newkie Brown being hurled at her by the amoeba-brained goofs in the crowd from this video shot in Manchester.

Here’s one of the greatest punk bands, Hüsker Dü, appearing on network TV on what might have been the verge of stardom, if not for the fact the mainstream would never really be ready for their brand of hard driving pop. And of course the punk scene (or MRR at least) had decided they had no longer hard enough. For yours truly, however, Warehouse: Songs and Stories has always been a guilty pleasure, and I think that this rendition of “Could You Be the One?” is phenomenal. No matter what you think of them in this period, this video is pretty fascinating…

OK, kids. This video by Vicky Drunk & Thrash has been on my “to post” list for a while, but I’ve been at a loss for anything to write to about it except for, “Whoa, check this out!” It was sent in to us with this complete message: “hardcore punk from indonesia,” and the description on YouTube is pretty cryptic as well:

This band is a Vicky’s solo project, started out in the middle of 2006. Vicky’s first guitarist are Angga Madonna, who was disappeared from late 2007. Hereza, the next guitar player was not appear in this video. Hell with another band, this is all about Vicky anyway.

Who is Vicky? “Disappeared”? Why are there 25 seconds of credits for a 35 second song? Does anyone know the answers? Anyway, without further ado: Whoa, check this out!

Here’s a trailer for Fucked Forever, a documentary-in-progress on the history of the Spokane punk scene, which so far looks pretty f’n cool. They’re still compiling old footage of Spokane bands, as well as zines and flyers, so contact info {at} fuckedforeverfilm(.)com if you’ve got any goodies. And why not help them raise money for the production of the film at their fund-raising page here? Can’t wait to see the end results!

Screening at the Frozen Film Festival San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre this Saturday, No Fun City is a documentary about the struggle of underground music venues in Vancouver, BC, Canada. While focusing on legit (read: for profit) venues, it seems to give a fair amount of time to the truly (and literally) underground venues that even a lot of punks don’t seem to know exist nowadays. Go see it and let us know what you think!

We’ll warm up with an undeniably fantastically great song/video/band, “Fight or Die” by San Francisco’s CODE OF HONOR from Target Video, 1983. After that is something I’ve been looking for for-fucking-ever, and was so stoked to see that someone finally posted on the YouTubes. It’s a half-hour long appearance by Code Of Honor on SF’s public access cable channel (probably also from 1983) performing songs from throughout their “career” and being interviewed by Maximum Rocknroll’s longest-running shitworker, Steve Spinali! I’ve started with part three ’cause I like watching the interviews (there’s another one that starts at minute 4:00 on part one), but of course the whole thing is worth enjoying if you’re a fan — and who isn’t?

Here are links to PART 1 and PART 2.

Oh, hell yes, party people. Whoever does the Aborted Society label outta Seattle just sent us a killer batch of videos from this year’s Chaos in Tejas. Most of the heavy hitters are there, including BASTARD, CROW, RORSCHACH, and TALK IS POISON, but the ones I wanted to share with you are from two fucking awesome newer bands. The first one is Bay Area chaos merchants MÖRPHEME, who I’ve only ever seen at much smaller shows, and whose energy always overpowers that of the audience itself. It’s cool to see them here at a larger venue where you can actually hear what they sound like, and it makes me happy to see them appreciated by the larger world of punx. By the way, these videos are all available in HD, so if you got the connection speed, check ‘em out in full screen glory…

The second video is from another semi-local band that blew everyone away on their recent US tour. CROSS STITCHED EYES contains members from California, the UK, and Germany, and despite having a great LP out on Alternative Tentacles, still seems to linger in some obscurity. Hopefully their impressive performances, like this one, will help to rectify that.

This amazing video was made as a promo for CONQUEST FOR DEATH‘s tour of Africa(!) back in 2007. (See some awesome photos by Karoline Collins from that tour here.) The footage is from the band’s previous tours in Japan and the US. Count the jumps!

Time for my yearly ritual of trolling the web to see what I missed at this year’s Chaos in Tejas. This is the best one I’ve found so far. Fucking TALK IS POISON. What more needs to be said? If you’ve got more, send the links our way! webzine {at} maximumrocknroll(.)com

David Baird sent us this video, via Facebook, by the should-be-legendary Huntsville, AL, band THE KNOCKABOUTS. It was made by Phillip Wann in 1983. David’s MySpace page is dedicated to Huntsville DIY history, and it’s worth checking out for his audio intro (I thought it was cool, anyway). Thanks a lot!

Here’s an interesting bit from from the September 1984 issue of MRR, reprinted in the 1995 Prank Records 7″ of The Knockabouts’ 1983 demo, from drummer Greg Sklaka:

We wanted to show that you don’t have to be Jimmy Page to be in a band. We wanted to play something basic but very powerful. We really don’t know what the average person thinks of us because we hear “play sickie sado”, than someone says “boo, y’all suck.” Our first real gig was at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in January of ’83 at a talent show with three other bands. I think we shocked everyone there, especially when we played “Sweet Home Alabama”. It was kinda funny, because after we played it, someone yelled “Freebird!.”

If the people here in Alabama would look closely at our songs, they would probably relate to them. But not very many people want to do that, so we’re labeled as shit and we get fucked with a lot, especially by the cops.

Today, we have a name for ourselves, whether people say we suck or we’re good. “Where’s My Vietnam” is probably our best song. Live it’s the peak of our insanity. “I hate your guts” and “The Beautiful” sum up life in Huntsville. I think people who first liked us now have “grown out” of hardcore or the Knockabouts, but to us it’s a definite way of life.

Wonder where they are now…