Blank Generation
The weirdest thing happened to me. After school one day, I was checking my email, and I see a message titled “BBC Interview Request: Maximum RocknRoll.” Yeah, that BBC. Like, what the fuck? Is this even real? Well, it was real. The BBC is putting together a radio documentary of the end of the print edition of our beloved magazine, and they wanted me to be on it. That’s pretty wack.
What makes this even more surreal is that two of my biggest musical heroes are going to be on it. One is Ian MacKaye. If you saw my last column, you know how much of a FUGAZI nerd I am. When I was an awkward little middle schooler just figuring out how DIY punk works, FUGAZI showed me an example of a band that had good values and stuck to them. Plus, they’ve got the tightest rhythm section in punk rock. The other one of my heroes in this doc is Larry Livermore. That man is a total genius. Working or starting a record label is something I’d love to do someday. And fuck you, I love GREEN DAY.
Even though I’m beyond pumped about this, it’s also one of the weirder things that has happened to me. I did the interview a few weeks ago and I still kind of can’t believe it. The radio documentary is coming out around the end of April, so by the time you read this, you’ll probably be able to listen to it. So check it out if you want to hear what really influential punks and also normal people like me have to say about MRR.
Now I’m going to change the subject to say I’ve decided to stay at MRR. I was pretty bummed out and kind of pissed off when I first found out it was moving online. The communication between higher-ups at the magazine and everybody else has been piss poor. I heard tons of rumors, some of them pretty troubling, and I didn’t know who to believe. The first real explanation I saw of the whole situation was in Joan DeToro’s column in issue #430. I now understand how much things sucked. Although I love print media with all my heart, I want to keep talking about stuff that doesn’t get mentioned as much as it should, and MRR seems like it’s going to continue to be the platform for me to do so. I mean, if I hadn’t been offered a column out of the blue, I wouldn’t be writing about music at all. And I wouldn’t be on the BBC, giving the adults I know hope for my future. I bet some really cool stuff is going to at MRR happen soon. If interviews are still going to be thing online, then I’ve got some rad things to submit. Coverage of honest punk rock matters whether it’s being broadcast to a million people by the BBC, read by the 12 people that buy someone’s first fanzine, or consumed by an abstract amount of humans and robots on a website.
As always, my email is carmenservon@gmail. Feel free to get in touch with any questions or nerdy ideas about music.