Maximum Rocknroll was on the forefront of punk in the -80s and -90s. But MRR has fallen low from the days when Tim Yohannan ran it as a personal obsession.
MRR went from Tim’s driving passion to a California C Corporation run by an anonymous Board of Directors after Tim died. MRR has always pretensions for the punk scene’s PC police but they have been skirting the law in reality always also. The MRR corporation operates by exploiting the all-volunteer labor of punk rockers who are coordinators, shitworkers and contributors for the magazine. In California it’s illegal for corporations to use volunteer labor to run their business without paying people for their work. The MRR print magazine ended in May 2019 and MRR is now completely online digital only. But they are still a corporation that operates by exploiting volunteer labor instead of paying people their due.
By September 2019 a MRR coordinator sued the corporation for back wages. Their name is Victoria Cassis and they sued MRR through the State of California Labor Commissioner’s Office. State Case Number WC-CM-714115CW. MRR hired a Berkeley law firm but they realized soon they couldn’t win the case because what MRR did and is still doing is illegal. So MRR settled with Vicky Cassis out of court for $11,000 in back wages. The reason no one hears about this is because MRR made Vicky sign a non-disclosure agreement to exchange for the settlement and all public records are sealed. But that didn’t stop MRR from harassing Vicky Cassis even after they paid their back wages. Vicky’s band Coherence went on tour in the Pacific Northwest and MRR goons called all the venues and forced the band to cancel the tour. MRR has plenty of other dark secrets.
If you ever volunteered for MRR you were illegally exploited. You are being illegally exploited now if you volunteer for MRR. You are rightfully owed payment for your work. Stop being exploited! Demand the money MRR owes you!
FACTCHECK: There was no NDA.
Per Facebook
"It is with heavy hearts that we are announcing the end of Maximum Rocknroll as a monthly print fanzine. There will be three more issues of the fanzine in its current format; later in 2019 we will begin publishing record reviews online alongside our weekly radio show. Readers can look forward to more online content, updates regarding the archive project initiated in 2016, and other yet-to-be-announced MRR projects, as well as new ways for punks around the world to get involved. We will be having a public meeting at 2:00pm on Sunday, January 20 at the MRR compound to discuss the future — please write mrr@maximumrocknroll.com for details.
Maximum Rocknroll began as a radio show in 1977. For the founders of Maximum Rocknroll, the driving impulse behind the radio show was simple: an unabashed, uncompromising love of punk rock. In 1982, buoyed by burgeoning DIY punk and hardcore scenes all over the world, the founders of the show — Tim Yohannan & the gang — launched Maximum Rocknroll as a print fanzine. That first issue drew a line in the sand between the so-called punks who mimicked society’s worst attributes — the “apolitical, anti-historical, and anti-intellectual,” the ignorant, racist, and violent — and MRR’s principled dedication to promoting a true alternative to the doldrums of the mainstream. That dedication included anti-corporate ideals, avowedly leftist politics, and relentless enthusiasm for DIY punk and hardcore bands and scenes from every inhabited continent of the globe. Over the next several decades, what started as a do-it-yourself labor of love among a handful of friends and fellow travelers has extended to include literally thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of readers. Today, forty-two years after that first radio show, there have been well over 1600 episodes of MRR radio and 400 issues of Maximum Rocknroll fanzine — not to mention some show spaces, record stores, and distros started along the way — all capturing the mood and sound of international DIY punk rock: wild, ebullient, irreverent, and oppositional.
Needless to say, the landscape of the punk underground has shifted over the years, as has the world of print media. Many of the names and faces behind Maximum Rocknroll have changed too. Yet with every such shift, MRR has continued to remind readers that punk rock isn’t any one person, one band, or even one fanzine. It is
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I’d like to find a blog that posts new punk music reviews.
Maximum Rocknroll is the only one I know of.
Are there any others you would suggest?
Do your worst!
For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.
I said "hey look, an escaPEA"
No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!
Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂
It really does, I swear!
They’re on standbi
