Maximumrocknroll, the legendary Bay Area punk zine, started off as a Berkeley public radio show in 1977, and its late founder Tim Yohannan turned it into a newsprint zine in 1982. Early in the zine’s run, Yohannon set out an impossible task for the publication: It would review every independent punk record that came out. Even as MRR grew into an institution, it couldn’t maintain that mission. But MRR always upheld its banner as an underground torch-carrier. Its regularly updated Book Your Own Fuckin’ Life reference tome helped establish a pre-internet DIY touring circuit, and its attacks against the music business drew battle lines in the ’90s culture wars. (There’s a lot of MRR talk in our most recent Alternative Number Ones column, on Green Day’s “Longview.”) Along the way MRR amassed a vast, obsessively cataloged collection of punk records. Now, that collection, along with another important one, is moving to Nashville.
