Largest punk archive to find new home at MTSU's Center for Popular Music

https://mtsunews.com/worlds-largest-punk-archive-moves-to-center-for-popular-music/

84•gnabgib•1d ago

Comments

earino•1d ago

As a proud graduate of MTSU's CS department, I'm so happy to see my school listed here. Even back in the 1990s when I attended there, everyone knew the recording industry program was something special. For a small to medium town, Murfreesboro had an incredible music scene.

I loved getting my bachelor's degree there. Best 9 years of my life :-D

paul7986•1d ago

Proud RIM (Recording Industry Major) Major here of 2001; cool to see MTSU mentioned on HN. It was a super fun degree and looks to be even more fun as they now offer a complete songwriting concentration to study in. It was either Music Business or Audio Engineering when i went.

dentaku81•1d ago

MIS Graduate. Crazy to think that stuff I listend to while working in the computer lab is now in the school's archive.

james_marks•1d ago

How bizarre to think that when I was mailing records to MRR for review in the 90’s, I was also nominating them for inclusion in an archive of punk.

Life is strange, and I’m glad librarians and archivists exist.

RyJones•1d ago

Neat. I found a pen pal via MRR - lost touch for 30 years, found him a couple years ago, exchanging post cards now.

I digitized one of the VHS tapes we traded; presented for your enjoyment. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOgT48pM4GcsfPMvrDEUW...

tosser0001•1d ago

I'm glad to see this material has a home, but I'm curious why it didn't end up at some institution in the Bay Area close to MMR's home

silisili•20h ago

MTSU has a rather well known recording industry department, probably driven by the fact it's located in a suburb of Nashville, itself called 'Music City.'

While definitely not traditionally known for punk, I don't think it's a bad choice.

petetnt•1d ago

The MRR archive is probably the single most important collection in the field of punk music and I am glad that it has found a (hopefully) permanently safe home. Would be amazing if Center for Popular Music would digitize the materials - with the green tape and all - and index it for the public.

There's so many things there that nobody has probably seen or heard in decades, not to mention letters, notes and other additions along side records and flyers.

Also it's a fuzzy feeling to imagine one of my recordings is now laying around in a box in MTSU, waiting for someone to discover it possibly decades after.

Support your local libraries and archives and all the librarians and archivists!

genewitch•22h ago

I'm gunna plug my friend's site, that he's been running since the naughties on roughly the equivalent of three pieces of gum and some bailing wire with a PATA drive alligator clipped in. He does interviews and the like - even has a DVD! Probably has a similar archive of music - probably more bootlegs / ID, though.

my understanding is, if you're in to punk... https://www.punkrockdemo.com/

re:

> “We want people to realize that in one fell swoop, the Center for Popular Music is going to be the new epicenter of punk-related research,” Reish told California media outlet SFGate.com.

p.s. the site probably runs on BSD. 99.999% probability. also i just discovered there's a podcast and live programming. This is actually cooler than i thought when i thought to link it...