A little while back, I scoffed openly at the endeavor being propagated by NOFX frontperson “Fat Mike” that he was opening the first “official” museum of Punk Rock, in Las Vegas, no less. “Oh great,” I thought, “an institution dedicated to a subculture dedicated to upending institutions.” The notion is a farce. Moreover, who would be deciding who is -– and who isn’t -– included? Whose definition of the divisively nebulous term “Punk Rock” would be applied? The whole thing, to my mind, is a fool’s errand and as equally meaningless as the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame.
This all said, I’m not at all against the preservation of archival elements of that subculture. I remember posting an entry here in 2019 about discovering that a specific flyer from a Circle Jerks/D.O.A./Redd Kross show at the Ritz in 1985 that I’d attended was added to the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. What had originated as simply a means of advertising a punk gig had since become a prized piece of cherished folk art.
To this same end, the esteemed Cornell University Library has added a new digital collection of Punk Flyers to their online archives, and it is an impressive resource indeed. Sparingly laid out with easy and intuitive search functionality, the collection of over 2,000 images contains rarified invocations of bands both celebrated (Bad Brains, Black Flag, Discharge, etc.) and comparatively obscure (Code of Honor, Fidelity Jones, the Feederz, etc.). It’s by no means comprehensive, but I did manage to waste a whole lot of time exploring its content.
And before you ask, no they did not have that Cop Shoot Cop flyer I’m still vainly searching for.
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