MRR Scene Report from the Internet
Noel Hunter
Yohannon, and he said it was cool to go ahead. This article will apppear
in the Feb or Mar edition of _Maximum Rock and Roll_ (perhaps edited
somewhat). Thanks Tim!
----
Scene Report from the Internet
by Noel Hunter (no...@wfu.edu)
Many of you are probably asking yourselves "What's the Internet", or maybe
"what does punk have to do with the Internet," so I'll start with a
description of just what the Internet is, what it has to do with punk, and
why I thought a scene report from it was a good idea.
The Internet is basically a global computer network which ANYONE can
access. It started a few years ago when the US Department of Defense, the
National Science Foundation, and various other slightly dubious
organizations realized that technology had progressed to the point where
the major research institutions needed a common network with which to
communicate. The groups combined their networks, including elements of
the defense network (ARPANET), educational network (CSNET), and the BITNET
(Because It's There network) into the Internet. Now the Internet connects
virtually all of the major universities, computer companies, government
institutions, and on-line computer services (Prodigy, CompuServe, etc.),
and it spans the planet, even reaching into places like Moscow and San
Fransisco (read that with the sarcasm intended). And for a lot of people,
Internet access is totally free!
So now that you know what the Internet is, what can you do with it?
Basically, you can communicate with millions of people around the world,
at incredible speeds and incredibly low cost. Here are some examples of
what you can do. First, you can send electronic mail. It's just like
regular mail, except you use a computer, and it gets there in anywhere
from a few seconds to a day or two. Second, you can talk to other people
over the Internet. It's just like calling them on the phone, except you
type back and forth instead of talk. Third, you can participate in
multi-person conversations (like 900 numbers), and multi-person
discussions (like writing letters to MRR, and then reading the responses).
You can join mailing lists and get fanzines over the Internet too. There
are lots of ways to do all of these things, and I won't bore you too much
with the technical details, but here's a brief explanation of what you can
do to get hooked up.
To access the Internet, you need to access a computer which is connected
to it. The computer might be a terminal at a University, or it might be an
online service that you connect to from home using a modem, which lets
your home computer talk to other computers over phone lines. A lot of
places have "freenets" now, which are public on-line services that anyone
can use for free, using a modem and making a local phone call. If you
don't have a freenet near you, you can try one of the big "Internet
providers" which have reasonable rates and toll-free numbers. I don't
want to advertise any of them here-- let them pay MRR for the space, but
if you have trouble finding one, ask at your local public library or a
nearby university.
OK. I've said enough about the computers, now for the details. Why do a
scene report? Because the Internet is a "virtual" space, just like any
other place, and there are plenty of punks there. I'll start with some of
the big places to go, and then give details of how to find out more places
to go to suit your personal tastes. The best places to start are the
"mailing lists," and the "Usenet" newsgroups. The "punk-list" is a
world-wide mailing list that deals with everything punk. To get mail from
the punk-list, you send an electronic mail message to "subscribe" to it.
Then you start getting mail from people all over the world. To send mail
to everyone on the list, you just send mail to the punk-list's address.
Imagine a big mailing office where whenever a letter comes in, it gets
copied and mailed out to people all over the world. People read it, and
then send in their responses, which are in turn copied and mailed all over
the world. That's how the punk-list works. At the end of this report,
I'll include the addresses of a few lists. You can start with them, and
then ask the readers of those lists about more.
Usenet Newsgroups are the next place to go. Usenet is one of the purest
examples of anarcy I've ever seen, because it is a virtually uncensored
bulletin-board-like place where literally thousands of topics are
discussed. Usenet works like this. You run a program to read news, and
then pick out the topics you want to read. Topics are broken down into
groups of similar interests. Some of the punk places are named
"alt.punk", "alt.music.hardcore" and "alt.skinheads". Once you choose the
groups you want to read, you see a listing of "articles" written by people
all over the world. Each article has a subject heading, and you pick out
the ones you want to read. Just imagine a big bulletin board with lots of
sections, and little articles posted all over the place. You can read
whetever you want, and post your own article on a new topic or in reponse
to someone else's article. The coolest thing is that once you read an
article, you don't have to see it again, so the next time you come by the
bulletin board, the only things you see are new articles. Old articles
also get automatically removed after a week or so. So it's easy to keep
up with a huge amount of information. It's not unusual for the
alt.hardcore group to have a hundred or so articles, all less that a week
old. In all of the groups, it's not unusual to see well over 200,000
articles available at any given time, on as many as 5,000 topics.
Other places you can go include file libraries where you can find lyrics,
discographies, photos, fanzines, etc. To use these, you run a program
called "ftp", short for "file transfer protocol", which lets you copy the
files from the libraries to your own computer. It's just like the public
library, except you get to keep the books.
All of the mailing lists, newsgroups, and file libraries have stuff like
tour dates, record reviews, discussions or bands, ideaologies, politics,
gossip, etc. There are even a few art exhibits, fanzines, and books out
there for the asking.
Well, that's it for now. I hope someone will follow up on this with more
details about each specific "scene" on the Internet. Something like a
"Scene report from the punk-list". I'll conclude with the details on some
of the stuff for people who are interested. Thanks to everyone who
contributed to this, and to all the punks who have made the Internet such
an interesting place to be.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Usenet newsgroups:
alt.music.hardcore
alt.music.alternative
alt.music.ska
alt.punk
alt.skinheads
alt.zines
Mailing lists:
Anarchy List
>From Jack....@cwi.nl Ukn Aug 10 10:08:00 1993
the anarchy-list is a mailing list discussing topics of interest to
anarchists. The list tends to be a bit more philosophically-oriented than
lists like ACTIV-L, but there's also quite a bit of announcements and
stuff. There are about 200 people subscribed in about 10 countries.
Average is about 3 messages/day (100Kb/month). Subscribe by sending mail
to anarchy-li...@cwi.nl.
Punk List
>From edh...@ac.wfunet.wfu.edu
Send mail to punk-lis...@cpac.washington.edu.
Riot Girl List
>From md...@andrew.cmu.edu
The riot grrrl mailing list, an all-woman space on the net. To subsrcibe,
send a resuest to tro...@u.washington.edu.
Straight Edge List
>From elli...@craft.camp.clarkson.edu
The sXe list has 46 people on it right now, and has people from 6
countries (Including the US). Sending mail
elli...@craft.camp.clarkson.edu or the list sx...@sun.soe.clarkson.edu
will get you on it.
File transfer site:
From: Greg Hankins <gr...@cc.gatech.edu>
ftp.cc.gatech.edu (130.207.7.245) /pub/music/
A complete discography and lyrics compilation of anything the Misfits ever
did. There is also the Glenn Danzig discograpy, which lists all music
done by Glenn Danzig. More.
Bulletin Boards:
>From dha...@subrec.mn.org
A punk rock Bulleten Board (BBS) that carries Usenet news and mail (in
case you are not familiar with Usenet, it is like an off shoot of the
Internet - mail and news only). Many of the users take advantage of this
access to the Internet system too. Use a modem to call (612) 729-2948 or
(612) 729-3063
>From cors...@student.msu.edu Ukn Sep 7 11:55:00 1993
There's a really cool internet bbs at: bbs.isca.uiowa.edu that can hold
up to 400 users at one time.. There are about 150 different "rooms" that
you can read up on various topics posted by other users ranging from
transsexualism to the religious right. The ones I usually read are
Underground (hacking/phreaking/what have you), "Alternative" Music (there
are actually SOME punks there), Hair Cult and Body Art (a room dedicated
to tats, piercings, and getting info on both), Macintosh (for all of my
programming emergencies) and tons more.
Fanzines:
From jer...@well.sf.ca.us
Factsheet Five is available over the Internet as follows:
ftp to etext.archive.umich.edu in /pub/Factsheet.Five
gopher server gopher.well.sf.ca.us
A conference The WELL is dedicated to F5 and zines (go f5) and
the Usenet newsgroup of alt.zines
And the files are available on a subscription basis-- send mail to
jer...@well.sf.ca.us.
Factsheet Five has a list of other paper zines, and some e-zines, and
it accepts reviews by e-mail.
From so...@cyclone.mitre.org
A small e-zine(approx. 60-80K each issue) called Armadillo Culture(AC).
Its sort of a combination geek/punk 'zine and has lots of stuff on
geek/net culture as well as music reviews, interviews, band and scene
clips. I've even got my own directory on uglymouse for back issues and
GIFs. Musically I tend to cover mostly the DC punk/indie scene, w/an
occasional dip into the industrial realm. Armadillo Culture comes out
approximately once every 4 months or so. So, to get AC write to one of the
following: Net:so...@cyclone.mitre.org
Snail: Armadillo Headquarters
2857 Foxmill Rd.
Herndon, Va. 22071
Cost for hardcopy is $1 or a trade.
--
* Noel Hunter, Academic Systems Administrator, Wake Forest University *
* no...@wfu.edu TEL:(910) 759-5812 MAIL:PO Box 7408 Winston-Salem, NC 27109 *
Immanuel Martin
it on KPFAs sister station in LA, KPFK. This was 6 plus years ago
& I have not come across it since.
-Immanuel
Jerod Pore
>-Immanuel
MRR is still on the air, but not on the Pacifica stations. Between
'politically incorrect' song lyrics and alledgedly low donations during the
show, the PTB at Pacifica decided to drop MRR. The show moved to KALX, at
or around midnight, and the tapes go out to stations around the world.