Maximum Rock & Roll #397

It’s time for MRR #397, the June 2016 issue! On the cover: St. Louis’s the DUMPERS. You may know them as the backing band to the slippery and enigmatic LUMPY, but here the slime-punk reputation that precedes them takes a backseat to the real story. From their primordial origins to the Dumpers Rights movement, the only place to get the straight dump is in this exclusive interview. We’ve also got an interview with Steve Drewett of the NEWTOWN NEUROTICS, who last checked in with MRR nearly thirty years ago. Steve catches us up on lineup changes and new projects in the intervening decades, currents in the underground culture at large and his insights into everything from the band’s classic records to gigging in North Korea. Reporting from the Rust Belt, hardcore punk warriors CONCEALED BLADE give us the lowdown on the splendid isolation of the Pittsburgh scene, laying down the whole story starting from their explosive first gig. Out of the Midwest, Minneapolis’s KITTEN FOREVER dish on their new record of drum and bass anchored punk. There’s more: UROCHROMES, 2016’s hottest item out of New England, offer a peek into their maniac vision of US hardcore; Vienna’s calamitous post-punk group LIME CRUSH dish on their formation and their future. Reaching into the past, the VISITORS talk about the early post-punk scene in Edinburgh and beyond starting in the late ’70s; FRENOPATICSS discuss the recent reissue of their demo recordings, a small masterpiece of furtive hardcore wailing from teenage punks in early ’80s Barcelona. Plus: TINY KNIVES on their new record and carving their own space between punk, hardcore and metal in Portland. And straight out of Porto, Portugal come DOKUGA, hardcore from the oft-overlooked end of the Iberian peninsula. Topping it off is a scene report from Hattiesburg, MS, a town of less than 50,000 that’s quickly becoming one of the most exciting hot-spots of punk in the US. This issue also includes photo spreads from Sin Orden’s last show and Damaged City fest in Washington, DC. Of course we also got all your favorite columnists and hundreds of reviews of the latest records, tapes, books, and films to hit the streets.