Letter To The People - March 2019
Publisher's Commentary
by Rökker
Max Ink's 23rd anniversary issue cover with Better Yeti
Happy 23rd Birthday Maximum Ink!
March 7, 1996 Maximum Ink was founded by myself and co-owner Michael Black-n-Tan, along with a small staff that came from the ruins of the defunct Madison music newspaper Night Sites & Sounds. William Jefferson Clinton was still the POTUS and had yet to be impeached. I was using a NexGen 486 computer with a math co-processor that ran Windows 95 and was networked with serial ports. NexGen was a computer company owned by Steve Jobs after they booted him from Apple the first time. My internet speed was AOL 56k dial up, Y2K wasn’t even a concept, and Homeland Security didn’t exist. There was no MAMA, High Noon Saloon or Annex. Paul Soglin was the mayor but would lose to Sue Baumann the next year. Tommy Thompson was the governor, Brett Favre still hadn’t won a Super Bowl and Bill Belichick had just been fired by the Cleveland Browns who had moved to Baltimore. Magic 7 was just getting together and the heart of the music scene was O’Cayz Corral and the Mango Grill. The Mifflin Street Block Party was 27, the original Mifflin Street Coop still existed, and Halloween on State Street was free and open.
Since beginning publishing we’ve been through mayor Baumann, Cieslewicz, and a few more Soglins. We’ve been through Clinton’s impeachment, 8 years of both Bush and Obama plus two years of Trump. We’ve been through governors Thompson, McCallum, Doyle, Walker and begin Evers. The Packers have won 2 Super Bowls and lost 1. We’ve seen the Frequency and Inferno come and go, we saw O’Cayz and Club de Wash burn to the ground, The Onion quit printing, and we had musician Paulie Heenan shot dead by the police. We’ve seen thousands of bands form, jam, and disband.
Maximum Ink has been there, on the streets of the Madcity, every month since March of 1996 - 276 issues. And for that, I thank you. See you next month.
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