Ozark Punk Rock

After much procrastinating, I finally scanned my entire flyer collection. It consists of 63 punk flyers from Springfield and Jopl...

It was recently brought to my attention that several of this site’s links were broken. It seems that MediaFire has the habit of rando...

This demo was recorded in ID's early days, when they still had Steve on guitar/co-vocals (he later quit the band and was replaced by Rit...

As I’m sure everyone knows, a devastating tornado hit Joplin, MO on May 22 nd , killing at least 138 people and destroying a ...

The Magic Bean has been a fixture in the Springfield DIY music scene for fifteen years now. I remember going to punk shows t...

Ah, we come full circle. The very first post on this blog was the Now Or Never live tape. In that post, I said that NON was ...

I’ve had a lot of requests for some FFP stuff, so I’m glad I was finally able to get a hold of the tapes. Dave (who also ran the ...

A while back I wrote a post speculating that there wasn’t much going on in Springfield these days as far as hardcore punk ro...

You may have noticed that all of the punk stuff I’ve posted here so far has been from the Missouri side of the Ozarks. Thankfully, Eric from...

OK, this one isn’t Ozark-related, but rarely do you see a mainstream network show do a fairly authentic parody of punk rock. This clip from...

In another interview segment from Mike, he describes a pivotal time in any punk kid’s life: How he was first exposed to the underground DIY ...

Mike is an old friend of mine, and was involved in the Springfield punk scene for several years before I was. He was interviewed for the Riv...

At the risk of turning this into the Ozark Ska Page, let me mention one more important act from Joplin before we move on. The Rowskabouts we...

I’ve had several Joplin natives tell me that Hubcap was one of the best local ska bands back in the day, often sharing bills with Big Bad Ch...

Big Bad Chubba was a notable ska act based in Joplin in the late 1990’s. Members of the band later went on to play in acts like Vaginal Disc...

I recently received the sad news that Chris Schultz had passed away . To say Chris was a controversial figure in the Springfield punk scene ...

Released in 1997 by Wee Rock Records, this compilation featured 27 songs by 14 local acts. Musically, the tape goes from so-so alt-rock (suc...

I’ve briefly mentioned the Debs before on this blog. They were a Ramones/Joan Jett-inspired all-girl garage act that played out in Springfie...

I’m at long last getting near the end my list of things to post here. There are still some tapes I’d like to track down (like stuff by the R...

Barbie Holocaust was a Springfield-based band that was around for a couple of years in the mid-1990’s. They played poppy-punk with a grunge ...

Fugue was a long-running Springfield pop-punk act that released several CD’s and tapes over the years (their Best Of CD-R is still available...

This band isn’t based in the Ozarks, but seeing that two of their three members are alumni of the old SW Mo underground scene, I think their...

At long last I have located a copy of the elusive Rising Sun demo. It’s a copy of a copy, and the sound wobbles in a few spots, but on this ...

Forgive me for getting non-punk for a moment, but I don’t know how this website has escaped my attention for so long. The Underground Ozarks...

Walking Octopus was an early Springfield punk/garage act that played out from the mid 1980’s to the early 1990’s. They fused rock n’ roll an...

I moved a while ago, and in doing so came across an interesting bit of punk history: the financial ledgers of the Harper’s Bizarre club, whi...

In this age of post-punk techno crap, it’s good to know that there are still a few bands like Unteen around who play old style punk rock, i...

I recently moved, and while doing so discovered a box with some forgotten copies of the Obey: We Have Guns 7” comp. I’ve decided to sell the...

I wasn’t planning on posting anything by Vaginal Discharge here. The folk duo certainly doesn’t qualify as punk in any musical sense. But th...

Ben Westhoff has written an article for the Riverfront Times (St. Louis’s corporate-owned “alternative” weekly newspaper) on the Ozark Punk...

Released in 1994 by Teufelsdrockh Music, a local label, this professionally recorded tape comp. was described in the liner notes as a colle...

Trixie and the Merch Girls was a side project band done by the three members of Thee Fine Lines , a long-running Springfield garage rock gro...

I wrote a while back that I would try to inform the readers of this humble blog not only of the legendary bands of Ozark lore, but of those ...

Take a trip with me, friends, back to Springfield, Mo in the 1990’s. Being a college town, the city of course boasted a multitude of waterin...

Music writer Ben Westhoff has written a pretty good intro article on the old Ozark punk scene for the Crawdaddy website. (Crawdaddy, for tho...

As the Ozark punk scene declined in the late 1990’s, kids who might have been punks in previous years went instead to the hardcore and emo s...

Around 1994, a punk band called the Phuckers started playing shows in Joplin. They were somewhat lacking in technical ability, but their voc...

The Sodomites were a not-too-serious three-piece punk band out of Joplin. They had an amusing stage act and some seriously raunchy lyrics. I...

The Ozark punk scene was focused in southwest Missouri’s two largest cities: Joplin and Springfield . There was one notable band based in ...

Peacekeeper Missile was the brainchild of Elroy, an enigmatic Springfield scene regular of considerable musical talent. The band never playe...

In addition to posting music created by old Ozark punk bands, I’d also like to start writing some pieces on the history of the scene. The th...

Disarm was a drunken, sloppy, and very entertaining band that played out around Springfield for about a year in the mid-1990’s. Comprised of...

This is a little-seen, full-length (112 min.) documentary on the Ozark punk scene released in 1998. It contains live footage and interviews...

The Giant Penguins were a Springfield act that included members of both Fugue and the Fremen. They were around for about a year, playing Ram...

First, there was Pisser. Pisser was comprised of a bunch of drunken metalheads from Springfield who put together a six-piece joke punk band....