Continuing program of punk and new wave music with interviews of the performers. Hosted by Tim Yohannan, Eve Buckner, Al Ennis, Ruth Schwartz, Jello Biafra, Jeff Bale, Ray Farrell, and Johnny Myers. There are 61 reels of tapes for this program in the Archives. The show may have continued after this, but the digitized KPFA Folios only go to December 1988. Sometimes known as Maximum Rock & Roll.
KPFA introduced this new show to their listeners with the following article in the KPFA June 1978 Folio:
For those of you who search the airwaves in vain late Sunday nights, seeking Rock and Roll, you need look no more. Sunday nights, beginning at midnight, is time for a new program called Maximum Rock and Roll with Tim Bohannon (sic) and Eve Buckner. The show will focus on working class rock and roll. As Yohannan writes, "There is a very large untapped sector of people who relate very strongly to rock and roll music, and rock and roll's force as an expression of liberation (I distinguish between rock and roll which is an energetic popular music of people's frustrations and desires, and rock music which is an industry-controlled, star-producing, sexist and stagnant formula). Through thousands of home produced, fanzines, record swap meets, the burgeoning home-produced and distributed record labels, and just word of mouth, people are demanding an outlet." Yohannan goes on to say there is no show like this on American radio, and that KPFA can best perform this type of service. "One of the big failures of the American left has been in relating to the average working person. If KPFA chooses an artsy approach, it will once again alienate a whole group of people it should reach. Third world and 'non-industrial' music is fine, but we need to reach our own urban and alienated youth and young adults. It is an opportunity to make some inroads, perhaps to turn many people on to other facets of KPFA, people who ordinarily never even heard of us (and who will support the station, if only to preserve their show) and to broadcast the best rock and roll show ever heard on American radio." That sounds like a tall order -- tune in on Sunday nights after 'State Ov Emergency.' Among the types of music Yohannan lists for the program are doo-wop, rockabilly, up-tempo urban blues, soul, surf, Motown, the British invasion, sixties punk and folk rock, contemporary, punk, new wave and power-pop. That's Sunday at Midnight for Maximum Rock and Roll.
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