"poser" (before 1990?)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 12:17:44 -0700, Ed Keer <edkeer at YAHOO.COM> wrote:

>I used it in the early 80's. There was a very
>important poser/punk dichotomy then. A good place to
>look for American cites is the fanzine Maximum
>Rockn'Roll. Unfortunately I can't find any online
>sources.
>
>It seems to me that punk fanzines could be a great
>place for all sorts of research. For example, you
>could probably find mullet in them easily. If only
>there were searchable collections online.

Well, there's the subscription-only "Rock's Backpages", which I used for
the "poser" cites I just gave from the '70s punk scene (from _ZigZag_,
_Sounds_, etc.).  It's true, though, that the database doesn't include
_Maximum Rock n' Roll_ or other early US punk zines.

As for "mullet", would you expect the zines to antedate the 1994 Beastie
Boys song "Mullet Head"?  Rock's Backpages has one cite from 1994,
referring to the Beastie Boys' magazine _Grand Royal_:

-----
"Strange New Ways To Kill A Rock Critic" by Paul Gorman
_Mojo_, September 1994
With huge retrospectives on anyone from Bruce Lee to Fela Kuti, fashion
spreads based on the, uh, style of mullet king Joey Buttafuoco, interviews
with girlie mates Luscious Jackson, encounters between rap magnate Russell
Simmons and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simmins for no
other reason than they nearly have the same name, Grand Royal has chutzpah
in spades.
-----

--Ben Zimmer