Once upon a time, there was this awesome thing called The BR Mailing List, created by the legendary Len Smith. It was like an email newsletter that gave all the juicy news and gossip about Bad Religion to anyone who signed up. This was way before web forums were a thing, but it had similar features. So, not only could people read the email, but they could also reply and their responses would be sent to everyone on the list. The very first issue came out on January 15, 1996. Len, who worked for Epitaph, put together each issue by hand until there were over 1500 subscribers. Meanwhile, there was this cool dude named Joe Manis who ran an ISP and hooked up his friends with shell accounts and web-space. When he heard that Len was in a bit of a pickle (he lost his job at Epitaph and his mail server got taken away), Joe reached out to him in early 1998 and offered to host The BRML on his ISP. But Len wasn’t sure at first and didn’t accept until the summer of 1998. Once Joe took over as the maintainer and moderator, the BRML became a much nicer and more interesting place, even though it had fewer members. By early 2000, it was being sent out daily again. We’re not exactly sure when the BRML disappeared, but it was probably around 2000.
This content was originally written by the badass contributors of thebrpage.net, the best superfan resource and website that exists for any band, let alone the best band in the whole entire world. I’ve been lurking on that site for over 20 years and if you’re into Bad Religion as much as I am, I’m sure you’re familiar. If you are not, go there right now and never come back to this site again. You should, and I totally understand.
Leave a Reply