Fat Mike’s Punk Rock Museum In Vegas Celebrates Inclusivity

One of the many Jews who have been a pillar of the punk rock music scene is Mike Burkett, aka Fat Mike, the singer and bassist of the band NOFX and owner of the record label Fat Wreck Chords. In April of this year, he opened The Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas. It would have been natural for the museum to be located in New York, Los Angeles or Oakland, the cities where punk first took hold, but the real estate costs were simply too high.PHOTO BY SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES

Vegas is also the most punk city in the country”, Mike told the Journal. “It plays by its own rules.”Fat Mike took the Journal on an exclusive tour of The Punk Rock Museum—and was apt to point out every Jewish-related artifact and musician, a group which includes Lou Reed, Joey and Tommy Ramone, Bad Religion‘s Brett Gurewitz and Greg Hetson.

The lobby is a stark, modern-industrial space—black walls with oversized black-and-white photos. The rest of the rooms are packed floor-to-ceiling with memorabilia: Posters, crude, Xeroxed leaflets announcing gigs that bands would wheat-glue onto utility poles and walls, albums, picture sleeves for singles, instruments, T-shirts and more. They’re a testament to the punk scene’s tenets of inclusiveness and do-it-yourself style.