DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes (Routledge Advances in Sociology) 2018037494, 9780415786980, 9781315226507

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DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes

This volume examines the global influence and impact of DIY cultural practice as this informs the production, performance and consumption of underground music in different parts of the world. The book brings together a series of original studies of DIY musical activities in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Oceania. The chapters combine insights from established academic writers with the work of younger scholars, some of whom are directly engaged in contemporary underground music scenes. The book begins by revisiting and re-­evaluating key themes and issues that have been used in studying the cultural meaning of alternative and underground music scenes, notably aspects of space, place and identity and the political economy of DIY cultural practice. The book then explores how the DIY cultural practices that characterize alternative and underground music scenes have been impacted and influenced by technological change, notably the emergence of digital media. Finally, in acknowledging the over 40-year history of DIY cultural practice in punk and post-­punk contexts, the book considers how DIY cultures have become embedded in cultural memory and the emotional geographies of place. Through combining high-­quality data and fresh conceptual insights in the context of an international body of work spanning the disciplines of popular-­music studies, cultural and media studies, and sociology the book offers a series of innovative new directions in the study of DIY cultures and underground/alternative music scenes. This volume will be of particular interest to undergraduate students in the above-­mentioned fields of study, as well as an invaluable resource for established academics and researchers working in these and related fields. Andy Bennett is Professor of Cultural Sociology in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University. A leading international figure in sociological studies of popular music and youth culture, he has written and edited numerous books, including Popular Music and Youth Culture, Music, Style, and Aging and Music Scenes (co-­edited with Richard A. Peterson). He is a faculty fellow of the Yale Centre for Cultural Sociology, an international research fellow of the Finnish Youth Research Network, a founding member of the Consortium for Youth, Generations and Culture, and a founding member of the Regional Music Research Group. He is also the co-­ founder and co-­cordinator of KISMIF Conference. URL: www.kismifconference.com/en/. Paula Guerra is Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Porto (FLUP), and a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Sociology (IS-­UP). She is also Invited Researcher at the Centre for Geography Studies and Territory Planning (CEGOT) and CITCEM – Transdisciplinary Research Centre ‘Culture, Space and Memory’ at the University of Porto (UP), and Adjunct Professor at Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR). Professor Guerra was the Head Researcher of ‘Keep it simple, Make it fast! Prolegomena and Punk scenes – a Road to Portuguese Contemporaneity (1977–2012)’, an international and interdisciplinary project about the Portuguese (and global) punk and underground scenes. She is also the co-­founder and co-­ coordinator of KISMIF Conference. URL: www.kismifconference.com/en/.

Routledge Advances in Sociology

The Great Transformation History for a Techno-­H uman Future Judith Bessant Occupying London Post-­C rash Resistance and the Limits of Possibility Sam Burgum Populism and the Crisis of Democracy Volume 1: Concepts and Theory Edited by Gregor Fitzi, Jürgen Mackert and Bryan S. Turner Populism and the Crisis of Democracy Volume 2: Politics, Social Movements and Extremism Edited by Gregor Fitzi, Jürgen Mackert and Bryan S. Turner Populism and the Crisis of Democracy Volume 3: Migration, Gender and Religion Edited by Gregor Fitzi, Jürgen Mackert and Bryan S. Turner The Challenge of Modernity Simmel’s Sociological Theory Gregor Fitzi The World Multiple The Quotidian Politics of Knowing and Generating Entangled Worlds Edited by Keiichi Omura, Grant Jun Otsuki, Shiho Satsuka and Atsuro Morita DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes Edited by Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra

For more information about this series, please visit www.routledge.com/ Routledge-­Advances-in-­Sociology/book-­series/SE0511.

DIY Cultures and Underground Music Scenes

Edited by Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra to be identified as the authors of the editorial matter, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-Publication Data Names: Bennett, Andy, 1963– | Guerra, Paula. Title: DIY cultures and underground music scenes / edited by Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York : Routledge, 2019. | Series: Routledge advances in sociology Identifiers: LCCN 2018037494| ISBN 9780415786980 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315226507 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Punk rock music–Social aspects. | Punk culture. Classification: LCC ML3918.R63 D58 2019 | DDC 781.66–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037494 ISBN: 978-0-415-78698-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-22650-7 (ebk) Typeset in Goudy by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear

We dedicate this book to Paula’s mother, Maria Amélia Guerra, who passed away on 26 March 2018 and to the memory of Andy’s mother, Anne Shirley Bennett (1937–2008)

Contents



List of illustrations Notes on contributors Acknowledgements



Introduction

x xi xv 1

A ndy B ennett and P aul A G uerra

  1 Rethinking DIY culture in a post-­industrial and global context

7

A ndy B ennett and P aula G uerra

PART I

Underground music scenes between the local and the translocal

19

  2 Visibility and conviviality in music scenes

21

W ill  S traw

  3 Punk stories

31

C arles  F ei x a

  4 Between popular and underground culture: an analysis of Bucharest urban culture

41

A nda G eorgiana  B ecu ț

  5 DIY as a constitutive resource of the specific punk capital in France P ierig H umeau

52

viii   Contents

  6 Boys in black, girls in punk: gender performances in the Goth and hardcore punk scenes in Northern Germany

63

Y v onne N iekren z

Part II

Music and DIY cultures: DIY or die! 

75

  7 Music, protest politics, DIY and identity in the Basque Country

77

I on A ndoni de L A mo C astro

  8 Home Economics: fusing imaginaries in Wellington’s musical underground

89

K atie R ochow

  9 Proud amateurs: deterritorialized expertise in contemporary Finnish DIY micro-­labels

101

J uho K aitaj ä r v i - T iekso

10 Noise records as noise culture: DIY practices, aesthetics and trades

112

S arah B enha ï m

11 Punk positif: the DIY ethic and the politics of value in the Indonesian hardcore punk scene

125

S ean M artin - ­I v e R son

Part III

Art, music and technological change 

137

12 So far, yet so near: the Brazilian DIY politics of Sofar Sounds – a collaborative network for live music audiences

139

J eder S il v eira J anotti J r and Victor de A lmeida N obre  P ires

13 Cassette cultures in Berlin: resurgence, DIY freedom or sellout?  B enjamin D ü ster and R apha ë l  N owak

150

Contents   ix

14 ‘Here Today’: the role of ephemera in clarifying underground culture

160

J ohn W illsteed

15 Birth of an underground music scene? Creative networks and (digital) DIY technologies in a Hungarian context

171

E m í lia  B arna

Part IV

Music scenes, memory and emotional geographies

183

16 The inoperative subculture: history, identity and avant-­gardism in garage rock

185

D aniel S . T raber

17 Collectivity and individuality in US free-­folk musics

195

M a x imil I an S piegel

18 The independent record label, ideology and longevity: twenty years of Chemikal Underground Records in Glasgow

207

J . M ark P erci v al

19 Verbal Sound System (1997–98): recalling a raver’s DIY practices in the British free party counterculture

219

Zoe A rmour

20 A howl of the estranged: post-­punk and contemporary underground scenes in Bulgarian popular music

230

A sya D ragano v a and S hane B lackman



Index

243

Illustrations

Figures   5.1   5.2 10.1 14.1 14.2 20.1 20.2 20.3

Space of practices and opinions (cloud of 124 active modalities in the factorial plan 1–2) Space of social properties (cloud of 37 illustrative modalities in the factorial plan 1–2)  Records from the five surveyed labels Mail art, 1978–79  Covers of DK/Decay magazines 1979–80 The first rock festival in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, 1987; Borisova Gardens, then called Liberation Park  Milena Slavova and Vasil Gurov from band Revu in front of the café ‘Kravai’ – a gathering place for youth subcultural groups during the 1980s Dimitar Voev challenging the intended interpretation of the Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia

55 58 116 164 164 233 234 237

Table 10.1

Records from the five surveyed labels

120

Contributors

Victor de Almeida Nobre Pires is Professor at the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL) and a researcher with the Audiovisual and Music Analysis Laboratory – LAMA (PPGCOM/UFPE). Ion Andoni del Amo Castro holds a PhD in Social Communication, and is member of the NOR Research Group, and teacher and researcher at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). He is the author of Party & Borroka: Jóvenes, músicas y conflictos en Euskal Herria (2016) and of several individual and collective works about music, subcultures, social movements and ICTs. Zoe Armour is completing a PhD in electronic dance-­music culture at De Montfort University, Leicester. Her work is interdisciplinary and draws from the fields of cultural sociology, popular music, memory studies, media and communication, and film. She is the author of ‘Dedicated followers of paSSion (1995–present): Seasoned clubbers and the mediation of collective memory as a process of digital gift-­giving’ on ageing clubbers and the internet. She is a member of the Media Discourse Centre and IASPM, and follows the Punk Scholars Network and Group for Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change. She also teaches on a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and attends electronic dance music events. Emília Barna PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Communication, Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Her main areas of research are music scenes and genres, the digital music industries, and popular music and gender. She is a founding member and former chair of the Hungarian branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. Anda Georgiana Becuț has been a researcher since 2005. She has coordinated several studies related to culture and creativity. She holds a PhD in sociology and has published many books and articles about the cultural sector. She is Chief of Research at the National Institute for Research and Cultural Training and she teaches Food Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and

xii   Contributors

Social Work, University of Bucharest. She is also interested in rural communities and creative industries. Sarah Benhaïm holds a PhD in music and social sciences (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris) and a master degree in aesthetics. Her research focuses on the contemporary practices associated with noise music, as well as on values in the experimental underground field. She is also a sub­editor for the journal Transposition: Musique et sciences sociales, and has taught art theory at the ESAD Orléans. Andy Bennett is Professor of Cultural Sociology in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University. A leading international figure in sociological studies of popular music and youth culture, he has written and edited numerous books, including Popular Music and Youth Culture, Music, Style, and Aging and Music Scenes (co-­edited with Richard A. Peterson). He is a faculty fellow of the Yale Centre for Cultural Sociology, an international research fellow of the Finnish Youth Research Network, a founding member of the Consortium for Youth, Generations and Culture, and a founding member of the Regional Music Research Group. Shane Blackman is Professor of Cultural Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University in the United Kingdom. Shane has dedicated his research to subcultural scenes, the cultural politics of substance consumption, drug policy, class and place in relation to young people. He is also interested in the role and development of reflexivity in ethnographic research. Asya Draganova is a lecturer in Media and Communications at Birmingham City University. Her PhD, obtained in 2016, reflected on ethnographic research into the creation and articulation of popular music in contemporary Bulgaria. Asya has also studied the value of popular-­music cultures, particularly heavy metal and the Canterbury Sound for the heritage identities of places and communities. Benjamin Düster is a PhD candidate at Griffith University and an affiliate member of the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research. He holds an MA in musicology from the Humboldt University of Berlin. His research interest focuses on the contemporary use of cassettes and the social dynamics within experimental music scenes. He also performs sound art and coordinates the music label Gravity’s Rainbow Tapes. Carles Feixa is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). He has a PhD from the University of Barcelona and an Honoris Causa from the University of Manizales (Colombia). A former professor at the University of Lleida, he has been a visiting scholar in Rome, Mexico City, Paris, Berkeley, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Newcastle and Lima. He has specialized in the study of youth cultures, conducting fieldwork research in Catalonia and Mexico. He is author or coauthor of 50

Contributors   xiii

books, including De jovenes, bandas y tribus (5th ed., 2012), Global Youth? (2006) and Youth, Space and Time (2016). He has been Vice-­President for Europe of the Sociology of Youth research committee of the International Sociological Association. In 2017, he obtained two of the highest accolades for his research work: the ICREA Academia Award of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Advanced Grant of the European Research Council. Paula Guerra is Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Porto. She has been an invited researcher in several international universities (Brazil, Vietnam, Canada and Morocco, among other countries). She is coordinator and founder of the KISMIF Project and co-­ coordinator of the KISMIF Conference. She is also coordinator and founder of All the Arts: Luso-­Brazilian Network of Sociology of the Arts and Culture. She has written numerous books, including More than Loud, The Words of Punk and The Unstable Lightness of Rock, and numerous articles published in national and international peer-­reviewed journals: The Journal of Sociology, Popular Music and Society, the European Journal of Cultural Studies, Critical Arts, the Portuguese Journal of Social Sciences and Cultural Sociology. Pierig Humeau defended his PhD thesis, ‘Sociology of the French “independent” punk space’, in 2011. He has worked on various research projects concerning young people’s social trajectories, the working class and cultural practices. He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Limoges and author of The Punk (2019). Jeder Silveira Janotti Jr is Professor at the Communication Graduate Program in the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil and a researcher with the National Council for Science and Technological Development (CNPq – Brazil). Juho Kaitajärvi-Tiekso graduated with a Master of Arts in ethnomusicology in 2005. After various music-­related jobs, he began his PhD project, ‘Dynamics of democratization and digitalization of record production in Finland in the 2010s’, at the University of Tampere in 2011. Sean Martin-­Iverson is a lecturer at the University of Western Australia. He is also writing a book about the hardcore punk scene in Bandung, based on his doctoral research, and has ongoing research interests in the politics of cultural production, global punk, transnational social movements and urban Indonesia. Yvonne Niekrenz is a senior scientist in the Department of Sociology and Demography at the University of Rostock. She studied sociology, and German language and literature. Her research interests include the sociology of culture, the sociology of the body and the sociology of youth. Raphaël Nowak is a cultural sociologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University. His

xiv   Contributors

research explores issues related to music, technologies, heritage and genre. He is the author of Consuming Music in the Digital Age (2015) and co-­editor of Networked Music Cultures (2016). J. Mark Percival is Senior Lecturer in Media at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. His 2007 doctoral thesis at the University of Stirling, ‘Making music radio’, focused on the social dynamics of the relationship between record industry pluggers and music radio programmers in the United Kingdom. He has written about Scottish indie music production, popular music and identity, and mediation of popular music, and is currently working on projects on speed and meaning in music, and music in superhero comics. Katie Rochow is a teaching assistant at the College of Creative Arts and the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. Her research interests are focused on popular music, place-­making, affectivity, embodiment and cultural production in the city. She also has specific expertise in visual ethnography, particularly photo-­elicitation and mental mapping. Katie holds a PhD in Media Studies from Victoria University of Wellington. Maximilian Spiegel is a PhD student in communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received his diploma degrees in political science and history from the University of Vienna. Spiegel’s current work draws from cultural studies to explore collectivity, experimentation and the relations between these two concepts, focusing on selected cultural formations constituted around musical practice. Will Straw is James McGill Professor of Urban Media Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is co-­editor, with Georgina Born and Eric Lewis, of the recent book Improvisation and Social Aesthetics and, with Janine Marchessault, of The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Cinema. His current research is focused on cultures of the urban night. Daniel S. Traber is Professor of English at Texas A&M University, Galveston. He is the author of Culturcide and Non-­Identity across American Culture (2017) and Whiteness, Otherness, and the Individualism Paradox from Huck to Punk (2007). His work has appeared in journals such as Cultural Critique, The Journal of Popular Culture, The Hemingway Review, American Studies and Popular Music and Society. John Willsteed is a musician and academic. He toured the world through the late 1980s in the Go-­Betweens, and is currently a member of award-­winning Brisbane group Halfway. He is also an award-­winning composer and sound editor, with over 90 film and television credits, and is Senior Lecturer in Music at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

Acknowledgements

This book is primarily an outcome of the KISMIF (‘Keep it Simple, Make it Fast’) conference, an international event dedicated to the study and discussion of DIY (do-­it-yourself ) cultural scenes in a global context. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all of those people who have attended KISMIF since it began in 2014 and shared with us their insights, both academic and practitioner-­based, on DIY cultural practice around the world. We would also like to thank those organizations that have supported KISMIF: Foundation for Science and Technology of Portugal, Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto, Rectory of the University of Porto, Griffith University, Australian National University, RMIT University, Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, York University of Toronto, Dinâmia’CET – Centre for the Study of Socio-­Economic Changes and Territories, CEGOT – Centre for the Study of Geography and Spatial Planning, Municipality of Porto and Casa da Música. As with all edited volumes, this book could not have been completed without the hard work and commitment of the chapter authors. It has been a pleasure to have worked with you all – thank you so much for your stimulating contributions. The publication of this book was supported by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) within the scope of UID/SOC/00727/2013. Thank you also to the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research for providing financial support to assist us in the completion of the manuscript and to Susan Jarvis for her excellent editorial and indexing work during the final stages of the manuscript production. Finally, a big thank you to our families for their support and understanding as we have worked on this book project to bring it to fruition. Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra

Introduction Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra

Do-­it-yourself (DIY) culture describes a form of cultural practice that is often pitched against more mainstream, mass-­produced and commodified forms of cultural production. It often finds itself aligned with an anti-­hegemonic ideology focused around aesthetic and lifestyle politics. The concept of DIY cultural production gained critical momentum during the late 1970s with the emergence of punk: disillusioned with the mainstream music industry of the mid-­1970s, punk rock created an alternative platform for the production and distribution of music through small-­scale, independent recording labels. This proved to be a catalyst for the creation of a broader DIY aesthetic that has continued to underpin a succession of punk and post-­punk music styles from the late 1970s onwards. Indeed, to talk about DIY music scenes and cultures in a contemporary context is to talk about a phenomenon that is truly global in its reach. The chapters in this book address, for the first time, the global influence and impact of DIY cultural practice as this informs the production, performance and consumption of underground music in different parts of the world. In its examination of DIY musical practice in a global context, the book begins by revisiting and re-­evaluating several key themes and issues that have been used in studying the cultural meaning of alternative and underground music scenes, notably aspects of space, place and identity, and the political economy of DIY cultural practice. The book then explores how the DIY cultural practices that characterize alternative and underground music scenes have been influenced by technological change, notably the ready availability of digital media. Finally, in acknowledging the now over 40-year history of DIY cultural practice in punk and post-­punk contexts, the book considers how DIY cultures have seeped into the cultural memory and emotional geographies of place.

Outline of the book In Chapter 1, Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra consider the origins and development of DIY culture and practice in relation to music and associated forms of underground and alternative scenes since the emergence of punk in the mid-­ 1970s. As Bennett and Guerra detail, since the 1970s the concept of DIY has

2   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

grown to encapsulate a highly complex and vibrant alternative sector of cultural production and consumption on a global scale. The concluding section of the chapter considers how such exponential growth in DIY practices raises new questions about the nature and prevalence of the DIY aesthetic and its place as an increasingly pivotal aspect of contemporary urban life. The rest of the book is organized into four parts: Part I: Underground music scenes between the local and the translocal; Part II: Music and DIY cultures: DIY or die!; Part III: Art, music and technological change; and Part IV: Music scenes, memory and emotional geographies. Part I presents an in-­depth examination of the spatial characteristics and dynamics of DIY culture and looks at its bearing on underground music scenes. As the chapters in this section illustrate, the appropriation and maintaining of space in urban contexts is a critical currency of DIY cultural practice. This theme is key to Chapter 2, where Will Straw considers how underground music scenes within cities have been celebrated or condemned for their visibility. They have confounded journalists and would-­be members of such scenes through their invisibility as well as through their barriers to entry. This dual character of underground music scenes – their visibility and invisibility – frequently poses problems for those individuals (journalists, tourists, critics) seeking to find and observe music scenes, and also marks the complex ways in which members conceive such scenes. In a similarly urban vein, in Chapter 3 Carles Feixa examines the connections between music, youth culture and urban life using a perspective drawn from case studies undertaken in Catalonia and Mexico. The author achieves this by considering youth musical genres as metaphors for youth itself (and specifically their difficulties of integration in society), proposing to illustratively capture punk history through two punk stories: the narratives of Feixa’s encounter with two young people who chose to identify with this lifestyle in different moments (the 1980s and the 1990s) and in different places (a small city in Catalonia and a metropolis in Mexico). Anda Georgiana Becuț’s aim in Chapter 4 is to map the independent cultural urban spaces in Bucharest and to highlight the specificity of these hybrid spaces. Can these places be considered a part of the urban culture, as independent cultural consumption spaces or as cultural entities that transcend the line between popular and underground culture? Are they a reflection of the alternative or underground culture? Moreover, what influences have their characteristics had on the artistic content and on the relationship between the artists and the audience? Such concerns with the way place ties into the wider social fabric are also key to Chapter 5, in which Pierig Humeau applies an analysis of data collected on the French ‘independent’ punk scene in an effort to question the concept of DIY culture by demonstrating that it acts as a constitutive resource of specific punk capital. By analysing the topography of the French contemporary punk space, the author reveals the links between the objectively occupied social positions within the social space, and the aesthetic and political

Introduction   3

position-­takings. The idea is thus to illustrate how DIY culture brings into play the extreme porosity between musical commitment and political front. Dealing with the issue of gender performances, in Chapter 6 Yvonne Niekrenz focuses on the construction of gender in alternative music-­based youth cultures. The focus of the chapter is the male-­dominated hardcore punk scene and the Goth scene in the city of Rostock, which is the biggest city in Mecklenburg-­Western Pomerania. There she poses the question of how young people deal with gender as a category and resource in their youth-­cultural self-­ expressions, investigating how they find spaces and places of belonging. In Part II, the authors examine the ways in which DIY cultural practices have evolved to survive in a rapidly changing cultural landscape marked by the increasingly aggressive tendencies of commodification and politically charged cultural policy. Taking the Basque Country as an example, in Chapter 7 Ion Andoni del Amo Castro examines how the emergence of a youth resistance movement, organized around punk and Basque radical rock has been involved in the development of a Basque radical culture – a social, political and cultural phenomenon that disrupts the categories of political subjectivity established by the framework of political-­ institutional narratives that make up the social space – that is, the dispute over hegemonic control of the Basque and Spanish national narratives. In Chapter 8, Katie Rochow examines Home Economics, a Wellington-­based, semi-­regular event organized by an initiative of local artists who transform homes into underground performance spaces. The basis of this chapter is a case study that argues Home Economics is characterized by the ‘in-­betweenness’ of metamodernism, which represents a spacetime that is neither ordered nor disordered, and is characterized by a continuous switching between the ways of being in modernity and postmodernity. Following on from this, in Chapter 9, Juho Kaitajärvi-Tiekso studies the ideological and aesthetic practices and discourses of Finnish small-­scale record producers in terms of their professionalism. The chapter focuses on ten DIY micro-­labels from Finland, noting their shared negative attitude towards professionalism, as well as their unique viewpoints and perspectives. The various discourses and practices though which the relationship of each the ten cases to professionalism materializes highlight the questions that exist around the meaning of being professional. In Chapter 10, Sarah Benhaïm explores the modes of production and distribution of recordings in underground networks, based on the results of a survey of five noise and experimental music labels. By giving a detailed account of these labels’ practices, which are characterized by a DIY ethos, it appears that the music featured, the agreements made with musicians, the emotional relationship with recorded media and the practice of exchanging records all enhance the emotional commitment to the detriment of commercial objectives. Far from being mere details, these record-­related practices involve ethical, social and affective negotiations that contribute to defining noise as a genre.

4   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

In Chapter 11, Sean Martin-­Iverson draws on ethnographic fieldwork with the Kolektif Balai Kota, a DIY hardcore organizing collective in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, to explore the value politics of DIY production, both in the specific context of Indonesian hardcore punk and as a more general strategy for creative autonomy and social transformation. These DIY activists position DIY hardcore as a form of ‘positive punk’, putting into practice the twin values of autonomy and community through a DIY ethic of independent cultural production, which they regard as the essence of punk. The chapters in Part III examine the relationship between DIY cultures, music and technological change. As they demonstrate, reactions among DIY cultural practitioners to technological change have been characteristically diverse. Thus, while on the one hand more recent developments in digital technology have been embraced as a significant tool in the production, dissemination and consumption of music and related aspects of DIY culture, at the same time such developments have also produced an emphasis on pre-­digital products as significant markers of a DIY aesthetic. These latter themes are central to Chapter 12, where Jeder Silveira Janotti Jr and Victor de Almeida Nobre Pires take up the debate concerning the importance of direct, present experience in the consumption of music and about music scenes as an important part of those articulations. In their chapter they seek to approach the affective, distinctive, fetishized political and cultural aspects of these alternative forms of production as well as their impact on so-­called popular music, by focusing on the case of Sofar Sounds (Songs from a Room), a collaborative network that promotes small and generally non-­publicized secret concerts in the musicians’ and fans’ homes to a selected group of cultural intermediaries. In Chapter 13, Benjamin Düster and Raphaël Nowak, drawing on qualitative data gathered in Berlin in 2015 and 2016, explore contemporary cassette cultures and the various ways in which the format subsists. The authors argue that the contemporary discourses on cassette tapes are embedded in a tension between small music scenes that incorporate cassette tapes for face-­to-face and digital processes of creation on the one hand, and a broader recent mainstream revival on the other hand. Such cultural processes are explored in a different way in Chapter 14, in John Willsteed’s analysis of the importance of ephemera in historical collections and archives. Willsteed achieves this by looking at what constitutes ephemera and what its role might be in activating subcultural stories, with a particular emphasis on the Brisbane underground music scene from the late 1970s to the mid-­1980s. This includes discussing particular artefacts, how and why these items were made, where they are now and what their legacy might be. In Chapter 15, Emília Barna looks at the lo-­fi or ‘bedroom’ music scene in Budapest as an underground scene that relies on the use of digital technology and the internet – in particular, music platforms such as Bandcamp and social networking sites such as Tumblr. The author reflects on the online practices of music distribution, consumption and evaluation that are central to this scene,

Introduction   5

while also demonstrating the necessity of studying the network of participants, online and offline spaces and content, and how these are related to principles of the underground. Part IV, the final section of the book, examines the relationship between DIY music scenes and memory. Given the longevity of punk-­inspired DIY cultural practices across the world, in many cases these have become significant aspects of collective memory in local, translocal and, in some cases, virtual contexts. The chapters in this section offer important insights regarding the various contexts within and around which collective memories become embedded in forms of underground and alternative music and associated forms of DIY cultural practice. In Chapter 16, Daniel S. Traber turns to Jean-­Luc Nancy’s concept of the ‘inoperative community’ to consider the negotiations of history and community required of revivalist subcultures and the lessons they convey regarding identity. The author’s example of an ‘inoperative subculture’ is drawn from contemporary garage rock, wherein a willing connection to the styles, sounds and icons of the early 1960s bands is maintained – albeit reformulated to allow one to speak differently, as opposed to simply mimicking the past, as the stricter traditionalists demand. Maximilian Spiegel focuses on collectivity and individuality in US ‘free folk’ music in Chapter 17. In particular, Spiegel traces the social relations constituting the dynamic and heterogeneous field of research, drawing on interviews conducted with protagonists of psychedelic, DIY-­based, local, translocal and virtual scenes. In Chapter 18, J. Mark Percival explores notions of independence in the record industry through a longitudinal case study of Glasgow-­based label Chemikal Underground. Drawing on a series of personal interviews conducted with the founders and directors of Chemikal Underground between September 2000 and September 2014, the development of the label over 20 years is explored and situated in a milieu of cultural production that depends increasingly on the power of social and cultural capital to enable and transform economic capital. This is followed in Chapter 19 by Zoe Armour’s examination of how an individual of the late post-baby-­boomer generation articulates his involvement in the British free-­party counterculture of the mid- to late 1990s. While sociological research on rave culture in the period of the fin de siècle is apparent, the significance of marginal practices remains largely unmapped in terms of the individualized niche experiences of ravers participating in an alternate life-­ world. Thus the singular ethnographic interview that forms the basis for this chapter provides a micro analysis of the sound system and the forms of affective association to which it gave rise. Finally, in Chapter 20, Asya Draganova and Shane Blackman, drawing on recent ethnographic interviews and observations with music consumers and ­producers in Bulgaria, argue that estrangement acted as a creative force for the  emergence of underground post-­punk subcultural scenes. The Bulgarian

6   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

underground scenes of the 1980s delivered content incongruous to the aesthetic values imposed by the communist state, which controlled official culture production. Thus, DIY strategies were crucial to the enhancement of artistic identities, alongside the diversification of post-­punk within multiple music ‘waves’, and the formation of scenes throughout the country.

Chapter 1

Rethinking DIY culture in a post-­industrial and global context Andy Bennett and Paula Guerra

From a point during the mid-­1970s, the notion of do-­it-yourself (DIY) culture has developed from a punk-­focused ethos of resistance to the mainstream music industry into a more widely endorsed aesthetic underpinning a broad sphere of alternative cultural production (Bennett, 2018). While by no means eschewing anti-­hegemonic concerns, this transformation of DIY into what might reasonably be termed a global ‘alternative culture’ has also seen it evolve to a level of professionalism that is aimed towards ensuring aesthetic and, where possible, economic sustainability. During a period in which the very concept of culture is the object of various attempts at hyper-­commodification under the ever-­ broadening banner of the ‘cultural industries’ (Power and Scott, 2004), many of those cultural practitioners who wish to remain independent have at the same time benefited from the increasing emphasis in urban centres on cultural production, performance and consumption. Indeed, such individuals are often able to hone creative skills acquired as participants in underground and alternative cultural scenes for use in ongoing careers as DIY cultural entrepreneurs. This chapter examines the longevity of the DIY cultural aesthetic and its evolution in a global context. As the chapter will illustrate, from its roots in the punk movement, the concept of DIY has grown to encapsulate a highly complex and vibrant alternative sector of cultural production and consumption on a global scale. The concluding section of the chapter will consider how such exponential growth in DIY practices presents new questions about the nature and prevalence of the DIY aesthetic and whether we need to reposition it as an increasingly pivotal aspect of contemporary urban life.

DIY culture in a historical context The term ‘DIY’ first begun to be heard at the beginning of the twentieth century, when it was used and understood in the context of home improvement (Gelber, 1997). Referring to the practice of creating, repairing and/or modifying things without the use of an expert craftsperson, the meaning and currency of DIY gradually evolved over subsequent decades to embrace a range of creative cultural practices. As part of this evolution, DIY assumed a critical resonance

8   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

during the 1950s, with the Situationist International, an artistic and cultural movement that sought to satirize and denounce the contradictions of capitalist consumer society (Debord, 1992; Downes, 2007; Frith and Horne, 1987) through the creation of countercultural artistic objects that opposed dominant cultural representations and used new forms of communication, such as manifestos, zines and other mediums, to awaken a feeling that the ordre des choses (system) could be changed. Moreover, the claims of the Situationist movement extended to using the symbols and forms of the status quo as a means of symbolic and ideological resistance. Owing much to the Dadaist movement of the early twentieth century, the Situationist International appropriated everyday images and objects, repositioning them in new contexts that stripped them of their original meaning in ways that served to question both the nature of art and the state of the wider society. Twenty years later, the DIY ethos of the Situationist movement was dramatically resurrected in punk, a scene that coalesced youth sensibilities and aesthetic understandings of music and style at a critical point of socioeconomic crisis (Hebdige, 1979). Although its origins were in the United States during the mid-­1970s (Laing, 1985; Lentini, 2003), punk’s salience as a statement of resistance among disenfranchised and disillusioned youth was realized several years later when punk music and culture were first experienced by British audiences. During a period that saw salaries frozen, a plummeting of trade rates and economic stagnation, and high unemployment – particularly among youth – the rising discontent of various layers of society made itself felt. In this context, punk became a spectacular platform, both in a visual and sonic sense, for the anger and dissatisfaction of youth while simultaneously acting as an unwilling vehicle for fear and moral panic (Holtzman, Hughes and Van Meter, 2007). What also made punk appealing to musicians and audiences was its DIY quality. While earlier musical styles – notably skiffle (Stratton, 2010) and rock ’n’ roll (Bielby, 2004) – had also displayed a distinctive DIY quality, punk’s entire musical and cultural ethos was heavily invested with a strong and distinctive DIY aesthetic (McKay, 1998). By the time of punk’s arrival, the popular-­music industry had grown to a point where the production and distribution of popular music were both tightly regulated and heavily routinized, with music created on a mass scale and calculated to appeal to mass audiences. From a punk perspective, the consequence of such regulation was that music lost touch with its audience, and in doing so also became divested of value – socially, culturally and politically. The key mission of punk, therefore, was to reinvest music with an aesthetic more akin to what it saw as the excitement of the rock ’n’ roll years while also reinstalling a political message (Laing, 1985). As the initial punk scene of the 1970s diversified and give rise to a range of new musical and stylistic scenes, including anarcho punk (Gosling, 2004), Gothic punk (Hodkinson, 2002) and hardcore (Driver, 2011), the DIY principles that had been at the core of punk continued to be reflected in the way that these newer styles were created, performed and consumed. Although, in a

Rethinking DIY culture   9

mainstream context, pop and rock became reinstated as dominant forms of live and recorded music entertainment – not least because of the emergence of MTV (Kaplan, 1987) and the increasing prominence of live music mega-­events such as Live Aid (Garofalo, 1992) – punk’s splitting of the music world continued to manifest itself in the form of alternative networks of music production, performance and consumption that characterized a proliferation of local, translocal and, from the mid-­1990s, virtual scenes (Peterson and Bennett, 2004). Indeed, in addition to giving rise to a number of punk subgenres, it would also be accurate to say that since the 1970s the DIY aesthetic of the early punk scene has become a key source of influence and inspiration for a successive range of other genres, among them rap (Rose, 1994), indie (Bannister, 2006) and dance (Thornton, 1995).

DIY and global ‘alternative’ culture During the same period in which these later, post-­punk genres have emerged, deindustrialization in the Global North has further contributed to the prevalence of DIY discourses in music and associated forms of cultural practice. In a study of the local Liverpool music scene conducted in the mid-­1980s, Cohen (1991, p. 2) notes how, in a city where the attitude of many young people was that you might as well pick up a guitar as take exams, since your chances of finding full-­time occupation from either were just the same, being in a band was an accepted way of life and could provide a means of justifying one’s existence. In the decades since Cohen’s study was published, the socioeconomic scenario she describes in relation to Liverpool has become more commonplace, not merely in the United Kingdom but in a wider global sense. Similarly, the ease with which young people, and indeed post-­youth generations, can view music and other forms of creative practice as viable occupations has also evolved globally, often in tandem with a strongly articulated DIY code of cultural politics and practice. This evolution of DIY culture in a broader global sense is highly significant, not least of all because of its demonstration of DIY as a more commonly embraced language of action and intent among an increasingly broad range of cultural producers and their audience. Once used as a means of denoting pockets of resistance to mainstream forms of music and broader cultural production in a mainly localized sense (e.g. McKay, 1998), DIY has now become synonymous with a broader ethos of lifestyle politics that bonds people together in networks of translocal, alternative cultural production. While the Global North has perhaps led the way in terms of establishing the core qualities and parameters of DIY cultural practice, the prevalence of DIY sensibilities is by no means restricted to these regions of the world. On the contrary, as music styles and scenes such as punk, metal and dance have found their

10   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

way into countries in the Global South, this has had a critical bearing on the evolution of DIY culture in a broader global context. Thus, just as it is now legitimate to talk about punk, rap, indie and various other musical and stylistic genres as global forms of culture (e.g. Nilan and Feixa, 2006), so too is it possible to see how the strong heritage of DIY culture interwoven with such genres has accompanied their global mobility, finding a voice in various local cultures around the world to produce a rich array of distinctively localized yet at the same time translocally connected DIY cultural scenes. In the same period, the rapid emergence of creative digital technology, while not democratizing the process of cultural production in a universal sense, given the cost implications involved in acquiring such technology for personal use, has made it easier for increasing numbers of people – including young people – to obtain the means to create and disseminate their own cultural products, be they music, literature, art, film or associated artefacts. As this suggests, the combined effect of such socioeconomic and technological shifts has significant ramifications for the position and status of DIY as both cultural discourse and cultural practice in the post-­industrial era. Indeed, akin to Cohen’s (1991) Liverpool musicians in the mid-­1980s, as post-­industrialization has laid the ground for a new, seemingly unshakable era of neoliberalism, what could legitimately be termed a global risk generation (Bennett, 2018) has embraced music-­making and similar creative cultural practices as a way of life, frequently regarding them as viable career pathways in a socioeconomic context where each career trajectory can appear as precarious as the next. In this way, successive generations of young people on a global scale are striving to work against the pathological potentialities of biographical drift brought about by risk and uncertainty through flexing self-­honed entrepreneurial skills – both musical and extra-­musical – in ways that are geared towards the establishment of satisfying, if not always necessarily economically fulfilling or even sustainable, DIY careers (Threadgold, 2018). While the more mainstream cultural industries, which are also largely a product of post-­industrialization, are primarily driven by a profit motive, this is far less the case with DIY cultural practices, which are often driven by motives of creative and aesthetic gratification (Ferreira, 2016).

Artistic self-­p roduction and DIY cultural practices As indicated in the foregoing sections of this chapter, the notion of DIY culture has undergone significant transformations since the mid-­1970s, when its associations with youth, music and style first manifested themselves in the shape of punk. In this section, we set about the task of beginning to delineate and define a new framework of DIY culture and cultural practice that can be applied in more contemporary global settings. On the basis of ethnographic work conducted by the authors on the Portuguese punk scene (Guerra and Bennett, 2015), it seems clear that if DIY in the early years of punk was a relatively ­spontaneous gesture of resistance to capitalism, this has now evolved into an

Rethinking DIY culture   11

essentially pre-­digested understanding of what punk, and by definition those musical and other cultural scenes that have come after punk and been inspired by it, are seen to symbolize. Indeed, one of the critical findings of our research is that, while theoretically rich, such a portrayal of DIY culture is also highly compatible with the way social actors reflexively perceive themselves and their agentic relationship with the everyday practice of DIY culture. Thus, when we questioned our interviewees about the effective nature of DIY, they pointed out numerous roles, tasks, functions and competences associated with meaning-­ making mechanisms, in practice allowing the participants of different scenes to see themselves precisely as participants of a particular scene in a way that is analogous to Thornton’s (1995) club cultures. In the case of Thornton’s work, and in ours, a common thread is the way scene competence is connected with artefacts and knowledge (implicit and symbolic) that are recognized and esteemed in a given culture (Jensen, 2006). The question of authenticity and its response/alternative to the mainstream are key configurations in the DIY ethos of Portuguese punk (Guerra, 2017; Silva and Guerra, 2015), as indeed they are in numerous other DIY cultural scenes around the world. These self-­producing strategies, founded on displays of scene competence, have consolidated over the last 30 years, meaning that two-­thirds of the interviewees say they have acquired DIY competences through participating in local punk scenes, and that cooperation networks (Becker, 1982; Crossley, 2015) played a key role in facilitating this. In essence, what this reveals is the ongoing presence of a strong underground scene, sustained through the engagement of young musicians, amateur and professional gatekeepers and deeply loyal, albeit small, audiences. The underground – the loose term that brings together notions of youth conviviality, artistic production, mainstream defiance, ritual performance – is in essence a collective creative network (Willis, 1977), which expresses everyday aesthetics in youth-­culture contexts. Several variables appear that are crucial to our understanding of these realities: musical pathways (Finnegan, 2007, p. 297) or the initial design of leisure careers (Blackman, 2005; MacDonald, 2011) as entry routes to local punk music scenes stand out as critical elements in understanding the individual and collective trajectories of social actors. In that sense, the most common career profiles can be discussed as combinations of key roles in the scene, such as music agent/promoter, including a wide array of profiles such as fan, distributor, editor/musician, educator and so on. The roles and tasks that these scenes and musical pathways entail in Portuguese punk are marked by heterogeneity and flexibility. The DIY ethos is represented as a strongly valued asset in community-­based amateur music practice that goes hand in hand with the underground world (Guerra and Bennett, 2015; Guerra and Silva, 2015). The musical underground appears, then, as a claim from young musicians to a unique artistic expression, or a counterpointed authentic experience – not without its internal contradictions and ambiguities – against the market and dominant music conventions. It is, however, possible

12   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

to analyse this space as including multiple socialization processes in a social sphere in which stratification factors, such as class or school capital, are played in a symbolic experimentation, opening up the possibility for new cultural practices and trajectories. The circuits of music-­making make up a plurality of socializing spaces, characterized by diverse symbolic codes according to different music genres, youth cultures, social backgrounds, urban contexts and approximation to professional means, among others (see Gelder and Thornton, 1997). As a general framework for use in addressing this issue, we can look to the autonomist Marxist thesis of immaterial labour (Hardt and Negri, 2003; Negri, 2005) – that is, the notion imbricated in the capitalist system of creative, affective and informational work, which has, as the post-­industrial socioeconomy evolves, become widespread and deeply influential. This sort of concept works in practice and, specifically in what our interviewees sensed in the DIY music scenes, as an ontological reordering of the principles of work and play (Willis, 1977). By privileging creative autonomy, measuring success in terms of symbolic capital, as Moore (2004) argues, and putting weight into institutional challenge and resistance, this focus on immaterial labour serves DIY cultures as an alternative and more adequate measure of the work contained in them. As Dale (2008, p. 190) suggests, the institutional challenge of independent music was part of an attempt to ‘spread power out, to re-­distribute cultural capital and encourage self-­expression’. One such case was that of pop-­punk music in the United States, which, since the early 1990s, has become associated with a range of DIY labels and local scenes. For Barrett (2013), the punk movement in the United States signifies a politicized form of collective action, encompassing a complex of counter-­institutions, while Dunn (2012) advocates that ‘punk rock kick-­started the DIY record revolution’, meaning that the independent DIY punk labels opened a space in which to resist the alienation of modern society. All of this, of course, begs a critical question: Given the increasingly complex, locally specific but transnationally connected ways in which DIY culture has evolved since the 1970s, how can we specifically define what DIY means concretely in a contemporary context? Some authors note the at-­times profound ambiguities of the DIY ideal, which can only be related to a specific ethical code underlying all movements, in favour of autonomy and independence in the face of conspicuous consumption-­driven societies (Císar and Koubek, 2012; Gosling, 2004; O’Hara, 1999). In a preliminary approach, DIY can mean the creation of a symbolic alternative through a (physical or metaphoric) space of self-­empowerment, mutual help and alternative social engagement (Holtzman, Hughes and Van Meter, 2007). Alternatively, and more frequently in the Portuguese context, it has meant the associative and recreational practices organized by the participants themselves in a process of empowerment that impacts their own personal project. More than anything, DIY serves as a counter-­force to neoliberalism. However, this is only one part of the story. We must take into account several questions that connect us to alternative socialization paths; new forms of education

Rethinking DIY culture   13

and family-­building; the rejection of corporations, business chains and multinationals (Crossley, 2015; Haenfler, 2004, 2012, 2014; Heartfield, 2003; Moore, 2004; Ruggero, 2009); the emphasis on alternative media and information channels (Coopman, 2003; Dahlgren, 2007; Downing, 2001; Duncombe, 1997; McKay, 1996); the relationship with direct-­action strategies (Epstein, 1993); the production of an alternative living system (squats, cooperatives) (Hemphill and Leskowitz, 2013); the practices of emancipatory DIY culture in learning with computers and new technologies (Kafai and Peppler, 2011); a defence of life based on ecological principles, including gardening, home repairs and recycling, music and the recycling of discarded food (Kuhn, 2010; McKay, 1996); and the education of adults (Downes, 2007; Hemphill and Leskowitz, 2013). Clearly, while practices of cultural production remain core to the ethos of DIY, what now act to distinguish it from its early years are a broader lifestyle philosophy and a more diverse approach to DIY practice that extends across a range of everyday activities. The concept of lifestyle was originally applied in sociology by Weber (1978) as a means of considering how aspects of social status and standing were articulated through displays of material wealth and conspicuous consumption. Lifestyle again became fashionable in sociology during the late twentieth century when, in the wake of the cultural turn (Chaney 1994), the significance of cultural consumption again came to the fore as a means to explain the basis of individual and collective identities in late-­modern social settings. David Chaney is a key contributor to this contemporary sociological work on lifestyle. His reconceptualization of lifestyle in a contemporary context is highly instructive for our understanding of a range of cultural identities and cultural practices that characterize late-­modern society, including those that underpin the notion of DIY culture. In that context, Chaney (1996) regards lifestyles as demonstrative of the increasing reflexivity exhibited by individuals in both the practice and negotiation of everyday life. Key to Chaney’s interpretation of lifestyle is his distinction between ‘lifestyles’ and ‘ways of life’ (1996, p.  97). He argues that lifestyles are ‘creative projects’ that rely on ‘displays of consumer competence’, while ‘ways of life’ are ‘typically associated with a more or less stable community [and] displayed in features such as shared norms, rituals, patterns of social order and probably a distinctive dialect’ (1996, p. 92). Given the results of our findings on the Portuguese punk scene, it seems clear that while lifestyles do indeed reflect newer trends in society – in this particular case, based around the acquisition of musical tastes and the appropriation of associated stylistic resources globally inscribed in punk culture – they do at the same time continue to reflect older and more established aspects of the local communities in which they take form. Thus language and an awareness of more recent historical events taking place in Portugal have a bearing on the articulation of Portuguese punk, as do the specific hard and soft infrastructures (Stahl, 2004) present in different cities in the country. Such aspects of local, vernacular culture are integral to the character of Portuguese punk, its DIY cultural ­practice and the ways in which this informs a broader array of DIY lifestyle sensibilities.

14   A. Bennett and P. Guerra

The same is also true of clusters of DIY practice in other parts of the world, as the case studies in this book illustrate. The fact that DIY culture can be depicted as a lifestyle in the way outlined above is very much due to some of the other factors discussed earlier in this chapter. Most stridently, perhaps, the appropriation of DIY principles and practices by many individuals in late modernity bespeaks their opposition – both personal and in many cases collective – to the tightening grip of neoliberalism in a global context. By opting to pursue a lifestyle based around DIY ideology and practice, individuals can articulate more incisively their sense of distance from the institutional and cultural politics of a neoliberal existence. As themes of culture and creativity are sucked into discourses framed around the related concepts of the ‘creative class’ and ‘creative city’ (Florida, 2005), adopting a DIY stance that spans aspects of work and leisure, public and private, individuals create and maintain habitable spaces on the margins of this rapid urban, and increasingly regional, transformation. In this sense, DIY culture and practice also signify vibrant new forms of sociality. In the late nineteenth century, Simmel’s (1950) innovative writing on cities and urban crowds pointed to the dual effect of anonymity as both liberating while at the same time exposing the ongoing desire of individuals for a sense of community and belonging. In the late twentieth century, a number of theorists including Slater (1997) and Mafessoli (1996) argued that communities in late modernity were far more likely to be built around common leisure and consumption interests than older forms of bonding grounded in issues of class, ethnicity, neighbourhood and so on. As discussed earlier, based on the findings of our own research on the punk scene in Portugal, we would argue that residual aspects of community can remain current, at least in some local settings. Nevertheless, it seems clear that contemporary forms of sociality do embrace more recently established aspects of leisure and consumption. As previously noted in this chapter, however, with the onset of risk and deindustrialization, many are now drawing on skills and practices acquired outside of conventional work and education, and this extends to skills acquired as participants in music scenes and other forms of alternative culture. Such skills acquisition and the conversion of those skills into more sustained forms of cultural practice and production underpin contemporary expressions of DIY. As such, DIY culture also provides a space whereby people with common tastes, outlooks and experiences can come together and build new forms of community, asserting their solidarity and distinctiveness in the late-­modern urban context.

Conclusion This chapter has mapped and explored the origins and development of DIY culture and practice in relation to music and associated cultural forms. It began by discussing the significance of DIY for punk culture in the mid-­1970s and then turned its attention to how punk’s adoption of a strong DIY aesthetic was to

Rethinking DIY culture   15

become a template for various punk-­influenced styles, as well as other genres such as rap and dance music. It then considered how the global spread of DIY cultural practice, combined with significant socioeconomic shifts on a global scale, has given rise to a concomitant shift in the role and significance of DIY as a translocally linked series of networks that underpin alternative forms of cultural production. The final part of the chapter then went on to consider how, given such a deepening of the DIY aesthetic at a global level, it is now possible to map DIY culture not merely in terms of forms of cultural production but as the basis for lifestyle projects, whereby individuals articulate a sense of distance from more mainstream and ‘official’ discourses of urban transformation underpinned by neoliberal policy. Such articulations of DIY cultural practice have also sown the seeds for new forms of community cohesion, with the potential for these to be maintained and developed over a period of years and across generations.

Acknowledgements These findings were generated as a result of the research programme developed by the KISMIF project, Keep It Simple, Make It Fast! Prolegomenons and Punk Scenes – a Road to Portuguese Contemporaneity (1977–2012) (PTDC/CS-­ SOC/118830/2010). This project was funded by FEDER through the COMPETE Operational Programme from the FCT, the Foundation for Science and Technology. It is led by the Institute of Sociology of the University of Porto (IS-­UP) and developed in partnership with the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research (GCSCR) and Lleida University (UdL). The following institutions are also participants: Faculty of Economics of University of Porto (FEP), Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the University of Porto (FPCEUP), Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra (FEUC), Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra (CES) and the Lisbon Municipal Libraries (BLX). The project and its results can be found at www.punk.pt.

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16   A. Bennett and P. Guerra Chaney, D. (1994). The Cultural Turn: Scene Setting Essays on Contemporary Cultural History. London: Routledge. Chaney, D. (1996). Lifestyles. London: Routledge. Císar, O. and Koubek, M. (2012). Include ’em all? Culture, politics and a local hardcore/ punk scene in the Czech Republic. Poetics, 40(1): 1–21. Cohen, S. (1991). Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Coopman, T.M. (2003). Alternative alternatives: Free media, dissent, and emergent activist networks. In A. Opel and D. Pompper (eds), Representing Resistance: Media, Civil Disobedience, and the Global Justice Movement (pp. 192–208). Westport, CT: Praeger. Crossley, N. (2015). Networks of Sound, Style and Subversion. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dahlgren, P. (2007). Civic identity and net activism: The frame of radical democracy. In L. Dahlberg and E. Siapera (eds), Radical Democracy and the Internet: Interrogating Theory and Practice (pp. 55–72). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Dale, P. (2008). ‘It was easy, it was cheap, so what?’ Reconsidering the DIY principle of punk and indie music. Popular Music History, 3(2): 171–93. Debord, G. (1992). La Société du Spectacle (The Society of the Spectacle). Paris: Gallimard. Downes, J. (2007). Riot grrrl: The legacy and contemporary landscape of DIY feminist cultural activism. In N. Monem (ed.), Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! (pp. 12–51). London: Black Dog. Downing, J.D.H. (2001). Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Driver, C. (2011). Embodying hardcore: Rethinking subcultural authenticities. Journal of Youth Studies, 14(8): 975–90. Duncombe, S. (1997). Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture. London: Verso. Dunn, K. (2012). ‘If it ain’t cheap, it ain’t punk’: Walter Benjamin’s progressive cultural production and DIY punk record labels. Journal of Popular Music Studies, 24(2): 217–37. Epstein, B. (1993). Political Protest and Cultural Revolution: Nonviolent Direct Action in the 1970s and 1980s. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ferreira, V.S. (2016). Aesthetics of youth scenes: From arts of resistance to arts of existence. Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 24(1): 66–81. Finnegan, R. (2007). The Hidden Musicians. Music-­Making in an English Town. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Florida, R. (2005). Cities and the Creative Class. New York: Routledge. Frith, S. and Horne, H. (1987). Art into Pop. London: Methuen. Garofalo, R. (1992). Understanding mega-­events: If we are the world then how do we change it? In R. Garofalo (ed.), Rockin’ the Boat: Mass Music and Mass Movements (pp. 15–36). Boston, MA: Southend Press. Gelber, S.M. (1997). Do-­It-yourself: Constructing, repairing and maintaining domestic masculinity. American Quarterly, 49(1): 66–112. Gelder, K. and Thornton, S. (eds) (1997). The Subcultures Reader. London: Routledge. Gosling, D. (2004). ‘Not for sale’: The underground network of anarcho-­Punk. In A. Bennett and R.A. Peterson (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Trans-­local and Virtual (pp. 168–83). Nashville, TN. Vanderbilt University Press.

Rethinking DIY culture   17 Guerra, P. (2017). Just can’t go to sleep: DIY cultures and alternative economies from the perspective of social theory. Portuguese Journal of Social Science, 16(3): 283–303. Guerra, P. and Bennett, A. (2015) ‘Never mind the Pistols? The legacy and authenticity of the Sex Pistols in Portugal. Popular Music and Society, 38(4): 500–21. Guerra, P. and Silva, A.S. (2015). Music and more than music: The approach to difference and identity in the Portuguese punk. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(2): 207–23. Haenfler, R. (2004). Rethinking subcultural resistance: Core values of the straight edge movement. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 33(4): 406–36. Haenfler, R. (2012). More than the Xs on my hands: Older straight edgers and the meaning of style. In A. Bennett and P. Hodkinson (eds), Ageing and Youth Cultures: Music, Style and Identity (pp. 9–23). Oxford: Berg. Haenfler, R. (2014). Subcultures: The Basics. Abingdon: Routledge. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2003). Labor of Dionysus: A Critique of the State-­form. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Heartfield, J. (2003). Capitalism and anti-­capitalism. Interventions, 5(2): 271–89. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Hemphill, D. and Leskowitz, S. (2013). DIY activists: Communities of practice, cultural dialogism, and radical knowledge sharing. Adult Education Quarterly, 63(1): 57–77. Hodkinson, P. (2002). Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg. Holtzman, B., Hughes, C. and Van Meter, K. (2007). Do it yourself … and the movement beyond capitalism. In S. Shukatis, D. Graeber and E. Biddle (eds), Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization (pp. 44–61). Oakland, CA: AK Press. Jensen, S.Q. (2006). Rethinking subcultural capital. Young: Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 14(3): 257–76. Kafai, Y.B. and Peppler, K.A. (2011). Youth, technology and DIY: Developing participatory competencies in creative media production. Review of Research in Education, 35(1): 89–119. Kaplan, E.A. (1987). Rocking Around the Clock: Music Television, Postmodernism and Consumer Culture. London: Methuen. Kuhn, G. (ed.) (2010). Sober Living for the Revolution: Hardcore Punk, Straight Edge and Radical Politics. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Laing, D. (1985). One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Lentini, P. (2003). Punk’s origins: Anglo-­American syncretism. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 24(2): 153–74. MacDonald, R. (2011). Youth transitions, unemployment and underemployment: Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose. Journal of Sociology, 47(4): 427–44. Maffesoli, M. (1996). The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, D. Smith trans. London: Sage. McKay, G. (1996). Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties. London: Verso. McKay, G. (1998). DIY culture: Notes towards an intro. In G. McKay (ed.), DIY Culture: Party and Protest in Nineties Britain (pp. 2–43). London: Verso. Moore, R. (2004). Postmodernism and punk subculture: Cultures of authenticity and deconstruction. The Communication Review, 7(3): 305–27. Negri, A. (2005). The Politics of Subversion: A Manifesto for the Twenty-­First Century. Cambridge: Polity Press.

18   A. Bennett and P. Guerra Nilan, P. and Feixa, C. (eds) (2006). Global Youth? Hybrid Identities, Plural Worlds. London: Routledge. O’Hara, C. (1999). The Philosophy of Punk. More than Noise! Oakland, CA: AK Press. Peterson, R.A. and Bennett, A. (2004). Introducing music scenes. In A. Bennett and R.A. Peterson (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (pp. 1–15). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Power, D. and Scott, A.J. (2004). Cultural Industries and the Production of Culture. London: Routledge. Rose, T. (1994). Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. London: Wesleyan University Press. Ruggero, E.C. (2009) Radical green populism: Environmental values in DIY/punk communities. MA thesis, University of Delaware. Silva, A.S. and Guerra, P. (2015). As palavras do punk (The Words of Punk). Lisbon: Alêtheia. Simmel, G. (1950). The Sociology of Georg Simmel. K.H. Wolf trans, ed. and introduction. New York: The Free Press. Slater, D. (1997). Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Stahl, G. (2004) ‘It’s like Canada reduced’: Setting the scene in Montreal. In A. Bennett and K. Kahn-­Harris (eds), After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture (pp. 51–64). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Stratton, J. (2010). Skiffle, variety and Englishness. In A. Bennett and J. Stratton (eds), Britpop and the English Music Tradition (pp. 27–50). Aldershot: Ashgate. Thornton, S. (1995). Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Threadgold, S. (2018). Creativity, precarity and illusio: DIY cultures and ‘choosing poverty’. Cultural Sociology, doi:10.1177/1749975517722475 Weber, M. (1978 [1919]). Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough: Saxon House.

Part I

Underground music scenes between the local and the translocal

Chapter 2

Visibility and conviviality in music scenes Will Straw

Understanding Mile End Since 1999, I have lived in a neighbourhood of Montreal called Mile End. Throughout these years, Mile End has been considered the most vital area for rock-­based music in Montreal, and in Canada more broadly. It is the home base of the influential group Godspeed You! Black Emperor, of their record label Constellation Records, of house-­music label Mile End Records and of the influential recording studio Hotel2Tango (for a detailed account of this musical configuration, see Mouillot, 2017). Mile End is also the ‘birthplace’ of Arcade Fire, the location of the Casa del Popolo (probably the most important venue for alternative rock-­based forms of music in Montreal) and the neighbourhood in which dozens of bands and other musical configurations started and many continue to live – at least intermittently. In 2016, it was common to hear that the Mile End neighbourhood was slowly losing some of its cultural centrality, as musical activity moved north in the face of ongoing gentrification. However, for the first fifteen years of the new century, Mile End was considered the epicentre of rock-­based musical activity in Canada. In 2012, it was one important site of what, borrowing from Greil Marcus, people began calling the ‘New Weird Canada’, a musical underground characterized by high levels of experimentation and eccentricity (Trapunski, 2012). As journalistic interest in the Mile End scene exploded, particularly after the New York Times wrote about it in 2005, a stream of reporters from various media came to investigate the neighbourhood. The challenge they confronted was that the Mile End music scene was difficult to capture in visual terms. Music consumed in dark rooms, in lofts or bars, is not particularly photogenic. This is particularly true of music that is not particularly theatrical, and which is often marked by a cultivated casualness. In any case, darkened rooms conveyed little of the geography of a scene, of the neighbourhood in which it had grown or the broader ambiances into which it had settled (and which it had helped to create). Most of the images of Mile End that circulated in press coverage intended to  cover musical activity were images from which music was absent. As an

22   W. Straw

experiment, I regularly type the phrases ‘Mile End’ and ‘music scene’ into Google Images and save the results. Typically, of the first 30 or 40 images through which I scroll, only a few bear any relationship to music. In one compilation of these images is a musician performing at the inauguration of a park, another speaking in a seminar and the logo for the Montreal house-­music label Mile End Records. Mostly, there are images of buildings that bear no necessary relationship to music: churches, shops, restaurants. Usually, these buildings are located along Bernard or St Viateur streets, the key east–west arteries of the neighbourhood. In only half of the images, roughly counted, are there people, and they are usually sitting in cafés or restaurants. For a long time, the most predictable image was one of people sitting outside a place called the Café Olympico. In the early 2010s, journalists, prompted by their local informants, usually described this as the informal meeting place for Mile End’s hipster music scene. This relative absence of images representing music does several things. First, it enhances the sense that the music in Mile End is underground music – not only in the sense of being experimental and often transgressive, but because it is invisible. The scene does not offer itself up to be easily understood or decoded, and indeed, the images of casual coffee consumption that are so common counter the reputation of the earnest, even militant, musical production for which the scene is sometimes known. When I first moved to Montreal in the late 1970s, the markers of its rock-­based music scenes were highly visible, in the ways in which adherents of punk (and, later, New Wave) dressed and occupied public space. As Erik Cimon’s (2016) documentary Montreal New Wave shows, the city embraced the exuberant stylistic explosion that followed punk more enthusiastically than most North American cities. In Mile End, it is rather as if musicians are hiding among the general population, undetected. A second effect of the absence of music from images of Mile End is that, in their focus on buildings and streets, these images contribute to the sense that music here is deeply grounded in space and locality, even if music itself is almost never shown in the places in which it happens. Viewers scan these images for evidence of music, but in doing so they are mapping a space rather than observing a cultural activity. A third effect, to which I will turn at greater length shortly, is that the absence of images of music confirms a tendency of twenty-­ first-century urban life that cultural activity – even of the most avowedly oppositional kind – will be absorbed within a generalized sense of lifestyle, the most visible features of which are the spaces of public sociability and consumption, like restaurants and cafés. We may contrast representations of the Mile End scene with those of another ‘scenic’ phenomenon: the configuration that Eric Davidson (2010) calls the ‘Gunk Punk’ scene. Gunk Punk names a loosely connected scene devoted to the music of the 1990s which fell stylistically between hardcore punk and messy power pop or garage rock – music performed by bands like the New Bomb Turks and the Ding Dongs. If representations of Mile End’s music scene are so often

Visibility in music scenes   23

devoid of any pictures of music, Davidson’s book is the opposite. It is full of photographs of music being made: every image, it seems – including the one that adorns its cover – is of a band playing in a club. With time, as one reads through the book, all these images come to look the same. In particular, the spatiality that seems almost alone in defining the Gunk Punk scene is that of the generic club. One has the impression that there were no spaces or neighbourhoods with which it was associated, no places in which the scene converged and drank coffee in the afternoon. Rather, one is faced with a scene held together by a thin line of taste that joined together, across the United States and Western Europe, those musicians who were too archival in their tastes to simply want to make hard-­edged punk and too punky in their tastes to simply want to be 1960s garage band revivalists. ‘Gunk Punk’ was just the name of the network and of a set of endlessly repeated concerts that formed along this line of taste. It was visible only in the moments of its enactment.

Scenes and subcultures, visible and invisible The question of the visibility of musical scenes and subcultures, and the political meanings of this visibility, may be said to fall between two positions that were elaborated in the 1980s and 1990s. One of these is the idea that subcultures, from the moment of their first appearance, are subject to a look: the look of surveillance, a look that seeks to decode, to understand, to categorize. Classic subcultures, it was suggested – like the street-­corner gatherings of teddy boys or punks – seek out these looks in order to inhabit them. At the same time, the behaviours and attitudes of subcultures are devoted to ensuring that the look of others does not reach the understanding that is one of its objectives. Dick Hebdige (1989, p. 35) states that: Subculture forms up in the space between surveillance and the evasion of surveillance, it translates the fact of being under scrutiny into the pleasure of being watched. It is a hiding in the light … Subcultures are both a play for attention and a refusal, once attention has been granted, to be read according to the Book. Two years later, in 1991, Hakim Bey would suggest a very different kind of politics. The key actors in subcultural politics were no longer, as with Hebdige, a marginalized underclass that must find ways of asserting its identity. Nor was the most important enemy a power engaged in surveillance in order to understand, and therefore to control. Rather, the enemy against which subcultures now struggled was a logic of consumerism that turned every subcultural image into a spectacular, cinema-­like commodity. The subcultures most worth studying were those that sought to undermine the society of the spectacle by building marginal, short-­lived spaces of invisibility. In a society that transforms everything into spectacle, the radical gesture was the one that failed to attract the look. For

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Bey (1991), the purpose of a radical politics was to create temporary autonomous zones that left no traces and to which no looks were directed: Getting the Temporary Autonomous Zone started may involve tactics of violence and defense, but its greatest strength lies in its invisibility – the State cannot recognize it because History has no definition of it. As soon as the TAZ is named (represented, mediated), it must vanish, it will vanish, leaving behind it an empty husk, only to spring up again somewhere else, once again invisible because indefinable in terms of the Spectacle. (Bey, 1991, p. 405) Clearly, Hebdige and Bey are not offering different theoretical accounts of the same thing. Hebdige, as we know, is talking about the long line of spectacular subcultures that runs from the London street gangs of the nineteenth century through to the punks of the twentieth century. Bey’s idea of the temporary autonomous zone would become a key element in the ways by which rave culture in the 1990s came to theorize itself. One way of describing the difference between them is to say that Hebdige is iconocentric – he sees visibility and the image as key to resistance, and conceives cultural conflict in terms of semiotic warfare – while Bey is iconophobic, condemning the image for its inevitable complicity with a mediatized consumer culture. We can say many things about these two approaches to visibility, but I want to talk for a moment about their implications for the question of identities – for the question of bodies marked by race, gender and sexuality. The problematic relationship with visibility that, for Dick Hebdige, is typical of street subcultures has long been true for racial minorities, for the bearers of certain sexual identities and so on. The resistance of African Americans, Latinx or transgender communities has involved the claim to the right to occupy public space and to assert those visible identities where they might not be wanted. However, this occupation of public space will often include a resistance to any easy understanding. Hakim Bey’s fight for invisibility, on the other hand, is a refusal to fight at the level of the image. There is a history of this struggle for invisibility at the heart of black American politics, and in particular in the thinking of Ralph Ellison. To be invisible is to find places, not just of refuge, but of community and self-­ development (for recent discussions of the politics of invisibility, see Talbot, 2007, p. 12; DeGuzmán, 2014, pp. 43–4). By the time Hakim Bey was writing, though, the refusal to fight at the level of the image also, on occasion, was marked by a disinterest in conceiving of cultural struggle in terms of race, gender, sexuality – all those things that function, in important ways, at the level of the visible, of the marked body. This is one source of the perception of rave culture as sexless or ungendered, as implicitly white and unconcerned with a politics of social identities.

Visibility in music scenes   25

Signifying lifestyle Arguably, the last decade or two has seen a declining role for music scenes as spaces for the representation of subcultures as they were classically conceived. In the shifts involved here, various displacements have occurred in the realm of the visible. Increasingly, musical activity is represented (or displaced) by the signifiers of urban lifestyle, which organize themselves into at least two sets. One consists of the forms of material culture that fill the spaces of hipster bohemianism. The other set of signifiers collaborates to convey an image of public socia­ bility. We may find examples of both by returning to the example of the Mile End neighbourhood in Montreal. In March 2014, the Ottawa Citizen newspaper, which is published in Canada’s capital city (two hours by road from Montreal), ran an article entitled ‘Day Trip: A day in Mile End, Montreal’s “hipster capital” ’ (Johansen, 2014). What interests me about this piece, which was generally successful in its characterization of the neighbourhood, was the photographic image that accompanied it: a photo of a vintage boutique selling old clothes and other kinds of vintage objects. Images such as these now serve with increasing frequency to represent the neighbourhood. If the original centre of the Mile End cultural scene was music-­making, that activity was, and largely remains, invisible and unrepresented. There are obviously formal problems with representing music in visual terms, and it is commonplace to note that images of the material supports of music – records, instruments and so on – are usually used to stand in for a substance that is sonic rather than visual. What is interesting in the case of Mile End is that imagery now quickly steps over the material supports of music to show us the non-­musical materials of a scene originally founded on music, like the objects that have accumulated and been repurposed and that now fill hipster vintage shops. Scenes generate this accumulation of material goods as one of their underlying processes; these material goods then become the visible tokens of the tastes that characterize the scene. Their relationship with the scene is indexical in the sense that these objects point towards the tastes that participate in the scene, but express them only partially.

Urbanizing scene studies The other set of signifiers attaching themselves to urban music scenes are those of urban sociability, of what I would call public conviviality. By relocating itself within urban cultural studies, the concept of ‘scene’ has been able to leave the debate over subcultures and tribes, a debate that David Hesmondhalgh (2005) so expertly summarized several years ago. ‘Scene’ now returns us to the question of visibility in urban life (e.g. see Casemajor and Straw, 2017). ‘Scene’, as sociologist Alan Blum (2003) once argued, designates the theatricality of urban life, the ways in which part of the pleasure of the city comes from seeing people together in convivial situations.

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However, this image of public conviviality sits in an uneasy relationship with music or other cultural forms. Does the image of people at Café Olympico in Mile End reveal the secrets of the music scene or camouflage them? Scenes make cultural activity visible and decipherable by rendering it public, taking it from acts of private production and consumption into public contexts of socia­ bility, conviviality and interaction. Seeing people who look like musicians or artists sitting together, drinking coffee, we may think we have witnessed and understood a scene. Just as clearly, though, scenes make cultural activity invisible and indecipherable by ‘hiding’ cultural productivity behind seemingly meaningless (or indistinguishable) forms of social life. Five years ago, when both national and international media sent reporters to cover Montreal’s high-­profile Mile End cultural scene, these countervailing logics of a scene played themselves out in ways that were both revealing and amusing. Journalists hung around the two main Italian coffee shops in Mile End – the conventional ports of entry to this scene – uncertain about where to begin. They were unsure whether the easily observed social effervescence in these places was the scene itself or simply a set of distractions that camouflaged a real, more secret scene to which they would never gain access. It is in relation to these ideas that this chapter offers a number of hypotheses about the place of cultural and musical scenes in city life. The first is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate the notion of scene from a logic of gentrification. Let us define a scene as that cultural phenomenon that arises when any purposeful activity acquires a supplement of sociability, and when that supplement of sociability becomes part of the observable effervescence of collective life. This is not a complete definition of scene, but I think every definition of scene must account for a supplement of sociability as one of its constituent features. If there is only cultural work and no sociability, we have little more than a network or a sphere of cultural production. If, on the other hand, there is only sociability, and no underlying cultural labour or expression, we are dealing with little more than the broadly dispersed effervescence of city life. Scenes translate cultural work into the visibility of public socializing, then offer the energies of the latter as symptoms of the cultural ferment and creativity that they thinly veil. This ferment and creativity, then – as is well known – become instrumentalized within the self-­promotion campaigns of cities and their neighbourhoods. My second hypothesis follows from this: that what were once marginal or secondary aspects of scenes – their ‘support’ system – are now fully assimilated within ideas of creativity and innovation. While I don’t want to labour the critique of ideas of the creative city or the creative class, I do want to note that those things that Howard Becker (1982) once saw as part of the ‘support system’ of an art world or scene – cafés, bars and restaurants– are now enshrined as full players in a culture of creation and innovation. ‘Food is the new rock’, the Washington Post suggested recently (Richards, 2013), and the displacement of music by food as the locus of creative energies is visible in a variety of places.

Visibility in music scenes   27

My third hypothesis is that, in the contemporary life of cities, music has come to be more and more embedded in a generalized conviviality marked by conversation, the consumption of food and drink, and a structuring of atmospheres in which music has lost some of its centrality. In many respects, this tendency restores a set of relationships that had been fractured over the last half-­century or more. In many countries, up until the late 1950s, the ‘supper club’ was a central cultural format: one sat, ate food and drank alcohol, conversed with friends and then got up and danced while live performers played. Then, from the 1960s through to the late 1990s, in countries of the Global North and elsewhere, music came to be severed from the conviviality of public eating and drinking. A key development in this severing was the rise, in the 1960s, of the discothèque and the dance club: one no longer went out only in couples or groups of couples; the taking of drugs to a certain extent displaced the activity of eating; and the rise of the DJ meant that one danced to unbroken sequences of records, rather than pausing between songs to return to a table and to conversation. This severing of relaxed conviviality from the consumption of music in a sense freed music to move later into the night and to assume more experimental and oppositional forms. The late-­night consumption of music continues, of course, but I am interested in the ways in which music and the conviviality of eating/drinking are now collapsing back on each other. In France, for the past several years, people have noted the rise of bars à ambiance musicale (bars with musical ambiance) and the same phenomena is noticeable in Montreal, Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Bogota and other cities that I have visited recently. In France, the bar à ambiance musicale is judged to be a specific kind of venue, requiring a distinct licence from SACEM, the music rights licensing organization: Les bars à ambiance musicale are establishments whose principal revenues come from the sale of drinks and, optionally, food (without a dance floor or dancing, and without performances aimed at an audience which has come for the purpose of hearing such) for whom music is an accessory activity but constitutes an essential element of the environment and background. (SACEM, n.d., my translation) In a bar à ambiance musicale, people eat and drink to the accompaniment of recorded music, usually curated by a DJ. Music recedes from the centrality of live performance but moves forward from the status of unnoticed background. The soft buzz of conversation has long been considered, by musicians and others, as an unwelcome challenge to the unsettling force of music. In the bar à ambiance musicale, conversation has won the battle. Similarly, as these bars host their largest clientèle in mid-­evening, rather than later, music has been pulled back, in many cases, from its association with the deepest night, from that space/time in which, historically, the most transgressive forms of expression have been thought to unfold. While, in neighbourhoods around the world, battles over the

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disturbing character of loud music heard late at night continue to divide urban populations, conflicts are just as likely now to centre on the loud street-­level conversation and collective smoking of those standing outside a bar à ambiance musicale in mid-­evening.

Conviviality and the multi-­p urpose space More broadly, we can see changes in the relationship between cultural forms and spaces of conviviality. In Mexico City, repertory cinemas add restaurants or bars as appendages, to make up for the declining attraction of cinema itself and to add sociability to the consumption of cinema. Bookstores in the same city have added cafés to attract customers and increase revenue. In some cases, these cafés have become restaurants, with outdoor terraces and curated music, such that the bookstore becomes little more than a decorative backdrop and heritage feature. The commercial resurgence of Montreal’s Boulevard Saint-­Laurent in 2017 has been ascribed, in part, to the decision by yoga studios and fashion boutiques to add cafés and restaurants with recorded music backdrops to their premises, to retain customers and contribute to a general sense of social buzz along the street (Freed, 2017). The broader tendency here is one that seeks to build possibilities of social interaction into every form of cultural consumption. In Montreal, as in many other cities, one of the most widely perceived threats to a certain kind of culture has come with the transformation of almost every available commercial space into a restaurant or bar. Retail book or record shops have continued to close, largely as a result of logics internal to their industries, but venues devoted to live music are closing as well. The restaurants or bars that replace them do not necessarily or even usually belong to corporate chains; they are very often opened by genuinely imaginative people for whom food and drink are full participants in the new culture of urban creativity. But here, again, many of the cultural processes we once associated with music are now being taken over by the sale of food and drink. Since the 1960s, music promoters have played a key role in repurposing older forms of urban architecture: the ballrooms of the 1930s became the psychedelic concert halls of the 1960s; ethnic social clubs became punk venues in the 1970s; and abandoned industrial lofts became performance spaces in the 1980s and 1990s. Now it is restaurants that are central to this conversion, usually at the expense of small, independent retail stores, which close, but whose markers of entrepreneurial authenticity are often maintained by the owners of the restaurants that open within their premises. My final hypothesis is that, in the current historical moment, the organization of culture follows the perception that what is scarce is sociability, not interesting cultural expression. In the 1990s, those who theorized what is called relational aesthetics in the visual arts came up with a similar idea: what art must resolve, they argued, is not an absence of meaning but an absence of interconnection (see the various articles collected in Bishop, 2006). Meaning was everywhere, it was claimed; what was scarce was sociability. And so we saw the wide

Visibility in music scenes   29

variety of artworks that had as their mission producing new kinds of interconnection, through such actions as the serving of meals in a gallery. We might ask whether something similar is happening with music. The late-­night venue in which one encountered the new and the previously unheard is losing ground to the mid-­evening bar à ambiance musicale. Here, one talks with friends against a background of music that is kind of interesting but demands no intensely focused attention. This is not all that is happening, of course: elsewhere, interesting music continues to be made and heard, and late-­night spaces of transgression continue to develop, in cities around the world. However, as images of convivial café or craft brewery life come to define important cultural scenes – like those of the neighbourhood in which I live – we need to ask the question: Have we finally found that more perfect world, in which culture settles into the routines and the intimacies of everyday life? Or is this, rather, the triumph of a soft complacency in which the divisive cultural struggle over meaning has disappeared?

Conclusion The politics of musical undergrounds are increasingly marked, I suggest, by their ‘urbanization’. By this I mean that music draws its political force less and less from a politics of form or expression, from challenging convention or expanding the range of available musical forms and experiences. Rather, music finds itself caught up in broader struggles over the transformation of cities. In one version of these struggles, music is reduced to the noise that troubles newly gentrified neighbourhoods and sets new settlers of neighbourhoods against venue owners and performing musicians. In other instances, the economic viability of live music venues is calculated relative to the potential economic returns from restaurants, cocktail bars or condominiums that might occupy the same spaces in an age of rising property values. In another arena still, music’s defenders have little alternative but to capitulate to the language of municipal urban innovation agendas, justifying music’s existence by locating it within a range of cultural fields (like gaming and software design) in which cities glimpse their rosy economic futures. Symptoms of all these developments include the push to appoint ‘night mayors’ in city governments, campaigns to designate nightclubs as ‘heritage’ institutions protected from market forces, and the movement to brand certain cities as ‘Music Cities’ in an appeal to tourists and local consumers. In 2017, whether we like it or not, the contemporary politics of popular music express themselves most forcefully in relation to these initiatives. If waves of underground music, from be-­bop to punk, once derived purpose from their attacks on the musical commodity and the musical forms believed to sustain it, newer waves now express their radicality in the claim to occupy space in the contemporary city.

30   W. Straw

Acknowledgements Portions of the research on which this chapter is based were funded by an Insight grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References Becker, H.S. (1982). Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bey, H. (1991). The temporary autonomous zone: Ontological anarchy, poetic terrorism. Retrieved from http://hermetic.com/bey/taz3.html. Bishop, C. (ed.) (2006). Participation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Blum, A. (2003). The Imaginative Structure of the City. Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press. Casemajor, N. and Straw, W. (eds) (2017). The visuality of scenes. Imaginations: Journal of Cross-­Cultural Image Studies, 7(1). Retrieved from http://imaginations.csj.ualberta. ca/?p=9149. Cimon, E. (2016). Montreal New Wave. Documentary. Montreal. Davidson, E. (2010). We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988–2001. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books. DeGuzmán, M. (2014). Buenas Noches: American Culture: Latina/o Aesthetics of Night. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Freed, J. (2017). The Main 2.0 is ‘a street of dreams’. Montreal Gazette, 29 April. Retrieved from http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/josh-­freed-the-­main-20-is-­a-street-­of-dreams. Hebdige, D. (1989). Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things. London: Comedia. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2005). Subculture, scene or tribe: None of the above. Journal of Youth Studies, 8(1), 21–40. Johansen, P. (2014). Day trip: A day in Mile End, Montreal’s ‘hipster capital’. Ottawa Citizen, 15 January. Retrieved from www.ottawacitizen.com/Trip+Mile+Canada+hipst er+capital/9669130/story.html. Mouillot, F. (2017). Distribution Ambiances Magnétiques Etcetera and Constellation Records: DIY Record Labels and the Montreal Experimental Music Scene. Unpublished doctoral thesis, McGill University, Montreal. Richards, C. (2013). Are foodies quietly killing rock and roll? Washington Post, 10 May. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/are-­foodies-quietly-­ killing-rock-­and-roll/2013/05/10/632f1718-b8fb-11e2-b94c-b684dda07add_print.html. SACEM [Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique] (n.d.). Règles générales d’autorisation et de tarification: Bars à ambiance musicale. Retrieved from https:// clients.sacem.fr/docs/autorisations/RGAT_Bars_ambiance_musicale.pdf. Talbot, D. (2007). Regulating the Night: Race, Culture and Exclusion in the Making of the Night-­Time Economy. Aldershot: Ashgate. Trapunski, R. (2012). The new weird Canada: Exploring the emerging music underground. Retrieved from http://archive.fo/WBaz0.

Chapter 3

Punk stories Carles Feixa

This chapter proposes to read the history of punk through two single punk stories: the narratives of my encounter with two youths who decided to identify with this lifestyle in different moments (the 1980s and 1990s) and in different places (a small city in Catalonia and a metropolis in Mexico). I start by interpreting the canonic history of punk through five triangular axes, connecting this history to previous social, aesthetic, musical, countercultural and subcultural trends. I follow this by presenting pieces from my field notes in Lleida (1985) and Mexico City (1991–96), following the punk stories of Felix the Cat and Pablo the Rotten. I then conclude by analysing these narratives as portraits and self-­portraits that transform punk into a metaphor for social and biographical crisis.

Punk histories Interpretations of the punk movement have been as numerous as serious research is scarce about the style’s form and content. Some essayists have analysed the ‘histories’ of punk as a symbolic synthesis of previous philosophical, aesthetic, musical or countercultural trends, as well as a prophetic announcement of later social evolutions, expressed through several types of triangular correlations. Dandy-­f lâneur-punk The first type of correlation is established with nineteenth-­century figures that express the emergence of the contemporary metropolis and the emergence of a bohemian and blasé attitude towards it. Marie Roué (1986) compares the punk to Baudelaire’s dandyism, which is understood as a rebellious and nihilist attitude based on the awareness of the uselessness of any project and on insolence as a way of relating to others. The opposition to previous idealistic trends, the eccentric clothing, the obsession with creating his own original image, the rejection of work, the boredom (spleen) more than disbelief, the negation of nature and a passion for the city are elements of correlation between the

32   C. Feixa

nineteenth-­century dandy and the contemporary punk. Massimo Canevacci (1990) focuses his attention on another typically Parisian (and to a certain extent Baudelairean) image: the flâneur or engrossed wanderer, considered by Walter Benjamin as the dialectic image of nineteenth-­century urban culture. Like the flâneur, the punk lives in the metropolis, his stage on which to represent himself: he makes squares and streets his home; he makes his body the emblem of his anguish; and he takes marginality as his way of living. Dada-­S urrealism-punk Greil Marcus (1989) has seen in aesthetic experimentation and the punk’s vital attitude the echo of artistic and literary vanguards that emerged in the convulsion of Europe between the wars. Punks take from Dada a sense of play, the conversion of the stigma into an emblem (‘Dada, Dada is the Yet of the blamed’) and the negation of future (‘I am stigmatized by a living death in which real death holds no terrors for me,’ says Artaud (1976, p. 92), but it could describe any punk). From Surrealism, the punk takes the obsession for flouting codes, for metaphorical associations, for subversion as a policy, for the privilege of the visual. (Punks are enthusiastic about Buñuel’s films, Le chien andalou and Los olvidados.) From futurism, the punk takes technological advances, urban identity and the collapse of symbols for the success of signals. In fact, the punk brings new aesthetic languages: fanzines, videos, garments, graffiti. Rock-­p op-punk Parallel to the countercultural line, another interpretation focuses on the music dialectics lived during the post-­war period. For Paul Yonnet (1988), the punk is a synthesis between the rock ’n’ roll of the 1950s and the pop of the 1960s; between hard harmony and sophistication; between acoustic animality and artificiality; between the myth of origin and the myth of scatology (between past and future); between the mask activities and the vertigo activities (between fashion and drugs); between the male and the female; between experience and utopia; between community and individual. In this sense, the sublimation of the one-­dimensional human is prophesized. Beat-­h ippie-punk The clearest correlations are established with the countercultural youth movements that preceded punk (and against which punk reacts). Luis Racionero (1983) chooses the cycle beat-­hippie-punk as emblem of three different times in the development of advanced industrial societies, corresponding to three successive models of social attitudes towards free time (the post-­war elitist existentialism, the consumer welfare of the 1960s and the crisis of the 1980s). In this

Punk stories   33

sense, the punk announces in a buffoon’s way the inevitable transition from unemployment to leisure. Skinhead-­R astafarian-punk Dick Hebdige (1979) interprets different reactions to the presence of black immigrants coming from Jamaica. In this sense, the punk aesthetics can be seen as a ‘white translation’ of ‘the black ethnicity’ – that is, an ambivalent reaction against the racist exploring of autochthonous working-­class subcultures (skinheads) and the subcultures of the second generation of West Indian immigrants (Rastafarians). Punk music combines elements from harsh Oi! music and from apocalyptical reggae. Punks and skinheads share their proletarian origin, their ties to the territory, their aggressive attitude, some elements of style (boots, short hair), their rejection of the police and a certain sense of being British, but their political attitudes and their relationship with other ethnical groups are what make the difference. Punks share with Rastafarians their appreciation of multiculturalism (punks were called ‘blacks’ as a snub), a politically engaged attitude and even a certain sense of apocalypse (futurist in the case of Rastafarians, presentist in the case of punks). Therefore, they explore the emergence of a syncretic culture. Every one of these correlations shows more or less relevant, more or less visible, aspects, but they all focus on the original British punk. To a certain extent, it is assumed that there is a homogeneous universal model, the tendencies of which are slight variations of the same thing. What is significant about punk, however, is that it managed to take root in different – sometimes contradictory – social and territorial contexts, and managed to adapt efficiently to the national and local conditions. At the beginning of the 1980s, when the movement was fading in its British cot, it was emerging from its own ashes in other places like Lleida and Neza York (Feixa, 2012).

Punk stories Felix the Cat One morning in June 1985, walking along Calle Major in Lleida, Catalonia, I met Felix. He was seated on the terrace of the Bar Alcazar, drinking mineral water and reading El País. He had short hair, sunglasses and a big earring in one ear. I had met him at the Movement of Objectors of Conscience. I stopped and talked to him for a while. He told me he was unemployed and was expecting some news from the civil service. He told me also that he had just issued a fanzine that he had been preparing for a long time. At that time, I was looking for informants for my degree thesis about youth. I had been gathering life histories of middle-­class pijos, progres and kumbayás, but I had yet to deepen my research into the experience of young suburban people. I knew that Felix was

34   C. Feixa

from La Terreta, one of the most popular neighbourhoods in the city, and that he was into alternative things, so I suggested interviewing him. He gladly accepted: he had stacks of time and he didn’t mind talking about his life. We met at his place the following day and he promised to show me his latest records. I was punctual to my appointment. Felix was waiting for me at the threshold of his home, a ground floor in a subsidized housing estate from the 1960s like many others in that working-­class suburb. After showing me the posters in his bedroom, we went out to the little garden of the block and sat on a bench. I explained to him that I was carrying out a study about young people in Lleida and that I wanted him to tell me things about his life. I could hardly get my notebook and my recorder out before Felix started to talk, and our conversation went on for three hours. Few informants have made my work so easy. During this first session, I only listened. My friend’s discourse about his own biographical trajectory was structured and spontaneous. I soon realized that there was a lot to the story: I was facing a good narrator who could combine detailed descriptions of places and environments with general reflections about different subjects, funny anecdotes and critical opinions in a fresh and enjoyable language. I think he had as good a time as I did, so he was happy to meet me again the following week to complete the story. The second interview was more structured. I had some guidelines regarding the subjects I was interested in researching and was asking leading questions to gather information about them, as I had done with my previous informants. What was unique about Felix was that the reflections about every institution fitted together in a vital, original, emblematic trajectory. I soon realized that the connecting thread in the whole story was the influence of certain musical-­ aesthetic styles that marked different phases in his life, in an evolution that had led him to his current identification as punk – something I didn’t view as random, but rather something linked to his social condition and ideological itinerary. I had interviewed another two young people who belonged to urban tribes, but so far, I had not found anyone who could reason their life options in such a convincing way. This time we met in a bar in the local neighbourhood, and some of his friends came too. After playing a game of pool, I put my recorder on the table. In that session, the monologue became a dialogue of different people. It wasn’t only Felix talking: there was a game of mirrors established between himself, his people, the neighbours and the interviewer. The surprising thing was that Felix’s look was not very spectacular (he didn’t really look too punk). Unlike some of his punk friends, Felix was apparently pacific and not particularly outrageous. But he wasn’t showing everything on the surface. I spent that summer in the Pyrenees writing up my thesis work. I presented it in October and invited Felix to the reading that I introduced with some rock music. Everyone who read my work agreed that Felix’s autobiography was the best part of it. I decided to write an introduction that could put the story into context and look for an editor who would publish it. But time went on, and the

Punk stories   35

project lay in a drawer. What didn’t get put aside was the friendship between Felix and me. The following year I moved to Sitges, and Felix visited me often. I remember a carnival when we went into many pubs. We used to go to the Bar Felix, in the Street of the Sin, where they played hardcore and we would spend hours playing pool and drinking beer. That bar had the same name I had chosen for my informant: I completed his nickname by adding the name that was painted inside the bar (‘The Cat’). At that time Felix was still unemployed, doing a thousand little jobs. His dream was to rent a house in Lleida’s old city centre and open a music bar. At that time there was a TV programme presented by Montserrat Roig, a famous Catalan writer, called Buscarse la vida (Making a living). In that programme, portraits of different youth environments were presented every week through an in-­depth interview. I thought Felix could be a good interviewee, and sent his life story to the writer who presented the programme. Shortly afterwards, she wrote back showing her interest in interviewing my friend. I told Felix and he was totally thrilled about it: ‘I might even find a job,’ he said to me. A TV team visited him at home, but the programme was suddenly cancelled (it was seemingly too daring). Felix told me in the end that he was relieved: he wasn’t sure he would be able to control his image as naturally as he did during the interview. Audio-­visual language did not allow the same parity as simple aural language. I did not hear from him again until I returned from Mexico in 1992. My students told me that there was a new bar open, and that it was run by a very nice couple. One day I was telling them about the youth gangs in Mexico and they invited me to go there. It was a narrow and noisy hole, full of young rockers and countercultural posters; the atmosphere was warm and cosy. Felix and his partner were at the counter: they had realized their dream of opening a music bar. We hugged and I invited them home to talk to them about Mexico and the youth movement. Felix didn’t look punk any more. He had settled down and his hair had grown. He lived with his wife above their bar and things were good: ‘All I have to do is pay my taxes every three months and defend myself when the police come looking for drugs.’ I brought him Mexican hardcore music, Emiliano Zapata’s posters and mezcal. He had become an adult, but he hadn’t lost any of his youthful ideals. Pablo el Podrido (Pablo the Rotten) Four months after I got to Mexico, in April 1991, a chavo member of Neza’s Mierdas Punk called me on the phone. I had met him at El Chopo, a street market for all the subcultures, and Maritza, a Peruvian sociologist and very good friend of mine who was doing her PhD thesis about Mexican rock ’n’ roll, had talked to him about me. He said his name was Pablo and he wanted to visit me and show me some videotapes about his gang in Neza. What follows are fragments of the diary I wrote, including some impressions of my relationship with him.

36   C. Feixa

26/4/91. Pablo visits me in the afternoon. He seems a sensitive, somewhat sad boy. He is about 22, although he looks older: he is married and has a months-­old baby. He is wearing working boots, jeans, a metal bracelet and a white shirt with the inscription, ‘We don’t vomit what we feel, just what we know’. He works as a freelance roof waterproofer, although he also has chambeado [worked] as a fire-­eater, masked fighter and factory worker. Since he has had to face new family responsibilities he doesn’t look punk anymore, but when he can he disguises again, like he did last Sunday when he went to a gig of Eskorbuto (a Basque Punk band). He is very punctual to our appointment and brings some fanzines with poems he wrote. Without much introduction, he starts the story of his life and he even asks to be recorded. I record four hours with one interruption to eat. 5/5/91. My wife and I are invited at Podrido’s today for dinner. He wants us to meet his wife, Geli, and his baby. They live in the colony of Las Aguilas, quite far away from Neza. We spend nearly one hour in the truck from the metro terminal, dodging traffic along Pantitlán Avenue (a total of nearly two hours from central DF ). It is a very hot Sunday and we are exhausted by the time we get there. The young couple lives in a room attached to Pablo’s mother’s house. There is a log at the entrance ‘where the drunk sit’. In the interior patio, there are a few plants, a basin, the hanging laundry and the faded garlands from the fifteenth birthday party that one of Pablo’s sisters celebrated before Christmas. Geli is a very beautiful girl; she’s about 24, and she is very happy to meet us. After showing us their baby, she makes us a very refreshing mango drink. The room is very simple. Pablo only finished putting up the asbestos roof a few weeks before, and they had hardly finished painting it. There’s a small double bed, a cooker, a few shelves with cooking utensils and food, a work table for cooking and low unit with a small TV on top of it. There isn’t a cot for the baby, and the couple’s few belongings are under the bed. The walls are decorated with posters of La Polla Records and punk collages. While Geli prepares dinner, Pablo shows us some fanzines, newspaper cuts, old photos, punk music cassettes … his whole personal and disorganized museum. He also shows us his old clothes as a relic: a denim jacket with holes on it, full of punk designs and inscriptions; his Sex Pistols flip flops; a mask that he used to wear when he did freestyle wrestling in an arena in the neighbourhood. After the meal (beef tacos with nopales), we went for a walk round the area. We couldn’t have had a better guide. Podrido shows us around: streets, walls, people. The most immediate visual impact is how people look. In fact, the whole territory is a big look: every wall is marked with an inscription – usually the name of the gang that dominates in the area: Mierdas Punk, Vagos, Chicos, Diablillos. Or nicknames of gang members (Podrido is in a few of them). The place with more inscriptions is around the secondary school: ‘All gangs gather here and they want to demonstrate that they exist.’ Against the

Punk stories   37

background of desolated streets, without any pavement, with rubbish piling up in some of the corners, the graffiti is in perfect symbiosis with the ecosystem. Another visual impression is given by the crosses in the streets. Pablo had already mentioned them during our interview. They are there in memory of chavos (men) who have been murdered in fights between gangs, robberies or police fire. The most impressing ones are two standing together in a street where two morritos (young boys) from the Diablillos were killed. They are surrounded by metal tanks with wilted flowers: ‘Three members of this gang have been killed already. I’m showing you so that you can’t think I’m making things up. Violence is daily routine.’ We meet two Diablillos and we start to talk. Last Saturday evening there was a fight in the neighbourhood between a local gang and a gang from another area, at a gig. One chavo ended up in hospital, and there’s fear of revenge. Chavos inquire about Spanish rock ’n’ roll. A third member of the gang joins us later on, with his string vest, all in black. Leaning against the wall, the gang members slowly join in, in the calm of a Sunday afternoon, after the thunder of the Saturday night. 13/9/91. Our plane leaves Monday early morning from the city that has kept us for nine months, and we have decided to gather the people that we have met and loved during this intense period. It can really be explosive because we have invited pure chavos banda, rock ’n’ rollers, anthropologists, museologists and others. The happiest ones seem to be the gang from Neza, who promise to call. At about eight, nearly everything is ready: botanas, tamalitos, drinks and other foods. Pablo and Geli arrive, very happy, with their child. After a while, the whole gang gets there: ET, Sara, el Espía, el Radio and el Rabino. There are over 40 people. The variety in their clothing makes a really striking impact. Before they leave, the punks take me outside and they empty a whole bottle of beer over my head: this is the baptism to enter the gang. ‘Now you’re one of us!’ They climb into their Colectivo Caótico van and take their way back to Neza. Podrido stays at the party (he’s a little drunk) with the rest of old jipitecas and chavos afresados. Someone complains that I take Pablo – who has fallen asleep from his drinks – as representative of the gang: ‘This is not the gang, this is a drunken man.’ I prefer not to say anything, but a chava says it for me: ‘Why do you take it from him? I could be the one drunk!’ In the meantime, Geli puts her baby into bed. We have to wait until seven – when the underground opens – to take a more serene Pablo, Geli and the baby home: ‘We’ll miss you!’ 7/9/96. Five years have elapsed and I have spent a few days in Defé. Nearly everything has changed in Mexico during this time: the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, the political murders, the fall of Salinas, the economic and political crisis, and more. Shortly after arriving, a new guerrilla unit located

38   C. Feixa

in Guerrero and Oaxaca has carried out its worst attack: there have been dead from two places I know, Tlaxiaco and Huatulco. The streets are full of caricatures of Salinas and the Chupacabras (a mysterious mutant that kept the whole country in anxiousness during the summer). But in el Chopo and Neza, everything is more or less the same. I meet a few Mierdas on Saturday at El Chopo: ET is the same as ever, like the lady of tacos, but something looks different at the market: Jipitecas have their stalls, everything seems more settled, there are CDs instead of tapes, there’s a space for exhibitions and gigs at the end, drugs are banned and there’s even a security guard from the tianguis. On Sunday, I am invited to Neza: They visit some premises at Chimalhuacán that maybe will get assigned for cultural activities. We spend the time discussing the impact of Zapatism among chavos. I don’t see Pablo until the day before I leave. He attends the closing session of the seminar and we spend the night with him and Maritza. I can see he’s a lot more mature and settled, he’s put some weight on and he’s as kind as ever. Pablito was christened and they have another chavito. His jobs are temporary as ever, but he’s never unemployed. They’re still living with his parents-­in-law. I talk to Geli on the phone to reassure her: Pablo will spend the night with me. He says he hasn’t drunk for a while: they went to Guadalupe with his wife and swore that he would not drink at all during a year, and he has kept his word so far. Nevertheless, he still goes to some wild parties and his cultural activism has increased: they issued a handicraft little book, they made a new video recording, they continue with their fanzines and poetry, they projected a self-­employment cooperative for the Diablillos, they supported the Zapatistas. We have breakfast at the airport in the morning. I am travelling to Paris and he is going back to Neza. When we say our goodbyes, I promise myself that I will publish his story soon, so that there is a testimony of his contradictions and his fights, so that his dreams – his punk dreams – can revive.

Punk lives The life stories of Felix and Pablo diverge in terms of time and space: six years and an ocean separate them. Yet they present many surprising parallels. The first is a formal one: both texts are the result of four-­session recorded interviews that lasted for about ten hours; once transcribed, they are about the same length; they are both structured into big thematic biographical parts that correspond to the different institutional and leisure spaces where their lives have developed; they both have a novel structure that combines anecdotes with the essential, humour with the tragic sense of life, a slow pace with speed, romantic fiction with genre noir. Although my analysis is not focused on this, it is important to point out that the language is a fundamental element when it comes to understanding the stories: they are both full of the youth jargon that is characteristic of the particular places and moments (the language of movida and caló, respectively).

Punk stories   39

The second parallel relates to the content. The two men’s life trajectories have significant coincidences: they were both born in the 1960s and were young in the 1980s; they both come from a working-­class background; their families had migrated to the city; they both show a strong class, gender and generational awareness; both were brought up in peripheral areas with strong networks of neighbouring solidarity and an important movement of association; both lived through family conflicts and both experienced the absence of their fathers (due to death or separation); they had both been good students during their primary education and they both became ‘lazy’ at secondary school; they both have a long labour experience where they have combined factory jobs with working in the underground economy, and periods of great activity with times of unemployment; they were both initiated into sex by mature women; they have both belonged to youth gangs; they both broadened their area contacts to the broader city; and both have settled as they have married their partners, who were also part of their world and with whom they hope to share their future. Their aesthetic and ideological options have also many things in common: both have belonged to anarchist groups; both have been attracted by rock ’n’ roll as a form of expression of youth identities; they have been active in free-­radio movements, fanzines, squatting and so on; they evolved from more or less destructive phases, marked by drugs and violence, to more constructive attitudes; they both make astute criticisms; and they both conceive ‘being punk’ not as a trend but rather as a behaviour that reflects their understanding of life and the world. A life story gathers the subject’s view in a given moment of their life development. It is a synthesis of personal identities in transition, of the image that each narrator wants to give of his self, and his social and cultural environment. Maybe not everything happened as they say it happened, and maybe they don’t say everything that happened, but that’s how they experienced it, and that’s how they want to transmit the story. In this sense, every life story is constructed around one or more leitmotifs, which organize their form and content. The leitmotif of Felix’s autobiography is the discontinuous construction of a personal awareness and image. Using his own words, he sees himself as a ‘mutant’ who constructs his personality like a jigsaw puzzle, from cuts and compositions, in a constant game of mirrors with his equals and his opposites. Although it may seem circular, the story is linear: it is a trajectory with a beginning (the neighbour and class identity) and a destination (the daily underground fight). No wonder the first and last bits (which were also the first and last things he told me about) are about his social environment and the reaction of his neighbours to the earring he’s wearing. Every thematic part is also linear (family, school, work, sexual and religious trajectories always lead to the reformulation of his awareness). The continuity of the written text reflects the continuity of the oral story: the interview had few interruptions and I hardly had to organize the material at all. Pablo’s autobiography is much more discontinuous. The leitmotif is whether or not he is still punk. This is the eternal reformulation of the question about a

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sense of existence. Although it may seem linear, it is a circular story that seems to stumble over the same pebbles repeatedly: the absence of the father; the neighbourhood’s poverty; the gangs’ violence; the police repression; escaping adult responsibilities; the desire to emigrate to the gabacho and so on. It is emblematic in the last part of the interview, when he talks about his dream. I consider it the perfect metaphor for his personal situation at that time: the punks’ disorientation, fear of the future, the presumption of an apocalypse in their immediate environment. But it is also the symbolic formulation of his hope to preserve his principles, his leadership of the gang: his wish not to change personally within the change. His life story is very well elaborated (the original interview was full of skipping and repetitions), which is why I structured it into ten topics that were repeated (not necessarily in chronological order). I am very concerned about being loyal to the person speaking to me, rather than to the tape on which I recorded his voice. These stories are pictures (or self-­portraits). The resulting life story is the fruit of two glances crossing: the glance of the subject who tells the story and the glance of the researcher who asks, listens and elaborates upon what has been said. I have always tried to reflect the images that both Felix and Pablo wanted to transmit, but I am aware that without my presence, the stories would have not been written or would not be the same. When they read them, both of them found them acceptable, but I am not so sure now that they identify any more with what they said then: they are both married and they don’t grumble about their future as much. But that’s how they felt when they were young, and that’s how they told their stories.

References Artaud, A. (1976). Antoine Artaud: Selected Writings (ed. S. Sontag). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Canevacci, M. (1990). Il punk e il flâneur. In M. Canevacci, Antropologia della comunicazione visuale. Roma: Sapere 2000. Feixa, C. (2012). De jóvenes, bandas y tribus (5th ed.). Barcelona: Ariel. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen. Marcus. G. (1989). Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Racionero, L. (1983). Beatnik, hippie, punk. In L. Racionero, Del paro al ocio. Barcelona: Anagrama. Roué, M. (1986). La Punkitude, ou un certain dandysme. Anthropologie et Societés, 10(2): 37–55. Yonnet, P. (1988). Juegos, modas y masas. Barcelona: Gedisa.

Chapter 4

Between popular and underground culture An analysis of Bucharest urban culture Anda Georgiana Becuț For those who are unfamiliar with what happened on the night of 30 October 2015, it was the night a fire started in the Colectiv Club, one of the best-­known rock nightclubs in Bucharest. A total of 64 people died and 173 were injured (mostly young people). That night, members of the rock band Goodbye to Gravity had planned to launch their new album, Mantras of War. They brought fireworks into a closed space, which was not designed or properly equipped for this kind of entertainment, and within a couple of minutes, everything turned to ashes. From that moment, my research gained a new direction, because the Bucharest nightscape economy and music scene have changed a lot since, and we can speak about ‘the Colectiv effect’, with its potent political and social implications. The tragic event rocked Romanian society from the first hours after the fire, as the number of dead and injured rose. The reaction of the Romanian institutions in charge of the rescue was slow, chaotic and demonstrated that they were unprepared for a disaster. The social reaction was fast, though, helped by social networks and mass media. Just four days after the event, around 25,000 people marched on the streets of Bucharest and in the main cities of the country against the government, the politicians and institutional corruption, blaming these factors for the tragedy. The slogan of the protesters was ‘Corruption kills’ and the social networks helped to spread this message and mobilize the people. As the official investigation into the Colectiv tragedy revealed, an act of corruption was the main cause of a series of illegal actions that were perpetuated over the years and peaked on the night of the fire. Moreover, the high number of people who died after being taken to hospital revealed the deficiencies in the Romanian medical system, with intra-­hospital infections and counterfeited sanitary solutions, due to corruption among hospital management. Romanians regarded these events as similar to the rest of the corruption with which they were dealing in their everyday lives, and asked for more: they wanted a change in the social and political environment. Enache Tuşa (2016, p. 28) also refers to a ‘Colectiv phenomenon that can be attributed as responsibility of the political system and of a part of society’.

42   A.G. Becuț

The echo of the popular manifestations that took place in November 2015 persisted for nearly two years, and the spirit of protest rose again on 31 January 2017, when at night-­time the recently elected government adopted a controversial decree that would decriminalize corruption. As in the case of the 2015 protests, social networks and mass media helped to bring together social spirit and civil society and once again the music of Goodbye to Gravity, this time in the form of the song The Day We Die (Goodbye to Gravity, 2015) with its critical commentary on the political situation in Romania, mobilized the people to demand their rights. With the help of their music, the underground artists have transmitted a message against the perverted values of Romanian society. They have created a social movement of moral recovery and have persuaded many young people to follow them in unlikely locations (Tuşa, 2016, p.  22). This was only one episode in a long series of social resistance movements, including the Vama Veche Rock Festival ‘Stufstock’, where there was resistance against tourism development, and ‘Fân Fest’ Festival in Roşia Montană, which resisted a gold-­ mining project. Research on the role of music as an agent of change has demonstrated that music has a rhetorical content and a larger meaning beyond the lyrics (Tas, 2014, p. 369). William Roy, cited by Hakki Tas, highlights the ability of music to turn into a form of collective action and a platform for solidarity (2014, p. 369). The ‘Colectiv effects’ were political (the governmental change), social (a new attitude against corruption), economic (on the night-­time economy) and cultural (on the music scene). After the fire, many nightclubs and other cultural locations (such as theatres) in Bucharest and across the country were closed down, many of the music bands or artists cancelled or postponed their concerts and the public remained extremely cautious about safety conditions in public spaces. In this context, it is important to understand the complexity of Bucharest cultural spaces and their role in the development of the city’s urban culture.

Methodology The methodology used in this study is based on 30 semi-­structured interviews with artists, band staff members and business people who organize music events. The selection of the respondents was based on specific criteria, such as the organization type – private – and the location and type of cultural activity. Another method used for collecting information was the participant observation, carried out by the author during the period 2010–11, and internet documentation conducted from January to March 2017. The concept of music scenes is in accordance with the definition of Peterson and Bennett (2004, p. xvi): The concept ‘music scene’, originally used primarily in journalistic and everyday contexts, is increasingly used by academic researchers to designate the contexts

Between popular and underground culture   43

in which clusters of producers, musicians, and fans collectively share their common musical tastes and collectively distinguish themselves from others. The chapter is organized into three parts, focusing on the distinction between mainstream and underground in terms of types of space and genres of music. The first part presents the Bucharest underground music scene. The second part focuses on the underground spaces from the viewpoint of gentrification and industrial reconversion, as important pillars on which the leisure and entertainment businesses in Bucharest city centre are built. The third part presents the audience–artist relationship in the Bucharest underground scene.

Bucharest underground music scene In Romania, underground music began to develop after 2000. Although almost 200 music bands have played in concerts and festivals since then, only around 20 music bands remain active, including small and new bands. Few bands managed to survive more than ten years, with most of them falling apart only after several years of existence. The bands that managed to remain in the scene for more than a couple of years were mainly those whose members were determined to play despite the difficult financial conditions from the first years, when the members of the bands had to invest their own money in their music production. So how do we define underground music in Romania? The analysis of the discussions on this topic revealed the fact that a music band is considered to be underground according to the number of spectators who can be mobilized in a concert (under 3000 spectators) or according to the band’s artistic message, which is an experimental or an alternative one. An underground band addresses a narrow segment of the population and plays non-­commercial music that cannot be heard on the radio or TV. According to my informants, only rock and hip-­hop bands are considered to be underground. Another definition of underground music is linked to alternative music, which is a music style ‘where the verse is very low and the chorus is very high, referring to the alternation of rhythms and sounds with a particular attention given to music text’ (underground music artist’s definition). Romanian underground artists address social themes in their songs, some of them related to poverty, social injustice, young people’s problems and corruption. They are not influenced by music-­market expectations, but do their job for pleasure – as a hobby – rather than as a business or for profit. Many of the artists have a second job, working mainly in the creative sectors (in architecture, marketing and publicity, IT and so on). The underground music scene is not a profitable activity, as there are not sufficient festivals and not enough spaces for this music; furthermore, there is no radio station dedicated to this genre – Radio Guerrilla used to promote the underground music scene, but was closed down between 2013 and 2016.

44   A.G. Becuț

Most of the earnings come from concerts organized mainly on weekends. The fee for a concert ticket is very low – around 20 Lei (4.5 Euro), mainly because the spectators are students and young people. The sale of CDs or DVDs is not a profitable activity because of extensive piracy and the Romanian audience’s low level of interest in paying for music. In this context, only a few recording studios are willing to sustain the Romanian underground music scene; if they decide to do so, the partnerships are mainly based on friendships. Therefore, most of the underground bands decide not to produce records or to open their own recording studios. There are few appearances of Romanian underground bands on television. Music consumption on the internet affects the Romanian underground music scene too, so the production of records has become very weak in recent years. This is why the main incomes are generated by playing live concerts. According to my informants, there is a change in the way that music consumption in recent years has been expressed in the audience’s interest in fresh music. While some years ago tours were based on a music album, now they are based only on a few singles. The internet changed the attitude of music consumers towards music performances, because several years ago they first listened to the album and then came to the concerts to see the artists; now they first access YouTube and see the concert or listen to the music, and then come to live concerts. Visual identity therefore becomes more important, and videos are an essential tool to attract audiences. In the context of social media, having a distinctive visual identity enables underground bands to promote their music and enlarge the number of fans. According to Mitchell and MacDonald (2016, p. 1), ‘visual information plays a critical role in the assessment of music performance’. Many researchers have highlighted the importance of the visual in interpreting musical signals, suggesting that more attention should be paid to video than to audio (2016, p. 2). Subcarpaţi is an example of a Romanian underground band that has shaped for itself a visual and acoustic identity based on Romanian folklore and become known both nationally and internationally. The band has built its visual identity by using traditional images and objects in its first albums – reminders of the country’s rural regions – but in its latest albums it has also explored the post-­ communist identity (see the communist blocks of flats in the video clips Cînd a fost la ’89 or Am crescut pe la Romană). According to the Guardian (2012): Subcarpați is an explosive mixture of old and new. It’s an eclectic combination that brings together melancholy Romanian folk songs, Romanian unity songs, traditional instruments and the rhythms of trip-­hop, dubstep, hip-­ hop and dancehall. An important part of the band’s identity is the language used in its performances and its name. There is a current debate about whether underground bands should play in Romanian or in English, and there is also a trend towards choosing

Between popular and underground culture   45

strange or funny names for the band – for example, Abnormin Deffect, Highlight Kenosis, Travka, Psiho Simphony.

Underground spaces in Bucharest: gentrification and reconversion This analysis is meant to highlight the profile of the spaces where underground music is performed, and their interdependence with the cultural expressions that are produced or distributed in these places. One of the main findings is that the spaces analysed are entertainment or leisure spaces – part of the city’s cultural infrastructure and cultural consumption. We consider these places to be alternative cultural consumption spaces because they are an alternative to the public cultural infrastructure that is directed especially to mass consumption of ‘popular’ cultural genres. In order to understand the features of these spaces in Bucharest, we present the definition of the concepts used and make the distinction between the commercial mainstream, and alternative or underground spaces. We will make use of Chatterton’s and Hollands’ (2003, p. 93) definition of the commercial mainstream space as ‘a place of capital accumulation’ and acknowledge that ‘only coincidently does it has anything to do with creativity, diversity and access’. Moreover, they are profit-­oriented entertainment places with the purpose of attracting both mass and niche audiences, consisting of young people in search of places that correspond to their expectations and their distinction practices. These places are part of the night-­time economy by providing youth a ‘playground’ for pleasure-­seeking and performing their identities. This type of space is characterized by ‘owned themed/branded or stylized environments and strict regulatory practices’ (Chatterton & Holland, 2003, p.  93). In contrast, the alternative consumption places or underground spaces are defined by Chatterton and Hollands (2003, p. 93) in opposition to and distinct from the ‘mainstream’, while the margins form the geographical edge of the centre. While some alternative spaces are simply more bohemian versions of mainstream culture, others openly identify themselves as oppositional. Although the places analysed correspond to this definition of alternative or underground spaces, there are some differences as far as their localization is concerned. In Chatterton and Hollands’ analysis, the alternative spaces are located at the margins of cities because of a lack of consumer financial strength. In Bucharest, they can be found especially in the historic city centre, although there are a few around the city’s periphery. This is partly because corporations recently entered Bucharest’s night-­time economy, and partly because of the clustering of leisure spaces that has created a habit of cultural and entertainment

46   A.G. Becuț

consumption mostly in the city centre, together with few transportation facilities for the neighbourhoods on the periphery. The capacity of clubs to receive the underground music audience is reduced; while there are several clubs in the city centre with a relatively large capacity, it is not sufficient, and initiatives to set up former factories in other neighbourhoods as venues have failed because of the public’s preference for attending events in the centre of Bucharest: In a concert the bands manage to gather approximately 1000–2000 people – and this is also the maximum capacity of a club in Bucharest. The bands that rally more than 2000 people are scarce and are facing a lack of space. There were initiatives for setting up concert spaces in (former) industrial halls, there was the Music Hall somewhere around Mihai Bravu. There are three or four clubs with a large capacity for concerts, such as Fabrica, Silver Church and … the majority are found in the Old City of Bucharest. There is also Turbohale, but it’s far from the centre of the city and the people only come if they are offered something of quality. (PR professional for an underground music band) These kinds of spaces tend to cluster in a certain area of the city – in Bucharest, particularly in the Old City. Some authors consider the return of entertainment to the city centre as an expression of the revitalization of the central areas of the old industrial cities, and view it as very important for urban economic development (Chatterton and Hollands, 2002). A possible explanation is that, in the post-­socialist era, the audience prefers to occupy the city centre, which during the socialist period was under the domination and control of the Communist Party and its members. After the fall of the communist regime, the old cultural spaces remained more or less the same in terms of architecture, design and amenities, keeping the stamp of communism and becoming unattractive to audience and artists. Therefore, while the spaces analysed are entertainment spaces, at the same time they are a part of the cultural infrastructure and a cultural consumption space. However, the local authorities were not sufficiently aware of this until the fire in the Colectiv Club, and such places remained ignored in terms of regulations and control for a long time. Due to its communist past, the cultural sector in Romania has several distinctive characteristics in terms of its cultural infrastructure, the features of the main actors who operate in the field, the profile of the cultural audience/­ consumers and the structure of the cultural system. The fall of the communist regime brought important changes in the cultural system. Relevant to our analysis is the privatization of some cultural public spaces as well as the public spaces that dealt with food and drink consumption. Privatization brought with it the transfer of responsibility from the state to private owners and a weak degree of regulation and control of the activities in these places (the legal

Between popular and underground culture   47

p­ rovisions refer mainly to alcohol and tobacco consumption, noise management and fire safety). After a long period of censorship, the need for leisure activities and entertainment was huge, and the Romanian people were eager to try different forms of arts and culture. But the old cultural infrastructure and cultural spaces were not adequate for the new forms of artistic expression in terms of capacity, amenities and design in various cultural subsectors – especially music, theatre and visual arts. A new category of actors was therefore born in the cultural field, consisting mainly of private spaces for businesses combining leisure, entertainment and artistic performances: In the last five years the underground market has developed very much because of the great demand in the clubs, which compete against each other and have begun to bring less-­known foreign bands and artists, which has created competition for the Romanian bands. The bands choose their performing spaces depending on the customers’ profile, too – they make sure that the customers match the profile of their fans. There are clubs that have a disco programme during the weekend and underground concerts on weekdays. (PR professional for an underground music band) Gentrification of the Bucharest city centre is a recent phenomenon, compared with other European capitals, because the buildings were nationalized in the communist period. In the transition period, the process of property restitution was slow and many buildings are still in dispute. In some cases, the nouveaux riche bought the spaces and evacuated the tenants (many of them members of vulnerable groups, such as people with low incomes or Roma people). Some of the newly renovated buildings in the city centre have been transformed into restaurants, shops, night-­clubs or music clubs, with very few of them having any approval from the institutions in charge of fire prevention. Moreover, many of these buildings have no resistance in case of an earthquake, so they are at risk of collapse at any time, thus endangering patrons’ lives. This was the main reason why, after the Colectiv Club event, nearly all these spaces were closed down. Some of the businesses from the city centre moved to safer buildings, while others improved their conditions and obtained approval from the fire station. In Bucharest, the development of club culture over the last 25 years has been based on the pillars of an inadequate infrastructure, a low level of public regulation and control, and a high degree of interest in entertainment. The case of underground music clubs in Romania is very much like that of the Australian East Coast during the period 1950–70, where ‘the pub rock boom benefited by the expansion of radio and music television programs and also by corruption, lax policing and a blatant failure to observe licensing regulations’ (Homan, 2002, p. 92). Similar to the Romanian case, the fire that led to seven deaths at the amusement centre at Luna Park in Sydney in June 1979 prompted changes

48   A.G. Becuț

to venue safety laws that reduced the fire risk, but they also put severe constraints on a successful local industry (Homan, 2002, p. 94). Another phenomenon worth mentioning is the reconversion of old communist factories or industrial areas into leisure spaces. In Bucharest, this is linked with the process of deindustrialization and functional reconversion. As Liviu Chelcea (2008, p. 361) states, ‘being evacuated slowly from the Bucharest landscape, the industry was reinserted in most diverse cultural spaces, as a metaphor, as museum artefact, or as cultural distinction (alternative cultural space)’. Ironically, in this context, the work spaces from the communist period became the leisure spaces in post-­communist Bucharest. The Colectiv Club is one example, where the old space was redesigned for entertainment purposes. The club used the basement of a hall of the old Pionierul shoe factory, but the materials used to redecorate the place were not suitable, and allowed the fire to spread quickly. The investigation revealed that the materials used provided a good acoustic and were very aesthetically pleasing, but they were not fire-­ resistant; on the contrary, they helped the flames to spread, which raised the number of deaths and injured people. While in other countries there is legislation that attempts to abolish dangerous practices in entertainment venues, as in the case of Oz Rock in Australia (Homan, 2002, p.  92), in Romania, until the Colectiv fire, there weren’t any laws regarding the number of people attending performances, or related to internal décor (paint fire ratings, fire-­retardant furniture).

Underground music and the audience–artist relationship This gentrification trend is highlighted through the consumer/public profile. These places are visited and preferred by young people, teenagers and young adults, as well as middle-­aged people in search of ‘cool’ places. Researchers became more and more interested in this social phenomenon and used different concepts in order to explain the diversity of forms of expression and practices related to youth culture. These included the model of subcultures from the Chicago School, club cultures (Malbon, 1999) and ‘neo-­tribes’ (Bennett, 2001). In this context, music offers the opportunity for young people to build ‘magical identities’ in their search for ‘an identity which is separate from the roles and expectations imposed by family, school and work’ (Brake, 2003, p. 166). The audience profile in the Bucharest underground music scene is influenced by a venue’s design and structure, depending on the genre of music delivered in that space. The cultural genre or the event type will shape the place’s identity and the public/consumer’s profile. These ‘sensescape’ spaces are defined through the ambience designed by the owner of that place, and in this way the latter structures the profile of the future audience/consumer. The research showed the direct connection between the public’s age and the genres of music, with some

Between popular and underground culture   49

of them being more integrated into youth culture than others. Their audience tends to fall into the young professionals (yuppies) category; as long as the night-­time economy focuses on the idea of being ‘cool’, these young professionals seek fashionable bars and clubs (Chatterton and Hollands, 2002). The audience for an underground band in Bucharest is between 200 and 1000 people, while Facebook fans number around 30,000 on average. Most of them are young people between 16 and 35 years of age, students or active in NGOs or companies in the creative sector: For the most part there are the students, if we take into consideration the events, too; they are 22 years old on average, if we consider live concerts, well-­known bands, but there are also concerts attended by married people. (Underground artist) When choosing a place in which to perform, the artists consider their public first, to see whether they are willing to come to that location. The interviewed artists mentioned that Bucharest was lacking suitable places for underground music, and they named around four places, with Colectiv Club being one of them: My music is for bars and clubs, I couldn’t sing at the Philharmonics, because I would look ridiculous. We grew up on this music and I don’t want to get away from this music area, we used to be consumers in this area, too … An advantage would be that, in a club such as Fabrica, which accommodates nearly 500 people and people are ‘packed’, this seems to me an ultimate advantage, because this shows your value on the market, the great disadvantage is where you cannot know whether the people have come for you or for other bands or only to hang around. (Underground artist) They mentioned the importance of ventilation, which is very important during the performance – both for the artists and for the audience. Another important criterion mentioned was the acoustics, both from the artistic viewpoint and from the standpoint of the public’s satisfaction: Because what counts the most is the sound system, you can sing on a stadium and have a bad sound or you can sing in small spaces, like I did in Arad a while ago, in a small space, with 250 people and it went great, I like these places where I can interact very well with the public. (Underground artist) Last time when we performed in Expirat, we went there, we tested the equipment also before the concert started and the basses died, to this day I don’t know why, it’s still an enigma, Miki panicked and said, ‘That’s it, we

50   A.G. Becuț

don’t sing anymore’, and I somewhat understood him, but the club was overcrowded and it would have been kinda stupid to postpone the concert because the sound went down, but in the end we sang a lot that evening. (Underground artist) Unfortunately, none of my informants mentioned the safety of the artists and audience, which after the Colectiv fire proved to be the most important criterion in choosing a location for performance or entertainment.

Conclusion In the post-­socialist period, the Bucharest underground music scene became more and more developed and attractive for Romanian as well as international artists, until the tragic event in the Colectiv Club. Underground music has developed particularly in alternative cultural spaces – for example, the former communist factories or old nationalized buildings. While in other countries these alternative spaces tend to be found on the outskirts of cities, in Bucharest their clustering is greater in the centre of the city because of the urban policy and cultural consumption practices during the communist period, the effects of which have manifested themselves up to the present. The economic and social problems (including corruption) from the communist period, as well as the deficient urban infrastructure, are reflected in the contents of the underground music (lyrics, sounds, images) as well as in the manner in which this music scene has developed in Romania. The results of our research showed that the underground music scene in Bucharest had developed in an unsafe environment, marked by a precarious infrastructure, corruption regarding operation licences, greed and ignorance of the stakeholders in the entertainment nightscape. The impact of the ‘Colectiv effect’ is far from being over: it still affects the underground music scene, not only in Bucharest but all over the country, and this is the main reason why our research will help future analysis of this topic by providing precious information.

Acknowledgements The chapter is based partly on a study carried out in 2010 by the team of the Centre for Research and Consultancy on Culture, conducted by the author (June–September 2010; March–August 2014; and January–March 2017). The chapter uses the information collected in 2011 through semi-­structured interviews undertaken by a research team from the Center for Research and Consultancy on Culture (Oana Donose, Ștefania Voicu, Crăița Curteanu and Andrei Crăciun, under the supervision of Anda Becuț).

Between popular and underground culture   51

References Bennett, A. (2001). Cultures of Popular Music. Berkshire: Open University Press. Brake, M.C. (2003). Comparative Youth Culture: The Sociology of Youth Cultures and Youth Subcultures in America, Britain and Canada. New York: Routledge. Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2002). Theorising urban playscapes: Producing, regulating and consuming youthful nightlife city spaces. Urban Studies, 39(1): 95–116. Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2003). Urban Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power. London: Routledge. Chelcea, L. (2008) Bucureștiul postindustrial: Memorie, dezindustrializare și regenerare urbană. Bucharest: Polirom. Goodbye to Gravity (2015). ‘The Day We Die’. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/ watch?v=APQLbhk-­rfY. Guardian (2012). July’s best music from across the MAP. Guardian, 18 July. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2012/jul/18/music-­alliance-pact-­july. Homan, S. (2002). Cultural industry or social problem? The case of Australian live music. Media International Australia, 102(1): 88–100. Malbon, B. (1999). Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy and Vitality. London: Routledge. Mitchell, H.F. and MacDonald R.A.R. (2016). What you see is what you hear: The importance of visual priming in music performer identification. Psychology of Music, 44(6): 1–11. Peterson, R.A. and Bennett, A. (2004). Introducing music scenes. In Bennett, A. and Peterson, R.A. (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Trans-­local and Virtual (pp. 1–16). Nashville, TN. Vanderbilt University Press. Tas, H. (2014). Melodies of resistance: Islamist music in secular Turkey. Social Compass, 61(3), 368–83. Tuşa E. (2016). Colectiv-­Dezastrul care a schimbat o epocaˇ (Colectiv, the Disaster that Changed an Era). Sfera Politicii, 14: 19–30.

Chapter 5

DIY as a constitutive resource of the specific punk capital in France Pierig Humeau

Even though punk music has now taken its rightful place in the musical landscape, as demonstrated by Andy Bennett’s (2009) work, it is still mostly neglected in the field of sociological research – at least from a non–Anglo-­Saxon perspective. The field of cultural studies has dealt with youth ‘subcultures’ (Cohen, 1970; Gelder and Thornton, 1997; Hall and Jefferson, 1975; Hebdige, 1996), looking into aspects such as the ‘significance of style’ (Hebdige, 1979) and the concepts of ‘creolization’ (Hannerz, 1992) and ‘cultural hybridization’ (Hall, 2000), yet French scientific research has shown little interest in the punk genre so far, while most other musical genres have become more privileged regarding the study of the sociology of music (jazz, rock, rap, metal and electronic music). However, since the mid-­1970s, the punks have been gaining a certain visibility in the social space. In France, there are nearly as many punk concerts today as there were when the genre first emerged. This is a sign of an interest in line with public taste, as demonstrated by the high number of bands, production labels, websites, forums, newsletters and fanzines, as well as the growing number of (auto)biographical works emerging from the punk avant-­ gardes (Colegrave and Sullivan, 2002; Gray, 1999; Lydon, 1996; Parker, 2004; Savage, 2005). One of the main points of interest of this study is its ability to engage sociological issues beyond its boundaries. The punk ‘space’ (Humeau, 2011; Moore, 2007) is a powerful way to analyse the rise of countercultural styles (Bennett, 2006, 2012) and their international circulation (Bourdieu, 2002; Guerra and Bennett, 2015; Humeau, 2011; Sapiro, 2008) through transfers and exchanges selected by intermediaries (Becker, 1982) who apply their categories of perception (Bourdieu, 2002). Punk music provides an interesting means to inquire into the concepts of structural homology, particularly in the context of young male working-­class countercultural movements (Crossley and Bottero, 2014). It also provides a means to observe the changes in ways of socialization as well as in political engagement in relation to this phenomenon (Humeau, 2011). This chapter demonstrates how the structure of this space and its recognition paradoxically evoke principles akin to those of more autonomous spaces like ‘art for art’s sake’ or ‘social art’ (Bourdieu, 1992), as opposed to the logic that is

DIY as a resource of French punk capital   53

structuring the cultural and musical industries. Contrary to other established art fields, where this economic ‘interest in disinterest’ is quite common, here the disinterest does not also come with political disaffection. How can the first steps be transformed – or not – in a multidimensional activism? The effects of practical and ‘learning-­by-doing’ socialization will be demonstrated in order to understand the continuities – which are neither linear nor mechanical – between musical tastes, musical commitment and political front. A factorial design of the punk space will be presented (Lebaron and Le Roux, 2015; Le Roux and Rouhanet, 2004; Rouhanet and Le Roux, 1993, 2010). It is defined by specific laws and an internal structure linked to a specific configuration of agents coming from specific class fractions. The direct or indirect relations between the agents are defined by the distributions of their social resources, which are also linked to tastes and lifestyles. The aim is to produce a synthetic visualization of the relations between the space of positions and the space of punk tastes by presenting the oppositions and similarities of the agents. Based on the presentation of the group’s structure, we will discuss its different polarizations. The research material consists of a statistical survey (n=636) of 36 in-­depth interviews and more than three years of participant observation. For this chapter, the most important statistical results will be presented (for more details, see Humeau, 2011). The global punk population interrogated is predominantly masculine (85%) and comes from working-­class families; more than seven out of ten people are sons of workers or employees. Twenty-­three per cent are high school pupils or students, 22 per cent are workers, 16 per cent of employees and 21 per cent are unemployed persons with low-­level qualifications and unskilled jobs. School trajectories are frequently marked by a confrontational relationship with school (grade repetitions, exclusions from school) and very early drop-­outs. A synthetic approach to the French ‘independent’ punk space will be adopted through a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA).

The independent punk-­s pace polarities One of the characteristics of the punk space is the close link between multi-­ positional producers – musicians, fanzines, labels – and their public. This means that the receivers are often members of the bands, or participate in the organization of concerts. The mere concept of this space – the do-­it-yourself (DIY) ethos – acts as the power of each individual’s know-­how. A graphic representation of the independent punk space as a whole will be proposed, without ignoring the spaces of producers and bands, and the effects of internal distinctions between bands. The modalities were chosen with the aim of rebuilding the punk space by putting together the variables of position-­taking – such as practices and musical tastes – with the agents’ positions, both social and professional. Practices and opinions will be considered hypothetically as capable of ‘explaining’ the social

54   P. Humeau

structuring of this space. Position variables – age, gender and profession – will thus be projected as additional variables. For this MCA, there are nineteen active variables and 124 modalities. The cloud of individuals is interestingly spread, distributing the respondents in a homogenous way within the factorial space.

The space of position-­t aking The correspondence analysis (Figure 5.1) permits the establishment of the different polarities as far as taste is concerned inside the independent punk space by opposing the different generations as well as the politico-­artistic ageing. These generational differences go beyond the factor of age or seniority, and reflect a series of oppositions between the newcomers and the already established ones, expressed by what we will be calling the punk capital and the DIY. The first horizontal axis represents 23.53 per cent of total space inertia. The modalities that contribute the most in the creation of axis 1 are, for the left side of the graph, affiliation with organizations: ‘no’ (6.98%); current militant activities: ‘no’ (5.32%); musical activities: ‘no’ (4.68%); ancient militant activities: ‘no’ (4.12%); frequency: less than once a month (3.95%); other readings: ‘no’ (3.89%); seniority: less than a year (3.18%); motivation: to party (2.33%); and fanzine reading: ‘no’ (2.10%). For the right side, they are ancient militant activities: ‘yes’ (2.95%); current militant activities: ‘yes’ (2.79%); and motivations: ‘for activism’ (1.82%). The contributions in the first axis reflect the indicators of proximity (or of distance) to the militant activities. Axis 1 was thus identified as the one opposing the ‘militant capital –’ in the west side of the graph and the ‘militant capital +’ in the east side of the graph. The second axis represents 6.37 per cent of total inertia. On the south side, it is structured by: other readings: ‘yes, books’ (8.07%); other readings: ‘yes, science fiction’ (4.33%); average style: ‘rock ’n’ roll’ (4.08%); other readings: ‘yes, history novels’ (3.65%); other readings: ‘yes, graphic novel’ (3.18%); other readings: ‘yes, magazine’ (2.18%); newspaper: ‘Le Monde’ (1.93%); other readings: ‘yes, philosophy’ (1.85%); magazine, ‘Rock Sound’ (1.80%); ‘other styles’ (1.75%). On the north side of the graph, it is: other readings: ‘no’ (4.87%); seniority: ‘between three and four years’ (2.57%); type of place: ‘an artistic squat’ (2.12%); motivations: ‘for activism’ (2.08%); current militant: ‘yes’ (1.70%). This second axis follows a double logic defined by cultural capital. The clouds of points are distributed according to the relationship to reading and the sequencing of these practices. In the half-­chart situated on the south, we find those who read the most; we can easily distinguish among them two poles. On one hand, on the south-­west part, we have magazines more or less related to the punk space and what we call ‘amplified musics’ (Rock Sound, Punk Rawk). On the east side, readings concern a larger panel: press, novels – science fiction, polar; books – philosophy, history; and comics. The half-­chart situated on the north represents the ‘non-­readers’.

Figure 5.1 Space of practices and opinions (cloud of 124 active modalities in the factorial plan 1–2).

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However, if we look beyond the reading practices, which is an objective indicator of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1970), two of the modalities mentioned above seem to be very interesting. On one hand, the most important contribution in the creation of this axis is ‘average style of concert the respondent goes to’, namely rock ’n’ roll (4.08%). This modality is situated in the south part of the chart, almost in the intersection of the vertical axis. The second modality (‘other styles’: heavy metal, techno) is projected on the south-­west quadrant of the chart. In the creation of this ‘cultural capital’ axis, we notice that average styles are reinforced by adjacent cultural practices like ‘(no) reading’. This way, average styles evoked by the respondents and knowing the bands reflect globally specific dispositions. Observing the contributions – less important in percentage terms – seems to be of great interest. Indeed, after the modalities mentioned above comes a series of styles and of bands described by the respondents as independent punk bands. In the north-­east part of the chart we find the styles ‘punk’, ‘hardcore punk’, ‘Oi!’ and the bands RAB, RABHOP and Les Maux de la rue. For the south-­ west, it is ‘rock ’n’ roll’ and ‘other styles’ and Guerilla Poubelle. For the south-­ east part, it is Ludwig von 88, Oberkampf and Burning Heads. The above oppositions are based on a double dichotomy. The first opposition concerns the south-­east part of the chart, which seems rather oriented towards the past and expresses a certain punk cultural elitism based on a historic knowledge of this space, with bands like Oberkampf and Ludwig von 88, as opposed to the south-­west, where the average style is ‘other styles’. The north part of the graph tends to question the legitimate aesthetic ideals produced by the amateurs of the south-­east of this space. This means that the agents situated in the north of the graph quote rather small, contemporary, politicized bands, on upward mobility and seeking recognition. They consider that the punks of the 1980s belong to the past. On the contrary, those of the south-­east quadrant quote the 1970s and 1980s bands as if the latter still continued to define the good taste of this space. We find the band Parabellum next to the horizontal axis. This old group reconciles the two east regions. Regarding these first two axes, the bands Berurier Noirs and Tagada Jones (in the centre of the chart) are uncontroversial for all the respondents. The combination of the two main axes brings out three poles that intersect the effects of political and artistic ageing. In the south-­east region of the chart, we find the younger respondents who declare not having partisan or affiliation activities; for them, the average taste is rather ska music or other styles. The punk rock band Guérilla Poubelle is one of the references for this group. With regard to critic magazines of rock’n’roll and punk music, we observe that they are very visible socially, mainly to young people, as they declare that they are devoted to this type of reading. This group’s statistical analysis enables us to assume that some of these young people are in a situation of transition towards other musical spaces, closer to their social dispositions of origin. Their relation to this punk space is more distant. This socially miscellaneous region represents

DIY as a resource of French punk capital   57

the group of agents who make their first steps in the punk space, where we will later find the future producers. At the end of this analysis, we will call them the newcomers. The north-­east quadrant regroups punks with much more confirmed politico-­ musical competences than the newcomers. They have production practices – bands, sound engineering – and much stronger political involvement. They are multi-­activists and have many current political activities. For this research, their interrogation by questionnaire took place in the artistic squats. They have many relations with movements defending illegal immigration, homeless people and unemployed people, with anti-­fascist movements, with the anarchist movement and with groups defending the environment. They also have an important seniority. In contrast to the newcomers, the styles they represent are hardcore punk, punk rock and Oi! Affiliated to anarcho-­syndicalism, we can find among them CNT supporters, anarchists and LCR supporters. They state that they attend concerts ‘for activism’ and to ‘support the scene’. The factorial chart is a perfect match between concerts, bands and militant practices. Finally, in the south-­east quadrant, we find the more ancient respondents, who are the established avant-­gardes. They seem a little less involved in current militant activities. Nevertheless, they mostly declare an affiliation with organizations or unions of which they once were a part. Their relationship with music resembles the established in track of recognition, since they also participate in production. The ‘band’ modality is very close to the horizontal axis, and this expresses a strong affiliation for such practices for both poles. Moreover, we are not surprised to find them running a radio station or organizing concerts. Average styles quoted tend towards an intentional eclecticism (Coulangeon, 2003) and call on going back to the sources (the ‘alterno’). This reminds us that they were involved in the alternative scene during the 1980s. The term ‘alterno’ is a gratifying response regarding the implicit hierarchy of musical styles. Unlike the newcomers, they do not state that they are attracted by other styles. In addition to these eclectic musical and political practices, there are some other elitist practices mentioned, like all the reading media. This cartographic exploration reveals various results. First, this space opposes agents according to their militant capital (Axis 1). Such a statement may seem common or a bias of analysis. But the agents themselves consider the links that connect music and politics to be very important. Second, the volume of the specific militant and cultural capital (Axis 2) gives an account of the differentiated representations of what punk space is and should be through the prism of generational conflicts. The social reputation and visibility of the bands reinforce these differentiating factors. At the edge of the chart, the newcomers partly deny the reputation and recognition of avant-­garde punks, as they lack information about them and wish to further enlarge the frontiers, influenced by the critic media. The interest of this approach is not only to reveal polarizations due to stylistic affinities, works, bands, political affiliation and artistic ageing. The following

Figure 5.2 Space of social properties (cloud of 37 illustrative modalities in the factorial plan 1–2).

DIY as a resource of French punk capital   59

correspondence analysis enables an explanation of some principles regarding tastes and practices, through the projection of the social positions of the agents inside the space of tastes. The aim of this process is to demonstrate the existence of links that bring together the objective social positions in the social space and the musico-­political position-­takings in the punk space (Figure 5.2).

The space of positions inside the space of tastes Six variables were projected into additional elements (37 modalities): sex, age, profession, degree, level of qualification and father’s profession. On the vertical axis, we can see a reversed social distribution that opposes the working classes in the upper side of the chart, to the middle and upper classes in the bottom of the chart. On the same axis, the level of qualification confirms professional positions. The more we step away from the top of the graph, the more the agents possess an important school capital. The additional variables on the factorial map oppose agents who are professionally ‘established’ or students pursuing their studies to agents who are in rather precarious professional situations. Newcomers are geographically spread out near intermediary and higher professions. The horizontal axis leads to the hypothesis of an early politico-­artistic ageing, since the age curve approximately follows the seniority curve. Characterized by militant capital, this axis helps in differentiating the younger participants, who are still studying and not declaring their political affiliations – the newcomers – from the established avant-­gardes and the avant-­gardes in track to recognition, who have or have had militant activities. Those who have a post-­baccalaureate qualification are already next to the latter. Even if this does not come as a surprise, we ought to underline this precocity since half the post-­baccalaureates are younger than 20. The chart shows that they appear at the intersection of the two categories of avant-­gardes. We can assume that these effects are due to the structure of this space. If the cultural and school capital plays a role on militant careers, we thus notice a first transfer of school capital converted to militant capital. Finally, what brings together these avant-­garde groups is, on one side, the confirmed links between politics and musical style and, on the other, their leisure time.1 The group of avant-­gardes in track to recognition comes together by the possibility of acquiring a common musico-­militant culture. For these fractions, which are very poorly qualified, it is about converting practical competences into social and militant capital. Acting becomes a duty inside the group. For this part of the chart, it does not come as a surprise to find some working-­class fractions, as well as young post-­baccalaureate students with sympathy for anarchist movements, anti-­fascist movements and movements to protect human rights. These movements are original because of the forms they take – flexible associative structures, formed as friends’ networks, with a wide range of struggles – unemployment, accommodation – as well as because of the type of agents they rally,

60   P. Humeau

meaning people in precarious situations (north side of the graph) who are directly concerned by these struggles, but also ancient or new militants who are not directly concerned by these social problems, yet are very concerned by the defended cause. Beyond musical styles compatible with politico-­cultural nebula, we also find the ‘masculine’ modality and two bands who rally these agents. Thus this part of the chart contains one of the most popular bands of the Oi! scene, the La Brigada Flores Magone, close to anarcho-­syndicalism and the band Attentat Sonore, related to anarcho-­punk music. The harmony of homologies between average styles, quoted bands, political activities and objective social positions turns out to be quasi-­perfect for this group. Finally, those with a second or third university degree are found with the group of established avant-­gardes. We can assume that the most qualified participants, who are also the strongest readers, tend to play the sophistication card regarding the ‘rock’ modality on the factorial chart. The multivariate analysis shows that the most qualified come from the upper classes (65 per cent come from the middle classes). The idea of homology between positions and position-­ taking is therefore reinforced.

A space of possible careers Based on these analyses, we could consider that the creation of a punk ‘career’ follows a succession of non-­linear, non-­mechanical phases in which individual autonomy and DIY contribute to self-­definition. In this space, the newcomer, situated on the west side of the graph, has the role of a fan, an element that acts as a rite of practical initiation according to the principles of imitation and identification of famous bands. This participant undertakes the DIY and the ‘get on with it’ as a framework for normative action. Through a network of friends, they will go to concerts, then create music bands and play cover songs that are already famous. After all that, the punk apprentice will engage in a series of ‘self-­ produced’ and ‘self-­managed’ actions, the artistic and political value of which will be evaluated by their peers. Three typical examples taken from the qualitative inquiry will now be presented in order to demonstrate the DIY effects on the individual paths. Tom’s profile is caracteristic of the newcomer. He is 19 years old and in the last year of a technical high school. His father is a mason and his mother is a ‘line worker’ in a factory. He listens to punk music every day. Tom declares that he goes to concerts to meet people and to talk with the musicians. Some of his friends play in a ska-­punk band. He has not tried to play yet, but seems interested in doing so. Fanzines provide another perspective, even if he says he has trouble managing a computer. Finally, during the interview, he declares being close to anarchist milieux. Those in the category of avant-­gardes in track to recognition consider the DIY as a conviction and illusio. Mathieu, 26, is a singer in his punk rock band. He

DIY as a resource of French punk capital   61

was following a designer’s professional qualification and was excluded from it. He no longer has any relationship with his father, who is a heating installer. His mother is a janitor and his parents are divorced. He had participated in at least two more punk rock bands before we met. As a spectator, he comes to concerts between two and three times a week. In order to be able to organize the tours, the group members navigate between unemployment periods and temporary workers’ missions. Mathieu, like the other members of the band, invests himself in many political local organizations: ‘Total supporters of anarchism, but not engaged in a party or a union … We want to stay free.’ Along with the band, Mathieu has created a production label. He organizes concerts frequently in an artistic squat. His body hexis is very marked: crest, studded leather jacket and tattoos. Jean is part of the third category, the established avant-­gardes. He is 48 years old, works as a teacher, is a father of two and lives with his girlfriend. He has a university degree in contemporary history. The son of a union worker, he declares having arrived in the punk scene when he was 16. His militant pathway is formed by multiple affiliations, such as the Young Communists and Fédération Anarchists. For the last five years, he has been the secretary of the Communist Party in the region where he lives. With friends, he created a fanzine and a production label. He considers himself less engaged today than he was in the 1980s and 1990s, but without having lost all contacts. He continues to help out in concert organizing and participates in a radio programme once a month. Finally, he invests himself in an organization that aims to build an alternative village close to human rights protection movements and agro-­ecology. Those participants who are the most autonomous in this space and who are closer to DIY are the ones who stay for the long term. This shows the effect of this conviction on these agents. It is how they can gain a certain form of specific capital. The common denominator, the DIY, leads some agents who come from certain class fractions to engagement and others to self-­exclusion. The DIY assures a cultural, political and musical transmission and becomes a social framework for a part of the working class. To know oneself and to go into action under a common watchword functions as social magic, symbolically redefining each one’s position.

Note 1 These young people, unemployed or workers, tend to live on their own; they are often single, and thus have more flexible schedules and timetables. They are not in the petit bourgeoisie ‘settling down’ model, or seeking social upgrade (Geay and Humeau, 2016).

References Becker, H.S. (1982). Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bennett, A. (2006). Punk’s not dead: The significance of punk rock for an older generation of fans. Sociology, 40(2): 219–35.

62   P. Humeau Bennett, A. (2009). ‘Heritage rock’: Rock music, representation and heritage discourse. Poetics, 37: 474–89. Bennett, A. (2012). Pour une réévaluation du concept de contre-­culture. Volume!, 9(1): 19–37. Bourdieu, P. (1992). Les règles de l’art: genèse et structure du champ littéraire. Paris: Seuil. Bourdieu, P. (2002). Les conditions sociales de la circulation internationale des idées. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 145, 3–8. Retrieved from www.persee.fr/doc/ arss_0335-5322_2002_num_145_1_2793. Bourdieu, P. and Passeron, J.C. (1970). La Reproduction: Éléments pour une théorie du système d’enseignement. Paris: Minuit. Cohen, S. (1970). The teddy boy. In V. Bogdanor and R. Skidelsky (eds), The Age of Affluence, 1951–1964. London: Macmillan. Colegrave, S. and Sullivan, C. (2002). Punk: Hors limites. Paris: Seuil. Coulangeon, P. (2003). Stratification sociale des goûts musicaux. Revue Française de sociologie, 44: 3–33. Crossley, N. and Bottero, W. (2014). Music worlds and internal goods: The role of convention. Cultural Sociology, 9(1): 38–55. Geay, B. and Humeau, P. (2016). Becoming parents: Differentiated approaches to the procreation imperative. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 214: 4–29. Gelder, K. and Thornton, S. (1997). The Subcultures Reader. London, Routledge. Gray, M. (1999). The Clash. Combat Rock. Paris: Camion Blanc. Guerra, P. and Bennett, A. (2015). Never mind the Pistols? The legacy and authenticity of the Sex Pistols in Portugal. Popular Music and Society, 38(4): 500–21. Hall, S. (2000). Une perspective européenne sur l’hybridation: Éléments de réflexion. Hermès, 28: 99–102. Hall, S. and Jefferson, T. (eds) (1975). Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-­War Britain. London: Routledge. Hannerz, U. (1992). Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia University Press. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen. Hebdige, D. (1996). Système du mod. Réseaux, 80: 71–80. Humeau, P. (2011). Sociologie de l’espace punk «indépendant» français: apprentissages, trajectoires et vieillissement politico-­artistiques. PhD thesis, Université Picardie Jule Vernes, Amiens. Lebaron, F. and Le Roux, B. (2015). La méthodologie de Pierre Bourdieu en action. Espace culturel, espace social et analyse des données. Paris: Dunod. Le Roux, B. and Rouanet, H. (2004). Geometric Data Analysis from Correspondence Analysis to Structured Data Analysis. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Lydon, J. (1996). Sex Pistols: Rotten by Lydon. Paris: Camion Blanc. Moore, R. (2007). Friends don’t let friends listen to corporate rock: Punk as a field of cultural production. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36(4): 438–74. Parker, A. (2004). Sid Vicious: Too Fast to Live. London: Glitter Books. Rouanet, H. and Le Roux, B. (1993). Analyses des données multidimensionnelles. Paris: Dunod. Rouanet, H. and Le Roux, B. (2010). Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sapiro, G. (ed.) (2008). Translatio: Le marché de la traduction en France à l’heure de la mondialisation. Paris: CNRS Editions. Savage, J. (2005). England’s Dreaming: Les Sex Pistols et le punk. Paris: Allia.

Chapter 6

Boys in black, girls in punk Gender performances in the Goth and hardcore punk scenes in Northern Germany Yvonne Niekrenz

This chapter focuses on the construction of gender in youth cultures. The main question posed by the chapter is how young people deal with gender as a category and resource in their expression of their youth culture. The focus of the chapter is the male-­dominated hardcore punk scene and the Goth scene in the city of Rostock, which is the biggest city in Mecklenburg Pomerania, Germany. A common tendency among young men and women of both youth cultures is to diverge from dominant male and female body images. Young males in the Goth scene use female-­labelled representations, such as wearing makeup, while young females in the hardcore punk scene use male-­labelled signs and patterns of behaviour – for example, wearing army-­style boots. During adolescence, young people experiment with their own bodies (Niekrenz and Witte, 2011). Gender-­ based positioning and the provocative overstepping of normative gender boundaries, as well as an extreme emphasis on certain attitudes and characteristics linked to one’s own gender, are part of the personal development process. This chapter analyses qualitative interviews with three male members of the Goth scene and three women from the hardcore punk scene in Rostock. The analysis shows that adolescents display less normative differentiation between male and female bodies, instead allowing themselves to find various ways of representing masculinity and femininity. Therefore, these young men and women have their own views about male and female body images and gender issues.

Background and methodology In adolescence, teenagers are confronted with the dominant societal expectation of reproducing gendered identities and representations. This means displaying one’s own gender in a binary gender system, either as a man or as a woman. The hegemonic gender model is based on heterosexual gender identity and gender roles, which are based on biological gender attributes. During the youth phase – which youth research still conceptualizes as a moratorium (Erikson, 1959) – adolescents are able to gain experience about their societal environment and their own bodies. Research shows that gender-­related positioning is part of the moratorium and is expressed through exaggerations, ironic displays

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or hyper-­pointed emphasis (Fend, 2005, p. 222; Hübner-Funk, 2003). Exaggeratedly or ironically doing gender is frequently found in youth cultures, as it has a central meaning for adolescents’ coexistence with their peers (Brill, 2007). Within the Goth scene, male adolescents use androgynous forms of self-­ expression. Research on female adolescents in the male-­dominated hardcore punk scene is important because these young women occasionally display idiosyncratic representations of femininity, including baggy jeans, athletic wear, khakis, cargo or military shorts, plain or band T-­shirts and band hoodies. Of course, what is fashionable in one branch of the hardcore scene may be frowned upon in another; nevertheless, for young women in hardcore punk, personal comfort is highly influential, making it rare to find them in court shoes, lace garments or slinky mini-­dresses. With regard to Goth and hardcore punk, the following questions arise: What kind of self-­interpretations of gender do young men in the Goth scene display? Which idiosyncratic representations of femininity do women demonstrate in the male-­dominated hardcore punk scene? To what extent do they cross or shift the boundary norms of a heterosexual gender order? How do they find spaces and places of belonging? Narrative interviews with members of two specific scenes in Northern Germany are used here. The narrative interview envisages a setting that encourages and stimulates an interviewee to tell a story about some significant event in his or her life and social context (Jovchelovitch and Bauer, 2000). These interviews were collected in research projects at the University of Rostock in the years 2010 and 2011. The student interviewers had personal experience with and access to the Goth and hardcore punk scenes. They had only rough guidelines, in order to give participants as much room as possible for their own views on their youth culture and biography. The interviewees were between 20 and 30 years old. Six interviews were evaluated for this chapter, using the reconstructive-­hermeneutic approach (Soeffner, 2004). Three young men from the Goth scene and three young women from the hardcore punk scene in the city of Rostock talked about their (adolescent and current) self-­enactments and observations in these scenes. To protect the anonymity of the interviewees, pseudonyms have been used.

Youth-­c ultural enactment of gender Research about youth culture has a long tradition. One outcome is the consideration of the body at an early stage and the importance of symbols, rituals and the practice of dance and movement. Nonetheless, researchers have often neglected the role of gender and gender enactment. In 1976, McRobbie and Garber (2000, p. 12) criticized the discursive exclusion of girls in youth culture research: ‘Very little seems to have been written about the role of girls in youth-­ cultural groupings.’ Nowadays, the amount of research involving girls and young woman has increased (e.g. Rohmann, 2007), but research still has to overcome

Boys in black, girls in punk   65

classic gender attributions. In the end, it is necessary to ask how adolescents in youth cultures display gender at all (Stauber, 2011). Both the youth cultures observed below are rooted in punk. However, they have developed beyond their punk origins in terms of their mode of expression and way of life. The Goth scene and hardcore punk are, first and foremost, music-­oriented scenes, even though followers express themselves not only in their music preferences but also through a specific way of life. Goths stand for values such as non-­violence, tolerance and peacefulness (Hodkinson, 2004). They engage in topics from their everyday lives, such as lyrics, painting and photography (Hitzler and Niederbacher, 2010, pp.  63ff ) and are often seen as apolitical and introverted. Aesthetic self-­expression and doing individuality matter to them. Members of the hardcore scene also understand music and way of life as a single unit. One prominent lifestyle adopted by hardcore punks is straight edge, which adheres to abstinence from intoxicants (including alcohol and nicotine) and a vegetarian (or, in many cases, vegan) diet (see Haenfler, 2006). Their way of life is ultimately aimed at political and societal change. In the following, insights are given into youth-­cultural performance of gender in the Goth and hardcore punk scenes. Youth-­c ultural enactment of gender in the Goth scene The Goth scene – also commonly termed the ‘dark scene’ – is one of the most multifaceted youth culture scenes with a broad range of musical sub-­styles (Schmidt and Neumann-­Braun, 2004). The participants distinguish between two style trends – ‘guitar dominated’ (Gothic rock) and ‘electronic’ (such as electronic body music) – which not only differ musically, but also with regard to outfit, styling and dance style. The three interviewees align themselves with ‘conventional’ guitar-­dominated music, which is also more relevant for examining the scene under the gender perspective. Here, divergences from dominant male body images and the associated normative gender images manifest themselves more clearly. Ages within the scene vary from approximately 14 to 40 (Hitzler, Bucher and Niederbacher, 2005, p.  72) and the male-­to-female ratio among (post-)adolescents is relatively balanced. In the Goth scene, both women and men use makeup, wear skirts and display a noticeable amount of jewellery; they colour and style their hair elaborately or paint their fingernails. Therefore, a tendency towards androgyny or an idealization of the female is often attributed to the scene. A blurring of conventional gender boundaries seems to be a characteristic trait of the Goth scene. It seems to generate a kind of genderless sphere (Brill, 2007). In her study of Goth culture, Brill describes how this sphere theoretically enables Goths to perform as much gender as they like. This often leads to female hyper-­femininity and male androgyneity (2007, pp. 109ff ). At the beginning of the interviewees’ narratives, gender plays an inferior role for the two interviewees Paul and Morthar. However, Paul explicitly focuses on gender later when it comes to makeup for men:

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Definitely, there have been bizarre situations. Who reckons with somehow encountering five Goths standing in front of a mirror, five male Goths in front of a mirror touching up their makeup at a party when you go to the men’s room? (Paul, p. 19) Morthar observes that ‘men mostly use black nail polish, whereas women tend to rather use these reddish colours’ (Morthar, p.  47). The rhetoric of blurring gender is replaced here with precise observations of subtle differences between male and female Goths and their body practices. For members of the scene, clothing and styling are important means of expressing themselves. They distinguish between styling for everyday life and for events or parties. Makeup with at least some eyeliner (‘somehow an eyeliner which doesn’t mean a lot of time and effort either’: Paul, p. 18) often plays a role for men and women in the extensive party preparations – aside from a deliberate selection of clothing. Members of the scene show a preference for the colour black, not just at scene gatherings but also in everyday life. They wear body decorations (earrings, piercings, chains), which on occasion are replaced by special pieces for parties (‘When I go out now, I wear a special earring or I put in a special nose-­ring’: Paul, p. 22) (see also Hodkinson, 2004). Manu displays an extremely different and expressive means of self-­enactment. He has been a Goth since the age of eighteen. Manu describes his styling as follows: In the past, when I was younger, I would shave the sides [of my head] bald and wear a Mohawk,1 of course, apply kohl and makeup, polish my nails, wear skirts, wear lacquer, I would express my feminine side more. (Manu, pp. 30, 31) There were times when I wouldn’t leave the bathroom in under three hours; well, today I take one and a half hours. (Manu, p. 32) He rationalizes the shorter length of time needed for styling with an increase in self-­confidence: By this age … you don’t need that any more … I appreciate myself much more, yes, I see myself much more clearly, more reflectively …, of course, I still file my nails excessively, yeah, I hate having dirty fingernails, hair is fucking important …, however, I don’t wear skirts any more. (Manu, p. 31) … [But] even though I don’t wear skirts any more, I still stick out my little finger when I drink. (Manu, p. 36)

Boys in black, girls in punk   67

Through self-­presentation and by playing with bodily displays and emotions, Manu does identity work. His gender portrayal uses a broad repertoire of strategies by exceeding familiar norms and sometimes even mocking them. When he flirts with ways of presenting resources considered to be feminine, this also leads to questions about his sexual orientation from strangers: A lot [feel compelled to] ask me whether I’m gay due to my appearance, yeah, though that’s not the case. In spite of everything, the question keeps coming due to my facial expressions, my gestures, my habitus. (p. 31)2 Because Manu does not comply with the heterosexual normative standard, his sexual orientation is up for debate too. This passage clearly demonstrates the close relationship between socially normed gender role, gender identity and sexual desire. Manu’s self-­performance is rewarded with a high standing within the scene: I gathered such great experience and within the scene, what can I say, well, exaggerating a bit, I was king [laughs]. (Manu, pp. 31–2) Through his enactment of the feminine, Manu achieves special status (see also Brill, 2006, p. 191). Within the scene, he wins recognition and enhances his status. He feels like a king because he dares – as a heterosexual man – to overstep boundaries. His self-­enactment not only grants him scene-­specific symbolic capital; it also leads to the ability to observe his own gender identity at arm’s length: In part, as a member of the male community, I am ashamed to be male, yes when I see what many men’s habitus are like nowadays. It’s not my thing, I don’t fit into that. (Manu, p. 31) He is repulsed by a stereotypical enactment of masculinity and against the conventional masculine self-­enactment. Especially in light of the postmodern increase in insecurity (Beck, 1992), identity work has become increasingly important (Keupp et al., 1999). Manu’s interview shows how the possibilities of playfully trying things out with regard to bodily presentation are used within the scene. For his identity search, these divergences from dominant male body images and flexibility in visually representations of masculinity were important. He presents himself as self-­confident, with a tendency towards extravagance. Playing with variations on masculinity gained Manu experiences that are also adaptable to other areas of life, where reflexivity and a mindset of critical thinking (e.g. dealing with a patriarchal society) are needed.

68   Y. Niekrenz

Youth-­c ultural enactment of gender in hardcore punk Hardcore is a music-­based, male-­dominated youth culture that developed out of the early 1980s punk scene in the United States (Haenfler, 2006). Nowadays, the scene presents itself as translocal (Lorig and Vogelgesang, 2011). The average age of scene members varies from 20 to 25 (Schulze, 2007). The music is dominated by aggressive-­sounding guitars and screamed vocals. The three female interviewees named extensive tattoos, tunnels in the ear lobes, piercings and band T-­shirts as typical styling elements of hardcore. Inside knowledge is very important for membership of the scene. According to their narratives, the women interviewed deal intensively with the music, the lyrics and background information on bands and sub-­styles. They flag up their inside knowledge and thus also set boundaries for outsiders. They describe themselves as accepted as part of the scene because they study band histories and lyrics. In Katrin’s narratives, the female outsiders are identified as ‘dollies’ (diminutive plus metaphor ‘doll’!) thereby earmarking outsiders as female. There are those ‘who actually have no business being there and … who have no idea what kind of concerts they’re attending’ (Katrin, p. 7). The ‘dollies’, or ‘bimbos’ as they are also known, are stigmatized as ‘someone’s girlfriend’. They don’t have inside knowledge and are called ‘coat-­racks’ within the scene. The term ‘coat-­rack’ refers to them holding jackets and back-­packs for their boyfriends while they dance. Schulze (2007) also found this categorization in her study on women in hardcore. She describes this category as typical for the established girls who want to prevent competition from newly arrived girls. The following interview passage also leads to this interpretation: Interviewer: Dollies? Why do you think they are there? Katrin: It’s plain and simple, it has to do with them getting to know some great guy who’s in the hardcore scene or who totally likes to listen to the music and says: ‘Honey, come on, let’s go, it’ll be fun’. That’s what I think dollies are there for or because they think, ‘Geez, the guys look pretty good, I’ll just go there’. But, I really don’t think they’re interested in the music or in what the band stands for according to the lyrics or anything like that. (Katrin, pp. 7, 8) Therefore, the categorization between insiders and dollies is more than a means of demarcating inclusion and exclusion. It is a means used by the ‘established’ girls to devalue other young women and to set and maintain certain standards of belonging. Differences between men and women are stressed explicitly through dancing. Here, all three of the girls interviewed act in a very guarded fashion. None of them go into the so-­called mosh pit – the part of the dance floor where the physically demanding moshing takes place. Moshing is a form of a dance that consists – from an outside perspective – mostly of bumping into someone

Boys in black, girls in punk   69

(similar to pogo, but without the vertical mobility). These rambunctious encounters in violent dancing are entirely intentional by the members of the scene. Moshing is an intensive physical experience, and can be understood as a means of subcultural integration (Inhetveen, 2004). Based on the interview material used here, the pit can be interpreted as a representative venue for self-­ expression. The brawniness, strength and power emanating from youthful bodies are demonstrated. Girls rarely dance there and, as a consequence, young women are marked out as unusual and different. Most girls remain in the background and watch the band from the other end of the room (Schulze, 2007, p.  93). Katrin also states that she would rather stay in the background when dancing: When they get started with their moshing or whatever. It’s not for me … I prefer standing on the fringes somewhere … Well, I wouldn’t like to be somewhere on the frontlines in the middle of the mosh pit and to be shoved around with other people. (Katrin, p. 2) Nadine, who also remains in the background, tries to explain her reservation: With most bands I tend to be the passive spectator standing at the back … Very often, it’s not possible to stand at the front without, uh, having someone on your back right away that you don’t know or getting elbowed in the neck. (Nadine, p. 3) On the one hand, Nadine describes the physical closeness to strangers as being unpleasant; on the other, she stresses the danger of getting hit in places sensitive to injury. Jenni, by contrast, would very much like to dance in the pit, but perceives herself as physically inferior: I’d also like to go into the mosh pit. But I’m rather … I’m rather too small for that and I have way too much respect for … Nah, I don’t think so, no. I’d go under there. (Jenni, p. 4) But she also reports an experience at an event in the scene when girls got in the pit and claimed their space: At the Hamburg Persistence Tour there were a whole lot of women who really got into the act. Dude, that was really crazy and they didn’t even look like – I’d say it really is a very, very aggressive dance style. But, they didn’t even look like rowdies, these girls. Nah, they weren’t total butch femmes or anything like that. … Well, I totally admire that. (Jenni, p. 4)

70   Y. Niekrenz

The women who dare to go into the pit are treated with approval, respect and even admiration. At the same time, they are set apart as young women, defined as ‘the others’ and non-­males. The mosh pit is the place where masculinity and gender differences are established. Injuries count as a sign of masculinity, are taken for granted and accepted, and have a positive connotation. Women, who are ascribed peaceableness qua their gender role (Mitscherlich, 1987) mostly disapprove of these physical experiences. These moshing girls are the admired exception in the pit. Describing the young women as non-­butch femmes and non-­rowdies establishes the difference between masculine size, strength and power, and female delicateness, and marks the dancing girls in the pit as explicitly female. The delicateness and femininity of those dancing in this venue of masculine self-­enactment is emphasized. The women interviewed explain their passivity with their fear of getting injured. They are not afraid of hurting others; they see themselves in the passive role of victim(s), not in the active role. Also, the passages cited demonstrate the naturalization of gender differences. The women interviewed believe that it is due to biological differences – their body build – that they cannot go into the pit: they are too small, too delicate (Schulze, 2007). Hardcore punk is a politicized scene that, within its respective sub-­styles, focuses on various issues, including anti-­sexism, anti-­racism, vegetarianism and veganism. As a lifestyle, hardcore is ‘more than music’ (Calmbach, 2007): political themes are also picked up – among other things, the exclusion of girls and sexism is discussed and criticized in fanzines, on internet forums and in the lyrics of hardcore bands. So, in a subcultural discourse, the topic is anchored within the scene. Altogether, girls in the hardcore punk scene find many body practices that traditionally are attributed to males. These practices give them connecting factors, however, which they can use to develop their own forms of femininity, as the three adolescents interviewed here demonstrate. They are confronted by stereotypes and sometimes resist them, but sometimes accept them without question. They react with resistance when they perceive conflicts between gender norms in hardcore punk and their own femininity, and find their place in the scene – not moshing, but intellectually dealing with the history of their subculture or band. However, in the scene, one can also find people living out an alternative to traditional gender stereotypes (Leblanc, 2002).

Analysis and summary For adolescents, the youth cultures of Goth and hardcore punk open up courses of action in terms of the enactment of gender. Young men in the Goth scene in Rostock use the appealing opportunity the scene provides to present themselves by acting out a beauty of the kind traditionally ascribed to females. Manu’s flirting with queerness, for instance, gives him a different perspective on gender. The reactions provoked by his self-­enactment in a relatively provincial region lead him into self-­reflection and a critical view of gender stereotypes. The girls

Boys in black, girls in punk   71

in the hardcore scene also refuse to follow the norms seen as typically feminine and understand femininity as a continuum granting them freedom in terms of forms of expression. Their world is punk instead of pink, and they have to assert themselves in this male-­dominated youth-­cultural world. Furthermore, they attempt to become accepted members of that world through ‘subcultural capital’ (Thornton, 1995), by studying lyrics and band histories. In this way they gather specific experiences in terms of the effect of their self-­enactment and the enactment of male and female hardness and dominance. By using their bodies and by resorting to a rich variety in terms of gender images, the adolescents tackle gender without actually intending to portray asexuality or act out a transition to the other gender. Adolescents come to see the male/female dichotomy as a space that is, after all, open to nuanced variation, where they can act out masculinity and femininity in different ways. Trial and error, and experimentation, enable the adolescents to gain a more differentiated point of view of body and gender, but also confront them with the boundaries of heterosexual norms of body images. These self-­enactments create meaning for adolescents (and even post-­adolescents) who are confronted with the demands made of young women and men as they become adults (Stauber, 2007). The flexibility in terms of the bodily representation of masculinity and femininity as shown and reported by members of the scene is a possible alternative to the heteronormative order. It is an assault on the rigidity of boundaries between the genders, but an assault that fundamentally depends on drawing boundaries. Although adolescent self-­enactment turns into a form of ‘doing gender differently’ (Stauber, 2011), it exists within the boundaries of a continuum of ‘doing female’ and ‘doing male’. However, playing with self-­expression in this manner can in fact function as an attack on strict dichotomies and binary constructions of gender, by drawing attention to them. The discomfort sparked by the ways adolescents present their bodies reveals the male/female dichotomy for what it is: a social construct. That is where the potential of such presentations lies: they are discomforting, calling into question the significance traditionally ascribed to the male and female genders, and casting doubt on categorizations and their serious consequences.

Acknowledgements The author gratefully acknowledges the suggestions made by the editors, which resulted in a more precise argument and a significantly improved chapter. Many thanks to the students who were involved in the research project.

Notes 1 The Mohawk (also referred to as a Mohican) is a hairstyle in which both sides of the head are shaven, leaving a strip of noticeably longer hair in the centre.

72   Y. Niekrenz 2 Manu majored in social studies, which is also reflected in the terminology of his self-­ description. Since the three Goths who were interviewed are between the ages of 30 and 31, they reach a different level of reflection in the interview than the hardcore fans. The women interviewed were between the ages of 23 and 24, and have not been on the scene as long as the men. Their interviews are characterized not so much by retrospection and self-­reflection as by descriptions of their own preferences, trends and conflicts within the scene.

References Beck, U. (1992). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. New Delhi: Sage. Brill, D. (2006). Subversion or Stereotype? The Gothic Subculture as a Case Study of Gendered Identities and Representations. Gießen: Ulme Mini Verlag. Brill, D. (2007). Fetisch-­Lolitas oder junge Hexen? Mädchen und Frauen in der Gothic-­ Szene. In G. Rohmann (ed.), Krasse Töchter. Mädchen in Jugendkulturen (pp. 55–70). Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen. Calmbach, M. (2007). More Than Music: Einblicke in die Jugendkultur Hardcore. Bielefeld: transcript. Erikson, E.H. (1959). Identity and the Life Cycle. New York: W.W. Norton. Fend, H. (2005). Entwicklungspsychologie des Jugendalters. Wiesbaden: VS. Haenfler, R. (2006). Straight Edge: Clean-­living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Hitzler, R., Bucher, T. and Niederbacher, A. (2005 [2001]). Leben in Szenen. Formen jugendlicher Vergemeinschaftung heute. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Hitzler, R. and Niederbacher, A. (2010). Leben in Szenen. Formen juveniler Vergemeinschaftung heute. Wiesbaden: VS. Hodkinson P. (2004). The Goth scene and (sub)cultural substance. In A. Bennett and K. Kahn-­Harris (eds), After Subculture: Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture (pp. 135–47). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hübner-Funk, S. (2003). Wie entkörperlicht ist die Jugend der Jugendsoziologie? Argumente für eine ‘somatische Wende’ unserer Disziplin. In J. Mansel, H. Griese and A. Scherr (eds), Theoriedefizite der Jugendforschung. Standortbestimmung und Perspektiven (pp. 67–74). Munich: Juventa. Inhetveen, K. (2004). Gewalt, Körper und Vergemeinschaftung in Subkulturen. In C. Liell and A. Pettenkofer (eds), Kultivierungen von Gewalt. Beiträge zur Soziologie von Gewalt und Ordnung (pp. 43–63). Würzburg: Ergon. Jovchelovitch, S. and Bauer, M.W. (2000). Narrative Interviewing. London: LSE. Retrieved from http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2633. Keupp, H., Ahbe, T., Gmür, W., Höfer, R., Mitzscherlich, B., Kraus, W. and Straus F. (1999). Identitätskonstruktionen: Das Patchwork der Identität in der Spätmoderne. Reinbek: Rowohlt. Leblanc, L. (2002). Pretty in Punk. Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Lorig, P. and Vogelgesang, W. (2011). Jugendkulturen und Globalisierung. Die Hardcore-­Szene als Prototyp ethisch-­translokaler Vergemeinschaftung. Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung, 4, 369–86. McRobbie, A. and Garber, J. (2000 [1991]). Girls and subcultures. In A. McRobbie (ed.), Feminism and Youth Culture (pp. 12–25). London: Macmillan.

Boys in black, girls in punk   73 Mitscherlich, M. (1987). Die Friedfertige Frau. Frankfurt: S. Fischer. Niekrenz, Y. and Witte, M.D. (2011). Zur Bedeutung des Körpers in der Lebensphase Jugend. In Y. Niekrenz and M.D. Witte (eds), Jugend und Körper. Leibliche Erfahrungswelten (pp. 7–20). Munich: Juventa. Rohmann, G. (ed.) (2007). Krasse Töchter. Mädchen in Jugendkulturen. Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen. Schmidt, A. and Neumann-­Braun, K. (2004). Die Welt der Gothics: Spielräume düster konnotierter Transzendenz. Wiesbaden: VS. Schulze, M. (2007). Mädchen im hardcore: Not just boys’ fun? In G. Rohmann (ed.), Krasse Töchter. Mädchen in Jugendkulturen (pp. 91–105). Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen. Soeffner, H.-G. (2004). Auslegung des Alltags – Der Alltag der Auslegung. Zur wissenssoziologischen Konzeption einer sozialwissenschaftlichen Hermeneutik. Constance: UVK. Stauber, B. (2007). Selbstinszenierungen junger Szene-­Aktivistinnen: Gender-­ Konstruktionen in Jugendkulturen. In G. Rohmann (ed.), Krasse Töchter. Mädchen in Jugendkulturen (pp. 32–43). Berlin: Archiv der Jugendkulturen. Stauber, B. (2011). Androgynität und Gender-­Switching in Jugendkulturen? Doing gender differently – Geschlechtervariationen in jugendkulturellen Körperinszenierungen. In Y. Niekrenz and M.D. Witte (eds.), Jugend und Körper. Leibliche Erfahrungswelten (pp. 223–37). Munich: Juventa. Thornton, S. (1995). Club Cultures. Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Part II

Music and DIY cultures DIY or die!

Chapter 7

Music, protest politics, DIY and identity in the Basque Country Ion Andoni del Amo Castro

The Basque social space The Basque Country has been constituted from the end of the nineteenth century by different historical narratives that articulate the national subject from diverse positions (Sáenz de Viguera, 2007). To this national issue is added a historical contradiction: a strong economic development – and with it an earlier entrance to modernity with all its contradictions – along with a weak state institutional political construction during the Spanish dictatorship from 1939 to 1978 (Zallo, 2013). This situation is shot through – over-­determined and filled with emotion – by the traumatic reality of multiple forms of violence. In this context, we see the emergence of popular movements in defence of Basque culture that are linked with grassroots political movements: Unlike the satisfied cultures of nation-­states, our double gap (dependent institutionalization and lack of cultural and educational policy until the last third of the twentieth) has been so immense that it explains that cultural defensive movements have been linked to political movements, and vice versa. They have been forced to compensate for these failures. This brings with it virtues (placing eroding culture and language at the heart of political programs) and perversions (risks of instrumentalization, polarization and social cultural disintegration according to political affinities) … It is easy to conclude that without the nationalisms of the twentieth century, ‘the Basque’ would only be a name without substance. (Zallo, 2013, p. 234) In fact, over the last 50 years, the Basque Country has witnessed major counterculture phenomena. Spheres that belonged to the state, such as cultural promotion, began to be expressed alternatively and organized in a DIY way by young people, cultural groups, and social and political movements. From the 1960s, traces of traditional Basque language and culture acted as powerful magnets, since they were able to carry out symbolic apertures and blend with new (counter)cultural phenomena, giving rise to interesting mutations (Amezaga,

78   I. Andoni del Amo Castro

1995; Larrinaga, 2016). One important mutation was the punk and Basque rock that appeared in the 1980s and 1990s. The field of Basque pop music in particular is a privileged terrain of symbolic action, given that it is the new cultural phenomenon of the period, able to mobilize feelings and emotions (Larrinaga, 2016; Urla, 2001). Such musical protest crystallized an aesthetic and a soundtrack, and a prolific DIY praxis: festive spaces, a wave of squatting, fanzines, free radio stations and music. This chapter proposes an overview of these key anti-­hegemonic cultural scenes in the Basque Country during the late 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Euskal Kantagintza Berria and the countercultural ethnogenesis The Basque music-­cultural group Ez Dok Amairu, founded in 1966 by figures such as Mikel Laboa, Xabier Lete, Lourdes Iriondo and Benito Lertxundi, was the main focus of a wide-­ranging musical movement known as Euskal Kantagintza Berria (‘New Basque Music’), which included other figures such as Michel Labéguerie, and Imanol. It was very much open to the influence of international music currents, such as the Nouvelle Chanson in France; Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Woody Guthrie in the United States; Violeta Parra, Atahualpa Yupanqui and Víctor Jara in Latin America; and the Nova Cançó in Catalonia (Amezaga, 1995; Larrinaga, 2016). One of its main figures, Xabier Lete, typifies at least three expressions in this movement: first, those who understood it as a cultural recovery of the Basque language; second, those for whom it was, above all, a national recovery in the political sense; and finally, those who considered music as an important part of a Basque aesthetic renewal project, including the sculptor Jorge Oteiza. All these expressions appeared at the same time and also mingled, from the aesthetic renewal project led by Oteiza, to the Cultural Front approaches of the leftist nationalist armed organization ETA, ‘Basque Country and Liberty’, founded in 1959 and later evolving from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to an armed group (Amezaga, 1995; Lete, 1977). The Cultural Front gave central importance to the language and its recovery. Opposing the racial and genealogical version of traditional nationalism, ETA’s alternative proposal considered the language to be a key element in the definition of the Basque identity and nation (Amezaga, 1995). Together with the cultural recovery movements, from 1962 strong conflicts were registered in the field of labour. The debates would be reflected within ETA, which at its second assembly declared itself openly socialist, introducing a heterogeneity into the national narrative by which class and nation were identified as two aspects of the same event (Sáenz de Viguera, 2007). Although at times contradictory, this facilitated an absorption of nationalism by a working class mainly made up of Spanish immigrants (Herreros and López, 2013). Factory struggles also moved into the urban space in the form of neighbourhood

Music, protest politics, DIY and identity   79

movements, demanding improvements in living conditions (Herreros and López, 2013; Larrinaga, 2016). The creation of a new Basque community nationalism took place particularly in the three years from August 1968 to mid-­1971, being defined especially in anti-­repressive terms, above all after the Burgos court case1 and the wave of solidarity that occurred around Europe (Larrinaga, 2016; Letamendia, 1994). Although clandestine, this new nationalism became hegemonic; its identity is fundamentally transgressive and anti-­repressive. During this period, spheres that belonged to the state, such as education and cultural promotion, began to be expressed alternatively, with a national-­activist intention (Larrinaga, 2016; Letamendia, 1994). The Basque language, group consumption and reproduction of elements of Basque culture, and the Basque flag, the Ikurriña, banned since 1939, became symbols of this new identity (Larrinaga, 2016; Letamendia, 1994). It had a particularly emotional expression in music, and festivals turned into a kind of collective catharsis. Songs became a medium for launching new messages of hope, justice, peace and freedom, of reconstruction and dissemination of a renewed culture in the Basque Country. Festivals achieved vital importance.2 The major music festivals were a common mobilizing resource in anti-­nuclear campaigns and for those in favour of the Basque language or a political amnesty (Amezaga, 1995). So global counterculture and the new Basque ethnogenesis coincided, giving rise to a new cognitive framework that was young, modern and Basque-­speaking. The success of this symbolic operation, which transformed the Basque language from something associated with the countryside into a symbol of modernity, was only possible inasmuch as it was countercultural, transgressive and ground-­ breaking (Larrinaga, 2016). The town and city councils in the late 1970s were also handing over the powers to organize fiestas (a city, town or neighbourhood’s yearly festival) to people’s committees. To raise money, makeshift bars, or txoznas, were set up in the streets, organized in a DIY way by cultural, political, neighbourhood and sports groups, as well as by the anti-­repressive community. They often offered their own cultural events, becoming ephemeral but influential DIY festival spaces. The music – live or recorded – defined a particular scene (Larrinaga, 2016). The Bilbao fiestas were the great popular triumph of the time: the txoznas area, which was organized directly in a DIY way based on volunteer work, immediately became, and has remained, the engine of the fiestas (Larrinaga, 2016). By the end of the 1970s, despite political, social and organizational turmoil,3 it seemed that a cultural cycle had come to an end (Larrinaga, 2016). In 1981, only eleven albums of Basque music were released. It was the decline of a discographic cycle that had begun around 1967 with the creation of Basque record labels; this involved the release of a total of 50 LPs and 220 singles or EPs between 1967 and 1976 (López Aguirre, 2011).

80   I. Andoni del Amo Castro

Basque radical rock explosion In the late 1970s, despite a Spanish consensus, in the Basque Country the agreements for reforming the dictatorship were confronted by either an explicit rejection or a critical acceptance. This political framework – and the repression that accompanied it – produced a sensation of exclusion and distance from Spanish celebratory cultural reference points (the movida) and also from Euskal Kantagintza Berria. A second factor that fed this feeling of exclusion was socioeconomic: the capitalist crisis and restructuring, and a deficit of public services, incipient ecological problems and the formation of ghettos. In many districts, this involved youth unemployment levels of up to 40 or even 50 per cent, and worker resistance that in some cases resembled urban guerrilla warfare (Amezaga, 1995; Herreros and López, 2013; Larrinaga, 2016; Pascual, 2010). In this context, heroin arrived. But there were also other cultural references: the ‘No Future’ of punk and its ability to communicate the present. The negation of that already established crystallized – especially in the most economically disfavoured areas – into an explosion of punk groups labelled, not uncontroversially, Basque Radical Rock (Rock Radical Vasco, or RRV). Together with these shifts, and no less important, was a prolific DIY praxis. On one hand, there was a redefinition of specific physical spaces by and for young people: the street full of people, certain bars, a wave of squatting of gaztetxes – social centres run by young people. On the other, there was a constellation of independent and self-­managed communication channels: fanzines, magazines, stickers, graffiti, comics, free radio stations, amateur music-­making, record shops, the circulation of recorded cassettes, concerts and style, and even coarse, direct language that challenged moral taboos: ‘In the specific socio-­ political environment that took place during the 80s, the Basque Country was an important laboratory of Alternative Media experiences’ (Ramirez de la Piscina, 2010, p. 320). Jakue Pascual (2010, p. 16) refers to a ‘Youth resistance movement’, in the social movement sense: It was characterized by punk, assembly-­based decision-­making, their own understanding of what it meant to fight against the repression carried out against young people under police control, and their own feeling of belonging to a differentiated territorial, cultural and symbolic space. A movement that was connected to an aesthetic explosion and with the expressive and spatial redefinition that the social movements carried out in the West, but which also had their own meaning in the Basque case, mixing both points of view variably. Luis Sáenz de Viguera (2007, p. 167) indicates that the movement involved the development of a ‘Basque Radical Culture’, which expressed the distance

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between the democratic discourses in the media and the brutal realities of crisis, unemployment and, above all, continued repression now justified by the system, by the alliance between the new democratic political parties and the old forces of order. But this cultural and social creativity, which combined both negation and creation (Porrah, 2006), did not occur in a sociopolitical vacuum, but rather within the political and social magma of popular initiatives that had been proliferating for several years. What we find is an effervescent antagonistic culture ready to be ‘infected’ by punk (Herreros and López, 2013). So the initial rejection of Euskal Kantagintza Berria should be understood as an implicit negation of seriousness and solemnity as necessary registers of political rebellion. The fiesta, playfulness, celebration and irreverence would now be put forward as fully valid dimensions of the antagonistic culture (Herreros and López, 2013; Lahusen, 1993; Pascual, 2010). The social origins of those making up the youth movement were mainly working class, with a certain presence from the middle class (Porrah, 2006). These had a close relationship with DIY initiatives such as popular fiestas or gaztetxes, and the different social movements: anti-­militarist, political amnesty, internationalism – Nicaragua, Cuba, etc. – and ecological (Amezaga, 1995; Pascual, 2010). This strengthened the movement’s most positive and creative dimension, the DIY ethic, with an emphasis on alternative social transformation or effects. Music – especially punk – appropriated the new geography that no other cultural agent had even approached: the street (Kasmir, 1999). Festive practices and songs created other celebratory spaces or added a new narrative to those already in existence, reinserting them in the radical space, in which rejection and pleasure constantly mingle (Sáenz de Viguera, 2007). Different movements and subcultures mixed in bars and the festive space of the txoznas: punks, supporters of independence movement, skinheads, middle-­class hippies, ecologists, artists, feminists. The scope and dimension of the Basque Radical Rock and the youth movement are not easy to understand without paying attention to the conjunction of the cultural and the political in the conflictive Basque context, the hybridization of the Basque culture, and the rise of both symbolic or material DIY spaces (Herreros and López, 2013; Pascual, 2010).

A redefinition of the Basque identity The youth movement came about in relation to the working-­class areas where Spanish immigrants settled in the 1960s. Most groups sang not in Basque, but in Spanish. Some, like Roberto Moso (2004) of Zarama, have spoken of a fascination with the ‘repressed’ language: singing in Basque felt like the most punk thing that could be done, even without knowing the language very well.

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Yet among those who sang in Basque, there was a virulent criticism of current conceptions of all things Basque. This is the case with the song ‘Drogak AEK’n’ by Hertzainak, which used irony to criticize official conceptions – whether traditional or from the point of view of the nationalist left wing – instead championing the culture and identity of street life (Atutxa, 2010). In the French Basque Country, punk was particularly irreverent, to the extent where relationships with Basque nationalism were not always good, and in some cases were decidedly poor (Bidegain, 2010). Punk contributed to the innovation of a non-­essentialist Basque identity. It contributed to a definitive change of old Basque identities – deriving their source from lineage and ethnicity – to innovative modes and privileges, as well as features of Basqueness. Furthermore, punk occupied an alternative communal space where a new collective identity was created and expressed (Kasmir, 1999). This would largely favour the integration of young people from Basque- and Spanish-­speaking areas within a common frame of reference. Jakue Pascual (cited in Herreros and López, 2013, p. 91) remembers: We were urban, we loved rock, and we didn’t live in anything like a farmhouse. Also, there were lots of maketos [Spanish-­speaking immigrants] or children from mixed families of Basques and immigrants among us, and even so it was the only movement that managed to bring Basque-­speaking culture and Basque down to street level, with groups like Hertzainak. Among musical groups, as well as when participating in festivals linked to cultural demands, the presence of the Basque language was to become ever larger. Traditional instruments (trikitixa,4 alboka5) were included and they even participated in homages to some of the main figures of Euskal Kantagintza Berria, especially the one most ahead of his time, Mikel Laboa. The evolved and militant syncretism of modernizing elements – which came from international youth cultures, particularly punk – and indigenous popular Basque components was what favoured this creative explosion (Amezaga, 1995; Porrah, 2006). This hybridization was mediated by the mobilizing role of the nationalist left.

Counter-­h egemonic mobilization In the Basque Country, much of what was perceived as the official dominant culture appeared to be linked to the Spanish cultural matrix. Furthermore, these groups of young people were not the only ones to feel excluded from the agreements made to reform the dictatorship. The new nationalism that had arisen from the countercultural ethnogenesis of the previous period split in two: on one side a political culture that wanted to take advantage of the possibilities offered by political reform; on the other, those who, with Herri Batasuna as their electoral framework, felt that there were still chances to carry out a revolutionary rupture. This

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division was experienced, to a large extent, along generational lines (Larrinaga, 2016). In the optimistic atmosphere that sprang up regarding the possibilities of revolutionary rupture, and given the continuing harsh political repression, the military organization ETA(m) decided to maintain its dynamic, and pull towards it a large part of the social forces accumulated in the countercultural ethnogenesis. Local and communal groups, student movements, unemployed workers, ecologists, feminists and many more would be found holding these positions of rupture, sharing spaces and struggles (Larrinaga, 2016). Repression would act as the glue that held them all – including the young punks – together. In fact, direct nationalist references were hardly made by RRV groups, who preferred negative circumlocutions expressed in anti-­repressive terms: against those who acted against the construction of national Basque structures (Porrah, 2006). Jakue Pascual (2010, p.  116) describes the shared identity between young punks and the nationalist left putting down roots as the latest symbolic and territorial extension of the Basque social proletariat, as well as tackling the national question: The solution adopted by a large number of young Basque people in this context was the creation of their own identity as a group apart. The ‘official us’ was negated and questioned by an ‘individual us’ … But there were not only two levels of identification (by and from the radical youth): an intermediate level was also present, that saw the izquierda abertzale [‘nationalist left’] as a revolutionary force, partly as a force to question the current system, and which at certain times managed to mediate between the two identities mentioned above. The youth movement and the nationalist left would coincide not only in terms of their anti-­repressive dynamics, but in the new DIY or resignified spaces: gaztetxes, the old quarters of towns and cities, alternative bars. After an initial rejection, there was recognition by the nationalist left of the mobilizing and agitating power of the musical and youth movements. The Martxa eta Borroka campaign organized by the nationalist left in 1985 – concerts featuring the main punk bands of the time in imitation of the ‘cheerful and combative’ dynamic of the FSLN in Nicaragua – marks one of the strongest moments of these hegemonization attempts. These relationships were simultaneously contradictory and complementary, yet the main figures involved point out, with hindsight, that they were beneficial for both groups. The result was negotiations, debates and exchanges among different groups, networks and movements, as well as the construction of a common and viable national discourse as a political project and a coherent and convincing aesthetic (Lahusen, 1993). A whole infrastructure linked to the nationalist left was made available to the youth movement: a communication

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network, especially through the newspaper Egin, the bars linked to the nationalist left, the left’s own youth movement events and political support for festivals, gaztetxes, txoznas, free radio stations and other DIY infrastructure created or used by the youth movement. Basque Radical Rock would not have been the same, either in importance or in duration, without this interrelationship. However, the nationalist left would not have been the same either, since over and above counter-­hegemonic strategic mobilization, it built its own group identity largely linked to this soundtrack and aesthetic. This dimension of group political identity-­building, together with its exceptional success as a mechanism of political communication and reproduction – more than compensating for nationalism’s structural weakness in the established cultural media, press and broadcasters – largely blocked the penetration of successive waves of youth production: in the Basque Country, the 1980s were to last at least 25 years.

Euskalduna naiz eta harro nago! The affirmation and consolidation of Basque counterculture As Bernardo Atxaga (cited in Herreros and López, 2013) recalls, all this was affected and marked in the 1980s by several forms of violence. At the end of the decade, it was also impacted by two sinister newcomers: drugs and AIDS. Those in the youth movement interviewed by Jakue Pascual (2010) agree when they say that by 1989 the movement was failing. They talk about the end of a cycle; a weariness; a lack of young people coming up to take their places; a consolidation of the institutions and a resulting narrowing of the margins of action; the advance of the processes of privatization of social behaviour and exposure to the media; a loss of the ‘street’ and of the immediacy of action; organizational problems among groups; and the ineffectiveness of assemblies as a decision-­making mechanism. However, a new mutation was happening: young people who had grown up within the punk counterculture appeared in the street, in schools, at concerts and in gaztetxes. They would not experience tensions between orthodox nationalists and punks; a new cultural identity was being consolidated (Larrinaga, 2016). This new wave of young people – unlike the last one – would, after the first few years, experience a decade of economic bonanza. From 1991, albums in the Basque language would outnumber those released in Spanish, even in punk (Amezaga, 1995). Kortatu’s change to Basque in 1988 appeared to be a watershed moment; it was not for nothing that the group had played a key political role as a bridge between the nationalist left and the youth movement. It contributed decisively to the legitimization of Basque in rock music and to bringing it into an international context. Even veteran RRV bands that continued to be active, and had always sung in Spanish, started to include the occasional song in Basque on their albums or in group projects. A new stylistic aperture began to appear, incorporating rap or heavy metal. Huan Porrah (2006, p.  162) discusses two simultaneous tendencies that were

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also, in a certain way, divergent: on one hand, ‘the enduring memory of Basque punk’ that ‘seems to have been suspended in time, perhaps assuming the punk slogan of No Future’; on the other, a trend in which the band Negu Gorriak (with the same people from Kortatu) was central, marked by experimentation, crossover and the use of Basque as a form of commitment to the emancipatory cause of Basque culture and society. The track Esan ozenki by Negu Gorriak is a good reflection of this kind of Basque nationalist optimism, which looks to African-­American pride, rap, Malcolm X and the call to The Clash’s white riot, expressed in the slogan ‘Basque speakers are the blacks of Europe’ (Porrah, 2006; Urla, 2001). The dichotomies ‘punk versus society’ and ‘Basque versus Spanish’, which converged in the 1980s (Lahusen, 1993), would be joined in the 1990s by a third: ‘Basque language versus state languages’ (Urla, 2001). The 1990s was to be a period of consolidation and building, in every sense, a Basque counterculture, one that was markedly in the Basque language, its physical and symbolic DIY spaces still in unstable equilibrium: gaztetxes, fiestas, txoznas. This was also the case for aesthetic conventions, although in mixed form. The conflicts continue to be present in the streets, particularly in public altercations (Larrinaga, 2016). It was also a time of progressive professionalization of bands and musical spaces, at the price of losing the immediacy of the early punk groups. And it was very intense in terms of the DIY initiatives. Very significant is the case of the record label Esan Ozenki, promoted by the group Negu Gorriak following the self-­management model of US hardcore counterculture, especially Fugazi and its label Dischord. There were other projects based on the DIY philosophy: the gaztetxe Bonberenea, which had a self-­managed recording studio and record press; projects such as Musikherria and Taupada; internet broadcasting initiatives like Harrobia Lantzen and Entzun (Larrinaga, 2016). It was to be a defeat of and victory over radical culture, ‘from its partial exile, whose adaptation distanced it from its early period, but allowed it to continue in time’ (Sáenz de Viguera, 2007, p. 268).

By way of a short conclusion The Basque anti-­hegemonic scene, its transformations and the condensation of the conflicts present (national, social, political) make this an especially productive case study. Eyerman and Jamison (1998) highlight the idea that the construction of social representations also takes place in community processes, and particularly in the heart of social movements. Cultural traditions mobilize and reformulate themselves as part of social movements, structuring the different forms of resistance and their relationship with hegemony by offering visions and models of alternative forms of meaning and identity that can be chosen consciously. The countercultural wave has been longer in the Basque country, extending for decades – even with different mutations. In summary, three key elements

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seem to explain the long continuation of these cultural scenes. The first is the combination of a Basque ethnic culture that, in its condition of subaltern culture, is articulated as a popular culture (Amezaga, 1995) with global (counter)cultural expressions, which has favoured processes of cultural and identity reconstruction. The second is the joint cultural and political mobilization in the different conflicts – particularly the national one, which has encouraged all these processes: It is the political responses that generated the collective consciousness of cultural and national identity, of community with the right to live as such, and have saved that part of cultural identity. The thrust of the community and its civil society are those that have maintained a level of mobilization and cultural voluntarism that, today, in the present young parents has ignited for the family transmission. (Zallo, 2013, p. 232) Third, processes of (counter-)institutionalization have been favoured in the political realm and in material DIY infrastructures (festive spaces, squats, fanzines, graffiti, free radio stations, amateur music-­making), which has granted them particular power and a lasting nature. In fact, in spheres such as the cultural promotion of festive spaces, DIY began to be part of an alternative expression, often organized by young people, cultural groups and social and political movements.

Acknowledgement Research funded by the Research Training Programme of the Department of Science Policy of the Basque Government.

Notes 1 The Burgos court case was a summary trial initiated on 3 December 1970 in the Spanish city of Burgos against sixteen members (including two priests) of the Basque nationalist armed organization Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA), accused of the murders of three people during the dictatorship of General Franco. The presence of the national and international press in the courtroom during the trial was used by the defence to morally and politically damage the Franco regime with its allegations. Popular mobilizations, the intervention of high ecclesiastical hierarchies and international pressure resulted in the death sentences imposed on six of the defendants not being executed, and the sentences being commuted to life imprisonment. 2 There were many festivals, especially in Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia. The town’s frontons and squares began to be filled with thousands of people, and there was a new element that was not known during the singing festivals: audience participation. One of the milestones in this phenomenon was the ‘24 hours in Basque’ festival on 27 March 1976, organized by Popular Radio in the Anoeta Velodrome (San Sebastián). Another

Music, protest politics, DIY and identity   87 important festival was the end of the ‘Bai euskarari’ (Yes to the Basque Language) campaign, in the San Mamés stadium, Bilbao, on 17 June 1978. 3 The dictator Franco died and the process of reform of the regime began. It was time for the legalization of political parties, unions and associations, and there was a prolific emergence of them. The Basque flag was also legalized. In 1975, the pro-­Amnesty Committees were also established; in 1977, the first parliament democratically elected since 1936 promulgated the Amnesty Law. There were also three fully active armed organizations: ETA (military), ETA (politico-­military) and the Autonomous Anti-­ capitalist Commandos. 4 The trikiti, trikitixa or eskusoinu txiki is a two-­row Basque diatonic button accordion with right-­hand rows keyed a fifth apart and twelve unisonoric bass buttons. Probably introduced by French or Italian immigrants coming from the Alps, the first written evidence of the trikiti comes from 1889, when the diatonic accordion was used for music in a popular pilgrimage festivity of Urkiola (Biscay). The pair of diatonic button accordions, along with tambourine, gradually grew in popularity and was adopted to perform in local and popular festivities. That playing pattern remained unchanged up to the 1980s, when Kepa Junkera and Joseba Tapia started to develop unprecedented ways of playing trikitixa (Wikipedia). 5 The Basque alboka (albogue), is a single-­reed woodwind instrument consisting of a single reed and two small-­diameter melody pipes, with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn is placed around the reed to contain the breath and allow circular breathing for constant play (Wikipedia).

References Amezaga, J. (1995). Herri kultura, euskal kultura eta kultura popularrak. Leioa: UPV-­EHU. Atutxa, I. (2010). Tatxatuaren azpiko nazioaz. Donostia: Utriusque Vasconiae. Bidegain, E. (2010). Patxa: Besta bai, borroka ere bai. Larresoro: Gatuzain. Eyerman, R. and Jamison, A. (1998). Music and Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herreros, R. and López, I. (2013). El estado de las cosas de Kortatu: Lucha, fiesta y guerra sucia. Madrid: Lengua de Trapo. Kasmir, S. (1999). From the Margins: Punk Rock and the Repositioning of Ethnicity and Gender in Basque Identity. In W. Douglass, C. Urza, L. White and J. Zulaika (eds), Basque Cultural Studies (pp. 178–204). Reno: University of Nevada. Lahusen, C. (1993). The aesthetic of radicalism: the relationship between punk and the patriotic nationalist movement of the Basque Country. Popular Music, 12(3), 263–80. Larrinaga, J. (2016). Euskal musika kosmikoak. Mungia: Baga-­Biga Produkzioak. Letamendia, F. (1994). Historia del nacionalismo vasco y de ETA: ETA en el franquismo (1951–1976). Donostia: R&B. Lete, X. (1977). Euskal kanta berria. Jakin, 4. López Aguirre, E. (2011). Historia del rock vasco. Vitoria-­Gasteiz: Ediciones Aianai. Moso, R. (2004). Flores en la basura: Los días del Rock Radikal. Algorta: Hilargi Ediciones. Pascual, J. (2010). Movimiento de resistencia juvenil en los años ochenta en Euskal Herria. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of the Basque Country (UPV-­EHU). Porrah, H. (2006). Negación punk en Euskal Herria. Tafalla: Txalaparta. Ramírez de la Piscina, T. (2010). Basque Country as alternative media laboratory: Compilation of the most interesting experiences for the last 30 years. Revista Latina de Comunicación Social, 65, 310–24.

88   I. Andoni del Amo Castro Sáenz de Viguera, L. (2007). Dena ongi dabil! ¡Todo va dabuten! Tensión y heterogeneidad de la cultura radical vasca en el límite del estado democrático (1978–). Unpublished PhD thesis. Duke University, Durham, NC. Urla, J. (2001). We are all Malcolm X! Negu Gorriak, Hip-­Hop and the Basque political imaginary. In T. Mitchell (ed.), Global Noise: Rap and Hip-­Hop Outside the USA (pp. 171–93). Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Zallo, R. (2013). Camus Bergareche, Bruno: Para entender la cultura vasca. Revista Internacional de los Estudios Vascos, RIEV, 58(1), 227–36.

Chapter 8

Home Economics Fusing imaginaries in Wellington’s musical underground  Katie Rochow

Manifested in the relationship of people, places and musical practices, Wellington’s urban ethos is guided by two sets of practices: lo-­fi entrepreneurialism/ do-­it-yourself (DIY) and social networking/do-­it-together (DIT) (Stahl, 2011). The lo-­fi, DIY approach reflects a long-­standing New Zealand attitude, which is born out of geographical isolation, a creative desire and the entrepreneurial imperatives of neoliberalism. The DIT ethos manifests itself in the sharing of resources such as rehearsal space, expertise and stories, as well as profound social relationships, which are explicitly cooperative and collaborative (2011, pp. 151–2). Originating from this framework is the concept of Home Economics, a Wellington-­based, semi-­regular event organized by an initiative of local artists who transform the home into an underground performance space. As a form of lo-­fi entrepreneurialism, Home Economics combines home craft, video art, sonic arts and music ranging from gamelan to acoustic folk, experimental and noise, augmenting the traditional imaginary of domestic spaces. It creates performance space that resonates with the traditional confines of domestic spaces, yet remains detached from bourgeois conceptions of home, economic forces and the spectre of neoliberalism. In this context, this chapter offers a provisional exploration of an emerging ‘structure of feeling’ that shapes the socio-­musical dynamics in Wellington’s underground music scene. It explores the ways in which Home Economics, as a kind of DIY performance event, is characterized by the ‘in-­betweenness’ of metamodernism, which represents a spacetime that is neither ordered nor disordered and constantly oscillates between ‘a typically modern commitment and a markedly postmodern detachment’ (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010, p. 2). It takes note of how the imaginary horizons of this event’s alternative performance space reflect the decline and demise of the postmodern (Bourriaud, 2009; Kirby, 2009; Lipovetsky, 2005) while simultaneously creating new, metamodern dynamics and possibilities that support the creative development of underground musicians in Wellington. Before discussing the theoretical foundation of this concept, I would like to give a brief description of the event. What does Home Economics look, sound and feel like? Home Economics is a non-­profit, semi-­regular art and music event

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that is held in different domestic spaces around Wellington city. Unlike a normal house party, the event tends to start in the late afternoon, making use of daylight for possible performances outdoors in the garden area of the home. My first Home Economics event took place in a private flat in the suburb of Newtown, which is situated in the southern part of Wellington. The former working-­class suburb is now an attractive neighbourhood for immigrants, young families, students and artists. The event took place in what was once a disused factory, but has since been transformed into a spacious living area for up to six people. All rooms were rebuilt and converted, in DIY manner, by the inhabitants themselves, into a cosy, open living space with a communal kitchen, bathroom, toilet and wood burner for cold winter days. The event was spread out across the entire communal space, including one ‘stage’ – which wasn’t really a stage or ‘platform’, but a ground-­level performance area – in the kitchen/living room and another in the entrance hall. Vegetarian food and home-­brewed beer were provided by the organizers or inhabitants and served in the kitchen area – everything without any monetary exchange or reward. Guests brought their own drinks and sometimes more snacks for everyone. It seemed a very friendly, cosy atmosphere, almost like a usual gathering of friends, enjoying food, drinks and some live music. Sonic and video artists exhibited their work in the domestic realm accompanied by various music performances, ranging from acoustic folk, blues and outsider punk to experimental, techno and noise performances. Although there wasn’t any programme or set list for the night, the performances happened in a rather organized, yet organic way. The audience seemed curious, attentive and appreciative. There weren’t any heavily drunk or intoxicated people – everyone seemed to respect the domestic surroundings and the unwritten ‘house rules’, so it didn’t get overly messy or chaotic but remained a creative and free-­flowing event until the end.

Metamodern music-­m aking The term ‘metamodernism’ can be traced back as far as 1975, and has various meanings attached to it (Carruth, 1986; Koutselini, 1997; McCloskey, 1992; Truitt, 2006; Zavarzadeh, 1975). Yet none of these scholars uses the term in the same way it is used today. Clasquein-­Johnson (2017) refers to metamodernism as a ‘philosophy of the Millennial Generation’, a ‘21st-century development’ or a structure of feeling of a generation born in the 1980s. This generation grew up in economic prosperity and abundance, but also witnessed financial crises and therefore ‘the collapse of the neo-­capitalist dream and, as a result, the evaporation of the political essence of the 1990s’ (Van Poecke, 2014). It is a generation that experienced years of (postmodern) irony and scepticism, and as a result suffers from what David Foster Wallace (1996) terms ‘analysis paralysis’ – the inability to commit to a choice or make a decision. It is a generation that is sceptical about the universal power of grand narratives or existing political structures, and in search of innovation. This generation finds its anchor in art and music (Van Poecke, 2014).

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In 2010, the Dutch cultural philosophers and art theorists Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker responded to this shifting zeitgeist with their article ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, asserting that ‘the postmodern years of plenty, pastiche and parataxis are over’. Vermeulen and Van den Akker are not the first scholars to declare the ‘death of postmodernism’, however. Various forms of post-­post-modernism have been proposed, such as Lipovetsky’s (2005) hypermodernism, Kirby’s (2009) digimodernism, Samuels’ (2008) automodernism and Bourriaud’s (2009) altermodernism.1 However, according to Vermeulen and Van den Akker, those conceptions tend to radicalize the postmodern rather than restructure it. They mistake a multiplicity of forms for a plurality of structures, and fail to be wholly comprehensible. Hence current developments in aesthetics, music and culture can no longer be explained in terms of the postmodern, but should be conceived via another critical discourse: metamodernism. Since its (re)introduction in 2010, the concept of metamodernism has been discussed in various forms and fields: as a ‘new philosophical approach to counselling’ (Gardner, 2016), a ‘philosophical reflection on the essence of the universe and the evolution of the contemporary world’ (Baciu, Bocoş and Baciu-­Urzică, 2015) or a ‘framework to understand certain current religious developments’ (Clasquin-­Johnson, 2017). Clasquin-­Johnson (2017, p. 2) argues that in order to investigate metamodernism, we have to ‘delve into the world of online articles, tweets, blog posts and podcasts’, which underlines the concept’s current status ‘as a philosophy for and by the young’. In addition to Vermeulen and Van den Akker’s webzine Notes on Metamodernism, there are a number of postgraduate dissertations that discuss the relationship between metamodernism and literature (Dumitrescu, 2014; McDonald, 2014), popular music (Shepherd, 2015) and contemporary art (Frick, 2015). However, apart from a limited number of dissertations and academic articles, there has been a lack of further scholarship attempting to deepen the discussion on the metamodern discourse. In particular, discussions on metamodern manifestations in underground music scenes have been rather neglected by current research.

Methodology The findings presented in this chapter stem from a three-­year ethnographic study in which participant observation and serial interviews were part of the methodological toolkit through which I explored the spatial dynamics of Wellington’s local music scene. When I started my research in 2013, I became absorbed by the city’s eclectic and active music culture, its numerous cafes, bars, clubs, festivals and galleries, which account for a specific socio-­musical experience. I actively immersed myself in the city’s urban rhythms, following the daily schedule of the city-­dwellers as much as I could. I soon developed my personal routes and routines, which included the usual bike-­ride to work in the morning, coffee at the local coffee shop in the afternoon and the frequent night-­life

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exploration in the evening. This allowed me not only to gather local knowledge of the areas, but made it possible for me to create a foundation from which I could understand and analyse the musician’s opinions and reactions in a different way than otherwise. As I started to explore the local music scene, attending performances around the city, potential interviewees were soon identified. Twenty local musicians took part in the research. They were aged between 24 and 57, ten males and ten females. The pool of respondents was restricted to independent musicians who were active in the local music scene at that time, and viewed themselves as professional musicians. Such subjective self-­evaluation does not necessarily mean that they were working as musicians full time, or that they got a satisfactory financial reward for their music. However, all the participants had at least partly figured out a way to have a career as a musician, be it through grants, secondary occupations or a commitment to various bands. They were all aiming to work full time creating original, independent music. I did not want to concentrate on one specific musical tradition, but rather tried to consider the wide variety of musical genres to be found in Wellington. Consequently, the study includes jazz, folk, pop and rock musicians, punk, brass and experimental music-­ makers as well as singer-­songwriters.

Wellington The focal point of this chapter is Wellington, the capital of Aotearoa New Zealand. The city is built along a ‘natural amphitheatre of hills’ enclosing the vast natural harbour at the south-­western tip of New Zealand’s North Island (Wellington City Council, 2017). In addition to being the nation’s capital city, Wellington is also the ‘cultural capital’ of New Zealand, according to the urban branding strategy of Wellington’s City Council. With its population of about 450,000, the Wellington Region is the third most populous urban area in New Zealand (Wellington City Council, 2017). Despite its compact size, Wellington claims to have more cafés, bars and restaurants per capita than New York City (Stahl, 2011). In particular, the Cuba Quarter, Wellington’s ‘discrete zone of hip, alternative stores’, represents an eclectic blend of cafés, bars, restaurants, music venues, op shops and ateliers, which reinforce the city’s status as a vibrant and creative destination (Brunt, 2011, p.  163). The thriving urban culture attracts many artists and performers, allowing for diverse creative scenes to flourish. Apart from the city’s distinct dub/reggae/roots scene associated with what has been referred to as the ‘Wellington sound’, there is also a thriving jazz scene, a drum’n’bass scene, a country and garage rock scene as well as an experimental sound and noise scene, constituting the city’s vibrant cultural space (Straw, 1991). Wellington’s musical vitality is not just confined to the commercial setting of bars and clubs, but unfolds in various alternative performance venues such as  warehouses, factory lofts or domestic spaces. The creation of alternative

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p­ erformance spaces is partly due to the lack of infrastructure in terms of recording, rehearsal or performance rooms, and is also an echo of a neoliberal, entrepreneurial discourse that has shaped cultural and social life in Wellington since the early 1980s.2 The neoliberal shift in political philosophy and policy development was part of the government’s attempt to devolve responsibility for welfare away from the centre to the community, and from the collective to the individual (Fitzsimons, 2000). Hence the former welfare goals of participation and belonging have been replaced by a methodological individualism that focuses on the individual as self-­motivated entrepreneur and problem-­solver, and the source of creative solutions to whatever dilemmas they may face (Stahl, 2011). In Wellington, independent and underground musicians strive to emancipate their music from the institutional and commercial pressure of the art world by celebrating a low-­level, ‘lo-­fi’, do-­it-yourself ethic, which has long been part of the city’s socio-­musical experience. The DIY approach is a deep-­seated concept within New Zealand’s imagery, reflecting the common attitude of ‘jumping in with what you have and making do’ (Meehan, 2009, p. 104), which is constantly reiterated through the nationally ingrained myth of ‘no. 8 wire’ as an expression of ‘Kiwi ingenuity’. The ‘no. 8 wire mentality’ is named after a type of fencing wire that farmers often inventively and practically use not only for strapping or tie-­downs, but for hooks, ties, aerials and various applications other than fencing – anything for which a bendable piece of metal thread might be useful. This ‘Kiwi ingenuity’ is hence a ‘find a way to get it done–approach’, which provides motivational fuel for aspiring entrepreneurs who hope that the country’s isolation, small population and relative lack of resources won’t restrain them too much in relation to the more mature markets in the United States or Europe. The DIY ethic is therefore partly a reflection of the ‘pioneering spirit’3 in New Zealand, reinforced by the country’s geographical isolation, lack of resources and creative possibilities. It is also entrenched to the ways in which neoliberalism has taken root in the country, diminishing state-­sponsored welfare yet elevating the individual as a self-­motivated problem-­solver. Born out of isolation, creative desire and punk’s own DIY legacy, lo-­fi entrepreneurialism constitutes a definitive aspect of the city’s urban identity and underpins an allegiance to local music-­making in Wellington’s underground music scene.

Collaborating and creating space The lack of creative infrastructure and possibilities clearly shapes Wellington’s musical underground as it breeds a feeling of community that is oriented towards solving local problems. This collaborative spirit manifests itself in the sharing of resources, expertise and stories, and propels local musicians to engage collectively in order to transcend the shortcomings of the city. During my exploration of Wellington’s music scenes, I met Richard and Georgina, two underground musicians, lo-­fi entrepreneurs and the organizers of an experimental music and sound art event called Home Economics. Driven by a creative impulse, the lack

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of venues and some kind of job-­creation measure, the two local artists had founded the Home Economics Initiative in 2011. The non-­profit event is based on the entrepreneurial spirit and collaboration of the organizers, the owners or inhabitants of the respective domestic spaces, as well as the artists (the musicians and visual artists), with the aim of transforming the home into an underground performance space. Bennett and Rogers (2016) argue that the establishment of ‘unofficial live music venues’ such as this not only reflects a gap in venue provision within the local urban night-­time economy, but also reveals a desire among a particular community of music fans for a different kind of experience than that which can be garnered from an officially run venue space, whose listings may be governed more by dominant music tastes and the need for profit. (2016, p. 492) Home Economics, as a DIY live music event, creates public performance space out of what has traditionally been defined as a place of intimacy, stability and security. The home is typically understood as a space of safety and familiarity – a ‘private’ space away from the demands of ‘public’ life. However, as Blunt and Dowling (2006, p. 27) remind us, domestic space is not separated from public, political worlds but rather is constituted through them. It is a multiscalar spatial imaginary saturated with the experiences, memories and emotions of everyday life: [H]ome does not simply exist, but is made. Home is a process of creating and understanding forms of dwelling and belonging. This process has both material and imaginative elements. Thus people create home through social and emotional relationships. Home is also materially created – new structures formed, objects used and placed. (2006, p. 23) In this context, Home Economics creates performance space that resonates with the traditional confines of domestic space, such as intimacy, familiarity or stability, yet remains detached from bourgeois conceptions of home, economic forces and the spectre of neoliberalism. It provides a space of creative freedom that neglects the practical and economic constraints imposed by the cultural policy of local venues or galleries, providing a nurturing environment that oscillates between private and public, security and freedom, tradition and creation. This ‘in-­betweenness’ is paradigmatic of a new generation of artists, who are swinging or swaying ‘with and between future, present and past, here and there and somewhere; with and between ideals, mindsets, and positions’ (Vermeulen, 2012). This generation is inspired by a modern naïveté yet informed by postmodern scepticism. They express ‘(often guarded) hopefulness and (at times

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feigned) sincerity’ that hint at another structure of feeling – namely metamodernism (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010, p. 2). The prefix ‘meta’ refers to such notions as ‘with’, ‘between’ and ‘beyond’, suggesting that metamodernism should be situated epistemologically with (post)modernism, ontologically between (post)modernism, and historically beyond (post)modernism (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010). The metamodern generation oscillates between a postmodern doubt and a modern desire for sense, meaning and direction. As Van den Akker and Vermeulen (2010, p. 6) put it: ontologically, metamodernism oscillates between the modern and the postmodern. It oscillates between a modern enthusiasm and a postmodern irony, between hope and melancholy, between naïveté and knowingness, empathy and apathy, unity and plurality, totality and fragmentation, purity and ambiguity. The negotiation of such opposite poles, between the modern and the postmodern, creates a ‘both–neither’ dynamic. Metamodernism intimates a constant repositioning: not a compromise, not a balance, but a vehemently moving back and forth, left and right. It repositions itself with and between neoliberalism and Keynesianism, the ‘right’ and the ‘left’, idealism and ‘pragmatism’, the discursive and the material, web 2.0 and arts and crafts, without ever seeming reducible to any one of them. (Vermeulen, 2012) Home Economics is paradigmatic of this emerging structure of feeling, carrying the ‘in-­betweenness’ already in its title. When I asked the organizers, Richard and Georgina, how they came up with the name of the event, they responded: We were talking about alternative currencies and the idea of creativity in the home and domestic work; the work that isn’t necessarily paid for, such as doing the dishes; just domesticity in general and the idea of that as kind of an economy. And then it’s obviously a kind of joke on the old Home Economics, the thing you do in high school where you do a bit of cooking and household budgeting and that stuff. It’s pretty much like an old school housewife training school. As such, the name Home Economics clearly refers to the traditional field of study also referred to as Human Ecology, Home Science or Family and Consumer Science. In this regard, Home Economics focuses on the organization of the household, including cooking, food preservation, handicrafts, family relationships and the management of domestic budgets. This notion of Home Economics formalizes hegemonic principles of domesticity, which are firmly rooted

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in fundamental values of capitalism and economic materialism. However, Home Economics as it takes place in Wellington’s musical underground celebrates its entrepreneurial spirit and independence from economic forces. As Richard and Georgina frame it, the focus of the DIY event lies in alternative exchanges other than financial exchanges, creating a money-­free environment and a space detached from modern commodity and economic principles: We want to put on an event that happens outside of the run of the usual venues in Wellington and we’re interested in using kind of spaces that we had at hand such as domestic spaces and I guess we are interested in other kinds of exchanges other than financial exchanges that happen in the usual show formats and bars. Home Economics creates a space of hospitality and familiarity that is linked closely to the traditional imagery of the home as a place of intimacy, privacy and family dwelling. This romanticized conception of home originates in the bourgeois age where the house was an essential aspect of the identity and self-­ definition of the middle class (Welter, 1966). It continued to be significant within the disciplines of phenomenology and philosophy in the early 1960s, when the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard (1969) argued that home was a haven and our own little corner of the world. Nevertheless, however solidified this imaginary of the home appears to be, the ‘metamodern pendulum’ swings to the opposite pole. Home Economics transforms the private, quiet and peaceful realm of the home into a public, noisy and vibrant performance space with the doors thrown wide open for strangers, visitors, flâneurs and voyeurs. Unlike the bourgeois conception of home as a locus of identity and self-­definition, domestic space serves as a medium for artistic creation and self-­realization. The metamodern performance space rather resembles what Walter Benjamin (1969) refers to as (creative) spielraum (or space for play), mirroring the romantic desire of the artist for an authentic state of being – that of the free-­playing child. With their (modern) commitment and enthusiasm and a (postmodern) lo-­fi entrepreneurialism, Richard and Georgina set up a ‘haven for local underground musicians’, a creative spielraum opposing deficient urban infrastructure and financial challenges. They have created a private-­public space, the ‘underground at home’ for a musical family of friends and strangers. It is a familiar environment, yet undefined, unique and special: an open-­ended, free-­flowing, ever-­changing and moving event, which yet retains a certain kind of stability, rhythm and identity. Home Economics is a form of what Vermeulen and Van den Akker (2010) term ‘constructive engagement’ – a way by which individuals of the contemporary twenty-­first–century globalized world, unblinded by ideological dogmas, try to manifest their engagement within society without political actions against the state or against society, but with DIY or DIT in a small-­scale setting: the city, the neighbourhood or the home (Van Poecke, 2014).

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When I asked Georgina and Richard whether they would pass on the event if they left Wellington, they both answered: Nah, I don’t think so. It is just a time and place kind of thing. It wouldn’t be as organic if we would try to pass it on. It would seem forced. There are gonna be lots of other interesting initiatives in Wellington. I feel we would be branding ourselves if we would pass on the Home Economics name, which would be weird.

Conclusion Driven by a markedly modern commitment, yet permeated by a postmodern detachment and pragmatic indifference, Home Economics is a sign of its time, representing a new structure of feeling that shapes the making of music in Wellington’s underground music scene. Spurred by a neoliberal, entrepreneurial discourse and the deep-­seated concept of ‘Kiwi ingenuity’ within New Zealand’s imagery, the DIY event creates alternative performance spaces detached from modern commodity and economic principles. The event provides a musical space, liberated from political and economic forces, which allows for the sharing of intimate experiences in order to pursue the music-­makers’ need to be ‘private in public’ (Blum, 2003). It provides a safe haven and space for collective intimacy, in which ‘sharing and being shared can be seen and oriented to as its own specific form of creativity’ (2003, p. 179). However, it also opens its doors to strangers, visitors, flâneurs and voyeurs, ‘deconstructing our assumptions about our lived spaces’ (Vermeulen and Van den Akker, 2010, p. 8). As such, Home Economics is the re-­signification of the home: it is the re-­signification of ‘the commonplace with significance, the ordinary with mystery, the familiar with the seemliness of the unfamiliar, the finite with the semblance of the finite’ (2010, p. 12). By choosing the multiscalar spatial imaginary of domestic spaces, Home Economics fuses private and public, security and freedom, tradition and creation, creating a ‘creative spielraum’ for a metamodern generation of musicians grappling with the financial, geopolitical and climatological uncertainties of a globalized, technologized society. It reacts to the need for a ‘decentralized production of alternative energy’ and a sustainable urban future, providing a temporary solution to the ‘waste of time, space and energy caused by (sub)urban sprawls’ (2010, p. 5). Consequently, Home Economics constitutes a metamodern performance space, that ‘displaces the parameters of the present with those of a future presence that is futureless’ (2010, p. 12).

Notes 1 French philosopher Gilles Lipovetsky (2005) claims that the postmodern has given way to the hypermodern. According to Lipovetsky, we have entered a new phase of ‘hypermodernity’, which is characterized by movement, fluidity and flexibility, new

98   K. Rochow technologies, markets and global culture. Similarly, Alan Kirby (2009) proposes that postmodernism has been superseded as a cultural dominant by digimodernism and/or pseudomodernism, ‘a new paradigm of authority and knowledge formed under the pressure of new technologies and contemporary social forces’. Cultural theorist Robert Samuels (2008) argues that our current epoch is that of automodernism – a combination of ‘technological automation and human autonomy’. Probably the best-­known conception of the latest discourse is Nicholas Bourriaud’s suggestion of altermodernism, which represents the ‘synthesis between modernism and post-­colonialism’, taking into account today’s global context and its economic, political and cultural conditions (Bourriaud, 2009). 2 Due to an oil crisis in the 1970s, high inflation, rising levels of unemployment and an increasing trade deficit, severe international and domestic pressures were manifest in New Zealand. The third National government under Robert Muldoon (1975–84) attempted to stabilize the domestic economy by combining subsidies to key export sectors and overseas borrowing. This highly interventionist approach resulted in raising taxes as well as a wage, price and rent freeze in 1982. In this context of crisis, David Lange’s fourth Labour government (1984–90) loosened subsidies, privatized state-­owned enterprises and introduced a new course of welfare reform based on individual choice and self-­sufficiency. This shift from Keynesian welfarism towards a ‘competition state’, which emphasizes the promotion of enterprise, innovation and profitability in the private and public sectors, is also known as the ‘New Zealand experiment’ or ‘an extreme example of neoliberalism and economic restructuring’ (Larner 1997, p. 7). 3 The New Zealand pioneer is an old national foundation myth/stereotype that idealizes the sacrifices and physical hardships of the early settlers (pioneers), yet neglects colonization, domination and subjugation of the indigenous population, who were undermined by the pioneers’ new systems of ownership, law, education, language and technology.  Those who worried about declining national spirit thought that people needed to rediscover some of the hardiness and resourcefulness of the pioneers. In this stereotype lay a story of courage, industry, vision and faith, a heritage to be celebrated and a source of comfort and inspiration in times of recession and war fever. (www.nz.history.net.nz)

References Bachelard, G. (1969). The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press. Baciu, C., Bocoş, M. and Baciu-­Urzică, C. (2015). Metamodernism: A conceptual foundation. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 209: 33–8. Benjamin, W. (1969). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In H. Arendt (ed.), Illuminations (pp. 217–51). New York: Schocken Books. Bennett, A. and Rogers, I. (2016). In the scattered fields of memory: Unofficial live music venues, intangible heritage, and the recreation of the musical past. Space and Culture, 19(4): 490–501. Blum, A. (2003). The Imaginative Structure of the City. Montréal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press. Blunt, A. and Dowling, R.M. (2006). Home. London: Routledge. Bourriaud, N. (2009). Altermodern. London: Tate Publishing. Brunt, S. (2011). Performing identity and place in Wellington’s Cuba Street Carnival. In G. Keam and T. Mitchell (eds), Home, Land and Sea: Situating Music in Aotearoa New Zealand. Auckland: Pearson Education.

Home Economics   99 Carruth, H. (1986). The defeated generation. The Kenyon Review, 8(1): 111–17. Clasquin-­Johnson, M. (2017). Towards a metamodern academic study of religion and a more religiously informed metamodernism. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 73(3): e1–e11. Dumitrescu, A.E. (2014). Towards a metamodern literature. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Otago. Retrieved from https://ourarchive.otago.ac.nz/handle/10523/4925. Fitzsimons, P. (2000). Neoliberalism and ‘social capital’: Reinventing community. Paper presented to Area Symposium on Neoliberalism, Welfare and Education, ‘The New Zealand Experiment’: Critique and Critical Transformations, New Zealand Association for Research in Education, New Orleans. Frick, L.Y.E. (2015). Am I a fluxus artist? An exploration of the ideas behind fluxus, avant garde ideologies and the relationship between life and art. Unpublished PhD thesis, Iceland Academy of the Arts, Reykjavik. Gardner, L. (2016). Metamodernism: A new philosophical approach to counseling. Journal of Humanistic Counseling, 55(2): 86–98. Kirby, A. (2009). Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture. New York: Continuum. Koutselini, M. (1997). Contemporary trends and perspectives of the curricula: Towards a meta-­modern paradigm for curriculum. Curriculum Studies, 5(1): 87–101. Larner, W. (1997). The New Zealand experiment: Towards a post-­structuralist political economy. Unpublished PhD thesis, Carleton University. Lipovetsky, G. (2005). Hypermodern Times. Cambridge: Polity Press. McCloskey, D.N. (1992). Minimal statism and metamodernism: Reply to Friedman. Critical Review, 6(1): 107–12. McDonald, T.A. (2014). Between Artifice and Actuality: The Aesthetic and Ethical Metafiction of Vladimir Nabokov and David Mitchell. Athens, OH: Ohio University. Retrieved from https:// etd.ohiolink.edu/pg_10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:ouhonors1400014295. Meehan, N. (2009). Mike Nock on New Zealand and jazz. In R. Hardie and A. Thomas (eds), Jazz in Aotearoa (pp. 56–68). Wellington: Steele Roberts. Samuels, R. (2008). Auto-­modernity after postmodernism: Autonomy and automation in culture, technology, and education. In T. McPherson (ed.), Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected (pp. 219–40). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Shepherd, P. (2015). The spirit of the age: Are reports of postmodernism’s demise exaggerated or is there a new zeitgeist in town? Unpublished PhD thesis, Falmouth University. Retrieved from www.researchgate.net/publication/276113483_The_spirit_of_the_age_ Are_reports_of_Postmodernism’s_demise_exaggerated_or_is_there_a_new_zeitgeist_in_ town. Stahl, G. (2011). ‘DIY or DIT!’ Tales of making music in a creative capital. In G. Keam and T. Mitchell (eds), Situating Music in Aotearoa New Zealand (pp. 145–60). Auckland: Pearson Education. Straw, W. (1991). Systems of articulation, logics of change: Communities and scenes in popular music. Cultural Studies, 5(3): 368–88. Truitt, S. (2006). The riderless world. American Book Review, 27(3): 23–4. Van Poecke, N. (2014). Beyond postmodern narcolepsy [Notes on Metamodernism]. Retrieved from www.metamodernism.com/2014/06/04/beyond-­postmodern-narcolepsy. Vermeulen, T. (2012). TANK magazine interviews Timotheus Vermeulen. TANK, 23 February. Retrieved from www.metamodernism.com/2012/02/23/tank-­interviewstimotheus-­vermeulen-about-­metamodernism.

100   K. Rochow Vermeulen, T. and Van den Akker, R. (2010). Notes on metamodernism. Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 2(0). Retrieved from www.aestheticsandculture.net/index.php/jac/ article/view/5677. Wallace, D.F. (1996). Infinite Jest: A Novel/David Foster Wallace. Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Wellington City Council (2017). About Wellington. Retrieved from http://wellington. govt.nz/about-­wellington/history/history-­of-wellington/pre-­european-settlement-­1865. Welter, B. (1966). The cult of true womanhood: 1820–1960. American Quarterly, 18(2): 151–74. Zavarzadeh, M. (1975). The apocalyptic fact and the eclipse of fiction in recent American prose narratives. Journal of American Studies, 9(1): 69–83.

Chapter 9

Proud amateurs Deterritorialized expertise in contemporary Finnish DIY micro-­labels Juho Kaitajärvi-Tiekso

In popular media, music industry careers are often described using a model that I describe as ‘evolutionist’. In this model, artists start their careers locally from the grassroots level, and work their way up to higher levels, always aspiring to become better – in other words, more professional. The first of these levels is local fame, while the next entails wider regional or national awareness and recording on small record labels. At the highest level, artists are signed to multinational record labels, and tour and attain fame internationally (Hearn et al., 2004; Toynbee, 2000, pp.  25–6; Wikström, 2009, pp.  66–9). By studying popular-­music production in more detail, however, this model is easily challenged. Since roughly the 1980s, when recording technology became increasingly affordable and available, the production of popular music has often followed a different logic – one in which both artists and producers work on a do-­it-yourself (DIY) basis. They build their own informal networks and industries at the grassroots level while at the same time aiming to distinguish themselves from the professional, mainstream music industry and those who aspire to be part of it (Peterson and Bennett, 2004; Toynbee, 2000, p. 27). In this field, amateurism is preferred to professionalism, which is thought to hinder creativity and corrupt the social aspects of music production networks. During the 2000s, the internet and digital technology further facilitated the development and expansion of these DIY industries as a whole. Nevertheless, those committed to such alternative industrial strategies are generally aware of the precarity of their situation (see Graham, 2016; Haynes and Marshall, 2017). A number of commentators (e.g. Collins and Young, 2014) argue that DIY practices are more likely to lead to professional careers in the age of social media. However, many others remain sceptical (e.g. Haynes and Marshall, 2017), and those amateurs who do in fact consider themselves aspiring professionals are not the focus of this chapter. The focus here is on examining the ideological and aesthetic practices and discourses of specifically DIY independent micro-­labels in Finland, which have a less straightforward attitude towards professionalism. Robert Strachan (2003) was the first to explore such actors at any great depth. According to him, DIY independent micro-­labels are small record producers who have a common

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i­deology based on an ‘art vs. commerce’ binary. They seek to maintain the autonomy of their artists and releases by resisting the production logic of the ‘music industry’, which they see as purely utilitarian in valuing profit over aesthetic qualities. In Finland, there are approximately 70–100 actively independent micro-­labels adhering to the qualifications1 outlined by Strachan, most of which are more or less networked with each other. For my study, I have interviewed ten of these, from four different cities: Harmönia Records, Helmi-­levyt, Combat Rock Industry (CRI), Verdura Records, Jozik Records, 267 lattajjaa and Temmikongi from Helsinki; Ektro Records from Pori; Fonal Records from Tampere; and Airiston Punk-­levyt from Turku. Their releases consist of various musical styles, from metal and punk groups to experimental electronic music and noise. According to Strachan (2003), the extrapolation of art and commerce is closely connected to questions of amateurism and professionalism in micro-­label communities. Amateurism is seen as characteristic of sincere, Romantic art, while professionalism is equated with a more blatant utilitarianism. All the Finnish micro-­labels studied have this somewhat negative – or at least reserved – attitude towards professionalism in common, even if they differ in other ways regarding the subject.

Amateurism as a line of flight The charm for Finnish micro-­labels of being amateur is perhaps best illustrated by the etymological meaning of ‘lover’ as it is borrowed from Latin (amātor) via French. While amateurs can be passionate artists or producers – and often one and the same in DIY cultures – who produce what they love, professionals are obliged to conduct thoroughly rationalized routine practices, free of any economic (let alone artistic) risk. Whereas the amateur is allowed to experiment and fail, if the same happens to a professional, it is ‘a flop’. Using the vocabulary of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (2004, pp. 10, 224–6), amateurism provides a ‘line of flight’ – a way to escape the evolutionist model focused as it is on establishing a professional career stage by stage. This concept is inspired by Fernand Deligny’s mapping of the wandering paths walked by autistic children and adolescents (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, pp. 16, 224–6). Likewise, Michel de Certeau (1988, pp.  30–5) has appropriated Deligny’s ‘wander lines’2 in describing those acts of consumption where a commodity is used in a different way or for a purpose other than that for which it was originally designed. The concept could be extended as a way to conceptualize acts of production aspiring to avoid professionalism, since it is also consumption as the tools of production are being consumed. For instance, the playing of instruments might not be learned in the same way as they would be in a music school, or sound captured and produced as intended by the designers of audio equipment, or music recorded following existing professional conventions that consider wider audience expectations. Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp. 344, 353–4, 360) claim that professionalism involves territorializing ‘the functional activities’ of occupations. This is done by

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establishing spaces that are reserved for these activities and defined by them. ‘The line of flight’ provided by amateurism is a way to undo this, to deterritorialize (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, pp. 559–62) such activities so that they are free to wander from the linear ‘hallowed’ path to professionalism mentioned at the start.3 According to Jason Toynbee (2000, pp. 25–7), communities of artists and their audiences ‘in arenas which are not fully commodified’ – a category among which I reckon non-­professional DIY scenes – form a proto-­market. These provide the industry – that is, professional production – with a diverse range of talent and, in the process, some of the amateurs become professionals (cf. Hearn et al., 2004; Wikström, 2009, pp. 66–9). Although this view of musical activity would seem to displace the more linear evolutionist account, artistic activity is still seen as subordinate to music markets, leaving just two ‘territories’: the ‘mainstream’ (Hearn et al., 2004) and a proto-­market of ‘promising’, ‘new’ or ‘unproven talents’ (Wikström, 2009, pp. 66–9, 126–31).4 This dovetails all too comfortably into the hegemonic evolutionist model of culture, which is exactly what DIY amateurs are seeking to avoid. Thus they deterritorialize their practices and refuse to form this proto-­market. While the recording industry has changed profoundly since the theories of Toynbee (2000), Jo Haynes and Lee Marshall (2017) claim that fundamental industry practices have actually remained the same. While Toynbee might no longer characterize a proto-­market in the same way, major producers are still scouting for new talent, whether it be through live events, talent programmes on TV or social media (Wikström, 2009, pp. 165–6). This notional shift in the industry in the age of social media, with a common narrative that describes aspiring artists as ‘going viral’ and becoming stars overnight (Collins and Young, 2014; Haynes and Marshall, 2017), has not suppressed the deterritorializing aspirations of micro-­labels. The dominant considerations of success or quality (Toynbee, 2000, pp. 2, 28) that manifest in the dualism of professional, mainstream quality and unpopular, amateurish or ‘artsy fartsy’ ‘junk’ is precisely what the micro-­labels are seeking to refute, instead preferring to define their own qualifications or territories. Moreover, this reterritorialization (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, pp. 332–4, 559; Widder, 2012, pp. 132–5) may go even further and involve a perpetual flight from the establishment of qualifications, territories or categories. Thus, passing into its purest, most absolute form, deterritorialization does away with all juxtapositions or stable identities (‘strata’). These are escaped ‘nomadically’ by envisioning a ‘new earth’ allowing for ‘rhizomatic’ multiple, non-­hierarchical interpretations (Deleuze and Guattari, 2000, pp. 315–21, 382; Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, pp. 45, 60, 421, 556–62; Widder, 2012, pp. 131–5).

Amateurism and Finnish micro-­l abel autonomy The celebration of autonomy and the disavowal of economic ambitions are reflected in the way Finnish micro-­labels embrace amateurism. All the representatives of the labels interviewed claimed to be ‘unprofessional’ insofar as they

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distanced themselves from professional record production – conflating it with economic or business organizational concerns. Although none of them professed to have had any training directly related to record production, or even music, this was not considered a hindrance. Such openness and trespassing on otherwise professional territories correspond with the nomadism encouraged by Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp.  25–7). Yet there were differences expressed regarding certain aspects of remaining amateur: some described it as a conscious ideological struggle against the determination of artistic practices by commercial objectives, while others saw it as a necessity, borne of an unwillingness to sink time and effort into rationalizing production and profitability and a passion to instead pursue their own artistic and cultural objectives. There was also some ambiguity about the concept: Verdura, for instance, described its label as professional when it came to the artistic nature of the label’s content; Harmönia saw itself as professional in addressing the specific subcultural aesthetic conditions of the label’s audience. While they proudly avowed that they were amateur, all the label representatives acknowledged that some degree of professionalization had occurred during their existence. Their complex relationship with professionalization could partly be explained through Strachan’s (2003) work on British micro labels. He quotes an email by ‘Skif ’ of Elastic Fiction Records on a micro label’s mailing list: For most of us on this list running a label is not about BUSINESS but about GETTING INVOLVED getting music heard getting it out there … I dislike this idea that labels that do this are ‘unprofessional’ give me the semi-­pros and amateurs any day as long as their heart is in it.  (Strachan, 2003, p. 93) This attitude was echoed in all the Finnish cases too; at the ideological level, the labels would generally agree with Roope Seppälä of Temmikongi: Now I have really begun to sort of savour what this is, that I’m a hobbyist. A hobby at its best is professionalism without [economic pressure] … when this [pressure] does not determine what you do. (Seppälä, 2014)5 The element of professionalism that sits most uncomfortably with the passion and creative autonomy that micro-­labels require is thus the economic pressure to increase profitability and rationalize production. However, as mentioned, the Finnish micro-­labels are not immune to all aspects of professionalism, nor are they deliberately trying to behave amateurishly by mismanaging their productions. All the label representatives considered that they had built up skills, knowledge and networks in the course of running their labels (albeit often in a relatively organic and haphazard way), but in their view, gaining this kind of professional experience had not corrupted their

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objectives of production. The more popular Finnish micro-­labels, such as Ektro, Fonal, CRI and Helmi-­levyt, acknowledged that some degree of professionalism had been acquired over the years, but nevertheless argued they had tried to maintain an amateur attitude. For example, while Jussi Lehtisalo of Ektro conceded that hard work is character-­building, at the same time he pointed out that the expectation to follow it up with professionalism actually threatens creativity: [Professionalism] destroys everything – practically everything … Professionalism has all these kinds of expectations … It makes things quite different, its obligations eat into our natural abilities. It forces us to make conscious decisions to develop a certain way, or someone else might take our place. And though often good things might come from this too, I see things [differently] as an amateur essentially. (Lehtisalo, 2012) Similar views were voiced by Antti Lind (2012) of Helmi-­levyt. ‘As an amateur, you must have interest and passion – if you don’t have that, you may as well do something else’. While for Lehtisalo the occupation of professional territory is a challenge to be overcome, Lind’s words provoke a recognition that ‘desire’ – Deleuze and Guattari’s (2000, pp. 378–82) revolutionary force and prerequisite for deterritorialization – is the most important thing. For Temmikongi and Ektro, avoiding professionalism is perceived as a struggle against the ever-­present threat of commercial opportunism determining artistic practices: As long as you’re operating on a small-­scale, it’s fun … It has always been my personal mission to try and stay there, a place where you are not looking to make money … I just try not to get excited when I see these opportunities. (Seppälä, 2014) In the case of the smaller underground labels, such as Jozik (Zherbin and Kretova, 2013) and 267 lattajjaa (Haahti, 2012), professionalism was not perceived to be any kind of ‘threat’. Being amateur was simply a conscious choice they had made. Their representatives claimed the small scale of their releases meant that any negligible profits from record sales would always be spent on future releases. For Mirko Metsola (2014) from Airiston punk-­levyt, the difference was clear. He did not see himself as a professional, since no loans had been taken out for the label and he was holding down a day job as a dockyard foreman. Running a punk label was his part-­time hobby: in a small country like Finland, he thought it would be very difficult to run it professionally full-­time. The Finnish micro-­labels interviewed here clearly had to support themselves with income from other activities. With the more established labels – such as

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CRI, Ektro, Fonal and Helmi-­levyt – that acknowledge a greater degree of professionalism, the income from record production was described as being just one piece of the pie. For instance, the sole owner of CRI, Jani Koskinen, treated looking after the record store of the same name as his main day job, while running the label was his real passion – even more so than playing in some of the bands he has released – despite it being of far less economic importance:6 [The record store] is the [main] job, it doesn’t depend on whether I like it or not. But this label still aspires to certain purity, I don’t have to see it in turns of money … I see it … as a lifetime’s work … I am not the main songwriter in the bands I play in anyway, but the label, that is my vision of what I have to offer. (Koskinen, 2014) Meanwhile, Antti Lind considered running Helmi-­levyt to be his main occupation. I try to stay an amateur … but one cannot help being professional in the sense that this is a kind of full-­time job to me. (Lind, 2012) However, he also receives income from being a musician, and Helmi-­levyt also operates as a booking agency for the bands in which he plays, but Lind claims he does not take anything for doing this: It would be a bit crude [if] you took first a cut for booking the gig, next a cut for playing in it, and then on top of that sold records for which you get most of the money; [so] a bit of fairness [is needed]. (Lind, 2012) This principle of ‘fairness’ could be seen as contrasting with professional practices, where the key objective seems to be to extract profit wherever possible – often at the expense of the recording artist (McLeod, 2005; cf. Strachan, 2003, pp. 234–7). In addition to threatening artistic inspiration, micro-­labels associate professionalism with questionable ethics: ‘[The word professional] conjures up the ugly side of the business’ (Martinkauppi, 2014). It is this ethical criticism of ‘the music industry’ that Strachan (2003, 2007) considers typical of independent micro-­labels. Strachan (2007, pp.  246–7) argues that the micro-­labels he studied cannot achieve autonomy as they are ‘dialectically bound up with the aesthetics and discourses of large-­scale cultural organizations’. The micro-­labels examined in this study, however, cannot be portrayed in the same way.7 Although many of them expressed disenchantment with the ‘mainstream’ music industry, it would be a step too far to claim that they focus entirely on opposing it. Rather, it

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seems that Finnish micro-­labels escape the mainstream in a more Deleuzian, non-­dialectic fashion (see Widder, 2012, p.  19; Deleuze and Guattari, 2004, p. 567). Simply focusing on their own territory, they care less about the workings of the professional, mainstream music industry: [O]f course we are a kind of alternative. We shouldn’t see it as simply mainstream versus underground, but it’s quite clear that we operate … outside the sort of norms of record labels. We don’t go to MIDEM8 or other industry fairs, so it’s clear that we are underground—though maybe not intentionally so. (Martinkauppi, 2014) [S]ome [producers] might say, ‘It’s true I am making huge margins’ … and it’s down to … the publishing contracts and so on. This doesn’t affect my world though, as I represent a different branch of science … I mean, basically, I don’t know what they are! … I feel … this [music industry] thing happens behind closed doors. I think it’s a good thing that there are some who [produce and play music] from the heart, and others who do it with something else in mind – you can’t fault that either. I mean, I can’t say for certain that everything I do is pure, or that artists I have released are so. But I hope they’d do things with a pure impulse, with some kind of joy and desire, rather than thinking about the market and calculating everything to death. Personally, stuff like that irritates the hell out of me. (Lehtisalo, 2012)

A nebulous border The interview quotes show that there is some confusion about where exactly the border falls between amateur and professional activities. Despite cherishing his punk label, Koskinen (2014) claims that most things he does as part of his day job could also be described as his hobby – the only difference is whether it pays or not, and the degree of involvement. For him, his hobby, punk, had also become his job – or a way of life, as he described it. He also did not identify himself with average professionals in the record business as it is only punk on which he considers himself an expert. As he put it, ‘I don’t exactly see how one could be a professional in punk rock’. This lifestyle aspect, which seemed to be hard for some interviewees to pin down, was also voiced by Sasha Kretova and Dmitri Zherbin of Jozik: JK-­T: [D]o you see yourselves as like professionals in what you do? DZ: It depends what you mean by professionals. We don’t have any

education in this field … it’s not like work, a day job, so in that way we’re not professionals. SK: We don’t really treat it as a hobby.9 It’s pretty serious.

108   J. Kaitajärvi-Tiekso JK-­T: Do you call yourselves amateurs then? DZ: Well, we don’t really call ourselves either,

we just … it’s just something we do. JK-­T: It’s more than a hobby? SK: [F]or me always a hobby sounds like … something you do when you don’t need to do anything serious. DZ: I wouldn’t say it’s like a hobby … music is just more important. (Zherbin and Kretova, 2013) Although they do not see themselves as professionals, or people aspiring to be so, Kretova and Zherbin describe their production endeavours as a kind of lifestyle choice – or a ‘lifetime’s work’, as Koskinen calls it. Perttu Häkkinen of Harmönia also showed a certain ambiguity in his interview. Do you get the feeling that you are good at what you do, that you have skills to do this? PH: Hell yeah, I mean we’re like really fucking good at this! JK-­T: So would you describe yourself as professional, then? PH: No way! We’re complete dilettantes, but then in other ways … I’d say with this kind of music – the marginal of the marginal – to distribute it around the world in ridiculously small editions … we’ve done it really well – not economically speaking, of course, as it’s doomed from the start, but in fulfilling our objectives. (Häkkinen, 2012) JK-­T:

Portraying himself as an expert in his own especially marginal field of music, Häkkinen’s statement also resembles Koskinen’s above. Janne Martinkauppi (2014) of Verdura expressed similar paradoxical feelings towards professionalism. Claiming to operate his label ‘seriously, but not too seriously’,10 he considered the releases themselves as professional in terms of ‘artistic substance’ or ‘vision’, being produced with ‘the best available resources’ – for what they are worth. However, in other ways he described Verdura, in self-­deprecating terms, as amateurish in carrying out the (otherwise ‘professional’) artistic ideas, making ‘stupid decisions’ and ‘operating randomly’. Despite (or because of ) this, he was more sympathetic to the idea of being amateur than professional, for much the same reason as the other labels already mentioned. The manifold paths that micro-­labels navigate across this nebulous border between the amateur and professional seem to correspond to rhizomatic or ‘nomad thought’ processes as described in the theories of Deleuze and Guattari (2004). In these interviews, the micro-­labels revealed a multitude of autonomous aspirations amounting to much more than a simple dichotomy between the ‘pure’ amateur and ‘cynical’ professional.

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Conclusion My interviews with representatives of Finnish DIY micro-­labels do not support the widely adopted ‘evolutionist’ model, where a pool of aspiring amateur musicians and producers hone their skills so that they can ascend from the grassroots level to the higher echelons of their respective professions. Nor do the micro-­ labels and the artists they release represent a proto-­market (Toynbee, 2000). There is, instead, an ideological opposition to ‘professionals’ that is often intentional, and certain amateurish practices are embraced, if not fully then at least rhetorically. However, unlike Strachan (2007), I do not consider that this opposition indicates a strongly dialectical relationship with ‘the industry’. Instead, employing the concepts of Deleuze and Guattari (2004), Finnish micro­labels ‘flee’ certain professional business practices so that they can better focus on their autonomous aspirations or ‘desires’. They should thus not be seen in terms of evolutionist career development as a proto-­market; perhaps it should be viewed instead as an ‘alternative market’ after Fabian Hein (2012). One could also argue that average professional record producers would simply not get on in indie, punk or underground scenes, despite their ability to spot new ‘talent’. Although not exclusively, we have seen here that micro-­labels seem to shape their practices and ideology partly in reaction to the hard-­headed economics of the mainstream. On the one hand, strong identification with amateurs can be seen to reinforce the dichotomy between amateur and professional, but on the other, most of the micro-­labels examined here considered themselves autonomous actors and, as such, free of such dualist constraints altogether. This ‘rhizomatic’ thinking with scant regard for pinning down exactly where the amateur/professional border lies is what Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp. 10–13) famously encourage. In the cases where the border is questioned or even refuted, a line of flight becomes visible, and a new frame for production becomes established. At this point, reterritorialization has occurred, and a new dichotomy may form. In this new frame, economic success and a professional career have been dropped in favour of other objectives – perhaps finding a small, but like-­minded audience, or securing the availability of certain records valued as ‘weird’ or simply ‘good’. In other cases, this space might be deterritorialized further, so that simplistic dichotomies soften further and distances shorten as viewed from a new perspective of continuous and fully autonomous flight – a process that Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp. 559–62) call absolute deterritorialization. There are thus many nuances and questions regarding micro-­labels and their practices that could be explored in further studies. The concepts of Deleuze and Guattari (2000, 2004) would be useful, for instance, for understanding further how capitalism on the one hand deterritorializes by feeding the autonomy of producers such as micro-­labels, while on the other reterritorializes by co-­opting their production in the form of sponsorship, advertising and online services such as distribution and social media. In the case of those micro-­label owners whose living depends more on producing recordings, the question of

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amateurism is more complex: how can one maintain the autonomy of an amateur – an art lover – while becoming increasingly professional? This is about founding new production practices, or a ‘new earth’ as Deleuze and Guattari (2004) would describe it.

Acknowledgement This research was supported by the Finnish Doctoral Programme in Music Research.

Notes   1 He associates micro labels with genres such as indie rock, post-­rock and punk, as well as in a later article on the study (Strachan, 2007, p. 260) styles as diverse as jazz, folk and improvised music. My definition of the concept is based less on the relatively contingent musical styles in which the labels specialize and more on their practices, as well as cultural and ideological motivations.   2 ‘Lines of drift’ in Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp. 224, 344).   3 Deleuze and Guattari (2004, pp. 559–62; see also Widder, 2012, pp. 132–5) distinguish between different types of deterritorialization: negative and relative. These respectively obstruct and segment the lines of flight, later curtailed by reterritorialization – if not channelled into ‘lines of destruction’ (e.g. fascism) or absolute deterritorialization that ‘connect[s] lines of flight’ with an autonomous multitude that continues the process further.   4 Toynbee (2000, pp.  2, 27) is aware of the ambivalence towards the market among producers and artists. At the discursive level, his concept of the proto-­market nevertheless lumps all amateur activity together as being subordinate to the market, conflating aspiring professionals with deterritorializing amateurs.   5 All interviews apart from Zherbin and Kretova (2013) were translated from Finnish to English by the author with the assistance of Alex Reed. In Finnish, harrastelija, translated as ‘a hobbyist’, is often used interchangeably with amatööri (‘amateur’).   6 In 2016, he sold the store on, concentrating on running the label.   7 There is also some ambiguity in Strachan (2003, pp. 234–7).   8 One of the largest international music business trade shows, held annually in Cannes, France.   9 The interview was conducted in English, which is the mother tongue of neither the interviewees nor the interviewer. As the words ‘amateur’ and ‘hobby’ bear language-­ specific meanings, the meanings of these words in this interview are only proximate to the meanings in the translated interviews. 10 This is one possible translation of the Finnish phrase tosissaan, mutta ei vakavissaan, often heard in the underground music context and understood to mean not taking oneself too seriously.

References Collins, S. and Young, S. (2014). Beyond 2.0: The Future of Music. Sheffield: Equinox. De Certeau, M. (1988 [1980]). The Practice of Everyday Life. S. Randall, Trans. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Proud amateurs   111 Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2000 [1972]). Anti-­Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. R. Hurley, M. Seem and H.R. Lane, Trans. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2004 [1980]). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. B. Massumi, Trans. London: Continuum. Graham, S. (2016). Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political, and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Haahti, H. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi, J. (Interviewer). (2012). Digital recording, 19 December. Haynes, J. and Marshall, L. (2017). Beats and tweets: Social media in the careers of independent musicians. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444817711404 Hearn, G., Ninan, A., Rogers, I., Cunningham, S. and Luckman, S. (2004). From the margins to the mainstream: Creating value in Queensland’s music industry. Media International Australia, 112: 101–14. Häkkinen, P. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi, J. (Interviewer). (2012). Digital recording, 30 October. Hein, F. (2012). Le DIY comme dynamique contre-­culturelle? L’exemple de la scène punk rock. Volume!, 9(1): 105–26. Koskinen, J. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, J. (Interviewer). (2014). Digital recording, 18 February. Lehtisalo, J. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi, J. (Interviewer). (2012). Digital recording, 10 May. Lind, A. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi, J. (Interviewer). (2012). Digital recording, 15 August. Martinkauppi, J. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, J. (Interviewer). (2014). Digital recording, 28 February. McLeod, K. (2005). MP3s are killing home taping: The rise of internet distribution and its challenge to the major label music monopoly. Popular Music and Society, 28(4): 521–31. Metsola, M. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, J. (Interviewer). (2014). Digital recording, 12 April. Peterson, R.A. and Bennett, A. (2004). Introducing music scenes. In A. Bennett and R.A. Peterson (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (pp. 1–15). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Seppälä, R. (Interviewee) and Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, J. (Interviewer). (2014). Digital recording, 5 February. Strachan, R. (2003). Do-­it-yourself: Industry, ideology, aesthetics and micro independent record labels in the UK. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Liverpool. Retrieved from Strachan’s profile pages in www.academia.edu. Strachan, R. (2007). Micro-­independent record labels in the UK: Discourse, DIY cultural production and the music industry. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2): 245–65. Toynbee, J. (2000). Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions. London: Arnold. Widder, N. (2012). Political Theory After Deleuze. London: Continuum. Wikström, P. (2009). The Music Industry: Music in the Cloud. Cambridge: Polity Press. Zherbin, D. and Kretova, A. (Interviewees) and Kaitajärvi-Tiekso, J. (Interviewer). (2013). Digital recording, 23 October.

Chapter 10

Noise records as noise culture DIY practices, aesthetics and trades Sarah Benhaïm

Noise music is notorious for being intended to be heard live: not only does it favour a physical and sensory experience through loud sounds, but noise listeners also value a kind of performativity that centres on a freely improvised way of playing and homemade instrumental material. Noticing that many fans never listen to noise records, Klett and Gerber (2014, p. 287) conclude that ‘recorded media do not explain why participants find noise compelling, or how these “attachments” develop’. However, records have a great importance within the genre. As I have shown using a study on the listening practices of noise music fans (Benhaïm, 2016), records encourage an intimate, attentive approach to listening that focuses on the subtleties of sound textures. Records also allow a variety of attachments, blending personal dispositions, listening rituals and perceptive games related to ambient noise and the listener’s environment. Furthermore, the importance of recorded media in noise stems from a culture of amateur record production that fully participated in the emergence of the genre in the late 1970s, then established itself as an important means for the circulation and exchange of music. Evidence of this is given by GX Jupitter Larsen (2012), the pioneering figure of noise-­performance group The Haters: In the years when punk and mail art overlapped, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, what was then called cassette culture developed. At the time, people would freely trade and give away tapes to one another through the post. This went on spontaneously around the world. During this cassette culture, some people combined the punk attitude with the aesthetics of industrial music. This led to a wide range of experimentation in both styles and technics. Cassette culture largely contributed to the sharing and circulation of music, but also to sonic experimentation, with cassettes among the instrumental sources used in noise creation. It embodied a DIY production and distribution culture that was emblematically associated with underground music, and represented a whole set of practices linked to a will to make technologies one’s own and to democratize social relations in production activities, outside the multinationals’

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domination of the music industry. On the one hand, cassette culture fitted within the general context of home recording – due to the low costs of (re)production – and on the other, it accompanied the emergence of myriad small post-­punk labels created in response to the previous generations of ‘independent’ punk labels, which had collaborated with mainstream majors ­(Hesmondhalgh, 1997). Noise labels appearing in this context were thus part of a ‘record culture’ characterized by the ethos, authenticity and aesthetics of DIY – as emblematically illustrated by the band Crass (Gosling, 2004) – which still determines their unique mode of production today. In order to study the way the DIY ethics manifests itself within record-­related practices, this chapter provides an account of the results of a survey conducted by email in 2013, involving five experimental music labels answering a series of questions. The labels were PAN, run by Bill Kouligas in Berlin since 2008; Phase! Records, run by Panagiotis Spoulos in Athens since 2002; RRRecords, run by Ron Lessard in Lowell, Massachusetts since 1984; Tanzprocesz, run by Jo Tanz in Paris since 2003; and Ultra Eczema, run by Dennis Tyfus in Antwerp since 1997. By focusing closely on these labels’ DIY methods of both production and distribution, the aim of the chapter is to reassess the importance of record-­ related practices in the construction of noise and experimental music spheres by paying meticulous attention to the tangible processes of manufacturing, sharing and commodification of these objects and to the creativity and autonomy that they convey within underground networks.

Noise labels and DIY entrepreneurship Despite their specificities, the five underground record labels of the survey stand out from conventional categories such as ‘independent labels’ and ‘majors’1 by proposing an alternative dimension to the organization of the music industry, be it by their scale, their operations or their ethics. All run by one person, they are always a leisure activity separate from professional sources of incomes. By making sure that the prices of the records they release are affordable – they are sometimes even sold at cost price – and by establishing a trust policy with musicians, giving them around 20 per cent of the copies released rather than signing a contract and paying them according to its terms, DIY labels favour a not-­forprofit business model: Everything must be not overpriced and as user-­friendly as it can be. So I’m offering a fixed price of €6 per tape or CD-­R postage-­paid worldwide. It doesn’t matter if you live in Bolivia or United Kingdom. Price must be equal for a fan. (Phase!) There is rarely any profit, because I try to sell items cheaply and I give a lot of them away … If by some miracle there is profit, it is used to pay down

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the debt from other releases. The issue of money has never come up with the people I’ve released anyway. (Tanzprocesz)2 Contrary to what Keith Negus (1999) has observed regarding conventional labels in the music industry, where artists are selected based on a series of commercial judgements and cultural hypotheses to ensure the success and long-­term investment in these projects, noise labels don’t consider the uncertainty of sales to be a major issue. Although they must control their deficit so that it doesn’t have too much impact on their – sometimes precarious – personal situations, and so they can reinvest in new projects, their choice of a minimized ‘commodification’ increases in contrast to artists’ freedom: since there are no exclusive arrangements or time engagements establishing a relationship of dependency with musicians, there isn’t any competition between labels either – which also entails the possibility for musicians to release their records via a great variety of labels, helping to disseminate the abundant production for which noise and experimental music are known.3 The position adopted by underground labels regarding copyright legislation also differs from the status of independents and majors. Noise labels rarely register their productions with organizations devoted to protecting copyright and distributing royalties:4 as the artists they release are rarely professionals, benefits from record sales are not a substantial source of income for them. Even when artists are registered – particularly within academic experimental music or for those whose profession is connected to the world of arts and entertainment – underground labels tend to struggle with these organizations and press their records abroad to circumvent copyright issues. The fact that noise labels sometimes go through financially and legally problematic situations hasn’t stopped them from proliferating, since their interest is not to release a band that might ‘sell’, as Alan O’Connor (2008) observed with DIY punk micro-­labels, but rather to support artists according to their personal inclinations. This emotional commitment explains why label owners give particular support to musicians from within their own circle of friends: The label is focused on just a personal taste and interest that has been filtered through the years, with either artists whose music I love or close friends … There is a very strong connection to the people that are involved and I would like to keep it that way. … I have no interest in releasing big established artists, because there are a million of other labels that could do that. It is important to give the opportunity to smaller artists to find their home and express their creativity. (PAN) The fact that labels are rooted in a community is vital for the promotion of musicians and the audience’s trust of labels’ evaluations of music. Labels become

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the guardians of high standards in the way artists are selected: self-­production involves a strong personification that likens the label owner’s function to that of a curator: ‘everything depends on my personal tastes and interest, the final deciding factor is my ears’ (RRR); ‘this is my label, it follows my desires, my evolutions. I don’t need nor want to keep the same sound identity … I’ve always released what I wanted without caring about the question of style’ (Tanzprocesz); ‘there is no sound identity, but there certainly is a “feeling identity” … Sounds ought to be true, at least to my ears’ (Phase!). While the record industry formally codifies the genre by shaping the creative practices of musicians and the organization of labels (Negus, 1999), noise labels assert their decompartmentalization by offering their own ‘view’ on musics. In short, the ‘entrepreneurship’ of DIY labels (Hein, 2012) is characterized by a relatively deprofessionalized practice based on supporting musicians with little media exposure, while having little interest in genre categories. The valorization of a singular identity is intrinsically related to the underground positioning of these labels. To the detriment of economic interests, this positioning favours a selective approach to music that conveys authenticity by suggesting social proximity between the players in the noise scene and high aesthetic standards, which provide a foundation for an economy of scarcity.

DIY production and the aesthetics of records By using affordable and reproducible materials, and through a set of handcrafting practices often valued by fans – such as the drawing, collage or sewing of cover art, and the manual duplication of cassette tapes and CD-­Rs – noise labels provide an opportunity for everyone to create. Although the final product is sometimes the fruit of collaborations between musicians, artists and technicians5 for example, when it comes to mastering, silkscreen printing, paper printing, duplication and pressing, these tasks are generally undertaken by the person who runs the label (see Figure 10.1 for examples of records by the labels surveyed). In this way, labels are fields in which personal creativity can be expressed, inscribed within a record culture: since the emergence of noise culture, the numerous releases of each artist and label include a wide range of analogue and digital audio formats, with particular affection being shown for material ones.6 For instance, CD-­R is often used because of its easy availability, its low cost and its format, which easily lends itself to homemade production. For these reasons, it is often associated with the first years of a label, while vinyl remains the preferred medium, as evidenced by Ultra Eczema: ‘I am a sucker for LPs and singles … they demand care, the visual work you can attach to it can be big, and I like extra inserts with it. Call it a fetish.’ Vinyl is widely favoured for its aesthetic qualities, but whether or not to use it is a decision that is strongly determined by financial resources, as the situation of underground labels doesn’t always allow them to cover the costs of vinyl production:

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Figure 10.1  Records from the five surveyed labels.

A small edition in vinyl costs a fortune and for unknown projects it’s a little bit hazardous … because the more expensive the object unit is, the more expensively you must sell it if you want to avoid losing money … Besides, releasing vinyls or CDs means making at least 300 copies, that can take a long time to sell off. Even if there are several labels involved. (Tanzprocesz) I really love physical formats. Vinyl is my favorite but you always need a budget and at most times it’s something frustrating. CD-­Rs and tapes have something cooler, though. You might have fifteen tapes lying around at your apartment, feel creative and do something with them during one night only. It’s pretty easy with those formats to think of and actually make a no-­ budget, magical concept release. (Phase!) Tapes are often appreciated from an economic viewpoint. They also carry a playful character and an important emotional value. RRR points out that ‘my favorite format is cassettes as they are a labor of love, artists make them at home

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and it comes directly from their hands into mine … How awesome is that?’ The lexical field used in these statements (‘sucker’, ‘care’, ‘love’, ‘fetish’, ‘magical’, ‘awesome’) interestingly expresses the special nature of the relationship between DIY labels and music records. Running a label is viewed as a practice intrinsically connected to the amateur’s attachment: records are material intermediaries between amateur and music as well as vectors of passion, an emotion described as an ‘intense activity oriented towards making oneself available by oneself to uncontrolled forces’ (Hennion, Maisonneuve and Gomart, 2000, p.  158). In addition to the emotional commitment of labels towards musicians, the autonomous record-­production process symbolically contributes to stripping the item from its market value while also creating its specific identity, which is another token of authenticity for noise listeners. The feeling of belonging to a shared culture based on objects derives from practical initiatives, but also from inherited codes belonging to various subcultures and suffusing the imagery of noise labels: the dark symbolism of industrial music, the typically crude appearance associated with the punk era and, above all, underground collages and drawings oriented towards alternative contemporary art. While very particular aesthetic principles may be shared in some extreme subgenres such as power electronics or old-­school noise, following the path of industrial music and its demystification of symbols (Obodda, 2002), the aesthetic judgements embraced by labels and listeners often demonstrate the rejection of imagery that is considered unoriginal. An interesting example is the strong criticism formulated by RRR in the fanzine Degenerate7 towards the contemporary use of extreme imagery, which he regards as a pseudo-­transgressive aesthetics: I personally have no interest in that stuff. For some reason the early noise artists latched onto that imagery and it became the norm for this scene. I think it’s just tough-­guy poseur shit, kinda like rap and their gangstas and the heavy metal kids and the devil. Of course, this imagery is completely over-­used and has simply become boring and trite. A number of the old-­ school artists have stuck with it and that’s all fine and dandy for them. However when I see a new, young artist doing it, my first instinct is that they are amateurs without a shred of imagination. As this reaction testifies, aesthetic stances can have a very important value for these underground labels, which attach great importance to the visual originality of cover art. Visual identities strongly contribute to the particular attachment between amateurs and artefacts by giving them a singularity that is very much linked to the symbolic capital of noise subculture. The emphasis on autonomy and creativity is enhanced by the importance given to record art within an underground context where art’s frontiers become blurred. Beyond their cover art, some records are even turned into a subject of experimentation – for instance, vinyl records with holes drilled in them, playing in reverse or with

118   S. Benhaïm

locked grooves8 in various projects by RRR and Ultra Eczema. According to Thompson (2004), the case of vinyl marbling already testified to the importance of arts and crafts for punk collectors, by undermining the reification of records and promoting the visibility of human work. It seems that the complex objects made by noise labels, however, tend to be closer to works of art, being the results of experiments with the material itself. In addition to the rarity of artefacts, which reinforces the feeling of having made a precious acquisition, visual creation highlights the work carried out by micro-­ labels, displaying itself as the inspired creation of an individual in honour of the musicians featured on the record. The more visible the dimension of affect in the cover art, and the more it seems to break with professionalism, the more value it has for music fans. As Damien Chaney (2008) explains, following Jean Baudrillard and Nathalie Heinich, authenticity – which lies in the capacity to connect with the artist through the grasp of their intentionality – implies that one goes back to the object’s origin and attaches value to this relationship. Record production in experimental DIY scenes is therefore a favourable ground to explore how the connection between affect, autonomy and proximity builds symbolic capital, reinforcing the feeling of a specialized and authentic musical culture for its fans.

The circulation of records in global and local networks While the structuring of a global network composed of private individuals, labels, distributors and record stores initially may appear similar to the conventional production and distribution channels of the mainstream music market, noise labels develop in a parallel economy. Before the internet, a global noise network already existed and the most widespread communication practice for labels was the use of a mail-­order catalogue provided in specialized fanzines and independent record stores. The turning point of the 2000s marked the creation of a multitude of underground labels, however, with the democratization of the internet offering new, free means of communication, such as websites, newsletters, social networks, specialized blogs and forums, that were very useful for their visibility. While fans usually buy records straight from labels, global and national distribution may also take place through more traditional networks made up of small/ middle-­sized experimental music distributors,9 whose role is important. On the one hand, they act as intermediaries facilitating the distribution of records to independent stores and private individuals by offering buyers a selection of specialized records. On the other hand, in addition to contributing to the viability of the labels I surveyed, as they rank among their main buyers, they allow them to manage fewer orders and be visible within wider underground networks. These time-­saving qualities are crucial when labels aren’t run professionally. Going through distributors also enables labels to save money by grouping

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purchases, which is particularly interesting when it comes to shipping costs between Europe and the United States, which have increased markedly over the last few years. These conditions demonstrate the genuine benefit that underground labels derive from being included in niche catalogues such as these, although distribution is not an issue for them as much as it is for so-­called independent labels – for which distribution is the main reason to collaborate with the majors (Negus, 1999). Some labels, like RRR and Phase!, also use the Discogs record database for its visibility within the global network. For that matter, the Discogs data may be helpful to visualize where the labels’ records are distributed, through the distribution of sellers by label and by country (see Table 10.1). Although the platform is intended to transcend national markets by creating an international network, the table interestingly suggests that the popularity of labels is essentially linked to national/local culture, since for each label, the country with the greatest number of buyers (the United States) is the one in which the label is based. These results echo the local commitment of noise labels, which establish important connections with players in the experimental scene, such as record stores. For instance, by implementing mutual support systems, record stores distribute labels’ productions – whether it be by buying them immediately or on consignment – sometimes within a dedicated section, and promote them to customers. Underground labels give record stores special prices and sometimes support them by providing extra copies for free. It must nevertheless be noted that there are very few record stores specializing in experimental music, and that this preferred intermediary, which plays a unifying role in subcultural sociability, is only present in certain big cities where an audience for such music exists. Concerts are the most common opportunity for local networks to advertise their recorded products, through displaying them on merchandizing tables. The benefits are communicational rather than financial, since these transactions only represent a tiny fraction of the sales of noise labels; however, the local scene is the preferred place to expand a network through meetings, to influence the musical selection of labels and, finally, to legitimate an underground scene characterized by very little media coverage. The ‘local community’ dimension, which is crucial to the DIY principle, with respect to both its functioning and its symbolical cohesion, is represented through the release of recordings from local concerts such as Ultra Eczema’s Antwerp live shows and Tanzprocesz’s Paris Live Series. The ‘extra-­somatic memory’ devices (Straw, 1999) that such recordings emblematically embody serve as archives for noise listeners, allowing them to retain a shared memory of these social events. Finally, discussing record circulation without mentioning gifts and trading would be prejudicial, as they are major components of noise culture. While a gift – a ‘transfer of goods that implies the waiver of all rights on that goods and of all rights that could come from this transfer’ (Testart, 2001, p.  719) – sometimes also comes with spontaneous ‘counter-­gifts’, trading is generally determined

8

13

19

Ultra Eczema

PAN

1

2

 

6

17

5

Denmark

Tanzprocesz 2

4

 

Spain 1

1

1

8

 

1

2

1

5

2

Finland

5

6

9

13

31

3

France

 

6

5

5

12

10

Greece

2

8

4

5

24

3

Italy

20

2

 

2

6

 

19

3

Netherlands

9

1

1  

 

 

1

 

2

 

6

 

Poland

 

2

1

 

7

5

1

 

3

1

1

1

 

9

 

1

 

 

3

 

5

2

1

19

1

Portugal

4

 

 

 

6

 

Sweden

85

34

70

 

2

 

20

13

1

38

3

UK

RRR

 

 

1

3

 

1

2

 

19

 

Others

Phase!

4

30

0

PAN

2

68

0

Germany

Ultra Eczema

23

1

 

246

22

Austria

0

Africa

Belgium

Tanzprocesz

America

1

12

USA

233

Israel

0

Hong Kong  

Japan

1

Russia

9

Turkey

RRR

1

Canada

 

Asia

0

Oceania (Australia)

Phase!

South Am.

8

Table 10.1  Records from the five surveyed labels

79

82

39

293

31

Europe

Noise records as noise culture   121

by an explicit prior agreement between two labels (or musicians), which concludes the non-­market trading of their releases. Often one of their first motivations, trading seems to be at the heart of labels’ genesis when they have not yet established their network and are not familiar with the different players: At the beginning I had no communication, because I didn’t know the networks nor people. Actually I sent my records to Bimbo Tower [record store] freely and anonymously so that they could give them to customers. As soon as I bummed around and did record shopping in specialized stores … I began to distribute and trade records, and progressively my contact list grew … It was my only communication method. (Tanzprocesz) At the beginning, I almost exclusively traded. Later, interest grew and people got in touch to distribute stuff. I still trade a lot, as it’s one of the main reasons I started doing this … It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’ve traded records with many labels including American tapes, AA, … Tanzprocesz, RRR, Load, Chocolate Monk … (Ultra Eczema) The players’ unanimous declarations suggest that, apart from facilitating the creation of networks with record dealers and distributors, trading is a central practice between DIY labels. Establishing a continuity with the ‘trading friendships’ found in various societies and age groups (Testart, 2001), transfer is conditioned by the recognition of a peer affiliation to the same community. Besides being an interesting means to sell off releases, trading allows labels to freely acquire records from other underground labels, as well as expressing their mutual interest: Constantly, I trade with as many labels as possible. I consider trades to be the lifeblood of noise activity, it gets my releases out of my hands and into the hands and ears of others. Whenever an artist or label approaches me about carrying their new release in my shop, that’s usually my first question, ‘wanna trade?’ And of course it allows me to acquire their release at my manufacturing costs and allows me to offer their items at the lowest prices possible. It’s a total win–win situation. (RRR) Non-­market trading is a practice that is inherent to the underground. It acts as a unifying element for the network and as a preservation of the players’ relations – to refuse them would expose them, as Marcel Mauss (2007, p. 89) showed, to a kind of refusal of ‘alliance and communion’. By encouraging such practices, which embody the ethos of DIY, the limitation of financial transactions suggests a rationale of trading that differs from the conventions of the record industry.

122   S. Benhaïm

As Stacy Thompson (2004) has shown in the case of anarchist-­punk groups, the point is indeed to resist conventional forms of commodification by way of tactics that promote use-­value over exchange value, and by endorsing cultural values in keeping with their productions. From self-­promotion using digital communication tools to niche intermediaries, the network of noise labels thus constitutes a web that offers an alternative to the record industry by defending ways of dealing and trading that gain their authenticity from the fact that they distance themselves from the market.

Conclusion Although constitutive of the ethos associated with the experimental underground, record-­related practices have often been underestimated in existing studies of noise music. By providing a pragmatic analysis of labels, this case study shows how they actually strive to construct the genre’s identity by establishing themselves as a standard for the ethical, cultural and aesthetic values linked to experimental underground music. DIY, which impels people to undertake projects, create and become self-­sufficient, favours creative and affective dimensions, which are central to the process of recognition by fans: the activity of labels becomes essentialized as that of curator-­individuals, who are close to artist figures. Through an emotional commitment and singular modes of creation, they are also stripped of their purely commercial value. The minimal financialization of production costs implies a sometimes tense relationship with commodification, because the romantic conception that links an ideal vision of authenticity to an art devoid of any exchange value deeply suffuses the genre and its avant-­garde ambitions. The strategies resulting from this equation aim to reduce the exchange value by detaching themselves from the notion of profit for profit’s sake and by setting affordable prices; by doing away with or reducing intermediates, when not working within their own immediate circle; by de-­monetizing an important part of their transactions through gifts, counter-­gifts and negotiated trades; and, finally, by using physical formats that convey a subcultural history that endures by embodying a divide with new technologies and representing a symbolical barrier in the face of the culture industry’s appropriation (Harrison, 2006). While all of these practices may encourage an economy of scarcity that ends up upholding hierarchies of legitimacy (Straw, 1999), they are also compensated by the extreme profusion of recordings, the consequence of which is that collectability is hindered.10 To conclude, far from representing an insignificant, marginal activity, the DIY practices of labels actually reveal the ongoing negotiations shaping the experimental underground as well as the necessity for DIY to lend itself to an appropriation devoid of past distortions of its values in order to guarantee its credibility and authenticity in the eyes of its fans.

Noise records as noise culture   123

Notes   1 For an in-­depth study of these two economic models and their interdependent relationships, see Lebrun (2006, pp. 35–6) and Negus (1999).   2 All the translations from French are mine.   3 The nature of noise music offers the advantage of being able to record a great variety of music over a short period of time – a practice that echoes the ideal of spontaneous creation in artists’ work, as opposed to the length of time needed for commercial promotion in the record industry (Harrison, 2006).   4 For example, SACEM in France, SABAM in Belgium, ASCAP and BMI in the United States, GEMA in Germany and AEPI in Greece.   5 These collaborations are facilitated by the strong representation of artistic and cultural professions within experimental music scenes. In this regard, the influence of art-­school backgrounds would deserve a special study, following the example of Frith and Horne (1987) about post-­punk subcultures.   6 MP3s are often used to freely distribute recordings on the internet, but the labels surveyed do not appreciate it as a paid-­for format.   7 In this interview, RRR explicitly refers to musician John Duncan and child porn.   8 While most records have a locked groove at the end of each side, it is also possible to record sound in these locked grooves, which makes the recording loop.   9 These labels work with Metamkine, Staalplaat, Boomkat, Infinite Limits, A-­Musik, Volcanic Tongue for Europe; Forced Exposure, RRR, Tedium House, Cassettivity, Fusetron, Tomentosa for America; Disk Union, Meditations for Asia. 10 Merzbow’s abundant production has indeed raised controversy within the academic world, with Nick Smith (2005) defending the idea that the Merzbox established a paradigm of collectability, whereas Paul Hegarty (2007) argues that Merzbow actually distorted it through his innumerable releases, which deconstruct the notion of collection and address that of consumption.

References Benhaïm, S. (2016). Entre écoute réflexive, immersion sensuelle et confrontation : les amateurs à l’épreuve de la musique noise. L’Autre Musique, Bruits, 4. Retrieved from http://lautremusique.net/lam4/funambule/entre-­ecoute-reflexive-­immersion-sensuelle-­ et-confrontation.html. Chaney, D. (2008). Pourquoi acheter un CD quand on peut le télécharger ? Une approche exploratoire par le concept d’appropriation. Management & Avenir, 20(6), 30–48. Frith, S. and Horne, H. (1987). Art into Pop. London: Methuen. Gosling, T. (2004). ‘Not for sale’: the underground network of anarcho-­punk. In A. Bennett and R.A. Peterson (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (pp. 168–83). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Harrison, A.K. (2006). ‘Cheaper than a CD, plus we really mean it’: Bay Area underground hip hop tapes as subcultural artefacts. Popular Music, 25(2), 283–301. Hegarty, P. (2007). Noise/music: A History. New York: Continuum. Hein, F. (2012). Do It Yourself: Autodétermination et culture punk. Congé-sur-­Orne: Éditions le Passager clandestin. Hennion, A., Maisonneuve, S. and Gomart, É. (2000). Figures de l’amateur: formes, objets, pratiques de l’amour de la musique aujourd’hui. Paris: Documentation Française. Hesmondhalgh, D. (1997). Post-­punk’s attempt to democratise the music industry: The success and failure of Rough Trade. Popular Music, 16(3), 255–74.

124   S. Benhaïm Klett, J. and Gerber, A. (2014). The meaning of indeterminacy: Noise music as performance. Cultural Sociology, 8(3): 275–90. Larsen, GX Jupitter (2012). Email interview, 16 September. Lebrun, B. (2006). Majors et labels indépendants: France, Grande-­Bretagne, 1960–2000. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire, 92(4): 33–45. Mauss, M. (2007). Essai sur le don: forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaïques. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Negus, K. (1999). Music Genres and Corporate Cultures. London: Routledge. Obodda, S. (2002). Sordid Allusion: The Use of Nazi Aesthetic in Gothic and Industrial Genres. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. O’Connor, A. (2008). Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence of DIY. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Smith, N. (2005). The splinter in your ear: Noise as the semblance of critique. Culture, Theory and Critique, 46(1): 43–59. Straw, W. (1999). The thingishness of things. In[ ]Visible Culture: An Electronic Journal for Visual Studies, 2. Retrieved from http://rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/issue2/ straw.htm. Testart, A. (2001). Échange marchand, échange non marchand. Revue Française de Sociologie, 42(4): 719–48. Thompson, S. (2004). Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Chapter 11

Punk positif The DIY ethic and the politics of value in the Indonesian hardcore punk scene Sean Martin-­Iverson

Indonesia is home to a thriving, diverse and contested punk scene, with a legacy of combative street politics alongside a distinctly entrepreneurial approach to production. This scene also includes a smaller DIY hardcore current, striving to establish autonomous community based on non-­commercial DIY production. These anak DIY (DIY kids) position their activities as a positive punk alternative to the aestheticized rebellion and spectacular protest politics that have characterized Indonesian punk. In this chapter, I examine the value politics of this DIY hardcore current in the Indonesian scene, describing their attempts to realize the DIY punk values of autonomy and community through the social organization of DIY production, while critically assessing the political significance of DIY hardcore in the context of the Indonesian scene and more broadly as an attempt to develop relations of autonomous production outside the capitalist value system. I focus especially on the Kolektif Balai Kota (BalKot), a DIY hardcore organizing collective in the city of Bandung, West Java, where I conducted fieldwork in 2004 and 2005. Emerging in the early 2000s from a group promoting the straight-­edge lifestyle of abstinence and self-­control, this collective soon set aside its straight edge exclusivity to develop a focus on DIY production. This shift was encouraged in part by the group’s developing links to global DIY hardcore networks, but also by their own critical reaction to the commercialization of the Indonesian punk scene. Punk arrived in Indonesia as global and commodified media images of youthful rebellion and subcultural distinction (Baulch, 2002), but over the course of the 1990s local underground scenes became well-­ established, often connected to radical political movements. However, these scenes themselves became more commercialized following the overthrow of Suharto’s New Order regime in 1998, alongside broader processes of neoliberalization in ‘post-­authoritarian’ Indonesia (Heryanto and Hadiz, 2005). BalKot activists and other anak DIY position their DIY production of hardcore punk as a challenge to these localized processes of commodification, and often as part of a global anti-­capitalist movement as well. With the decline of the confrontational street politics of the anti-­dictatorship struggle of the 1990s and early 2000s, and the rise of a more entrepreneurial

126   S. Martin-Iverson

approach to scene development, the anak DIY have turned towards a prefigurative politics of community-­building and autonomous production. Rather than directly confronting the state or authoritarian currents within Indonesian society, they seek to evade capitalist commodification and alienation through constructing an autonomous community organized around a cultural commons of DIY hardcore. The anak DIY describe their activities as a form of punk positif (positive punk), emphasizing the creative production of new forms of value and social organization as against a purely negative critique or protest. The etika DIY (DIY ethic) of autonomy and community constitutes an emergent value system enacted through the practices and social relations of DIY production. Through their DIY value practices, the anak DIY are seeking to establish a cultural commons and to realize a degree of autonomy from capital, but they are also bound up in an antagonistic relationship with its ongoing processes of expansion, enclosure and exploitation – most directly in the context of the commercialization of the wider Indonesian punk scene. This fits with understandings of punk as a dialectic of deconstruction and reconstruction, of disruption and creativity, and of resistance and alternatives (Dunn, 2016; Laing, 2015; Moore, 2004; Muñoz, 2013). For the anak DIY, this is also a value struggle, in De Angelis’s (2007) terms: insurgent practices of social production located neither entirely outside nor entirely within capitalist circuits of value.

A note on research method This chapter draws mainly on my doctoral research, for which I carried out twelve months of participant observation fieldwork in Bandung in 2004 and 2005, though it also benefits from the perspective offered by my ongoing communication with former research participants in subsequent years. The DIY community around BalKot became my primary research focus, although I also engaged with the wider scene. My participant observation involved attending the weekly BalKot organizing meetings, social events, musical performances and other community activities; I was also invited to join and participate in their associated online networks. As a supplement to the method of participant observation, I also conducted and recorded semi-­structured interviews with 30 participants. This research was conducted with the awareness, consent and cooperation of BalKot members, and I obtained consent from individual participants for the use of material from interviews, emails and personal communications. Participants are variously identified by pseudonyms, scene nicknames or real names, according to their own expressed preferences.

The Kolektif Balai Kota While the organizational structure of Indonesian DIY hardcore is quite fluid, for much of the 2000s the DIY community in Bandung was based around BalKot, named after its regular meeting place on a flight of steps in front of Bandung’s

Punk positif   127

City Hall (Balai Kota). Meetings usually attracted between 15 and 30 people, gathering to organize hardcore punk shows, hold discussions, trade cassettes, CDs and other merchandise, and also to nongkrong (hang out) and socialize. BalKot served as a central meeting place and networking hub for the anak DIY, helping to bring together various DIY activities, projects and enterprises into a coherent community. The collective was rather marginal in relation to the broader scene, but also stood out as a bastion of hardcore authenticity and commitment to DIY principles. Although BalKot in this form ceased operating in 2006–07, it has been succeeded by a range of successor collectives and projects, including a re-­founded ‘BalKot Terror Project’. The meetings at BalKot were initially organized in 2002 as a successor to the defunct Sadar181 collective, which promoted the straight-­edge practices of strict abstinence from alcohol, drugs, casual sex and meat-­eating within the scene. Although BalKot has developed beyond this origin, the straight-­edge lifestyle and related youth-­crew hardcore style remain prominent within the collective. More generally, subcultural identification with hardcore punk continues to be an important factor in participation. Although many BalKot activists define DIY as a broadly applicable ethic of independent production, the collective remains focused on forms connected to hardcore punk. Their main collective activity is the organization of non-­profit hardcore punk shows, while other activities include skill-­sharing workshops on topics such as screen-­printing and badge-­making, and discussions about the state of the scene as well as broader social and political issues. BalKot is part organizing collective and part social gathering; the work of the BalKot collective is embedded in a context of personalized DIY hardcore activities and exchanges. In this, it is similar to the informal entrepreneurial organizing of the wider Indonesian punk scene (Luvaas, 2012; Martin-­Iverson, 2012). Yet the anak DIY seek to avoid the informal forms of authority and profit-­seeking that operate in the wider scene, and to this end enact forms of consensus-­based collective decision-­making, modelled on the direct democracy of American DIY punk and hardcore collectives (see Barrett, 2013) and the decentralized affinity-­ group model of self-­organization associated with contemporary anarchist and autonomist movements (Dupuis-­Déri, 2010; Graeber, 2009, pp. 300–32). As they focused on their own DIY activities, BalKot and the anak DIY increasingly became detached from the more commercial punk scene, although these links were not entirely severed. This growing separation was in part a contest over subcultural identity, as the anak DIY asserted their hardcore punk authenticity against the ‘drunk punks’ and ‘fashion punks’ they saw as dominating the wider scene. However, it was also a conflict over economic and political principles. Despite their commitment to hardcore punk, the anak DIY developed a growing suspicion of subcultural identities and lifestyle politics, as expressed through their increasing self-­distancing from the straight-­edge hardcore origins of their community and a growing emphasis on DIY as a more general ethic of autonomous production.

128   S. Martin-Iverson

Positive punk and the DIY ethic Punk has often been interpreted primarily through its disruptive, challenging and negative aesthetics (Hebdige, 1979; Laing, 2015; Muñoz, 2013). A symbolic negation of the existing social order, expressed through confrontational style and transgressive performance, has certainly been an important part of Indonesian punk, both during its emergence under the authoritarian New Order regime and in its ongoing challenge to conservative social, cultural and political tendencies in Indonesia. However, with the development of local Indonesian scenes and more direct connections with other punk scenes around the world, a concept of punk authenticity rooted in the DIY ethic (etika DIY) of independent production and community-­building has also taken hold within Indonesian punk (Martin-­Iverson, 2016). The anak DIY emphasize the positive, constructive side of punk as the production of social alternatives, rather than simply expressing their opposition to the status quo. This emphasis on ‘positive punk’ is a reaction against a wider fixation on the spectacular negative aesthetics of punk, which they view as being both politically limited and bound up with the commodification of punk. As Laing (2015, pp. 175–9) and Moore (2004, p. 321) argue, the pursuit of a fixed, authentic punk identity to the exclusion of its negative, disruptive dimensions can undermine the power of punk. However, as demonstrated by BalKot’s move from a focus on straight-­edge purity to participatory DIY production, the anak DIY are pursuing a form of positive punk that is grounded in alternative value practices rather than a defined subcultural identity. For the anak DIY, the essence of positive punk is a commitment to building an autonomous community of creative production, rather than to punk as a style or even an identity. Drawing on global DIY and anarcho-­punk networks (Dunn, 2016), as well as their local experiences in the Indonesian scene, they seek to uphold a commitment to the etika DIY understood as practices of production and social organization that enact the DIY values of autonomy (kemandirian) and community (komunitas). Rather than a contradiction between individualism and collectivism, these values are united in the autonomous community of DIY hardcore, a living example of punk positif that serves as an alternative not only to the commodified aesthetic rebellion of the commercial punk scene but also to the wider system of capital accumulation. O’Hara (1999) describes DIY punk as an anti-­authoritarian philosophy of independence and self-­expression, and this corresponds closely with the DIY value of autonomy as understood by the anak DIY in Bandung. An aspect of this is the assertion of aesthetic independence from the market, establishing DIY punk as a distinct field of cultural production (Moore, 2007; O’Connor, 2008; Thompson, 2004). Yet this approach to DIY – emphasizing aesthetic rather than political autonomy – can also lead to an entrepreneurial ethic of individual enterprise and neoliberal precariousness, as it has in the wider independent music scene in Bandung (Luvaas, 2012; Martin-­Iverson, 2012). The anak DIY

Punk positif   129

reject this approach to punk independence, instead promoting their version of the etika DIY as a form of collective self-­organization – a refusal of alienated labour and an affirmation of creative social production outside of the logic of the market. This approach aligns them with anarchist and autonomist currents within global punk (Donaghey, 2013; Dunn, 2016, pp. 57–8; Holtzman, Hughes and Van Meter, 2007), while often putting them at odds with dominant practices in the Indonesian scene. BalKot activist Ernesto contrasts the DIY community with more commercial tendencies in the scene: People who have faith in DIY see DIY as a weapon for, like, striking against the music industry, for example. Or the popular culture industry, or the culture industry. By doing things by themselves, without dependence or help from corporations, from enterprise and all that … While on the other side, maybe they’ve lost some of this independent attitude, they just want to replicate the capitalist model or system, right? (Interview with Ernesto, 2004, my translation) While DIY suggests a rather individualistic approach to production, for the anak DIY it is fundamentally a collective practice; as Dunn (2016, p. 27) argues, the non-­alienated creative activity of DIY punk is grounded in both individual production and ‘the active recognition of membership in a human community’. ‘Community’ can, of course, be harnessed for oppressive and exclusionary ends, but the anak DIY embrace a punk cosmopolitanism against the essentialized ethnic, religious and national identities that exert such a powerful influence on Indonesian social and political life; the DIY community is conceived as a realization of unity in diversity, an elective community of affinity based on shared interests, experiences, commitments and values. Dupuis-­Déri (2010) describes the anarchist principles of affinity organizing as a militant expression of trust, friendship and intimacy, and at its best DIY komunitas approaches this. According to Day (2005, pp.  178–202), the politics of affinity reaches towards a ‘groundless solidarity’ that rejects fixed identities, and the anak DIY have sought to reposition BalKot as an open collective founded on a commitment to DIY principles rather than an exclusive subcultural community. Yet the group remains tied to its hardcore punk origins and shaped by de facto exclusions. The DIY community welcomes many who do not ‘fit in’ to the wider punk scene, but there are few women or older people involved, and participation in the community remains strongly correlated with investment in particular styles of hardcore punk. Nevertheless, the anak DIY place more value on the DIY ethic as a way of organizing the relations of production than they do on hardcore punk as an aesthetically defined identity or genre. DIY production is often characterized as being driven by a social rather than an economic logic (Dunn, 2016, pp.  127–58; Moore, 2007; O’Connor, 2008). As in the wider Indonesian scene, this social logic can itself be harnessed for economic ends, but the anak DIY view it as inimical to the pursuit of profit.

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They seek to establish an autonomous community as a cultural commons of shared means and value, while minimizing the role of alienated wage labour within the production process. DIY production can thus be considered a form of ‘commoning’: an active, collective labour process that produces and reproduces the commons while resisting capital’s ongoing drive to enclosure and dispossession (De Angelis, 2017, pp. 121–3; Linebaugh, 2014, pp. 13–15). The autonomy of DIY production necessarily remains partial and contested, as value in various forms flows between the DIY commons and the wider market economy in which it remains embedded. Although the anak DIY do take on much of the ‘non-­creative’ work of reproduction and distribution, they still rely on a wide range of commodities produced through the alienated wage labour of others. The valorization of their creative work as an authentic form of DIY expression can contribute to the alienation of these other contributions as uncreative and depersonalized (Bestley, 2017; Thompson, 2004, pp.  133–4). DIY self-­organization can also easily slip into forms of self-­exploitation (Shukaitis, 2009, pp. 126–31), and their DIY activities have helped prepare many of the anak DIY for work in the cultural industries. Still, the etika DIY remains a powerful demonstration of the desire to escape from the dominance of the market and the conviction that another way of life is possible. This is the core of DIY as ‘positive punk’.

DIY as prefigurative politics The central project of the anak DIY is their attempt to construct an autonomous community of DIY production, as a positive alternative to capitalist production. While not all of the anak DIY self-­identify as anarchists, DIY punk has often been considered an important example of anarchist praxis (Donaghey, 2013; Dunn, 2016, pp. 197–223; O’Hara, 1999, pp. 71–100) or the autonomist strategy of revolutionary exodus (Holtzman, Hughes and Van Meter, 2007; Ovetz, 1993). Through its production of alternative values and social relations, DIY punk can be understood as a form of prefigurative politics (Day, 2005, pp. 34–44; Graeber, 2009), providing a ‘means by which alternative ways of being are imagined and realized’ (Dunn, 2016, p. 19). As BalKot activist Tremor puts it: It’s a struggle, like we’re resisting the world, we resist – okay, we live in a world that’s shitty, right? We live in a shitty world. And so we leave that world to make our own world, together with our friends who agree with us, or who have similar ideas. We leave this world and make our own, in accordance with our ideals. (Interview with Tremor, 2004, my translation) The anak DIY seek to enact emancipatory values in everyday life as part of an active struggle against capitalism – an example of the anarchist ethic of practice (Portwood-­Stacer, 2013). Bookchin (1995) characterizes this approach as

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‘­lifestyle anarchism’, reducing the anarchist commitment to radical social change to an individualized and commodified identity. However, the anak DIY reject the idea that DIY production can be reduced to this kind of lifestyle or identity politics. For BalKot activist and musician Methui, DIY punk is a reflexive, self-­critical form of politics: Well, according to the definition of punk as it was promoted by several old bands like [British anarcho-­punk band] Crass, punk is truly also politics, with an emphasis on the conditions in a country or even within an individual. So the relationship between DIY punk and politics is very strong, y’know? Especially when we look more broadly at the crimes of the capitalist system. And with DIY punk, we are more self-­critical, that is we look more closely at what we must do or not do in the world of politics. (Interview with Methui, 2004, my translation) Still, there is often a certain ambivalence about characterizing DIY punk as a political movement. As BlankFlag puts it: I like the words, what is it … ‘there is no freedom where there is authority’, right? But my band is not the Black Bloc, yeah? Not the Black Bloc. But I think – I think we have a movement, yeah? But the movement is not like joining the demonstration. Our method is more like we write, nulis, and sing, y’know, nyanyi, although we know it will give a little effect. But at least we tried, y’know? As for anarchy, well, everyone is an anarchist when they make their own vision for their own life. (Interview with BlankFlag, 2004) In this sense, DIY punk can be considered a form of ‘anti-­political politics’, forming part of a wider movement towards the revolution of everyday life (Shukaitis, 2009; Vaneigem, 2006). The etika DIY is above all about emancipation from alienated labour, even if only in a restricted field of creative production; DIY production is a ‘political force antagonistic to capital’s organization of life around work’ (Ovetz, 1993, p. 21). As in many other forms of anti-­work politics (Shukaitis, 2016, pp. 87–99; Weeks, 2011), the DIY refusal of alienated labour is enacted not through idleness but rather through the pursuit of creative and imaginative practices of production. This politics is both anti- and post-­work, ‘both deconstructive and reconstructive, deploying at once negation and affirmation, simultaneously critical and utopian, generating estrangement from the present and provoking a different future’ (Weeks, 2011, p. 233). Autonomous, non-­alienated creativity may be impossible to fully realize under current social conditions but, as Shukaitis (2009, pp. 136–8) argues, it is the ‘absurd’ struggle to put such impossibilities into practice that enables them to be imagined and thus, perhaps, ultimately achieved. Holloway (2005) positions this primarily as a negative movement of refusal, but it is also a positive assertion of autonomy

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and ‘self-­valorization’ (Cleaver, 1992; Negri, 1991), a compositional politics producing new forms of cultural and social value outside the circuits of capital. Central to this kind of prefigurative politics is the power of the radical imagination – the ability not only to conceptualize social alternatives but to collectively enact them (Graeber, 2009, pp.  509–34; Haiven, 2014, pp.  217–55). Certainly, an important part of this is the rejection of existing conditions – the imaginative ‘anti-­power’ of resistance (Holloway, 2005, pp.  27–38). Yet also vital are the recognition, mobilization and production of the various alternative values and social practices that can, have and do exist beyond capitalism. To imagine and produce such alternatives, while resisting reincorporation and enclosure, constitutes a dynamic value struggle (De Angelis, 2007; Haiven, 2014; Shukaitis, 2009, pp. 206–24). Some of the anak DIY see this alternative as an end in itself: as a refuge from capitalist alienation or simply as a sustainable and enjoyable hobby activity. Others position DIY production as part of a broader counter-­hegemonic and anti-­capitalist movement. These conflicting tendencies are brought together – at least temporarily – by their common community-­building project. DIY hardcore could be interpreted as a retreat into lifestylism, marking the defeat of the more overtly combative anarcho-­punk politics of the Reformasi era, but it is also an attempt to enact a compositional politics of emancipation, to both prefigure and help constitute a movement beyond capitalism. As Hardt and Negri (2009) argue, the production of social alternatives, of a commons outside capital, is also necessarily a political struggle.

Positive punk? The dialectics of DIY The anak DIY position their activities as a form of ‘positive punk’, emphasizing the positive, constructive side of punk as the production of immanent social alternatives. As a prefigurative politics of practice, DIY hardcore enacts alternative social values, reconfiguring the social relationships of production in order to construct an autonomous community. This positive punk approach contrasts with the negative punk of spectacular disruption and symbolic protest. However, there is also a negative dimension to DIY production, a refusal to be productive in capitalist terms (Cuffman, 2015; Dunn, 2016, pp.  155–8; Thompson, 2004, pp. 149–57). For Muñoz (2013, p. 98), the punk commons is a coming together through a ‘lived politics of the negative’; similarly, Shukaitis (2016, pp. 148–50) associates autonomous creativity with an ‘undercommons’ of disidentification and disalienation. At the heart of ‘positive punk’ is an insurgent social creativity that is necessarily also a negation of capital accumulation and alienation. The anak DIY do have a positive social goal – the building of a sustainable autonomous community – but this cannot easily be disentangled from an antagonistic politics of anti-­capitalism. In this sense, DIY can be understood as a value struggle characterized by a dialectic of incorporation and excorporation, with autonomy as the ‘process of

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becoming other than capital’ (De Angelis, 2007, p.  229). The positive side of this struggle lies in self-­valorization as the production of autonomous social values, relations and subjectivities (Cleaver, 1992; Hardt and Negri, 2005, 2009; Negri, 1991). Within DIY hardcore, this positive social creativity lies not only in the production of new aesthetic forms and identities, but also new social relations and ways of organizing production. Yet the ‘surplus sociality’ of such creative practices and struggles can be harnessed by processes of capital accumulation as well as being deployed to disrupt them (Shukaitis, 2016, p. 84). Indeed, in a fundamental sense, capital is constituted by the alienation and enclosure of human social creativity (De Angelis, 2007; Haiven, 2014). The struggle for DIY autonomy thus involves an antagonistic interdependence of the DIY ethic and capitalist value. For the anak DIY, this interdependence is displayed through their embeddedness in the wider Indonesian punk scene, with its entrepreneurial take on punk independence, and also within the global circuits of capital. In contrast to the ‘positive’ autonomy asserted by Hardt and Negri (2005, 2009), Holloway (2005) positions emancipatory praxis in negative terms, as an antagonistic struggle to negate the alienation of human creativity. Self-­ valorization is thus a ‘rejection of a world that we feel to be wrong, negation of a world we feel to be negative’ (2005, p. 2). In this sense, DIY hardcore is not so much positive punk as a rearticulation of punk’s ‘scream of refusal’, a contradictory desire for something more grounded in an alienated existence (Muñoz, 2013; Thompson, 2004). Yet there is also a sense in which DIY hardcore can offer a taste of a non-­ alienated life, rather than simply a hunger for it. The etika DIY is an expression of the insurgent imagination, prefiguring a better world while struggling against the current one; as such, it combines constituent power – the power to imagine and create our own social world – with imaginative counter-­power – the negation of the established social order (Graeber, 2009; Haiven, 2014; Shukaitis, 2009). Of course, DIY hardcore itself remains a partial and contested alternative, largely contained within a limited subcultural sphere of activity. BalKot’s social and political impact has been mainly as an internal critique of the wider Indonesian punk and anti-­capitalist activist scenes, although it also gives its participants a taste of non-­alienated creative production, and thus hope for a non-­alienated way of life. While we should not ignore capital’s power to enclose and recuperate struggles for autonomy, we should also not fixate on such processes to the extent of ignoring the very real emancipatory power of these struggles. This power emerges through the ongoing, incomplete and thus open attempts to resist and evade recuperation; self-­organization and refusal are part of the same recompositional struggle for autonomy ‘within and despite capitalism’ (Shukaitis, 2009, p. 221). DIY hardcore has helped a small community of young people in Bandung to establish a degree of independence; to share skills, knowledge and resources; and to establish relatively non-­alienated social relationships. It has also provided

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them with a practical education in self-­organization and the politics of cultural production within, outside and against capital. Ultimately, the Bandung DIY hardcore community has played a small but not insignificant role in the recomposition of anti-­capitalist struggles in Indonesia at a historical moment characterized by its fragmentation and decline. Although DIY hardcore remains substantially within a politics of antagonism and negation, it does help to push forward the ongoing dialectic of anti-­capitalist value struggle through its prefiguration of alternative value practices, and in this sense it can be considered a form of ‘positive punk’.

Acknowledgments An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the first Keep It Simple, Make It Fast international conference in Porto. This chapter is based on research funded in part by a Hackett Postgraduate Research Scholarship from the University of Western Australia. Fieldwork in Indonesia was made possible by the sponsorship of Professor Kusnaka Adimihardja (INRIK-­Unpad); I would also like to thank the anak DIY in Bandung for their cooperation, insight and tolerance.

References Barrett, D. (2013). DIY democracy: The direct action politics of US punk collectives. American Studies, 52(2): 23–42. Baulch, E. (2002). Alternative music and mediation in late New Order Indonesia. Inter-­ Asia Cultural Studies, 3(2): 219–34. Bestley, R. (2017). Design it yourself? Punk’s division of labour. Cadernos de Arte e Antropologia, 5(1): 5–21. Bookchin, M. (1995). Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism: An Unbridgeable Chasm. San Francisco: AK Press. Cleaver, H. (1992). The inversion of class perspective in Marxian theory: From valorisation to self-­valorisation. In W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (eds), Open Marxism II: Theory and Practice (pp. 106–44). London: Pluto Press. Cuffman, T. (2015). Idle musical community: Dischord Records and anarchic DIY practice. Contemporary Justice Review, 18(1): 4–21. Day, R.F. (2005). Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press. De Angelis, M. (2007). The Beginning of history: Value struggles and global capital. London: Pluto. De Angelis, M. (2017). Omnia sunt communia: On the Commons and the Transformation to Postcapitalism. London: Zed Books. Donaghey, J. (2013). Bakunin brand vodka: An exploration into anarchist-­punk and punk-­anarchism. Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, 1. Retrieved from www. anarchist-­developments.org/index.php/adcs_journal/article/view/59/62. Dunn, K. (2016). Global Punk: Resistance and Rebellion in Everyday Life. London: Bloomsbury.

Punk positif   135 Dupuis-­Déri, F. (2010). Anarchism and the politics of affinity groups. Anarchist Studies, 18: 40–61. Graeber, D. (2009). Direct Action: An Ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Haiven, M. (2014). Crisis of Imagination, Crisis of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons. London: Zed Books. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2005). Multitude. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2009). Commonwealth. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Heryanto, A. and Hadiz, V.R. (2005). Post-­authoritarian Indonesia. Critical Asian Studies, 37, 251–75. Holloway, J. (2005). Change the World Without Taking Power. London: Pluto Press. Holtzman, B., Hughes, C. and Van Meter, K. (2007). Do it yourself …and the movement beyond capitalism. In S. Shukaitis and D. Graeber (eds), Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations // Collective Theorization (pp. 44–61). Oakland, CA: AK Press. Laing, D. (2015). One Chord Wonders: Power and Meaning in Punk Rock. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Linebaugh, P. (2014). Stop, Thief! The Commons, Enclosures, and Resistance. Oakland, CA: PM Press. Luvaas, B. (2012). DIY Style: Fashion, Music and Global Digital Cultures. London: Berg. Martin-­Iverson, S. (2012). Autonomous youth? Independence and precariousness in the Indonesian underground music scene. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 13(4): 382–97. Martin-­Iverson, S. (2016). The production of ‘do-­it-yourself ’ authenticity in the Indonesian hardcore punk scene. In J. Lee and M. Ferrarese (eds), Punks, Monks and Politics: Authenticity in Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia (pp. 105–24). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Moore, R. (2004). Postmodernism and punk subculture: Cultures of authenticity and deconstruction. The Communication Review, 7(3): 305–27. Moore, R. (2007). Friends don’t let friends listen to corporate rock: Punk as a field of cultural production. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 36: 438–74. Muñoz, José Esteban (2013). ‘Gimme gimme this … gimme gimme that’: Annihilation and innovation in the punk rock commons. Social Text, 31(3): 95–110. Negri, A. (1991). Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons from the Grundrisse. New York: Autonomedia. O’Connor, A. (2008). Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence of DIY. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. O’Hara, C. (1999). The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise! Oakland, CA: AK Press. Ovetz, R. (1993). Noize music: The hypostatic insurgency. Common Sense, 13: 5–23. Portwood-­Stacer, L. (2013). Lifestyle politics and radical activism, New York: Bloomsbury. Shukaitis, S. (2009). Imaginal Machines: Autonomy & Self-­organization in the Revolutions of Everyday Life. London: Minor Compositions. Shukaitis, S. (2016). The Compositions of Movements to Come: Aesthetics and Cultural Labor After the Avant-­Garde. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Thompson, S. (2004). Punk Productions: Unfinished Business. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Vaneigem, R. (2006). The Revolution of Everyday Life. London: Rebel. Weeks, K. (2011). The Problem with Work: Feminism, Marxism, Antiwork Politics, and Postwork Imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Part III

Art, music and technological change

Chapter 12

So far, yet so near The Brazilian DIY politics of Sofar Sounds – a collaborative network for live music audiences Jeder Silveira Janotti Jr and Victor de Almeida Nobre Pires A variety of authors have given attention to what they see as an important shift in the live music sector, observing transformations underway in the world of music. New logics, tactics and economic strategies have emerged for both obscure and widely known artists inserted in different (and sometimes divergent) possibilities created by new processes for production, circulation, consumption and appropriation of musical products in the twenty-­first century. Herschmann (2007, 2010), Yúdice (2011) and Gibson and Connell (2012) are some of the authors who have focused on the restructuring of business and consumer experiences involving music consumed at concerts and festivals, offering analyses to provide a better understanding of current dynamics in the economic and cultural processes engendering both mainstream events and those directed at independent markets. For example, in Brazil the live music market developed in the late 2000s. These included: shows driven by the mainstream music festivals segment (such as the return of the Rock in Rio Festival in Rio de Janeiro, and the arrival of the Lollapalooza Festival in São Paulo); a growth in the number of independent music festivals; an increase in international tours by major known artists who come to Brazil; and the emergence of new players from the indie1 scene (such as the ‘Fora do Eixo’2 circuit, Abrafin and festivals promoted by the ‘Rede Brasil’3). According to Herschmann (2010, p. 118): The new data in this context of crisis and market restructuration is the growing awareness by music professionals that live music remains very valued and demanded by the public … If, on the one hand, perhaps in the indie business it is possible to see clearly how live music is growing in relevance and the phonograms, on the other … live concerts – even in the major’s universe – came to represent a growing percentage of the revenues generated by music industry We have observed over the past few years a great transformation in the Brazilian independent music consumption context. Typically viewed as a growth sector, we have noticed over time how independent music festivals in Brazil

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have been developed through private- and especially public-­sector sponsorship designed to ensure that a festival event could be held – albeit falling short of sustaining the event’s continuity over time. Pires (2015) identifies indie festivals (and also major events, like Sónar São Paulo) that were not sustainable due to their inability to raise sufficient resources through laws designed to ensure tax incentives for investments in cultural events. During his research on independent festivals linked to the Brazilian post-­rock music scene, Pires tracked events like the ‘Produto Instrumental Bruto’ – PIB (Gross National Product) festival – in São Paulo and the ‘Pequenas Sessões’ festival in Belo Horizonte, which was discontinued after 2012 due to fundraising difficulties, despite being approved for funding through tax incentive laws for cultural events. Due to the economic crisis faced by Brazil since the early 2010s, independent festivals have been forced to rely on support from public-­sector‒based cultural tax incentives. Some examples of this kind of funding are those enabled through the Petrobrás state-­owned oil company, Conexão Vivo, and Funarte. Due to the tightening of budgets at several companies, such as Vivo, Oi and Petrobrás, the scenario for the future is likely to be a gradual slowdown in cultural investments and the end of programmes like ‘Conexão Vivo’. This is a national programme encouraging and promoting musical production through funding from the mobile phone company Vivo. Various festivals that were part of this programme may be affected. In the ten years of its existence, Conexão Vivo sponsored more than 1500 shows in five states of Brazil: Pará, Minas Gerais, Bahia, Espírito Santo and Pernambuco. However, there is another component of independent music production activities that at times goes unnoticed in academic research. It is an aspect of production that remains largely outside the realm of public funding opportunities, cultural incentive laws and private sponsorships. Even with diverse independent events in all parts of Brazil, it is still possible to find agents whose work is based on a different logic, as they continue to perform their shows, organize their tours, record their albums and so on, thus adopting a more traditional DIY stance. It is in the current context of constant crises and economic disruptions that we see the emergence of new production tactics in the live-­music sector. In particular, these are production practices driven mainly by aesthetic and emotional attachments to music that run counter to the former market logic that previously underpinned the cycle of music production in Brazil. We believe it is important to remember that some small live-­music events are still performed almost as a kind of ‘symbolic barter’, made possible through the logic of exchange of services by actors involved in music scenes providing voluntary hosting, the creation of artwork designs and recording services, even when musicians and producers are seeking to make their mark as professionals. Given this reality, and considering the independent music scene and recent changes in this sector, we can affirm that there is a change underway in the role played by audiences participating in the production of certain kinds of events.

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What was previously a ‘paying’ audience – that is, people who buy tickets and attend shows – today can be observed to have taken on a much more active role in the production of these events, becoming recognized as a maker agent putting on the events: The average fan’s role in that process is simple: buy a ticket and leave the rest to the professionals. Live music is an industry unto itself, with a well-­ established machinery of venue owners, promoters, booking agents and ticket vendors. If you’re not one of those people – or wealthy enough to rent out talent at million dollar prices – it can seem as if there isn’t much you can do to participate. However, there are ways to work outside the system – if you’re willing to put in some extra effort. That could mean writing to local clubs and urging them to book the bands you love. You could use a web service like Eventful, which allows users to ‘demand’ that specific acts play in their area (registered artists can use those tallies to discern where they have the best chance of drawing a crowd). Or, with a little trust in the kindness of strangers, you can take matters into your own hands. (Tyler-­Ameen, 2011, p. 1) In the context of Brazil, such audience initiatives include crowdfunding platforms such as Queremos and Catarse, while some bands touring in Brazil employ the Living Room Tours’ model,4 such as Apanhador Só. This model, as observed in Brazil and elsewhere, sheds light on how fans from around the world have taken on a new kind of importance when it comes to making shows feasible. Whether it is organizing events in a fan’s home or becoming a maker agent in partnership with local producers, this approach provides a viable alternative strategy for overcoming the difficulties inherent in performing small shows in larger concert halls where costs can be prohibitive. It is largely a strategy that operates to disseminate and produce those events. It is true that these practices are not totally innovative, since some musical genres, such as punk, are linked to the DIY approach and have a history of activism among fans. What is new, however, is the way that these independent contemporary practices are managing networks and how they are reviving the debate over the cultural and economic value of live music, transformations in musical consumption and dynamics between economic feasibility versus emotional bonds in independent musical markets.

Sofar Sounds: ‘There is something wrong in live music …’ Sofar Sounds (the acronym for ‘Songs from a room’) began in March 2009 in the living room of composer and co-­founder Rafe Offer. The guiding idea for this movement was to support emerging and independent artists and bands, by

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making musical presentations in an intimate format. Today, over 300 shows organized by local volunteers are performed every month. Rafe Offer explains that the idea came about when he realized that he had grown tired of going to concerts where audiences were not interested in the music – especially at shows performed by new bands. According to Offer, there is no longer any respect for live music, and it is common to find people talking, texting on mobile devices and otherwise making noise during the shows: There’s very little focus and respect for the music, especially for new acts. My friend Dave [Alexander, co-­founder along with third part, Rocky Start] and I were at a gig and it was so loud we couldn’t even hear the musician, that’s when we decided that there had to be another way … (Offer, cited in Fryatt, 2013) After the first session, held in his own home, Offer used his network of contacts to produce other events in New York and Paris. After the initial events and discovering that a real demand existed in other places, the movement quickly spread. Eight years later, it has become an important network for the circulation of new global independent music. The formula adopted by the movement is simple but unusual: transform a fan’s living room into a place to perform shows with indie bands. Those who attend are required to refrain from talking, texting or taking pictures. They must also stay until the end of the presentation. However, ‘this is less authoritarian than it sounds and, coupled with the environment, makes for some electric live music sessions’ (Fryatt, 2013). Beyond the distinctive aspects that characterize this kind of network aimed at producing small performances, one can conclude that another attraction from a phenomenon such as Sofar Sounds is the opportunity for the development of musical listening practices. These work as a social distinction: an event made with only a few people, for a small and restricted audience, contacts that will support artists and ‘respect’ the live music performance. Perhaps, more than being seen as an alternative to the megalomania of the mainstream music festivals or even to the fact that live music is being neglected in some bars, these practices are linked to the search for something that fans value in these times of excess musical information. This search has occurred because the internet era offers tremendous circulation of musical products in all dimensions: amateur, indie, wide-­ranging and mainstream. This scenario is characterized by a great abundance of new music, but also by its discarding. Thus, Sofar supporters advocate for a distinctive refinement, which – at least initially – involves choosing the ‘correct’ audience: people who appreciate music and are dedicated to listening. This care taken with the musical event is also reflected in the way guests are chosen. When the network began, candidates who wanted to attend performances were assessed in terms of their ability to spread the idea of the network to other people or to help publicize the event and the bands through their work in photography and filmmaking:

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We spend as much time on the guest list as we do on the music. For instance, there are 80 people coming to the gig tonight in London – we can guarantee that at least half of them will have never been before. And we prioritize those who can help in some way – bloggers, people helping with the filming, people that are part of the family in some way. And also fans – the kind of people who will come and then tell another 100 people ‘you won’t believe what I saw last night!’ (Fryatt, 2013) This logic extends to disseminating these events on the internet, with the help of these multipliers, such as music fans who attend the concerts and share their experience on social media. All activities from Sofar Sounds are photographed, filmed and edited by volunteer professionals linked to the network, who ‘pass the hat’ among the guests at the end of the night. They thereby generate products that circulate in the Sofar Sounds global network, contributing to publicity for the event and the bands involved. This publicity encourages more people to participate in the activities and provides visibility for these groups in other parts of the world that are part of the global network. In the case of Sofar Sounds, disseminating videos after concerts becomes important, since it is difficult for most new bands to have access to high-­quality promotional materials, and especially for these products to be distributed to a wider audience. Beyond engaging in the production of shows for emerging bands and putting them in touch with an interested audience, Sofar Sounds also disseminates post-­show videos, thus helping groups to attain greater visibility and expanded projection: It’s the correlation between these real-­world experiences and a plugged-­in digital strategy that makes Sofar not only cool, but commercially viable. Local volunteers create gloriously high-­quality image galleries and video for each event – furnishing the Sofar website and social media with great content, as well as giving free marketing materials to the performers. For any young bands starting out, it’s hard to get yourself out there. Anyone can pop stuff online but as a fan it’s hard to find anything and as a musician it’s hard to promote yourself unless you’re a social media expert or entrepreneur. (Fryatt, 2013) As the network has developed, bringing on growing demands by fans to attend the concerts and the entry of foreign investment, a drastic change is evident in these modes of operation. There has been a visible adaptation of production practices to meet the need to generate income from these activities. One critical issue is the opening of a non-­selective public-­ticket sales process for attending the session. Another is the network’s international expansion. In Brazil, for example, the Sofar Sounds headquarters is run by a local company, which manages local volunteers and producers:

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Sofar then became Flow’s flagship. The partnership between the two companies works like this: Flow represents the brand Sofar in Brazil, coordinates the executive productions and has a producer in each of the twelve cities where the project is: Aracaju, São Paulo, Brasília, Belo Horizonte, Belém, Maceió, Goiânia, Curitiba, Florianópolis, Salvador, Porto Alegre and Rio de Janeiro. Dilson and Juliana also work the commercial part with the positioning and representation of the brands that participate in the event, with an eye on those that add to the concept of Sofar, and this work goes hand in hand with communication. Finally, Flow also makes exclusive content, such as institutional videos, to reverberate the actions, and is responsible for all Sofar Sounds Brazil communication (social networks such as Facebook and Instagram, enter this package). (Sofar, 2017) That said, we understand that the live music embodied in Sofar Sounds’ network is connected to a chance for action, highlighting music’s impact with a ‘presence effect’: ‘It is suggested, for example, that we conceive the aesthetic experience as an oscillation (sometimes an interference) between “presence effects” and “sense effects” ’ (Gumbrecht, 2010, p. 22). In this manner, we can think of music in current times as a complex web where live music exercises a dynamic centrality, at the same time triggering economic, aesthetic and cultural values. As well as being an online platform for dissemination of new bands, Sofar Sounds awakens our interest by showing itself as a distinctive practice in live music production and consumption. We perceive a politicized and distinctive posture in consumption modes depicted in the preference for small venues, unknown artists and the experience of live music potentially free of distractions. We therefore realize that, even as a geographically disperse phenomenon, the value added from the Sofar Sounds initiative is essentially connected to the movement’s reliance on selective and smaller audiences. These perspectives linked to the trajectory of Sofar Sounds help us to better understand the processes that enabled a self-­designed hobby-­practice among a group of friends become a growing network composed of fans who are active in production processes, as well as the projection of emerging bands that benefit from a global network of an increasingly consolidated audience. Consisting of a practice emerging from pop music, consumed on a large scale and widely visible, contradictory and tense dynamics are triggered. At the same time, the productive practices embedded in Sofar Sounds shows its potential to compete on the contemporary music scene. We will now address DIY in relation to Sofar Sounds in the Brazilian context. Following is a richer and more complex panorama related to building the Sofar network, viewing related productive practices as an agglutinating factor that is critical to understanding specific aspects of this community.

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DIY in Brazil: from strategies to tactics in living-­r oom concerts Sofar Sounds is revolutionizing the DIY music scene. Their mission is to ‘bring the magic back to live music’ by hosting exclusive live music events throughout a city. These ‘Sofars’ are an intimate, invite-­only performance event – the best new music played in unique spaces (like someone’s rooftop or basement), to passionate audiences. (Silvestri, 2016) There are some issues involved in the meaning of the DIY concept that are deeply rooted in views set forth by journalists, cultural critics, musicians, producers and fans – especially those of Anglo-­Saxon origin. While we understand their meaning, we recognize that DIY practices have a slightly different connotation within the Brazilian context. The ideas discussed below are not meant to take away from the development and understanding of the notion of independent music in Brazil. Even in an academic context, there is little research or studies about DIY in the country. What exists is generally restricted in scope to research on punk and hardcore music, as O’Hara (2005) points out. In the Brazilian context of independent music – especially over the last 15 years – we have witnessed warning signs in these markets and sectors of the music industry, potentially affecting the development of independent labels and live music. In retrospect, we are able to make a more accurate assessment, as the boom in the national indie sector has also been linked to a framework based on public and private funding opportunities and sponsorship. Precisely for this reason, as we have seen in several studies, the view of ‘independent productions’ in Brazil is aligned with practices not necessarily recognized as DIY. This helps us to understand the indie sector as a ‘grey’ area. It can be seen as a very broad playing field, uniting artists who make use of the strategy and logic of predominant cultural funding opportunities. It includes bands who, for ideological reasons, do not identify with this reality – because they do not meet legal criteria, or because they are on the margins of cultural public policies. We thus begin to see how the notion of ‘independent’ here in Brazil goes beyond just being ‘on the fringe’ of mainstream recording companies. The modus operandi for independent music is also driven by the funding of projects through public and private funding opportunities, as well as policies for public and private sponsorship. As Herschmann (2010) describes it, this notion is linked to relative autonomous production. Thus, several Brazilian researchers have become predisposed to working on these issues, no longer placing watertight separations between independent and mainstream cultures. Rather, they are addressing issues that are ‘in the middle’, in this ‘grey’ environment in which these logics – previously seen as fixed divisions – take on different perspectives in a transversal environment. For example, when we analyse debates about creative autonomy (Thomas and Chan, 2013)

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and authenticity (Janotti, 2007), we perceive how it is possible to identify traces of discussions that permeate in the independent ideal and DIY, as well as their possible conformity in the production of contemporary music markets. In other words, the discussion here does not merely incorporate pre-­existing polemics over marketing, ideologies and cultural dualities in the music industry. Rather, our intention is to perceive DIY practices and their manifestations as mediation practices within the Sofar Sounds network, inscribed in a series of developments. The main one, we believe, is precisely the collective dimension of DIY practices implied within this network and how this ‘productive collective’ is the first link in what is coming to be known as the ‘global community’ of Sofar Sounds. Put in another way, we seek to look at the tensions between the individual and the collective that are behind one of the mediations of DIY processes and negotiating differences that arise between actors in the Sofar network. Based on de Certeau’s (1988) ideas, we can indeed conclude that the great live music festivals, with their connections with sponsors, agendas, broadcasting rights, exclusive contracts with artists and services, operate with a long-­term perspective, planned in relation to competitors and their market position on a large scale, allowing their effective existence as milestones in the consumption calendars for live music: I call a strategy the calculation (or manipulation) of power relationships that becomes possible as soon as a subject with will and power (a business, an army, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated. It postulates a place that can be delimited as its own and serve as the base from which relations with an exteriority composed of targets or threats (customers or competitors, enemies, the country sur-­rounding the city, objectives and objects of research, etc.) can be man-­aged. As in management, every ‘strategic’ rationalization seeks first of all to distinguish its ‘own’ place, that is, the place of its own power and will, from an ‘environment. (de Certeau, 1988, p. 99) An analysis of tactics used for small festivals and some concert productions reveals that they tend to make use of smaller organizations to generate opportunities somewhat haphazardly, such as when a band tours around the country, and this leads to spontaneous opportunities for playing in other events: A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can capitalize on its advantages, prepare its expansions, and secure independence with respect to circumstances. The ‘proper’ is a victory of space over time. On the contrary, because it does not have a place, a tactic depends on time – it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized ‘on the wing’. Whatever it wins, it does not

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keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into ‘opportunities.’ The weak must continually turn to their own ends forces alien to them. This is achieved in the propitious moments when they are able to combine heterogeneous elements (thus, in the supermarket, the housewife confronts heterogeneous and mobile data – what she has in the refrigerator, the tastes, appetites, and moods of her guests, the best buys and their possible combinations with what she already has on hand at home, etc.); the intellectual synthesis of these given elements takes the form, however, not of a discourse, but of the decision itself, the act and manner in which the opportunity is ‘seized’. (de Certeau, 1988, p. 100) This discussion has gained new meaning in the Brazilian context of national independent music, especially over the last fifteen years, as we have witnessed the development of these markets and sectors of the music industry, with an increase in the number of independent labels and live music events. We see today that the boom in the Brazilian indie sector is also linked to a tradition of public and private funding opportunities and sponsorship. Today, in the context of an economic crisis that forces many companies (as well as governments) to tighten their budgets and reduce investment in the cultural area, we see industry feeling the decline of resources. So, once again, we believe that the analysis of Sofar and music from its macro and microeconomic aspects is also a fundamental articulation of musical phenomena in the communications area.

Conclusion Several studies affirm a view of ‘independent’ music in Brazil as being in tune with practices not necessarily recognized as DIY. This helps us to understand the indie sector as a ‘grey’ area, or a very broad field, that unites artists who may still employ strategies for drawing on public and private funding opportunities for cultural events. This includes bands that do not identify with this situation for ideological reasons, either because they do not meet legal criteria, or because they are on the fringes of cultural public policies. So we can begin to see how the notion of ‘independent’ here in Brazil goes beyond just being ‘outside’ the mainstream record companies. The modus operandi for independent music also drives the process for approval of projects for public and private funding initiatives and fundraising policies towards public and private sponsorship. As Herschmann (2010) describes, this same notion is linked to relative autonomous production. In fact, Sofar Sounds itself articulates some values and microeconomic characteristics that also interact with macro aspects of the market for contemporary music. One cannot help but notice how the very model it preaches presents Sofar as a counterpoint to the mainstream events, triggering notions of ‘independence’ and ‘DIY’ in relation to these traditional models of production. Further, Sofar becomes more robust in today’s context of a macroeconomic crisis

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across the national independent music movement, dependent upon public policies and sponsorship. Production techniques for Sofar Sounds, as well as other cases in the global music scene, create conditions based on the idea of community in action. These processes make it evident how we must rethink our driving notions and concepts, and how their properties and uses created by actors involved in music practices must be understood better. We therefore believe that the notion of community is constructed in a tangled way, so that even when a hierarchy defines its distributions process, it leads us to reflect on affection and marketing practices, collective and individual agencies, the value of music and the groupings that arise around them.

Notes 1 The term ‘indie’ arose as an abbreviation of ‘independent’ and refers to the pop industry structured in parallel to the major companies in the music industry. All and any activity in the arts and entertainment sphere that is sustained independently can be termed ‘indie’. But before playing the role in the dichotomy mainstream‒independent, we assume that nowadays these values are part of dynamic correlations, depending on various contextualizations and materializations. 2 Fora do Eixo is a network of work designed by cultural producers from the midwest, northern and southern regions of Brazil late in 2005. It began as a partnership between producers in the cities of Cuiabá, Rio Branco, Uberlândia and Londrina. They wanted to encourage the movement of bands, the exchange of technology for cultural production and the circulation of musical products. 3 Brazil Network. 4 A living room tour is characterized by the production of a certain number of concerts organized in the houses of fans. This idea has been growing over the last decade as an alternative to ‘traditional’ touring models, based on booking music venues. The benefits of this new model are the intimacy created among musicians and fans; the low cost to book and realize the concerts (often there is no need for amplification); and the possibility of making the activity more profitable, since the initial investment is smaller than that for ‘traditional’ touring.

References de Certeau, M. (1988). The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Fryatt, L. (2013). Sofar Sounds: The secret gig movement changing the face of live music. The Heureka, 19 March. Retrieved from http://theheureka.com/sofar-­soundsrafe-­offer. Gibson, C. and Connell, J. (2012). Music Festivals and Regional Development in Australia. Farnham: Ashgate. Gumbrecht, H.U. (2010). Produção de Presença. O que o sentido não consegue transmitir. Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto. Herschmann, M. (2007). Lapa, cidade da música. Desafios e perspectivas para o crescimento do Rio de Janeiro e da indústria da música independente nacional. Rio de Janeiro: Mauad X.

So far, yet so near   149 Herschmann, M. (2010). Indústria da Música em Transição (Vol. 1). São Paulo: Estação das Letras e das Cores. Janotti, J. Jr (2007). Música Popular Massiva e Comunicação: um universo particular. Interin, 4: 1–12. O’Hara, C. (2005). A filosofia do punk. São Paulo: Radical Livros. Pires, V. (2015). Além do pós-rock: as cenas musicais contemporâneas e a nova música instrumental brasileira. Maceió: Edufal. Silvestri, L. (2016). Know your scene: Carolyn Lederach of Sofar Sounds Philly. Rock on Philly, 5 February. Retrieved from http://rockonphilly.com/2016/02/know-­your-scene-­ carolyn-lederach-­of-sofar-­sounds. Sofar (2017) Brasília. Retrieved from www.sofarsounds.com/brasilia. Thomas, K. and Chan, J. (2013). Negotiating the paradox of creative autonomy in the making of artists. Studies in Art Education, 54(3): 260–72. Tyler-­Ameen, D. (2011). Live in your living room: You book the bands. The Record, 11 March. Retrieved from www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2011/03/11/134425621/live-­ from-your-­living-room. Yúdice, G. (2011). Apontamentos sobre alguns dos novos negócios da música. In M. Herschmann (ed.), Nas bordas e fora do mainstream musical. São Paulo: Estação das Letras e das Cores.

Chapter 13

Cassette cultures in Berlin Resurgence, DIY freedom or sellout? Benjamin Düster and Raphaël Nowak

The cassette tape, once seemingly on the brink of extinction, continues to survive. In the contemporary landscape of music production, there has been a significant revival in the distribution and consumption of cassettes. Apart from its long-­lasting prominence in some underground and DIY music scenes, such as metal, hip hop, punk or electronic music (Eley, 2011; Harrison, 2006), the cassette tape shows signs of reinvigoration – for instance, through the release of Demi Lovato’s 2017 album Sorry Not Sorry as part of the Cassette Store Day 2017. Drawing on qualitative data gathered in Berlin in 2015 and 2016 (see Düster, 2016), this chapter explores contemporary cassette cultures and the various ways in which the format subsists. Following a critical review of the literature on cassette cultures, we detail the empirical component upon which this chapter is based. We then develop the argument that the contemporary discourses on cassette tapes are embedded within a tension between small/DIY music scenes that incorporate cassette tapes for a whole range of interwoven face-­to-face and digital processes of creation and distribution on the one hand, and a broader recent mainstream revival that ranges from cassette releases of mainstream artists and feature articles in major newspaper outlets on the other (Coleman, 2013). In the third section, we contextualize this approach through an investigation of the infrastructures of music scenes in Berlin that produce and distribute music on cassette tapes, the interconnection of cassettes with digital technologies and the use of cassette for defining a genre identity.

Cassette cultures: continuity or revival? In the statistics released by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) about music sales in the United States, there is no longer any explicit mention of cassettes (IFPI, 2017; RIAA, 2017). Cassettes do, however, appear in the statistics of Germany and Japan – currently the only markets worldwide that still build primarily on revenues from physical formats. In Germany, the music cassette records a low-­level growth of 1.2 per cent for the year 2016 (see Bundesverband Musikindustrie, 2017). This is the first increase to be recorded

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in over a decade. In previous years, revenues had dropped from 21 million euro in 2008 to 1 million euro in 2015. The report nonetheless expresses doubt that this slight growth indicates a bona fide revival of the cassette compared with that of the vinyl record (Bundesverband Musikindustrie, 2017). In Japan, production units and sales revenue from cassettes continued to decline in 2016, as in prior decades (RIAJ, 2017). The sales numbers released by the online music platform Bandcamp, however, point in a different direction. The company recorded growth within every sector for the year 2016: physical sales recorded vinyl growing by 48 per cent, followed by CDs rising by 14 per cent, with cassettes experiencing the strongest growth, with a 58 per cent increase in sales (Diamond, 2017). Websites like the cassette-­ based podcast Tabs Out or the map of the United Cassettes blog feature lists with hundreds of currently active labels releasing on cassette (Tabs Out Cassette Podcast, 2017; United Cassettes, 2017). The clothing corporation Urban Outfitters sells cassettes featuring major label releases such as Lana Del Rey’s album Lust for Life (Urban Outfitters, 2017). However, there seems to be a gap between the sales numbers released by the global music-­industry associations and the cassette-­ related distribution and marketing practices in various e-­commerce outlets, and their accompanying blogs and news pages. Even though worldwide sales numbers for cassettes generally continue to decline, the cassette format is currently achieving growing recognition in various music scenes and genres. In what way has this progress been traced by research so far? We find that, although there has been an abundance of online news stories, reports and blog posts about cassette tapes over the last five years (Butler, 2013; Rogers, 2013; Wrench, 2010), and monthly reviews of newly released cassettes on Bandcamp or the Quietus, the amount of research published on the cassette revival phenomenon is minimal. Literature on cassette cultures over the last decade highlights two dichotomies underpinning the meaning of the format. These are continuity versus revival on the one hand, and resistance versus co-­optation on the other. Indeed, the cassette tape format has been investigated in small DIY scenes, where it has been continuously present (Novak, 2013). Subgenres of metal, punk, hip-­hop and electronic music are examples of scenes where the cassette tape has never completely disappeared (Bailey, 2012; Busby, 2015; Curran, 2016; Harrison, 2006; Novak, 2013). In the meantime, the cassette format also seems to be undergoing a revival (Bohlmann, 2017; Demers, 2017; Eley, 2011). As a consequence of the two concurrent streams through which the cassette format currently exists, another dichotomy appears in the literature, which frames cassette cultures as either a form of resistance to the capitalist market of popular music (Bailey, 2012; Curran, 2016; Eley, 2011; Harrison, 2006; Novak, 2013) or as being co-­opted and integrated within the logic of the capitalist market (Curran, 2016; Demers, 2017). These dichotomies are in fact rooted in different music genres/scenes, and also within different geographical contexts. At the core of these issues lies the question of whether the cassette format is constructed in scene contexts that express resistance against dominant modes of

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music consumption, or whether cassettes correspond to one of the material means through which music is experienced in everyday life (Nowak, 2015). In Curran’s research (2016, p. 44), one participant – Paul Etherington – emphasizes how the format exists outside the current dominant circuits of production and distribution of recorded music. Underground scenes in metal, punk, noise, indie or electronic music have continuously released music on cassette tapes, as a way to exist outside of the dominant music market. In addition, the research conducted by Curran (2016) also sheds light on the integration and co-­optation of cassette tapes within a capitalist logic. To Curran, this current co-­optation of the format by major labels and artists is a sign of the tendency of capitalism’s ability to transform oppositional elements of a historic counter-­culture into ways to maximize profits. For instance, a label owner and artist from Edinburgh (UK), Ali Robertson, is quoted by Curran as saying, ‘We’re living through these times of just trying to squeeze every last bit of monetary worth out of stuff. And that’s like that shit – “Tapes, hey! Let’s see if we can milk this!” ’ (in Curran, 2016, p. 48). Indeed, the marketing structures of independent labels do not differ from those of major distribution companies and labels that are based on e-­commerce platforms and marketing through social media. In the words of Prior (2010, p. 404), ‘the DIY ethic so cherished by punk rockers is no longer an activist ideology, but a systematic, structural condition of the production of music itself ’. The tension that emerges out of the cassette format as existing within underground DIY scenes or as being co-­opted by the capitalist market through the release of mainstream music highlights not only the vibrant contemporary existence of the format, but also the network of politics within which it is embedded. Regardless of whether cassettes have persisted (in certain DIY scenes/genres) or revived (in more mainstream popular-­music genres), the contemporary presence of the format requires investigation in an age when physical audio releases are no longer a necessity for most music labels and artists. Indeed, digital releases via platforms like Bandcamp or streaming services like Pandora or Spotify suffice for many artists to acquire a level of visibility. It is therefore worth noting that the cassettes produced by independent labels and artists need to be seen as additional distribution and marketing forms for releases where the main revenue comes from download or streaming sales. As Novak (2013) puts it, cassettes may maintain or even re-­establish the face-­toface encounters that are based on their function as artistic calling cards. In that regard, we argue below that cassette cultures are animated by discursive features that are critical to constructing and stabilizing genre conventions. The cassette tape, often used as a material vehicle to make claims about the capitalist market and cultural industries, is in fact an integral part of the contemporary process of genre identification, and therefore of the fragmentation of the production, distribution and consumption of particular music genres.

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Case study: cassettes in Berlin in 2015–16 Berlin, as an important European music centre for various genres and international artistic exchanges, constitutes an ideal field for research. To date, the vast number of contemporary cassette-­related labels and projects in Berlin have not been examined thoroughly. The data upon which we draw in this chapter was collected for a small-­scale pilot study that Benjamin Düster conducted in 2015–16 (see Düster, 2016). The focus of the study was to gather and map the manifold practices related to cassettes that were based in or related to Berlin over a period of approximately one year. To achieve this, Düster identified and recorded different perspectives on the viability of the cassette format through consulting with artists, labels, event organizers and consumers. He deployed a mixed-­methods research approach, which included semi-­structured expert interviews with scene members occurring in varying positions within the field, research in specialized shops and on the internet, participant observations, and auto-­ethnographic notes and analysis. This last technique proved to be an essential tool for the study, as Düster has actively participated in music scenes dealing with cassettes as a performer for experimental music since 2014, and as a co-­operator of the cassette label Gravity’s Rainbow Tapes since 2015. Hence critical reflection of Düster’s roles in the field was necessary to maintain an objective distance from the research object. This required the contextual analysis of field notes and interviews. To map the organizational structure of the field, Düster recorded his roles and connections to the positions of the interviewees, venues and shops in a process chart. Cassette cultures in Berlin: discursive features for genre conventions In what follows, we argue that the very materiality of the cassette partakes in creating particular modes of engagement with various musical styles, and it constructs and delineates their main aesthetic features. The desire for engagement with the material affordance of cassettes is echoed in the empirical data collected by Düster in Berlin in 2015–16, which we discuss below. Scene infrastructure of cassette labels in Berlin During one of his participant observation sessions, Düster attended the Kassettentag event in Berlin, which was part of the German branch of the 2015 Cassette Store Day. At this event, he and his label partner, Thomas Radam, sold the cassette releases on their label, alongside cassettes from other labels, live concert cassettes and cassette DJ sets. For a fairly brief period of time – about fifteen minutes – the room was in a state that could be described as a market atmosphere: people were going from table to table, picking up cassettes and eventually buying some of them. The rest of the day (about seven hours) appeared to be what Radam called a ‘meet-­up of friends where everyone knows everyone’. By implication, this meant

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that just a small group attended the event solely out of an interest in buying music on cassette and to search for new content. From a producer’s perspective, the event turned out to be an ideal platform for exchanging cassettes and information between labels rather than selling them to customers. The discussions evolving from the encounters with other people actively engaging with the format revolved around the different music genres, nationalities of the released artists and how cassettes were incorporated into design concepts. It showed that a fair number of labels and projects evolved from cliques and personal networks based on mutual support. For instance, in the case of the label Twaague, with whose label operator Düster spoke, the idea is to purposefully bring together artists with differing styles originating from the same circle of friends. The label released a ‘split cassette’, which features two different artists with diverging musical aesthetics, with each contributing one side of music to the cassette. The cassette release then functions as a platform for artistic convergence while preserving the characteristics of each contributor (Bandcamp, 2017a). Another form of making use of face-­to-face encounters based on cassette exchange is the Berlin Tape Run (Staaltape, 2017) project initiated by the cassette label Staaltape of the long-­standing, and now Berlin-­based, store and mail order company Staalplaat (2017). The project can be understood as reminiscent of the cassette-­based artistic exchanges of the 1980s cassette culture: each artist contributed a single piece to the medium and then the ‘cassette was handed over in person from one artist to the other. During four months in 2009 the tape changed hands and places in Berlin. The track order follows this trip’ (Staaltape, 2017). Here the cassette works in the way it was used by artists in the second half of the twentieth century: as a medium for artistic exchange connecting people who are physically separated from each other. The Berlin Tape Run, while relying on hand-­to-hand passing on of the tape, in this sense realizes a variation from the mostly mail-­based practices of cassette culture over past decades. It is important to bear in mind that these methods have been replaced in the twenty-­first century by cloud services for the exchange of sound files and digital art projects. By turning to a physical format like the cassette tape to release their artistic work, labels aim to induce consumption practices that contrast with those induced by digital technologies – for instance, by offering a decelerated way of accessing music, and featuring a greater physical and social component as the focus of attention. In all the examples mentioned above, the cassette functions either as an ‘artistic calling card’ (Novak, 2013, p.  223) or as a transmitter of artistic ideas. However, during the research it became increasingly evident to Düster that it was impossible to grasp a coherent scene in Berlin that was based only on the bare use of cassettes. In fact, the fragmentation of the various usages and understandings of cassettes emerged from the diverging genres and their assertion of specific ideals and aesthetics through the use of cassettes. This became apparent both in the way cassette labels designed and crafted their releases in different ways according to genre aesthetics, incorporating screen printing in contrast to digital printing, and vice versa.

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It was also shown in the way Berlin music shops selling tapes selected the releases according to their curatorial focus. Thus, different labels approached different shops for distribution of their cassettes according to the music genres they produced and released. This was not limited purely to music shops: stores in Berlin like Motto, Staalplaat and Rumsti Pumsti blur the boundaries between art gallery, bookstore and record shop (Motto Distribution, 2017; Rumstipumsti, 2017; Staalplaat, 2017). It turned out that genre-­specific aesthetic ideals also contributed to the fact that none of the aforementioned shops were represented at the Cassette Store Day event. As a clerk of the Berlin record shop Bis Aufs Messer put it, the advertisement of the event was too bright to catch the attention of their regular customers, who tend to be interested in black metal, hardcore punk and noise. Besides that, to him the whole idea underpinning both the Cassette Store Day and the Record Store Day is questionable, as neither the cassette nor the vinyl record ever vanished within various DIY music scenes, so he saw no need to stage a revival of these formats. Nevertheless, besides the various usages of cassettes as a transmitter and physical inspirational tool for artistic face-­to-face collaborations that occur during events like the Cassette Store Day, cassettes now primarily exist in interconnection with digital technologies. (Inter)connections with digital technologies The examples of shops in houses and people sharing their passion for cassettes in direct conversations at events are just part of the contemporary occurrence and use of cassettes. Every label encountered during the research in Berlin in 2015–16 features a presence on websites like Bandcamp, Soundcloud or Bigcartel. Through these, the projects sell tapes and provide digital versions via downloads or streaming. All the shops selling cassettes in Berlin rely on e-­commerce sales. It is useful to note at this point that virtually none of the cassettes sold through retailers in Berlin features a barcode. Moreover, most of the shops selling cassettes do not use an electronic checkout. This indicates that sales through them and mail orders are not recorded in the statistics of the Federal Music Industry Association (Bundesverband Musikindustrie, 2017). Looking at the structures of the labels that sell cassettes, it is also apparent that one of the cassette’s original meanings – as a format enabling mobile private listening practices through the Walkman (Hosokawa, 1984) – belongs to a time pre-­dating mobile digital technologies. As every cassette purchase through Bandcamp features a code for unlimited streaming or for the downloading of the tracks, the mobile consumption of music is now concentrated on digital devices like smartphones, whereas the cassette appears as a material and aesthetic format that belongs to the household. The cassette as a physical object is therefore transforming into a format that induces practices of music consumption similar to those of the vinyl record, which correspond to a decelerated form of music consumption, where listeners cherish the technical characteristics and

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analogue sound by engaging with the haptic and visual rituals necessary for the playback of the formats within a domestic environment. However, as cassette releases only mark a physical bonus to mainly digitally distributed music, the association of these practices as independent DIY structures opposing major music labels (Curran, 2016, p.  45) is no longer suitable. Both small and major music labels now rely on the same online digital playback platforms and e-­commerce structures to market and sell their music. Within this framework, smaller labels specialize more in developing a strong curatorship concerning music genres to occupy specific niches for a stable revenue. The availability of different formats is helpful in this matter, as it broadens the appeal to a greater group of possible consumers. This can be illustrated by DIY releases that are available in all popular formats (Harrison, 2006, p. 292). The sound aesthetic, together with visual, haptic and aesthetic aspects of every music format, has become a matter of taste and taste culture. As such, affordances of music formats are utilized to trigger specific consumer preferences, and listeners can choose a format with which they associate a certain genre. Indeed, it is remarkable that through this combination of material and virtual circuits of practices, the relatively small group of people involved with cassettes lifted the format back into the attention of mainstream media and major music labels (see Düster, 2016). This has led to a broader recommodification of the format through mainstream distribution that in some cases dominates the production plants for cassettes and vinyl records, causing small labels to struggle as orders from major firms are often prioritized over those from independent labels (Beck, 2015). Yet the existential need of self-­sufficient artists and labels to promote their work through the internet, as expressed by Curran (2016, p. 46; see also Prior, 2010), poses the question of how the boundaries of DIY and independent music cultures are to be defined in the realm of overarching digital marketing and trade structures. The next section of the chapter focuses on the use of the cassette tape to define and delineate particular music genres.

Using cassettes for defining music genre conventions Interestingly, a contemporary opposition to capitalist structures of music distribution expressed through the sole use of cassettes for releases, which omits the use of the internet for promotion and distribution, only occurs within specific music scenes. As Bailey (2013, pp.  304–26) has shown for a range of black metal releases, the structural avoidance of any type of advertisement can shift into modes of effective anti-­promotion. By distributing their releases just through ­cassettes and, at least initially, not in digital formats, small labels try to assure that dedicated listeners aligned with corresponding scenic ideals will be satisfied. This form of anti-­promotion is effectively utilized by the Berlin store Rumsti Pumsti, which has a shop in the basement of a residential building located in a quieter suburb. This relates to the genres and types of distributed items that

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represent everything that can be considered outside the scope of mainstream music, such as spoken word and radio art, electroacoustic music, field recordings and free improvised music. In incorporating this strategy, the shop systematically excludes casual customers who are just passing by or in search of mainstream releases. Moreover, the store does not offer any playback devices for pre-­purchase listening to the records. As a customer put it (in Düster, 2016, p.  46), people have to know and research in advance what they want before they step into Rumsti Pumsti. Due to the fact that certain types of genres draw fewer potential customers than others, some Berlin-­based black metal bands like Ancst (Bandcamp, 2017b) prefer to release their experimental ambient and noise albums and collaborations on cassette, whereas their regular black metal albums are usually pressed on vinyl and eventually released on CD. Here, the economic characteristic of cassette production that does not require a minimum quantity in the pressing plants allows these projects to run smaller editions, and therefore to engage with more experimental styles of music. As Bailey (2012, pp.  286–303) and Novak (2013, p.  224) demonstrate, the conceptual releases of, for example, dirt-­covered cassettes within the noise and industrial scenes leave some cassettes as barely playable objects. This can be interpreted as employing the cassette format’s characteristics to generate a form of anti­commodity. However, the ‘object-­ness’ of these releases and their limited editions contribute to the fetishization of collectibles that are sold for high prices on websites like Discogs, and that are charged with a longing for scenic authenticity by their pursuers (see Discogs, 2017). Such examples primarily represent cassette cultures in the 1980s and 1990s, but are rather rare nowadays. The contemporary use of cassettes does not incorporate much manipulation of the format. A fair amount of the cassette releases that occur in the vaporwave and techno genres actually merge analogue and digital technologies in manifold ways – for example, by heavily stylizing the digital look of their cover artwork (Düster, 2016; Walker, 2017). The noise and industrial scenes, however, imitate releases from the 1980s and 1990s by using a raw photocopy and collage aesthetic for their artworks. These examples shed light on the various ways by which the cassette tape – even if it does not construct a music market outside of the scope of capitalism – does a great deal to foster particular stylistic discourses around certain music genres. The format not only becomes associated with certain music genres, but also clearly contributes to defining the conventions around the production, distribution and consumption of these genres by inducing particular types of practices and discourses.

Conclusion This chapter has investigated contemporary cassette cultures and the various ways through which the materiality of the format is used. Drawing on an empirical fieldwork study conducted in Berlin in 2015–16, we show how the scenes that use

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cassettes to produce, distribute and consume music tend to remain quite small in number, even if the face-­to-face interactions that are inherent in cassette culture contribute a great deal to maintaining and even reviving the analogue format. Torn between a continuing existence within DIY underground music scenes and a recent mainstream revival, the cassette format contributes to the contemporary multiplication and fragmentation of practices of production, distribution and consumption of music by providing an avenue via which particular genres can develop an identity through their material, aesthetic and sonic features. Besides the genre-­specific mechanisms that shape approaches to cassettes, upcoming research may elaborate on the diverging ways in which music scenes have adapted to the digital technologies of marketing and distribution while trying to preserve their specific scenic integrities. In this respect, cassettes constitute highly appropriate research objects, as they intersect issues of materiality and aesthetics with questions of music distribution in relation to genre conventions in the digital age. As we have shown, the narratives growing around cassettes as countercultural forms of music production, distribution and consumption stem mostly from practices that occurred last century. The contemporary encounters with cassette tapes therefore have to be reconceived within the digital framework that now mediates our everyday lives.

References Bandcamp (2017a). ‘Twaague’. Retrieved from https://twaague.bandcamp.com. Bandcamp (2017b). ‘Ancst’. Retrieved from https://twaague.bandcamp.com. Bailey, T.W.B. (2012). Unofficial Release: Self-­released and Handmade Audio in Post-­ industrial Society. London: Belsona Books. Beck, J. (2015). ‘Deutschlands erster Cassette Store Day: Initiatoren Anton Teichmann (Mansions and Millions) and Amande Dagod (Späti Palace) im Gespräch’. Retrieved from www.spex.de/deutschlands-­erster-cassette-­store-day-­initiatoren-anton-­teichmannmansions-­and-millions-­amande-dagod-­spaeti-palace-­im-gespraech. Bohlmann, A.F. (2017). Making tapes in Poland: The compact cassette at home. Twentieth Century Music, 14(1): 119–34. Bundesverband Musikindustrie (2017). Musikindustrie in Zahlen. Retrieved from www. musikindustrie.de/fileadmin/bvmi/upload/02_Markt-­Bestseller/MiZ-­Grafiken/2016/ bvmi-­2016-musikindustrie-­in-zahlen-­jahrbuch-ePaper_final.pdf. Busby, L. (2015). Editions of you: A DIY archive of DIY practice. In S. Baker (ed.), Preserving Popular Music Heritage: Do-­it-yourself, Do-­it-together (pp. 227–40). New York: Routledge. Butler, W (2013). Bandcamp daily: Rewind! The cassette is back. Retrieved from https:// daily.bandcamp.com/2013/05/07/rewind-­the-cassette-­is-back. Coleman, M. (2013). Can cassette tapes be cool again? Retrieved from http://edition. cnn.com/2013/09/06/opinion/coleman-­cassette-day/index.html. Curran, K. (2016). ‘On tape’: Cassette culture in Edinburgh and Glasgow now. In R. Purcell and R. Randall (eds), 21st Century Perspectives on Music, Technology, and Culture: Listening Spaces (pp. 33–55). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Demers, J. (2017). Cassette tape revival as creative anachronism. Twentieth Century Music, 14(1): 109–17.

Cassette cultures in Berlin   159 Diamond, E. (2017). Everything is terrific: The Bandcamp 2016 year in review. Retrieved https://daily.bandcamp.com/2017/01/24/everything-­is-terrific-­the-bandcamp-­2016year-­in-review. Discogs (2017). Angel Dust Whore/Pain Jerk – split cassette. Retrieved from www. discogs.com/de/sell/item/243836890. Düster, B. (2016). The placing of audio cassette production and consumption within the musical practice of Berlin and Japan. Unpublished MA thesis, Humbolt University of Berlin. Eley, C. (2011). Technostalgia and the resurgence of cassette culture. In J.P. Fisher and B. Flota (eds), The Politics of Post-­9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror (pp. 43–57). Farnham: Ashgate. Harrison, A.K. (2006). ‘Cheaper than a CD, plus we really mean it’: Bay Area underground hip hop tapes as subcultural artefacts. Popular Music, 25(2): 283–301. Hosokawa, S. (1984). The Walkman effect. Popular Music, 4: 165–80. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) (2017). Global Music Report 2017. London: IFPI. Motto Distribution (2017). Motto Berlin. Retrieved from www.mottodistribution.com/ site/?page_id=1020. Novak, D. (2013). Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Nowak, R. (2015). Consuming Music in the Digital Age: Technologies, Roles, Everyday Life. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Prior, N. (2010). The rise of the new amateurs: Popular music, digital technology and the fate of cultural production. in J. Hall, L. Grindstaff and Ming-­Cheng Lo (eds), Handbook of Cultural Sociology. London: Routledge. Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) (2017). Facts and Research: 2017 Mid-­Year RIAA Shipment and Revenue Statistics | RIAA. Retrieved from www.riaa.com/ reports/2017-mid-­year-riaa-­shipment-revenue-­statistics-riaa. Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) (2017). (2017). Statistics Trends. Retrieved from www.riaj.or.jp/f/pdf/issue/industry/RIAJ2017E.pdf. Rogers, J. (2013). Total rewind: 10 key moments in the life of the cassette. Guardian, 30 August. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/music/2013/aug/30/cassette-­store-day-­ music-tapes. Rumstipumsti (2017). About. Retrieved from www.rumpsti-­pumsti.com. Staalplaat (2017). Website. Retrieved from http://staalplaat.com. Staaltape (2017). Berlin Tape Run. Retrieved from https://staaltape.wordpress.com/ berlin-­tape-run. Tabs Out Cassette Podcast (2017). Tape label list. Retrieved from www.tabsout. com/?page_id=15214. United Cassettes (2017). Map. Retrieved from http://map.unitedcassettes.com. Urban Outfitters (2017). Lana Del Rey – Lust for Life, limited cassette tape. Retrieved from www.urbanoutfitters.com/shop/lana-­del-rey-­lust-for-­life-limited-­cassette-tape?category= cassettes&color=060. Walker, B. (2016). Bandcamp daily: 2016 – the year in stats. Retrieved from https://daily. bandcamp.com/2016/12/23/2016-the-­year-in-­stats. Wrench, N. (2010). The cassette comes back as art. Retrieved from http://news.bbc.co. uk/2/hi/entertainment/8441839.stm.

Chapter 14

‘Here Today’ The role of ephemera in clarifying underground culture John Willsteed

This chapter will examine the importance of ephemera in historical collections and archives by examining what constitutes ephemera and what its role might be in activating subcultural stories, with a particular emphasis on the Brisbane underground music scene from the late 1970s to the mid-­1980s. This will include discussing particular artefacts: how and why these items were made, where they are now and what their legacy might be. One month before the Sex Pistols released ‘Anarchy in the UK’, Brisbane band The Saints released their first single, ‘(I’m) Stranded’. Both songs fuelled a wave that swept through youth culture in the 1970s. The Brisbane bands that followed The Saints grew from a social scene tied together by railway lines, unemployment and access to copies of Creem from the United States, or New Musical Express from the United Kingdom, as well as the intermittent inner-­city reach of the community radio station (Stafford, 2004). And as music-­making became accessible through simplicity of style and the DIY ethos, so related cultural activity flourished, as analogue communication technology – audio and video recording, photocopying and photography – became cheaper and easier to access. These ‘technological resources of the dominant order, resources that tend to be used to create top-­down media products that minimize or even discourage participation amongst their consumers’ (Atton, 2002, p. 64) were now in the hands of mainly unemployed youth with a desire to make, and to make a difference. Brisbane in the 1970s was different from the rest of Australia, and these differences will be examined in this chapter. These were idiosyncratic circumstances, and they determined the growth of the underground culture at the time. The artefacts will also be identified and defined, and finally I will examine ways of telling the story of Brisbane’s subcultural past, historically and into the future.

Background and approach The Queensland state election in 1967 saw the rise to power of Premier Joh Bjelke-­Petersen, a Country Party politician and deeply conservative peanut farmer from Kingaroy (Lunn, 1978). Twenty years later, on 1 December 1987,

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Bjelke-­Petersen resigned in the midst of a wide-­ranging inquiry into systemic corruption in Queensland’s government and the police force (Condon, 2014). It has been suggested by Worley (2016), Williams (2015), Moore and Roberts (2009), Stafford (2004) and others that the 1980s was a fertile period for oppositional culture under repressive Western governments. Although Brisbane was geographically isolated, Bjelke-­Petersen’s last decade in power coincided with similarly conservative rule by Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States. Stafford (2004) clearly describes the ‘big country town’ that was Brisbane in the 1970s, with its conservative, Christian flavour and a government controlled by farmers and property developers. Youth subculture, spawned by the 1960s cultural revolution and this political repression, was small but potent. Punk and post-­punk were the protest musics of their time, and their related ephemera – magazines, posters, handbills, recordings, film and photos – are a rich source of cultural information. At this point, I put myself in the picture. I am both participant and observer in this story – a central player in the Brisbane punk/post-­punk scene. I joined my first proper band, Zero, a band of women, in the summer of 1978. They were anarchists and feminists, angry and passionate about the state we were in: racist, homophobic and openly oppressive to women and youth. Over the next decade, I played in many other bands in both Brisbane and Sydney, and eventually joined the Go-­Betweens – after The Saints, probably Brisbane’s most well-­known cultural export from this period. Since 1978, I had designed and printed posters, recorded music under houses and in sheds and studios, made magazines and movies, played shows, and written songs and stories. This experience as a participant in the Brisbane punk and post-­punk scene makes me aware of the tenuous and temporary nature of some of the artefacts that bind and inform this cultural story. But if the physical artefacts are often hard to find, this loss is balanced by the abundance of memories recently revealed on blogs and sites devoted to this particular scene. As will be discussed later, the curatorial process required to construct versions of history needs to include the artefacts, the memories and new modes of dissemination that are inclusive and transformative. In the late 1970s, Brisbane was steeped in change: the destruction of old parts of the city was rife; the 1960s had shattered the traditional family structure; and analogue technology was at its peak – cheap and plentiful. The scene that produced The Saints and The Go-­Betweens also grew artists, filmmakers and writers, and had its own particular, local qualities.

The scene The punk/post-­punk years in Brisbane have been written about by journalists, novelists and academics ever since the early 1980s. Clinton Walker’s Inner City Sound (1982) was designed by Marjorie McIntosh in a monochrome, cut-­up, photocopied, collage style that honoured the aesthetic of the period, and was as influential as it was referential. It was followed two years later by the publication

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of The Next Thing (Walker, 1985). Walker’s books not only gathered together writings about, and interviews with, Australian musicians in order to capture a sense of this flood of new music that was insinuating the cultural landscape; they also gave the scene validation. Although these books were about Australian bands/artists, they were comprehensive in their inclusion of Brisbane music – Walker grew up in Brisbane, and understood the ‘cultural cringe’ that was such an intrinsic part of Brisbane’s self-­image. This was a time of high youth unemployment in Australia, and particularly Queensland, rising from 2.5 per cent in 1972 to 18 per cent in 1986 (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2001), but with an enhanced welfare system due to the progressive policies of the Whitlam Labor government in Canberra. These factors created a scenario where time and money were (relatively) abundant, a fertile bed in which subcultures could thrive. The Saints grew from the south-­western suburbs of Oxley and Inala, from migrant families and the crippling boredom of endless hot nights in a town where the city closed at dark. The police were on the lookout for any roaming youths; the watch-­house was always waiting. After the release of their first single, which put them in the same critical, influential frame as The Ramones and the Sex Pistols, The Saints left town. Other punk bands, like The Leftovers and Razar, were central to the scene, but were soon subsumed by a flood of post-­ punk and pop bands: The Go-­Betweens, The Numbers, The Pits, The Survivors, Swell Guys, Toy Watches and many more. Many of these bands took over empty warehouses in the inner city in a wave of cultural energy that flooded Brisbane in the years before the gentrification of the 1990s squeezed them out. The structure that supported the growth of this music scene consists of a number of elements. Most importantly, community radio station 4ZZZ, launched in 1975, connected like-­minded youth. This collective-­run institution was housed at the University of Queensland and survived on subscriptions as well as its promotion arm. It was also the only avenue for locally produced music – the commercial and government stations generally refused to touch anything that wasn’t released by the major labels (Radical Times, 2018). The city also had a number of venues – some run by 4ZZZ, others by independent promoters, but all helping to transform Brisbane’s nightlife. Both the radio station and the University of Queensland Students’ Union published magazines – Radio Times and Semper – that gave work to young designers and cartoonists, and reviewed locally produced cultural products. The Students’ Union also financed the Activities Centre, where posters could be printed cheaply, while all the universities had libraries with cheap photocopying services, making fanzine production affordable. Much of this is detailed in Andrew Stafford’s Pig City (2004) – probably the most well-­known publication about the Brisbane music scene – which lays out the confluence of popular culture and politics that was peculiar to Brisbane in the 1970s and 1980s, and reveals the power wielded by the Queensland Police Force: a power gifted by Joh Bjelke-­Petersen, who either supported or blithely ignored its abuse. But the scene was fertile ground for creative enterprise.

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Ephemera The Brisbane underground music scene in the late 1970s was, like those of New York or London, saturated with the DIY ethos. By late 1976, Australia’s first punk fanzine, Plastered Press, was produced by Bruce Milne in Melbourne, and by early 1977 it was followed by Clinton Walker and Andrew McMillan’s SSuicide ALLey – a first for Brisbane (Walker, 2016). The ensuing ‘amphetamine rush of punkzines’ led directly to some of the ephemeral items that feature in this chapter. But fanzines were not the only remnants of this period in Brisbane’s cultural history. There were handbills and posters, recordings and radio shows, photographs and film/video footage. Some of the items were produced in their thousands (handbills) and some in mere handfuls (some of the more obscure magazines), but in the first instance they were all influenced by the new wave of punk culture. John Gross (2011), reviewing David Ensminger’s (2011) Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation, describes a Houston scene very much like the one in Brisbane. Punk music was ‘designed to be of the moment, immediate, in direct contrast to the cold distance of stadium rock and the inaccessibility of major record labels. It was designed to be fast, cheap and out of control’. This was very much the case in Brisbane, already separated from the ‘civilized’ southern cities of Sydney and Melbourne by distance as much as by politics. The artefacts produced by the Brisbane scene represent ‘punk’s sense of endless struggle, its hope and hopelessness, and its irony and humor, which are often overlooked’ (Ensminger, 2011, p. 9). Although the state government had a demonstrated negative attitude towards youth and youth culture, this humour is a strong underpinning of much of the work, regardless of form. The magazines and other ephemera, like handbills and posters, were often constructed in very simple ways, with skills and information being shared in small working groups. Sometimes this was a necessity – screen-­printing, for instance, was a process requiring numbers of pairs of hands; more often than not, though, it was a social choice. Frith (1996, p.  111) proposes that members of a subculture ‘only get to know themselves as groups (as a particular organization of individual and social interests, of sameness and difference) through cultural activity, through aesthetic judgement’. The development of ideas, the creation of artwork and then the process of manufacture were all undertaken with friends or band members in bars or lounge-­rooms or workshops. It was an activity Ensminger (2011, p. 9) calls ‘folk art – often hand-­drawn, hand-­assembled collages taped or glued into place before being copied and stapled’. Although we continued to embrace this ethos, we were also keen to make the best thing we could make within the constraints of the social and economic environment. Initial forays were made into mail art, one-­off pieces of collage that were influenced by Dada and Fluxus artists, and mailed to friends near and far (see Figure 14.1), which fed into an existing international web of connection that has existed since at least the 1960s (Friedman, 1995, p. 7).

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Figure 14.1  Mail art, 1978–79. Source: From the author’s collection.

The next logical step after letters and postcards was towards small-­format magazines, the core example in this chapter (see Figure 14.2). These ephemera started out as photocopied, short-­run mags, addressed, stamped and mailed out. The first, DK, produced in the winter of 1979, was 20 pages, A4, black and white Xeroxed, and consisted of mostly photocopy collages. This DIY approach was ‘a new language of rupture and roughness … a metaphor for punk’s challenge to watered-­down corporate mentality’ (Ensminger, 2011, p. 9). The magazine was also an illustration of our engagement with the media we consumed daily, and was ‘able to liberate its producer(s) from the controls and limits set by the dominant order by redeploying its resources in radical, infractory ways’ (Atton, 2002, p. 64). DK was produced by Gary Warner and a handful of contributors, all members of a close-­knit social scene. There were no more than 50 copies printed and mailed out to friends. The content, although devised and produced by musicians and others, was not about the underground music scene, which set DK apart from the other similar magazines being produced around the country. The first

Figure 14.2  Covers of DK/Decay magazines 1979–80.

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issue and its subsequent versions are certainly influenced by the Dadaists, especially the small-­format magazines from the early decades of the twentieth century, like Dada, Cabaret Voltaire and Cannibale, as well as the works of Max Ernst, George Grosz and Kurt Schwitters. The connection between Brisbane punk/post-­punk art and Dada has been made before: Danni Zuvela, discussing the exit of artists from Brisbane in the Bjelke-­Petersen years, cites Szulakowska: Those who stayed collaborated in the creation of a distinctive counter-­ culture marked by interdisciplinarity, sedition and experiment, whose potent Dadaist undercurrents Ursula Szulakowska described as ‘a similar response to the (canonical Dadaists’) destructive political situation and the inheritance of a stagnant culture’. (Zuvela, 2008, p. 46) There were other influences, which inspired feelings of global kinship in a pre-­ internet world. One of the most powerful and pervasive was RAW Magazine, published in New York by Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. The first issue, in July 1980, contained the vibrant work of more than 25 graphic artists from Europe and the United States, including subcultural icons like Charles Burns and Gary Panter, as well as the first episode of a small-­format (roughly A5) serialized graphic novel, Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Over the next year or two, as the ‘publisher’ of DK developed the identity of Decay House Films Ink, roughly ten A6 magazines were produced: some hand-­ coloured; some containing colour Xerox elements, a technology that was then in its infancy. It is common for such ephemera to ‘chronicle technological and cultural shifts in contemporary history’ (Ensminger, 2011, p. 9) by using cutting­edge technology in these seemingly frivolous activities. Atton also sees the magazine as a set of embedded practices: ‘As they practise media production within this place, they establish their own spaces: the space that is the zine might be considered as an instance of de Certeau’s “practiced place” ’ (Atton, 2002, p. 64). The magazines comply with a set of visual tropes – text and pen-­ and-ink drawing, photo-­collage and Xerox manipulation – and a content through-­line, where dreams and self-­portraits are common themes. The next phase of production was Zip. The Zip collective contained members of the original DK-­makers and produced three cassette magazines – Zip start, Zip too and Zip III – from late 1982 to 1984, which were somewhat inspired by the colourful, informative issues of Fast Forward, produced in Melbourne from 1980 to 1982. Production elements had been extended to include cassettes of original music and numerous small-­format magazines, offset-­printed, with A6 screen-­ printed covers and A5 laminated postcards. These were available for sale by mail order and in selected record and bookstores in clear ziplock bags, and adopted the same format as and similar content to the previous visual work. The final release, in 1985, was a 7-inch-­square format, offset-­printed, perfect-­bound 56-page book with a 7-inch vinyl single inserted inside the back cover. This

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release, ZIP.EYE.EAR, was produced with the aid of a grant from the Australia Council of the Arts and reiterated the aesthetic intention and structural form that had been followed for seven years. Following its release, the group folded. These magazines, produced between 1978 and 1985, are a strong, stylish thread winding through the post-­punk scene in Brisbane. They exist in both libraries and private collections, and carry a significance that can be evoked by both memory and experience, but require a curatorial framework to fully realize their potential.

Shadow stories In the case of Brisbane’s post/punk scene, the remnants of the past are littered across the social landscape. They exist in different forms: there may be photos of a particular show, but neither the venue nor the bands, nor any posters or handbills, remain. Or there may be a photograph of a poster on a kitchen wall, but no copy of the poster itself. Some of the items lie in institutional care, while many others are in boxes or under beds – the fond memories of a receding youth. Lambert (2008, p. 125) sees ephemera as surviving largely ‘by chance, not just in libraries, but also in museums, archives, local studies collections, and other institutions, each of which has its own ways of describing the objects in its care’. Before any curatorial intent is brought to objects like the DK and ZIP magazines, it is important to note that these objects of ephemera, and many like them, have not necessarily found an obvious home in the institution. In the years when these items were being produced, the larger public cultural institutions in Queensland supported attitudes that were pervasive in the 1970s in Brisbane: political conservatism; an unbridled enthusiasm for the classics; a comforting sense of separation from the outside world. They had little time for such subcultural artefacts. However, in 1986, ten years after The Saints’ first single, ‘(I’m) Stranded’, was released, Brisbane’s Institute of Modern Art (IMA) – a gallery space funded by both the state government and private donations – was home to Know Your Product, curated by Ross Harley (1986), ‘a collection of seventies and early eighties punk ephemera, such as fanzines, photographs, films, videos, music, posters and other materials. It was one of the most important exhibitions ever held at the IMA, if not the most important’ (Szulakowska, 1998, p.  57). The small magazines described earlier, by Decay Films Inc. and ZIP, were pivotal to this ambitious curatorial work, as they were to The Brisbane Sound (IMA, 2008), curated by David Pestorius. Both The Brisbane Sound and Know Your Product were expansive, including live music, radio documentaries and panel discussions, critically addressing the punk/post-­punk underground music scene in Brisbane and its intersection with the art scene. Signs of the Times – Qld Political Posters 1967–1990 at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1991 was curated by Clare Williamson. This comprehensive exhibition contained much cross-­cultural material: music was a medium for opposition to the government, and many gigs were events of support for community and

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resistance to oppression – and the posters expressed this graphically. Razar: Young, Fast and Non-­boring, curated by Christopher Smith at the QPAC Museum in 2004, was a show built around ephemera. Two years later, Takin’ It to the Streets: Two Decades That Changed Brisbane, 1965–1985, curated by Jo Besley, Louise Denoon and Katie McConnel at the Museum of Brisbane (Besley, Denoon and McConnel, 2007), was busy not just with posters and banners, but artefacts like badges and T-­shirts. In 2013, the State Library of Queensland staged a very successful Brisbane music exhibition, Live!, which acknowledged underground as well as popular-­music scenes. Although many ephemeral items languish in the institutional dark, there are some avid culture-­makers and fans who had been collecting these same items since the 1970s, and looking for ways to share what they love. Lambert (2008, p.  148) notes that ‘a specialist collection compiled by an individual … has a unique value far beyond the sum of its parts and is indispensable’. ARI Remix: The Scene Issue is a digital magazine with an aesthetic that lies in the early 1980s, where photographs, artwork, posters and handbills are bound together with edited Facebook comments to create a coherent, powerful story about memory and Brisbane’s post-­punk scene (Andrew, 2017). Similarly, the blog That Striped Sunlight Sound has digitized music and cover art of more than 800 Australian underground or independent recordings. The comments section of the blog gives context and authenticity to the collection and agency to the participants – exercising what Sarah Baker and Alison Huber (2015, p.  112) would call ‘vernacular expertise’. All these layers of interest, collection and activation of Brisbane’s cultural heritage contribute to the quality of the city’s identity. Having been present in the scene through the late 1970s and 1980s, I began to develop an interest in extending these methods to include my particular skills as musician and filmmaker in order to tell a more particular story.

Conclusion Cultural and subcultural heritage is most often activated in fairly traditional forms – exhibitions, books and articles, radio, film and TV documentaries, websites. A music scene will be defined by the bands and music itself – vinyl releases and video clips – and embedded in a chronology by factual data and interviews, fleshed out with ephemera. The Brisbane punk and post-­punk scene traditionally has been defined by the more famous or influential bands – The Saints or The Go-­Betweens – and the published words of critics and historians. But for every vinyl release during this period in Brisbane’s underground history, there are hundreds of live shows with posters and handbills to publicize them; documents of the event surviving as cassettes, negatives, footage or diary entries; and the even more vaporous artefact that is memory. The objects – the small-­format magazines, in this instance – have an intrinsic aesthetic value as well as being representative of the time, energy and social

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connection required to devise and produce them. They are most often used to evoke the period and contextualize the core elements of the story, but with a different curatorial focus they can be moved to the centre of the story as representative of this social and cultural activity. By taking this different approach, by acknowledging the complexity of a scene where social relationships and day-­ to-day culture-­making can be seen as vital, we can begin to glimpse a possible story that has more nuances and greater honesty, and the ability to transform the identity of Brisbane – the big country town.

Epilogue The role of the curator in the institution is historically someone who enables sense-­making of the collections based on their topical expertise, acquired for this very purpose. And although the notion of the artist as curator may bring another layer of expertise, I would suggest that this is, likewise, an acquired knowledge. In the winter of 2015, I made a decision to tell the story of the Brisbane scene from my perspective. This story, as it evolved, required sophisticated, situated interpretation, and inside knowledge to make contextual connections. My connection to the time, my part in the making of the culture and, most importantly, my 40 years as a professional storyteller, enabled me to see that performance would be the transforming aspect of this project. In October 2015, at Brisbane’s Powerhouse theatre, using hundreds of images from the State Library collections, my own archive, and many bits of media kindly placed in my hands, I performed It’s Not The Heat, It’s The Humidity for the first time, a story about Brisbane’s punk and post-­punk scenes split over two nights. The audience was drawn into the story by song and voice, by memories and impressions rather than dates and facts, and by the faces and voices of other members of the scene interviewed. Hours of 16 mm and 8 mm film footage were reduced to potent, fleeting glimpses of the past, with saturated colour and soundtracks based in songs from the time. Photographs were almost constant – enabled principally by the donation to the State Library of 900 monochrome images of the Brisbane scene taken by Paul O’Brien between 1978 and 1980. I reprinted even smaller versions of a few of the little magazines that have been discussed here, to place in people’s hands. The ephemera, the discards, of our lives. The things we thought we would never see again, returned to us. There were many comments after the performance, but this one resonates: I was impressed by the poetic beauty of his account, his insistence on allowing most of what he shared to speak for itself, and the respectful way in which he treated a subject that is precious to those of us who were a part of this scene … It was magnificent. (Tanmay Malcolm Skewis, Facebook post)

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In 2006, after seeing the Taking It to The Streets exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane, Michael O’Neill expressed a similar sentiment: It’s a thing that’ll happen only once in one’s life that someone takes the trouble to re-­create (and invites you to help to do it) the segment of your life that represents the most crucial, most alive and most meaningful contribution you made to the life of the society around you. (Besley, Denoon and McConnel 2007, p. 10)

Acknowledgements DK/Dekay/Decay produced by: Gary Warner, Adam Wolter, John Willsteed, John Gorman, Terry Murphy, Tony Milner, Judy Pfitzner, Iréna Luckus. Zip produced by: Iréna Luckus, Terry Murphy, Matt Mawson, Tim Gruchy, John Willsteed.

References Andrew, P. (2017). ARI Remix: The Scene Issue [Digital magazine]. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/ari-­remix/docs/ari-­remix-issue-­1-the-­scene-issuu. Atton, C. (2002). Alternative media. London: Sage. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2001). Australian Social Trends, 2001. Canberra: ABS. Retrieved from www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/[email protected]/2f762f95845417aeca25706c00834ef a/855e6f87080d2e1aca2570ec000c8e5f!OpenDocument. Baker, S. and Huber, A. (2015). Saving rubbish: Preserving popular music’s material culture in amateur archives and museums. In S. Cohen, R. Knifton, M. Leonard and L. Roberts (eds), Sites of Popular Music Heritage: Memories, Histories, Places (pp. 112–24). New York: Routledge. Besley, J., Denoon, L. and McConnel, K. (2007). Past and present collide: Bringing together the Museum of Brisbane’s exhibition Taking to the Streets: Two Decades that Changed Brisbane, 1965–1985. Queensland Review, 14(1): 1–10. Condon, M. (2014). Jacks and Jokers. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Ensminger, D.A. (2011). Visual Vitriol: The Street Art and Subcultures of the Punk and Hardcore Generation. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. Friedman, K. (1995). The early days of mail art: An historical overview. In C. Welch (ed.), Eternal Network: A Mail Art Anthology. Calgary: University of Calgary Press. Frith, S. (1996). Music and identity. In S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 108–50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Gross, J. (2011). 2 new books serve as memorials, each in its own way. New Statesman, 25 September. Retrieved from www.statesman.com/news/lifestyles/2-new-­books-serve-­ as-memorials-­each-in-­its-own-­w-1/nRfmw. Harley, R. (1986). Know Your Product [Exhibition catalogue]. Brisbane: Institute of Modern Art. IMA (2008). The Brisbane Sound. Retrieved from www.ima.org.au/the-­brisbane-sound. Lambert, J.A. (2008). Immortalizing the mayfly: Permanent ephemera – an illusion or a (virtual) reality? RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts and Cultural Heritage, 9(1): 142–56.

170   J. Willsteed Lunn, H. (1978). Joh: The Life and Political Adventures of Johannes Bjelke-­Petersen. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Moore, R. and Roberts, M. (2009). Do-­it-yourself mobilization: Punk and social movements. Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 14(3): 273–91. Radical Times (2018). A brief history of Brisbane radio station 4ZZZ-FM. Retrieved from http://radicaltimes.info/PDF/4ZZZhistory.pdf. Stafford, A. (2004). Pig City: From The Saints to Savage Garden. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Szulakowska, U. (1998). Experimental Art in Queensland, 1975–1995: An Introductory Study. Brisbane: Queensland Studies Centre, Griffith University. Walker, C. (1982). Inner City Sound. Sydney: Wild & Woolley. Walker, C. (1985). The Next Thing: Contemporary Australian Rock. Beaverton, OR: Kangaroo Press. Walker, C. (2016). Fanzines – 1970s. Retrieved from www.clintonwalker.com.au/ fanzines-­1970s.html. Williams, J. (2015). ‘Rock against Reagan’: The punk movement, cultural hegemony, and Reaganism in the eighties. Unpublished MA thesis, University of North Iowa. Worley, M. (2016). Riotous assembly: British punk’s cultural diaspora in the summer of ’81. In K. Andresen and B. Van Der Steen (eds), A European Youth Revolt (pp. 217–28). Dordrecht: Springer Nature. Zuvela, D. (2008). The Brisbane sound. Art Monthly Australia, 211: 45–8.

Chapter 15

Birth of an underground music scene? Creative networks and (digital) DIY technologies in a Hungarian context Emília Barna First reports of a ‘lo-­fi’ or ‘bedroom pop’ music scene1 in Budapest in the online music press date from 2011, and although the scene – along with its respective artists (such as Piresian Beach, Morningdeer, Zombie Girlfriend, Mayberian Sanskülotts and Eyes on U) – became more widely known in the ensuing years, it arguably continued to expand and change without surrendering its striving for exclusivity and underground status. Despite its representation – ‘insider’ and niche media – as a distinct scene, this musical micro-­world did not develop in a vacuum. Rather, its particular logic is embedded in complex ways into local and translocal music worlds and genres, as well as technologies, including digital home recording technology and online platforms. I examine the emergence of this underground scene with the aim of exploring how it is constructed – both as a scene and as underground. More precisely, I look, first, at how it formed as an online and offline network of cooperation, interaction and creativity; second, how it has been shaped through the particular use of technologies and the attitudes towards such; and third, how it is embedded into local and translocal art and music worlds and histories. Through this analysis, I reflect on the shifting role of DIY attitudes and practices in the maintenance of cultural autonomy. When speaking of an online and offline network of cooperation, interaction and creativity, I employ the term ‘network’ in a descriptive sense, invoking Howard Becker’s (1982, p.  x) well-­known concept of the art world as ‘the network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of art works that the art world is noted for’. Becker’s theory has already been employed by others to describe ‘music worlds’ (e.g. Crossley, 2015). The ‘art works’ may be understood in the present context as the musical product, as well as other closely associated creative output such as poster or album artwork, photographs shared via social media and even blog posts. My observations are based on research conducted between 2014 and 2016 in Budapest, Hungary, which included methods of online and offline observation, with myself increasingly becoming a participant not only as a concert-­goer, but also through organizing workshops and a ‘Ladyfest’ day for the Rakéta festival in 2016; 14 qualitative interviews conducted with musicians and people otherwise

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active in the music world; the analysis of Tumblr profiles; and network mapping based on relationship data obtained from the interviews. The defining particularity of the music world is the so-­called bedroom musician practice, involving the use of home recording technology and online platforms, as well as playing shows at certain venues, attending gigs and going to certain pubs to socialize.

Online technology and the birth myth of Budapest lo-­f i Motti Regev (2013) describes how national pop-­rock cultures often draw on ‘birth myths’, with events and participants being of symbolic significance in national pop-­rock histories. Important events, as memorable reference points in time, may feature in the memory of any music world. The year 2011 is invariably mentioned by participants in relation to Budapest lo-­fi, described as a ‘focused time’ by one interviewee (Krisztina, musician).2 The artist Piresian Beach, the first prominent reference point of the scene, had released her debut songs via Bandcamp in 2010, and by 2011 had simultaneously extended her presence on Tumblr. Subsequently her music received coverage in the niche media – that is, online music magazine-­blogs, in particular Recorder. The Budapest lo-­fi scene at this time was predominantly organizing via micro-­media, in particular a Tumblr network of musicians and music enthusiasts. The Facebook activity of artists also contributed to the spreading of information and popularization of their music, yet Tumblr is an online space particularly closely tied to, and identified with, the lo-­fi scene. Blogging on Tumblr is very fast-­paced – the lo-­fi musicians who used it, including Piresian Beach, usually posted several items per day. A typical Tumblr post for the scene was short, and often contained a link to music or video content and/or featured visual imagery. A crucial function of Tumblr is what is known as ‘reblogging’ – the reposting of a post by other users on their profiles, optionally adding a comment or further content. ‘Favouriting’ a post is also an option. The list of ‘favouriters’ and rebloggers, as well as their added content, is visible on the original profile, and this visible interaction lends itself particularly well to the internal self-­representation for participants in the music world. On the other hand, visibility towards ‘outsiders’ to the scene is limited – in part because Tumblr profile names are not necessarily known outside the scene. This technology can therefore serve to maintain exclusivity. A particular hub of Tumblr bloggers was frequently mentioned by name – ‘a very broad group of friends, or mates’ (Zita, musician). These included some, but not all, of the better-­known artists of the music world, as well as people who organized important lo-­fi events, including the Rakéta Festival (with a certain overlap between the two). Moreover, it included new entrants alongside musicians and music critics, who had already been present in the Budapest music world – in particular, the indie scene, in some cases since the early 2000s. Contrary to the implications of the birth myth, the presence, active participation

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and gatekeeping role of these long-­time participants therefore rather maintained continuity, both in time and across genres.3 The first lo-­fi festival held in Budapest in 2012, Rakéta, signified the scene’s stepping out from the virtual ‘bedroom’ into the offline world. According to the organizers, ‘[t]he aim of the first Hungarian “DIY festival” [wa]s to enable an audience so far predominantly recruited online to finally meet the artists at a live performance event’ (Dívány.hu, 2012). The first occasion was truly low-­key, organized at a musician’s house in harmony with the scene’s DIY values and ironic downplaying of career ambitions – it resembled a gathering of friends rather than a music festival. The subsequent, more official events were organized by people belonging to the aforementioned hub: a loose group of friends who are musicians, promoters and DJs (fulfilling multiple roles is usual in DIY scenes). The festival featured free shows at multiple venues, and by 2014 it had grown to encompass seven days and seven different venues. The DIY manner of organizing events and activities was conducted in a community spirit, using one another’s resources and skills while little actual money exchanged hands. As organizer Péter Fülöp explained in connection with the Rakéta festival, with a communicative gesture of downplaying characteristic of the lo-­fi discourse: the festival consists of ‘young musicians, our friends, we invite them to come down and play for us and their own audiences, we listen to them and we are happy’ (Dívány.hu, 2012). The manner of organization stayed DIY up to the last festival in 2016, which was the final one because the main organizer, Ádám Lang, said he no longer had sufficient spare time, and the rest of the team decided not to continue without him (Inkei, 2016). The lo-­fi musicians interviewed three to four years later seemed to reinforce their attachment to the music world through retrospection, by maintaining that at the beginning it was a fairly different scenario from the one that had evolved by the time of the interviews: ‘it was all really friendly with ambitious young people who really wanted to create something that would be talked about in ten years’ (Zita, musician). The quoted musician reflected on the shift in the life-­ cycle of the music world, the moving away from the initial enthusiasm, from a nostalgic perspective, assigning value to the original moment – the ‘focused time’ – and lamenting the shift. Regarding their own participation, she stated that their band was in the right place at the right time, yet she felt somewhat removed now. A sense of nostalgia in fact pervaded all of my interviews with artists that joined lo-­fi around 2010–11 – and although at the time of writing it may be too early to say, with the announcement that there will not be a Rakéta 2017, 2016 might come to be remembered as the year of the death of the Budapest lo-­fi or bedroom pop scene.

Connections and boundaries The cooperative and aesthetic network focus enabled by the music world concept helps to reveal synchronous and historical continuities between lo-­fi

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and other music and art worlds, as well as regimes of aesthetics and attitudes such as ‘hipster’ taste. In the following, I explore such connections to demonstrate the embeddedness of the scene that crystallized around 2011 in the manner shown above. The fine-­a rt world and (post-)socialist underground history The stylistic labels of ‘lo-­fi’ or ‘bedroom pop’ were used for a group of bands that were, according to the musicians themselves, musically quite different from each other, but still linked by aesthetic characteristics, an ‘attitude’ and shared practice. The practices of home recording and the use of online platforms for the distribution and sharing of music, together with an anti-­professional aesthetics – namely ‘bad quality’ recording, a lo-­fi sound indicating the home-­made, DIY, non-­commercial character of the music – were frequent in the respective insider discourse. One musician defined lo-­fi as ‘regular tracks recorded under irregular circumstances’ (Zsófia, musician); another stated that, ‘[a]part from the fact that the recording quality of our songs is bad, I don’t really know what lo-­fi is – perhaps an attitude’ (Zita, musician). Although not explicit in the insider discourse, also observable was the Budapest-­centredness of the music world, demonstrating that location remained important regardless of the weight of online activity. Participants were typically in their twenties and in most cases either from Budapest or had moved to Budapest – for instance, to study – while their social background was middle or upper middle class, with a high level of cultural capital. The music world had connections with the University of Fine Arts in Budapest, as a significant number of musicians were studying or had studied there. ‘First and foremost, they are fine artists and not musicians,’ wrote the popular Hungarian news platform Index.hu of the two songwriters of the band Mayberian Sanskülotts (Index.hu, 2012). Observing this primacy of fine art may contain a trace of the traditional hierarchical distinction between the fine arts as a spatial form of art and music as performance – thus a temporal form of art (Frith, 1996, p. 116), in which dichotomy music appears as a complementary, even secondary form of expression. Notably, a marked association between music and the fine-­art world already characterized the underground music world of the 1980s in Hungary, as indicated by the involvement of fine artists in music-­making, the influence of the (neo-)avant-­garde on alternative music (this was, of course, also true internationally, starting with the Velvet Underground), and the merging of various art forms – fine art, performance art, theatre, music – at counter-­cultural events (Havasréti, 2006; Szemere, 2001), which frequently took place in private spaces such as the flats of artists in order to remain invisible from the authorities. This association continued to an extent in the 1990s, as exemplified by the band Tereskova, led by painter Kriszta Nagy (also mentioned by Szemere, 2001, p.  208). The first album of the lo-­fi artist Unknown Child (Unknown Child, 2015), the project of a fine artist and musician, came with a 90-page zine that

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also comprised her University of Fine Arts diploma work. The artist spoke about how close expression through image and expression through sound felt to her, and how she approached writing music in a ‘fine art’ manner – that is, creating ‘with simple tools’ (she also cited blues as a key musical influence). This meant that she deliberately remained unprofessional with musical instruments, as the process of learning to play an instrument to her was inextricably linked to the creation of the musical piece (Erika, musician and fine artist). Anna Szemere (2001, p.  224) observes in relation to (post-)socialist Hungarian underground music how ‘the reappropriation of the high-­art ideology in popular culture is … bound up with a search for autonomy’. In this case, there is no ideological distinction on the level of discourse; rather, the techniques of fine art seem to lend themselves well to the DIY creative practices of the lo-­fi scene. The singer and songwriter of the aforementioned Mayberian Sanskülotts, referring to the role of the media in labelling the scene, explained how the band had never planned to be a lo-­fi act; rather, ‘someone had the idea that this was a style that we record our songs at home – so we recorded everything on a laptop on purpose, then we also recorded on cassette because it gave it a metallic sound’ (Zita, musician). She connected the ‘metallic sound’ to an album by female-­fronted 1980s underground rock band Trabant (a name that itself has a lo-­fi resonance, referring to the low-­cost, mass-­produced East-­German car brand ubiquitous in socialist countries), which she used to listen to on cassette tape. Itself representing an introspective, bedroom-­type style, Trabant served as a source of inspiration for the singer, and her aim was to recreate that familiar sonic texture. The ‘bad quality sound’ thus gained an additional nostalgic meaning, as well as a rootedness in Hungarian underground music history. Irony and play One distinct feature of the scene is what is known as multi-­tasking in the jazz world (Stewart, 2007) – simply put, this means that everyone is playing in everyone’s band but, in addition, also producing, promoting and writing about each other’s band. This practice is not necessarily exclusive to lo-­fi bands, but can be regarded as a general feature of the Hungarian music industry, and is in part undoubtedly rooted in economic constraints. It may thus, in some cases, be interpreted as compromise rather than choice. Yet, besides the type of multi-­ tasking where side-­projects at times become indistinguishable from main projects, deliberately temporary bands or projects also thrive within the lo-­fi music world. I term such projects ‘scene bands’ to indicate the insider quality of the practice as well as its simultaneous function of reinforcing inward-­looking, self-­ reflexive creative and social relations. ‘We’re sitting in the office Friday afternoon, let’s form a band in the evening then break up at midnight – it is just a game,’ explains one musician (Zsófia). As another example, the duo Fél Fény played their debut gig at the Rakéta festival in 2013 and their planned farewell gig (eventually cancelled) at the

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same festival in 2014, indicating a strong temporal, scenic connection to the main offline event of the music world. Through the practice of scene bands, playfulness is asserted – a downplaying of the importance of band formation and especially band careers. I understand this gesture of downplaying as the continuous assertion of underground status, a relentless discursive masking of the effort to ‘make it’ – in other words, a distancing from commercial professionalism. Rakéta itself started out as a kind of an insider joke. A musician narrated the birth of the festival – another ‘birth moment’ in the life-­course of the scene – in the following words: [Main organizer-­to-be] Ádám Lang talked to me or I can’t remember who talked to who, that we should do an International Lo-­Fi Week – even though in fact it was only one day. Everyone in the scene – all five people – came to us to [Budapest suburb] Kápmegyer and there was a sign on our door saying, ‘International Lo-­Fi Week,’ but I think we had omitted ‘Lo-­Fi’ and it was only ‘International Week,’ and we had ‘Lo-­Fi’ arranged from Christmas tree lights on our living room wall and everyone took their photographs there, and we went out to the forest and around the blocks of flats drinking beer, that was it – then somehow this turned into Rakéta Festival. (Zita) On the one hand, the occasion is merely a gathering of friends, all involved in the same creative community, documented through photographs and in the memory of the music world as a truly DIY event. On the other hand, it already contains key discursive gestures of irony (‘international’, ‘week’). Moreover, it takes place within a space that is somebody’s home and the creative space of their band at the same time – thus the ‘bedroom’ where music is made and distributed from is extended to become a creative and social space for the whole of the – still very small – music world. Continuity with indie The close association of lo-­fi with the indie music genre can be understood in terms, first, of local popular-­music history; second, shared online and offline spaces; third, personal network continuities; and fourth, shared aesthetics and ethics, on a translocal level. With regard to local popular-­music history, the Budapest ‘indie scene’ certainly serves as a frequent referential point in the subcultural discourse of the lo-­fi music world: according to the insider narrative, the ‘indie boom’ in Hungary – also centred in Budapest – had taken place in the few years leading up to the ‘lo-­fi boom’. Continuities in terms of places – for example, the indie venue Beat On the Brat, which opened in 2013 and subsequently served as one of the venues for Rakéta – and people – for example, the

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manager of Beat On the Brat, who is a well-­known indie DJ and promoter – reinforce the connection between the two. The continuity in terms of key gatekeepers – bloggers and music journalists who at times also act as promoters and/or musicians – moreover contributes towards a continuity in dominant tastes and attitudes. A kind of ‘hipster’ aesthetic, underlined by the attitude of ‘coolness’,4 also characterizes lo-­fi – an intellectual ‘detachment, disinterestedness, indifference’ (Bourdieu, 1986, pp. 237–9, quoted in Jenkins, 1992, p. 61) that can be interpreted as both masculine and bourgeois. This ‘masculine intellectualism’, Matthew Bannister argues, is a key stance in indie masculinities, as evidenced, among many others, by perhaps the most important indie reference point, the Velvet Underground (Bannister, 2006, pp. 25–56). In addition to the aforementioned association of hipster ‘coolness’ with Tumblr, ‘coolness’ is also thematized by the well-­known – to some, infamous – annual ‘cool lists’, namely ironic, often sarcastic end-­of-the-­year compilations of the 50 ‘coolest’ young people in Budapest. The list has featured lo-­fi artist Piresian Beach three times (second place in 2010, sixth in 2011 and seventeenth in 2012), and Benedek Szabó, the singer-­songwriter of Zombie Girlfriend, who was in second place in 2011 at the perceived peak of the scene. At the same time, lo-­fi aesthetics and values are also a site of conflict – there is evidence of a strong feminist critique of both indie and hipster culture from within the lo-­fi music world.5 One musician spoke with frustration about ‘this whole hipster culture’ and the constraining ‘iconic’ status gained by some indie institutions: ‘now the place is Beat On the Brat’ (Zita). Zita criticized the elitism of the scene and responded to it by avoiding Beat On the Brat and other venues that were supposed to be ‘cool’ in her understanding. Several of the female musicians interviewed expressed a strong critique of the male homosocial practices, as well as the masculine connoisseurship, structuring the taste of the music world (cf. Straw, 1995). Boundary work: punk and the mainstream Part of the punk scene – particularly a community that has labelled itself the ‘defekt’ (defect) scene (Vargyai, 2011) – is linked to lo-­fi, mainly through the appreciation of the former’s music by lo-­fi musicians. Piresian Beach, for instance, expressed her appreciation of punk bands and shows, in particular the groups centred around the promoter team and record label RNR666. On the basis of the definitive blog post cited above, such values as community-­centredness, low-­key DIY events (symbolized by ‘cheap beer’ and house parties), ‘doing things [from one’s] heart’, and the discursive practice of downplaying one’s own performance while simultaneously displaying enthusiasm for the community and for other groups within the scene are perceived as crucial qualities of both music worlds. Nevertheless, according to lo-­fi musicians, while they enthused over the punk scene, punks in fact acted in an antagonistic manner towards them at the

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beginning. According to the insider narrative, this unbalanced relationship later developed into a harmonious one, to the extent where lo-­fi and punk bands now organize shows together, and Piresian Beach even had a record released by RNR666. Previously, the ‘no Ádám Lang and friends, no matter how much they pay’ attitude had dominated punk gigs (Zsófia, musician). Similarly, Vargyai made a dismissive note regarding ‘lame hipsters’ by Vargyai in his blog post describing the defekt scene: [The band] FUSEISM dwells on the ground that could capture the attention of lame hipsters as well but they have the attitude and the credo that can convince punks that all the fancy assholes at the shows are there by mistake. (Vargyai, 2011) On the other hand, a lo-­fi musician asserted that this antagonism was completely one-­sided: ‘We never had this [drawing of boundaries], it’s more common for people to hate us, we never had a problem with anybody’ (Zsófia, musician). Needless to say, it generally comes more easily for the member of any subcultural group to make such overall statements regarding the other group – as Thornton (1996, p.  99) observes, ‘although most clubbers and ravers characterize their own crowd as mixed or difficult to classify, they are generally happy to identify a homogenous crowd to which they don’t belong’. In a parallel manner, it might be easier for members of a music world to see themselves and their group as more tolerant, while critically perceiving the other group’s intolerance. Boundaries are also negotiated in relation to media presence. The relationship of the underground to mainstream, or non-­subcultural, media is undoubtedly complex and layered, although the models of Thornton (1996) and Hodkinson (2002) can be effective in analysing this complex relationship. In the case of the Budapest lo-­fi world, the significance of mainstream media is less evident, as the scene is present and represented mainly through micro-­media such as Tumblr and niche media – that is, online magazines. In one particular instance, a track by Zombie Girlfriend was featured on Hungarian music television channel VIVA, along with an interview with the band’s singer and songwriter Benedek Szabó. This media event prompted an anonymous user to send the following online message to Piresian Beach: ‘hi Zsófi, do you think Zombie Girlfriend Benedek has betrayed the Hungarian lo-­fi scene with this Viva interview? … [PS your new EP is great!!!]’. First, the fact that a question like this is addressed to Piresian Beach implies that the artist is considered by the fan as a representative of the scene, presumably with ‘authority’ to offer a meaningful comment on this dilemma. Second, the question and the implied assumption that Benedek appearing on a mainstream music channel could be problematic echo a kind of ‘incorporation’ or ‘selling-­out’ narrative from subculture theory (Hebdige, 1979). The artist’s response, on the other hand – ‘you decide’ – which

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was published on her Tumblr page, appears as a knowing and slightly ironic reflection on the irrelevance of the above narrative. Others were more direct: ‘We don’t want to be these snobs, saying ‘We only make music for the underground” ’ (Zita, musician). Categories, the same musician asserted, were unnecessary, as musical styles and the groupings around them were becoming blurred. As another example, Mayberian Sanskülotts was invited to take part in the mass-­media–broadcast talent contest The X-­Factor ‘so that the public would get to know the alternative sphere’. Its members decided not to enter because of the disadvantageous conditions of the contract, but otherwise the singer saw no problems with saying yes. She was unsure about whether it would be regarded as ‘uncool’ for them to participate or whether, on the contrary, it would be ‘cool’ for a band like Mayberian Sanskülotts – an underground act – to be represented on the TV show (Zita). Yet she criticized the ‘kind of narrow-­mindedness, old-­fashioned thinking’ that would condemn the band for appearing on mainstream television. This attitude points towards the easing of a countercultural, and certainly of an anti-­capitalistic, stance that historically has been associated with DIY music cultures, particularly punk. Paradoxically, criticism of old symbolic hierarchies from within may to an extent assist the dissolution of cultural autonomy.

Conclusion The Budapest lo-­fi music scene is a creative community that actively works in online and offline spaces to maintain an exclusive underground status and a kind of symbolic autonomy through communicated anti-­professional attitudes, insider practices – such as Tumblr interactions – not easily visible and decipherable ‘from outside’ or self-­referential creativity exemplified by scene bands, as well as, in some cases, symbolic links to Hungary’s (post-)socialist underground. At the same time, it is also continuous with other music and art worlds and is embedded into a complex social and creative network. Regardless of the symbolic continuity, the practices and attitudes of digitalized DIY are no longer clearly associated with a defined counterculture – Szemere (2001) explores how this dissolved after the 1989–90 turn in Hungary along with the socialist political system – nor with the political or institutional critique that shaped (post-)punk and indie internationally during the 1980s (Hesmondhalgh, 1999). The DIY practices and attitudes, along with underground status, rather seem to contribute to the construction of a subcultural capital that is potentially convertible to cultural capital. ‘Cool lists’, while self-­reflexive, ironic and not altogether benevolent, can also be viewed as lists of young cultural entrepreneurs in Budapest worth paying attention to – almost in the spirit of a Forbes Magazine list, they remain entirely within a capitalistic logic. This means that while cultural autonomy is maintained on a symbolic level, it is also continuously being compromised. Acts of displaying taste and affinity online, such as posting music and other content online or sharing pictures, not only serve to communicate (sub)cultural

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capital and maintain in-­group hierarchies. They also function as the visible mortar of a community based on friendships, which at the same time also functions as a professional creative network. Online interaction, frequent posts, feedback and evaluative acts can all be considered relationship labour. In harmony with the demands of the ‘attention economy’ (Davenport and Beck, 2001), timing is crucial in this displaying of connections – the frequency of ­messages and the almost over-­abundance of information require attention, and  attention signifies participation or being ‘in’. The displaying of a local virtual network therefore functions not only as the reinforcing of social and (sub)cultural capital, but also as a means for expressing and enacting belonging.

Notes 1 The two labels were used alternately, although the musicians I spoke to in 2014–16 tended to use the former more, while the music press seemed to prefer the latter. For the sake of simplicity, I mostly use the term lo-­fi in this chapter. 2 I use first names only to refer to interview subjects. 3 I examined the role of such gatekeepers in the music world’s continuity in time and the maintaining, even through symbolic violence, of hierarchical structures, as well as reproducing mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion in Barna (2017). 4 As Andrew Ross (1989, p. 5, quoted by Bannister 2006, p. 25) argues, ‘ “hip”, “camp”, “bad” or “sick” taste and, most recently, postmodernist “fun” … are opportunities for intellectuals to sample the emotional charge of popular culture while guaranteeing their immunity from its power to constitute social identities that are in some way marked as subordinate’. ‘Cool’ could be added to this list. 5 Again, this is an internationally experienced trend (e.g. see Kearney, 1997; Leonard, 2007).

References Bannister, M. (2006). White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock. Aldershot: Ashgate. Barna, E. (2017). ‘Változás és kontinuitás egy budapesti underground zenei világban a műfajesztétika, ízlés, technológia és alkotómunka viszonyrendszerén keresztül’. TNTeF, 7(1): 1–20. Becker, H.S. (1982). Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986 [1979]). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. R. Nice trans. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Crossley, N. (2015). Networks of Sound, Style, and Subversion: The Punk and Post-­Punk Worlds of Manchester, London, Liverpool, and Sheffield, 1975–80. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Davenport, T.H. and Beck, J.C. (2001). The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Dívány.hu (2012). Elstartolt az első Rakéta Fesztivál. Retrieved from http://divany.hu/ stilfuresz/2012/07/25/raketa_fesztival_a_magyar_off. Frith, S. (1996). Music and identity. In S. Hall and P. du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 108–27). London: Sage.

Birth of an underground music scene?   181 Havasréti, J. (2006). Alternatív regiszterek. A kulturális ellenállás formái a Magyar avantgárdban. Budapest: Typotext. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Hesmondhalgh, D. (1999). Indie: The institutional politics and aesthetics of a popular music genre. Cultural Studies, 13(1): 34–61. Hodkinson, P. (2002). Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg. Index.hu (2012). Zenélő hipszterek az alkoholisták körül. Retrieved from http://index. hu/video/2012/07/25/raketa_feszt. Inkei, B. (2016). Az idei volt az utolsó Rakéta Fesztivál. Index.hu. Retrieved from http:// index.hu/kultur/zene/2016/10/04/az_idei_volt_az_utolso_raketa_fesztival. Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Kearney, M.C. (1997). The missing links. Riot grrrl – feminism – lesbian culture. In S. Whiteley (ed.), Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender (pp. 207–29). London: Routledge. Leonard, M. (2007). Gender in the Music Industry: Rock, Discourse and Girl Power. Aldershot: Ashgate. Regev, M. (2013). Pop-­Rock Music: Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism in Late Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Ross, A. (1989). No Respect: Intellectuals & Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. Stewart, A. (2007). Making the Scene: Contemporary New York City Big Band Jazz. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Straw, W. (1995). Sizing up record collections: Gender and connoisseurship in rock music culture. In S. Whiteley (ed.), Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender (pp. 3–16). London: Routledge. Szemere, A. (2001). Up from the Underground. The Culture of Rock Music in Postsocialist Hungary. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Thornton, S. (1996). Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Vargyai (2011). The Hungarian Defekt Punk Scene Report in MRR #336. We do punk as … Retrieved from http://punkersblock.blogspot.hu.

Part IV

Music scenes, memory and emotional geographies

Chapter 16

The inoperative subculture History, identity and avant-­g ardism in garage rock Daniel S. Traber

The demands of a community can be a tricky terrain to negotiate, even if you only want a peripheral connection to the social group. What some view positively as unity based on a shared sensibility looks to others like compulsory normalcy, wherein difference is a liability. The same applies to musical cultures, regardless of whether the sense of identity is founded on alterity. This chapter turns to Jean-­Luc Nancy’s (1991) concept of the ‘inoperative community’ to consider the negotiations of history and community required of revivalist subcultures. Nancy reconfigures community by recognizing its infinite number of ‘singularities’, so that our ‘we’ is first and foremost a conglomeration of others. My example of an ‘inoperative subculture’ will come from what I have termed contemporary avant-­garde garage rock, but the examination will occur via comparison with New York’s No Wave movement of the late 1970s, thus marking these two genres as musical styles that are fundamentally defined by their response to aesthetic ancestry. No Wave’s manifesto of noise insists on voluntary cultural disinheritance, not only to create an original sound but to unlock the shackles of tradition. Their antagonistic stance against previous music also functions as an individualistic challenge to the restrictive, conformist impulses of community. In contrast, avant-­garde garage rock, although already positioned outside the mainstream like No Wave – due to its ‘low’ recording quality and abrasive sound – creates its identity through an in-­betweenness that walks the borderline separating old and new. The form draws inspiration from 1960s garage rock and punk in a manner that grants a modicum of authority to the ideal of a community even as it pushes beyond its influence. In Nancy’s (1991) vision, subjects break with a defunct notion of community as a shared identity built on exclusionary ‘origins’, recognizing instead how we are alike only in our having differences. David Johnson and Scott Michaelsen (1997, pp. 4, 21) pick up Nancy’s lead by contending that subjects should slip into a ‘we’ persona for ‘which differences mean nothing, add up without sum … Differences make no difference … [to] a community, a plurality, that produces no culture to which “we” belong, no identity “we” can call our own’. Destroying in order to create, the emptied self welcomes the multiple possibilities for subjectivity, which will dislodge a faith in concreteness. Subjectivity can be opened

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wide to accept all sources and influences, more willing to ingest the diversity it is already immersed within until the only sure identity is a fragmented one. Ideally, essentialist distinctions fade until individuals are more like a culture unto themselves, one constructed from varied contact zones that can never congeal in exactly the same way to form similar subjectivities. This is why it is easy to see how an organized subculture, even one with an alternative DIY ethos, functions like a traditional social group. The subculture tries to administer the values, beliefs and codes of meaning associated with its style; therefore, if a member rejects the group’s strategies of totalization while still claiming membership, the subculture is rendered inoperative – even if only for that individual subject. There are few better examples of this attempt at control than revivalist movements. As identities dependent on replicating a previous form, they are prone to a stricter sense of rules governing the style, if only so it is recognizable to people inside and outside the movement. Larry Hardy, founder of In the Red Records, offers this critique of the revivalist impulse: ‘I just don’t see why you’d want to relive a bygone era so exactly, why you didn’t want to do something to it to make it your own or more contemporary’ (Davidson, 2010, p. 185). So is the revival in question an appropriation of the past that scrapes off its hallowed veneer and uses it for its own contemporary purposes? Or is it just a longing for that surface that likewise takes history at its surface by buying into the past’s self-­representation because the memory-­as-product fulfils a desire – maybe even some psychological need – for a previously enacted rebellion that is now romanticized into fantasy? Or is this style, and the affection for the music used to express it, just another model of conformity, only with a different style, a different look from the present historical moment yet once again and, quite predictably, deployed as a tool of differentiation used to sell sameness?

No Wave’s aural patricide In May 2010, music critic Sasha Frere-­Jones (2010) waxed romantic about contemporary noise bands in The New Yorker. Although sure to name-­check the Japanese noise maestro Merzbow as a source, he oddly missed mentioning a group of musicians once considered to be quintessentially of New York City. Sonic terrorism, rather than revival, aptly describes the short-­lived moment in musical history given the appellation No Wave. These bands did not make the most frightening, headache-­inducing, paradigm-­threatening sound, but they certainly wanted to have that effect. Some called it art-­rock, others noise-­rock, but it came out of a specific post-­punk New York context and all the bands sounded as though they shared similar intentions to go beyond punk rock in deconstructing pop music. Part of No Wave’s grudge was against the corporate packaging of a consumer-­friendly punk under the tag of new wave. By 1977–78, several of the seminal New York punk bands had moved on from their humbler roots to scoring record deals, which some fans viewed as the death of the

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­ ovement. So, on one level, the ‘No’ can be read as declaring a disconnection m from the channels of mainstream success by disdaining all that might allow for it. Michael Azerrad (2001, p.  231) describes it in such terms: ‘The music was spare but precipitously jagged and dissonant, with little regard for conventions of any sort; the basic idea seemed to be to make music that could never be co-­ opted.’ That does not mean they wanted to avoid recognition or fame, but they hardly chose the easy path to achieve it – which speaks to the lingering artistic ethos informing their aspiration to destroy the past. During its brief existence, No Wave made no bones about putting a stake in the heart of rock. Most bands still used the instruments of the form – guitar, bass, drums – albeit forcing sounds from them that were deliberately (and obviously) intended to be heard as confrontational acts. Simon Reynolds (2005, p. 140) accounts for this choice: ‘It was as though the No Wavers felt that the electronic route [i.e. synthesizers] to making a post-­rock noise was too easy. It was more challenging, and perhaps more threatening, too, to use rock’s own tools against itself.’ This was not music meant to offer people escapism or entertainment. In its various forms it presented disharmony, irregular tunings, static, sparseness, unmelodic, off-­key and/or atonal vocals (often amounting to little more than screaming) as well as repetitive single-­beat rhythms and single-­note chords distorted into thudding white noise and drone. In short, the music could be intense, spontaneous, even haunting. These were the tools for tearing apart punk’s lingering connection to the blues and Chuck Berry riffs as an avant-­garde artistic statement ushering in a new sensibility. Part of No Wave’s genius lay in its complex minimalism. The music was informed by more than banging out noises, even if that was all it sounded like. No Wave combined highly intellectual theories with the corporeality of energy and emotional intensity. Anger, paranoia and despair are common, yet there is also an underbelly of joy in releasing these feelings – albeit hardly the typical easygoing fun of teenagers celebrated in so much pop music – to create an aggressive music that represents a desire to be free from the dictates of imposed reason and order. Lydia Lunch, of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, described her desire for a self-­ exorcism of the past through an act of filial and musical culturecide: It was much more about personal insanity than political insanity … There wasn’t much to fight against, except tradition, where you came from, what your parents were … [Musically] everything that had influenced me up to that point I found too traditional … I felt there had to be something more radical. It’s got to be disemboweled. (Reynolds, 2005, pp. 145, 148) To be excluded from the community built upon a reified pop-­music history was another of No Wave’s goals. The problem of history as a tool of social control is central to this response, especially in relation to how a person’s identity is ­constructed for him or her and policed by the official narrative of any collective

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‘we’ that explains how we came to be and what we mean because of that history. As a system of meaning production, history is used to represent us to ourselves as an undifferentiated, totalized ‘us’. The narrative of any group’s specific history restricts individual meaning by making singular what is plural; this includes when the marginalized singularize themselves by repressing the diversity within the plurality itself if they speak, think or in any way resort to a transparent group representation. No Wave refused to associate itself positively with the memories of that pop history, except by casting them negatively to create its own counter-­identity. For No Wave to break free of the past it had to remove itself from its means of self-­replication in the present. And in doing that, these bands likewise wanted to extricate themselves from the notion of community built on that history. No Wave set out not only to denaturalize but to undermine the centre around which popular music still revolved in terms of how it was played, heard or experienced, documented and then commodified. Still, one of the seeds that contributed to the scene’s quick disintegration was actually a record. Brian Eno released the No New York compilation in 1978 with only four bands chosen to represent the movement. Eno’s choices could all be justified, but they highlighted an existing geographical rift between bands divided by neighbourhood, with SoHo castigated for being too close to the reigning art establishment. DNA’s Arto Lindsay confessed to persuading Eno to exclude the SoHo groups, thus ensuring their clique would constitute the official and public face of The New Sound (Heylin, 2007, p. 497). Here community functioned to enforce codes and marginalize those who didn’t behave properly, those who were ‘not like us’. A concomitant problem in No Wave’s discourse with regard to the wider public was its complicity in promoting a system of taste – a value resulting from the band’s desire for artistic status, specifically as the next phase in the history of avant-­garde music. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of taste as a tool of social identity is applicable here: [Taste] unites and separates … Objectively and subjectively, aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing or home decoration are opportunities to experience or assert one’s position in social space, as a rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept. (Bourdieu, 1984, pp. 56, 57) In No Wave, taste was redefined and recoded, so that the dominant culture’s preferences would now fill the subordinate slot in the scene’s binary structure: smart/dumb, authentic/fake, new/old, original/generic. There was certainly an inherent challenge in appropriating the positive terms in order to turn them against the common understanding of how they should be applied, yet they were still used to mark people and make sense of the world in a way that framed and enforced their taste preferences as those of the new breed of true artists: those in the know and the now.

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Lo-­f i sound and high theory in garage rock So what is one to do if, as a music fan, you appreciate the sonic disestablishmentarianism of noise but find yourself still feeling friendly towards the structured riffs and melodies of rock? Movements like No Wave demand a binary-­based decision: choose us or consider yourself still stuck in the old way. Even punk, the reigning rebel rock at the time, was dismissed by No Wave as the same old thing. Music that maintains an attachment to the history of rock conventions is the death-­knell of creativity and artistic practice in the No Wave discourse. If self-­conscious musical deconstruction is defined as presenting something new and different – something you have never heard before – then its Other is music that reminds you of something else. Jean-­Luc Nancy’s (1991) theory of the ‘inoperative community’ is a model meant to counteract this tendency. Community is reconfigured as being ‘formed by an articulation of “particularities,” and not founded in any autonomous essence that would subsist by itself and that would reabsorb or assume singular beings into itself ’ (1991, p. 175). In other words, unity is based on recognizing a multiplicity of ‘singularities’ in which we are all others. The result is a break with a notion of community as a shared identity built on exclusionary ‘origins’. The inoperative community seeks to create a community defined by its ‘resistance to the communion of everyone or to the exclusive passion of one or several: to all the forms and all the violences of subjectivity’ (1991, p. 35). The dissolution of the ‘we’, of a unified culture that is ‘ours’, is meant as liberating news with the intention of helping open subjectivity to consider all sources, more willing to ingest the diversity within which it is already immersed until the only sure identity is a fragmented one made ever more uncertain and unrecognizable. At the risk of taming it by naming it, what I call contemporary avant-­garde garage rock offers one model of this theory, where we find an opening into community and historical lineage that suggests neither a complete shackling nor total freedom. But we have to begin in the early 1960s to arrive at that point. No Wave claimed to trump punk; however, some say 1960s garage rock was where punk really began. Before the predominantly blues-­based rock of the British Invasion, American garage rock already had a healthy existence as a regionalized network of bands influenced by rhythm and blues, but adding a more raucous and up-­tempo rock vernacular. Michael Hicks (1999) goes so far as to classify garage rock as avant-­ garde for being a small musical community that flouts bourgeois conventions and the deindividualization imposed by mass society. With strong scenes in the Mid-­West, Pacific North-­West and Texas, bands could become local superstars and release cheaply produced singles that would actually receive radio airplay. Although there were a handful of national hits – The Kingsmen’s iconic version of ‘Louie, Louie’ in 1963, 1965’s ‘Wooly Bully’ by the Tex-­Mex band Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, and The Count Five’s ‘Psychotic Reaction’ in 1966 –

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there was little chance of reaching a wider audience for most bands. Unfortunately, even regional success became impossible once the major record companies ‘persuaded’ radio stations to phase out regional acts for an album-­ oriented format. But nationwide fame was never the point for many bands. The garage appellation denotes a lack of professionalism, but it also connotes what made them rebellious figures besides growing their hair out. In addition to the occasional sexual innuendos and drug references in songs, these bands constitute a suburban underbelly. The garage, as part of the American postwar tract home, symbolizes upward mobility and material success – a home and a car – but inside the children set to inherit this life are banging out noises that don’t jibe with the surface desires. Pre-­psychedelic garage rock’s lyrical evocation of fun (girls, cars, parties), its preference for musical speed as a sign of youthful energy (as opposed to the adult world of kids, work and mortgages) all coated with fuzz distortion (opposing suburbia’s promise of cleanliness and the way most popular music sounded) adds up to a counter-­statement against suburban dreams of smooth perfection that cover over the enforced conformity. Many of the first punks in the mid-­1970s were familiar with Lenny Kaye’s 1972 Nuggets compilation of 1960s garage rock; so too, it would seem, were those in the early 1980s who participated in the first revival. During this period, quite a few bands took their adoration to a purist’s level by also mimicking the visual style of the early 1960s, such that mop-­top hairdos sat atop paisley shirts, turtlenecks, skinny lapel suits, pointed Beatles boots and tight, tapered pants. Aurally, the influences and specific styles were diverse (drawing on blues, rockabilly, surf music, the British invasion, psychedelic rock, and punk), but there was a shared conscious rejection of the new wave sound that leaned heavily on the cold, mechanical tones of computerized synthesizers. In contrast, garage bands preferred the ‘natural’, less clinical sound of old Farfisa organs, guitars and drums played by human beings. More recently, a split has occurred between either fusing jangly guitars with a dose of punk energy or the more punk-­ influenced hard guitar that is sometimes labelled garage punk, but the distinction is fairly useless since plenty of harder-, punkier-­sounding bands play without jangle and dress in the old clothes (for example, The Makers and The Hives). In fact, it has often been difficult to distinguish between garage and punk on many of these recordings, so garage will be used as a catch-­all term. Garage rock survived in America through the 1990s (The Hentchmen, The Makers and The Woggles are all fine examples), but finally received serious media attention at the turn of the century. A number of bands were branded with the term – some far too easily – resulting in Spin doing a cover story on The White Stripes and neo-­garage in October 2002 while, in the same year, Steven Van Zandt began the syndicated radio show Little Steven’s Underground Garage. The White Stripes’ MTV hit ‘Fell in Love with a Girl’ (2001) is a magnificent reminder of a raw garage aesthetic. Sweden’s The Hives, on the other hand, stuck to the formula more consistently than others, and achieved sudden fame in the United States with Veni Vidi Vicious (2000). It was not their first

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album, but it was the first time many had heard anything about this foreign band dressed in matching outfits, like early 1960s groups (in fact, Sweden is brimming with good neo-­garage bands, like The Maggots, The Maharajas and The Strollers). MTV helped get the word out, but you can’t always get people to buy what they don’t want, regardless of the Frankfurt School’s complaints about the culture industry’s oppressive control over our desires and consumption habits. I am more inclined to believe the energetic, riff-­laden garage sound was a major factor in the style’s popularity as an antidote to the previous era’s saturation by Tiger Beat pop-­punk acts, choreographed boy bands, producer-­centric R&B, and jailbait divas – all of which made music that sounded to some as if it were drafted by a computer running pop-­formula algorithms. Memory is rarely innocent, but nostalgia is a term referring explicitly to romanticized representations of the past that purposefully leave out the negatives; such manipulation may even be an ideologically motivated act of remembering. I therefore find it puzzling that Eric Abbey views nostalgia as a politically radical cultural strategy in his book on contemporary garage rock. The average garage band’s nostalgia goes beyond a benevolent appropriation of the blues that is intent on inserting a sense of authenticity and rawness, heart and soul into the corporate pop industry. The use of early 1960s style cues and iconography in the sound, fashion, haircuts and album art is framed by Abbey (2006, p. 8) not as postmodern pastiche, but rather as a sincere attempt to ‘reclaim, for a new time period, [a rebellious form that] has been lost’. He believes that the movement’s lived nostalgia for 1960s garage and mod bands challenges capitalism and the bourgeois conformity of the suburbs. Garage rock is ‘outside of capitalist notions of conformity’, and as a style it is ‘outside of societal norms’; thus it is a taking control of subjectivity from capitalism’s focus on the present by resurrecting a past once framed as rebellious (2006, p. 1). So is the retro early 1960s white-­rocker style an appropriation of the past that scrapes off its hallowed veneer and uses it for its own contemporary purposes? Or is it just a longing for that surface that likewise takes history at its surface – in other words, buys into the past’s self-­representation because the memory-­as-product fulfils a desire, such as a fan’s psychological need for a previously enacted rebellion that is now romanticized into a naturalized fantasy? Or is this style, and the affection for the music used to express it, precisely a model of conformity but with a different style, a different look, once again selling sameness? One finds varying levels of commitment to the appearance; nonetheless, even the true believers offer little more than a capitalist-­infused rebellion in that the politics are enacted through lifestyle consumption (even if ‘recycling’ vintage clothes) instead of trying to actually affect the system itself. Repeating the past submits to, obeys, a prior code – the sense of what a garage rocker should sound and look like – as well as eventually becoming its own uniform in the scene. That scene may be moderately positioned outside the mainstream, but it betrays the participants’ willingness, their deepest desire, to

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behave, to believe, to live precisely like other people once they find the code that appeals to them. This may transgress being forced to blindly accept the present forced upon you, and the culture it offers, as the only available option, such that if you cannot escape the social chains attaching you to your present at least you can reject the cultural ones. Or is this refusal an escapist playtime with an historical theme? What about the imposition of the past and the burden of a forced inheritance? Neo-­garage has to avoid being a simple matter of nostalgia for a time that isn’t its own, and being self-­aware of the repetition does not fully mitigate complicity. The appropriation of an historical look and sound must receive modifications; imitation requires distortion – plugging history into the fuzzbox – to find a balance between the individual and community. Neo-­garage suggests we are not totally free to choose our subjectivity because the music and look are not original, yet the choice does not have to be between unreflective mimicry or the nothingness of No Wave’s static. But there is another style of contemporary garage rock, one less interested in simply recycling the past, that concocts a musical identity at the junction point between rock and avant-­gardism. To its 1960s and punk influences, it adds more noise, distortion and lyrics that are inaudible or so stupid it doesn’t matter, or both. Rather than mimicking the past (in contrast to those strict revivalists who become tribute bands for a time period) this lo-­fi style integrates the more antagonistic spirit of avant-­garde noise-­rock to revel in the chaos of dissonance and high-­volume cacophony. Their anti-­aesthetic devalorizes being ‘good’ beyond the amateur stance of garage rock – not just raw or simple – to declare lo-­fi pride in doing a ‘bad’ rendition of once ‘bad’ music. As Paul Hegarty (2007, p. 89) states, ineptitude is an ‘anti-­cultural statement … the playing of incorrect notes, or the wrong kind of playing, maybe even offending the delicate sensibilities of the elite listener/performer’. Avant-­garde garage rock finds its own identity within acknowledging its family tree, but choosing its own position in it. These performers don’t want to wipe out their history, but rather attenuate it as a sole explanatory source for the self. Hegarty (2007, p. 60) describes feedback as surplus sound, ‘unwanted, excess, waste’; however, this style wants more of it, and that choice can be read as representing a part of the subject that resists being contained by a closed sense of community. A willing connection to history and tradition is maintained even as they are reformed in order to make them speak differently. San Francisco’s Coachwhips (2001–05) exemplify this approach. The notion of subjectivity being built upon historical traces we can manipulate to our individual needs finds expression in John Dwyer’s stylized transformation of the past. While their garage roots can be heard as a historical reference point – guitar, drums, organ – they are squeezed and stretched into a blurry deconstruction of garage rock that comes across as affectionate rather than spiteful. In songs like ‘Just One Time’, ‘Yes, I’m Down’ and ‘Extinguish Me’, the drums are a simple pounding interspersed with crashing cymbals, the organ is a crapped-­out Casio making wheezy, whiny single notes, while these two elements are trammelled by

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a guitar so buzzy, so effectively washing over everything else, that even when Dwyer changes chords it sounds monotone – more so for his voice being modulated via a telephone mouthpiece as microphone (which he often places inside his mouth) and overdriving the volume into an in-­the-red homicidal racket that creates a blasted, hollow, spectral sound, leaving the lyrics for listeners to decipher. The Coachwhips prove themselves an example of Nancy’s theory of the singular plural subject: The singular is primarily each one and, therefore, also with and among all the others. The singular is a plural … [Being] is always an instance of ‘with’: singulars singularly together, where the togetherness is neither the sum, nor the incorporation, nor the ‘society’, nor the ‘community’. (Nancy, 2000, p. 32) Whereas No Wave claimed to desire separation, avant-­garde garage finds a negotiable solution. The garage version of forward-­thinking music reminds us that noise can be fun, exuberant, freeing and cathartic rather than simply the soundtrack for negative destruction, anger or madness (while being equally capable of inducing catharsis). And while some of the No Wave performers would certainly have agreed with that statement, their style and persona, taken as a whole, strikes me as tilting more towards the latter side of it. The Coachwhips (2003, 2004) acknowledge the historical and cultural roots of identity; nonetheless, a subjectivity that surges over the barriers meant to contain it within knowable forms deploys agency – for once the limits are recognized, it becomes possible to map out their transgression. This counters communitarianism’s advocacy of community taking precedence over individual desire according to a notion of the good based on so-­called shared values. In that model, since individuals cannot understand themselves without a society, it is made the indomitable all with a universalized moral order. Without a serious option of questioning what constitutes ‘the good’, the communitarian system teeters on advocating a social principle of ‘that which is, is the good’ no matter what individuals – or Nancy’s singularities – may think. In essence, this strategic manoeuvring is the process of all bands dealing with musical bloodlines, yet the avant-­garde leanings speak to a more severe break with the past. It is an aesthetic negotiation that doubles as an argument for a specific conception of autonomous identity within a community that shows how to have a level of respect for an inherited history, tradition, sub/culture or society without being chained to it in a cycle of unreflective repetition. We are never completely free in choosing our subjectivity, as it is always formed in relation to some form of Other. This is applicable to this kind of revivalist music – a metaphor for social/cultural organization – since it is not utterly original, nor does its transgression go past the limit that would result in either silence or the sonic nothingness of unorganized static, all the while holding off being reduced

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to an unreflective echo of the past. Rather, you put your own touch on it to make it your sound that resists a repetition that may make for a lively performance but rather a dulled sense of self. Many bands prove capable of borrowing without copying by shaping the sources to their needs. Avant-­garde garage rock opposes completely wiping away the past to make a shiny new future. Aspiring to absolute difference from all previous forms – casting them as temporal and cultural others – like No Wave is not the goal. To understand the effect of your others on your own ontological creation is more honest and potentially more complex than starting from scratch because you have to manoeuvre a reified musical identity: ‘Being cannot be anything but being-­with-one-­another, circulating in the with and as the with of this singularly plural coexistence’ (Nancy, 2000, p.  3). The larger lesson to take from avant-­garde garage rock’s use of voluntary cultural history is its response to community through that history, as a system that partly produces individuals while lacking total rule over them. Thus we see that agency can exist within structure – as sound can meld with music, as subjectivity depends on being subjected – without us resorting to totalizing the power of either.

References Abbey, E. (2006). Garage Rock and Its Roots: Musical Rebels and the Drive for Individuality. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Azerrad, M. (2001). Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991. Boston, MA: Back Bay Books. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. R. Nice trans. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Coachwhips (2003). Get yer Body Next ta Mine [CD]. New York: Narnack. Coachwhips (2004). Bangers vs. Fuckers [CD]. New York: Narnack. Davidson, E. (2010). We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1988–2001. New York: Backbeat. Frere-­Jones, S. (2010). ‘Noise control’. The New Yorker, 24 May, pp. 80–1. Hegarty, P. (2007). Noise/Music: A History. New York: Continuum. Heylin, C. (2007). Babylon’s Burning: From Punk to Grunge. New York: Conongate. Hicks, M. (1999). Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Johnson, D.E. and Michaelsen, S. (1997). Border secrets: An introduction. In S. Michaelsen and D.E. Johnson (eds), Border Theory: The Limits of Cultural Politics (pp. 1–39). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Nancy, J. (1991). The Inoperative Community (P. Conner et al. trans). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Nancy, J. (2000). Being Singular Plural (R.D. Richardson and A. O’Byrne trans). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Reynolds, S. (2005). Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. New York: Penguin.

Chapter 17

Collectivity and individuality in US free-­folk musics Maximilian Spiegel

This chapter is based on findings of an investigation into manifestations of gender and politics in late twentieth/early twenty-­first‒century psychedelic free-­ folk music scenes in the United States, conducted at the University of Vienna (Spiegel, 2012, 2013).1 The ongoing project maps these ‘local, trans-­local, and virtual scenes’ (Bennett, 2004), focusing on their constitutive musical-­social relations without reducing them to a homogeneous style. The chapter traces modes of collectivity and individuality in these dynamic, heterogeneous fields. By free folk, I refer to an ever-­shifting web of musicians, labels and other elements engaging in diverse psychedelic, often experimental and improvisational, musical practices. ‘Free folk’ is sometimes conflated with ‘freak folk’ and other terms not necessarily denoting the same scenes. This web most visibly manifested in the United States in the mid-­2000s, but consists of numerous artistic trajectories exceeding conventional understandings of cyclical subcultural life. When used by Matt Valentine to name the Brattleboro Free Folk Festival in Vermont in 2003, the term ‘free folk’ was originally meant to denote ‘free thinking folk’ (Keenan, 2003) or ‘liberated people’ (Keenan, 2007) instead of a distinct style. David Keenan (2003) writes that Sunburned Hand of the Man’s set ‘draws from mountain music, country blues, Hip Hop, militant funk and psychedelia as much as free jazz’; this description applies equally to the festival’s ‘New Weird America’ DIY musics in general, as exemplified by Charalambides, Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty with Scorces, and MV & EE. Here, ‘improvisation and the application of the drone open up these new folk musicians to the roar of the cosmos’ (p. 34); experimentation and improvisation are key elements of this affective alliance’s sensibility (Grossberg, 1992). Such a sense of the potential of creativity unshackled by genre connects these diverse protagonists more than a specific style does. By investigating ‘specific networks and connections’ (Joseph, 2008, p. 52) instead of singular genres/styles, one can analyse power relations in ways appropriate to the dynamic and heterogeneous character of these scenes. Musicians connect or reconnect through collaboration in numerous band and solo projects, releases on the same (and each other’s) labels and appearances at the same festivals. They often disseminate vast catalogues on various formats, including CD-­Rs2 and, especially nowadays, cassette tapes in limited editions.

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Strong international connections expand the sprawling character of this cultural formation. Following introductions to Jeremy Gilbert’s work (2014) and the methods employed in the research field’s analysis, I will lay out several key characteristics of free-­folk scenes: the constitutive importance of relations of support and care for musicians’ creativity; the multi-­voiced character of notionally ‘solo’ projects irreducible to traditional understandings of authorship; sprawling improvising collectives and the challenges they face; and the centrality of affinity (instead of identity) in the form of like-­mindedness for these scenes cohesion.

Collectivity Gilbert (2014) analyses the necessity of and difficulties faced by creative collective practice in a context that promotes neoliberal individualism as common sense. Following on from Gilbert’s work, this chapter aims to delineate how modes of collectivity and individuality are constituted in these scenes and to highlight their interdependence, requiring reflection and contingency-­aware work of researchers (Lutter and Reisenleitner, 2002). Gilbert’s Common Ground (2014) delineates the pervasiveness of possessive individualist thought throughout much of Euromodernity and examines its role for current inhibitions of the emergence and sustenance of creative collectivities. As we face (environmental, humanitarian) crises that call for decisive and sustainable intervention, collective decision-­making appears to be stuck in a rut. The institutions of liberal democracy have lost what transformative power they may have had in the Fordist era; they appear unsuited to the post-­Fordist era and the complex shifts, modulations and speeds of Deleuze’s ‘societies of control’, in which traditional political movements have lost much of their ability to articulate collective interests. Much Euromodern thought (especially the liberal tradition with Hobbes as a recurring point of reference, but also the social psychology of Le Bon and Freud, and even some Marxist theory) appears incapable or unwilling to conceive of collectivity outside what Gilbert calls ‘Leviathan logic’. According to this set of assumptions, group formation occurs through distinct, isolated individuals’ investment in a core object, leader or idea. Collectivity is thus defined by hierarchical, vertical relations and conceptualized ‘as a simple aggregation of individuals [or] a homogeneous and monolithic community’ (Gilbert, 2014, p. x), often understood as violent and irrational. Against this, Gilbert articulates an anti-­individualist theory of relationality that denounces ontological individualism and posits the feasibility and importance of horizontal relations and the collectivities they co-­constitute. Leviathan logic constrains collectivity, and consequently democracy – the basic idea of which is ‘the community taking collective control of its own destiny’ (2014, p. 20). While Gilbert acknowledges that any group is likely to be constituted by both horizontal and vertical relations, the former have been marginalized throughout much of Euromodernity. Their construction is emphasized most

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clearly in various radically democratic movements and certain cultural formations. While neoliberal capitalism attempts to benefit from collective creativity and even creative laboratories of experimentation that try to subvert or counter it, it also sets constraints to experimental collectivity through cultural, economic, legal and other mechanisms. Out of this predicament, a search for modes of creative collectivity arises. As Gilbert (2008, 2014) points out, the experiments of (sub)cultural formations must be articulated to other movements and into larger-­scale democratic alliances in order not to merely generate isolated, largely ineffectual cells that may even serve to contain experimentation; yet leftist politics has often failed to connect to cultural experiments. The investigation of free folk’s joyous affective alliance and community of care, with its sprawling improvising collectives and irreducibly multiplicitous solo projects, is consequently a step towards the proliferation of expanded, radically democratic collectivity. They may serve up clues towards an understanding and practice of collectivity beyond the confines of the current neoliberal imaginary.

Method Free-­folk musics are often described as simply being about friends making music together. While this cannot be an exhaustive description of the research field, it is true that this focus on the social – on playing experimental music among friends at home, at house shows and in similar contexts – is crucial to an understanding of these scenes. Methodologically, I attempted to implement this focus on social relations through 22 qualitative (Froschauer and Lueger, 2003), problem-­centred3 (Witzel, 2000) interviews with 25 interviewees (16 men, 9 women), most of them musicians. Many of these are also, for instance, label owners and/or show organizers, sometimes also music writers. The interviews took place in the United Kingdom (London and Glasgow), Austria (Vienna and Graz) and the United States (New York City; Brattleboro, VT; Doylestown, Philadelphia, Orwigsburg and Pittsburgh, PA; Oakland and Los Angeles, CA; and Austin, TX). They were recorded, transcribed, and coded through thematic analysis (Froschauer and Lueger, 2003). While the later parts of interviews usually consisted of more specific and straightforward, less open, often quantitative questions related to my project’s focus on gender and politics – for example, about gender ratios in these scenes – I mainly asked interviewees to speak of their personal paths through various scenes. I thereby attempted to make space for the field’s own structuring efforts (Froschauer and Lueger, 2003) and to enable a mapping of the relevance of gender and politics as they constitute and are constituted by everyday lives and social relations. Here already, questions of relationality emerge. Instead of ‘individual’ trajectories and narratives, it is more apt to speak of ‘specific’ or ‘singular’ ones traced through these interviews (Gilbert, 2014). It is certainly possible to internally ‘divide’ these narratives and narrators. This also applies to researchers, who must reflect on their own relations to the research field. The trajectories and

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­ arratives analysed here are complex, relational and intersecting; they are inconn ceivable without the impact of other trajectories. Musicians’ narratives emerge from the ever-­shifting map of relationships between various forces and protagonists.

Care and support Researching how individuality and collectivity manifest in these scenes, one encounters a complicated but creative tension between them, irreducible to a binary. When (perceived) individuality becomes visible, it expresses aesthetic, social and power relations; the artistic individuality emphasized in these scenes arises out of various modes of collectivity. The friendship so important to these musicians and their practices manifests as manifold mutual support. Paul LaBrecque has been a member of sprawling collective Sunburned Hand of the Man for years while also releasing music solo as Head of Wantastiquet. I interviewed him at the Karneval im Land der Cetacean festival in Graz, Austria, the lineup of which consisted of musicians living in Belgium at the time, presenting interconnected regional activities and implicitly showcasing the international(ized) character of the DIY-­based psychedelic, experimental music scenes discussed here. LaBrecque (personal communication, 27 June 2009) elaborated on ‘our own natural network’ without hierarchy or organizational plan that had developed over the ten years preceding the interview: Like Eric [Arn], he’s one of those guys, he’s been around for a long time and you know, everybody, people know him and we just trust him. We all put each other up … we all support each other, no matter what the other person does, and there’s this kind of comfort when we all get together or when we’re all in the same room, whether it’s like three or four of us or 50 of us like this, that we’re not being judged by anybody else. I mean, yes, there’s some cynical people and people always say stupid things about other people (MS laughs), and there’s always, you know, little things, but … nobody’s trying to hurt each other, you know what I mean … They do nothing but push you to do bigger and better things, and their energy interacts with yours and makes you wanna do bigger and better things. This involves personal care, support and relative freedom for participants, connectable to Valentine’s ‘free thinking folk’; non-­judgementality enables the unfolding of one’s expression and by-­passes neoliberal encouragement of competition (Gilbert, 2014). LaBrecque’s experience suggests that collectivity indeed fosters creativity. As important as an expressive individualism praising the uniqueness and creativity of their peers may be to musicians, their creativity emerges out of a complex web of care and like-­mindedness. In this affective alliance, mutual enhancement of creative capacities is key and very visible – ‘whereas the individualist tradition and Leviathan logic can only

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understand social relations as ultimately limiting the capacity of individuals’ (Gilbert, 2014, p. 147). The aforementioned Eric Arn has himself been an avid networker in these scenes. Formerly a member of Crystalized Movements, Arn had been running his Primordial Undermind project for almost three decades at the time of writing. He has lived in several parts of the United States and now resides in Vienna, Austria. Primordial Undermind’s lineup has changed accordingly, incorporating local musicians from the various areas through which Arn has moved. Arn (personal communication, 21 June 2009) does important work on an organizational level, seeking out people and bonding with them over musical interests that could well be described as idiosyncratic: ‘We’ll have a lot of touch points together and things in common, even though we’ve never ever contacted them before, so, it’s a really strong way of building friendships and relationships.’ Such care and mutual support also manifest in shared spaces, such as a notorious compound of houses in Fishtown, Philadelphia, in which musicians have fostered forms of communal living. A countercultural DIY micropolitics is generated in friends’ experiments. House shows are based on friendship, reproducing it and setting the scene for experiences of care and perceived authenticity.

The many voices of solo projects Through various cultural-­technological developments and the accessibility of certain tools relevant to the genesis of (especially) solo projects, much has changed for musicians in terms of convenience, economics and the constitution of musical subjectivities. Whose voices are heard? Who is an author? In free-­folk scenes, these questions are easily tied to a space otherwise often associated with consumption, not creativity (Kearney, 2006): the bedroom. Britt Brown (personal communication, 26 July 2009) stated that ‘there’s so many bedroom distributors just like there are bedroom labels’; this also applies to bedroom musicians. This is enabled not least by computer software such as Apple’s GarageBand (Kearney, 2006), but was also very much shaped by the development and increasing affordability of loop and delay pedals. Interviewee Glenn Donaldson (personal communication, 24 July 2009), a member of groups as diverse as Thuja, Skygreen Leopards and Horrid Red, told me that: the advent of the loop[/]delay pedal has enabled people … to make their own one [person] show, because you can, it’s very easy now, they built some great pedals that enabled you to loop effectively live, and layer sounds, so you have someone who’s singing or playing guitar or [an]other instrument and they create a whole sound world, without having a band … On those two pedals [Line 6 and Boss], you can really control the loops, so you can create live something that normally you had to do in the studio … And also it’s a way for people that frankly don’t have a lot of traditional musical skills to create a whole world of sound with loops …

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It contributes to the rise of solo projects as described by Brown (2013), and thus disturbs relations based on conventional band formats often constituted by boys’ club–type friendships and thus implicitly gendered (Bayton, 1998; Clawson, 1999; Kearney, 2006). The possibility to make dense, busy music on one’s own allows anyone to avoid difficult band politics, as Donaldson suggests. Ideas such as those of Jeremy Gilbert (2004), partially via John Corbett, on the ‘rhizomatic moment of improvisation’ enable further interesting observations. The aesthetics of projects that use delay and loop pedals to construct quasi-­choirs consisting of sometimes only one person – what Keenan (2007) calls ‘vocal magic’ or ‘massed voices’ – blur or dissolve conventions of singular authorship. In such moments, it can be particularly unclear whether such voices are male or female. Solo artists such as Grouper and Inca Ore, or groups such as Double Leopards and The Skaters, may sound like amorphous masses without clear gender identity and author subject; their voices may not even sound human. Any all-­tooeasy expressive individualism is challenged by a human-­device assemblage, by strange animal-­becomings (Braidotti, 2011; Büsser, 2007; Deleuze and Guattari, 2008). What is expressed here? Maybe not an authentic individual core, but practices directed towards transformation beyond the unitary subject. The messiness of the strange worlds (Spiegel, 2012, 2013) generated through such techniques is part of the attractiveness of these scenes.

The horde Similar points may be made about shapeshifting, often improvising projects such as Sunburned Hand of the Man, No-­Neck Blues Band (NNCK) and Jackie-­O Motherfucker. In diverse ways, these groups match what Diedrich Diederichsen (2004, 2005a, 2005b) calls the ‘horde’. This concept also encompasses groups that invoke collectivity (2005b) and do not necessarily constitute a loose, sprawling pack; Animal Collective, possibly the best-­known group to emerge from these scenes, exemplifies such invocation. In the case of groups such as Sunburned, this horde character implies an improvisational approach, generosity and what Diederichsen (2005a, p. 158) calls the ‘radikal Offene’ (the radically open). It is a relaxed approach to musical material that eschews genre conventions. Such groups may shapeshift quite noticeably, with Sunburned consisting at times of two people, at others of more than a dozen. None of this implies that such groups represent an egalitarian, free-­for-all ideal. Here, a remark by interviewee Ron Schneiderman, another Sunburned member, is particularly interesting. He served as co-­organizer of the aforementioned Brattleboro Free Folk Festival and also plays solo (under his own name and as Pewt’r. as well as Estey Field Organ Tone Archive) and in groups such as Coal Hook and Green Hill Builders; he runs the Spirit of Orr and Blueberry Honey labels. Schneiderman (personal communication, 13 July 2009) pointed out that there was ‘a strong dudes gang thing going on’ in Sunburned Hand of the Man, which he suggested was understood and not exclusionary, a ‘male

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clubhouse type … energy’. Indeed, most members have been male, but the group has included and does include female members. Sunburned is not necessarily a feminist band, but Schneiderman’s remarks about his own approach are of great importance here: [S]o I decided that at one point I was gonna have a subconscious agreement with myself that my efforts would be towards this one cause, but without any sort of actual plan or operational focus, but I would say basically, it is the interest of dismantling paternity, the paternal order, it’s pretty much where I sit on it. In some ways, despite great openness, such groups do not move beyond more traditional rock groups’ tendency to be predominantly male. Clubhouse energies and other gendered traits have a long history in rock (and other) musics. To set up more inclusive collectivities against such sedimented gendered characteristics takes time and effort, which is especially difficult in times of financial insecurity and neoliberal anti-­collectivism. That said, Schneiderman’s remarks about ‘dismantling paternity’ hint at such hordes’ strengths and potentials. One day before our exchange, Schneiderman (personal communication, 12 July 2009) joined his friend and fellow interviewee Matt Valentine and me during our interview and discussed mechanisms of communities ‘not aligned with a larger sort of control mechanism that seems to be afflicting us in some way’. A strong, openly anti-­authoritarian current flows through Schneiderman’s and Sunburned’s practice. Depending on context and reflection, in their anti-­author subject, anti-­authoritarian, perception-­challenging and irreducibly diverse approach, these hordes potentially model experimental, non-­identitarian politics. With their tendency towards democratic improvization, they often exemplify the dynamic, ever-­shifting horizontal relations emphasized by Gilbert. Although Sunburned sometimes revolves around core members such as John Moloney, showing that such groups’ relations are never exclusively horizontal, it demonstrates an intriguing exploratory practice – a laboratory of collective experimentation. This is not a generic mode of collectivity: members come and go; various weirdnesses are fostered through personal myths; and the group ‘is defined by “transversal” relations which do not work to delimit or negate the inherent “multiplicity” of the elements which they relate’ (Gilbert, 2014, p. 107). However, as Britt Brown (2013) argues, most group forms in these scenes tend to be in decline compared with forms of solo practices afforded by increasingly accessible technologies. Solo activities are attractive for logistic and financial reasons. It can be difficult to get a sprawling collective on the road, not least as band members grow older, start families or move away from core locations. Additionally, improvising hordes are hard to market and discipline. Asked about questions of such groups’ decreased presence in an email, Brown (personal communication, 27 December 2012) saw it in the context of his Wire piece:

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Democratic collectives like those are radically out of step with the current cultural mood, especially in light of the social/creative transformations that technology is wreaking right now … NNCK and Sunburned and such collectives were inevitably and inextricably based on the philosophy of pursuing art for art’s sake, not careerist advancement. There were too [many] people involved, too much messy humanity, to possibly curtail the sound into something streamlined and brand-­conscious, which is the goal of almost all independent musics these days, even the craziest micro-­niches. While such modes of collectivity can be understood, according to Diederichsen (2005b), as a reaction to an absence of collectivity in music, the social, cultural and economic context’s fostering of individualism (Gilbert, 2014) itself hampers their development. Solo projects empower people who otherwise may not have played and recorded and toured their musics (Clawson, 1999), but the social-­ political potentials of sprawling collectives remain unfulfilled when ‘people are encouraged to identify themselves and to relate to others purely as individuals’ (Gilbert, 2014, p.  30). If it is easier to ‘go solo’, attempts at sustaining wild, sprawling collectivity are particularly precarious.

Expressive individualism and affinity The interplay of modes of collectivity and perceived individuality is complex; it can be mapped on various levels, along the trajectories of artists, bands and scenes. One interviewee interested in this relation is Samara Lubelski, a New York–based musician active in solo as well as various collaborative contexts in groups such as Hall of Fame, Tower Recordings, Chelsea Light Moving, Metal Mountains and German collective Metabolismus. As an experienced key figure in these scenes, she has been able to observe many artists’ trajectories over the years. Talking about her early years in various groups in New York and Germany, Lubelski (personal communication, 8 July 2009) recounted: So then the free aspect started playing into everything I did from that point on … It’s interesting, something I found really strange was everyone got, it seemed almost too free, like free jazz started becoming a really strong influence in all of the projects, Metabolismus, Hall of Fame, Tower [Recordings] and it somehow was the end in a weird way and then all the groups started to kind of break down … It’s so weird how you need this constant balance between structure and free, you know, and, it’s always questionable where does the structure come from, and how do you bring the free into it … Lubelski related notable changes in scene structure to questions of the interplay of structure and the free. In the following quote, she let her work in Matt Valentine and Erika Elder’s more recent groups exemplify how musicians’ individual ‘vision’ could become more important or overt over the years:

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I mean, Matt’s work I felt like has gotten more and more clear that he has a vision, you know, and that we should come to his vision and it’s less about the, I mean as we all are it’s less about the group dynamic, and it’s more about supporting his function as a band leader or as a songwriter and I’m doing the same thing with my solo records. But, of course, touring with Matt, you know, then there’s periods of things getting very loose live, and that’s always great. Lubelski also emphasized ‘the individuality and the personal creative vision’ that is ‘really highly prized, at least in this scene’. The free and the structured often appear to coincide with a predominance of horizontal and a re-­emergence of more hierarchical vertical relations respectively. However, they are not necessarily equivalent. The ‘periods of things getting very loose live’ take place under Valentine’s banner, although group hierarchies may have loosened. Free folk is constituted by combinations of horizontal and vertical relations; its success often depends on the individuation of protagonists’ creative visions. These are inherently social, but sometimes articulated into ‘individual’ oeuvres. Free folk’s creative collectivities involve various modes of never truly complete individuation from a field of ‘infinite relationality’, the complex web of relations that founds inherently social creativity and precedes any mode of individuality and its stakes (Gilbert, 2014). These scenes’ valued originality and expressive individualism are enabled by supportive relations of care and shared creativity. Despite expressing admiration for individual creativity, they do not quite adhere to romantic images of genius. What infuses these relations and makes people connect? There are many factors: aesthetics, a certain social orientation and more. But Samara Lubelski has hinted at the importance of like-­mindedness, of ‘a particular headspace’, and openness that must be mentioned here (personal communication, 8 July 2009; Spiegel, 2012, 2013). This affective alliance is based more on affinity than perceived identity (Haraway, 1991); it is based on ‘(mind)sets of aesthetic potentialities’ (Spiegel, 2012, p. 194). Olaf Karnik (2003) understands these scenes ‘im weitesten Sinne als spirituelle Wertegemeinschaft’ – as a spiritual community of values in the widest sense; but these values are not static, expressed in a shared singular style, or expressive of a shared identity. The articulation of new connections, including historical ones to forebears (Spiegel, 2012), bolsters collectivities’ sustainability. New transversal relations are articulated along lines of affinity, and serve creative transformation.

Conclusion Free-­folk scenes stand in tension with the promotion of individualism as common sense. Their practices highlight sociality as a condition of possibility for artistic creativity; they embrace collectivity. Elements of expressive individualism persist, but there is an awareness of the importance of community-­building for mutual

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support and care, and for a sustainable ethics of transformations (Braidotti, 2011). These scenes have generated unusual group forms characterized by greater relevance of horizontal relations between protagonists as well as by wildness, constitutive openness and unconventionality. Such groups are not divorced from wider power relations, and can at times reproduce problematic features of other rock sensibilities. Furthermore, cultural and economic constraints have been eroding the conditions of possibility for the emergence and sustenance of such experimental group forms. However, they have not disappeared, and will themselves provide tools for future experiments in collective creativity. Additionally, although solo projects are now free folk’s dominant platforms for expression, these projects often themselves undermine any facile expressive or possessive individualism. This is just the starting point for further inquiries. Radically contextual (Grossberg, 2010) research into experimental music practices should continue to offer valuable insight in how modes of power can be engaged, how groups function, what democracy can mean and how alliances can be formed (Gilbert, 2008). Researchers must pay close attention to their own relations to the field of research (e.g. Bennett, 2002), the ways in which they intersect and affect it, and the ways they themselves change in such encounters. Such questions can be of great interest for musicians themselves, especially if they want experimentation and openness to boldly go beyond the more immediately musical – if they want their creative circles to develop, to quote words used by Eva Saelens (personal communication, 21 July 2009) of Inca Ore and Jackie-­O Motherfucker, ‘communities and lifestyles outside of capitalist failures, outside of mainstream life’. The diversity of collective and experimental practices in these scenes lends itself to the forging of new, unexpected alliances.

Acknowledgements This chapter emerged out of my diploma-­thesis work in political science and history at the University of Vienna. I want to thank my diploma supervisors, Roman Horak and Siegfried Mattl, and my mentor, Christina Lutter, for their support and guidance. I also want to thank Andy Bennett, Paula Guerra and the entire KISMIF team for setting up this book project as well as the conference at which the first version of this chapter was presented, and my fellow participants for inspiring exchanges. I am very grateful to faculty and fellow graduate students in communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the intellectually stimulating and supportive environment they articulate, and I especially want to thank my advisor, Larry Grossberg, for his support and guidance. This work was supported by the FSIB, University of Vienna, under a KWA short-­term grant abroad.

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Notes 1 I am staying close to the results of my theses in this text and will not refer explicitly and separately to them except where it appears particularly useful. Quotations taken from interviews and email exchanges have already appeared in the theses, sometimes closer in form to raw interview material. 2 A CD-­R (Compact Disc–Recordable) is a CD that can be written once by any compatible optical disc drive. 3 The problem-­centred interview is a hybrid inductive-­deductive method. It solicits personal narratives while generating understanding through specific exploration based on information learned previously or in the interview.

References Bayton, M. (1998). Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bennett, A. (2002). Researching youth culture and popular music: A methodological critique. British Journal of Sociology, 53(3): 451–66. Bennett, A. (2004). Consolidating the music scenes perspective. Poetics, 32: 223–34. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic Theory: The Portable Rosi Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press. Brown, B. (2013). Streamlined operations. The Wire: Adventures in Sound and Music, 347: 44–5. Büsser, M. (2007). Free folk: Kollektive improvisation: Kollektivimprovisation und naturmystik. De:Bug Magazin, 2 February. Retrieved from http://de-­bug.de/mag/free-­ folk-kollektive-­improvisation. Clawson, M.A. (1999). Masculinity and skill acquisition in the adolescent rock band. Popular Music, 18(1): 99–114. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (2008). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum. Diederichsen, D. (2004). Die horde als sozialmusikalische Aufgabe. Die Musikforschung, 57: 249–56. Diederichsen, D. (2005a). Musikzimmer: Avantgarde und Alltag. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Diederichsen, D. (2005b). Rückkehr des Kollektivs. Ein Hintergrundessay zu ‘collective identities’. In B.O. Polzer and T. Schäfer (eds), Katalog Wien Modern 2005 (pp. 66–9). Retrieved from www.wienmodern.at/Portals/0/Galerie/collective_identities/Katalog%20 2005_Diedrich%20Diederichsen,%20R%C3%Bcckkehr%20des%20Kollektivs%20 %28c%29%20Wien%20Modern.pdf. Froschauer, U. and Lueger, M. (2003). Das Qualitative Interview: Zur Praxis Interpretativer Analyse Sozialer Systeme. Vienna: Facultas. Gilbert, J. (2004). Becoming-­music: The rhizomatic moment of improvisation. In I. Buchanan and M. Swiboda (eds), Deleuze and Music (pp. 118–39). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gilbert, J. (2008). Anticapitalism and Culture: Radical Theory and Popular Politics. Oxford: Berg. Gilbert, J. (2014). Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism. London: Pluto Press.

206   M. Spiegel Grossberg, L. (1992). We Gotta Get Out of This Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Culture. New York: Routledge. Grossberg, L. (2010). Cultural Studies in the Future Tense. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge. Joseph, B.W. (2008). Beyond the Dream Syndicate: Tony Conrad and the Arts after Cage. New York: Zone Books. Karnik, O. (2003). Free rock, free folk, free USA: Rockmusik im Zeichen von Autonomie und Gemeinschaft. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23 October. Retrieved from www.nzz. ch/2003/10/23/fe/article96DAG.html. Kearney, M.C. (2006). Girls Make Media. New York: Routledge. Keenan, D. (2003). The fire down below. The Wire: Adventures in Modern Music, 234: 34–41. Keenan, D. (2007). Both sides = now: The aesthetics of free folk. ExploreMusic talk [MP3; unavailable at the time of writing]. Gateshead CLC Webradio. Retrieved from www.ictgateshead.org/radio/2007/02/david_keenan_aesthetics_of_fre.html. Lutter, C. and Reisenleitner, M. (2002). Introducing history (in)to cultural studies: Some remarks on the German-­speaking context. Cultural Studies, 16(5): 613–17. Spiegel, M.G. (2012). Gender construction and American ‘free folk’ music(s). Diploma thesis, University of Vienna. Retrieved from http://othes.univie.ac.at/18384. Spiegel, M.G. (2013). Politics and American ‘free folk’ music(s). Diploma thesis, University of Vienna. Retrieved from http://othes.univie.ac.at/25987. Witzel, A. (2000). The problem-­centered interview. Forum: Qualitative Sozialforschung/ Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 1(1): art. 22. Retrieved from http://nbn-­resolving. de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0001228.

Chapter 18

The independent record label, ideology and longevity Twenty years of Chemikal Underground Records in Glasgow J. Mark Percival This chapter explores notions of independence in the record industry through a longitudinal case study of Glasgow, Scotland label Chemikal Underground. Drawing on a series of personal interviews dating back to 2000 with the founders and directors of Chemikal Underground, I explore the development of the label over 20 years and situate it in a milieu of cultural production that increasingly depends on the power of social and cultural capital to enable and transform economic capital. Chemikal Underground Records was established in late 1994 by Glasgow-­based indie band The Delgados (Percival, 2011), and its first release in February 1995 was The Delgados’ ‘Monica Webster/Brand New Car’, on 7-inch vinyl.1 In 2018, the label is still in business in Glasgow and is still wholly owned and run by the original four founders. At the end of August 2014, Chemikal Underground had completed its curatorial role in organizing and programming the East End Social, a series of music-­centred events taking place in East Glasgow before, during and after the 2014 Commonwealth Games, largely supported by a grant from Creative Scotland. This was a high-­profile example of the label’s gradual transformation from a company whose traditional core activity is releasing new independent music to one that has diversified into management, community engagement and events organization. This chapter explores the label’s conceptualization of independence and discusses the ways in which Chemikal Underground has pragmatically adopted a series of non-­ideological constrained strategies as means to ensuring solvency and ongoing cultural production in a post-­digital context. It argues that Chemikal Underground operates in a space of cultural production between the ideologically driven independent labels identified by Dunn (2012), Cammaerts (2010) and Lee (1995), and the pragmatic, parallel-­capitalist model employed by many independent electronic dance music labels (Hesmondhalgh, 1998; Smith and Maughan, 1998). The chapter concludes that Chemikal Underground’s pragmatic flexibility and creative-­cultural independence have made a significant contribution to both its longevity and its ability to accumulate cultural and social, if not necessarily economic, capital. At several points in the chapter, I refer to notions of social and cultural capital as developed by Pierre Bourdieu (1986), and usefully critiqued by

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­ esmondhalgh (2006, 2012). One of the interesting contrasts between social H capital and economic capital is that social capital doesn’t decrease as it is used – it may even tend to increase. Indeed, the corollary here is, as Hesmondhalgh points out, that if social capital isn’t used, it will tend to decrease. For Chemikal Underground, the label’s (and for around ten years as an active band, The Delgados’) embeddedness in Glasgow’s social and cultural networks was central to the long-­term viability of the label – a phenomenon Cammaerts (2010) identifies in his work on Belgian micro-­labels.

Punk, post-­p unk and indie record labels In his work on DIY punk labels around the world, Dunn (2012) evaluates the possibility of political resistance through alternative approaches to cultural production. Dunn’s case studies are often clear examples of the indie label as ideological construct, similar to the structures and practices identified by Lee (1995) in his work on the Wax Trax! Records label. Lee notes the potential for internal conflict in ideologically driven indie labels, particularly when confronting the realities of the global neoliberal economic system within which Dunn’s anti-­capitalist labels practise cultural production as resistance. In her study of the punk/post-­punk/indie UK label Rough Trade and Bondage Records in France, Lebrun (2006, p. 33) also discusses the problem of creating what she refers to as ‘real independence’, as defined by the more politicized post-­punk intellectual context of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Strachan (2007), however, argues that micro-­label DIY production in the United Kingdom works under different ideological constraints: A combination of industrial and aesthetic factors means that few are likely to either challenge the mainstream music industry, or have to collaborate with or sell a share of their label to major recording companies … By attempting to engage with cultural production in an overtly self-­conscious manner, they offer a critique from the margins and attempt to address the problems of ‘media power’. (Strachan, 2007, p. 248) Strachan notes an ongoing reproduction of established art-­versus-commerce discourse in the labels he approached – a discourse discussed elsewhere by Negus (1995) and Hesmondhalgh (1999). The discourse of periphery-­versusmainstream is, of course, central to the reflexive understanding of avant-­gardist cultural production – there must be a mainstream to resist. O’Connor (2008) addresses the emergence of DIY ideology and labels around punk and hardcore in North America in the late 1970s, but again there is a focus on the desire to resist (and to be seen to resist) mainstream capitalist discourse and practice. The argument made by O’Connor (2008, p. 4) is that ‘punk in 1977 was wide open to economic pressures but by the early-­1980s had become more or less an autonomous [Bourdieu-­ian] field’.

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Some labels were indeed explicit in their politics – notably Crass Records in the United Kingdom (founded in 1979 by Essex anarcho-­punks Crass), with its commitment to anarchism and radical feminism; in California, Alternative Tentacles was founded in 1979 by Jello Biafra and East Bay Ray of The Dead Kennedys, with a leftist commitment to critiques of capitalism and imperialism (Gosling, 2004). Many, if not most of these labels, were founded and run by committed individuals, very small partnerships or collectives, and were at various times subject to the kind of internal conflict that Lee documents at Wax Trax. Lebrun (2006, p. 33) addresses the ‘problems and contradictions’ faced by ideologically constrained punk and post-­punk indie labels. However, she also notes that in the 1960s and early 1970s the relationship between smaller independent labels and major labels was not always antagonistic, which suggests that the pragmatic approach to independence I argue is at work at Chemikal Underground has deeper roots in the history of the record business. For pragmatic reasons, micro-­label owners do not see the rewards of releasing records in financial terms, and therefore reconceptualize themselves as fan-­ producers gaining satisfaction from engaging with a particular scene, sound or production practice (Strachan, 2007, p.  250). This discursive construct did appear during my interviews with Chemikal Underground, but it is typically counterbalanced by the clear sense that the label must also be economically sustainable as a business because it is the principal source of income for the label directors and their dependants. What is most striking about the case of Chemikal Underground is the apparently peaceful coexistence of a realism required to ensure the ongoing economic viability of the label with a commitment to a set of aesthetic and business practices that the label directors continue to argue are independent – or at least distinct – from those of the mainstream record industry. At the same time, Chemikal Underground has had early and important connections to the micro-­ label scene. The Delgados’ first commercially released song was not on Chemikal Underground; rather, ‘Liquidation Girl’ appeared in 1994 on an eccentric Canadian independent compilation, Nardwuar The Human Serviette Presents: Skookum Chief Powered Teenage Zit Rock Angst, and a short time later on Gayle Brogan’s Glasgow-­based Boa label, as a split single with Van Impe’s2 ‘Pirhana’. Strachan (2007, p. 247) argues that, ‘[m]icro-­labels are not integrated within the structures of the media and music industries, yet they are engaged with a similar set of practices: the sale, promotion and distribution of recordings.’ Through their association with Nardwuar and Brogan, The Delgados were collectively familiar with the working practices of micro-­labels as they set up Chemikal Underground in late 1994. They clearly saw themselves as part of a discourse of creative independence, yet also as potentially distinct from those micro-­labels, both in ideology and in their engagement with the economic realities of a capitalist system of cultural production.

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Independent dance music record labels In his case study of UK dance music record labels in the 1990s, Hesmondhalgh (1998) explores the argument that dance music production presents a challenge to the ‘mainstream’ record industry through a network of decentralized production centres, enabled by dance audience preferences for genre over personality and by low promotional costs. He argues that UK dance music does not in fact present a radical, democratic challenge to existing structures in the record industries because it often relies on income generated from hits in the mainstream and the accompanying compilation album sales. Furthermore, Hesmondhalgh identifies close interdependencies between independent dance labels and the corporate cultural industries, suggesting that this also undermines claims of radical resistance. I would not dispute Hesmondhalgh’s conclusions, but I do suggest that the discourse of radical resistance here is not dissimilar to that present in the punk and post-­punk indie labels discussed by Dunn (2012), O’Connor (2008), Lebrun (2006) and Strachan (2007). That is to say, it is a tool used to negotiate social and cultural capital within a particular context of cultural production, and it works in much the same way as rock’s central mythology of outsider-­ness. Despite some superficial similarities with the structure of, and discourse in, many punk, post-­punk and indie labels, independent dance-­music record labels operate within a system that is not only largely uncritical of capitalism, but often embraces neoliberal, entrepreneurial free enterprise. Cammaerts (2010), in his work on specialist Belgian micro-­labels, is concerned with the impact of new distribution technologies on the production of new, independent industrial/experimental and alternative dance music. Given that it is impossible to stop file sharing Cammaerts notes the increased significance of building relationships between labels and fans, and so developing fan acquisition and deployment of social and cultural capital. Cammaerts, citing Webb’s (2007) work on independent dance labels in the UK agrees that these companies are more likely to deal effectively with the challenges of digital distribution because they tend to be comfortable with the underlying structures of capitalism and market economics. In other words, and as noted by Hesmondhalgh (1998), and Smith and Maughan (1998) dance labels are more likely to accept the ‘business’ side of cultural production, rather than to attempt to position themselves outside conventional capitalist models of popular-­music production.

Chemikal Underground One of my key arguments about Chemikal Underground is that, collectively, the label has been distinctively pragmatic (particularly for a label interested in releasing broadly guitar-­based ‘indie’ music) in its approach to notions of ‘independence’. As Paul Savage put it, just over five years after the label’s first release, in a discussion of the distinction between indies and major record labels:

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What right do I have to sit here and have a go at [for example] Sony? They sell shitloads more records than we do and they know how to do it. So we might as well employ some of the same tactics … but with better bands. (Savage, interview, 2000) The label had, and continues to have, no ideological objection to the objective of selling as many records as possible, nor to the use of marketing or distribution approaches that were in principle similar to those of the ‘major’ sector. A second important factor in the longevity of the label has been the collective approach to both making music and running Chemikal Underground. This was also central to the early success of the label, despite the stresses for The Delgados (as a band) of writing, recording and touring, while at the same time managing a rapidly growing record company. Stewart Henderson contextualized the strength of being a collective-­label management team with a comparison to other indie labels run by solo managers: I know people who run labels on their own and often they’re not selling many records. After about a year of that, the brain numbing paperwork and administration gets on top of you, and people give up. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2000) The collaborative nature of being a band (Behr, 2010) was being carried over into Chemikal Underground the record label, and both Pollock and Henderson understand here that the peculiar group social dynamic of working closely with other musicians in a group contributed to the early coherence and development of the label.

Independence In 2007, Emma Pollock viewed independence in two ways: one of which is contingent on the label’s experience in the record industry and one of which is about an understanding of audience: Our idea of independence now is very different to what it was. We all know a lot more about the industry. You can only understand what it means to be independent when you understand what it means not to be. You really need to learn about the context in which an independent record label has to exist. (Emma Pollock, interview, 2007) Chemikal Underground’s notion of independence was shaped by its owners’ experience as The Delgados when they released their fourth studio album, Hate, on Mantra Records (one of the Beggars Banquet family of labels), and in using Beggars as a distributor at various times over the years. Emma Pollock also

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released her first solo album, Watch the Fireworks, on 4AD (another Beggars label) around the time of this 2007 interview, so it is possible to interpret her comments in light of her experience of working with a much larger label. Just as important to Chemikal Underground’s understanding of itself as independent is its relationship to the audience that buys its records. Pollock, again in 2007, was optimistic about independence in popular music as a focus for a matrix of values in an audience that she sees as distinct from a more mainstream music consuming public: I think a small number of people do still care very much about independence. Alternative audiences are so passionate about music: they seek out music, rather than waiting for it to come to them. (Emma Pollock, interview, 2007) Pollock sees Chemikal Underground’s status as a long-­established independent record label, with a track record of releasing particular artists and sounds, not so much as a seal of quality sounds in itself (although this is implicit) as a brand that represents the guarantee of freedom of expression for its artists.

Selling music Chemikal Underground’s success was at least partly due to its ability to adopt an approach to selling records that was influenced from an early stage by the desire to maximize sales of often left-­field music using whatever marketing strategies they might be able to adopt and adapt from the major label sector. In 2000, Stewart Henderson expressed his frustration with the arguments around a particularly essentialist notion of independence, shortly after the peak of Britpop3 in the second half of the 1990s: I think there’s a middle ground between employing major label marketing strategies, not all of them clean, and sticking to a hard and fast independent ethic. I get tired of the argument, because you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If you stick to your independent roots, you’re unambitious. If you do it the other way, you’re a capitalist pig. We’re trying to run a record company that releases records that succeed. I don’t feel the need to apologize for this. We’re in this business to sell records so that people can buy that music and it can touch their lives in whatever way it happens to do. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2000) Henderson clearly feels at this point (after only five years in the record business) that there are clear tensions between ideologically driven notions of post-­punk independence as a rejection of a mainstream corporate (capitalist) industry and the need for the label to make money. His point is that Chemikal Underground

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is ambitious, but also that the label is not run by capitalists intent on an ongoing project of commodifying popular music. In 2009, Henderson expanded on the label’s pragmatic approach to selling independent music: We never really bought into the idea of the ‘sell out’ thing. Selling out is not necessarily about giving your track away to British Aerospace or Smith-­ Kline Beecham. We were always quite happy to get our music out there to as many people as possible. We were never intentionally obtuse about how we would choose to sell our product. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2009) In 2014, Henderson recalled a specific example of a marketing strategy that brought together two sides of this argument: We didn’t re-­press The First Big Weekend single [on 7-inch vinyl, by Arab Strap in 1996], but that was a marketing decision as well … it would sell more copies of the album and we would make more money. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2014) The act of not re-­pressing an unexpectedly successful single release could have been viewed positively by indie ideological purists as a rejection of the temptation to capitalize on that success. Yet there are two short-­term consequences: the first is that, in a time before digital distribution, in order to hear that song, a music fan would have to buy the album rather than the single, thus maximizing profit for the label. The second, and probably unintended, consequence is that the price of copies of the first pressing of 700 of The First Big Weekend single would increase for collectors seeking a copy on the used market, thus validating the taste of fans who bought the record the first time around (and so also contributing to fan cultural capital). Similarly it is a win–win situation for Chemikal Underground: the decision not to re-­press the 7-inch single both respects the integrity of the original limited run of 700 copies and also drives sales of the album from which the single comes, which contributes to both the cultural and economic capital of the label. Difficulties in generating revenue streams emerged for Chemikal Underground as early as 2000. Emma Pollock notes in an interview from that year that (a few years before broadband really took off ) the independent sector was under increasing pressure: ‘It’s much harder to sell records now than it used to be. Chain retailers are getting more reluctant to deal with independent labels like Chemikal.’ Seven years later, in 2007, Stewart Henderson was clearly aware of the impact of the wide availability of free popular music via the internet: Selling records is hard these days, people just aren’t buying them. Music has turned into something you don’t really have to pay for. It’s not like years

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ago where you’d circle the date on the calendar when the record came out, ’cos the only way you’d hear it was going to the shop and buying it. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2007) It is Henderson’s position that file sharing and free distribution of popular music have disproportionately affected the independent sector, where margins are slim and cash flow is often a problem.4 This lack of economic capital constrains the marketing approach of independent labels, which therefore have to rely more on cultural and social capital: If you’re an Indie label you have to be very reactive by nature, as opposed to majors who are proactive and front-­load expenses. They pile-­drive a marketing message to get people to buy a record. We have to reply on press, radio and the strength of the record to catch people’s attention, and then react to that with marketing. We have to put something out and hope for good reviews, and then react that way. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2009) The traditional, pre-­digital distribution model of selling records has become increasingly difficult to sustain for Chemikal Underground and other independent labels, so one of the potential new revenue streams is synchronization rights (that is, the use of the label’s music in advertising or soundtracks). In principle, this can be a lucrative revenue stream; however, it is, as Stewart Henderson put it in 2014, ‘a buyers’ market with a lot of people willing to do that [license new music for synch] for nothing’.5 Nevertheless, Chemikal Underground music has appeared on the soundtracks of major US TV dramas, The OC and Grey’s Anatomy, and the requirements of television drama production have led to a pragmatic approach to the integrity of songs. As Alun Woodward put it in 2009: If you want to [release records] and get your music out there as much as possible, I don’t see any harm in a computer company using a version of a song. If any company phoned up and said that they want a Delgados song, but an instrumental version of it and we didn’t have it, I would go into the studio that night and do it. (Alun Woodward, interview, 2009)

Selling expertise The experience and expertise represented by Chemikal Underground is typically perceived as a number of contrasting and frequently unquantifiable sets of skills and abilities: identifying and developing new talent (often, but not always Scottish); recording and releasing critically successful music; and effectively working with public sector and community organizations. In 2009, Stewart

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Henderson acknowledged the significance of accessing this funding for Chemikal Underground: We’re lucky that over the past six to eight years [2001–09] we’ve had support from the Scottish Arts Council [Creative Scotland from 2010]. I think many people still consider Chemikal Underground to be one of the most successful independent record labels that Scotland has had. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2009) Being successful at winning public funding is not a foregone conclusion for any organization, and this is also true for Chemikal Underground. As Alun Woodward correctly pointed out in 2009, ‘[t]hey have a lot of people shouting for their money.’6 The development of Chemikal Underground from being an independent record label into a management company, an events organizer and a community-­focused nexus of arts and cultural production more generally is most clearly demonstrated in The East End Social, organized by the label. This was a programme of music-­focused events running from March to August 2014, funded by the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme’s Open Fund7 and urban regeneration company Clyde Gateway.8 As Stewart Henderson observed in late 2014: Were it not for the East End Social, I think Chemikal Underground would be in a grave position. Because there is no way that a simple record label could go to a bank and ask for money to keep going – they wouldn’t have seen the profitability. The East End Social has done enough to show a way forward for the label. (Stewart Henderson, interview, 2014) The cultural and social capital accumulated through the process of developing and administering a complex series of events with diverse interests at stake, from bands and DJs to schools and local community organizations, enabled important diversification in revenue flow for Chemikal Underground.

Conclusion Using a longitudinal series of interviews with the four founders of Chemikal Underground Records, this chapter argues that the label demonstrates a hybrid ideological approach to independent cultural production. Chemikal Underground’s founder-­directors understand their production practices in ways that place them somewhere between two apparently contradictory ideological constructions of ‘independence’. At one end of this continuum are the independent electronic dance-­music labels for which making money is more than comfortable: it is desirable (Hesmondhalgh, 1998; Smith and Maughan, 1998). These labels typically adopt a discourse of independence that is underpinned by the

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notion of ‘artistic freedom’, but with little in the way of informed critique of the capitalist system within which they function as producers of culture. They are familiar with the economics of cultural production and consumption, and the modes of production that have evolved within a capitalist system: software, hardware, records, venues, promotion, leisure practices and so on. The other pole of ‘independence’ is characterized by the attempts of punk, post-­punk and experimental music labels to distance themselves from capitalist production practices and the notion of ‘commercial’ music designed in those discursive constructions primarily to make money (Cammaerts, 2010; Dunn, 2012; Hesmondhalgh, 1998; Strachan, 2007). For some of these independent labels, their resistance is framed in explicit political terms. For others, their production of popular music – or indeed, sometimes rather unpopular music – is situated in a discourse of art for art’s sake. Here, engagement with the machinery of capitalism is a necessary evil, at best. Chemikal Underground occupies a flexible space that draws on elements of both positions, and seems able to accommodate apparently contradictory concepts within a rationalist ideology of independent music production. For this label, engaging with the conventional economics of the music industry is a means to an end. Its key objective has been to create and sustain a cultural business that is driven by a clear sense of artistic vision, supported by the need to not only create enough revenue to release the next record, but also to generate a viable income for the label owners. Chemikal Underground has, over two decades, acquired and maintained an accumulation of cultural and social capital enabled by a pragmatic ideological flexibility, through which its owners understand it as both a serious business enterprise but also as a significant contributor to the production of music, art and culture in Scotland.

Notes 1 Stewart Henderson (bass); Emma Pollock (vocals and guitar); Paul Savage (drums and production); Alun Woodward (vocals and guitar). 2 Van Impe were in fact also The Delgados, working under an alias. 3 Britpop, despite the significant mainstream sales of its biggest bands (Oasis, Blur, Pulp), was a sound that arguably grew from ‘indie’ roots (Borthwick and Moy, 2004), although the extent to which there was a genuinely national UK phenomenon is a subject of some debate (Percival, 2010; Scott, 2010). 4 Personal interview with the author, September 2014. 5 Ibid. 6 Personal interview with the author, October 2009. 7 Administered by Creative Scotland, www.creativescotland.com/funding/archive/ glasgow-­2014-cultural-­programme. The cultural programme of events ran before, during and after the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. 8 See www.clydegateway.com.

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References Behr, A. (2010). Group identity: Bands, rock and popular music. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Stirling. Retrieved from https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/ bitstream/1893/3051/1/A.Behr-­Group%20Identity-%20Bands,%20Rock%20%26%20 Popular%20Music.pdf. Borthwick, S. and Moy, R. (2004). Popular Music Genres: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241–58). New York: Greenwood Press. Cammaerts, B. (2010). From Vinyl to One/Zero and Back to Scratch: Independent Belgian Micro Labels in Search of an Ever More Elusive Fan Base. Media@LSE Electronic Working Paper Series, 20. London: London School of Economics and Political Science. Retrieved from www.lse.ac.uk/collections/media@lse/mediaWorkingPapers. Dunn, K. (2012). ‘If it ain’t cheap, it ain’t punk’: Walter Benjamin’s progressive cultural production and DIY punk record labels. Journal of Popular Music Studies, 24(2): 217–37. Gosling, T. (2004). ‘Not for sale’: The underground network of anarcho-­punk. In A. Bennett and R.A. Peterson (eds), Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual (pp. 168–84). Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Hesmondhalgh, D. (1998). The British dance music industry: A case study of independent cultural production. British Journal of Sociology, 49(2): 234–51. Hesmondhalgh, D. (1999). Indie: The aesthetics and institutional politics of a popular music genre. Cultural Studies, 13(1): 34–61. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2006). Bourdieu, the media and cultural production. Media, Culture & Society, 28(2): 211–31. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2012). The Cultural Industries (3rd ed.). London: Sage. Lee, S. (1995). Re-­examining the concept of the ‘independent’ record company: The case of Wax Trax! Records. Popular Music, 14(1): 13–31. Lebrun, B. (2006). Majors et labels indépendants, 1960–2000. Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’Histoire, 92: 33–45. Negus, K. (1995). Where the mystical meets the market: Creativity and commerce in the production of popular music. Sociological Review, 43(2): 317–39. O’Connor, A. (2008). Punk Record Labels and the Struggle for Autonomy: The Emergence of DIY. Lexington, KY: Lexington Books. Percival, J.M. (2010). Britpop or Eng-­Pop? In A. Bennett and J. Stratton (eds.), Britpop and the English Musical Tradition (pp. 123–44). Farnham: Ashgate. Percival, J.M. (2011). Chemikal Underground: ‘Post independent’ rock and pop in Scotland? In S. Lacasse and S.P. Bouliane (eds), History, Genre and Fandom: Popular Music Studies at the Turn of the Century, a Special Issue of Studies in Music from the University of Western Ontario, 22: 91–102. Scott, D.B. (2010). The Britpop Sound. In A. Bennett and J. Stratton (eds), Britpop and the English Musical Tradition (pp. 103–22). Farnham: Ashgate. Smith, R.J. and Maughan, T. (1998). Youth culture and the making of the post-­Fordist economy: Dance music in contemporary Britain. Journal of Youth Studies, 1(2): 211–28. Strachan, R. (2007). Micro-­independent record labels in the UK: Discourse, DIY cultural production and the music industry. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(2): 245–65.

218   J.M. Percival Webb, P. (2007). Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures. London: Routledge.

Discography Most of the Chemikal Underground releases listed here in physical formats are also available as downloads from the label’s online shop at www.chemikal.co.uk. Arab Strap (2006), The First Big Weekend, Chemikal Underground, CHEM007 [7-inch vinyl single/CD]. The Delgados (1994), ‘Liquidation Girl’, split single with Van Impe, Piranha, Boa Records, Hiss 4 [7-inch vinyl single]. The Delgados (1994), ‘Liquidation Girl’, on Nardwuar The Human Serviette Presents: Skookum Chief Powered Teenage Zit Rock Angst, NardWuar Records, CLEO 8 [12-inch vinyl LP/ CD]. The Delgados (1995), Monica Webster/Brand New Car, Chemikal Underground, CHEM001 [7-inch vinyl single]. The Delgados (1996), Domestiques, Chemikal Underground, CHEM009 [12-inch vinyl LP/CD]. The Delgados (1997), BBC Sessions, Strange Fruit, SFRSCD037 [CD]. The Delgados (1998), Peloton, Chemikal Underground, CHEM024 [12-inch vinyl LP/ CD]. The Delgados (2000), The Great Eastern, Chemikal Underground, CHEM040 [12-inch vinyl LP/CD]. The Delgados (2001), Live at the Fruitmarket: Glasgow 2001, Chemikal Underground, (‘Official’ Bootleg, No Catalogue Number) [CD]. The Delgados (2002), Hate, Mantra, MNTCD1031 [12-inch vinyl LP/CD]. The Delgados (2004), Universal Audio, Chemikal Underground, CHEM075 [LP/CD]. The Delgados (2006), The Complete BBC Peel Sessions, Chemikal Underground, CHEM088 [CD]. Hubbert, R.M. (2014), Ampersand Extras, Chemikal Underground, CHEM217 [12-inch vinyl LP/CD]. Lord Cut-­Glass (2009), Lord Cut-­Glass, Chemikal Underground, CHEM118 [CD]. Pollock, E. (2007). Watch the Fireworks, 4AD, CAD2719CD [CD].

Chapter 19

Verbal Sound System (1997–98) Recalling a raver’s DIY practices in the British free party counterculture Zoe Armour

On Saturday, 7 December 2013, at the Frog Island concert venue Lock 42 in Leicester, the not-­for-profit underground babble collective sound system1 hosted an electronic dance music event to celebrate 20 years of grooving to deep house. It was here among the gathering of ravers that a member of babble called Little Jon (who was celebrating his 34th birthday) volunteered to share his early experiences of growing up within the framework of a DIY party ethos in the 1990s. He said, ‘You should talk to me. I did Verbal’ (Armour, 2013a). The following discussion documents Little Jon’s early experiences from boyhood to adolescence. In particular, it focuses on what I propose as an organic DIY pedagogy that is learned through a musically infused East Midlands based DIY rave peer culture and the temporary creation of Verbal Sound System (1997–98).2 It also considers moments of socio-cultural access and the personal enculturation within a grouping. In doing so the chapter takes a critical position towards using memory (Marsh, 2007) as a methodological tool to trace the nuances of sound system practices. To date, very little has been documented on the network of Midlands sound systems and the culture that embodies ‘niche-rave’ practices, a term I apply to localized initiatives such as Verbal. For instance, DIY Sound System (1989– present, Nottingham) is mentioned in both academic texts and in the press (Arnold 2014; Guest, 2009; Oliver, 2014). Yet many other localized sound systems such as the Leicester born initiatives that developed from this activity, babble (1993–present), Elemental (1993–present) and Doji (1999–present) remain absent. The focus on Verbal Sound System therefore proposes a step towards mapping the existence of these entities as part of a musically infused legacy and ‘people’s culture’ in the United Kingdom.

Theorizing the turn to ‘rave’ The radicalism of a political turn in rave culture was due to the nature of free party DIY practices that existed outside the legislative governmental system. In particular, a convoy of several hundred New Age travellers attended the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1985. It resulted in the Battle of the Beanfield, the

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­ arehouse and outdoor free parties known as the Orbital Raves (1989) that w took place around the M25, and the mass gathering of sound systems at Castlemorton Common Free Festival in 1992 (McKay, 1996, 1998). Raves and sound system culture, in the 1990s continued despite the law enforcement of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (CJB), which sought to prohibit these activities. I propose the term ‘niche-rave’ to explore the creation of the temporary sound system Verbal (1997–98), in which a second wave generation of ravers aged from their early teens to early twenties learned to mobilize from their peers. In this context, the term refers to an intense commitment to localized DIY rave practices. Sound system culture as a practice sought to create an alternate pleasure space and community offset against a parallel electronic dance music club culture that focused on profit and had to abide by local council pressure under the Public Entertainment Licences [Drug Misuse] Act 1997. The creation of the Verbal events appealed to an alienated youth who were underage and had very little to no income to gain admittance to, or spend on the consumption of alcohol in, licensed venues. The Verbal organizers took pleasure in attracting a micro movement of people and occupying illegal spaces in which the production of unlicensed activities was in the tradition of free party culture.

Methodological approach to research A semi-­structured interview was conducted with Little Jon on 7 December 2013 (Armour, 2013b), based on a larger project that investigated how ravers and clubbers recalled developing a taste for electronic dance music. The interviews with rave members were obtained through a naturally occurring ‘snowball’ effect and the agency of the researcher as insider. Little Jon therefore knew that interviews had been conducted with babblers when he volunteered to be interviewed. The personal vignette has been framed in a sequential nature as an oral retelling and remembering in the present. From a critical position, there are voluminous works that discuss the fallible nature of memory at the intersection between culture and society (Assman and Czaplicka, 1995; Fentress and Wickham, 1992; Kansteiner, 2002; Pickering and Keightley, 2012; Radstone, 2008). In particular, Marsh (2007, p.  16) notes contentions when relying on such accounts as ‘conversational retellings [that] depend upon the speaker’s goals, the audience, and the social context more generally. Because memories are frequently retrieved in social contexts, retellings of events are often incomplete and distorted’. The process for Little Jon’s articulation of a rave cultural past also parallels the continual reshaping of his identity in which he ages within this inner cultural lifeworld.3 While interpretation of the interview data is invaluable, the relationship between what Little Jon chose to share and was able to recall within a ­timeframe

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of two hours, and how the researcher attempted to objectively tease out a coherent narrative during analysis, remains imperfect. There are, then, some complexities to an approach that is subjective, personal and reliant on memory. However, this should not detract from the value or the impetus to document such cultural phenomena. In addition, Little Jon’s personal vignette is given over to the agency of a self-­reflexive motivation. I call this aesthetic sensibility ‘rave cultural authenticity’. This is where a rave member negotiates his or her own sense of belonging that is subject to revisionism over time and the fallible nature of memory. To elaborate, Little Jon’s experiences were connected to an intergenerational grouping and a sense of enculturation that was central to an identity forming practice. In this case, he was part of a group of rave members referred to as the ‘little generation’ by the peer members of the culture: I was doing babble, I met all the ‘little gang’ – so all my mates that were the same age as me all got christened ‘little’ obviously because we were like ten years younger than everyone … so you got Little Dave, Little Ian, Little Matt. The purpose of being named ‘little’ demarcates the levels of assumed knowledge and experience among members within the social world of the DIY rave network. It also alludes to a peer culture in which older members are seen as the gatekeepers of knowledge and admittance into the culture. Besides this initial meaning, for Little Jon, the title of ‘little’ has over time provided him with a status that represents his prior commitment to the DIY rave project through Verbal and his contact with members of the free party network in the present. He has, in this way, procured a recognizable status of acceptance and authenticity within the culture as part of a late post-­boomer generation. In this sense, Little Jon has acclimated within the culture and evolved into being a part of the peer group. Little Jon’s retelling also conveys a belonging that is male oriented, where the mention of any female presence is almost irrelevant to his rave cultural memory, and reflects studies on music (sub)culture that describe an overtly prescribed male dominated environment in which taste is a form of cultural power (cf. Breen, 1991; Hebdige, 1979; McRobbie, 2000; Reddington, 2003; Redhead, 1993; Rose, 1994; Thornton, 1995; Weinstein, 2000; Willis, 1978).

A reflective ‘vignette’ analysis of three moments of rave cultural impact Moment 1 Within the urban terrain of the inner city areas of Leicester, Little Jon’s early learned preference for electronic dance music became a catalyst for modes of

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behaviour that derived from within a free party environment. In the first stage of ‘access’ into a music oriented social world, Little Jon situated his awakening to electronic dance music sometime in 1991, when he was 11 years old: Everyone one was listening to kind of hip hop and stuff … I was really into my fucking obscene Jungle music. Comparatively, there are a number of interview based studies that touch upon (pre-)teen taste in the development of a genre specific liking for music, and confer on the personal construction of self in what is often described as a ‘discourse of authenticity’ (Frith 1996, p. 109). In the case of Little Jon, he was at an intermediary age in the school system between the transfer from primary to secondary school, where his underground musical knowledge was learned and shared through the mundane interaction of everyday spaces as a boy approaching adolescence. These were located through conversations with peers that took place in the childhood spaces of the bedroom, living room, out on the streets and in school: It was very much a part of the underprivileged culture that was going on in any of the fucking rougher areas, that if you were working class and you were skint, that was it. From this perspective, these ‘early’ moments of rave cultural impact occur through a connection between the social and the spatial, where the familiar concept of ‘the “hidden histories” of people on the margins [and a] rich evidence about the subjective or personal meanings of past events’ (Thomson, 1999, p. 291) was articulated through the process of remembering. Such a cognition privileges a sense of rave cultural access through the microcosm of geographical spaces in a city. This was a working class experience of music related socialization in which Little Jon inhabited a world that was tied to a shared economic struggle across many of the inner city areas of Leicester. It was a visible culture to those who were ‘in-the-know’ and an invisible existence to those who did not enter into this social music world. More specifically, it was Little Jon’s experience of living in the denser areas of New Parks and then Beaumont Leys on the outskirts of the inner city, to spending time with members on the Braunstone Estate (also on the outskirts) to being in the parameters of the city centre, in the micro areas of the Belgrave Gate, St Marks, St Matthews and Highfields estates. These factions were unified as a network in an (in)visible urban music world where those living in such economically deprived areas, were thinking creatively through music and producing reggae, soul, ska, jungle, hip-­hop, drum’n’bass, techno, house and trance. For Little Jon, his experiences of the Leicester music network constituted a period in which the process of acquiring musical knowledge occurred through conversations held in early spaces of adolescent social interaction – for example,

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the bedroom as a place of solitude intersected with the activity of listening to the radio. It was an early point of access for Little Jon, who listened to Leicester’s local pirate radio station, Fresh FM (1991–98), which was also a significant discovery for anyone interested in expanding their electronic musical taste. This activity therefore allowed Little Jon to cultivate his musical taste through a local peer culture at a distance: The music scene for the older generation was the outlet and that filtered down to the nippers, and we got access to it not via clubs at that stage but via the radio. This early point of access illustrates a localized intergenerational development in music appreciation. The original founders were Utty and Tappy. Most of the Fresh FM DJ’s were regular, local visitors to Sneakers Records (owners: Leroy AKA DJSS and Edriss) in the Victorian-­esque Silver Arcade (Silver Street), that housed an array of independent shops across three levels in a labyrinth of pedestrianized lanes (called The Lanes) in Leicester’s city centre. There were also other acclaimed local-­to-international DJs involved in this network participation of radio transmission: Schoolboy, Mastersafe, Manic, Dynamo, Black Magic, Skully, Attraction B, Ratty, and Kaos.4 In 1994, the creative DIY labour that had been used to deploy weekend transmissions increased to take place around the clock during the week. This was accomplished through an alliance between the pirate DJs who had pioneered it and the commercial Leicester Club DJs’ voluntary participation. Little Jon retains a collection of cassette recordings from this period that reveal this musical practice in forming a taste for jungle music and knowledge on DIY and pirate DJ practices, when he was privy to the sessions’ transmission location from the top of the Towers (now demolished) at the heart of the St Matthews estate. From within this intermingling of parallel social worlds, between DJs working in a DIY culture and labouring in the local club world in the city centre of Leicester, two legal youth raves (14 to 17 years) were formed: ‘U’ (for underground) at Club Bear Cage and ‘R’ (rave for guidance) at Club Rage (1991–92). These can be referred to as ‘spectacular spaces of adolescence’ that ran once a month and were particularly successful with a moderately affluent underage youth. The entrance fee was £5, and it cost £2 to purchase an icepole that had a retail price of 20 pence. It was a lucrative initiative that allowed a potential or underage raver temporary access to the adult leisure industry: They were doing quite good nights, we were getting like MasterSafe and SS and really top quality hard-­core DJs coming up to play for all these [even though Little Jon reflectively demarcated these early club experiences from the adult free parties he would later attend] … well I suppose it was a glorified disco in a way.

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In this context, these temporary spaces were opportunities for intergenerational exchange, since the older peer members (DJs and DIY sound system members involved in the running and organization of the events) who attended were involved in alternate DiY music practices beyond the general experience of the participating youth. At the age of 12, Little Jon was two years below the licensed age to gain admission to these organized social events, usually reserved for adult pleasure. However, the challenge to gain access into a forbidden zone (the indoor club space) was successfully achieved: There was no ID for 14 to 17. So we would always lie about our age and started going out to them. This account illustrated that a younger age group was participating in this temporary licensed social world. It was the creation of a nocturnal environment held on a school night that also enticed teenagers above the age limit and gave a young audience their first taste of rave culture. Moment II The next moment of rave cultural impact happened to Little Jon at the age of 14 (1994) when he gained access to a peer culture of free party people at a licensed babble event. This occurred at a chance meeting and street conversation in which his demonstration of musical knowledge and taste prompted a party invitation. He had illustrated a form of rave cultural authenticity (see above): I suppose it was bumping into a few people, got chatting to them, they were all much older than me but I was really into my music, I suppose that carried over. With the notion of a collective ethos that is imbued within the tenets of free party culture, it is possible to infer that such a social world is open to all who are prepared to accept a lifestyle that falls outside the normative and accepted regulations within a capitalist framework. An invitation to an event through a peer member and guaranteed entry on the guest list imply acceptance as a form of access into the adult social world and a temporary club venue that has to abide by underage restrictions of admission. Access gave Little Jon an insight into a free party peer culture of people who were willing to find a way around government regulation so he could experience this environment. It allowed him to make an independent decision about his rave cultural sensibilities and musical taste. In addition, Little Jon’s willingness to attend was the very embodiment of the free party ethos, as he was an accomplice to bending the rules that would ordinarily isolate him from the collective experience:

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Because I was a nipper, they had to get me on the guest list to make sure I didn’t get stopped by the bouncers … and from going to the first couple on the guest list because I wouldn’t have got past the bouncers, I ended up getting given jobs to do. After successfully gaining access to a few babble parties, Little Jon volunteered to participate in the daytime organization and night-­time running of the licensed events as a way to maintain personal access to the people and music within this social world. These particular events were held at established club venues in the vicinity of the city centre of Leicester: Mud Club, Luxor, Fan Club and Starlite 2001. He therefore transitioned into an organic DiY apprenticeship in sound systems in which an invisible daytime culture consisted of activities that included hanging camouflage netting and neon painted backdrops, lighting set-­up, stacking a rig, running cables, making love cabbages5 and repairing equipment at the club venue. A visible aspect of the organization required handing out flyers to the general public and fly posting across the cityscape to advertise the event. This resulted in the partial visibility of an organic pedagogy in collective activities through a free party peer culture in the realization of the nocturnal happening of the event. During these activities of DIY labour, Little Jon experienced a form of socialization within the free party community ethos that focused on the development of ‘our own culture’, created with core babble members and those who participated in the organization of the parties: I knew all the politics about everything but everyone looked after me and I got on with everyone. To elaborate, Little Jon’s participation in babble’s DiY activities converged with an intense period of political activism over the pending legislation of the CJB in 1993. Little Jon became involved in the culture at a time when mobilization against the CJB materialized in Leicester as part of a nationwide campaign within the free party network. Little Jon was acting chair at these meetings, which included representative members from free party sound systems, the Socialist Worker Party, hunt saboteurs and other left wing factions that were a mix of (non)violent and (in)direct actions. He was also chair for All Systems No6 at the Leicester Branch: There were so many different factions … typical trying to organize collective hippies, it was just fucking chaos, no one would take lead on it and no one would organize them, so we needed a chair at the meeting … I was younger and less likely to get the head kicked off me, so they started making me the chairperson for all the meetings. Essentially, Little Jon’s affiliation with babble gave him further exposure to a variety of alternative ‘free party people’ from diverse backgrounds. This early and organic immersion into a socio-­political grassroots culture in which older

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members found solutions to pending issues and resulted in Little Jon’s social inclusion and access to free party events in his mid teens (14 to 16 years of age). It meant that he was able to experience the rave counterculture during one the most significant periods of political and cultural dissent as he became a recognized rave member and an authentic cultural insider, and ventured beyond the parameters of Leicester to Loughborough, Nottingham, Derby and Wales: I was going to free parties from when I was 14 and driving off out for 2 hours into the countryside to go to Smokescreen and DIY. Further to this, his early participation in babble, and inclusion as a rave member, enabled Little Jon to experience a sense of ‘spectacular access’. This term encompasses the rave-­cultural histories, knowledges, experiences and memories that are communicated via the interaction of lifeworld conversations. Within the rave network, it was then an organic DIY free party pedagogy that was shaped by active members involved in the community as a ‘people’s culture’. I contextually frame this as a form of rave cultural talk that is derived from the socialization between members in temporal rave culture environments – the spaces of domestic DIY interaction and places of rave cultural leisure in which music, dancing and labour are collective expressions of unity. Moment III After two years of participating in the culture and experiencing the dwindling number of free babble parties due to the high risk of imprisonment after the CJB was sanctioned, the creation of Verbal Sound System (1997) was a demonstration of Little Jon’s DiY pedagogy in sound system culture: We got fed up with the fact that they were doing a lot of club nights and weren’t doing enough free parties … we decided we could do it better … the two of us just thought, yeah, we’ve served our time, we know what we’re doing. The Verbal parties were unlicensed raves, held in abandoned buildings except for those rare occasions when the Verbal rig would be used by another sound system, such as babble or Peak, to venture further afield and collectively trespass on private land. A Verbal party comprised a full rig, camouflage netting, back drops and ultraviolet cannons. The participants at these city based events were a diverse crowd of ravers, clubbers, and curious revellers unknown to the free party community, who were poached from club nights on the eve of the event, usually at the weekend: A lot of times we’d try to kind of pull it, so I had warehouses lined up for, to be geographically close to certain clubs. And depending on what night was on, would depend on where I’d pitch the free party.

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Most notable was the event held in the basement of the Shires Shopping Centre. This was a spectacular seizure of space described as a temporary autonomous club (TAC), as its aesthetic appearance resembled the layout of official club spaces that had a concrete structure with pillars and drapes: The kind of pinnacle of it all … one of the biggest buildings in Leicester that was very much on police radar … the place itself was totally transformed. We went into a concrete box and created a club. The temporary occupation of the space involved three weeks of surveillance monitoring of the routine security patrols in operation in order to organize the ‘niche-rave’ event: We’d pull up in a van, throw two items out, those two items would be run in, the van would pull off … and then we’d do the same again. When the police finally acted and set about closing the party down, Little Jon’s skull was fractured when he was thrown against a wall. He describes the policing up until this event as ‘still quite relaxed’, having liaised with the police on those occasions when an event was discovered: I got dragged out by the coppers and thrown leg and a wing into a wall … that was the only party where we really got viciously busted. The Verbal parties came to an end because the founders, Little Jon and Little Matt, were leaving Leicester. Little Jon had completed his A Levels and decided to do a carpentry apprenticeship in Ireland, while little Matt joined Spiral Tribe on the Teknival Circuit in Europe. Other members who could have continued to run free parties under the Verbal banner were organizing their own sound systems, such as Krunch sound system (1998–present).

Conclusion This chapter has examined how Little Jon articulated his involvement in the British free party counterculture of the mid-to-late 1990s through a semi-­ structured interview that provided the material for an insight into a second wave generation rave member’s lived cultural history. More specifically, Little Jon’s personal vignette was critically framed through the methodological practice of a ‘conversational retelling’ (Marsh, 2007) and analysed through an awareness of a subjective, selective and fragmented memory where the researcher was also complicit in rendering the aesthetic of an authentic rave-­ cultural account of the past. The focus on one ageing rave member allowed for the socio-­historical significance of marginal DiY practices of Little Jon’s ‘niche-­rave’ experiences to

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emerge as a personal yet collective account. In this case, moments of rave ­cultural impact were described through an early fusion between a developing taste for electronic dance music and the socialization occurring within the not-­ for-profit underground and commercial music worlds. This led to a sense of ‘spectacular access’ in which an organic free party DIY apprenticeship occurred through the meeting of free party peers. Finally, Little Jon’s experiences and practices were understood as akin to those of the second wave generation of rave members in the creation of Verbal Sound System as an example of a temporary ‘niche-rave’ initiative. It illustrated little Jon’s graduation from an organic DIY pedagogy in the organization of babble events in which Verbal free parties were mostly run parallel to the commercial electronic dance music world in Leicester. This included the socio-­ spatial timeliness of musical access in (pre)teen environments, the urban (in)visible spaces in the early development of a taste for synthesized genres of electronic dance music and an enduring countercultural commitment to the spirit of freedom in localized sound system networks.

Notes 1 babble collective sound system (1993–present, Leicester) was started by four male students who were inspired by DIY Sound System (1989–present, Nottingham) and Smokescreen (1991–present). They were and remain a not-­for-profit collective with a nucleus of voluntary members who participate from time to time in community oriented activities. 2 A rig in a literal sense is a set-­up of equipment. It comprises a van, speaker stacks, amplifier, turntables, electrical generator, lighting, projector and fog machine. 3 The term ‘lifeworld’ is adapted from Husserl’s 1936 (1970) conception of ‘lifeworld’ and Habermas’s (1981) contribution for the purposes of explaining the intersecting ‘micro-­social’ interactions of those who participated in the practices of listening to electronic dance music. 4 See www.thepiratearchive.net. 5 The ‘love cabbage’ is a DiY badge in the shape of a five-­leaf flower, cut out on brightly coloured and reflective sticky-­back paper and pieced together, sometimes with a heart shape placed in the centre. It is a sign of the spirit of unity and to show that a financial contribution has been made in order to help with the cost of funding a future event. 6 All Systems No, Leicester Branch was a part of the national party network. This organization became a fund for when a rig got seized by the police. Membership meant that a rig could be replaced. There was also a kamikaze rig in place for parties that were deemed to be high risk.

References Armour, Z. (2013a). Field notes. ‘babble party’, 7 December. Armour, Z. (2013b). Semi-­structured interview with Little Jon, 17 December. Arnold, B. (2014). DiY: Can-­do attitude! DJ Magazine, 4 November. Retrieved from https://djmag.com/content/diy-­can-do-­attitude. Assman, J. and Czaplicka, J. (1995). Memory and cultural identity. New German Critique, Cultural History Studies, 56: 125–33.

Verbal Sound System (1997–98)   229 Breen, M. (1991). A stairway to heaven or a hell? Heavy metal rock music in the 1990s. Cultural Studies, 5(2): 191–203. Fentress, J. and Wickham, C. (1992). Social Memory. London: Blackwell. Frith, S. (1996). Music and identity. In S. Hall and P. Du Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity (pp. 108–27). London: Sage. Gordon, A. (2014), Subcultural entrance practices in UK punk culture from 1976-2001. In The Subcultures Network (eds), Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change (pp. 155–74). Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press. Guest, T. (2009). Castle Morton and beyond: Fight for the tight to party. Guardian, 11 July. Retrieved from www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2009/jul/11/castlemorton­free-party-­scene-spiral-­tribe. Habermas, J. (1981). The Theory of Communicative Action Volume 2 – Lifeworld and System: A Critique of Functionalist Reason. Boston: Beacon Press. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The Meaning of Style and Subculture. Oxford: Berg. Husserl, E. (1970). The Crisis to European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Kansteiner, W. (2002). Finding meaning in memory: A methodological critique of collective memory studies. History and Theory, 41(2): 179–97. Marsh, E.J. (2007). Retelling is not the same as recalling: Implications for memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(1): 16–20. McKay, G. (1996). Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance Since the Sixties. London: Verso. McKay, G. (1998). DiY Culture: Party & Protest in Nineties Britain. London: Verso. McRobbie, A. (ed.) (2000). Feminism and Youth Culture. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Oliver, S. (2014). The raving crew who were named ‘the most dangerous people in the UK’: Nottingham’s DIY collective had a vision for a new society. Vice Magazine, 20 August. Retrieved from www.vice.com/en_uk/article/xd38mq/diy-­25th-anniversary-­ scott-oliver-­125. Pickering, M. and Keightley, E. (2012). Communities of memory and the problem of transmission. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(1): 115–31. Radstone, S. (2008). Memory studies: For and against. Memory Studies, 1(1): 31–9. Reddington, H. (2003). ‘Lady’ punks in bands: A subculturette? In D. Muggleton and R. Weinzierl (eds), The Post-­Subcultures Reader (pp. 239–52). Oxford: Berg. Redhead, S. (1993). Rave Off: Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. Aldershot: Avebury. Rose, T. (1994), Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. London: Wesleyan University Press. Thornton, S. (1995). Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thomson, A. (1999). Making the most of memories: The empirical and subjective value of oral history. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 9: 291–301. Utty and Tappy (1991), Fresh FM. The Pirate Archive. Retrieved from www.thepirate archive.net/fresh/. Weinstein, D. (2000) Heavy Metal: The Music and its Culture (2nd ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. Willis, P. (1978). Profane Culture. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Chapter 20

A howl of the estranged Post-­p unk and contemporary underground scenes in Bulgarian popular music Asya Draganova and Shane Blackman

In the 1980s, post-­punk underground scenes emerged as a distinctive phenomenon in Bulgarian popular music. This chapter focuses on their subcultural meanings, influences and longevity, using ethnographic and participatory research methods. We argue that the contemporary implications of Bulgarian post-­punk scenes need to be explored and interpreted through the lens of an extended time perspective. Bulgaria is situated in south-­eastern Europe on the Balkans, at a crossroads between perceived Eastern and Western cultural constructs (Buchanan, 2007). Between 1944 and 1989, the country was part of the East European communist bloc under the political influence of the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, which divided the ‘communist’ East and ‘capitalist’ West of Europe, transitions towards democracy began in Bulgaria. In 2007, the country joined the European Union; nevertheless, post-­communist transitions continue to add complexities to current Bulgarian social and cultural realities. The year the Berlin Wall fell, 1989, acts as a threshold between the communist period and the contemporary historic epoch of ex-­Eastern bloc countries. Although change is a process rather than an isolated event, the ‘impossible to forget’ year of 1989 (Roberts, 2010, p. 15) is used to facilitate a comparative aspect to analysis. It allows for tracing how DIY politics and subcultural values developed and maintained relevance in changing circumstances. The term ‘post-­punk’ is employed to address a conglomeration of related scenes. Post-­punk in Britain emerged in the early 1980s, after the punk peak in 1976–79 (Savage, 1991). In contrast to early punk, post-­punk is inclined towards a more sophisticated artistic critique of social realities (Laing, 1985; Marcus, 1993). Rather than being defined by punk’s rejection of musical elitism and complexity, post-­punk is bored with formulaic content and demonstrates an affinity with experimentation (Reynolds, 2005). Post-­punk is a holistic category referring to new wave, dark wave, no wave, grunge, industrial, Gothic rock and cold wave. To us, as to Reynolds (2005, p. 517), post-­punk represents ‘unfinished business’: it offers unexhausted opportunities for creativity. The DIY legacy of early punk music is continued throughout post-­punk’s aesthetic approach in music and visual style, and the continued effort to democratize the

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music industries through DIY and ‘independent’ label politics (Hesmondhalgh, 1997, pp. 255–74). In DIY music culture production, identity – rather than consumer choice – projects agency, creating opportunities for art to dominate profit (McKay, 1998). Although popular music cultures are often studied in relation to young people, their relevance is inclusive rather than necessarily determined by age categories (Bennett, 2013). Involvement with music cultures after ‘youth’ can be interpreted as a nostalgic act, reinforced by commercialized reissues: repetition of ideas, deprived of their original connotations (Reynolds, 2011). However, ‘older’ generations involved with music cultures – as in the case of Bulgarian post-­punk – allow the inheritance of values, meanings and practices (Bennett, 2006, pp. 219–35). Intergenerational dialogue through music can be central to the sociological phenomenon of continuity in culture. In this chapter, we engage with debates in sociology concerned with the appropriateness of concepts around scenes, subcultures and their postmodern projections (Bennett and Kahn-­Harris, 2004; Redhead, 1997). While Hesmondhalgh (2005, p. 38) is critical of the concept of scene outlined by Straw (1991), he argues that ‘the concept of scene … provides new understandings of musical collectivities in relation to space and place, and offers insight into the formation of aesthetic communities in modern urban life’. On a similar basis, Anderson (2009, p. 14) also uses the term ‘scene’; at the same time, throughout her studies she also explores the concept of subculture (Anderson, 2009, p. 231), particularly in relation to punk. We want to build on this approach, as it has a close relationship to our empirical data on post-­punk, but we will also take up Bennett’s (2011, p. 504) suggestion to ‘fruitfully collaborate’ using both subcultural and post-­subcultural approaches. We employ the concept of subculture to describe agentic practices in locations where intergenerational groups perform and consume music styles, amounting to subcultural substance, where a core of meanings, cultural practices and political values create and articulate identities (Blackman, 2005, 2014; Hodkinson, 2002, 2004). We employ the concept of scene to study the micro-­specificities of musical interactions linked to broader subcultural formations, in order to describe the ways in which the global and local interact in relation to social, economic, political and historical contexts of music cultures.

Methodological position: critical insider The study employs ethnographic strategies, deriving methodological incentives from the contemporary legacies of the Chicago School of Sociology (Hart, 2010). Namely, it aimed to achieve a ‘mosaic’ of meanings derived through a variety of methods and the exploration of multitude positions towards the field (Blackman, 2010, pp.  195–205; Denzin, 1997, pp.  xi–xiii). The collection of data took place within a holistic paradigm, and included 32 extensive interviews as conversations, alongside ethnographic observations. Participants included

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music artists, music label business figures, copyright specialists, producers, critics and journalists, young music audiences and social protest activists. Data collection concentrated on a process of integration within the field as insight was derived through fieldwork immersion into the Bulgarian post-­punk scene and related artistic content, events, practices and social circles. Empathetic fieldwork relations were enhanced through biographical experience, making connections with established networks and providing access to qualitative data (Blackman, 2007, pp. 699–716). In the field, the research positionality of a critical insider allowed for attaining a ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 2000) and for conceptual ideas to be built from the ground up. The immersive analytical processes, facilitating the extraction of theoretically potent structures and concepts, follow the grounded theory approach of Glaser and Strauss (1967). NVivo coding of empirical data allowed for the emergence of themes and ideas (Silverman, 2011, pp. 67–74). Using quotes and examples, we convey a ‘raw’ sense of the data to legitimize arguments through the ‘voice’ of the field, provoking the reader’s ‘ethnographic imagination’ (Atkinson, 1990).

Music and subcultures in Bulgaria before 1989 Post-­punk scenes in Bulgaria emerged in the 1980s, during the communist regime. The genre developed as part of the subcultural music scenes associated with the holistic-­rock spectrum subjected to censorship, restriction and even criminalization (Statelova, 2011, pp. 35–45). Post-­punk rock’s contents were incongruous in relation to the aesthetics imposed by the state’s cultural politics, as audiences were prevented from accessing ‘Western noises’ (Taylor, 2006, pp. 121–34). Rock music represented youth culture styles, individualism and freedom of expression, contradicting the communist ‘ideals’ of youth union in comradeship. The state designed futures for young people and provided them with the certainty of strictly structured transitions: from compulsory participation in the communist youth organizations to career paths based on performance and behaviour at school (Kovacheva, 2001, pp.  41–60). Popular music cultures were state controlled: to be published and distributed, content had to be approved by specialized commissions. Musician and composer Christian Boyadzhiev, associated with acts like FSB, said in an interview: We didn’t have very active rock music because of political reasons. It is because rock music represents revolt and comes from America, and the UK, overall from the Anglo-­Saxon spheres … For Bulgarian singers, rock and pop, those who were in charge of censorship had found very delicate as well as direct ways to control. Tenors and high male voices were prioritized. The issue was that ‘low’ voices sounded American somehow. ‘This voice sounds too American’; ‘and what’s wrong with it? The guy is singing in Bulgarian’. I know it sounds comic today, but it was in fact a well-­established policy.

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Pre-­1989 Bulgarian-­controlled music production and dissemination were concentrated in the state-­owned music companies Balkantone and National Radio and Television. Artists wishing to reach audiences had to compromise the content of their music to ensure access to audiences. Rock artists were permitted to record and perform music lacking raw energy, heavy ‘riffs’, ‘dark’ melodies or topics, and elements of social critique. Socialist rock, or soc-­rock, hardly constituted an alternative to other styles, such as the politically ‘harmless’ Soviet-­ ized versions of pop. In such circumstances, DIY – both in relation to accessing a wider range of music and the creation of new material – offered the single alternative strategy to the state’s cultural politics. Prohibition and censorship acted as creative impulses (Statelova, 2011, pp. 35–45) as rock genres grew to become the aesthetic and musical core of pre-­ 1989 Bulgarian youth subcultures, including hippie, rocker, punk and post-­punk. Although there were stylistic differences between them, pre-­1989 subcultural scenes associated with ‘Western’ genres were closely related, rather than rivals, thanks to their shared enemy: the state (Barova, 2004). The themes discussed here – Bulgarian post-­punk’s active relationship with protest and the creation of a culture of artistically expressed social critique – preserve the longevity of the scenes’ relevance.

Figure 20.1 The first rock festival in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, 1987; Borisova Gardens, then called Liberation Park. Source: Neli Nedeva-Voeva.

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Post-­p unk into a ‘cold’ wave In the 1980s, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reformist strategies perestroika and glasnost – ‘restructuring’ and ‘opening up’. These steps towards change coincided with a wave of post-­punk influences and new technological opportunities for creating music outside official culture production.

Figure 20.2 Milena Slavova and Vasil Gurov from band Revu in front of the café ‘Kravai’ – a gathering place for youth subcultural groups during the 1980s. Source: Neli Nedeva-Voeva.

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Bulgarian post-­punk emerged and developed ‘organically’, rather than as a carefully designed corporate or state-­dictated product. At that time, technological innovations became more accessible, allowing young people to challenge the state monopoly over recorded music production. This occurred while post-­ punk styles were developing in the West, particularly in the United Kingdom and United States: Bulgarian post-­punk derived inspiration from artists such as Joy Division, The Cure, The Fall, Depeche Mode and Nick Cave. DIY strategies were crucial to the enhancement of artistic identities, alongside the diversification of post-­punk within ‘waves’ of stylistic musical interpretation, and the formation of scenes throughout the country. Boyko Petkov, frontman of the band Klas, said during our interview: We, Klas, decided to make music in the new wave style because it was new, different, cool, and we liked it; but above all it was different from everything that was imposed, that was tendentiously shown and played in Bulgaria to create some illusion about a culture which was entirely artificial … Our first record disseminated all over the place from one initial audio cassette … It was amazing! When we did our first gig, the venue was full, and everyone knew the lyrics: all of this happened without any official media getting involved. In Bulgaria, the emergence of post-­punk subcultures and styles coincided with a degree of democratization of opportunities for accessing audiences. Media remained restricted from playing ‘informal’ music or showing visual styles outside the ‘decent’ norm – those with piercings, a Mohawk or long hair were not to be interviewed or to be shown on television, for instance. Nevertheless, by the late 1980s the first festivals dedicated to alternative music styles were taking place. They were often interrupted by the militia (police). For example, when at a music event in Sofia post-­punk band Kale sang ‘The world is, oh, darling, something I piss on’ (Kale, 1987), the electricity was cut off and the performance promptly stopped. Bulgarian post-­punk enabled the development of subcultural scenes that, instead of imitating Western styles ‘transplanted’ from distant cultural contexts, grew into a locally distinctive phenomenon. It embodied young people’s alienation from the absurdities and limitations of their social realities. Some of the bands emerging during the early years of post-­punk underground scenes in Bulgaria were Kale, Klas, Revu, Tangra, Hopelessness, Entrance B, Absolute Beginners, Votsek and Chugra, and Violet General. Many of these early projects were united by one figure – Dimitar Voev. Poet, composer, bass player and vocalist, Voev became best known for his band Nova Generatsia (New Generation). He described his band’s style as something ‘extreme but simultaneously fine and delicate’, and referred to Bulgarian post-­punk using the phrase ‘cold wave’ (interviews, 1990–92). In the United Kingdom, ‘cold wave’ first featured on the cover of Sounds music magazine on 26 November 1977, in an interview with Ralf Hutter and

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Florian Schneider of German electronic band Kraftwerk. Cold wave focuses on emotional tension, passion and commitment as a roar against boredom and complacency. The proposed ‘coldness’ in combination with two other terms used to describe post-­punk – ‘new’ and ‘dark’ wave – synthesizes key topics under artistic exploration: estrangement and the sense of static desperation. A key element of Bulgarian post-­punk is the sense of a collective, challenging social realities and cultural hierarchies. Bulgarian cold wave, through artistic expression, began to construct new readings for the derelict remains of the passing repressive regime and the heritage it had left behind. Symbolic visual styles associated with the cold wave are a dynamic source of resistance. Soviet monuments, identical grey tower blocs, abandoned playgrounds and factories, street communist propaganda signs with instructions for ‘proper’ citizenship and ‘decent’ behaviour were all at the core of the post-­punk visual style articulated though photography, film and art. These ‘altered’ texts embodied new readings of Bulgarian realities; with a sense of sarcasm, they captured the inadequacy of totalitarianism, and its projections on the urban environment and social life. Neli Nedeva-­Voeva, wife of Nova Generatsia’s Dimitar Voev, played a key role in documenting early post-­ punk scene events and shaping the visual style of Bulgarian ‘cold wave’. Interactions with her as part of our fieldwork were essential to accessing valuable reflections and otherwise non-­public materials. Alongside musical and lyrical content, post-­punk’s visual representations sought to grasp and criticize the aftermath of the collapse of the ‘old’ system: poverty, the degradation of public spaces, the rise of materialistic needs and desires at the cost of devaluating the spiritual and intellectual. Bulgarian post-­punk scenes’ contemporary subcultural value is contained in their artistic continuity and their flexibility in constructing critical alternatives to dominating paradigms. The unifying figure consolidating post-­punk subculture, Dimitar Voev, made a vast artistic contribution. He tragically died from a brain tumor in 1992, when he was only 27, which reinforced his mythologization. His birthdays, anniversaries of his death and key performances have become occasions for regular music festivals, poetry readings and discussions. Despite communicating with the roots of Bulgarian ‘original’ cold wave through the choice of dates and the participation of established post-­punk artists, these events bring together different generations of contemporary Bulgarian underground artists. Inclusivity has acted as an engine of communicating post-­punk heritage alongside the discovery of new content. Contemporary post-­punk events celebrating Voev’s artistic influences feature performances by young artists such as Zhulti Stukla, LaText and Normalno, who are at the beginning of their creative paths and seek to connect to subcultural roots, to identify with them and gain artistic confidence. Post-­punk, through its ‘cult’ figures, relatedness to pre-­1989 subcultures and the longevity of its relevance, stands in opposition to the shallow artistic discontinuities associated with post-­communist transitions.

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Figure 20.3 Dimitar Voev challenging the intended interpretation of the Monument of the Soviet Army in Sofia Source: Neli Nedeva-Voeva.

The original circumstances within which local post-­punk emerged have changed considerably, although these subcultural scenes have been flexible in constructing new alternatives. While, in their early days, post-­punk scenes opposed the artificiality of state-­controlled music production, today they contradict commercial styles promoted by music industries led by a profit-­making imperative. For instance, scenes influenced by post-­punk styles operate in opposition to the most developed music business in Bulgaria, based on a genre referred to as pop-­folk (Statelova, 2005), the content of which largely revolves around commodified ‘hypersexual femininities’ (Griffin et al., 2012) and the celebration of material wealth. Pop-­folk is created and disseminated within infrastructures of big companies, which on a local level resemble entertainment corporations. In contrast, post-­punk underground scenes have retained their independence through DIY strategies, which have adopted up-­to-date technologies and media platforms for communication (Lingel and Naaman, 2011).

A new generation in a new democracy: ‘informals’, subcultures, protest The ‘new generation’ articulated within the ethnographic fieldwork contrasts with the collectiveness suggested by pre-­1989 communist propaganda culture,

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which celebrated a joyful unification. The ‘we’ of the new generation promulgated by post-­punk subcultures was critical, and pursued social change. During the 1980s reforms, Soviet and Eastern Bloc sociologists used the term ‘informals’ to refer to youth formations outside the state-­designed ones, like the Komsomol. Pilkington (1994, pp.  94–131) and Shein (1990, p.  11) see the subcultural development of the informals as linked to wider cultural change, as a movement with radical potential; however, they also highlight that the state identified subcultural groups as requiring ‘taming’. Furthermore, the 1989 changes arrived at the same time as the post-­punk scenes were participating in the construction of a new culture of social critique. Among members of early Bulgarian post-­punk, such as journalist Petar Milanov, the band Nova Generatsia has been referred to as Nova Demokratsia – New Democracy: The society around Nova Generatsia constitutes a silent coup, the revolution of young intellectuals unhappy with totalitarianism. The underground, specifically the new wave underground, do not shout, they do not make too much noise, they don’t highlight themselves, they are not on the TV every evening, and they don’t fill up Hall 1 of the National Palace of Culture when they perform … These young people, despite their early age, were active and conscientious as citizens. When the transitions towards democracy began in Bulgaria in the early 1990s, post-­punk subcultures saw an opportunity to promote a new generational identity whereby music could integrate with wider forms of social and cultural resistance. Nova Generatsia was central to establishing a connection between music and protest in the early 1990s. The sense of a ‘different’ community as a theme in Bulgarian post-­punk artistic expression gives voice to a perspective of the angry and betrayed. Here are examples of Voev’s poetic output, which marked – stylistically and ideologically – the formation of the Bulgarian cold wave: We are forever a new generation, our eyes bleeding in sorrow and pain, we know we shall expect no compensation, and we vomit on the hopes for better days (Voev, 1987, ‘A New Generation Forever’. Translation: A. Draganova) We are a sick product of our times and your obedient labour, Urbanely structured – our empty fates – bodies naked and heads down. In shame. (Voev, 1991, ‘A Patriotic Song’. Translation: A. Draganova) When transitions began in late 1989, Bulgarian citizens started to exercise their renewed freedom to protest. The first music-­festival-as-­protest to be organized in

A howl of the estranged   239

Bulgaria took place in 1991, Save Ruse. Ruse, a town on the shore of the Danube, was one of the largest cities in the country, and was heavily polluted by a factory in Romania, presenting a major threat to the population. The Save Ruse music demonstration initiated by Voev, Nova Generatsia and the band’s fan club in Ruse, became the first mass ecological protest in Bulgaria. The term ‘informals’, which used to refer to formations of subcultural character – like those associated with Bulgarian cold wave – distanced them from radical connotations. The suggested ‘informality’ alludes to social impotence and devaluates subcultures by highlighting their leisure rather than political character (Pilkington, 1994, p.  86). Nevertheless, ‘informals’ proved that they could be highly organized social groups: Save Ruse turned into a large-­scale protest, which brought significant results, attracted international media attention and laid the foundations for ecological activism in Bulgaria. Following the term glasnost, ecology-­related activism became known as ekoglasnost, and was among the key vehicles for democratic transitions in Bulgaria (Baumgartl, 1993). Bulgarian citizens have become increasingly active in articulating positions through peaceful protest; and ecological concerns have acted as a unifying cause. In 2012, an open discussion organized by Nova Generatsia brought together participants in the Save Ruse protests from the 1990s and active organizers of the current ecology-­linked demonstrations. The discussion outlined the relatedness between generations of people who seek to create alternative practices, serving the economic ambitions of few. In recent years, Vasil Gurov, singer and bass player from key acts, including Kale and Revu, has built on the ongoing relations between post-­punk scenes and activism by becoming a spokesperson for political-­ecological campaigns such as Save Koral (2015–present) and Save Pirin (2017–present). Simultaneously, the protest meanings that early cold wave attached to the derelict symbols of communism resulted in the development of a long-­term practice within ‘deviant’ graffiti art, such as the works of collective Destructive Creation (2011), which accompanies protest in contemporary Bulgaria in an urban environment heavily affected by its political and architectural past. The continued relationships of early underground post-­punk scenes with acts and symbols of resistance can be interpreted as a substantial subcultural value. Contemporary Bulgarian post-­punk underground scenes also preserve their subcultural substance as they rely on the commitment of fans and artists rather than commercial ties to external bodies. For instance, in 2012 the newly established ‘Dimitar Voev-­Nova Generatsia’ Foundation initiated a three-­day music and arts festival, New Life Street, which was held for the second time in 2017. These events successfully brought together new and ‘classic’ names and re-­ energized local post-­punk scenes. The events were supported entirely by audiences, rather than by commercial sponsors or advertising. At these festivals and other events, it could be observed that post-­punk scenes had accommodated artistic flexibilities. For example, they appear to have changed their politics towards style, as visual markers of identity are not emphasized. During the

240   A. Draganova and S. Blackman

beginnings of Bulgarian post-­punk in the 1980s, bands and fans were stricter about aiming for provocative styles that were commercially unavailable and had to be pursued through DIY strategies. However, resistance through style is now less powerful – subcultural appearance is tolerated and commodified, and therefore has become irrelevant as a core value. Contemporary post-­punk scenes are not marked by their fixation on appearance, although there is a generic inclination towards holistic rock/punk aesthetics. The post-­punk coherence is preserved through the style of content (Lowndes, 2016). The relationship between poetry and music, the exploration of abstract ideas over materiality, DIY politics of independence, experiment over formulae, the centrality of the bass guitar and the mixed male–female participation in bands are all themes consolidated as platforms for expression.

Conclusion Through the lens of Bulgarian post-­punk subcultural scenes, this chapter has discussed aspects of the relationship between popular music and the social, cultural and historical contexts in which it operates. The explorations of local post-­punk underground music scenes add new perspectives to studies in popular-­ music cultures, and enrich and diversify related conceptual devices. This chapter analytically approached Bulgarian post-­punk underground scenes by studying their ‘roots’, the historicity and genealogy of the cultural meanings they have produced (Guerra, 2014, pp. 111–22). Contemporary projections of Bulgarian post-­punk derive from complex trajectories of evolution: they embody a productive, inclusive, intergenerational dialogue, allowing for innovation but also affirming core practices, ideals and artistic values. Such factors formulate subcultural substance that enables longevity and flexibility in articulating resistance. As post-­punk scenes emerged during the communist regime, the culture-­ controlling state rejected them. Today, post-­punk refuses to conform to newer forms of artificiality and exists outside the dominant order constructed through the profit-­making imperative defining music industries. Importantly, the continuous relevance of Bulgarian post-­punk subcultural scenes is achieved through DIY strategies of ‘organic’ development. They originally led to the formation of a cultural phenomenon that, despite cosmopolitan and connected to globally recognized styles, achieved local distinctiveness (Blackman and Kempson, 2016).

Acknowledgements Special thanks to Neli Nedeva-­Voeva for allowing us to use her excellent photographs from her personal archive. Thanks to Petar Milanov, who helped us gain access in the field.

A howl of the estranged   241

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Index

4ZZZ (Brisbane) 162 Abbey, Eric 191 Absolute Beginners 235 ageing and music cultures 56, 227, 231 altermodernism 91 Alternative Tentacles 209 amateur music production 102–3; and Finnish micro-label autonomy 103–7 anak DIY 125, 126, 127, 129–31, 132 anarchist-punk 122 Ancst 157 Animal Collective 200 anti-hegemonic ideology 1 Apanhador Só 141 Arcade Fire 21 archives 4 ARI Remix magazine 167 Arn, Eric 199 Artaud, Antoine 32 Atxaga, Bernardo 84 authenticity 118 automodernism 91 avant-gardes in track to recognition 59–60 Azerrad, Michael 187 babble parties 226 Baez, Joan 78 Bailey, T.B. 156, 157 Balkantone 233 Bandcamp 4, 151, 152, 155 Bandung, West Java 125–36 Bannister, Matthew 177 bars à ambiance musicale 27–8 Basque Country and Liberty see ETA Basque: affirmation of counterculture 84–5; counter-hegemonic mobilization 82–4, 85, 86; Country 77–86;

ethnogenesis 79; identity redefined 81–2; Martxa eta Borroka campaign 83; music as political medium 79; new community nationalism 79, 82; Radical Rock 80–1, 84; social space 77–8; see also Euskal Kantagintza Berria Batasuna, Henri 82 Battle of the Beanfield 219 Baudrillard, Jean 118 Beat on the Brat 176–7 Becker, Howard 26, 171 Benjamin, Walter 32, 96 Bennett, Andy 42–3, 94 Berlin cassette culture 150–8; Berlin Tape Run 154; Cassette Store Day 153–4, 155; scene infrastructure 153–5; see also cassette culture Berurier Noirs 56 Besley, Jo 167 Bey, Hakim 23–4 Bigcartel 155 Bis Aufs Messer store 155 Bjelke-Petersen, Joh 160–1, 162 Blum, Alan 25 Boa record label 209 body: marked 24; visibility 24 Bondage Records 208 Bourdieu, Pierre 188, 207 Bourriaud, Nicolas 91 Boyadzhiev, Christian 232 Brattleboro Free Folk Festival 195, 200 Brazil: DIY practices 145–7; independent music consumption 139–48 Brill, Dunja 65 Brisbane: music scene 161–2; political and social background 160–1; underground music scene 4, 160–9 British Invasion 189

244   Index Brogan, Gayle 209 Brown, Britt 199, 200, 201 Bucharest: club culture 47; gentrification and reconversion of underground spaces 45–8; gentrification of city centre 47; Old City 46; social resistance movements 42; underground music scene 43–5, 48; urban culture 2, 41–50 Budapest: continuity with indie music 176–7; cool lists 179; lo-fi bedroom music scene 4, 171–80; multitasking 175–6; punk and the mainstream 177–9; scene bands 175; underground history 174–5 Bulgaria: cold wave 234–7; impact of censorship and prohibition 233; informals 237–40; music and subcultures 232–3; post-punk scenes 5–6, 230–40 Burning Heads 56 Cammaerts, Bart 207, 208, 210, 216 Canevacci, Massimo 32 Casa del Popolo 21 cassette culture 4, 112–13; Berlin 150–8; cassette as calling card 154; cassette as physical object 155–6, 157; connections with digital technologies 155–6; continuity or revival? 150–2; defining genres through 156–7; distribution 156; DIY aesthetic 112; resurgence of cassette tapes 150; underground scenes 152; see also Berlin cassette culture Castlemorton Common Free Festival 220 Catalonia 2, 31 Catarse 141 Cave, Nick 235 Chaney, Damien 118 Chaney, David 13 Charalambides 195 Chatterton, Paul 45 Chelasea Light Moving 202 Chelcea, Liviu 48 Chemikal Underground Records 5, 207–8, 210–11 concept of independence 211–12; cultural and social capital 213; expertise 214–15; revenue problems 213–14; sale of music 212–14 Chicago School 48, 231 Cimon, Erik 22 Clasquin-Johnson, Michel 91 Club Bear Cage (Leicester) 223 club cultures 11, 48

Club Rage (Leicester) 223 Coachwhips 192, 193 Coal Hook 200 Cohen, Sara 9, 10 Colectiv Club fire 41–50; Colectiv effect 41, 42, 50; investigation 41 collectivity 196–7 commercial mainstream space 45 Conexão Vivo 140 Connell, John 139 Constellation Records 21 conviviality 25–6, 28–9 Corbett, John 200 Corsano, Chris 195 Count Five, The 189 Crass (band) 113, 131, 209 Crass Records 209 creative autonomy: privileging of 14; in punk 130 creative city 14 creative class 14 creolization 52 critical insider perspective 231–2 cultural capital 54–9 Cultural Front 78 cultural memory 1 Cure, The 235 Curran, Kieran 152, 156 Dadaism 7, 32 Dale, Pete 12 Davidson, Eric 22–3 Day, Richard 129 de Certeau, Michel 102, 146–7 Dead Kennedys, The 209 Decay Films 16 defect scene 177 deindustrialisation 14 Del Ray, Lana 151 Deleuze, Gilles 102–3, 104, 109, 196 Delgados, The 207, 208, 209, 211 Deligny, Fernand 102 Denoon, Louise 167 Depeche Mode 235 Destructive Creation collective 239 Diederichsen, Diedrich 200, 202 digimodernism 91 digital technology: creative 10 Dimitar Voev-Nova Generatsia Foundation: New Life Street festival 239 Ding Dongs 22 DIY aesthetic 1, 4, 7, 115–18

Index   245 DIY cultural practice: in Brazil 145–7 (see also Sofar Sounds); as counterforce to neoliberalism 12–13; definition 12; entrepreneurs 7; evolution 3, 7; as global alternative culture 7, 9–10, 13; handcrafting 115; historical context 7–9; learning by doing socialization 53; lifestyle politics of 9; memory and 5; origins 1; post-industrial global context in 7–15; as prefigurative politics 130–2; record aesthetics 115–18; shared culture 117; transnational connections 12; use of vinyl 115–16; visual elements 117 DIY kids see anak DIY DIY Sound System 219 DK/Decay 164, 165 Doji 219 Donaldson, Glenn 199–200 Double Leopards 200 Dunn, Kevin 12, 210 Düster, Benjamin 153–4 Dwyer, John 192–3 Dylan, Bob 78 East Bay Ray 209 East End Social, The 215 ekita DIY 126, 128, 131, 133; see also DIY aesthetic Elder, Erika 202 Elemental 219 emancipatory praxis 133 Eno, Brian 188 Ensminger, David 163 Entrance B 235 ephemera see music ephemera Esan Ozenki 85 established avant-gardes 57, 59–61 Esty Field Organ Tone Archive 200 ETA 78, 83 Etherington, Paul 152 Euskal Kantagintza Berria (New Basque Music) 78–9, 80, 81, 82 Eyerman, Ron 85 Ez Dok Amairu 78 Fall, The 235 Fân Fest (Roşia Montană) 42 fanzines 163–6, 167–8 Federal Music Industry Association (Germany) 155 Fél Fény 175–6 Felix the Cat 31, 33–5, 38–40 Finland 3, 101–10

Finnish DIY micro-labels 3, 101–10; autonomy 103–7; income from other activities 105–6; professionalization 104, 107–8; as proto-market 109 Flaherty, Paul 195 flâneur 32 Florida, Richard 14 For a do Eizo circuit 139 France: independent punk scene 2–3, 52–62; structure of countercultural space 52 Frankfurt School 191 free folk music (US) 5, 195–204; care and support 198–9, 204; collectivity 196–7; free thinking folk 198; solo projects 199–200, 202 free party counterculture (UK) 5, 219–28 Frere-Jones, Sasha 186 FSB 232 garage rock: contemporary avant-garde 185–94; lo-fi sound 189–94; neo-garage 190; style 191–2 gender in youth cultures 3, 63–71 geographies of place 1 Gerber, Alison 112 Germany 63–71 Gibson, Chris 139 Gilbert, Jeremy 195, 196, 200, 201 Glasgow 5, 207 glasnost 234 Go-Betweens 161, 162, 167 Godspeed Ye Black Emperor 21 Goodbye to Gravity 41, 42 Gorbachev, Mikhail 234 Goth scene 3; clothing and styling 66; gender performance 63, 65–7 Gravity’s Rainbow Tapes 153 Green Hill Builders 200 Gross, John 163 Grouper 200 Guattari, Felix 102–3, 104, 109 Guerilla Poubelle 56 Gunk Punk scene 22–3 Gurov, Vasil 234, 239 Guthrie, Woody 78 Häkkinen, Pertu 108 Hall of Fame 202 hardcore punk 3, 8, 56, 57; dollies 68; gender performance 63, 68–70; Indonesia 125–34; insiders 68; moshing and gender 69–70; politics 70; see also straight edge

246   Index Hardt, Michael 133 Hardy, Larry 186 Harley, Ross 166 Haters, The 112 Haynes, Jo 103 Hebdige, Dick 23, 24, 33 Hein, Fabian 109 Heinich, Nathalie 118 Henderson, Stewart 211, 212, 213, 215 Hentchmen, The 190 Herschmann, Micael 139, 145 Hertzainak 82 Hesmondhalgh, David 25, 208, 210 Hives, The 190–1 Hollands, Robert 45 Holloway, John 133 Home Economics 3, 89–97 Honey record label 200 Hopelessness 235 Horrid Red 199 Hotel2Tango 21 Hungary: creative networks and DIY technologies 171–80 Hutter, Rafe 235–6 immaterial labour 12 in-betweenness 94–5 Inca Ore 200, 204 indie record labels 208–9 Indonesia: hardcore punk scene 4, 125–34 inoperative community 5, 185, 189 inoperative subculture 5, 185–94 Institute of Modern Art (Brisbane) 166; Know Your Product exhibition 166 Iriondo, Lourdes 78 It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity theatre production 168 Jackie-O Motherfucker 200, 204 Jamison, Andrew 85 Jara, Víctor 78 Jello Biafra 209 Jerks, the 187 Johnson, David 185 Joy Division 235 Kale 235, 239 Karneval im Land der Cetacean festival (Graz) 198 Karnik, Olaf 203 Kaye, Lenny 190 Keenan, David 195, 200 Kingsmen, The 189

Kirby, Alan 91 Klas 235 Klett, Joseph 112 Kolektif Balai Kota (BalKot) 125, 126–7; DIY activities 127; repositioning as collective 129; Terror Project 127 Koletif Balai Kota 4 Komsomol 238 Kortatu 84 Koskinen, Jani 106, 108 Kouligas, Bill 113 Kraftwerk 236 Kretova, Sasha 107–8 Laboa, Mikel 78, 82 LaBrecque, Paul 198 Laing, Dave 128 Lambert, Julie Anne 166, 167 Lang, Ádám 176, 178 Larsen, GX Jupitter 112 LaText 236 Lebrun, Barbara 208, 210 Lee, Stephen 207, 209 Lehtisalo, Jussi 105 Leicester 219–28 Lertxundi, Benito 78 Les Mauz de la Rue 56 Lessard, Ron 113 Lete, Xabier 78 Leviathan logic 196 lifestyle 13; urban 25 Lind, Antti 105, 106 Lindsay, Arto 188 line of flight 102–3 Little Jon 219–28 Little Matt 227 Live Aid 9 Liverpool rock culture 9, 10 Living Room Tours 141 Lleida 31, 33 lo-fi bedroom music scene 174; continuities with other music 174; media boundaries 178; see also Budapest Lollapalooza Festival 139 Lubelski, Samara 202–3 Ludwig von 88, 56 Lunch, Lydia 187 Mafessoli, Michel 14 magazines see fanzines Maggots, The 191 Maharajas, The 191 Makers, The 190

Index   247 Marcus, Greil 21, 32 Marsh, Elizabeth 220 Marshall, Lee 103 Martinkauppi, Janne 108 Mauss, Marcel 121 McConnel, Katie 167 McDonald, Raymond 44 McIntosh, Marjorie 161 McMillan, Andrew 163 memory: DIY music scenes and 5 Metabolismus 202 Metail Mountains 202 metamodernism 90–1 metamodernism 95, 96 Metsola, Mirko 105 Mexico 2, 31 Mexico City 31 Michaelson, Scott 185 micro-labels: dance music 210; in Finland see Finnish micro-labels; non-profit ethos 209; in United Kingdom 208 Milanov, Petar 238 Mile End 21–3, 25, 26 Mile End Records 22 militant capital 54–9 Mitchell, Helen 44 Moloney, John 201 Montreal 21–3; resurgence of Boulevard Saint-Laurent 28–9 Montreal New Wave documentary 22 Moore, Ryan 128, 161 Moso, Roberto 81 Mouly, Françoise 165 MTV influence 9 multi-activism 57 Muñoz, José Esteban 132 Museum of Brisbane: Takin’ It to the Streets exhibition 167, 169 Music Cities 29 music distribution: online practices 4–5 music ephemera 4, 160, 163–6; handbills 163; mail art 163–4; photographs 166; posters 163, 166–7; radio shows 163; recordings 163; video footage 163; see also Brisbane, fanzines MV & EE 195 Nagy, Kriszta 174 Nancy, Jean-Luc 5, 185, 189, 193 Nardwuar compilation 209 National Radio and Television (Bulgaria) 233 Nedva-Voeva, Neli 236

Negri, Antonio 133 Negu Gorriak 85 Negus, Keith 114 neo-tribes 48 New Basque Music see Euskal Kantagintza Berria New Bomb Turks 22 New Sound, The 188 New Weird Canada 21 New Zealand 3, 89–97 Neza York 33 No Wave movement 185; aural patricide 186–8; complex minimalism 187; redefinition of taste 188 No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) 200 Noise culture 112–22; live nature 112; see also Noise records Noise records 112–22; advertising at concerts 119; DIY entrepreneurship 113–15; gifts and trading 119–22; handcrafting 115; local commitment 119; not-for-profit model 113, 114; circulation 118–19; record aesthetics 115–18; shared culture 117; use of vinyl 115–16; visual elements 117 Normalno 236 Nouvelle Chanson 78 Nova Generatsia 236, 238, 239 Novak, Raphaël 152, 157 Numbers, The 162 O’Brien, Paul 168 O’Connor, Alan 114, 201, 208 O’Hara, Craig 128, 145 O’Neill, Michael 169 Offer, Rafe 141 Oi! music 33, 56, 60 Orbital Raves 220 Oteiza, Jorge 78 Overkampf 56 Pablo the Rotten (Pablo el Podrido) 31, 35–40 PAN (record label) 113 Parra, Violeta 78 Pascual, Jakue 80, 82, 83, 84 Pequenas Sessões 140 perestroika 234 Pestorius, David 166 Peterson, Richard 42–3 Petkov, Boyko 235 Pewt’r 200 Pharaohs, the 189

248   Index Phase! Records 113 Pilkington, Hilary 238 Pires, Victor de Almeida Nobre 140 Piresian Beach 177, 178 Pits, The 162 Pollock, Emma 211–12, 213 Porrah, Huan 84–5 Portugal: punk 10–14; DIY culture 12 positive autonomy 133 positive punk see punk positif post-punk: in Bulgarian popular music 5–6, 230–40; record labels 208–9; in United Kingdom 230 Primordial Undermind project 199 Producto Instrumental Bruto 140 proto-market 103 punk: anarcho punk 8; beat-hippie-punk 32–3; in Brisbane 163; careers 60–1; dandy-flâneur punk 31–2; DIY ethos 8, 53, 61, 128, 129, 131, 230; emergence of 1; global population 53; Gothic punk 8; histories 31–3; independent punkspace polarities 53–4, 59–60; Indonesia 125–34; key mission 8; micro-labels 114; Portuguese 10–14; position-taking 54–6; positive (see also punk positif) 4; record labels 208–9; rock-pop-punk 32; skinhead-Rastafarian punk 33; as statement of resistance 8; stories 33–8; lives 38–40; US pop-punk 12; see also hardcore punk punk hardcore see hardcore punk punk positif 125–34; dialectics of DIY 132–4; essence of 128 Qeremos 141 QPAC Museum: Razar: Young, Fast and Non-boring exhibition 167 Queensland Art Gallery: Signs of the Times exhibition 166–7 RAB 56 RABHOP 56 Racionero, Luis 32 Radam, Thomas 153–4 radickal Offene 200 Radio Times 162 Rakéta Festival 171–3, 175–6 Rastafarians 33 rave culture 24, 219–28 RAW Magazine 165 Recording Industry Association of America 150

Red Records 186 Rede Brasil 139 Regev, Motti 172 reterritorialization 103 Revu 234, 235, 239 Reynolds, Simon 187, 230 rhizomatic organization 103, 108, 109, 200 RNR666, 177, 178 Roberts, Mike 161 Robertson, Ali 152 Rock in Rio Festival 139 Rogers, Ian 94 Romania 43; underground music scene 43–4; Radio Guerilla 43; post-censorship 47; privatization 46; see also Bucharest Rostock 3, 63–71 Roué, Marie 31 Rough Trade record label 208 Roy, William 42 RRRecords 113 Rumsti Pumsti 156–7 Saelens 204 Sáenz de Viguera, Luis 79 Saints, The 160, 161, 162, 167 Sam the Sham 189 Samuels, Robert 91 Sanskülotts, Mayberian 175, 179 Savage, Paul 210 Save Koral 239 Save Pirin 239 Save Ruse protests 239 scenes 23–4, 25–8, 231: food 26; local 5, 195; sociability 25, 26; support system 26; trans-local 5, 195; urbanizing scene studies 25–8; virtual 5, 195; see also conviviality Schneider, Florian 236 Schneiderman, Ron 200, 201 Scorces 195 Seeger, Pete 78 Semper 162 sensescapes 48 Sex Pistols 160, 162 Shein, A. 238 Shukaitis, Stevphen 131, 132 Simmel, Georg 14 Situationist International 8 Skaters, The 200 Skiffle 8 Skygreen Leopards 199 Slater, Don 14 Slavova, Milena 234

Index   249 Smith, Christopher 167 Sneakers Records 223 social art 52 Socialist rock 233 socialization: learning by doing 53 Sofar Sounds (Songs from a Room) 4, 139, 141–4; dissemination of videos 143; DIY 143–4, 146, 147; headquarters 143; production techniques 148 Sónar São Paulo 140 sound-system culture 220; see also rave culture Soundcloud 155 Speigelman, Art 165 spielraum 96 Spirit of Orr record label 200 Spoulos, Panagiotis 113 Stafford, Andrew 161, 162 Stonehenge Free Festival 219 Strachan, Robert 101, 102, 106–7, 109, 208, 210 straight edge 65 Strollers, The 191 Stukla, Zhulti 236 style: significance 52 Subcarpaţi 44–5 subcultures 23–4, 52, 231; opposition to consumerism 23 Suharto, General 125 Sunburned Hand of the Man 195, 198, 200–1 surplus sociality 133 Surrealism 32 Survivors, The 162 Swell Guys 162 symbolic capital 118 Szabó, Benedek 177, 178 Szemere, Anna 175, 179 Tabs Out podcast 151 Tagada Jones 56 Tangra 235 Tanz, Jo 113 Tanzprocesz 113, 119 Tas, Hakki 42 taste 187–8 technological change: DIY and 4; see also digital technology Teenage Jesus 187 Tereskova 174 That Striped Sunlight Sound blog 167 Thatcher, Margaret 161 Thompson, Stacy 122

Thornton, Sarah 11 Thuja 199 Tiger Beat 191 Tower Recordings 202 Toy Watches 162 Toynbee, Jason 103 Trabant 175 Tumblr 4, 172 Tuşa, Enache 41 Tyfus, Dennis 113 Ultra Eczema 113, 119 underground music scenes 2; audience– artist relationship 48–50; modes of production and distribution 3; urbanization 29 United Cassettes blog 151 Unknown Child 174–5 urban spaces 29: in Bucharest 2; connections with music 2; connections with youth culture 2; sociability 25, 28; see also conviviality, Music Cities Valentine, Matt 195, 198, 201, 202–3 Vama Veche Rock Festival 42 van den Akker, Robin 91, 95 Van Impe 209 Van Zandt, Steven 190 Velvet Underground 174 Verbal Sound System 219–28 Vermeulen, Timotheus 91, 95 vinyl 115–16 Violet General 235 visibility 24 Voev, Dimitar 235–6, 237 Votsek and Chugra 235 Walker, Clinton 161–2, 163 Walkman 155 Wallace, David Foster 90 Warner, Gary 164 Wax Trax! Records 209 Webb, Peter 210 Weber, Max 13 Wellington (NZ) 3, 89–97; DIY ethic 93; musical underground 93–7; musical vitality 92–3; sound 92 White Stripes, The 190 Williams, Johnathan Kyle 161 Williamson, Clare 166–7 Willsteed, John 168x Woggles, The 190 Woodward, Alun 215

250   Index Worley, Matthew 161 Yonnet, Paul 32 Yúdice, George 139 Yupanqui, Atahualpa 78

Zarama 81 Zero 161 Zherbin, Dmitri 107–8 Zip magazine 165–6 Zombie Girlfriend 177