- “DIY” punk, for many people, has become less about fighting the corporate rock structure and more about consuming art and goods like shirts and records for as cheap as possible. I get it – I’m broke too. But let’s consider what it takes to make a “DIY” record in 2014, for an averagely popular, decidedly not Converge-level act: in order to get it sounding the best way possible for the least amount of money, you dump $500 into recording, unless you have an incredible hook-up. You have to pay to get it mastered, specifically for vinyl, which we’ll call $300 – again, this is on the low-end scale. The next step is actually getting the thing pressed – you might be lucky enough to get someone to put it out – if you don’t, often it just doesn’t come out on that format, and you have to ride with a cassette/CD and a digital release. Regardless, let’s say you find a label to put it out – to press 500 LPs, with everything included, costs at the very least, $2000.
Exactly, sure it's cool to respect the grind that comes from the band touring bars for free or little pay, it's cool to respect the DIY ethic of burning your own CDs and drawing your own art, hell it's even cool to respect the use of social networking. But goddamn at the end of the day, no matter what the roots of the genre, it's a business. I used to be as Punk as you can get, Agnostic Front t-shirts, hell I even cut Milo into a t-shirt of mine once. I own The Replacements' Shit Hits The Fans on cassette. But nonetheless, if these bands aren't making enough money to live off of, they aren't going to be around. And if the fans respect the hustle and respect the music, they should be willing to pay what they can, even if it isn't much.
Cutting Milo into a shirt...that is wonderful. It's entirely one of the problems with the punk and DIY scene. m_w has a point, but it's not even bands or places looking to buy houses or boats or whatever else you can think of. It's people wanting to consume as much for as little as possible (and yes, I'm guilty of this too). I have a record label with my roommates and it's frustrating when people say things like "that release is really good!" or just generally doing everything but buying the release. It's easy to get people excited over music, hard to get them to buy it and actually support us and the bands. Other example, a few venues have closed in my area over the past couple of years and it's incredibly frustrating to hear people complain about a lack of venues or saying they're bummed that they never got to go there. You want the venues to stay open? Go to them and see shows there!
Punk isn't dying, it's just broke and homeless like it was always meant to be. Buying houses off tour wages was an anomaly just like normal Americans buying houses was an anomaly. Excuse me while I go stand behind a counter for six hours and hide a book from the camera over my shoulder.