The Authentic Punk: An Ethnography of DIY Music Ethics, thesis by Alastair Gordon

Alastair Robert Gordon (2005). The Authentic Punk: An Ethnography of DiY Music Ethics. PhD thesis, Loughborough University.

p7. "One of the most long standing dilemmas of punk has been about selling out your band to a major label. Was this the way to go, or should you stay local, unincorporated and free? Was there any value in that when your influence was minimal and you were preaching - or playing - to the converted? Could not the battle be waged from within the music industry? But then - whence the authentic punk?"

p8. "The thesis is about my journey towards a resolution of the puzzle, or at least towards something that may be considered as approximating a resolution of some kind. It seemed that no one else was going to supply it for me, so I decided to embark in a concerted way on a series of investigations that circulate around the quest. This draws directly on punk itself. After my own entrance into the life-world it represents, I soon learnt that punk had but one important ethic - if you don't like something, get off your arse and change it: do it yourself! The thesis is me doing it myself."

p10. "Punk's early intentions were to reduce or abolish the gap that separates band and audience."

p11. "What happens if previous passionately held DiY beliefs are surrendered? Such actions are viewed as well night reasonable in certain circles of DiY punk. Severe consequences follow should a participant sell out."

p14. "The majority of these books suggested that new-romanticism and new-wave were the de rigueur choices of youth subculture for the nation's youth in what they call the post-punk-period. Where were the voices from both myself and my peers whose life experience of punk has occurred during the 1980s and 1990s?"

p18. "The second wave of punks were the kids who like ourselves had missed out on punk the first time around, who were less pretentious and proud to be punk for the youth culture side of it. The climate of the time included football terrace culture and teenage rebellion against outraged parents (Gritton, in Glasper: 2004: 8)"

p39. "From a DiY punk perspective to remain outside of the culture industry is to remain authentic."

p41. "Insider insights are provided into the ethical philosophy of the scene a term I shall deal with shortly. The majority of this work is either derived form interviews performed by the author or from various fanzines of that period."

p49. "Through a gradual integration into DiY philosophy, I discovered that bands could release records, create squats, organise venues, parties and protests if we put our minds to it. Negotiation and permission from record companies, previously understood as the gatekeepers of the industry, were not required. This was an empowering mindset to inhabit, yet I found it fraught with ethical difficulties and dilemmas, especially over remaining (in the eyes of ones peers) an authentic punk."

p63. "Throughout the research I became plagued by the anxiety that I was somehow selling DiY out to academic scrutiny, and that I was substantially better off financially on my research bursary than many of the participants who were mostly in low-paid employment or unemployed. A degree of guilt led to a preoccupation with the question as to why certain DiY practices are adhered to. Here I felt like I was playing at being DiY, not actually doing it. The sole reason I was there was not for the completion of any particular task at hand (though this was exceedingly important) but to study those doing DiY. I occasionally felt like a complete impostor, a fake: in short a sell-out myself with my feet in two worlds and my interests torn in two. I was investigating sell-out bands and their dealings with major record companies whilst aware that this work could possibly end up in the hands of an academic publisher. This would certainly be my aspiration if the work is to gain credibility through peer review."

p68. "What kind of person enters the punk subculture? When asked how they first became involved with punk, a number of the interviewees made claims regarding their authentic status as already being 'critical outsiders'. They had a predisposition towards feeling and expressing disenchantment with their life experiences prior to their first engagement with the wider punk subculture. This sense of prior orientation is a commonplace in punk discourse and had been previously discussed by Fox (1987)14 whose ethnographic study of punk culture in a southern American city in 1983 revealed similar disenchantment and claims to authentic feelings of rebellion:

Punk didn't influence me to the way I am much. I was always this way inside. When I came into punk, it was what I needed all my life. I could finally be myself. (Fox, 1986 in Adler & Adler, 1993: 378)"

p72. "Entering punk subcultural groupings rests on a fulcrum of disenchantment with the established world: a feeling of being at odds with one's peers, wishing 'cool' distance from them, or with society in general: in short a sense of difference. Where loneliness is produced by such feelings (conflict with parents, teachers, authority figures etc. ) it has the immanent potential to propel the individual to seek out and identify other peers who share the subcultural norms and values. But the opposite of loneliness,

peer celebration, may prove the conditioning ground for punk."

p72. "A sense of rebellion against social conformity can be directed outwards, to false standards or forms of sociality, or inwards, to fake punks."

p90. "Authenticity is an implicit feature of the interviewees talk regarding their commitment to a given sub-genre of punk. The majority of the interviewees chose the anarcho punk scene as an authentic, ethical version of punk rock. To be committed to a specific genre of punk and form opinions of what is and is not punk, is at the same time both an index of the actors' commitments to the subculture scene and also a badge of authenticity and separation."

p98. "Trying to show how an overall ethical corpus informs DiY punk rock may easily lead to, or appear to support, the assumption that this is a universal, absolute entity. This is not the case. Understanding any particular manifestation of DiY ethics, in a given milieu or scene, needs to begin with both the similarities and differences it has with other, wider punk subcultural scene groupings. How do they relate to and yet remain distinct from each other?"

p106. "Gray (2001) neatly articulates the early punk spirit of DiY: 'if you're bored, do something about it; if you don't like the way things are done, act to change them, be creative, be positive, anyone can do it' (2001: 153)."

p107. "Once established in the vernacular of punk culture, those who sell out, ignore, transgress or just step over the mark are met with the moral discipline of those deemed (by themselves and/or others) as authentic members of the scene."

p117. "Autonomy, independence and freedom are ethical watchwords of anarcho punk. Attempts to manipulate, control and exploit bands by those outside them are strongly resisted. They are resisted in the name of the DiY ethic that is central to anarcho punk practice."

p117. "Anarcho punk made music central to the dissemination of its moral and political critique. The central aim was to make this as accessible as possible. Such accessibility is itself based on ethical principle. For this reason participants have always tried to make all their products and concerts either free or as cheap as possible."

p118. "The underlying ethical message is that MY anarcho punk is the correct method of resistance. Participation in the mainstream, or in street punk subcultures, signals an inauthentic subcultural member. The 'system' is in league with the 'business' man; they are the peddlers of 'fake resistance'. They dilute the core ethics of the punk scene as they claim them to be (resistance, revolution and political change) through the presentation of punk as a politically inert subculture."

p140. "The overarching, general themes of ethical debate that overshadowed the UK punk and hardcore scenes can be split into three relevant sections. Firstly there is the long-standing issue of selling out. This has proved to be both a salient and resilient theme. When questioned about their views on punk and hardcore that is not DiY, the majority of my interviewees spoke of the major label punk acts such as Green Day and Blink 182. This was cemented by the views offered on Chumbawamba signing to EMI and Universal records. These were not consistently hostile and a number of possible uses and reason for 'selling out' were offered as explanation and reason for recruitment to the punk scene. For example, reaching a wider audience; being able to earn a living from their music; and subverting the music industry from the inside."

p163-164. "The amassing of such experience transposes in to authentic conduct: the subsequent subcultural member has at their disposal knowledge of previous subcultural experiences which permits them to conduct reciprocal authentic subcultural activities and to simultaneously distinguish themselves from inauthentic conduct. Authenticity, or the presentation of oneself as such within the subcultural scene, is therefore central to the subsequent actions and conduct within subcultural groupings if one is to be accepted into them. It is my contention that there is a potential subtext to DiY punk that on the one hand views inauthentic action both with suspicion, scorn, jealousy and fear, whilst on the other hails authentic action with awe, respect and subcultural honour. However, the reverse of the previous statement is also applicable here in that overly authentic subcultural. practice may produce scorn and inauthentic action, praise and sympathy."

p166. " 'Back in the day' was/is a common everyday term used by subcultural members to refer back to a 'golden age' of subculture/scene activity."

p166. "One of the ways in which authenticity in music is defined is by rhetorically marking out a particular genre in contrast to others, which are deemed superficial, pretentious or sham."

p167. "Paradoxically, though, this is a sharp boundary demarcation that runs against the notion of punk culture as inclusive since it requires that 'authentic' music be performatively dissociated from what is construed as 'inauthentic' (pop, progressive rock, or whatever)."

p169. "The authentic original can be used to either authenticate the speaker through their association/first hand experience and longstanding knowledge of it; it can educate and inform an potentially subculturally inexperienced listener; produce envy, admiration and a plethora of  mixed emotional responses/reactions from the listener; and finally serve as a marker of the length of subcultural experience a participant has gained that is not specifically restricted to the boundaries of the subculture"

p175. "Authentic DiY production requires the other wider non DiY scenes of punk rock as a benchmark in order to both construct and identify itself. This is not applicable in all cases, yet the catalyst for action, in this case DiY, has to be activities that are deemed oppressive, part of the system, major music industry, racist, homophobic, sexist etc. Without such, the DiY scene loses the anchor of its identity. Yet the reverse can equally be the case: animosity is aimed at what are often deemed politically correct club members, from those participants of the non-DiY punk scene who have equal claims on their punk reality."

p176. "The hated yet related is an exceptionally poignant issue that drives the practice of DiY punk: the need to remain autonomous and independent from what is deemed un DiY, the need to retain control over the cultural production in order that political and artistic statements can be authentically produced without the appropriation of capital for personal gain."

p181. " 'When we first talked about doing the shop, cause obviously I didn't know what was involved in doing the shop and neither did Z. I was saying right we'll have all the CDs at four quid and no major label stuff and all this. People, when we first opened, and a lot of the kids, were coming in - literally three or four a day - saying, 'got anything by Sublime? Got anything by these' and they were all on major labels. And we didn't stock it. Then after like four, five months or something one kid come in and asked [for a major label record] and he said 'have you got it? ' and I was like 'no we haven't got it. Out of interest mate how much is it? ' and he said 'oh, I'll get it in HMV it's alright I'll get it in there'. And I went 'how much is it in there mate?' and he went 'twenty two pound'. We looked at the list and we knew we could get it cheaper and if we stocked it, cause it is still the same sort of music, it's just that some of those bands are on a major label. And it's like we can do it for five, six, seven, eight pound cheaper than that. And it's like well, so what do we do: we say we're not going to stock it because it's on a major label or, are we gonna stock it and save loads of money. At the same time while they are picking up that there might be something on the stereo in the shop where they go 'what's that? That's really good', 'Oh it's a band from Leeds does the same sort of thing, it's four quid mate if you want it'.

The latter is an example of the dilemma of selling-out or compromising the ethical concerns at the centrepiece of the DiY scene. Issues touching on the commercialisation of punk, profiting from it and competing with other record shops are the concerns at stake here."

p200. "Overall, the dedication of the core members of the scene ultimately means that there is always some audience for most of the bands playing. In DiY culture, I observed that gigs will be supported specifically because they are DiY. In terms of audience numbers for specific bands, I observed this to be both genre-dependent. Many participants will attend events due to their familiarity, not with a specific band but instead with a band's association with a specific musical genre and scene. It is not

uncommon for audience members to have not heard the bands playing. Attendance is largely inspired through an identification both with the genres concerned and with, and adherence to , support of the DiY ethic."

p240. "In selling out, the band in question leaves the fold of DiY punk rock and embraces the world of corporate music subcultures as a career through engagement with a major record label. This involves relinquishing control of certain aspects of their artistic practice"

p240-241. "Whilst Chumbawamba had exited the DiY and independent music scenes' in favour of more lucrative practices, they remained involved at the level of funding practices central to the politics of DiY scenes'. This did not prevent the band from being chastised and criticised for 'selling out' and

turning their backs on the 'authentic' or 'real' scene. As in other cases, such criticisms of exit serve to bolster the credentials of core scene members. This is a rhetorical strategy which I have shown occurs across the general and broad discourse DiY criticism of others is integrally is bound up with claims of self-authenticity.

p258. "Disaffection and disapproval is the weapon of the authentic punk. This creates a number of dilemmas. Chief among these is the drive to remain 'authentic' and not succumb to the temptations to 'sell out'."

p259. "DiY punk is a cry for a return to making music for its own sake, for its intrinsic pleasure and satisfaction, rather than for the sake of profit above and beyond any other value. It is equally about creating a sense of trust and concord between people, rather than reducing the social relations of music to what is allowed or not allowed in the small print of the recording contract."

p260. "But the price of apparent authenticity may simply be anonymity, while so-called selling out may have the benefit of bringing punk values to a much greater number of people."

p266. "Selling out to a major label often means facing a boycott and the withdrawal of support from inside the DiY community."

p268. "Claiming that DiY cultural production is the only authentic form of culture, means that exclusivity is just around the comer: 'only' quickly becomes translated into 'elite'. Creating a set of scene rules (not signing to majors, not working to contracts, keeping prices cheap etc. ) and applying these in an absolute manner in the production of DiY, flies in the face of the original intentions of such core punk rock freedoms as breaking down the rules and challenging boundaries. Anti-elitism can end up, via an awful loop, in the position it so radically opposes. There is an equally absolutist reaction to those who are deemed to have sold-out above and against those still practicing and involved in DiY. This presents a fiercely unforgiving critique by those who cling to stringent DiY ethics. Such an unrelenting, inflexible stance is itself condemned by others in and around the scene. 'Cliquey', 'PC' and 'elitist' were some of the denunciations expressed in interview towards this stance in the DiY community."

p269. "However, the open-ended status of the DiY ethic maintains that if there is a perceived problem with being DiY, then being negative towards it will achieve nothing. The preference instead is get involved, think positive and do something about it. With DiY there is always the opportunity for anybody to get involved in activities and to change the existing state of affairs from within."

p270. "DiY purists have been accused of being inward-looking, preaching to the converted and being subculturally elitist with little chance of ever reaching to the broader body of people whose support would make DiY a significant political tool of empowerment. -The purists in turn accuse those who defect of intellectual slack-mindedness, political populism and ethical bankruptcy."