WHAT IS IT?

            It is a movement, with its own distinctive language, literature, and customs, yet no one knows what to call it. How do you put a label on a means of production?

            Not all of the people mentioned in this book would identify as "punks," nor do all of them listen to the same sort of music. Some are publishers. Others are protesters or radical cheerleaders. And some are painters and puppeteers. Outside commentators sometimes refer to DIY as "activist culture" (though the political activists are a distinct minority). Others dismiss it as a "youth subculture," an awkward term for a movement that spans three generations (some of these "youth" are now in their sixties).

            It is for this reason that I am somewhat hesitant to describe this as a "history of punk." DIY is bigger than the confines of that particular music scene. The key players weren't necessarily musicians, and they were never household names, but their influence extends far beyond the punky rallying cry at baseball games.

When Mike Gunderloy began publishing Factsheet Five, he created an important tool for networking and communication. Factsheet Five was the magazine that launched 10,000 zines, and those 10,000 zines are what paved the way for Riot Grrrl, and--ulitmately--the Battle of Seattle. As the godfather of the underground press, Mike Gunderloy has arguably had a greater impact on alternative culture than the Ramones.(44) Does it matter whether Gunderloy actually listens to punk rock? He's still an important figure in the history of DIY.

            DIY is the story of ordinary people seizing control over the means of production. "Destroy your idols" was more than just a catch phrase, it was the underlying philosophy. When historians privilege the stories of rock stars over those of the actual movers-and-shakers, they are entirely missing the point.

Mark Anderson:

DIY is not the exclusive property of Punk Rock Inc. It's out there in the ether, the spirit that floats among communities. And it has certainly manifested within the punk community... It was there before punk, and it will be there after punk has faded away. But at this specific moment in time, it's a tremendous gift that punks have to give to progressive politics -if we're also willing to learn.

 

            The distinction between "Punk Rock Inc." and the Do It Yourself ethic is further complicated by the fact that no one can agree on a single definition of punk. It's a debate that's been raging for the past 30 years, often in the pages of earnest punk rock fanzines. What is punk? Is it three-chord songs played at blistering speeds? Or experimental noise music? Can anarchist disco be "punk"? What about electrified Irish folk music? Is it a fashion trend? An economic stance? Is punk rock an attitude or an ideology? Is it Left Wing? Right Wing? Or apolitical? -one can certainly find examples of all three political tendencies. From the swastikas worn by the Sex Pistols, to the juxtaposition of anti-war rhetoric and songs extolling the virtues of rape and murder, one of the hallmarks of punk has always been its ability to incorporate seemingly contradictory symbols and ideas.

The Left, in the guise of middle class liberals, wanted us to support the workers, whereas the workers, mostly in the guise of skinheads, wanted us to support the Right. Whilst happy enough that both camps seemed to like what we were doing, we decided to disassociate ourselves from either by including an anarchist banner in our stage performances.(45)

- Penny Rimbaud, Crass

Stephen Duncombe is an Associate Professor at New York University (NYU) and the author of Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture.

Stephen Duncombe:

I consider myself a Marxist, but most of my political colleagues would not. They would consider themselves anarchists, and they would think that Marxism is somewhat quaint. "Didn't we try that already? It failed -what's next?" And anarchism is relatively pure that way.

 

Mark Anderson:

If I were to try to boil-it-down to a few words, I would say that punk is about trying to be true to yourself, and seeking the truth, which necessarily means challenging yourself and the society that you live in. However, having said that, the reality is that punk can be just another way for us to feel better than other people -or to set ourselves apart from other people.

         In the 1980's, people often spoke of the "alternative" scene, but that word has fallen into disfavor. In the early 1990's, the idea of "Alternative Culture" was seized-upon by Madison Avenue. Advertisers were among the first to grasp the importance of the rebel posture, appealing to the vanity of young Americans -and anyone else who wished to set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd. "I knew we came out of the alternative world," wrote Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, "but I believe the moniker of 'alt-rock' was a trap set early on to control the impact of the new breed of rock 'n' roll."(46)

           Soon, ironic t-shirts, "Casual Fridays," and "OK Soda" were being marketed to an increasingly cynical "Generation X" (a name that author Douglas Coupland stole from Billy Idol and Tony James). With bands like Pearl Jam at the top of the charts, commercial radio sold itself on the promise of racial purity masquerading as "cutting edge" music ("All rock, with no rap! 93.7 FM -the only alternative!"). Long before the Recording Academy had bestowed the first Grammy Award for "Best Alternative Music Album," the appellation had ceased to be meaningful in any real sense of the word ("Alternative to what?!").

Guy Picciotto is a member of Fugazi, a D.C. punk band formed in 1987.

Guy Picciotto:

For a really long time, particularly in the early eighties, there had been a --I hate to say 'work ethic'-- but just such a strong independent ethic. Where people who worked at really strong independent labels created almost an entirely separate economy. Not just a money economy, but an idea economy that was completely separate from whatever the overground was. It was really powerful. And it was huge.

That whole thing that happened in the nineties did a lot to kind of disrupt its focus. I think that a lot of people who didn't experience that [strong independent ethic] were much more willing to pass on having to participate, or put in that kind of effort. Because it seemed more 'legitimate' in some way to work in the traditional corporate mode.

You just noticed how the conversations had changed. For a long time the conversations were about ideas, or the music itself, or about attitudes, or politics. And suddenly the conversations were all about contracts and careers.

It kind of shrank everything a little bit. It disrupted a lot of the networks that had been set up for a long period of time. It scrambled stuff.

 

READING FRENZY

            One could certainly make a case for the fact that punk was more important as a literary movement than as a style of popular music. From the very beginning, punks have been heavily involved in publishing. Sub Pop Records, Slash Records, Lookout Records, and RE/Search Publications all started out as fanzines, while John Holstrom's Punk--the magazine--essentially predates the music scene that came to bear its name.(47) Even rock stars were getting in on the act: Henry Rollins founded his own independent publishing company (2.13.61), as did members of the bands Crass (Exitstencil Press) and Girls Against Boys (Akashic Books).

            By the early 1990's, there were an estimated 10,000 zines (amateur publications, often photocopied, produced as a labor of love, with no regard for profit), covering everything from true crime (Murder Can Be Fun), to politics (De-Militarized Zine), to exploitation films (The Grindhouse Journal) and the workplace (Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man). No longer simply "fan magazines," zines were branching-out and linking-up with one another, becoming a culture within their own right. Soon, zines in smaller cities such as Minot, North Dakota were exchanging words and ideas with people in Stockholm, Sweden and Melbourne, Australia.(48) And they did it through the postal system. The World Wide Web did not exist yet. 

            One of the defining characteristics of the zine scene of the 80's and 90's was that zines stubbornly refused to be categorized. It was not unusual to find zines devoted to multiple topics -such as Mazel-Tov Cocktail (a zine exploring the relationship between Judaism and punk), or The Gormandizer (a music zine devoted entirely to food).

Stephen Duncombe:

A zine is a publication which expresses whatever the individual publishing it is interested in. And that's why it crosses these boundaries -in really exciting ways. Because people aren't univocal; they're not interested in just one thing.

Think about a conversation that you would have with a friend at a bar or a café. Over the course of the discussion, you'll go over a range of topics, and you'll find out that they're fascinated by opera, punk rock, and, say, Doberman Pinschers.

            There may well be a zine that's devoted to all three things: punk rock, opera, and raising Dobermans. But the mainstream media doesn't work this way.

Stephen Duncombe:

The commercial media is structured in such a way that you would have to appeal to a niche market, like a Doberman Pinscher magazine. Or else you have something like Time Magazine -which provides bland coverage of everything, and every once in a while, Doberman Pinschers.

      Krist Novoselic, the former Nirvana bass player-turned-political lobbyist agrees:

Fanzines were the blogs of the early 80's. Anything went with the zines; they not only covered music, there was a heavy dose of politics as well... They were truly independent and decentralized, in sharp contrast to the mainstream media I was used to.(49)

          It's this political awareness that separates Monorail zine from industry trade journals or special interest magazines aimed at railroading enthusiasts.

Stephen Duncombe:

What's great about zines is they really were the personal expression of the individual, very much like blogs are today... So there's slippage between categories and slippage between the personal and the public, in a very exciting way.

             One needs look no further than the pages of Factsheet Five ("The Definitive Guide to the Zine Revolution,") for evidence of this multi-subcultural identity. Factsheet Five #62 (Nov. 1997) contains reviews of no less than 1,630 small press publications(50) -55 of which are specifically identified as "Punk." But the numbers can be deceiving: the most popular punk zines--including Cometbus and Rollerderby--are not listed under "Punk."(51) They appear in other categories. In addition to the 55 titles that have been singled-out for their (obsessive) coverage of "punk music and related topics, with a focus on the music scene,"(52) Factsheet Five #62 contains reviews of 138 "Music Zines," 40 "Grrrl Zines" (a feminist subgenre), 63 "Political Zines," 101 publications devoted to "Arts and Letters," 30 "Queer" zines, 116 "Comix," 212 general interest zines containing "a little bit of everything" (the so-called "Medley" category), and 318 zines that the publisher has identified as "Quirky."            

            In all, nearly half the zines reviewed in Factsheet Five #62 are either directly related to punk, or are derivatives of punk. In a 2000 interview published in Maximumrocknroll (MRR), Dan Siskind told MRR reporter Adrian Droogas: "If those magazines weren't there, there wouldn't be a punk community."(53)

Stephen Duncombe:

Zines are not people criticizing the media. They're not people boycotting the media... These are people that said: "We don't like it. [The media] isn't covering our culture. It's not using a voice that we think is authentic. So I'm going to actually do it myself."

            This is the essence of DIY. While liberal pressure groups bemoan the corporate bias of The New York Times, zines attempt to rectify the situation--not by lobbying their Congressperson, or soliciting donations--but by actually publishing, "all the news those shits won't print."(54)

Stephen Duncombe:

To produce a zine now is really a nostalgic act... In the Eighties and Nineties, desktop publishing really was cutting edge technology. Xerox was cutting edge technology. The Internet was just in its infancy. So in some ways, zines are not what they were. They're more subcultural now, and they don't have the tension that you had in the Eighties and Nineties of being a medium of necessity, rather than a medium of nostalgia.

On the other hand, I don't think that blogs are zines. Because the thing about zines was that it was underground. You had to find out about it. And I remember, when I first discovered zines, it was like another world had opened up for me. When I was interviewing people about zines, they would use metaphors like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. And because of that, it had a whole other culture surrounding it, a system of signs and morays, which made sense... it had a sort of cultural coherence.

 

Mimi Nguyen:

I don't think that zines are 'radical' in and of themselves at all; self-publishing has been around for ages, and we have bookstores full of terrible chapbooks printed on vanity presses. And I don't think there's anything inherently 'subversive' about DIY (Martha Stewart being a good example, whose notion of DIY domesticity is only available to wealthier women with the time, money, and energy to 'perfect' those wreath-making skills).

I think that zines, like any other media outlet, have the potential to question assumptions, to provide information, and to deconstruct hegemony -Riot Grrrl being the most effective example in recent years... So I think it depends on what you bring to the project that gives it its subversive character -or not.

 

Stephen Duncombe:

The individualism of zines is problematic, but I think that one always has to remember that that individualism was tempered by this massive system of networking... So, yeah, DIY can be bourgeois, but I'd like to look at it a little more dialectically. It also has the capability to be quite radical.  Because I don't think capitalism is really about 'Doing It Yourself' at this point.

If capitalism is about everybody "doing it for yourself," then I'm all for capitalism. The problem is that, in actual practice, capitalism is really about "I get bigger, and I prevent you from doing it."

There's sort of an ethic in [DIY], which is not inherently radical. But I would sort of switch the question around, and say: "Well actually, there's something at the base of capitalism which is inherently radical." But the problem with capitalism is that its own contradictions kill it off. So, I'd rather not condemn DIY because DIY becomes entrepreneurialism. I don't think zines were necessarily about entrepreneurialism. It moved in that direction because it's within a capitalist world.

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