Looking back at that era in my life I find myself shocked at something that I never hear talked about when others reminisce on the movement of early to mid eighty's punk. That is the entrepreneurial spirit of what was basically kids who played the music, ran the labels, booked the shows, made the fanzines, created the art, and supported the bands in countless other ways.
Put aside the fact that you practically HAD to write an anti-Regan song to be considered "punk." Or the fact that many of the bands politics at the time are what one would expect of any young kid - Liberal. But what's really interesting to me is such clear examples of rugged individualism and the free market at it's very best.
I don't want to get into the history of punk music so I'll stick with the first bands I became aware of at the time. One of the first bands I ever heard was Black Flag and the first album that I heard was from them was "My War." To this day it's one of my favorite records.
It was released on SST records. SST was a label formed by Greg Ginn, Black Flag's guitarist and founding member of the band, to release music from his band. His brother Raymond Pettibon did the amazing artwork for all of Black Flag's releases.Black Flag toured relentlessly. They basically hit every nook and cranny of the US and elsewhere playing abandoned buildings, churches, basements, and party's, leaving their mark town after tiny town.
Wherever they played a dozen bands sprung up following in their footsteps creating quite a scene in unexpected towns across the US. Different bands with different sounds creating an amazingly diverse sound, putting out their own music on their own labels.
They inspired me and others like me to start fanzines, writing about these bands and attending their shows. More often than not these shows would be held at all ages venues. Allowing people who weren't old enough to get into the clubs to attend their shows and probably doubling the audience in the process.
This was able to happen because where there was no market for this music, innovative youth were there to create it.
The bands themselves may loath the idea of marketing their brand to a certain demographic to increase revenue and make a living playing music, but that's what they did. They created a brand, a sound, and a look and took it to the consumers who were happy to part with their cash to buy into being a "punk."
In fact one of the more self righteous guys to come out of this scene, Ian McKaye, ran Dischord records not unlike major retail chains try to do today - reduced prices equals more sales which brings more revenue.
Dischord put out records from D.C. area bands and kept the price of their albums as low as possible. Sure, one could argue that it's a principled thing. And I'm sure it was. But in a free exchange of commerce for goods, it's always in the long term best interest to offer bargains. Dischord had a flat price for all of their records. So when I would walk into a record store with $10 in my hand, I would be able to get two records from Dischord for the same price that would cost me to buy just one on another label. It worked. Needless to say I pretty much had Dischords entire roster. It's easy to take for granted these days or to even forget if you were there, due to the sheer amount of choice that we have now. But quite frankly because of these little labels like SST, Frontier, Alternative Tentacles, Twin/Tone, Dischord, and Plan 9 we have some of the most interesting, experimental, diverse, and influential music that has ever been recorded.
Bands like: Black Flag, Husker Du, The Replacements, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Butthole surfers, St. Vitus, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Minor Threat, Soul Asylum, Bad Brains, etc... have inspired untold amounts of other artists.
Where at one time the idea was to form a band and wait around for a label to sign you and make you famous, These people decided to wait for no one and forge the path themselves and on their own terms.
That is the very definition of rugged individualism and the basic principles on which our country was founded.
I don't believe this could have happened in any other country.
