¡Viva la revolución social! !Viva la anarquía!
OTAN
home taping for victory
...over time, the once staunchly defended, proudly barren "going-for-broke" fields of punk have become an ever more furtile ground for those keen to replicate the tricks of the capitalist music industry to either reap semi-fame or fortune. Purposely limited pressings, happily pushing prices up & availability down, doom punk to the land of the elite record collectors. Labels & bands used to actively encourage copying of their releases, keen for the message and music to spread as widely as possible, now many are ever more ready to stoop to actively blocking it evoking "copyright violations" or "business concerns".
I do a label, organize gigs, play in bands. I live in the real world. I very much understand the costs involved. Yet where some would like us to swallow that as an excuse to adopt the new mantra of "consume or die", it's the punk one of "DIY or die" that now applies more than ever. To survive, this needs to remain a scene of "cooperation not competition", where community not profit remains the main driver, undermining and undercutting any attempt by anyone to turn it into anything else. Download at will, share your music and anger worldwide, then support the true punks and their labels by ordering the records or if short of cash helping them spread the word. This is the home-taping of the new millenium...it's still killing the music industry and it's still supporting the true subterranean sounds of sedition..and it's still about fucking time.
"...a lot of this new "raw noise punk" - as much as we like it - is often more style than substance, more music than ideas/politics. This is for all those who keep punk the no-talent required sound of protest & resistance worldwide. A DIY network of friends, not just another commodity of business model" -
System Defector