on 3/19/03 11:04 AM, Kurt Gottschalk at ecstasymule@hotmail.com wrote:
You're right that glossiness is not an automatic mainstreaming factor. But I would say it decreases the point-of-purchase impression of a breakaway culture that punk rock actually achieved in nearly every facet of itself.
in my heart i agree, and i cut my milkteeth on joe strummer's guitar, but sad as it might make us, skip, punk isn't the stuff of the now. trading casettes with xeroxed covers was then. now people can compose, perform, record and manufacture a record by themselves on a $1,000 laptop. anyone who wants to can put up as glam a website as they can muster for practically nothing. the diy ethic still exists, only the aesthetic has changed. whether or not it's for the better is a matter of taste (and perhaps of age).
The more I think about what you're saying (and agreeing), the more I realize that earlier endition of the DIY ethic just doesn't have a place in this age. The consumership is lives in and is used to digital quality across the boards, so even the underground represents itself that way. Getting spiffy is now cheap and easy. It requires a hell of a lot less effort than previously. Also, when you see the CD covers for the punk bands of the last twelve years or so, they look more professional than, say, Crass looked. Even Jello Biafra's album covers -- and he was en emclem for the text-heavy xerox days of yore -- are way more professionally rendered now. As to whether it's better, my age, and all that, HOW DARE YOU REMIND ME THAT I AM CLOSER TO 40 THAN 20! skip h np: Willis Jackson -- BLUE GATOR