Publication:
HeartttaCk

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

HeartAttack #21
Top Ten:

Sly and the Family Stone-Greatest Hits etc.
The Novels of Willi Heinrich
Gordon Solie Motherfuckers - Chairshot Politics ep
Totalitar - Crust ep
Murder Suicide Pact - Lobotomy Kit ep
Rahakka / Atomic Clock split 7"
Fiction of Joseph Conrad
SOD - Realitat 7"
Al Green - Greatest Hits etc.
Deathreat - Partners in Crime ep

I'm back. Although I was planning to retire from this position due to the onslaught of nudism and emo the DIY issue renewed my faith in this magazine. I thought the DIY issue was the best feature to runi in this publication yet. Lots of interesting opinions, viewpoints and commentary from the front lines. You should realize by now that a sizeable portion of what I write is SARCASM.

Animal Chin never showed up to the boxing match. Extreme Noise declared winners by default. A week after the scheduled bout Animal Chin threw in the towel. Coincidence? I think not. Hardcore conquers ska again.

I am guilty.
Guilty of being white.
Guilty of being a white punk.
I've only served 29 years of my time.

I think one of the biggest failures of the radical movement in America has been to buy into the liberal identity politics agenda rather than focus on class struggle. The real issue in America is class not race. It doesnít take a PhD in political science to see that money is the driving force behind capitalism not white supremacy. In the 1930's and earlier this country had a radical labor movement. This movement came close to challenging the status quo but its main failure was to embrace class struggle without civil rights. Rather than unite with the Black, Asian and Latino workers the unions fought for jobs.

Joel asks "where are the Black punks?" and tries to lay the blame at the under representation of Blacks in punk at the feet of a racist punk scene. Balderdash. I think the main reason that punk isn't more popular with Black kids is that hip hop fulfills most of the same roles as punk within the black community. Young Black kids don't need to go looking for underground music because in the black community they are exposed to underground hip hop from an early age. That said punk rock is not "white" music. Punk rock is the KIDS music. It is one of the most international forms of music ever. Granted punk had its origins in America and England but spread quickly to the four corners of the earth. There are thriving punk scenes in Brazil, Singapore etc. it has been argued that the biggest "scene" in the world is Mexico City. Are these kids buying into a white supremacist scene? NO! They are creating punk rock the most honest, direct and rebellious underground music available. The music for and by the kids.

I'd like to apologize to anyone who ordered from Havoc records mail order in December. Several factors led to us being backed up for over a month. Tanner had mono and I took a much needed but poorly timed three week vacation to the East Coast. Our T-shirt dryer broke down, and of course this time of year the Post Office is incredibly slow and inefficient. This all led to some orders not getting shipped for over two months. We were deluged with big orders from stores and mail order all at once. The store orders went out first and the mail order suffered. Everything was caught up by January 20. I spent nine hundred dollars at the Post Office in one day mailing out hundreds of back logged orders. Now things are back to normal but the whole ordeal brought up some serious issues about the DIY community which I would like to discuss.

I was sad to learn the Profane Existence was closing down its distribution and magazines, but the reasons are all too familiar to me. The high expectations of the punk community coupled with the huge burden of work and financial demands led to overworked, underpaid, stressed-out individuals who were losing sight of why they got involved in such an endeavor to begin with. This is a factor I've experienced in distribution and booking shows. Frequently, we get involved in endeavors as a labor of love. Our desire to provide the best in punk rock at the lowest possible price raises the expectations of the customers. When reality comes due and you realize that you can't continue in your current fashion, the consumers brand you a sell out and a profit monger. I remember being criticized for demanding that everyone pay three bucks to get into shows at the Bomb Shelter. The Bomb Shelter lost money. I supported it out of Havoc Records and my day job in the remodelling business. I paid the bands too much money, because I knew what it was like to be on the road and being paid shit. I spent a lot of money on repairs because disrespectful snots trashed the only all ages DIY place we had for shows. Eventually, I got sick of mopping up puke, dealing with cops and surly crusties and threw in the towel. I had started to book shows because I loved punk music. After several years of booking I had come to hate shows, and still go to very few.

Like it or not, most of the people involved in the punk scene are consumers. You have little role other than to purchase entertainment commodities such as records, live music and fanzines. The vast majority of the real work in the punk scene is done by a very small but dedicated group of people who work their asses off to make things happen. These are the musicians, promoters, zine and record publishers. I have travelled all across America and found that in almost every scene there are really only a handful of people actually making it happen. The rest just observe from the sidelines and, of course, complain when things don't go perfectly. I can think of several towns where the scene collapsed when one or two people left town.

If I tried to explain what I do in the music scene to someone from the business world they would have a hard time understanding. I intentionally set out to do things that will lose money, purely out of dedication. I turn down money-making projects due to ethical or aesthetic objections. Only the fine arts community has a similar pattern. When Profane Existence started, the primary concern was publishing a political punk magazine. Next came putting out records by political punk bands. What then followed was distribution of records by similar bands. Always there was a desire to spread an anarchist or anti-authority message in music and print. This helped to keep alive a vital section of the punk scene as the mainstream of punk became increasingly apolitical and commercialized. Ultimately, Dan had to quit his job as a cook, drop out of school and work on Profane full time. He did this for nearly ten years. I will vouch for the fact that Dan and later Manduke worked harder on that project than I've seen anyone work on anything. They did this for virtually no pay. Throughout its history, Profane Existence was in dire financial straits. Always they owed lots of people money and lots of people owed them. Always they put in super long hours for little or no reward. Finally, after working their asses off for years and years and making no money they decided to quit and get on with their lives. The tensions between trying to run a business in the competetive world market and be a clearinghouse for anti-authoritarian information were in too great a conflict. In their final communique, they head up one section "OVERWHELMED." This is frequently how I feel when I look at my office. There are sometimes two or three hundred letters on my desk. Each of them is important, but I will never be able to answer them all. The punk community has extremely unrealistic expectations of what we are going to do for them. Instead, I think some of these people should start to evaluate what they can do for the scene rather than waiting for someone else to do it for them.

When I started the T-shirt division of Havoc Records, I took over the operations of the Overthrow Collective of Dallas, Texas. That same phrase "OVERWHELMED" would apply to the operations of Overthrow. I inherited hundreds of letters, opened and unopened, many from customers who had sent money and never received anything. The Overthrow folks had started their mail order distro with the best of intentions. They had cool political punk shirts and tapes by political punk bands, available at a low price. Very punk, very DIY. But its all too easy to get behind, and then begin to suffer from a malaise that makes it almost impossible to get caught up. The desire to offer cool stuff at a low DIY price leaves so little margin to compensate people for working on projects and provide for unforeseen expenses. The orders keep coming and coming while the capacity to fill them in a timely fashion diminishes. I was able to revive the Overthrow mail order and expand upon it by integrating it into the Havoc distribution system. (This sounds very big and corporate but all occurred in a corner of my bedroom). These two case studies with which I have personal experience lead me to this examination of DIY mail order distribution.

Who starts a failed mail order distro? Typically someone already involved in selling records or T-Shirts or whatever at shows who wants to reach a bigger market. Records are ordered from distributors and labels, catalogs and ads are printed, etc. Prices are set, frequently not by what the market would realistically dictate but by what the distributor thinks is an appropriate price. Then the orders roll in. The best selling and lowest priced stuff sells out right away. The rest moves slowly. Invoices come due and the distributor winds up paying for lots of stock that isn't selling very well. Orders keep coming and coming. Not enough cash comes in to cover the invoices. Orders get filled but there is no money to mail them. Personal and financial crises develop and things start to get backed up. The ideal of filling orders the same day goes out the window. Orders wait for stock that is out of stock, that there is not enough money to re-order. Eventually the orders start to pile up. A despondency sets in. The fun and glamour is replaced by endless, thankless drudgery. People call you a rip off and a sell out. Finally, the whole enterprise goes up in smoke with piles of unfilled orders, un-paid invoices and general malice and ill will.

At work here are the unrealistic goals and expectations of the would-be distributor. A dreamer who, out of passion, tries to create something bigger than they are capable of managing. Also at work are the expectations of the consumer, that the distributor should make no profit but still offer service competetive with a corporate mail order house. There are several very well run mail order distributions. I order from Vacuum at least once a month and I'm never disappointed. When I visit Bob at Sound Idea I'm always impressed with the speed, efficiency and quality of his mail order operation. These examples are some of the exceptions. All the time I hear about people who sent money for stuff they never got, or only got after months of hassle.

What is there to be learned from all of this? Don't set up a mail order operation until you are absolutely certain of what you are doing. Try working for someone else doing mail order for a year or so and see how you like it. Have a large cash reserve and a secondary source of income until you get established. Know your market and your merchandise. Fill orders in a timely fashion and correct mistakes when they arise. This is stuff I imagine you learn in your first week at business school but is so easily overlooked by the idealist and visionary who jumps into a business endeavor for which they do not have the dedication and patience to see through.<p>

I should hope that the gap left by Profane Existence will be filled by a new generation of anarchist punk zines, labels and distributors. However, I fear that those who have the power to fill that gap will instead sit around and grouse about how no one is doing it for them anymore.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

Previous | All articles in this category | Next