GrrRl & Politically Purchasing Power

alec ramsdell a_ramsdell at hotmail.com
Mon Oct 19 13:27:10 PDT 1998


eric wrote:


>Why can The Nation recognize the political importance of Chomsky,
>Cockburn--to name a couple of well-know non-mainstream
commentators--but
>they can't recognize the cultural importance of such (truly dissenting)
>voices as Stereolab, Fugazi, Bikini Kill, Fifth Column etc.

I don't know . . . Stereolab is featured on a recent Volkswagen commercial.


>A lot of leftists don't know this, but there has been an underground
rock
>movement in this country going on for twenty years, and these people
are
>not "bound up w/
>some sort of disgusting firm that is a union buster/sexist/racist."
Sure,
>some of these people in the independent movement are money-grubbers,
but
>for the most part they are people who work really hard to do good
things,
>and do so for very little recognition and even less money (no matter
how
>you slice it, it's hard to make money when you sell 5000 records)

Just a note or two regarding this.

I worked at Revolver USA for a few months, a punk/indie distributor in SF, and they did work hard, and long hours. They were also conscious of the culture industry--that's how one gets "indie cred" after all. Part of that cred, though, seemed to be very selective recognition. Very little recognition was fine, as long as it was from the right people. Sure, we busted on the Man and everything at work, but it seemed to me it was more about the local scene(s) than politics at large.

There were some cool people and pleasant music. But I'm not sure I'd say much of what I saw and heard was "truly dissenting": after all, it's about selling albums and playing shows (at clubs like "Bottom of the Hill," itself a big ad for Lucky Strike cigs). I'd make an exception with bands like Team Dresch, on the identity politics front. I mentioned the Donnas, and their's nothing radical about them--indie though they are--except maybe their age. But then they're run by a guy, who writes some really creepy lyrics, kind of a laugh, I guess, to hear from teenage grrls. I was working there during the UPS strike, and didn't see much concern for that. David James has an interesting book called _Power Misses_, with interesting stuff on Rock and Roll and the Vietnam war, also the punk scene in LA.

Lots of indie labels are connected in some ways with big labels.

-Alec

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