Punk and the Economic Slowdown, by Neal G

Screw the supply and demand charts� in the following article, Neal from Fastmusic gives you a quick economics lesson in the context of new school punk rock. After all, no one knows more about the effects of the recent economic downturn on the punk scene than Neal, who's Fastmusic network had to cope with some pretty hard times. G'head and tell him what you think of his piece at [email protected].

In 1995, while labels like Lookout and Epitaph were blowing up with the enormous successes of bands like Green Day and The Offspring, every unsigned band was scrambling to become national acts. Most of these bands started in the early '90s playing punk, right around the time when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and other Grunge bands became MTV mainstays. Before mega-selling releases by Green Day and The Offspring re-introduced punk to the masses, most bands on the East Coast scene were self-described as a "groove bands" or "a funk-jazz-blues type thing." These were the bands that packed NYC clubs, playing Pearl Jam cover songs, or if they actually had it in them, some original material.

In the midst of the Grunge phenomenon, and before punk became acceptable mainstream music, aggressive punk bands, including radio style pop-punk, were denied gigs in favor of lowest common denominator cover bands. In fact, one of the only places in NYC where punk bands could play was ABC NO RIO, a DIY club located in a shitty lower-east side neighborhood. Shows took place on Saturday afternoons, where punks would congregate to see what was left of the rotting scene.

Then came the summer of 1994, and before you knew it the same style of music that was ostracized only a few years earlier was now being played all over the radio. Nirvana was dead, and while Soundgarden officially carried the Grunge torch (will they ever stop?), punk broke once again. California's pop and street punk's success lead to an overnight interest in independent bands around the country. Before anyone knew what was happening, small clubs in NYC were suddenly overbooked with punk bands. Even the "groove" bands started playing punk. It was enough for anyone playing punk, before everything hit, to either get sick or greedy.

With dollar signs in their eyes, countless bands headed west towards Gilman Street to make it big; I mean, "just play music." Everyone and their brothers were starting new labels, and bands that had been struggling for years suddently came out of the woodwork wearing punk rock grins. Yeah, those were the good old days; days when the bands that had been playing punk since the the early 90's were easily getting signed. A few of them suddenly appeared on the radio and MTV with their one good song. Meanwhile, punk bands from the 70's and 80's like Bad Religion, NOFX, and Social D. had a major jump in sales, which eventually lead to spin-off labels like Fat Wreck-Chords, who signed some great bands that only a few years earlier were playing basement shows.

Punk was officially thriving. Record sales were soaring for any band remotely connected with Rancid or other large punk acts. The only problem was that new bands (which are now referred to as new-school punk) had no decent channel for promotion. Then came the Internet, and soon afterwards MP3 downloads, and a new type of punk scene started. New and inexpensive technology enabled these bands to record and put their material online for exposure. In the late 90's countless bands, including the likes of Blink 182 and Millencolin, gained immense promotion from the Internet. Between free mp3s files traded and available for download, and dot-com music content sites popping up all over the place, some of these bands can attribute much of their success to Internet promotion. Successful punk labels started using the Internet as a promotion vehicle for new acts and countless Dot-Coms (many of which are now out of business) were launching information sites for up-and-coming bands. Music and MP3/Napster type-sites allowed Farmer Joe, who lives somewhere in West Nebraska, to hear some new music.

Then came the year 2000, and much to everyone's disappointment, the world didn't end, but the great Internet frenzy did. Over the course of the year, the same investors, who six months earlier were ready to write blank checks to any company with a ".com" on the end of it, clammed up as the NASDAQ tech market crashed down. Admittedly, there was an overabundance of bullshit dot coms that blew millions on sites dedicated to toilet paper. So, all the dot com's went down together. Fortunately for punk though, most of the sites remained active, especially fan sites that were never trying to get rich in the first place. Nevertheless, there was still a huge decline in online promotion, as sites like SonicNet, Listen.com and Launch seriously cut back their staff and coverage of smaller bands. Even Farmclub, who was heavily involved in promoting new bands by giving them a chance to appear on their syndicated television show, also ended with the decline of the Internet. (Farmclub now points to the Getmusic.com store, where the smallest featured punk acts are Weezer, Bad Religion, Sum 41 and Fenix TX) Nobody's going to take a chance on something new these days. Like in all other aspects of this crappy economy, the general mentality is to "stick with what worked."

So, it looks like things have come full-circle, at least in regard to new music. The big sites that once helped promote up-and-coming artists have gone under, or have been bought by the big boys. And you can guarantee that smaller bands getting promotion by large SonicNet type-sites is a thing of the past. You might be thinking: "Good! Those bastards never had any business sticking their nose into the punk scene," and perhaps there's some validity to that argument. However, if you're in a band and get a chance to get promoted to millions through a popular music content site, or even a TV appearance, you'd do it in a heartbeat. If you say you wouldn't, then I say you're lying. I doubt there are any bands out there that are not secretly wishing they were rock stars.

But, while there aren't millions of dollars being put into content-driven online music ventures, there are still tons of people out there running new and existing print and online general punk and fan zines. If it weren't for sites like poppunk.com or punkhardcore.com, not to mention the independent and online stores like Interpunk or RevHQ, new punk bands would have it much harder. Of course, there's still MP3.com, but try finding some new talent by browsing that site. I won't go too deep into what happened with the Fastmusic store, but let's just say that when our minority investors saw other music online stores going under, they took a big shit on us in addition to backing out of our deal.

So, what's going to happen to punk during this recession, I mean "economic slowdown"? It's back to the days of underground punk. Of course there will always be the odd exception of a Major label taking on a new punk band, and the radio will still play a handful of punk rock icons. Some sites like punkmusic, are giving up the notion of having an exclusive "network" of sites, and instead prefer to have a site that freely links to other punk sites and online zines. The bottom line is that none of the punk sites, zines, or labels out there are competing with each other. The difference this time around is that the Internet still does exist, and new punk bands still have the opportunity for decent promotion - if we all work together.