They called it Hardcore when I first entered the punk scene in 1984, but it didn't matter because to a redneck you were always a "blue haired faggot." I was 15 then. The punk scene was not a beautiful place at that time, but it was honest; and in a world candy-coated by corporate smoke screens, where a president talked of family values while his foot soldiers smuggled drugs into the country, honesty counted for something. I fell in love with that honesty. And I found real people, proud people who stood up against the walls and barricades of ignorance to find the truth; and Isaw proud people, good people beaten by nazi skinheads, rednecks, police officers, only to rise again, to be themselves again. To them, punk became not just some sort of prefabricated fashion or way to act tough, it became a source of strength, a culture, a tribe against a society seemingly hellbent on stripping us of any chance to stop and wonder about who we really are. And, like the individuals who understood that punk had become something more than just rebellious music, the scene would take its beatings from the money grubbing promoters, the stardom hungry bands, the insecure pit tyrants, only to rise again. There had developed a reciprocal relationship between the scene and its members, and to those who gave a fuck about the scene fell the burden of keeping it alive, because to them it meant something more—their sanity, their personality, the survival of their character was interdependent upon the survival of the scene.

In the last four years, a new threat has risen, the corporate interest in the punk/underground movement. Suddenly people and bands who grew up in the 80s punk scene are dealing with the same corporate entities that they once criticized. Am I missing something here? What has happened? Why are these people forgetting? What has changed in the world to justify this? Last year I became very angry when I heard that Green Day signed to Warner Brothers. I became angry enough to stage a demonstration in front of one of their shows in Petaluma, Calif. After this, I sent a letter to MRR and was promptly contacted by Tim Yohannan who asked if I wanted to write an article. Although somewhat late in coming, what you have before you is that article. Before you begin reading, let me tell you a few things: I was allowed to be as subjective as I wanted to, which means that although I will try to keep an open mind, I have a definite slant; in this case a strong anti-corporate slant. I'm sorry, I have just read and studied too much about corporations to smile while they rape the world. I hope that by reading this you will understand at least why one punk feels so strongly about this issue, because to me it's about survival: the scene has become my culture, and I don't like what I'm seeing. If for any reason you find what I have to say particularly upsetting, there is an address provided at the end of the article where I can be reached.

On April 29, 1985, the streets of downtown San Francisco were alive with a wide variety of people all intent on "Stopping the City" to protest a nation arming itself for a potential nuclear war. There must have been over a thousand of us, a great many were punkers; it was perhaps the wildest demo I've ever been on. The police followed us, but we ditched them in the maze-like streets of the city; punks spray painted buses, kicked over newspaper racks and ran wild in the streets, all in an attempt to wake people from their complacent acceptance of what was happening. Earlier in the day, we conducted a "War Chest Tour" of those corporations involved in the nuclear proliferation trade. In retrospect, it is the Subhumans song Rats, about the similar protests in England, which always reminds me of that 1985 SF demo and how the media responded to us.

EMI was not on the War Chest Tour's list that day but that is only because EMI, or Thorn-EMI, is an English electrical company not located in the Bay Area. If they had been, they would have been a prime target. Thorn-EMI was, and is, a major defense contractor; they manufactured components for such missile systems as the Pershing, Cruise, and Trident; they supported the nuclear industry; and they would not divest from South Africa when there was a public outcry for companies to do so. One of the industries that EMI has connections to is the record industry—they own EMI Music, Virgin Records, Capitol, Chrysalis, etc. Recently, Virgin records purchased Caroline, a record production and distribution company, effectively making this once indie company a part of a sprawling multinational (EMI). About four or five months ago I contacted Caroline and asked for a catalog; I wanted to share with you some of the punk bands and labels whose material you can purchase through Caroline. Finally, about two weeks ago, I received my catalogue and I was surprised: Not only were there more punk bands being distributed through Caroline than I suspected, but so many of these bands have made (and are making) strong statements about issues ranging from sexism to animal liberation to the sort of corporation hegemony of which I address in this article. Sadly, to me at least, the Subhumans are one of these bands.

Below you will find just a small taste of the bands whose full length LPs you can purchase through Caroline. Listed beside each band in parenthesis is the number of LPs available through this source. I'm sure that many of these bands don't know of Caroline's connection to EMI; it may be true that some of these bands don't even know they are being distributed through Caroline, as often times bands just turn over their material to their label and allow the label to do what it wants with it. From some of the larger names, like Crass for example, it becomes harder to understand as they own their own label, Crass Records, and they've seemingly been so active for so long that you would expect them to know: Bad Religion (6), Bikini Kill (2), Bikini Kill/Huggy Bear (1), Blatz/Filth (1), Bratmobile (1), Broken Bones (1), Capitalist Casualties (1), Carry Nation (1), Christ On A Crutch (1), Chumbawamba (4), Citizen Fish (1), Conflict (1), Corrupted Morals (1), Crass (5), Crimpshrine (1), Cringer (2), Crucifucks (3), D.O.A. (6), Dag Nasty (4), Dead Kennedys (6), Diatribe (2), Dickies (2), Dicks (1), Down By Law (3), Droogies (1), Econochrist (1), Embrace (2), The Ex (3), False Prophets (2), Fidelity Jones (2), Fugazi (6), Gang Green (1), Girls Against Boys (3), Gorilla (1), Hard-Ons (4), Ignition (1), Ill Repute (1), Insted (1), J Church (3), Jawbreaker (1), Jello Biafra (6), Killdozer (6), Lard (2), Lookouts (2), MIA (2), MDC (7), Minor Threat (3), Mr. T Experience (3), Naked Aggression (2), Naked Raygun (3), Nation Of Ulysses (2), Neurosis (3), New Bomb Turks (3), NoFX(5), Nomeansno (11), Nuisance (2), Offspring (2), Operation Ivy (1), Pansy Division (1), Parasites (1), Pennywise (2), Poison Idea (6), Queers (1), Rancid (1), Raw Power (2), Reagan Youth (3), Reason To Believe (1), Rites Of Spring (1), Rudimentary Peni (1), Scherzo (1), Scream (5), Screeching Weasel (4), Scum (1), 7 Seconds (1), Sewer Trout (1), Shudder To Think (4), Sleep (1), Spermbirds (1), Strawman (1), Subhumans (6), Superchunk (7), Thatcher On Acid/Wat Tyler (1), Tiger Trap (2), Tilt (2), Tribe 8 (1), U.K. Subs (7), Verbal Assault (2), Victims Family (3).

So what does this mean? Does this mean that if you buy a record and it's been distributed through Caroline that EMI gets some of your money? The answer is yes. But I can't tell you how much. However, I don't think this is the real issue here: the issue is one of why we as an independent scene need to be attached to the mechanics of a multi-national corporation, and how does that attachment relate to the ideals of DIY ethics that our scene is supposed to possess?

After I talked with Kevin McCracken (a very close friend of mine who helps run Kirbdog Records) about Caroline, about who owns them, he decided to bring the issue up at the last Mordam convention. Apparently, the responses he received were quite ugly, were quite defensive of using Caroline. My understanding of the situation is this: Mordam distributes through Caroline at the request of its labels. In this case, the two biggest labels on Mordam—Lookout and Alternative Tentacles, wish to keep selling merchandise through Caroline, because, according to the argument, Caroline gets material out to those Bumfuck, Egypt places out there in the world.

This is what Greg Werckman, General Manager of Alternative Tentacles, has to say about the whole topic of dealing with Caroline: "Alternative Tentacles is distributed exclusively through Mordam Records. Mordam in turn sells to other stores and distributors including Caroline. Granted, in a perfect world we wouldn't want to have anything to do with distributors like Caroline and Relativity. But if we can use their channels to spread our message around and to hopefully enlighten some people, I don't think it is a legitimate problem. The people at Caroline that I've met are pretty cool and seem to really enjoy the music and our ideals. Unforunately, in just about all aspects of our life, one can trace back to a major corporation. A percent of every CD made is paid to the Philips Corporation because they have the copyright on the format. Does this mean everyone that makes CDs is bad and part of the evil arms building empire? If I drink coke, wear Nike shoes, drive a Volvo or any foreign car or use gasoline in my American car, should I [be] chastised? Is it worse to support arms builders or destroy the environment by wasting paper or driving my car? This politically correct stuff is usually too dogmatic and, believe me, fighting with people that use Caroline to distribute independent records is fighting with your own team. Know your enemy. Plus once again, where is the punk rule book and does every one have to play by it?"

Greg's argument is the one which you will hear time and again from people in the punk scene who are making the transition from independent distribution and production to more corporate methods: the corporate sources are better at getting your art or message out to harder to reach areas; and as far as the ethical dilemma in dealing with corporations is concerned, the world is pretty much fucked anyway and controlled by corporate sources, so where do you draw the line?

Well, where do we draw the line? Certainly, if Joseph Goebbels came to your door and told you he wished to distribute your records, you would give pause. Besides saying no, you might wonder what motive Joseph Goebbels would have in distributing your material. How would it benefit him? But why aren't people wondering about the corporate motive in distributing and manufacturing punk material? I agree with Greg, we should know who the enemy is. And I agree, the enemy is not the bands and individuals who choose to work through Caroline, or even those nice workers at Caroline themselves; it's the behemoth structure that they have decided to support through their actions or even apathetic denial. In the business world, the word 'enemy' is re- placed by the word 'competition,' and that's just what the independent punk scene has become in the eyes of the music industry. So let's take a look at the competition and what there motives could be.

Before we began, I believe it would clarify some confusion if we distinguish what the difference is between an independent and a major label. The actual definition of a major label is one that produces and distributes its own material. But in practical terms, there are only six major labels: WEA, owned by Time Warner; UNI owned by Matshushita, a Japanese Electronics firm (makers of Panasonic products); Sony Music owned by Sony; Polygram owned by Philips NV; EMI; and BMG, a German Publishing Group. As you can plainly see, the six major labels (and their respective hordes of subsidiaries) are owned by mega-billion dollar corporations; hence, the term 'corporate' is a perfect substitute for the word 'major.'

At one time in this country the record industry was diversified: distribution was mostly independent, and there were more independent mediums (labels) to work with. This is not to say that "independent" equals good; there are plenty of examples of independent labels screwing over their artists. What diversification meant, however, was that less power to shape and affect an entire industry and the society connected to that industry was concentrated in more hands.

It is the purpose of any corporation to grow, to spread itself. In order to do so, the competition must either be eliminated or assimilated. In the late 70s, the majors started making deals to distribute some of the larger more powerful independent labels; they also started buying up many of these labels—e.g., Geffen, Virgin, A&M, etc. Besides buying them out, the major labels had other business tricks up their sleeves to eliminate the independents. Not only were corporate labels able to invest more money in advertising and promotion, due to the immense financial backing of their parent companies, but they were able to invest their money in the Network, a coalition of shady underworld characters who engaged in payola (bribes in the form of cash or drugs usually) to have radio stations play their music. According to Fredric Dannen in his book HitMen, during the 1980s a major label like CBS Records could spend between 12.8 million and 17 million dollars a year on Network promotion. By the 1990s, independent distribution, with exceptions provided by the activities of such groups as the punk scene, was nearly extinct. Meanwhile, the US. record industry had developed into a 6.3 billion dollar enterprise.

At the same time that Network promotion was in full swing, another alarming trend was enveloping the record industry—that of corporate mergers, where the major labels, which had themselves started swallowing up other labels, began to be purchased in whole by gigantic corporate groups. As you may be able to tell, of the six major label groups, four are now owned by huge multi-national electronics firms, and two are owned by publication mega-giants. All of these parent corporations who control the record industry have connections to practices which raise serious ethical questions (with the exception, perhaps, of BMG—all I know about them is that they are a gigantic German Publishing company).

Both Sony (owns CBS Music, and their subsidiaries) and Matsushita (owns MCA, and their subsidiaries) are heavily involved in the Pacific Basin area, with factories in countries like Indonesia, a country ruled by General Suharto and his militaristic regime. General Suharto became president of Indonesia in 1965 after a US supported coup brought him to power. It has been estimated that his forces slaughtered up to one million people soon thereafter. In December 1975, Indonesian forces invaded East Timor, inflicting genocide on the people there. According to the East Timor Action Network, an estimated 200,000 people, one third of East Timor's pre-1975 population, were killed; massacres, torture, extra judicial executions, and arbitrary arrests still occur regularly.

Labor conditions in Indonesia are deplorable. Assembly line workers typically make a bit over $1 a day. Without unions or any effective labor protection force, corporations are able to enter Indonesia and apply practices that would cause the inhabitants of their home countries to revolt: forced overtime, attaching the cost of factory-provided transportation to an employees wages, etc. Currently, Sony has a factory in Bekasi, Indonesia, where workers assemble 350,000 CD boomboxes a month, 60% of which are destined for the US. Matsushita has a plant in Bekasi, as well, which produces a 100,000 VCRs a month.

Here in America, Sony has been recently cited for illegally using photos of workers at plants in New York and New Jersey in an anti-union smear campaign.

Like EMI, Philips NV is a Dutch company with a history in the production of defense industry electronics: missile-distance systems, microcircuits for military application, sights for armored vehicles, etc. They also own 25% of the stock of Whittle Communications (see Time-Warner below).

Time-Warner is the largest publishing group in this nation, the second largest cable group, one of the four largest motion picture manufacturers/distributors, and perhaps the largest record company (either them or Sony). They were voted one of the top ten worst corporations of 1992 by the Multi-National Monitor, a publication started by Ralph Nader with the purpose of exposing the activities of corporations around the globe. In September of 1991, Time-Warner laid off 600 magazine employees while at the same time making then-Warner chair Steve Ross the most highly compensated CEO in the US with a salary and stock option package worth more than $78 million. Time-Warner engages in corporate interlocking with such other companies as General Dynamics, a defense contractor, and Mobil Oil, an environmental polluter. What the process of interlocking entails is the sharing of board directors and CEOs between companies.

Time-Warner is the majority stockholder in Whittle Communications, a controversial advertising company known specifically for Channel One—a television news program beamed by satellite to 6.6 million teenagers in over 9,000 high schools. Schools that agree to show the 12 minute program receive video and other media-related equipment in trade. The profit for Whittle comes from the fact that 2 minutes of the programming is paid advertising for products such as Nike shoes and Skittles candy. In schools that run these programs, it is compulsory for students to watch them. Whittle is currently embarking on the "Edison Project," an attempt to set up 200 private for-profit schools by 1996. This project will be funded by such groups as Apple and IBM computers, and lunchroom concessions will be controlled by companies like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, etc. The Edison project has no plan for school libraries. Peggy Charan President of Action for Children's Television told the Multi National Monitor that the Edison Project may represent "the beginning of the downfall of education in America."

Perhaps the most pertinent questions about all of these corporations arise when we focus on just how much power they are amassing, and the house of hegemony they are building. In 1983, most of this country's broadcast and film business, newspaper, magazine and book publishers were owned by 50 corporations; by 1987 that number had dropped to 29 companies; what it is now must be significantly less—I do not know. What I do know is that this trend of consolidating media and art into the hands of fewer but more powerful groups—such as the mega-group created when Time and Warner merged in the late 1980s—is effectively surrendering control of ideas, expressions and culture into those hands. In regards to the few executives who control this media empire, Ben H. Bagdikian, author of The Media Monopoly, had this to say in the June 12, 1989 issue of The Nation: "Together, they exert a homogenizing power over ideas, culture and commerce that affects populations larger than any in History. Neither Caesar nor Hitler, Franklin Roosevelt nor any Pope, has commanded as much power to shape the information on which so many people depend to make decisions about everything from whom to vote for to what to eat."

In the case of the four electronics corporations mentioned above, buying into the record industry and into the movie industry (Sony owns Columbia Pictures, Matshushita owns Universal Studious) is just one more way of getting their products onto store shelves and into people's homes. A good example of this oligopoly is how they used the CD to push vinyl nearly out of existence. If they decide in ten years that CDs are obsolete and that they want people to buy a new music device, all they need to do is release material in nothing but that device's format. And as they dominate the market from raw material production to distribution, what is there to stop them? What is there to stop a Time-Warner magazine such as People from carrying stories about WEA recording artists? Objective journalism? Time magazine has an unwritten policy to warn 'cigarette advertisers when there is going to be an anti-smoking article in one of their magazines, so that the tobacco companies can choose not to advertise in that issue. What is there to stop the consolidation of corporate power from growing, from merging even more and controlling yet more channels? Strong regulations?

The Reagan era saw the softening of anti-trust laws and regulations. For example, The Justice Department received 10,723 pre-merger notifications between 1981 and 1987 and challenged only 26 of those deals. Has it become tougher for the corporations and their power grab tactics since Clinton became president? Recently, Viacom Video, home to such cable channels as MTV, purchased the entire Paramount Entertainment empire.

The only force that could safeguard us all from the corporations appears to be not only the buying force of the consumers, but the force of artists, and other inventors to choose whether they wish their product to support these mega-industries.

The type of buying threat that consumers pose to these industries can be seen in the recent controversy over the sale of used CDs. CDs are notoriously cheap to produce, cheaper than LPs, yet for some reason they are more expensive to buy than LPs, up to $17 each. Meanwhile other consumers elsewhere in the world are paying even more, between $25-$30 a CD. There is no business justification for this; these are simply artificially inflated prices for the profit of the industry. Perhaps one of the better features of the CDs is that the material remains unchanged after repeated playing; thus, the CD is inherently always a new product. For this reason, many stores have started buying back CDs from people and in turn re-selling them for substantially less money. Evidently, consumers are not as ignorant as some in the industry might hope because the sale of used CDs in the US in 1992 accounted for $500 million in sales, 10 percent of all CD sales. When the Wherehouse, a major retail chain with over 300 stores, started selling used CDs, the record industry began to bite back. Wealthy artists like Garthe Brookes were pushed forward by the industry as advocates against the sale of used CDs only to be met by demonstrations such as one in the Bay Area where Garthe Brookes CDs were roasted on barbecue grills. The more menacing move by the industry has been the cutting of "co-op" advertising to record stores that sell used CDs, a move that accents how co-dependent record stores have become of the industry. With "co-op" advertising, a store that sells a release of a major label artist can have most of the costs of advertising that release underwritten by the artists's label. Although the effects of cutting "co-op" funds are minimal on a small store, on a chain of stores like the Wherehouse, this is a major step, and has caused the Wherehouse to respond with a lawsuit alleging that the distributors "conspired to unreasonably restrain trade and commerce in used CDs."

The record corporations, like all corporations, rely on the ability and willingness for consumers to buy products. A consumer who walks down the aisles of products in a store wondering about the necessity of these items in their lives is not a good consumer; in the eyes of big business, this sort of consumer is a problem. When a consumer starts telling their friends about the questionable nature of the corporations behind the products, that consumer is no longer simply a problem—they are a threat.

Once upon a time, if I were to pick a group of people who I thought of as representing that threat, I would have probably picked the punk scene. I'm no longer sure about this. Instead of rising up corporate challenge, many in the punk scene are rising up with a sense of apathy. Worse, many are defending this apathy by either accepting how corporate the world has become as a reason not to fight against it (the old 'lost cause' or 'if you can't beat them join them' arguments), or by pointing the finger at those against punk becoming corporate rock as being 'PC' dogmatists.

I understand how corporate the world has become. Quite honestly, it is probably impossible for your dollars not to end up in a dirty pocket somewhere. But to me, there is a difference in purchasing what survival in this society has forced you to consume, and contributing your ideas or art to something awful. In short, I can understand the low income family purchasing GE light bulbs better than I can understand some well educated individual who should know better designing light bulbs for GE, and making a bundle at it. Quite simply, it has been possible to manufacture light bulbs with 100 year life spans for nearly a century, and anybody who knows this fact and works for a company that is suckering people—and is a part of that deception—is inexcusable. In the same vein, any clear thinking person who chooses to support the sale of their art, or the art of other people for that matter, through mediums as deceptive and greedy as GE are also engaging in inexcusable actions. But what if everybody is greedy and deceptive? I would choose to support those with less power. I would have less difficulty with my dollar going to some small scale Joe Asshole in the punk scene than to the large record corporations. Why? Because the greater the power and size of a corporation, the greater its connection is to real power in this world. Can Joe Asshole reach out through mass media and tell people what to buy; does Joe Asshole frequently meet with the heads of governments to talk about their policies. I'm not saying that it is ok to tolerate Joe; what I'm saying is that the real power comparison between an indie punk label and a major label is absurd. And if Joe is that much of a problem, it would be a great deal easier to abstain from his products and his petty source of power than some corporation that has made our lives co-dependent on their actions.

As far as punks who are against corporate rock being labeled "PC" goes, I believe there are currently two groups of people in this society who are relying on the PC acronym: well-to-do yuppie politicos trying desperately to look hip (usually failing) and guilt ridden do-nothings who like to make themselves feel better by comparing anybody who gives a shit to the former group. In short, "PC" is just a buzzword; and it should have little relevance on the truth or validity of someone's argument; and I feel its usage in this context is simply a backdoor escape route being employed by those afraid of the truth tagging them.

At about the same time I received my Caroline catalog, I received another catalog from another corporate-controlled distributor of Punk/Underground music, the ADA, or the "Alternative Distribution Alliance." Unlike Caroline with somewhat of a history in the punk scene, the ADA was just recently created from the mind of WEA. This is the label that SubPop distributes through now that they have settled their $12 million dollar fraud suit against their former distributor—Caroline. The ADA's catalog is assembled in newsprint with a cut-and-paste cover manufactured to look like a piece of punk literature. Nowhere inside is there any reference to the fact that this is a Warner controlled company. Included in my catalog was a questionnaire—the ADA apparently assumed that I was a record store. Like the catalog, the questionnaire was designed to have a sort of "punky" feel to it: there were questions like "If you had to shoot just one person who would it be?", "Have you ever stayed in a room at Anton Lavey's private hotel?", "What question would you put here?" But the majority of the questions were more business oriented, more along the lines of actual information gathering: "What clubs/venues are located in your store's general area?,"Are any universities/colleges/ high schools located near your store?", "What radio stations air in your locale?", "Do you play music in your store? If so, what format can/do you play?", "Do you sell used products (CDs, vinyl, etc., honest because we think it's a good thing.)?" This last question I found particularly ironic, considering that WEA was one of the major pushers against the sale of used CDs. Is there a reason why ADA is trying to make itself look punky? Is there a reason that when you drive into predominantly black neighborhoods McDonald's ads suddenly turn into ads for "Micky D's?"

On "Earth Day" of 1990, I found myself at Chrissy Field in San Francisco for the big celebration. Along with some friends, I handed out literature about why eating animal flesh was harmful for the environment. It seemed reasonable to assume that an event that was supposed to be environmentally-oriented would be an ideal place to hand out environmentally oriented literature, but people were too busy making their way to a huge multi-colored Budweiser truck nearby to take time to listen to what we were saying. As the day progressed, things became very hot and the huge crowds of people started to nearly stampede, kicking up choking dust clouds; and strangely, garbage started to pile up—an empty Budweiser cup here, a styrofoam lunch tray covered with ketchup there, etc. Something else started to happen: the gophers that lived on Chrissy Field began emerging from their holes—all those marching feet had driven them out. Soon the carcasses of crushed gophers were spotted. Meanwhile, on the main stage, surrounded by a herd thousands strong, celebrities were speaking about environmentalism between celebrity bands. Somehow, in the dust there soon arose a pungent odor of bullshit. There were many horns in the crowd that day that could account for the source of that odor, but above all others, even above the prominent points on the stage, there reigns in my memory the image of the dagger sharp contradictions emerging from the Budweiser truck.

If the people in the punk scene need examples of how corporations fuck up movements, of how they can take a valid statement and turn it into a product, they need to go no farther than what has happened to environmentalism. When the corporations detected a sentiment in this society towards environmentalism, instead of fighting back, they pulled a very good trick: they manufactured an image that they were somehow behind saving the planet—even worse, they used it to sell their questionable products. The Chevron "We Care" ads are just the tip of the iceberg. An even better example, I believe, can be found in "The Captain Planet and the Planeteers" Cartoon show produced by some Turner Broadcasting subsidiary.

In this rather poorly animated cartoon show, a group of young superheroes battle for the environment with the aid of Captain Planet and a woman named Gaia, who is supposed to represent earth. In all ways, this cartoon is manufactured to placate the questions of a politically motivated parent. For example, the Planeteers are multi-cultural and Gaia is a black woman. These considerations might help a parent overlook some important implications of this cartoon: for one, the enemies of the Planeteers are never corporations or institutions such as governments, they are instead a group of bungling, goofy individuals. in short, the message to children is not that environmental destruction is institutionalized, but rather the work of a few bad misfits. Indeed, governments in the program are portrayed as trying to help end environmental destruction, as opposed to the reality of governments covering up what's really happening or sinking vessels that belong to those who are working for environmental protection, aka Rainbow Warrior. But then it's also easier to sell an image if it's neat for kids to look at, and that's at the core of what "Captain Planet" is all about—selling something.

"Captain Planet" is simply an advertisement, like so many other cartoons, for toy figures of its characters. Never mind the fact that the majority of these types of figures are made in China, a major human rights violator, but they are made of polystyrene, or plastic, a material that is not recyclable. What a surprise to find that "Captain Planet" is an environmental polluter! What a surprise to find that "Captain Planet"'s adversaries don't include Edgar S. Woolard, Jr., CEO of DuPont, the world's single largest producer of ozone depleting CFCs. Not only would a villainous Edgar S. Woolard doll be a little too truthful, but how could it be made saleable to kids: it has no neat tricks, it doesn't fire off its arms off, it only wears a suit and tie. Perhaps they could have made it capable of producing an aerosol mist if you pressed a button on the back of its neck.

If corporations can use an icon to sell an anti-environmental product as environmentalism, how do you think they conform and sell musical/artistic movements? They find an icon(s) who represents that movement and who will work for them, sell the movement as an image for them: the living version of "Captain Planet". The music industry, like any industry, is constantly on the lookout for new marketable icons. Presently, many of the big icons in the industry are getting older. In an industry which sees its market in the 13-25 year old age range, this becomes a problem: the saleability of icons to this age group has usually been linked to their youthfulness and youthful rebelliousness. In short, nobody is buying Mick Jagger as a young angry rebel any more. Also, the fickleness of the present consumer, the constant desire to have something new, places pressure on this industry to produce something new. When a major label taps into the punk scene they're tapping into a potential icon reservoir, they are seeing who is selling in the underground and theorizing what they will need to produce above ground to sell similarly. The reason they develop front companies like the ADA, or purchase companies like Caroline, is simply for credibility: they know that this scene is one where suit and tie corporate images have little credibility and are banking on the fact that we are so superficial that if approached by a representative of theirs made to look like us, we will shake their hands. We should find this insulting.

What would happen if we did not shake hands with that connection, if we abstained from such groups as Caroline and the ADA? One thing is certain, abstaining from producing art for the corporate benefit would make us one less mine of resources for the corporate machine. And if the resources some how dry up for this machine, it could come to a great smoke filled, crashing stop.

There is practically no way to defeat the corporations on their playing field: we certainly can't out advertise them, offer more money than they do, take them to court. But we can make them look so ridiculous by illuminating their actions that other people will understand just why we as a scene hate corporate rock. But in order to do this, we would have to do something at least on this one issue which many in the scene find hard to deal with, we would have to unify. In order to best begin doing this we should take a look at what Greg calls the "punk rule book."

The way I see it, this book is balanced precariously on an edge overlooking the great corporate garbage can; this is where corporations come to shred the countless philosophies and human precepts that tell them what they are doing is wrong; it's also where they come to cut and paste their own images into the books of other groups which they have nothing to do with. When these books are fully subverted by the corporate image, and nobody wants to pay to see them anymore, they also ends up in the garbage. If you look into the can you can see the shredded remains of a hippie intermingling with something to the effect of ITT helping to overthrow the democratically elected regime of Chile circa 1973. Take a look at the punk rule book. It is a journal with mostly blank pages. Near the front however, you can see the rough edges of pages that were torn out. This is where cut-and-paste Sid Vicious, the Clash, and Billy Idol once were located. Who tore out these images? Who created them in the first place? Was it you? After these pages, you see there is a new cut-and-paste image forming; it looks like the character on the cover of some punk zine, but yet it doesn't; you can't tell what it is about the image, but there is insincerity in those cut-and-paste eyes. And there are words surrounding it, words that look like they say something, but they start to form phrases like "buy from it!" The image starts to look like a zombie, with blood stained eyes, holding an ADA sign.

If I could cut-and-paste an image of what punk rock is now, it would probably anger a great deal of people. My cut-and-paste version of punk would abstain from the consumption of animal products, abstain from drug use (TV included), and be politically involved. I know that to many in this scene, punk is something entirely different. Therefore, I'm willing to leave this book clean of my own interpretation; for in my heart I will paste my image of what it's supposed to be about to me. What I am not willing to accept, however, is some corporate created golem dictating to me what we are supposed to be about. I invite you to take a look at the ADA cover supplied with this article and tell me whether you see something similar to what I see. If you think there is a problem with the way corporations are approaching and marketing punk music, if you question the way corporations behave in general, there are many things you as an individual can do and we as a scene can do to move away from and against corporate rock.

One of the things that you can do is to educate yourself. You can start reading publications about corporations and about the various ways they make and shape the policies that determine our lives. Two excellent publications to start with are The Multi-National Monitor, a publication started by Ralph Nader with the implicit purpose of covering the shadier tactics of the corporations, a publication remarkably free of the sort of "PC" dogma that seems to annoy so many punks these days; and there is also the Boycott Quarterly, a publication that covers the many boycotts in this country and why they are happening. If you are unsure about just how sleazy the record industry is, three good books to check out are Hitmen, Rockonomics, and Money For Nothing.

Once armed with knowledge, a phrase such as "corporate rock sucks" takes on a new validity, and you can start actually applying it and intelligently discussing why it sucks to friends and others in your area. You can also do what many in this scene should have been doing all along: you can ignore and personally boycott bands which seem to be MTV bound, or even bands that don't give a shit about their audiences. Also, you can write to the bands and labels who are currently distributing through Caroline and ask them why they are doing so. As I stated earlier in this article, many of the bands might simply not know and would like to be informed that their friends (fans) don't like it. It also wouldn't hurt to write to Lookout and Alternative tentacles and tell them you think their policy of distributing through Caroline sucks. I can guarantee that if these labels pull out of Caroline, all of the labels distributing through Mordam will do likewise. Some, like MRR, already have. if some corporate rock band comes to town and you hear them calling themselves punk or whatever, you can stand outside their shows handing out leaflets explaining what the difference is between corporate rock and punk rock.

As far as the scene goes, I think that we are fortunate in that the corporations have left us with many openings through which we can lambast them and their tactics. One of the biggest lemons that corporate labels have been cramming down the throats of music consumers over the last four years is what they have been calling 'Alternative.' Even mainstream rock critics have started to wonder what this oxymoron means. Alternative? Alternative to what? What if the punk scene started pointing the finger at the ADA and the entire 'alternative' music movement as yet another example of corporate fraud? And when the industry pushes forth a representative of what we are supposed to be, and tries to link the punk scene with the "alternative nation," we can vehemently deny any resemblance by citing that we as a scene are more than symbols and more than icons. Quite simply, if they want to call a band like Green Day "Pop-Punk", we can call Green Day the next Billy Idol.

This means that we should start to realize what many in this scene have realized for a long time, that we are on strike against the bullshit of this world, that the corporations are the main source of bullshit in this world, and punk bands who deal with them are effectively strikebreakers. This doesn't mean that we should hate the members of these bands, it simply means that we should let them know that they have made their choice, and that this scene won't coddle them any longer. They have entered the world of mass marketing symbols, and should accept the decision that led them to that world.

The same applies to labels who choose to distribute their material through a corporate source. To me, this is just as bad as a band signing a major label contract: it creates a one way window through which the corporations can watch us, while at the same time insuring their power, control, and even profit. I think that we should give the labels on Mordam until the next convention to pull out of Caroline; after that point, we should really start questioning their ethics. As for me, I'm sending my Chumbawamba albums back to them with the original records replaced by Disco vinyl and a letter asking them to explain why their message has changed over the years. I just can't understand how this band who once made such an effort to attack the irony of such corporate bullshit as the "Feed The World" campaign can now distribute through a corporate source owned by EMI. I am certain that they—more than anybody—know who owns Caroline. As far as the argument goes about getting better distribution, how the hell did labels distribute so well in the 1980's when corporations wouldn't dare to touch us?

Perhaps you have read everything that I've said so far as part of a political punk's definition of punk rock—I'm sure I can get pretty dogmatic at times. But if you find a political punks definition of punk rock intolerable to handle, I don't know how you will respond to a corporate one. Right now that's where we're heading. As far as rules go, I thought there was an unwritten rule about who we deal with; I thought we had no need to write things down because some things were just accepted as things not to do. Do we need to write rules down now? I would hope not. I would hope that we could pull out and discard what has been created for us and allow the blank pages of the "Punk Rule Book" to tell us to come up with our own interpretations, to think for ourselves, to truly do things for ourselves.

If you wish to respond to me, you can reach me through either MRR or at PO Box 4842, Santa Rosa, Ca. 95402.

All sources for any pertinent information mentioned are as follows: Fredric Dannen, Hitmen, New York, New York, Random House, 1990; Directory of Corporate Affiliations, New Providence, New Jersey, National Register Publishing, 1993, pp. 1561-1566; Dirty Fingers in Dirty Pies, Leeds, U.K., Sky+Tree, 1985; Marc Eliot, Rockonomics, New York, New York, Citadel Press, 1993; Peter S. Goodman, ,"Slavery Plain and Simple," The Progressive, June 1993; Julie Gozan, Holley Knaus and Russel Mokhiber, "The Corporate Rap Sheet: The Ten Worst Corporations of 1992," Multinational Monitor, December 1992, pp. 7-17; Bruce Robinson, "The CD Conspiracy," The Paper, August 5-18, 1993, p. 17; "Time to Trust Bust," Multinational Monitor, November 1989, p.6.