[ecrea] Book Announcement: Underground

Daniel Makagon, Underground: The Subterranean Culture of DIY Punk Spaces 
(Microcosm Publishing) http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/5401/

Underground is all about the history and future of DIY punk touring in 
the USA. Daniel Makagon explores the culture of DIY spaces like house 
shows and community-based music spaces, their impact on underground 
communities and economies, and why these networks matter. He shows that 
no matter who you are, organizing, playing, and/or attending a DIY punk 
show is an opportunity to become a real part of a meaningful movement 
and to create long-lasting alternatives to the top-down economic and 
artistic practices of the mainstream music industry. Punk kids playing 
an illegal show too loudly in someone's basement might not save the 
world, but they might just be showing us the way to building something 
better.

The book is divided into four sections:

The first section is an introduction that describes my connections to 
punk dating back to the early 1980s and frames punk shows as one of the 
most important ways that DIY is done.

The second section explores the ways that DIY punk shows offer an 
alternative to mainstream approaches to live music. This section begins 
with an examination of different types of live music options for punks 
in the 1980s. I then discuss how early efforts to do DIY shows changed 
in the 1990s when mainstream culture industries started scouring the 
punk scene for the next Nirvana. Finally, I write about efforts by punks 
in the 1990s to move beyond local and regional shows and link up with 
punks in other areas to develop a sustainable national touring network.

The third section focuses primarily on house shows with some discussion 
of volunteer-run community spaces. In this section I write about the 
challenges with sustaining houses because of problems with the police, 
landlords, and neighbors. I talk about the experience of house shows, 
including the ways that choices of residents to do BYOB shows or create 
a sober space helps shape the vibe of a house show. I also discuss what 
punks gain and give up when they decide to host shows in their houses. 
The chapter about volunteer-run spaces explores the ways that a more 
permanent space can offer a more public face for a local punk scene 
(compared to the hidden “ask a punk” features of houses) but also comes 
with a new set of challenges.

The final section examines some other types of DIY spaces used by punks 
to host shows and assesses how the development of new media technologies 
in the past decade has negatively and positively affected the experience 
of DIY shows. This section also discusses the problems with many punk’s 
maintaining a commitment to a $5 show.

I interviewed a lot of people involved with the DIY punk scene, but the 
book is not a collection of interviews (as we tend to see with a variety 
of oral history books released in the past few years). Instead, I flesh 
out an argument about the historical development of DIY touring and the 
emergence of house shows/volunteer-run spaces as a way to enact DIY ideals.


Adam Pfahler, Jawbreaker

"Daniel Makagon was there, and he's likely forgotten more about DIY than 
many of you will ever know."


Zack Furness, editor of Punkademics

"DIY punk shows and the communities they bring together have always been 
the heart and soul of punk culture. They stitch together all the music, 
moments and makeshift venues that give our collective ‘underground’ the 
kind of shape and meaning that makes it worthy of the name and worth 
claiming as our own. Underground is the first book to explore this 
subject matter in depth and with such substance, care and attention to 
detail. In conjunction with incredible stories and insights gleaned 
through his years of extensive interviews, Daniel Makagon draws upon 
ethnographic research and an expansive knowledge of punk media to 
construct new histories, lucid analyses, and a cartography of DIY punk 
that speaks to the importance of space, place, communication, and culture."


http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/5401/

Take care,
Daniel
________________________
Daniel Makagon, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
College of Communication
DePaul University
Lincoln Park Campus
Office: Byrne Hall #463
2219 N. Kenmore

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