Hail Hail Rock-n-Roll
The people spoke, Nike listened. (Jarvis, how come you're not covering this story?? HUGE victory for online citizen activism.) It's amazing to me how so many smart people simply don't get it, are defending Nike, and making sweeping generalizations about what "punk" is. (Sounding a lot like the buy-anything-shoved-down-their-throats 16 year old skaters making comments from blog to blog.) I'm sorry but you can't throw around an ignorant line like "Isn't punk all about taking without permission?" without concerned people responding, "what the fuck are you talking about?"
[FYI, using the term "punk" and thinking it means one kind of music/set of values/belief system is about as useful as claiming you need only two words -- "The Internet" -- to explain all the nuances involved from Amazon to blogs to cascading style sheets to DNS servers to e-commerce to FuckedCompany to Google to HTML to iWon (or i-anything) to Javascript to keywords to LYNX browser to Microsoft to newsgroups to Oracle to plug-ins to QuickTime to RSS to search engines to T-1 to "Under Construction" to viral marketing to Wi-Fi to X.com to Yahooligans to Ziff-Davis.]
This might be impossible (or futile to even try) to get across to anyone who didn't experience it (I know that sounds jack-assedly pretentious but I swear it's not...okay, maybe a little) but Dischord, Minor Threat and the entire history of the DC punk community, was not your typical independent/"punk" label/movement. These are people who got involved in the late 70's and to this day have never compromised their beliefs. If you wanna call it self-righteous pinko, anti-govt, anti-corporate America, anti-war, anti-whatever, tree-hugging, animal-worshipping freaky extremism then so be it. But one thing they are not is hypocritical.
Never straying from their version/vision of what's right and wrong, Dischord and their bands did not (do not) force it in people's faces the way you would find in the pages of Maximum RocknRoll (and tons of other punk zines) in the 80's and 90's. When the punk community went apeshit in the early 90's debating Nirvana and the whole "sell-out" issue, Dischord minded their own business, rarely (if ever) voicing an opinion on such matters. They just stuck to trying to make a difference in their own way: operating a label, controlling their means of production as much as possible, and distributing music without the aid of major labels in order to release records and CDs for $8-$10 or less. They attempted to limit show prices to $5 for as long as economically possible while most of the shows held locally were benefits for causes that genuinely meant something to them and empowered anyone who wanted to go along for the DIY ride.
I'm the first to admit I fell off the back bumper as soon as I put one foot on it. I desperately wanted to believe I had similar values but I don't. Even though I know it's bad (and not just for me), I like eating at McDonald's, shopping at chain stores, making money at the expense of others, and generally living a lifestyle that embraces all the conveniences made possible by corporate America. Yeah, I'm a gutless apologist too lazy to do anything else but I hope the self-loathing makes up for it a little bit.
Where am I going with all this? I don't know, I got kinda lost eating a double cheeseburger while listening to Rites of Spring on my iPod, but I think my point is about understanding how Nike stands for everything Dischord is against and the slightest appearance of a connection is offensive and wouldn't be tolerated or brushed off as harmless. You don't have to believe in Dischord or their worldview to respect the desire to control their own images. Dischord doesn't even really care about protecting intellectual property as much as wanting to disassociate with the Nike brand specifically.
It's hardly "homage" when you despise the party trying to pay you respect. And if Nike (or these "cool kids" who supposedly devised the campaign) truly knew anything about Dischord or Minor Threat they wouldn't have entertained the parody concept as a possibility in the first place.
[FYI, using the term "punk" and thinking it means one kind of music/set of values/belief system is about as useful as claiming you need only two words -- "The Internet" -- to explain all the nuances involved from Amazon to blogs to cascading style sheets to DNS servers to e-commerce to FuckedCompany to Google to HTML to iWon (or i-anything) to Javascript to keywords to LYNX browser to Microsoft to newsgroups to Oracle to plug-ins to QuickTime to RSS to search engines to T-1 to "Under Construction" to viral marketing to Wi-Fi to X.com to Yahooligans to Ziff-Davis.]
This might be impossible (or futile to even try) to get across to anyone who didn't experience it (I know that sounds jack-assedly pretentious but I swear it's not...okay, maybe a little) but Dischord, Minor Threat and the entire history of the DC punk community, was not your typical independent/"punk" label/movement. These are people who got involved in the late 70's and to this day have never compromised their beliefs. If you wanna call it self-righteous pinko, anti-govt, anti-corporate America, anti-war, anti-whatever, tree-hugging, animal-worshipping freaky extremism then so be it. But one thing they are not is hypocritical.
Never straying from their version/vision of what's right and wrong, Dischord and their bands did not (do not) force it in people's faces the way you would find in the pages of Maximum RocknRoll (and tons of other punk zines) in the 80's and 90's. When the punk community went apeshit in the early 90's debating Nirvana and the whole "sell-out" issue, Dischord minded their own business, rarely (if ever) voicing an opinion on such matters. They just stuck to trying to make a difference in their own way: operating a label, controlling their means of production as much as possible, and distributing music without the aid of major labels in order to release records and CDs for $8-$10 or less. They attempted to limit show prices to $5 for as long as economically possible while most of the shows held locally were benefits for causes that genuinely meant something to them and empowered anyone who wanted to go along for the DIY ride.
I'm the first to admit I fell off the back bumper as soon as I put one foot on it. I desperately wanted to believe I had similar values but I don't. Even though I know it's bad (and not just for me), I like eating at McDonald's, shopping at chain stores, making money at the expense of others, and generally living a lifestyle that embraces all the conveniences made possible by corporate America. Yeah, I'm a gutless apologist too lazy to do anything else but I hope the self-loathing makes up for it a little bit.
Where am I going with all this? I don't know, I got kinda lost eating a double cheeseburger while listening to Rites of Spring on my iPod, but I think my point is about understanding how Nike stands for everything Dischord is against and the slightest appearance of a connection is offensive and wouldn't be tolerated or brushed off as harmless. You don't have to believe in Dischord or their worldview to respect the desire to control their own images. Dischord doesn't even really care about protecting intellectual property as much as wanting to disassociate with the Nike brand specifically.
It's hardly "homage" when you despise the party trying to pay you respect. And if Nike (or these "cool kids" who supposedly devised the campaign) truly knew anything about Dischord or Minor Threat they wouldn't have entertained the parody concept as a possibility in the first place.
Comments:
Firstly, I can't believe you alphabetized that laundry list of internet phenomena. I don't know if that's awesome or sad. Second, I disagreed with you until this sentence:
"Dischord doesn't even really care about protecting intellectual property as much as wanting to disassociate with the Nike brand specifically."
Now I agree.
Yeah yeah, and that's obviously the crux of the whole thing. So I spent countless words to give useless background to illustrate why exactly Dischord despises and wants no association with companies like Nike. Sue me, or better, use my image on a shirt.
It even made the WaPo! Note the Dischord spokesman's name.
First of all, does Minor Threat say "skate" to you in any way? No. They say "straight edge," among other things. The Nike tools should have ripped off DRI.
But the real laugher here is that the Nike people really believe that MT is the appropriate symbol for what they are trying to do. Read their retarded apology: "hey, we're cool, because we like MT, and they're the 'perfect fit' for our consume-your-prefab-identity-sweatshop-whore-tour." The apology is worse than the ripoff in the first place, because it reveals the lack of cynicism. Ahhh, the rage.
Andrew is, I think, exactly right when he says this was never about "intellectual property" but rather Dischord's repulsion with being associated with Nike. I remember, gosh I guess it was around 1990, Fugazi chasing ASCAP representatives from their shows saying, "We don't do covers, and we could give a shit if anyone covers us." All of those "skate or die!" comments were fucking hilarious though.
The smart person you refer to, who says "sampling and ripping and riffing and homages are all part of the deal", is also the guy who never credits his sources.
Saw Ian MacKayes new band,The Evens, a few days after this broke. It was a free show at Ft Reno in DC. Ian' comment regarding the whole issue was simply, yeah they (nike) suck, theyre huge, we cant touch them anyway, so if you dont like it do me a favor and go to the whitehouse and protest the war. btw, The Evens were great. Its a two person set up with his girlfriend on drums.
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