As we approach the 50th anniversary of Throbbing Gristle and Industrial Records, it is clear that there are many who claim industrial who would never have been part of any subculture in 1976, especially the one that birthed industrial, because conservatives didn't join subcultures that were reviled by mainstream culture, and the industrial movement was the one that was the least acceptable because at the time it had no accessible rock components that would have attracted mainstream attention. Since I lived through those years personally, I can tell you that the eclectic subculture had no mainstream appeal, and ABSOLUTELY NO ONE wore a shirt of ANY punk or eclectic band unless they were into that band. This was true until the mid 1980s when our look was mainstreamed on MTV [when they actually played music videos] by the culture vultures like Madonna. Our cultural signifiers were important then because we were harassed by everyone from the police to the preppies to the jocks to the bully-boys to the random jerkoff who had an opinion they couldn't keep to themselves, we were targeted for scorn by nearly every group, except hippies. Having a way to know who-was-who was vital to our safety. It wasn't just about fashion. Although there are many who say there was hatred between hippies and punks, for me, hippies were the coolest people that I knew. We weren't so into each other's music, but our unified focus on being real and allowing others to be their authentic selves made for great friendships that I value, even though I haven't seen most of them in decades.
"Okay, so you like hippies, you were a socially outcast teenager, and Madonna helped to commodify the new wave/punk look, so what? Why the fuck does that matter to anyone else, other than you?" This is surely something that would be said by a reader who may be a member of Goths Against Cancel Culture. But for those who may not share that social construct, I posit this to provide a clear framework of what the next 50 years of industrial culture and art could aspire to. Industrial Records was founded as part of a cultural movement, not just a form of creative expression. One must forget that to believe the false assertion that industrial is for everyone, which it never was intended to be.
When I was talking to Genesis about how Throbbing Gristle formed out of COUM Transmissions, Gen talked about how at the height of their acceptability by the formal art world that COUM needed to be dissolved because they had no interest in being absorbed as a "pet radical." It was their independent-minded founding principles that stopped them from allowing others to commodify or absorb them. The inverse was realized by writer and cultural historian, Zora Neal Hurston, who chose to have benefactors versus focusing on having a professional career that would enable her to do her work and research as she chose, never having to battle someone else over the subject matter of her work. Her letters are a valuable lesson to anyone who devises a system that relies on someone else to green light their creative and intellectual existence. I have often wondered since I was a teenager in the 1970s and learned about her on PBS, "what would have been possible had she taken a self-supported route?" If one uses her letters as a guide, benefactors [almost] always minimize the opportunities for true creative expression. They may provide more access or resources at first, but when one's creative vision differs with those of the funders, they have the power to take it all away. That is contrary to my life's creative construct of being truly free and having 100% creative control over my contact and engagement with the world, which has been overwhelmingly true until I was 20 in 1985, and has been my complete reality since 1985.
When I took some of my Team Raven [advanced class] students [for those who don't know, I am a public high school teaching artist] to Fordham University to have a Shakespeare workshop by George Drance S.J., and a student performance of The Tempest, I was asked by one of the other workshop participants who is a senior in high school, "when you realized that you weren't going to make a living with your art, were you devastated?" I laughed and told him something to the effect of, "I am a 1st gen punk rocker, so I knew it wouldn't support me. I am a 1st gen turntablist, and that had no mainstream marketability that would lead to supporting myself. And, I started playing industrial in 1985, years before anyone would believe they could do this without some other form of monetary underpinning, making my life a musical trifecta of art that was guaranteed to not be monetarily successful enough to fund my life. But, I saw a way for it to pay for itself, so over my lifetime I have made more money on my art than I have paid out to execute it." It is the only reason why Abstinence™ has endured for so long, and it is the only reason why DJing is my oldest artform. The bliss of having a self-directed art life is one that I want everyone to experience. I was blessed to have had that my entire life, but there is absolutely no "too late" scenario to be had. It is always the right time to be true to your 100% authentic creative self without compromise. There are many places where compromise is a welcomed and needed thing. When you are creating your art is not one of those times. It is your art. If you are 100% responsible for its quality, you should also be 100% empowered for its content. If you scale your creative output to whatever your personal resource base is, you will be able to do it forever.
"Goodbye to producing events in clubs." dh As we approach the 50th anniversary of Industrial Records, I am also coming up on my own that were seismic shifts in my creative expression. In 1986 I officially evolved from a 1st gen hip hop turntablist to spinning industrial as my focus sonic expression. Thirty years ago I retired from producing monthly and weekly events. So, it is in line with my existing model to leave anything that has a minimized creative and/or social focus. This is especially true when the mainstream has any controlling interest in the artform. For an overwhelming amount of venues where industrial can be found, earnest economic demands and interests impose formatting demands that no longer facilitate my personal creative output, growth, or interest.
In 2026, I will be "going rogue," and will shift the complete focus of my industrial output to producing outside of formal music venues. There are a ton of places that I have used for decades, and I have been strategizing this for years, making the upcoming transition seamless. This is not being done to "get away" from anyone or anything. It is to run toward something that inspires me like when I was 21 in 1985 and switched from playing hardcore punk rock to industrial. I had seen the limitations of my performing framework and moved to another one that exposed a vista of new opportunities. Once I removed myself from the narrow confines of rock-based genres, I was able to fully express myself in sonics, performance, stage design, and video production. Forty years later, the difference is that I am not leaving the genre, I am changing my focus of production. In the past, genre change was needed to take my creative life to what I saw as the next level. In this situation, the genre IS the creative safe haven from the alternatives of continuing to focus on a venue-based model/relationship where the predominant economics of production no longer work, and haven't for years. Most people in this genre that tour, or play often, do it on their own dime, basically subsidizing the scene while being in a structure where they far too often complain about being treated in less than respectful ways. When artists are repeatedly told to keep their set-ups small so they can get gigs, those who impose those limitations are stripping away the unique compositional benefit of industrial, which is being free to decide what an instrument is, and are empowered to compose with sonic components instead of being confined by notes and chords. "If it is correct, as I believe it is, that a fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work or creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions, then of course it will follow that a decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realized." Noam Chomsky
Producing events in untraditional/unconventional spaces has been a component of my creative output since I was a child. This is also why I wasn't "devastated" with the realization of the economics of my art. In an even weirder relevant aside, I learned something about executing this from my work with Luke Campbell from 2 Live Crew. During my time as acquisition director for Urban Box Office, I was honored and blessed to work with so many epic creatives in the Black community. With that came a number of interactions that were either sketchy or I had no interest in due to the brutally mainstream capitalistic focus of their creative output. Arguing with Jah Rule and dealing with Luke was at the top of that list for me. He was part of my death nail of paying attention to hip hop, a genre that I had loved… and had once seen a huge crossover in the compositional energy of industrial where anything is possible. Back to Luke… When I got the assignment to go work with him to produce the video components of his Freakfest 2000 event in South Beach, Miami, I was excited to spend 3 weeks in Florida during the winter in NYC, but I was pensive in working with him. To skip past my surprise of everyone calling him "Mr. Campbell" in every ritzy location that I would have believed prior that they wouldn't give two fucks about him, and his very friendly and professional vibe, to a situation that happened a few days before the series started. [rewind<<< Freakfest was a series of events in clubs all over South Beach that culminated in a huge event at the then ATT Amphitheater. This was the event that Dead Prez were beat up by police after the ended their set with their own pro-Black activist version of "Fuck the Police." Fred Hatt (friend/esteemed artist/one of the camera people) was filming in the dressing room when the cops busted in.] While I was hanging in his chill space while he ran his business, which was on the other side of the room from his office, I was documenting specific parts of his business meetings for our coverage. A person came in, and sat down. In one smooth move, he removed his gun from his pants, placing it on his desk, and continued to sit down. Having no connection to anything gun related in my life, beyond a BB gun, I was thrown into a what the fuck situation. I discussed with Luke that I wasn't trying to be around people who feel they need to be armed in such a chill environment. He assured me that there was nothing sketchy going on and reminded me that it is a gun friendly state for people without criminal records. My time with him showed me once and for all that I really had/have no interest in the entertainment industry "high life." However, having discussed his model in granular detail with him, he was so clear about how he had set himself up financially and structurally, and it didn't matter what the world's opinion was. It made me no more interested in his creative output, but it did provide another birds-eye view for me of someone giving the industry the finger and winning.
As a person who was dragged into a fight over obscenity in music that became a political lighting rod for the nation, changing physical music distribution forever when the PMRC [Parents Music Resource Center] eventually succeeded in getting labels placed on records throughout the United States, Luke saw pushback at a level that most people would never know. Again, I am only talking about his tactical heft in how he has structured his creative life outside of the mainstream model. I still have no interest in his creative output. I used his situation at that point as a reference here because the models of artists ranging from Luke to Mark Poline's Survival Research Laboratories to Laurie Anderson to Frank Zappa, Wendy O Williams / The Plazmatics [her art was the first thing that I saw connect the aggressive underground music scene to fetish] to Janis Joplin [who took heat for her natural voice as a soul singer] to Sinead O'Connor to George Clinton / Parliament Funkadelic to The Grateful Dead all exemplify what it means to know in one's bones that another way was/is possible, forgoing the formal systems to realize their true vision, and with the luck of the spirits, found a level of mainstream respect in any case.
As I pointed out in Vol. 5, there are many models of cultures and genres utilizing non-traditional locations for their IRL experiences, maintaining their unique vibe without the influences of others that do not share the vision. While writing this, I recently saw a documentary about the jazz club SMOKE, which is now owned by someone who originally worked there as a dishwasher. He is a dope example of someone who loves an artform, saw an opportunity to preserve an artform, and then did it. Here is news coverage of SMOKE's reopening after the pandemic venue shutdown. They were dedicated to reopening, and even did performances in their window with sound to the street. This was a dope crossover with my own work. In the early 2000's, my work life was activating former stores on 42nd Street, between 6th and Broadway, transforming them into art and performance spaces with chashama Arts at its technical director, which I was one of the cofounders of with Anita Durst. All of those venues had performance windows that I had built out with all types of technology that no other performance window in NYC had. We had all types of lighting and sound to the street, with mics mounted outside so the artist that is inside could clearly hear, creating a bi-directional performance scenario that featured tons of unique art, interviews, and music over their 4 year existence, to one of the most trafficked locations in the country… when the Bank of America Tower on 6th and 42nd was built, which took over the entire block that housed the 6 original chashama venues. Between 2000 and 2011, I was responsible for executing the activation of dozens of venues from absolutely nothing into art spaces. Although I have been very public about my disagreements about its management, I remain proud of the work I did there and the thousands of artists who got their start / big break through working with us. The culmination of this in my mind has made me so hyped for the future, which I honestly thought was impossible because I was already at bursting-level excitement as the date comes closer.
2026 will be here soon, and another reality will become a reality, rendering my former reality to reside with all of the other wonderful realities I have had since 1972 when I formally dedicated my life to underground artistic expression, creation, and exploration. I wish all those who remain in that world well, and I hope to see all industrialists out in the field somewhere. The sektor 6 kommunikations™ global Sonic Squadron will be executing "sonic invasions" all over NYC during the warm weather months, and we will be producing and promoting microscene events year-round, many that will be virtually accessible. We recently had a wonderful microscene holiday gathering that featured legendary DJ Soul Slinger, and we were graced with having the first vinyl set performed by his daughter, Isa [aka DJ IS*]. She had only worked on controller systems prior. Now, she based in NYC will be training in HellLab, along with Jared Hefler from Boston who I do virtual sessions with. What I love about this is that she will mostly be training with her dad, which I find to be incredibly dope. This has been an accounting of the energy that I bring into this transition. Industrialists and experimentalists are always invited to vibe with us, no matter how you express yourself through your personal idea of fashion. All xenophobes please remain in whatever places you find sanctuary and acceptance, because social conservatism has been actively antithetical to underground arts and culture, and is not welcomed in a community that calls for "an Industrialist movement that breaks free from genre constraints and returns to the core principles of Industrial Records' 1976 founding: pro-experimental, multi-gendered, anti-mainstream, anti-conservative, multi-ethnic, and 100% anti-xenophobic."
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." Buckminster Fuller
Let's do this.
Peaceness and Sledgehammers,
dh