The MTV Music Video Awards were once the upstart to the Grammy's. AfroPunk was once the festival upstart that uniquely spoke to the eclectic interests of the Black community when it launched in the Brooklyn Academy of Music parking lot. The Slamdance Film Festival was once the upstart to the Sundance Festival. New Wave was once the upstart music culture that changed how society looked, and looked at itself. It also was the culture that birthed the punk, industrial, no wave, and alternative music cultures. Now those songs are heard in yuppie bars with no irony. It is important to remember why subcultures are developed and to never try to make them into being mainstream-esque entities.

The act of trying to become an industry insider through outsider culture has taken/driven our culture closer to the culture it was developed to escape than anyone should feel comfortable with. Combined with the death of many parts of IRL culture in general, subcultures suffer worse because IRL scenes are typically comprised of isolated "outsiders." Now, those who were once the outgoing crowd have become influencers bound to their computers, venturing into the public to create content, seeing the world as possible targets versus possible tribe mates. If all of this wasn't enough, the markers of our culture have been reduced to out of context memes. In 1980, if someone wore a Dead Kennedys or Clash shirt, it was a guarantee that they were into the band. It was also very easy to approach other tribe members IRL in comparison to now. We only required a few visual markers to start conversations that [as the last 45 years has proven] turned into life-long friendships. This also isn't unique to industrial. Here is someone discussing it from the perspective of metal culture. [I also dig how he makes a clear cultural point without generating bile in the process.]

In 1978, The Who's "Who Are You," represented the rebellion of having endless meetings with industry scum to get paid. It was the guitar player's story of meeting members of the Sex Pistols at a bar in London. They doted on him for his sound and playing style that made him one of the musicians who paved the way for what would become "punk style" performers. It has been reported that he felt like a sellout during this chance meeting and wrote this song about it.

[a semi-quick rewind <<<] The Who terrorized stages and hotel rooms alike, destroying gear and upholstery with equal zeal, broke into my brain with their movie Tommy, in 1976 when I was 12. As with every other band/concert/underground movie, I was able to see it only three blocks from my home at Belmar Cinema. There were also plenty of all-ages club experiences during that time that sparked a young club movement that would pack adult venues only a few years later. Having so many IRL experiences in my teens that were connected to music directly contributed to my career as a documentarian, producer, and businessperson. I also believe it prepared me to be a teacher and community organizer, providing me the ability to engage everyone with a child-like sense of wonder, engaging the world optimistically thinking, "Who are you?"

I can hear people saying something like, "Once again Hell leads off with some random factoid." LOL! Stick with me, Fam. There is a madness to my method. LOL. The new Walmart.com promotional campaign features a bastardized version of the song, "Who Are You" and turned it into "Who Knew?" Most people who see the commercial will have no clue of the song's meaning that spoke of the transitioning of rebel culture in rock music. Reading those lyrics will clearly show that it was 100% fucked up that Walmart used it. The Who, who had been viewed as rock's premiere bad boys less than a decade earlier, was now absorbed into the industry, rendering rebel guitarist Pete Townsend to be reduced to feeling like a sellout when meeting members of a band like The Sex Pistols, who were flowing in the wake of the explosion of punk rock culture onto the world of the late 1970s, replacing those from the previous generations.

Sadly, this model is exactly what our culture is facing now. Industrial music culture has now had enough of a lifespan to now be overwhelmingly led by people who were not part of the original culture that they have now been granted stewardship of. To be clear, I am not saying that this is a negative thing on its own. But, because they came into the culture at a time when it had been mainstreamed into a look that typically gets referred to as "goth," which has taken the culture very close to being the antithesis of why we created the culture in the 1970s in the first place. Industrial culture was birthed in rebellion to the mindless thump-thump of the disco boom, and the sickening ever-growing capitalist ferver of what would become a wave, beginning in the early 1980s, of mindlessly spending money on jewelry and clothing. Now, industrial music and culture is primarily found IRL at noise shows in rebellion to the thump-thump of ebm/goth events that often cater to people who like eclectic dance music that is often not actually industrial, and doesn't care for/dislikes music that is rightfully branded as industrial.

Here is a prime example. There was once a vibrant music scene that was fed by having a model where any national or international act coming into a region would have at least one "local act" on the bill. That elevated artists to be able to bolster their status, and in turn, grow their career while getting extremely valuable stage training. In the late 1980s/early 1990s, the NYC industrial scene occupied multiple megaclubs with local programming [bands and DJs]. Now, due to the rise of the vulturistic and monopolistic behavior of entities like Live Nation/TicketMaster, tours almost never have local acts involved. I have mentioned this numerous times because it is the primary component of scene development that has been removed, and is the ultimate reason scenes have died throughout the United States.

We have also transitioned 180 degrees to being a culture that now has allowed a right-wing element to develop. Having lived through the invasion of nazi punks in the early hardcore punk scene [late 1970s/early 80s], I remain a firm voice against the right-wing philosophical stance that has perpetrated and/or supported some of the most horrid parts of American culture. This is a snapshot of how punks dealt with this issue. I only need to present the people they see as representing their point of view to explain why I, and industrial culture writ large, are in stark and fervent opposition to what they stand for.

All of this has led to a drastic shift in what "rebel culture" is seen to represent, and in addition, has generated motivations behind the current stewards of the IRL movement that stray wildly from the culture's original intent. It also minimized the possibilities of generating warm temporary IRL engagements. [i.e. Pleasant interactions with random people that last for less than 10 seconds, like saying hello to someone as we pass because of signifiers that would indicate they are also part of a culture I engage.] I make the distinction between IRL and the rest of the ways art is communicated because true experimentation is still welcomed and sought after when people make an effort to engage others in person.

I can also hear someone saying, "With all of that said, what the fuck are we supposed to do about it?" Well, I am a firm believer in the DIY model because it has worked very well for me. And, in relation to addressing the issues of this community:

• Get together and actively engage your other IRL tribe members to make more meaningful connections.
• You can call together a local forum to discuss what you want, and don't, in your community. Hold it in your local club, or in a public space.
• If you don't have any IRL industrial opportunities, then reach out to people anywhere you can find them to build a tribe. Even 3 people can make a huge difference in having others to share experiences and culture with.
• Join healthy social media pages that suit your vibe. [FYI - Fully avoid joining into arguments, unless you see a path to reducing the crazy with something that is directly factual and equally rationally calming in its approach.]
• Create your own tribe in whatever way you can. [When I began producing industrial events in the mid-1980s, there was really no existing club market, and certainly no idea of being able to pack a venue, although I knew I could generate enough interest to keep it going if it never relied on staying in a single location, which would mandate the necessity for a sustained approximate 70% of capacity attendance to maintain residency. I believe that model has always been unsustainable for industrial events, on average.]
• Check out Bandcamp and see if you have any bands close to you. There may be the makings of a scene by you waiting to be pulled together. This is also a way to stay up on new bands, and hear their entire album or EP versus a Spotify model that only gives you the hits from any band.

A CALL TO ACTION: We have to take new actions and go in new directions with how we address having industrial music and culture in IRL situations. For myself, on my 40th anniversary of becoming an industrial DJ [in 1986], I will be going rouge. Having the blessing of living in New York City, and I have many opportunities to engage populations outside of the club/venue model. My career as a performer spans from a time where the IRL experience was an emotionally and socially fulfilling component of my happiness and my artform to the highly productive isolation that is the result of a greatly reduced IRL experience, on top of losing IRL signifiers as a way to further generate my tribe. The new model I have developed for my future creative output as a DJ is specifically designed to be sustainable without any of the traditional support or presentational models being utilized. I have scouted locations around the city, purchased a fully battery-powered sound system [that's nice, frequentially full, and loud] and battery-powered projector, while I have been developing a squad of performers from all over who will become components/residents of the reopening my virtual club, Club Patience Zero and the HellLab Virtual Performance Space in Spring 2026. The venue was launched in March 2020 with a 13-hour global industrial festival that was the first of its type.

Having this chapter of my entertainment career in my 60s be something that is removed from the clutches of the influence industry pressures, monetarily self-sustainable, and as adventurous as my teen years, were imperative to me. It is the only obvious evolutionary direction for someone who has lived the life I have.

You need to figure out how to do this in your own world. Since I am not addicted to, and have never sought, having continued large audiences, that is my personal power. That should never be seen as I have never sought out having many people engage my creative output. This may seem like a contradiction, but it isn't. Although I hope a large crowd will attend my productions, I am neither validated or humiliated with the outcome. I can explain it this way. Professor Cornell West was asked why he had left dream teaching positions at Harvard and Princeton, and responded that he was "born dirt-poor…" and he couldn't be scared with the thought and/or threat of poverty. Simply put, my devotion to and philosophy of "artform-before-audience" is my personal power. I also thrive on small productions, which are the majority of events that I have engaged and/or produced in my 45+ years of clubdome.

What is your personal power? If you really think about your situation without allowing yourself to consider what others would or wouldn't say, what would be the thing and/or situation that would be brought about with your unique personal power? Assessing your personal power also helps you to create and/or enhance truly personal views, rendering the opinions of the mob as just that, "opinions" and nothing more. In that environment, negative peer pressure is greatly minimized. Most importantly, developing systems of engagement outside of the industry's grasp is imperative for you to answer with personal pride and conviction when you are asked, "who are you?"

Let's do this.

Peaceness and Sledgehammers,

dh