5. Venezuelan DIY Punk Scenes in a Global Context
5.2 DIY In Venezuela Today
the media and record labels. By considering how DIY culture came about and the manner in which it evolved alongside punk’s musical and cultural subgenres, it is possible to understand how DIY has come to be understood as a spontaneous form of resistance through one’s own means of production (Bennett & Guerra, 2019). In the context of Venezuela, the first wave of punk and DIY sought to counter the mainstream production and abstain from capitalist modes of mass-production. However, following Chávez’s election and the change of the political and economic system, the circumstances for DIY underwent a mutation, as a more socialist-oriented society began to establish itself in the country.
Nevertheless, these self-producing strategies have consolidated across different spheres in the past four decades, and with regards to the case of Venezuela, there have been a number of DIY practices have found solid footing within the current punk scene. The primary example is that of Johnny Castro, owner and founder of Noseke Records based in Caracas. Established in 1997, the record label primarily focuses on re-editing records of his band, Apatía No, as well as other underground Anarcho-Punk bands from Venezuela. As a matter of fact, many bands from the first wave of punk in the country never produced an album because of the scarcity of finances or recording materials. Yet, the role played by Noseke Records has proven to be of pivotal importance for the maintenance of Venezuela’s punk and a DIY mode of conduct in the underground scene of the country primarily across time.
By re-editing demos of these punk bands in vinyl format, Noseke Records supports Venezuela punk’s legacy by distributing these records across the globe. In over two decades of activity, Johnny Castro has succeeded in sending a myriad of LPs and EPs to Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. The desire of the label was primarily aimed at maintaining total independence, and thus relying solely on its own means to produce music from an anti-capitalist stance. To this day the label continues to be 100 per-cent non-profit, and the money gained is channelled towards a number of activities that include aiding social projects, funding rehearsals, and recordings for bands’ future releases.
Particularly since the crisis intensified in 2014 and peaked in 2016, the massive migration process has led to a vast circulation of records in vinyl format. In fact, because of the large reserves of oil, the country produced a staggering quantity of vinyl disc records between the 1960s and 1990s – including a number of punk singles, EPs, and LPs, that were sold at a number of record shops. As a consequence of the reducing music scenes in the physical world, the surplus of vinyl records has allowed for other record labels to promote and circulate elements of the punk project, primarily by relying on the use of social media.
Duff FromHell’s case presents a particularly recent example of independent DIY production. In spite of the fact that she currently plays in two punk bands in Caracas, in 2016 she established an independent record label, known as Mukushies Records, acquiring DIY competences through personal experiences by participating in the local punk scene. After experimenting with her first EP – EP 2015 by Doña Maldad – she successfully managed to get her label recognised as an international, independent,
record label and continued to edit and produce other material for Venezuelan Punk or Metal bands both within and outside of the country (among these we can count Mar de Rabia, Deathcharge, a Brazilian Black-Metal band, as well as other bands that were left unnamed) (interview with Duff FromHell – 13/04/2021). The modus operandi of these two record labels is how they go about their work is distinctive. As stated by Dunn (2012), “[…] there is no single way of doing things for a DIY punk label – this is part of what distinguishes it as a mode of production from corporate mass production”
(Dunn, 2012, p, 222).
However, as a result of the decline in music and punk scenes in the underground networks of the country, it has become extremely difficult to engage in cultural production and performance according to a more traditional DIY fashion. As detailed by Will Straw (2019), music scenes “[…] make cultural activity visible and decipherable by rendering it public, taking it from acts of private production and consumption into public contexts of sociability, conviviality and interaction” (Straw, 2019, p. 26). What can be derived from such a statement is that if it were not for spaces in which alternative cultures coalesce, punk and other countercultural movements would be limited in their possibilities for community cohesion.
Nonetheless, as studied and analysed by several scholars, DIY cultures are in nature extremely malleable and thus adaptable to a vast array of circumstances, fostering the creation of a number of possibilities through which underground artists can flourish and engage in cultural production (for further reading see: Bennett &
Guerra, 2019; Straw, 2019; Benhaïm, 2019; Del Amo Castro, 2019; Barna, 2019).
During the interview, Duff further emphasised that despite the hardships to make music in the present, Venezuelans are resourceful people. Bands and punks have sought alternatives to record using limited resources, from cassette recorders to the purchase of computer interfaces, such as computer MIDI batteries (Musical Instrument Digital Interface). These allow connecting devices that make and control sound – i.e., synthesizers, samplers, and computers – and record live music sessions. Notably, the level of circulation of productions through both physical and digital spaces has grown exponentially.
The current environments of Venezuelan DIY can be exemplified specifically through an explanation of the roles covered by the two sole punk record labels in the country. On the one hand, Noseke Records has primarily focussed on the production, promotion and distribution of Venezuelan punk records to global audiences.
Mukushies Records on the other hand, has sought to expand its network of influence as a consequence of the difficulties in finding material to make CDs and cassettes during Venezuela’s most recent economic crisis. Moreover, throughout the past year, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, Duff has concentrated on creating and the editing fanzines, as well as setting up a podcast available on YouTube, known as RE//Fundido Metalpunk Podcast. By undertaking these different tasks, Duff has sought to expand the spectre of production of Mukushies Records to enable the label to keep innovating and differentiating its activities to allow the circulation of merchandise and music of both national and international bands. In fact, one of the most notable efforts undertaking during the pandemic was the creation of Asalto Urbano, detailed by Duff during the interview (see Figure 4.1).
Figure 4.1. Cover of the fanzine Asalto Urbano, published in July 2020 (source: 2020b).
"Bueno, Asalto Urbano nació porque se creo un grupo de WhatsApp aquí en Venezuela, y se hizo muy popular a principios de la cuarentena del año pasado crear grupos de WhatsApp para entretenimiento. La vocalista de una banda de Hardcore
llamado Delito, de aquí en Caracas, creo el grupo solamente para hablar de punk, de música, de Hardcore, de skate, de todo lo que nosotros les gusta. Y a medida de que fue creciendo el grupo nos dimos cuenta que habían diez diseñadores gráficos de que había gente de otro sello de que había gente súper creativa, y aparte la mayoría de lo que están en el grupo éramos súper creativos, de hecho uno de ellos es redactor y cuando surgió la idea de crear los compilados Asalto Urbano que son dos y bueno yo como todavía estaba haciendo fanzine y todo eso yo di la idea de crear un fanzine Asalto Urbano, no tanto para publicar sobre bandas sino para publicar las experiencias de los integrantes de ese grupo de WhatsApp. Pero si así fue que se creo el fanzine Asalto Urbano con los compilados, y la verdad es que fue una súper aventura, desde la creación de contenidos hasta la reacción, como se lidio la portada, de que íbamos hablar, como se iba a distribuir, y en que plataformas nos íbamos a publicar. Eso fue una total aventura, y actualmente estamos trabajando en el segundo volumen del fanzine y en tercer y cuarto compilado” (interview with Duff FromHell – 13/04/2021).
Duff’s description of the creation of this fanzine portrays a spontaneous manner in which people come together and seek to create their own art and culture with their own skills and means of production. Considering the circumstances in Venezuela, to be able to create the conditions in which to work in despite the hardships, and succeeding in establishing a new network of physical and digital collaboration, attests to the adaptability of DIY practices and the solidarity in these alternative forms of community. Moreover, the fact that these members are currently engaged in the creation of a second fanzine comes to signify how DIY culture and practice in both the Venezuelan and global contexts come to establish new forms of conviviality and sociality. This process further highlights the motives that push these punks and artists to come together driven by motives of creative and aesthetic gratification, as opposed to being driven by a profit-oriented motive, in accordance with Ferreira (2016).
Continuing the discourse developed by Bennett and Guerra (2019) in displaying how DIY practices are a form of resistance to neoliberalism, punks in Venezuela strive to pursue a lifestyle based on the values and practices of DIY, figuratively declaring their distance from the institutional and cultural paradigms of Chavismo. “[Adopting] a DIY stance that spans aspects of work and leisure, public and private, individuals create and maintain habitable spaces on the margins of this rapid urban, and increasingly regional, transformation” (Bennett & Guerra, 2019, p. 14). The
socio-political context presented in Bennett and Guerra’s (2019) argument, as well as that described throughout this thesis, provides a very different backdrop for DIY practices to develop and become established. Yet, by disregarding this distinction, the common denominator that stands out is that DIY portrays the exact countercultural nature of punk in resisting and challenging the status quo and the efforts of co-optation through
“[…] the creation of a symbolic alternative through a (physical or metaphysical) space of self-empowerment, mutual help and alternative social engagement” (Holtzman, Hughes, and Van Meter, 2007, cited in Bennett & Guerra, 2019, p. 12).