Think about it, over the last few months of lockdown your Spirit of DIY, your creativity has taken a back-seat unsure whether your world will ever be the same again. Well if you sit back and relax and wait for the men in blue suits to tell you when you can be creative again, you could be waiting a long time.
Back in the day when you were young, yes you the middle aged slightly balding, once a mohican now a definite cropped haired Cock Sparrer follower, (the men that is) back in the day you were a creative type, with perhaps an artistic leaning towards painting, putting that next band name on that leather jacket or putting new studs in that belt, what a job that was. Maybe you painted backdrops for bands, maybe you put out compilation tapes of different bands, maybe you enjoyed the contact with others by going to punk gigs and making friends with other bands that you could book for future punk gigs, maybe those punk gigs were DIY in every sense of the word, pop up types, at castles, in parks, busking in the streets, squat gigs BYOB obviously, maybe you got creative with your drink, your drugs or your glue habit!! How things change, is your Spirit of DIY any less now?
Of course, it is and why is that? Because you’re older now and life has got in the way, but no-one is stopping you from being creative again. Has the coronavirus lockdown made you lazy and less creative? Or were you not really a creative person? Just following the crowd and pretending to be a creative person? What does the Spirit of DIY mean to you?
At Punkboot Promotions the lack of punk gigs has made us look at what else we can be doing that brings benefit to the scene. Be it the next punk and oi compilation CD or the next design of punk t-shirt to make or more recently CD duplication with cover artwork for the bands that play in the scene, all creative processes and all in-house and in the Spirit of DIY.
Creatives are still working relentlessly in the scene during lockdown, some self-employed and not entitled to furlough schemes or grants and others managing to make a living doing what they love. Artists painting leathers like our friend John Stevenson and our latest creator Phil Gleave, who created Punkboot Promotions a hand-made stage backdrop and excellent it is too, DIY in every sense of the term. There are many creatives in the scene still doing what they love and still managing to keep that Spirit of DIY alive.
It’s all too easy to pay someone to do it for you or buy it mass produced from a shop, corporate fashion! But to create your own punk clothing or produce a punk compilation CD is a tactile process, good for the soul and not at all boring and mundane as shopping on the high street!!
There will always be creative people in punk whether that’s a songwriter writing the next album or live music venues like the well-loved Waterloo Music Bar in Blackpool that had to get really creative and develop merchandise to help them survive lockdown, a real fighting Spirit, a Spirit of DIY.
So, what creative projects have you been involved in lately? if you can say that your Spirit of DIY is alive and kicking well good for you. Keep it up!
Spirit of DIY - Do or Die!