Idle musical community: Dischord Records and anarchic DIY practice

Abstract

Originally formed in 1980 to document the Teen Idle’s Minor Disturbance EP, Dischord Records has continued to document and support the local Washington, DC, hardcore punk music scene for over three decades through an anarchic Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethic. Dischord’s DIY ethic affords a manner of music documentation, in contrast to production, and community formation that reconfigures the space of dominant commercial production and exchange. Dischord’s business practices, such as forming agreements with bands via handshake instead of legal contract, allow the label to resist consumerism and exploitation of both artists and audiences while fostering a creative space, where profit does not dictate the sound of the music or produce a commodified musical product. Ultimately, Dischord’s political potential is in its ethics to the extent that anarchic DIY practice constitutes a sort of inoperative community of circulation rather than production and profit. The implications of these practices relate to the ways in which music constitutes social and communal relations and its radical possibility of reconfiguring a space outside of commercial exchanges, whether in the political sphere or in the digital realm.