The
political spectra concerning merchandise.
(Stickers,
patches, t-shirts, buttons etc.)
How can you claim being an anti-capitalistic record-label selling out
unmeaning merchandise for us to consume?
We have been discussing this within the collective as we have so far been
against doing merchandise at all. We can all sign to the fact that we live in a
consumerist capitalistic culture and we know that we have to “sell” concepts
to make people interested in what you’re saying.
But why are you doing merchandising?
We want to make an alternative to the fashion industry of today. We are
making an alternative way of consuming clothes, that we in fact need to keep
warm, in order to feel wealthy. When you buy a T-shirt in a shop down town
you’ll pay everything from 15$-100$. That is a robbery and the T-shirt also
doesn’t really make any kind of threat to anything either. We are doing
clothing and other merchandise to be bought almost for the price of pressing it.
Those “products” do have a revolutionary potential in comparison to the
fashion industry.
We will never claim that our merchandise is necessary to purchase as for
purchasing some kind of happiness. We will never try to make the merchandise to
what it isn’t. We’ll never promote a band or our label as something its not
representing in real life. We’ll never promote a T-shirt as a must or as a way
of expressing yourself in any kind way. With our T-shirts we are making
stylistically T-shirts with political slogans that we stand behind 100%. We know
that style and slogans can affect and make a threat to the mainstream society
and that’s where we is. Of course we can’t make a comprehensive manifesto on
the back of a T-shirt, but sure we can use slogans that might interest or at
least affect people. It’s maybe on a micro-level, but still it’s on some
kind of level of change.
Do you think you can purchase happiness and revolution as some kind of product?
We are trying to escape the consumerist culture made out by the economical
system Capitalism and we don’t think that you can purchase “happiness” in
any kind of consuming. We are deceived to believe we can purchase happiness from
the day we were born into this world. We are indoctrinated that if you have 2
sodas and your friend have 1 you’ll be more happy than him. You can then feel
the pulsating, cold and fresh drink down your throat for a couple of more
minutes than your pal can, right? We do not believe our merchandise will cause
any kind of “happiness”, but what we do believe is that our merchandise can
be one sort of an alternative to the Victory, Sony products. When you purchase a
T-shirt from us you’ll not be cheated by rhetoric, psychological dispositions
or any kind of cheating at all. You will see the vision of what it truly is,
before you buy it. We think it’s a creative way of working and doing this
label and by just releasing music we confine ourselves to a limit where we
don’t want to be. We want to do all sorts of things as writing for papers,
magazines and fanzines. We want to design our website, our merchandise and
distribute our releases. We want to release books in the future. As an answer to
the question we want to say that we don’t think you can purchase happiness
from buying our products, we do put out ourselves as one sort of an alternative
to the fashion industry and we do sneak in political slogans and rhetoric’s in
our works. Yes.
If I have more questions, can I get in contact with you to obtain more
information about this?
Definitely. We want you to react and discuss this with us so get in touch if
interested in having a chat over this. Thank you.