All this reminds me of one of my favorite music vs. corporate stories. I saw an interview a long time ago with Michael Stipe (admittedly not punk). Apparently Bill Gates offered him some insane amount of cash (I think it was 10 million) to use “It’s the End of the World… (and I feel fine)” for the launching of the Windows ‘95 campaign, and Stipe turned it down. I’ve always respected him for that- 10 mil is no joke.

what’s funny or interesting to me is how hard nike tries to fit in as a ‘skate’ company and yet the skaters i know think of them as a joke and won’t buy their shoes etc. nike is not a skate company. no matter how much money they throw at this ‘sport’ they’ll never fit in. and then by doing something like this… nice try.

Nike was just trying to use Minor Threat as an “easy in” to the culture in the same way that Microsoft was hoping to co-opt REM’s vibe for their product.

It just cracks me up that a company which started making track shoes and has specialized in making traditional sports shoes is trying to force its way into skate culture. It’s like Vans suddenly manufacuring football cleats, or Airwalk making wrestling shoes. Skateboarding is just not Nike’s territory.

I’m actually put off by the skaters who are in the sponsored tour. Anything for a check…

exactly!

        Who the Sam Hill is Jason Kottke?

Ian’s a good guy. Fugazi made some good records. Punk is whatever you want it to be.

I’m reminded of that bit in the Rutles parody where people are running into Rutles Corps HQ and making off all the swag in the joint.

why isn’t skateboarding nike’s territory? i mean weren’ t the first official skate shoes basically a rip off of the nike dunk. even today a lot of skate shoes are modeled after the nike dunk. so can you really blame nike for wanting to finally profit off of something that they indirectly influenced? i don’t.

and it’s so easy for these teenage kids who considered themselves punk and call everyone and everything sellouts, while they sit comfortly in the homes that their parents bust their asses to pay for and put food on the table and pay for the clothes they wear. try being that idealistic punk rocker and have to pay your own way through life. there’s nothing cool about being a dirty gutter punk that lives in a squat because they got kicked out of their momies home.

the real fact is that skate companies need money to pay thier employees and keep the business going. and they all want to live comfortably and not have to worry about money. and in order to do that they have to have a wide market that includes skaters, wannabes, and people who just like the way shoes and clothing, made by skate companies, look and feel. i mean who cares if the guy standing next to you is wearing etnies and has never stepped on a skateboard in his entire life. i like to watch football but i sure don’t play it all except on my xbox. does this mean i’m not allowed to like football? this way of thinking angers me. it’s stupid and petty. everyone should just worry about themselves and not try to prove how cool and underground they are by bashing other for not being like you.

isn’t the core of being so called punk is about being an individual? but yet most so called punks spend a lot of time pointed out people who aren’t like them. anyways, good for fugazi for being able to support themselves doing exactly what they want. and good for p-rod for making money off nike for doing exactly what he wants. and ian mackaye needs to lighten up and get off is philosophicaly high horse and realize that stupid poster that i would have never even seen if they didn’t make such a big deal of was really a homage to minor threat. and i sick of being lecture by ian on how i should live my life everytime i see fugazi. ian, i love your music but other than that shut up. let your music speak for you. let your message come out of your music and if it’s written well enough it will. but i don’t need you to be my dad.

We live in a capitalist society where Nike has every legal right to branch into manufacturing skate shoes. They can make skateboarding their territory because they have the money to pay off skateboarders and do research and experimentation to create the next generation of skate shoes. And more than likely, little skate kids who are going to the mall with Mom’s credit card will spend exorbitant amounts of money on Nike skate shoes, hoodies, and other paraphernalia. This little skate kid will most likely do this because he is unaware of, or could care less about the quality of Nike’s corporate citizenship. He will show his support of Nike’s unethical practices by giving them money.

Unethical? you may ask. Nike’s use of sweatshop labor is widely known, their little swipe at Minor Threat’s intellectual property is public knowledge, and they generally subscribe to corporate culture where the workers get as little money as possible while the higher-ups make out like fat-pensioned bandits. The fact remains that Nike does not need more money that it already has. If they are worried that their employees aren’t living comfortably, then maybe the CEO could sacrifice a few million on his creature comforts to help their employees in Indonesia make enough to buy shoes for themselves. The money is already there. I’m very tired of the argument, that “everyone just needs to make a living.” I agree that everyone needs to make a living, but they shouldn’t make it at the expense of others’ well-being. Making a living is not the same as making money. Making a living (as far as I’m concerned) does not include mansions, more cars than you have drivers, more than one home, or $100 hair cuts.

Now, our little skate kid may say that he is just a little suburbanite who can’t effect change in Nike’s corporate policy and use that as his excuse to buy his Nike Team Edition so he can look “cool.” The same excuse may be adopted by the Nike skateboard riders. “Someone else will ride for them and get the money, so I may as well do it and get the money for myself. Besides, what can I do?” Frankly, that is the laziest form of world citizenship. “Someone else will screw those people over, so I may as well do it.” Why would you knowingly pay someone to give someone else the shaft? I fail to see any logic or ethics in that.

If Nike were to lower their prices, treat their employees fairly, and have a CEO who lived a modest life, I may consider purchasing their wares.

If some no-name guy started a skate shoe company in his garage, he would likely be doing it because he was participant in the culture, liked skating, and wanted to make something to add to the culture while being able to make a living at it (make a living, not make a home in the Hamptons). If people were to wear his sneakers it would be because they are a good product. He wouldn’t be able to pay people to wear his shoes right off the bat, or offer a tour, or launch viral marketing campaigns. He would be a true ground-level entrepreneur. I would be all for that. But Nike is an interloper of sorts. They have bought their way in. Imagine a kid steps into your favorite field and demands to be treated with respect, not because he has paid his dues and spent years in the field, but because he has enough money place himself at your level. He hasn’t earned respect because he hasn’t earned his position. Hence skating isn’t Nike’s territory. Give them a few years of strategic campaigning and skate tours, and everyone will forget that that Nike was never in the skate business.

Travis Morrison wrote a piece for his website a while back (the piece no longer seems to exist so don’t bother looking for it) about how the music scene is being overrun with a Saturday night attitude - party tonight with no thought for the morrow. He argued that Ian MacKaye is an individual who brings back a little bit of Sunday morning to the music scene - a sense of responsibility and consequence for actions. Great music has a bit of Saturday night and Sunday morning. Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis, and others took moralizing gospel and spirituals and added a little fun to them without losing Sunday morning. There was always a sense that the “hedonistic” aspect of the music was rooted not so much in something spiritual or religious, but something with gravity.

I have no problem with Ian or others like him taking a stand for something and being passionate about it. We need more people who think and act. From all of the Fugazi concerts I’ve attended, I honestly can’t think of too many instances where Ian (or Guy for that matter) took time to lecture me or anyone else about how they should live their lives (other than some film footage I saw of him rapping to the crowd that beating up people isn’t cool, or when they stop concerts for fighting). If you don’t agree with Ian’s politics or don’t want him lecturing you at his concerts (he’s not your dancing monkey just because you forked over $7), then I would suggest to do the same thing I encourage people to do about Nike: Don’t pay! Don’t go to the concert. Don’t buy the CD. Don’t buy the shoes.

P.S. Dischord only placed a brief statement on their site about this whole debacle. It’s me and a bunch of other people with websites who have made it a big deal. Do don’t try to shift blame for the publicity to Dischord.

P.P.S. I’d rather people stop bandying around the term “homage” in respects to the poster. I think Kottke got the ball rolling with that term and it’s misapplied. It’s a co-opt. I’m sure the skaters saw it as an homage, but Nike didn’t and Nike produced the poster. So ultimately the homage was superceded by the co-opt. They should have gotten permission (which they wouldn’t have received) and they didn’t.

When I started Skating 18 years ago, the people who wore Nikes were the guys who would kick your ass for being a skateboarder. Now that we’ve grown in numbers and make more since to market toward Nike wants to sell us shoes. Hell no.

Tres tacky!

This is only partly an intellectual property issue. It’s also about power. The most noble goal of intellectual property law is to level the IP playing field, so that small companies like Dischord and a behemoth like Nike can each get fair treatment. We have very unbalanced IP laws because they don’t really protect individuals and small companies, and they tend to give leverage to the Nikes of the world.

Burn down that Niketown.

www.econoculture.com

Football, Beer, and Dischord

Fox teams up with Minor Threat and successfully eases that dreadful transition into the second quarter. Well, â??teams upâ?� might not be an accurate description, but if you were watching the Eagles vs. Broncos game last Sunday on Fox TV you might have caught a snippet of Minor Threatâ??s swan song, â??Salad Days.â?� Econo staff writer, Justin Moyer, covers the story in the latest edition of econoculture.com. Take a minute and check us out. Weâ??re the webâ??s newest guide to all aspects of indie culture.

Hereâ??s a link to the story: http://www.econoculture.com/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=112&Itemid=45

Thanks for taking the time,

-Brian brian@econoculture.com

Thanks, Brian from econoculture.com. As an easily manipulated alternative to traditional PR venues, my comments section is open to all econoculture.com advertising. And if econoculture.com wants me to mention econoculture.com one more econoculture.com time, I don’t think I could possibly fit it in. As a matter of fact, I could only fit it in five times, which is the same amount of time you managed to squeeze it into your comment. I expect my ad check in the mail at the end of the month. I also accept PayPal.

and itâ??s so easy for these teenage kids who considered themselves punk and call everyone and everything sellouts, while they sit comfortly in the homes that their parents bust their asses to pay for and put food on the table and pay for the clothes they wear. try being that idealistic punk rocker and have to pay your own way through life. thereâ??s nothing cool about being a dirty gutter punk that lives in a squat because they got kicked out of their momies home.

At this point, most Fugazi fans are college grads, perfectly capable of living independently. While it may be easy to accept the stereotype that fans of punk rock are idealistic drunks who live with their parents, today at least, that is not the reality. Yes, some fans of punk rock like breaking stuff, and some fans are drunks. However, Fugazi is against both of these things, and the idea that Fugazi fans are hyprocritically idealistic, lo-life teens is simply not true. Dischord’s “idealism” isn’t about being cool, it’s about making music with integrity, and I don’t see how that’s a problem. While there may be an argument against a punk label being upset about this, there is none against Dischord, as given the label’s past, this course of action is not at all hypocritical.

fyi, that black and white band photo of minor threat on brian’s econoculture.com article link shows some of the members wearing chuck taylors’…chuck taylors’ are made by converse…converse is owned by nike.

shoes are shoes, they’re not social commentaries of all the injustices found in the world. just because a company is successful, doesn’t make them criminal, just like making money shouldn’t mean you’re a sellout.

rapper ice cube once commented that some of his fans thought he was a sellout because he bought a home in the hollywood hills after he became rich, his reply, “What, you expect me to live in the fuckin’ ghetto the rest of my life so that I can prove myself?”

Justin, this is the last half-baked comment I’m going to allow through on this post. I will respond to this, but it doesn’t really matter because you kids are just passing through here because you found Movable Walls through a “Minor Threat” search.

FYI, Converse was acquired by Nike in September, 2003. Minor Threat existed between 1980 and 1983. And, it’s entriely beside the point.

Yes, shoes are shoes. Just because a company is successful doesn’t make them criminal. Agreed? Agreed. Sweat shops are often not criminal because the US can’t prosecute for bad behavior in other countries that allow it. So if Nike wants to use sweat shops it can. It’s the consumers that allow Nike to do so. If the consumers don’t consume Nike’s sweatshop goods, then Nike must make adjustments and become a more responsible citizen. Nike is not a criminal corporation (maybe), but it is not a good corporate citizen. It is a slimy corporate citizen.

Making money does not make you into a sellout. Selling out makes you a sell out. Abandoning decent ideals for a quick buck is selling out. Supporting a slimy corporate entity so you can make some money is selling out. Exploiting the poor and the marginalized for cash is selling out.

I would hope that Ice Cube would stay in or near the ghetto and exude some positive influence on it. It would send a message that the ghetto can be reformed as opposed to the thought that the only cure for the ghetto is to leave it and move in with the white folks in Hollywood Hills. Lastly, watch the language, this is a family site.

To Chris, from another Chris: Chris I agree with you all the way, especially the sell-out and sweatshop issues. Here’s my soapbox:

I’m a school bus driver 02 Jul 06 nike and skateboarding DO NOT MIX!!! You know thier horrible reputation for exploiting those dear sweet needy Indonesians or what not. Their nike sb t-shirt they offer thru ccs.com is SOOOOO unoriginal and Drab its not even funny. If I or any other skater thought that much of nike (heaven forbid) we could go to a thrift shop and buy an old nike shirt and take a sharpie and put the sb on, vwala!!, same stupid thing!!!!! Why should a skater be charged an arm and leg for a shirt that has the same boring nike check-mark logo thats been around for 100 years!!! I am apalled , yes skating has a negative punky image, I dont care!! It makes it even worse that Nike,( the big ol spider that sat beside miss muffett) hangs over us skaters like a black cloud. Iâ??m sure skaters wouldnâ??t appreciate it either, having crappy merchandice made in a sweatshop. It also makes me sick that Nike bought Hurley, a good skate clothing brand. Lets hope hurley wonâ??t become contaminated!! and according to my favorite book â??skateboarding is not a crimeâ?� the skaters want to be distinguished in their dress and resent it when non-skaters copy off them as they feel intruded on. though We skaters are in fact territorial animals; certainly we donâ??t seek to attack outsiders, but you outsiders mind your own business and stop copying after us because of your greedy marketability, so we can mind our own. Nike was never a true skateboarding company that seeks to GIVE and BENEFIT skateboard-causes, and as long as it has its despicable sweatshops, It never will be!!!! NIKE you are a disgrace to skateboarding, your just in it for the money because you saw skateboarding is getting more and more popular, thus marketable. YOU ARE GREEDY, LEAVE US ALONE!!! Lets us skaters boycott Nike, as its just an imitation of other skate shoes, and support REAL skate shoe companys that REALLY need our money And though unfortunately this link doesnâ??t work, heres another thing I found: Get Nike Out of Skateboarding Say No More! from: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/acropolis/5232/links.html Nike you will never see apenny from me. Why should I or any other skater want to associate ourselves with a company who exploits and mistreats and steals from those sweatshop workers. NEVER!!! Thank you for listening!!! Later!

What seems to be missing from this discussion to me is that Nike STOLE the image from Minor Threat with the singular purpose of selling their sweatshop products with “Street Credibility” to american children.

Using Minor Threat (without paying or having permission) to make money for their immoral product is completely obscene.

I find this incredibly offensive to Ian Mackaye’s life work and to all the people who have found inspiration in his DIY methods.

Nike can do this with impunity because they know that Mackaye and Discord do not have the financial resources required to pose a credible threat to them. If it were stealing a corporate music product icon like Brittany Spears or Justin Timberlake’s Album cover they would have been immediately slapped with a major painful lawsuit.

This is just another sad example of might making right and it sucks. Laws only apply to the poor and I hope that is the lesson all the skater children learn from this ugly episode.