Up The Bootleggs!

Recently there was a slight rukkus in the universe of D.I.Y. and the topic of discussion was, "Bootleg" shirts. Everyone has there opinion on bootlegs and I want to share mine. My friends at Black Market Distro got alot of criticism over the designs they print, Zyanose, D-Clone, Dustnoise, Final Blood Bath...Mainly japanese bands. The rumors and lies about the distro was started on some irrelevant forum talking about how BMD Distro is exploiting japanese punk and making money off bands that are broken up and yada yada yada! Keep in mind the people arguing over the bootleg shirts were mainly a chosen few from a certain noisecore round table.

Im not going to write anymore about that argument cause its pretty much been settled. What this argument did bring to my attention was how selfish some people can be when it comes to a certain genre of punk especially japanese punk. I love me my japanese punk and so do the rest of my friends. Its pretty difficult to buy japanese punk shirts in general. Alot of my friends dont have the money to buy 20 dollar shirts. So instead we make our own shirts...I don't see anything wrong in this! People all over the world bootleg shirts. Tapes and Records is a totally different discussion because were talking about music and this is about shirts. (Dumb Right?) First if i could drop 20 dollars to buy an official shirt off a current japanese band i would but in reality i wouldnt spend that much on shirt. I would a record but a shirt...get real. One of the main reasons punk grabbed my attention was anyone could do it! Buy some supplies, screen print sell em at shows, and you got your beer money. Noone is swimming in money here! and the way i see it Bootlegs is the reason some punk bands survive the test of time! Gism, Confuse. What i feel some people are afraid of is certain bands becoming more, "Burned out" and this is dumb...because really, id rather see a punk sporting a Dustnoise shirt than a Rancid shirt or Casualties shirt. If the person is doing it for fashion then you got nothing to worry about because there going to be down and out of the scene in no time. I don't feel anyone is into this for making money because if they were i think id be screen printing Justin Beiber shirts instead. Noone own punk we are all doing this to get away from big business do this ourselves, spread the message and music and images of bands around the world and spread this underground army. Yea we live in the world of superficial Myspace punks taking pictures of themselves posing for Mirror Magazine but like i mentioned...if there is a certain band you like and a person is only wearing that band for fashion you know there going to Fuck Off in no time. Well there could be more to this but im tired and like i said there is some type of irony when you mix business with punk. Fuck Politics! and...

Up the Bootlegs!



Expose Shirt -$30.00

HAHAH!