E PUNK NTREPRENEURSHIP IN - ALBA Graduate Business School

“Roots Radical” - PUNK ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN ARTIFACTS AND ACTION
Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd
ALBA Graduate School of Business
October 18th, 2011
Abstract
Pervasive societal rhetorics of the entrepreneurship have long been argued to legitimate and promote
values such as the pursuit of profit, personal enrichment, and individualism. As yet, relatively little attention
has been paid to alternative visions and performances of entrepreneurship. The present study uses an
analysis of artifacts and action to examine radical punk entrepreneurship. The methodology combines a case
study of Punk entrepreneurship, the band Rancid, with analysis of associated artifacts: music, lyrics,
artworks, tattoos, videos, websites, facebook and MySpace pages. Findings highlight the importance of
framing ideologies focused on independence from the mainstream, collectivity, a rejection of the profit
motive, social protest, strong identification with the working class, and (extreme) art as a mode of
communicating and celebrating these values. This form of alternative entrepreneurship is highly grounded in
place, exceptionally relational, and aims for independence and authenticity, rather than profit or growth.
The collective creative processes of writing, performing, producing, promoting, and touring are characterized
by dogged persistence, a strong sense of brotherhood and community, and a desire for freedom. Punk
music, as a product and a process, is exceptionally creative, collaborative, self-sustaining, combative,
independent, inclusive, freedom-seeking. It is, however, also a practice of critique against the orthodox.
Punk is anti-greed, anti-establishment, anti-mainstream.
Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd
Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
Athens Laboratory of Business Administration
Athinas Ave. & 2A Areos Str.,
166 71 Vouliagmeni, Greece
[email protected]
Tel: +30 210 896 4531-8
Images and Ownership:
Permission has been sought from Epitaph / Hellcat records, Machete Manufacturing, and Unknown Studios
to reproduce images and video stills analysed within this study. Until such time as permission is granted, the
study is less colourful and graphic than I’d hoped.
Acknowledgements:
I am enormously grateful to ALBA’s Dean Nick Travlos, for so generously permitting me a sabbatical, in the middle of an
economic crisis. Special thanks are also due to Andreas Drakopoulos, for his insight and encouragement throughout the
study, as well as to Bessas, for reminding me that Punk Rock has no upper age limit, and welcoming me back into the
family. Rob Smith’s editorial comments were very helpful too.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the PROS International Symposium, Corfu, 16-18 June 2011
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“Roots Radical” - THE ROLE OF ARTIFACTS IN RADICAL PUNK ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Sarah Drakopoulou Dodd
Introduction
Entrepreneurship scholarship has engaged with the role of stories, symbols, and other “realms of meaning”
in generating legitimation for nascent entrepreneurs (Lounsbury and Glynn, 2001). Such legitimation may
occur at the level of the individual entrepreneur, or within wider cultural discourse of the entrepreneur, as
pervasive societal rhetoric, which has been argued to espouse values such as the pursuit of profit, personal
enrichment, and individualism. As Cálas et al (2009: 553) put it: “traditional perspectives on
entrepreneurship aim to reproduce a specific economic system—market capitalism—and assume it will
benefit all”. As yet, relatively little attention has been paid to alternative visions and performances of
entrepreneurship, with the notable exception of social enterprise, in spite of growing demands for such work
(Rindova et al, 2009: 478). The present study aims to redress this research gap, by using an analysis of
artifacts and action to examine the ideology of radical punk entrepreneurship.
The aim of this study is to consider one voice of the voiceless, the voice of Punk entrepreneurship. Bands,
record labels, shops, band-related artifacts, fanzines, venues, and independent Punk communities have
enacted alternative radical entrepreneurship as a transgressive act. Here, “radical” is taken to mean
entrepreneurship which is very different from the established norm, with left-of-centre political overtones,
and promoting substantive socio-cultural change, through the vehicle of independent economic action.
Examples of such entrepreneurship might include historical communities, such as the Diggers, or Robert
Owen’s New Lanark experiment.
Scholarship portrays Punk Entrepreneurship as a radical, long-lived social movement, which combines
countercultural creative art with social protest, and economic independence from the hegemony of the
mainstream (Nicholas, 2007, 1; Spencer, 2008, 11). Perhaps the best, and most studied, example of this
genre of radical enterprise is the DIY Punk movement, which explicitly and holistically sought to create new
space for independent living and artistry:
“The DIY ethic states that Punks should not be content with being consumers and spectators but instead
should become active participants in creating culture by starting their own fan magazine…, creating their
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own record labels, starting their own bands, and creating a network of venues for live performance”
(Roberts and Moore, 2009, 22).
Punk Rock band Rancid emerged from San Francisco’s East Bay, as part of a wider movement there in the
mid-1980s and early 1990s. Key band members were associated with ‘924 Gilman Street’, an influential
music club, and seminal example of the DIY Punk movement: “all ages, not for profit, collectively run,
music/performance club and community space1”. The current Rancid band members are a strong example of
how diversified and wide-ranging punk entrepreneurship is, as well as highlighting the enactment of material
artifacts as an integral part of this radical organizational form. The methodology combines a case study of
Punk entrepreneurship, namely, the band Rancid, with analysis of associated artifacts: music, lyrics, artwork,
tattoos, videos, band merchandise, websites, facebook, and MySpace pages.
The paper continues by very briefly reviewing relevant literature, before progressing to an explanation of the
methodology deployed in the field study. Findings are then presented and analyzed in some detail, before a
concluding discussion. Emphasis has been placed on (material) field data, rather than theoretical
abstractions.
Reframing Entrepreneurship through the lens of Punk popular music
There is a growing heterodox movement in entrepreneurship scholarship directly challenging mainstream
presumptions that, a priori, frame the entrepreneurial process within a specific economic, managerial, and
normative frame (Chandler and Lyon, 2001; Coviello and Jones, 2004; Gartner, 2004; 2010a:2, 2010b, Grant
and Perren, 2002; Jones and Spicer, 2005:236; Ogbor 2000:622; Steyaert and Hjorth, 2003; Steyaert and
Katz, 2004, 189). It is increasingly suggested that “the presentation of the entrepreneur as a heroic agent of
change might be socially constructed” (De Clerq and Voronov, 2009b, 395-6; Drakopoulou Dodd and
Anderson, 2007; Radu and Redien-Collet 2008). This challenging critical voice is also associated with a
backlash against positivist epistemology, and a call for more experimental, contextualized, critical studies,
drawing on rich sources of qualitative data (Cope, 2005; Down, 2010; Gartner, 2010b; Steyaert, 2005:7). In
particular, there has been a recognition that the practice of entrepreneurship, as conceptualized by the
dominant school, acts as much to legitimize the status quo, as to revitalize it (De Clercq and Voronov 2009a,
801; De Clercq and Voronov 2009b, 403-404; Rindova et al 2009).
Cálas et al (2009: 553) propose that a helpful alternative starting point may be to consider entrepreneurship
as being, definitionally, about social change, and their paper explores the questions “what difference does it
make to reframe entrepreneurship theory and research through feminist analytical lenses, and what can
1
http://www.924gilman.org/blog/?page_id=9, accessed Sunday, 29 May 2011
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these lenses tell us about entrepreneurship as social change?” (2009:554; Rindova et al, 2009). The purpose
of the current paper is analogous, namely, to reframe entrepreneurship theory and research through the
lens of alternative enterprise, as enacted by Punk Rock. Grounding the study in the praxis and artifacts of
Punk Rock, the study will explore what such lenses can show us about the social change element of
entrepreneurship, and what new light they can throw on extant perspectives.
Pritchard et al have suggested that the paucity of research from industrial sociology into popular music is to
due to a general belief that it serves mainly as “an affirmation of the hierarchical relations of capitalism”, and
as “a resource for the performance of consumptive identities and a sense of form, timing, and pace for
consumptive and service practices” (2007: 10, 11; see also Adorno, 1990). Why then consider contemporary
music as critical entrepreneurship? Firstly because, as should be already clear, it seems probable that Punk
Rock challenges, rather than affirms market structures of dominance. And secondly, as Rehn has observed:
“popular culture is powerful specifically because it is popular, and the way in which constructs realities must
be taken seriously” (2008, 781). Thus, cultural constructions of entrepreneurship, as articulated in popular
artifacts, have the potential to offer important and novel insights. Unusual contexts generate new lenses for
re-storying entrepreneurship, which move consideration away from the typical white middle-class setting,
with its endowment of social, cultural, human and economic capital (Rehn and Sköld, 2005; Sköld and Rehn,
2007, 53). This is demonstrated effectively by Rehn and Sköld’s own study (2005, 2007), which explores rap
music as a minor economic literature, illustrating thereby Pritchard et al’s critique of popular music as
reinforcing capitalist entrepreneurial rhetorics (2007). This hybrid discourse is, as they note, a highly political
re-appropriation of capitalism, which changes the territory of business English, by offering a Black ghetto
narration of capitalism (2005, 19, 27). Through clothing lines and record labels, the rap entrepreneurs
commodify their lifestyle narrative, and make it accessible to others. Rehn and Skold argue that art and
business, in this context, can no longer be seen as two separate spheres. A similar point is made by Simon
Down, writing about his own creation of an identity as a Punk record label entrepreneur in London (Down,
2006, 1). Following, then, in their footsteps, this paper reports on a study into the art and business of Punk
Rock, as performed by Rancid, from the release of their first EP in 1992, until the present day. Independent
socio-economic activity as a mode of radical action, and financial survival, is an important element in the
lived experience of this community. However, these entrepreneurs are far removed from the free-market
rhetoric of capitalism, choosing instead to transgress mainstream entrepreneurship by using it as a vehicle
for creating meanings of resistance.
Methodology
‘Mainstream’ entrepreneurs may articulate their credo through business plans, pitches and presentations,
press releases, annual reports, IPO statements, and media interviews. Indeed, all of these artifacts, and
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more, have been studied by scholars keen to understand entrepreneurial sense-making and sense-giving,
and other matters of entrepreneurial praxis. However, there are very many people engaged in independent
economic activity for whom such formal, orthodox, “professional” media are neither accessible, feasible or
desirable. If we are to increase our comprehension of these less-studied alternative entrepreneurs, then our
attention must surely become focused upon their own artifacts, media, and discourse. Put differently, we
must look in new places for the voice of entrepreneurship from the underside.
The source material for this study is comprised of a range of relevant artifacts, created within the Punk
community. To provide focus for the paper, it was decided to select just one band as the heart of the project.
Criteria for this selection were that the band be well-established enough to be genuinely influential, old
enough to permit longitudinal work, with an output of artifacts diverse and substantial enough to facilitate
wide-ranging analysis, and involved in a range of start-up activities. Emerging from San Francisco’s East Bay
nearly 20 years ago, and still active, Rancid have enjoyed both critical and commercial success, whilst staying
true to their Punk roots, and continuing to create new projects. The band is thus an ideal subject for study2.
I collected artifacts created by Rancid, most notably their seven studio albums, which provided not just the
music itself, but also “sleeve note” booklets, with lyric sheets, photographs and other graphics, as well as the
cover art for the albums. I also accessed the Band’s website, facebook and MySpace pages, as well as (the
professional) facebook pages of band members Lars Frederiksen, Matt Freeman and Branden Steineckert,
and the music videos made to promote the albums’ songs. The websites of ventures founded by the band
were consulted, including Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat Record Label, and Machete Manufacturing, as well as
Brandon Steineckert’s 20/20 Skateboard, and Unknown Studios, and Lars Fredericksen’s NYHC and Skunx
Tattoo Parlours. Hellcat’s website was especially useful, providing a series of 20 Webisodes which
documented the making of the band’s most recent (2009) album “Let the Dominoes Fall”. Similarly, the
band’s MySpace blog had a long document (around 3000 words) which provided their own commentary on
the album, and each song on it. The release and promotion of this album also generated interest and
interviews in the music press, providing further insights into Rancid’s judgments of their album, and the
process of making it. Thus, not only were the artifacts themselves available for study, but so too were a
number of other detailed multi-media reflections on the album from the band, some captured “live” during
its creation, others from after its launch. In addition, secondary material, in the form of reviews and other
responses to the album from third parties were gathered. This amounted to a further 34,000 words of text,
mostly comprising interviews and reviews, and covering the period from 1982 to 2011. I stopped gathering
new secondary material when I was sure redundancy had been reached. Concurrent with hermaneutic
2
The fact that they are also a much loved band of mine is, of course, not entirely a coincidence. “Gathering” some artifacts meant
going out to the car and fetching CDs into the house, watching again videos I’d seen many times, re-visiting facebook pages I’d
already posted comments on, and so forth.
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qualitative analysis of this material, I also reproduced relevant elements of the Rancid story in case study
format as a means of capturing context and process in a comprehensible narrative format (see below).
Figure 1 – Lyric Sheets and Booklets from Rancid Albums (Author’s photos)
Analysis then followed a quasi-grounded approach, whereby some theoretical consideration of mainstream
entrepreneurship, the (entrepreneurial) rhetoric of modern music, and the DIY ethos of Punk Rock was
carried out prior to engagement with the data. Interaction with the dataset, comprised as noted above by an
extensive range of music, text, images and videos, took the form of iterative listenings, readings and
viewings, with contemporaneous insights noted and dated. Although certainly not traditional source
material, lyrics have in fact been analyzed in similar studies, most notably Rehn and Sköld’s series exploring
rap music, as well as El-Sawad and Korczynski’s splendid examination of the IBM song book (see Figure 1).
Following the constant comparison method, re-“readings” continued, along with the making of ever more
structured notes, until few new insights occurred Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2000;
Silverman, 2000). This process was punctuated by frequent breaks to reflect upon the insights and themes
thus garnered, and to revisit the theoretical foundations of the work. Eventually, the many emergent themes
began to coalesce into something approaching a pattern, as the connections and overlaps between themes
started to become clearer. At this stage, notes were formalized into a set of digital artifacts, one diagram for
each of the emergent themes and subthemes. As a patterned framework developed, I began to validate and
illustrate this by populating it with examples, quotations, and images from the dataset. The output of this
process, my own artifact, is an abstraction of Rancid’s Punk entrepreneurship practice and philosophy into a
traditional hermeneutic model typical of qualitative research. This is presented below, together with the
study’s other findings. The final stage in the research process was to extrapolate the findings’ ramifications
and consequences, for entrepreneurship theory and praxis.
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The paper continues by presenting results of this analysis, before the implications of the findings for our
understanding of both alternative and mainstream entrepreneurship are figured out, and conclusions drawn
as to the role of artifacts in radical punk entrepreneurship.
THE RANCID STORY, SO FAR
Punk Rock band Rancid emerged from San Francisco’s East Bay Punx community, and it is key to their story
to note that the band’s founders are from working class backgrounds in low-income parts of a city noted for
its heritage of protest. Tim Yohannan, co-founder of both MaximumRockNRoll magazine (MRR), and Gilman,
provides a firm example of this in the editorial to MRR 1:1 (1982, p3): "If the system stresses antiintellectualism, then we must become intellectuals. If it stresses' isolation and ignorance of each other, then
we must learn to trust. If it stresses individualism, we must collect ourselves. If it stresses blind respect for
authority, we must only give respect to those who earn it”.
One of the key aspects of Punk independence is the freedom for anyone and everyone to produce music, as
well as consuming it. Short songs, with direct beats, fairly simple guitar chords, and straightforward melodies
can be written and played by people with quite limited technical skill musically (Roberts and Moore, 2009,
23). Although many punk rock musicians became enormously skilled, you don’t have to start out that way to
create strong punk rock, which is intended as an invitation to doing-it-yourself, too. Gilman was founded as a
venue where this could happen, and, now almost 25 years old, 924 Gilman continues to thrive as an iconic
example of radical, collective Punk Entrepreneurship, still run along anarchist principles.
Rancid’s Tim Armstrong and Matt Freeman were founding members of Operation Ivy, which, between 1987
and 1989 established a reputation as Ska-Punk rock legends that persists until today, and which was seen as
“more than any other, the Gilman Street band” (Livermore, 2009, 1). When Gilman opened on New Year’s
Eve 1986, though, the two were more likely to be part of the nightly audience, with Matt earning his Gilman
tickets by clearing away the club’s rubbish once a week. Years later, Rancid cleaned the venue’s toilets, in
exchange for Sunday night practice time. Their experience of Gilman could not be more hands-on. The first
recording made by Op Ivy, and other bands emerging from Gilman, was as a fundraiser for the venue, with
financing put up by Yohannan’s MRR magazine. This mutual support, through entrepreneurial art, is also a
hallmark of the Punk Rock movement. Then two Gilman regulars decided that some of the music being
created there needed to be documented, and their small, new label created a 6-song EP, (Hectic), which
included Rancid: “ ‘Documenting’ sounds a bit grandiose; another way to look at it might be that we just
wanted there to be records of our friends’ bands, and nobody else was prepared to do it.” (Livermore, 2009,
7). As with the foundation of Gilman, the stated motivation for creation of Livermore (and Hayes’) label,
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Lookout Records, in 1987 was not the pursuit of profit per se, or to build an entrepreneurial career for
individuals, but to meet a perceived need in the local Punk community. The 7 inch EP was already seen as
the classic format of Punk DIY recording. An EP has enough space for several songs, but is much cheaper
than a full album (Spencer, 2008, 287).
In the January 1988 issue of zine MRR Matt, Tim, and singer Jesse explain how much they want to stay
(under)grounded, close to the audience, for it not to be about the money. Working day-jobs to make ends
meet, the band nevertheless donate their Gilman performance earnings back to the venue. Their only
financial objective is survival, and their artistic aims are to communicate and energize their audience:
indeed, the band’s language and ethos is very close to that later espoused by Rancid.
Operation Ivy went out on tour, sleeping on Punk Rock houses’ floors at night, came home and made a
record, and then decided that it was time to end the band, since it “just wasn’t fun anymore”. In 1989, the
night their first and only album, ‘Energy’, came out, Op Ivy played their last gig at Gilman. It was only after
many other adventures, including Tim’s struggles with alcohol, that Rancid was formed, in 1991. In 1992, an
EP was released with Lookout Records, before the band signed to Brett Gurewitz’s Epitaph, producing the
self-titled ‘Rancid’ album in 1993. As this first album was coming out, Tim, Brett and Matt recruited Lars
Frederiksen as their rhythm guitarist, and he moved from his own blue-collar neighbourhood in Campbell
into the Bay Area to be with the band. Indeed, so that Lars could play music with them during the day,
Rancid shared equally with him the royalties from their first album, even though he hadn’t actually been a
band member then. Rancid has a sustained history, unlike many bands, of sharing income equally between
all members, rather then paying extra to the frontman singer, or the songwriter, for example. These practical
examples of brotherhood show the very tightly-knit bonds within the group: “the friendship is the most
important part, even more important than the music.” (Lars; talking to ‘Gabriela’, NYRock, 1998 ).
It was with their second album, ‘Let’s Go’ (1994), that Rancid began to experience substantial, national
commercial success, partly due to their single ‘Salvation’, and perhaps also attributable to their opening on
tour for the Offspring, who were then leading the Punk Rock revival. At this point, with Punk suddenly highly
desirable from a market perspective, Rancid were inundated with offers to sign to a major record label; even
Madonna was in pursuit of the band. However, Rancid chose to stay with Gurewitz’s Epitaph since “The
beauty of being signed with Epitaph is that we have complete artistic freedom. We don’t have to
compromise. … We can record any album we want to record. We do everything there. We have complete
control over our, um, product. I think product is the right term that is used in the biz. For a major company,
an album and a band will always be a product. Epitaph is not a major company. We’re a band” (NYRock,
1998). Indeed, ‘And out come the wolves’ is widely believed to have been named, at least in part, for the
band’s experiences in being pursued by large music corporations. This third album was certified gold within a
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year of release, compared to the 6 years which ‘Let’s Go’ took to sell the requisite 500,000 copies. Three
singles from the album also achieved very substantial commercial success, and the band’s popular appeal
can also be judged by their appearance on the celebrated US television show, Saturday Night Live.
Since achieving this fame (and, indeed, fortune) in the mid-1990s, Rancid have continued to tour, record,
and experiment with musical side projects, and other forms of Punk entrepreneurship. Studio albums
continued, with ‘Life Won’t Wait’ (1998); Rancid (2000); and ‘Indestructible’ (2003), as well as other
collaborative recording projects, such as a split album with NOFX (2002). ‘Fall Back Down’, from
‘Indestructible’, became the band’s best-selling single, and tells the story of how the band helped Tim get
over the experience of being left by his wife. In 1999, Rancid had signed to Tim Armstrong’s new label,
Hellcat, a partnership with Gurewitz’s Epitaph, of which Lars has said “for us it’s kind of an obligation. We’ve
got the chance to help new bands, so, of course, we have to do it” (NYRock, 1998). Rancid’s subsequent
independence has been questioned by some Punk rock purists since “Indestructible” was distributed by
Warner Music. This means that, like their friends and colleagues Green Day and the Offspring, who also
started out very much as Gilman bands, Rancid no longer qualify to play at the venue. However, their side
projects are still deemed independent, and thus meet Gilman rules, and, indeed, Lars’ latest band, ‘Old Firm
Casuals’ played at a Gilman (medical bills) benefit gig on June 25th (2011).
In 2006, original drummer Brett Reed decided to leave the band, and was replaced by Branden Steineckert.
After a hiatus of 6 years away from the recording studio, Rancid released “Let the Dominoes Fall” in the
autumn of 2009. Much of the writing work for the album had been carried out in new drummer Branden
Steineckert’s basement studio, in rural Utah. It is the creation of this album which generated many of the
artifacts gathered for the analytic purposes of the current study.
The current Rancid band members are a strong example of how diversified and wide-ranging punk
entrepreneurship is, as well as highlighting the extensive, (literally) embodied enactment of material
artifacts as an integral part of this radical organizational form. Vocalist and lead guitarist Tim Armstrong is
also the founder of Hellcat Records, and Machete Manufacturing, sells his own artwork online, as well as
crafting records on solo, and side project basis (with the Transplants). Rancid drummer Branden Steineckert
founded and runs Unknown Studio, and in 2004 started a skateboard and skatewear company, 20/20, and
his very recent side-project release, “Apocalypse Radio”, is explicitly described and promoted as DIY. As Tim
points out, in a 2009 interview (with Tom Langham):
“we take a different route. We’re on Epitaph/Hellcat, and our booking agent is an indie, so we’re an indie
band even though no one would ever consider us “indie rock.” And we do all our own merchandise — we’re
not part of some huge merch company. We print our own T-shirts, so we’re really an indie rock band in the
truest sense of the term. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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Guitarist Lars Frederiksen is part-owner of two Tattoo Studios, in Tokyo and in New York. He also regularly
tattoos clients himself in these two venues (and others), often branding customers with the logo of his bands
or his studios. The enactment of radical enterprise through this ritual of symbol embodiment is especially
powerful. Several band members also auction personal clothes, instruments, even their classic cars on Ebay,
thus fully participating in their own commodification. Lars has also produced albums with many other bands
for Hellcat, including such well known artists as the Dropkick Murphies, GBH, and the Casualties. Lars djs
quite extensively, too, and was a major force in the band’s regular music programme, Rancid Radio, which
ran on now-defunct radio station ‘Fungus’. His side projects, Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards, and the New
Firm Casuals, are also examples of a continued desire to create and share innovative artifacts. Matt
Freeman’s Devil’s Brigade side project highlights his characteristic gravelly growl, complete with an upright
double bass. In spite of their status as Punk Rock stars, Rancid members tour extensively with their side
projects, too, playing in pubs and clubs that Rancid itself, perhaps, has long outgrown. This continued
grounding in the grass roots of the Punk Rock community is a key element in developing an understanding of
the band.
Another closely related form of radical entrepreneurship to Punk Rock and Tattoo Studios can be found in
skateboarding, in the manufacturers of boards, ramps, and clothing - as well as the owners of skateshops
and parks. Drummer Branden Steineckert has ramps in his back yard made by a friend, whose business,
SuperRamp Technology, he promotes and endorses. Branden also founded his own skateboard and apparel
company, 20/20, in 2004. Rancid’s music appears on many skate boarding video games - “Fall Back Down”
being a perhaps obvious choice, and they have played benefit gigs for the Tony Hawk Foundation, and a
small acoustic set to open a friend’s skate shop. Hawk guest stars on the “Up to no good” video, and Rancid
have also been involved with the Warped Tour, an extreme sport (BMX and skateboarding) and music
festival. Less formally, Rancid songs are used as the backing track to myriad amateur (DIY) skateboard
videos3.
Rancid thus encapsulates the diverse nature of Punk entrepreneurship, spanning boundaries from music
production and marketing (in the spirit of DIY Punk), through Tattoo studios, and strong affiliation with skate
“entrepreneurs”. As such, they provide a reminder that the world of “underground” entrepreneurship is
more diverse and extensive than is often realized. Independent socio-economic activity as a mode of radical
action, and financial survival, is an important element in the lived experience of this community. However,
3
It was as the mother of a (then) knee-high skater and guitarist, five years ago, that Rancid first formed part of my own
soundtrack through life.
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these entrepreneurs are far removed from the free-market rhetoric of capitalism, choosing instead to
transgress mainstream entrepreneurship by using it as a vehicle for creating meanings of resistance.
IMAGES AND ARTIFACTS
The images used by the band frequently echo the colour and style of street graphics, associated with graffiti,
but also with the earliest samizdat DIY zines, and textile design. Textual elements on the artifacts appear to
be stenciled, handwritten, or composed of cut and paste newsprint words, in the deliberately threatening
style of the ransom note. Images are also rough and ready: stenciled skulls, photographs which look homeexposed, and DIY silk-screen prints. Images which repeat over time include skulls, guitars, punk rockers,
monsters, weapons, road signs and maps, weapons and soldiers. Photographs of the band are often quite
aggressively shot, so that the black and white photos on the back cover of “Rancid 2000”, for example, look
very much like police mugshots.
The most characteristic image from Rancid’s album covers is the photo of Tim, tattooed, booted and
Mohican’ed, sitting on a bottom step with his head on his knees from ‘And Out Come the Wolves’. The
photograph is a tribute to Minor Threat, whose eponymous EP has a like image on the cover. On the cover of
‘Life Won’t Wait’, in 1998, there is a similar image of a punk sitting, head-bowed, on a doorstep in a lowincome area (Tim?), with a blurred image of another (mohican’ed) Punk (Lars?) walking past him. The graffiti
on the wall shows a classic Rancid skull image, tying the band to the streets. For ‘Indestructible’s cover, in
2002, the photo shows the back of a Mohican’ed head – very likely Lars- in red and black, walking down a
road lined with palm trees.
Lyric sheets, or sleeve notes, are notable for the handwritten text, in DIY lo-fi style. Indeed, Tim describes
and presents one of his work-in-progress lyric sheets, for ‘Lulu’, on Webisode 8, and it is indeed close to
what emerges, mass produced, as a “finished” artifact. Sleeve notes from earlier albums also present flyers
for Rancid shows, pulling the live and recorded performances closer together. On ‘Let’s Go’, for example,
there are 16 concert flyers, several of which are for shows at 924 Gilman Street. Images are already present
which will become hallmarks of Rancid’s graphic style, including Punks with mohicans, guns, and skulls. The
flyers also adopt the classic DIY black and white graphic style of handwritten, cut and paste, or stenciled text.
Dominant colours are the black and red of Punk and Anarchism, with lots of black and white emphasizing
once more the home-made, lo-fi DIY style.
The album art, and the flyers, are just part of the graphic output of Rancid, which is also reproduced in a
wide range of other physical and digital artifacts, on clothing, badges, guitars, in videos, projected onto
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screens at life shows4, on facebook pages, webpages, and MySpace pages. Tim also creates and sells his own
artwork, often using images familiar to Rancid fans, such as Gretsch guitars, guns, and iconic film characters,
in his distinctive mix of photography and screen-printing. Shared and circulated in multiple ways, this graphic
art is essentially available free online, although original pieces can be purchased by those of greater means.
The importance of the art to the band and their fans can perhaps be best exemplified by the range and sheer
quantity of Rancid tattoos with which fans embody their affection for, and commitment to, the band. Being
tattooed with a band’s name, or image, writes them into your story, marks their significance for you in ink, a
highly symbolic substance: “tattoo narratives are construed as powerful existential experiences, where life
events are integrated into a narrative form via the body” (Oksanen and Turtiainen, 2005, 127). Internet
search revealed fan tattoos of the Hellcat logo, the Rancid star and banner image, the leather-jacketed
Mohican’ed Punk cartoon figure in any number of forms, reproductions and improvisations of the ‘Let’s Go’
and ‘Indestructible’ artwork; the cover image from ‘And out come the wolves’ on arms, legs and an
enormous full backpiece; as well as Rancid skulls, guns and text in abundance. Fans also get inked with
designs based on the band members own tattoos, like their spider webs, or Lars’ SKUNX tattoo. Indeed,
tattooing is especially important to Rancid’ rhythm guitarist, Lars, who regularly tattoos in his own parlours,
and others, most notably Skunx in London. Among the designs which clients can choose from are classic
pieces of Rancid art. The words ‘Punk Rock’ on Tim’s knuckles were also tattooed by Lars. Lars’ distinctive
SKUNX (Skins Punx and Drunx) forehead tattoo is a gang tat, from his roots in Campbell, and a very misspent
youth, which he has recorded in detail on numerous “Bastards” songs. Thus, for the band members too,
tattoos signify their grounding in place and community, are an embodiment of belonging.
Rancid clothing and accessories are sold online through Machete Merchandising, which Tim Armstrong
founded and owns. This is yet another example of the desire of these Punk entrepreneurs for independence,
for control over their own art and artifacts. Machete has in fact grown to provide band shirts and other gear
for more than 50 bands, most of whom are signed to Hellcat records (also owned and run by Armstrong, in
partnership with Epitaph Records). Essentially, Rancid progressed from creating and selling their own
merchandise, to offering this service to other bands within their Hellcat family.
Since it is becoming harder and harder for musicians to make any money through selling CDs, merchandise
sales, and touring, are ever more important if bands are to survive. Fans are encouraged to support their
favourite bands by turning out for gigs, and buying T-shirts. These interactions are presented very much as a
way for punks to participate in the movement by supporting musicians, and not as a purely transactional
relationship. Rancid also explain that they try to keep costs as low as possible for everything that they sell,
4
The video for “Up to no good” shows segments from concerts, with a changing range of images being visible in
projection on the back screen of the stage.
12
and to offer the best possible value. Thus, the extra bonus acoustic album, and “making of” DVD, which were
packaged with ‘Let the Dominoes Fall’ (along with four guitar picks and a pack of posters), were explained in
this light, as providing a great deal to fans.
Themes of Alternative Entrepreneurship: Belonging, Resistance, and Performance.
Reviewing the data gathered from the (admittedly idiosyncratic) perspective of an entrepreneurship scholar,
and with the DIY ethos in mind, I found three main themes rising to prominence for me. These provided a
frame which allowed me to make sense of the data, and to sort specific examples - of lyrics, videos, images,
interview quotes, practices, and so on – into cognate subthemes.
Belonging, the importance of being grounded, emerged as a very important theme to the band, on a number
of levels. From their roots in the Bay Area of San Francisco, and in the working class, to the urban America
they have revisited on tour so many time, to the Punk Rock community (past, present and future), and their
ambiguous, alienated patriotism, Rancid’s context is worn on their sleeve. This is not a market, with buyers,
sellers, and competitors. Rather, this is a community of supporters, homeys, brothers - a crew, characterized
by genuine warmth and commitment.
Punk Rock is, nevertheless, characterized by its deliberate aggression, and this was found to be most strongly
expressed in a sustained and multi-faceted anti-establishmentarianism. This took the form of a fierce attack
on corporations, Wall Street and the banking sector, the mass media, and the wider “system”. The
Resistance theme extended to protest songs about urban decay and despair, as well as acknowledgement of
what survival can demand of people, anger at the abandonment of the working class, and a rejection of the
corporate mainstream for their own work.
Thirdly, the Performance theme encapsulated the process of becoming artist-entrepreneurs, creators with
independence in the crafting and sharing of their own work, maintaining a freshness, an emergent
authenticity to their music, touring as a way of life, ever returning, and, throughout, a sense of co-creation,
of shared endeavour. Perhaps most importantly of all, in Lars’ words: “We put all the kind of business shit
secondary. We’ve always put the weight on the friendship” (Schild, 2009).
Belonging
It is well-established indeed that relationality is critical to the entrepreneur, and that the network of
relationships within which an entrepreneur is embedded shapes the venture to a very large degree (Jack et
al, 2004). This entrepreneurial feature is highlighted to a very substantial degree by Punk entrepreneurs, for
13
whom the community has always been a definitional aspect of the movement. Figure 2 summarizes
elements grouped together within the Belonging subtheme.
First and foremost, as noted above, Rancid are grounded in place: “Rancid … as a band have always been
imbued with a sense of place: the blue collar neighborhoods where they grew up, their place as individuals
within their band, their band as part of a movement and their evolving sense of place in relation to the world
at large” (Epitaph’s band description, 2011). The band’s sense of their own context is very firm indeed, and,
as noted above, incorporates the East Bay, the wider Punk Rock community, the working class, transgenerational links to fellow Punk musicians, close and direct ties to fans, and connections to the broader
‘Alternative Entrepreneurship’ realm.
One of the most graphic illustrations of this embeddedness, and its incorporation into their everyday toolsof-the-trade, can be seen on Webisode 9, where Matt tells the stories of the stickers, carvings, and paintings
on his old bass. Beyond Punk Rock, there is a wider community of alternative entrepreneurs and artists, as
we with whom Rancid have strong ties, centred upon the worlds of skateboarding and tattooing.
As the band say: “So much of our history, family…..roots come from the Bay Area”. Being grounded in the
East Bay positions Rancid’s class, musical, and political origins. The importance of authenticity, emergence,
keeping it real, and somewhat ‘underground’, touring as a way of life, protest, resistance, and working class
survival, are all framed by Rancid’s grounding in the East Bay. Socio-cultural networks also act as the
infrastructure for social movements (Roberts and Moore, 2009, 25), and the Bay Area has, for generations,
exemplified these links between youth, music, protest and alternative life-styles. East Bay devices abound in
Rancid’s artifacts. The “East Bay Punx” T shirt is a Rancid classic. The Bay Area is shown in cartographic form,
from the cover of ‘Let’s Go’ to the video for ‘Last One to Die’; it is represented in 2007 images of the Golden
Gate bridge, and the view from Tim’s “living room” on 2010 videos; and it is captured in the music, and the
lyrics, of songs like ‘Another East Bay Night’, and ‘Journey to the End’. Beyond San Francisco, Rancid’s ties to
urban America – New Orleans, New York, the Rust Belt cities – are also important. Furthermore, America
herself, who has changed, and left them feeling “disconnected from the country that I love”, is a key locus
for the band (‘Disconnected’, ‘Let the Dominoes Fall, Rancid).
Like the East Bay, being of working class origin is fundamental to Rancid’s being, and is explicitly mentioned
in song after song, as well as in their own commentaries and interviews. For example, in ‘The Highway’, the
band sing “I am working class culture, seen the bleak side of the American experience”. ‘Lulu’ tells the story
of poor single mother striving to survive, and the many tales of urban decay likewise focus on the working
poor being left behind by rapacious capitalism: “the working class better wake up, when America was
dreamin some thieves stole our country”. In Webisode 8, Tim explains the song’s inspiration is that “we feel
14
like the American working class has been left behind, forgotten – Rancid has always identified with the
working class people, because that’s where we come from”.
Figure 2 – Roots (Belonging)
Love of Country
“Disconnected from the
country I love”
The East Bay
“So much of our history,
family…..roots come from
the Bay Area”
Urban USA
“”Some cities born, some
cities burn, some cities die,
some cities learn, some
cities take the worst of the
turn.”
Personal
Needs
before band
business
“Grounding”
themselves in
Branden’s Roots
Family
Bonds
Brotherhood
“Rancid is a brotherhood
which can’t be broken”
Grounded in Place
“In so many ways you are where you came
from, it’s engrained in you”
Skateboarding
Alternative
Entrepreneurship
Links
BELONGING
“This is a place where
everyone can belong”
Punk Rock Community
Tattooing
Punk’s Older
GenerationRespect and Support
“I heard GBH I made a decision,
Punk Rock is my religion”
Soldiers
Working Class
Direct Ties to
“Fans”
“I am working class culture, seen the bleak
side of the American experience”
Origins
Struggle for Survival
Collaboration,
not Competition
The Underside of Life
“Criminals, I understand them.”
Working Poor
Left behind by capitalism
Videos and photographs of the band continue to be shot in less-than-glamorous locations, and the overall
identity of Rancid could not be further from the poor boy made good entrepreneurial myth of the USA, nor
the gangsta – Rap music which similarly celebrates the trappings of wealth. Rather than being filmed in
expensive cars, Rancid videos feature bicycles, and they write songs about buses. Their appreciation of the
struggle for survival extends to writing songs about criminals, showing great empathy for such people, as
well as a real affinity for the military, long a survival option for the poor. Again, lyrics, images, videos,
interviews and commentaries all provide an abundance of evidence for these motifs: “Criminals, I
understand them; watch your back cause, we'll come at random; born to lose and you end up in the system;
he's our friend, now we're gonna miss him” (‘Up to no good’; ‘Let the Dominoes Fall’).
15
Another key facet of the band’s grounding is in terms of the Punk community, especially fans, and musicians
new and old: “I heard GBH I made a decision, Punk Rock is my religion” (‘You want it, you got it’; ‘Let the
Dominoes Fall’). Graphically, this grounding in Punk rock is expressed in the many, many images of a
Mohawked Punk which the band have used over time, and have also embodied themselves. Musically, each
and every Rancid song is firmly rooted in Punk Rock, although (this being Punk), there are no rules as to what
that is. (That’s the point.)
Beyond their own artifacts, Rancid have also played a key role in the production and dissemination of music,
albums, and merchandise of other Punk musicians. Although the original main motivation for Hellcat and
Machete may have been maintaining control of the band’s own artifacts, both artistically and commercially,
the two ventures have also provided the framework for Rancid members to adopt, support, and promote
other Punk musicians. The bands which Hellcat has signed range from very, very young teenage Punks, right
through to the older generation of venerated Punk legends, like GBH, or Joe Strummer. Thus, Rancid’s
support for the wider Punk movement is also expressed very practically as they facilitate the production of
other artists’ artifacts, too. Often involved as producers, Lars and Tim in particular have long seen part of
their role as supporting their fellow punk musicians through collaboration, as illustrated by the showcase
radio programme “Rancid Radio”, and associated tours, or Lars’ extensive dj-ing.
The transgenerational continuity element is expressed in other ways, too, as their links with the first
generation of Punks indicates. When the Ramones played their last ever show, Rancid opened for them, and
Lars on a 2005 video interview with Eric Blair, describes Dee Dee, Joey, and Johnny Ramone as: “surrogate
parents…their records saved my life”. Rancid have also recorded a track with proto-Punk Iggy Pop for
Hellcat’s regular ‘Give ‘Em the Boot’ sampler album (No. V, 2005). As well as signing Joe Strummer to Hellcat,
his presence is firmly embedded in Rancid’s artifacts, in song lyrics, in musical references (the Strummer wail
on ‘That’s Just the Way it is now’), and in person on the first “Dominoes” Webisode. Perhaps the most
moving and illustrative artifact showing the extent to which Punk Rock is a transgenerational family is the
“Joe Strummer Tribute (making of)“ video, which shows Rancid, in 2003, watching a graffiti memorial to
Strummer being painted, with tears in their eyes. The video for “Red Hot Moon” was shot partly around
CBGB’s, the Bowery Club which was so important to the very early days (1975-76) of New York punk
(Spencer, 2008, 205-6; Roberts and Moore, 2009, 24). Bad Religion guitarist (and songwriter) Brett Gurewitz
is Rancid’s longtime producer, having signed them to his Epitaph label after chatting to Tim at a Gilman
show. Lars, in a recent video interview, described “Mr. Brett” as being “basically, our Dad”. This language is
indicative of the nature of these transgenerational ties, which are indeed perceived, and experienced, as
family bonds. It is reasonable to argue that the family nature of the Punk movement is precisely the core
element which frames relationships between bands as collaborative, and never, ever as competitive. This is
16
not a market of competitors, of fierce young innovators destroying old product life cycles, and earlier
producers. This is community which celebrates its heritage, continues to promote it, and to acknowledge
artistic and emotional links to it. It is also a community which feels a joyful responsibility to help embrace the
new generation.
Let us recall the business school truism that the competition must be seriously considered and countered as
aggressively as one’s resources allow. The basic understanding of markets is zero-sum in nature; that all
producers are competing for a finite volume of sales, and each must pursue his own interests at the expense
of the others. Consider the basic tools which we teach would-be entrepreneurs, and other business students,
to help them make sense of their commercial environment: competitors are ‘threats’, against whom we
must carefully ‘position’ ourselves, so as to develop a strategy of dominance and power. These concepts,
these competitive ways of thinking, are completely inconceivable within the context of Punk music
entrepreneurship. On a personal level, Punk musicians have provided enormous individual support to
colleagues wrestling with drink and drugs: Social Distortion’s Mike Ness helped Rancid’s Tim Armstrong
through a very tough patch once, turning up to physically clean Tim up, and put him to bed. Artists support
and promote each other at every opportunity. Bands play each others music; share each other’s stages; talk,
and write and post about their favourite musicians; collaborate on albums; and view each other as
‘brothers’, ‘homeys’, my ‘crew’. Beyond this artistic collaboration, we have seen commercial fraternity, too,
in terms of more established musicians signing up, producing and promoting younger bands, just as Brett
Gurewitz once signed up Rancid to Epitaph, Tim now signs up new bands to Hellcat, and Branden to
Unknown Studios. In effect, incumbent market leaders are actually facilitating entry to their own market
segment of innovative, high quality competitors. And they are doing so not only knowingly, but with great
joy, commitment and passion for the process. Although there is indeed plenty of aggression in Punk music –
as the lyrics and images have shown – this is directed outwards, primarily at the system which is seen to
have excluded and oppressed so many.
Fans are “supporters”, who have very direct and intimate ties with the band, partly due to the touring ethos
of Rancid, which sees live performance as the essence of their music making. Again, this closeness to their
audience is a traditional hallmark of punk rock, which began “with the aim of demystifying the process of
performance, inviting anyone to get up on the stage and play music so that the distinction between artist
and audience was not important” (Spencer, 2008, 286). Rancid members also act as DJs, tour with their
smaller side projects, support their football teams very publically5, and so forth, all in ways which make them
accessible to fans. When announcing side-project concerts, or “filling in” for their friends for example, their
language is very engaging and open: “if you're around any of these areas come out to a show and say hi”
(Branden, facebook status, 26 May 2011). Through their interactions with fans on, inter alia, facebook, by
5
Lars, while entirely perfect in all other ways, has an unfortunate and misguided affection for Millwall F.C., and even has a guitar in
their colours. Sad but true.
17
Lars’ tattooing activities – whereby fans can literally embody the band – by their focus on touring, and by
their use of images of fans on so many of their videos, Rancid’s artifacts encapsulate this tie. Similarly, their
insistence on still living the same rooted, working class, authentic life of a Punk rocker enacts this tie on an
everyday basis. There is never, ever any mention of the words “customer”, or “market”, or “niche”, and not
so much as a hint at the concepts behind these words. Once again, the entire market logic of mainstream
entrepreneurship is noticeable only by its absence, in this alternative model.
For Rancid plenty of examples exist which justify the band’s claim to be a fellowship first, a band second, and
an independent, entrepreneurial economic unit third (if at all!). We have already seen the band’s equal pay
policy. Also important are the occasions upon which Rancid has decided to stop performing – touring and
recording – so as to allow band members to take a break for important personal reasons. So, among the
reasons for taking a break from performing over the last few years have been Matt’s treatment for what was
thought to be lung cancer; Tim’s marriage break-up; Lars and Matt becoming fathers. As part of recording
their first album with Branden on drums, the band relocated to his home, writing and recording demos
together, and experiencing Branden’s place, his grounding (Webisodes 5-10). The link between these ties,
and the making of music, is explicit: “this is a family and our friendships with each other are first and
foremost. The music is a direct result of that”. Beyond these process enactments of brotherhood, artifacts
encapsulating this subtheme include shooting videos in Tim’s living room, and Branden’s studio and garden;
Tim’s “Punk Rock” knuckle tattoos, courtesy of Lars’ needle; and many song lyrics, including “The Highway”:
“just wanna play one more show, make some music with my friends”.
Resistance
Punk Rock is definitionally also a practice of critique against the orthodox. Punk is anti-greed, antiestablishment, and anti-mainstream. Especially notable on ‘Dominoes’ is an anger, a rage, towards the
casino capitalism which has so celebrated orthodox entrepreneurship rhetoric, and where, for “white collar
criminals”, the story goes: “first rule, they always sell; second rule, never tell; third rule, straight to hell”
(‘That’s just the way it is’). On a similar note, the band sing that the “the Wall Street bailout is crooked and
stacked, the burden’s going to end up on the working man’s back” (‘Locomotive’). These are just two
examples among many, and others can be found throughout this paper (Figure 3). In ‘Let the Dominoes Fall’
are songs which explicitly attack the values and actions of Wall Street, the ‘monster’ corporations, and the
mass media. Thus, while these alternative entrepreneurs amplify some key entrepreneurial characteristics,
they reject others outright. Furthermore, the inherent combativeness of Punk is exhibited in an innate
relationship to the military, a confrontational musical and graphic style, and some explicitly rebellious lyrics.
18
Where the rap re-tellings of capitalist rhetoric celebrate the ‘top dog’, Rancid creates laments and anthems
for the underdog6. The working class, the fighting man overseas, the single mother, the petty criminal
struggling to survive, the young drawn to LA and lost to drugs and violence, the cityscapes surrendered to
post-industrial decay: these are the iconic heroes of radical punk rock, as articulated through Rancid’s songs.
Who, then, are the villains in these tales? Rancid attacks very directly the mass media, the “monster”
corporations, the police state, all the institutions of power which they perceived to have changed America,
for their own benefit, and left the poor behind. What are the entrepreneurial strategies with which the
heroes can be supported, and the villains tackled? The first, and perhaps most important of these, is the
music which gives voice to the voiceless, and rails against injustice.
This political aspect of punk rock, this social anger, is a hallmark of the genre. For example, Rancid describe
one of their most explicitly anti-establishment songs, ‘Liberty and Freedom’ thus: “plain and simple, this
song is about the systematic suppression of ideas and censorship. It’s also a protest song in the folk tradition
of Woody Guthrie… Fat cats eventually sleep to long while the starving rabble stay awake waiting for a
moment to strike”. The band’s lyrics also frequently articulate illustrate well this spirit of protest and
resistance, as in ‘The Highway’, when they sing: “this is no set of ideas, this is flesh and blood…I tell the truth
that won’t be told, uprising and rebellion, social change”.
Secondly, Rancid also document, and perhaps even celebrate, persistence and stubborn survival, whatever it
takes: single mum Lulu working her 9-5; the thief in ‘Up to no good’; and the pole-dancing girl symbolizing
the fading, desperate city (‘Skull City’). A key element in survival is belonging. In personal terms, band
members have repeatedly said they simply wouldn’t have survived without each other’s support, and given
their turbulent histories, this is only too easy to credit. Staying grounded in particular places, belonging in
communities and crews, finding new homes as they travel North America, are all forms of embeddedness
that provide the strength, the roots for survival.
Thirdly, as Roberts and Moore (2009) have demonstrated for Punk contributions to the Rock Against Racism
movement, the creation of artifacts which articulate protest do not just provide meanings, ideologies of
resistance, important though these are. These artifacts - songs, badges, T Shirts, tattoos, hair styles, bags,
posters, images and slogans which inspire graffiti – are also vehicles for broadcasting social outrage, for
expressing demands for social change. Some songs are very much calls to social action, warning the
establishment that the underdogs can turn on their would-be masters, too. Freedom has always been a very
important entrepreneurial tenet. Here, it’s something more than that - the rebel cry of the underdog: ‘liberty
and freedom, in quotations, spray-painted on the wall’ (‘Liberty and Freedom’).
6
“Time Bomb”, and “David Courtney” are exceptions to this rule, where Rancid’s songs are essentially celebrations of specific
gangsters, in a lyrical style not dissimilar to Rap. However, the gangsters they narrate are not band members per se, but rather
friends of theirs; nor does “Time Bomb” have a happy ending, as the young “king’ is gunned down.
19
Figure 3 – Radicals (Resistance)
Anti-Corporations and Bankers
Challenging Power Structures
Anti-Media
Anti-establishment
Radical entrepreneurship
as emancipation
Rejecting the
commercial mainstream
Fierce Managerial and
creative independence
Military Theme
RESISTANCE
“I tell the truth that won’t be told,
uprising and rebellion, social change”
Combativeness
Aggression
Minstrels of the
Underdog
Charting Urban
Despair and Decay
Socio-economic
survival, whatever
it takes
Laments and
Anthems for
the left behind
Performance
Where mainstream entrepreneurship is portrayed as a maverick challenge to the established status quo, this
is a renegade revolution. Above and beyond the basic processes of self-directed independent economic
activity, Punks are also entrepreneurial in terms of the essential characteristics of the movement, its
musicians, and ‘managers’. This is “emancipatory entrepreneurship” in the fullest meaning of Rindova at al’s
phrase (2009, 481). Punk music, as a product and a process, is exceptionally accessible, inclusive, creative,
collaborative, self-sustaining, combative, independent, freedom-seeking (see Figure 4). As Rancid write, in
their commentary on ‘Dominoes’:
20
Figure 4 – Making Music (Performance)
The Return
from War
Musical
“returns”
Returning
Touring, playing live, as the
essence of the band
Spontaneity
PERFORMANCE
“The plan is, there is no plan – just get
creative with your brothers”
Authenticity
Creative
Freedom
Co-creation
Communal
song-writing
Music as an
expression of
connection
Fierce
Independence
Survival
Creation of new projects
and businesses
“The spirit of punk rock involves taking risks. It’s about questioning authority and not subscribing to
society’s norms and not falling into the rut and becoming a sheep. Without risks you’ll never discover your
potential.”
One of the key themes to emerge with relation to Rancid’s performance of Punk Rock entrepreneurship is
that of return. A life of touring perhaps brings inevitable images of a cycle, a continued return, “like a movie
I’ve seen twenty times” (Rancid’s commentary on ‘Dominoes’). The metaphor of the journey has long been a
hallmark of entrepreneurial rhetoric and imagery (Drakopoulou Dodd, 2002). Entrepreneurship rhetoric
tends to focus on the heroic few moving ever forwards in their quest, overcoming barriers, and bravely
pioneering where no man has gone before (Drakopoulou Dodd and Anderson, 2007). This can be contrasted
with the Punk narrative, which explicitly turns its attention to those who have been left behind, as the wheel
turns. It is an indication of a strongly moral element, of a values-driven kind of praxis, an ontology of care
and community.
21
Whilst the entrepreneurial journal metaphor is inherently uni-directional, the Punks are far more cyclical in
their depiction of movement, always returning, re-visiting, going back to walk once more with those who are
struggling to survive. Ways of returning also include the soldier coming back home from the Iraq war which
“seems to follow me home”. Returning, then, is not straightforward, or even always comforting. and not
everyone comes back home. Musically, Rancid also returns to re-visit older sounds, their own, and other
peoples. Thus, in their MySpace commentary on ‘Dominoes’, the band note that their songs sound like,
variously, the music of Dee Dee Ramone, Woody Guthrie, Operation Ivy, Rancid’s own older work, The Who,
Bruce Springsteen, ‘Oi’ music, Booker T and the MGs, Cock Sparrer, Sham 69, Chuck Berry, Greg Ginn, Linton
Kwesi Johnson, northern soul, X, rockabilly, The Lurkers, Culture and Peter Tosh. Rancid’s lyrics, too, return
to musical veterans, who shaped their lives and art, including references to Desmond Decker, “the great Joe
Strummer” and GBH. This celebration of artistic heritage is also a form of return, a view of highly personal
creativity as being, nevertheless, grounded in a wider, older community context. Again, this is radically
different from social constructions of the entrepreneur, where a maverick, pioneering, solo explorer of new
territories motif tend to hold sway (Drakopoulou Dodd, 2002).
Perhaps paradoxically, alongside their musical returns, Rancid’s enactment of their craft also values a sense
of spontaneous reality. This freshness, the emergent authenticity of DIY art, is a key element in Rancid’s
performances, where there is a great sense of rapidity and spontaneity in the writing and recording
processes. Tim explains (Webisode 7) that his studio guitar set-up is the same as that for concerts, so that
they can capture the live sound because “because that’s what we’ve been doing since we were kids, is
playing live, right?”. The band, and their collaborators, also tell us, and show us, on the ‘Dominoes”
Webisodes (17), and their MySpace Blog commentary, that songs have been, for example, written the night
before in a late night jamming session, and recorded the next day (Webisode 17). Albums, then, become
something like a snapshot, a document, of what the band are improvising together, rather than a slowly
developed and refined, deliberately polished artifact. If this is true for the main, electric ‘Dominoes’ album, it
is still more so for the (bonus) acoustic version, some of which was actually recorded in hotel rooms, during
a tour.
This “keeping it live” reflects the band’s sustained insistence on honesty and integrity in their work, but it
should not be confused with a dismissive attitude to their music. It’s harder to make up and record great
songs on the spur of the moment, than to take months and months over the process. Being impromptu does
not equate to being unsophisticated.
The joy in shared creativity which this process brings is also
noteworthy: “This one was really exciting because it just came out of us so naturally and quickly. We were
all singing and jamming, it felt like a celebration and anthem which in turn is exactly what it became”. The
“semi-live” process is another way in which they band stays grounded in the grittiness of being Punk rockers,
22
and ensures that the album documents, as Matt says, “whatever comes out of us, whether you like it or not,
it’s us, and, you know, it’s honest - and that’s what it really comes down to” (Webisode 20).
Another very important element in the performance of Rancid’s craft – in the production of their cultural
goods – is the collegial nature of their song-writing and recording. Webisode 17, for example, shows the
band sitting in a circle, after hours in the studio, playing and writing music together. On Webisode 15, the
album’s producer, Mr. Brett, is sitting with an acoustic guitar playing, song-writing, with the band, and
comments: “I’m the producer, but we’re kind of just old friends working on songs, and trying to figure out
what’s best for the song”. Guest musicians are also often long-standing collaborators, “home-boys”
(Webisode 18), and the collective nature of Rancid’s creative work is also shown in, for example, the several
songs where Matt, Tim, and Lars each sing a verse. Even many of the band’s side-projects involve other
Rancid musicians, as with Tim’s recent collaboration on Matt’s Devil’s Brigade album (Sleigh, 2010, 2).
Similarly, there is a lack of individual selfishness to the band’s musical collaboration. Lars, playing rhythm
guitar, explains (Webisode 16) that he likes to play very tightly to the drums, because that “leaves so much
more room for everyone else to, kinda, put in their thing”. And whilst extreme hard work and long hours are
the stigmata of the orthodox entrepreneurial hagiography, Rancid assert that they just make music together.
As Tim says on a video interview, “imagine travelling the world with your best friends…it don’t seem like
work to me”7. When asked by young, aspirant musicians what the plan is for Rancid’s success, Tim says he
tells them “there is no plan – just be creative with your brothers” (Brown, 2009).
The DIY ethos is enacted throughout the band’s work, and encapsulated in its artifacts: complete creative
control, managing the commercial aspects of the process themselves, as well as the artistic aspects,
including founding and managing their own label (Hellcat), and their own merchandise distribution venture
(Machete). Within the Punk community, the emphasis upon individual creativity and self-expression is very
high indeed, and the fierce desire for independence combines a mistrust of the mainstream entertainment
industry, with a passion for personal participation in production. Rancid are very, very clear on the
importance of their independence, on not listening to other people, on persisting, on surviving and thriving,
because they kept on doggedly doing things their own way: “don’t give a fuck what people say - trust your
gut and never give up” (Dominoes Commentary, see also Webisode 10). ‘Last One to Die’ - and ‘I ain’t
worried’ - expresses this defiance, as well as Rancid’s satisfaction at still being around, still being a band,
being “on top of the world”, after 18 long years: “We got it right, you got it wrong, We still around - Last one
to die”.
7
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEiD4nzyXdM
23
This independence in turn can take the form of entrepreneurial engagement, through the creation of highly
innovative ventures, promoting radical artifacts. Rancid’s role as a hub which has spun out any number of
new bands, new businesses, new projects, has already been emphasized in earlier sections. It is vital to note
that sustained independence and creativity is wellspring of alternative enterprise. In fact, it may be that
individual innovation has more of a role in Punk entrepreneurship, than in the mainstream. Several leading
scholars, including De Clercq and Voronov, have argued that mainstream entrepreneurs in fact have less
scope for individuality than has been assumed to be the case, given their need to fit it to a specific field and
find some degree of legitimation therein. Indeed, they make a case that mainstream entrepreneurship is
essentially a pursuit of belonging, of being accepted in a given field (2009a,b). Mainstream entrepreneurs
often end up constrained by the bonds they re-impose upon themselves, as they circumscribe their own
freedom when striving for resources, legitimation, and “success” (Rindova et al, 2009, 485). How different
this is from the self-authored path of fierce independence, creative freedom, authenticity of voice and
action, and flow of innovative project starts that Rancid’s story has shown us? Rather than needing to seek
acceptance through enterprise, Punk rockers begin from “a place where everyone can belong”, already
grounded in, and supported by, the Punk community. They belong, too, and fundamentally, to a wider
musical heritage, to the working class, to their country and their cities – however alienated from these they
may have become. Perhaps it is this very belonging which liberates Punk musicians and entrepreneurs to
experiment, innovate and produce create extreme artifacts, to do it their own way, to perform their own
personal, individual creativity.
Conclusions
What might be the roles of artifacts in this story of alternative cultural entrepreneurship? It seems to me
that these are essentially threefold. Firstly, the artifacts recount, map, and celebrate the relational nexus
within which the band are embedded. This artistic and entrepreneurial network has co-authored Rancid’s
artistic and entrepreneurial journey, and their artifacts’ celebration of fans/supporters (not customers),
fellow musicians (not competitors), and old friends (not suppliers) maps a community, not a market.
Secondly, Rancid has created and shared a range of artifacts which ‘document’ their organizational process,
capturing – on albums and video, in photograph and graphic images – the live communal experience of
making and sharing music. In 1978, Leeds band Scritti Politti released their DIY first EP, and on its homemade
sleeve cover “they printed details of their production costs and contacts information for affordable
resources…that would cheaply master and press the vinyl records” (Spencer, 2008, 290). Making production
transparent, de-mystifying it, and thereby empowering others to also engage with the process, is a longestablished Punk Rock tradition. Encouraging spontaneity, denying the need for a plan, and showing how
24
they perform artistic entrepreneurship, Rancid’s artifacts act as a form of template for everyman,
challenging elitist views of over-professionalised market venturing.
Thirdly, Rancid’s artifacts offer a voice to the voiceless, a cry of protest against political injustice, in what
might be considered as extreme business ethics, or corporate social responsibility. This is a deliberate, longstanding and passionate aspect of Rancid’s work: “my only weapon I call poetry” (‘Rancid, Arrested in
Shanghai’, Indestructible). Taken together, Rancid’s relational alternative to a zero-sum market structure,
their transparency and joy in the immediacy of the innovative creative process, and their moral outrage
combine to form an alternative entrepreneurial frame. This affirmative, pluralist, alternative ethic of
entrepreneurial community, creativity, and outcry provides an alternative to the increasingly discredited
orthodox logic of the capitalist free market ‘economy’. Rancid’s radical enterprise rhetoric offers, as its
artifacts have shown us, the threat of a good example.
Figure 5 – Orthodox and Punk Entrepreneurship Compared
Orthodox Entrepreneurship
Punk Entrepreneurship
Individualistic
Collaborative
Rational
Intuitive
Planned
Emergent
Competitive
Collaborative
Market-driven
Supporter-focused
Professionalism
DIY
Unidirectional
Cyclical
If entrepreneurship is a key foundation myth in the USA, then these alternative voices, which reject and
critique the dominant rhetoric, become especially important. Punk entrepreneurs transgress key elements in
the myth - individualism, aggressive competition, the pursuit of commercial profit and individual wealth.
However, they also retain, perhaps even amplify, other entrepreneurial traits, such as creativity,
embeddedness, freedom, independence and emergence. As well as presenting an alternative
conceptualization of entrepreneurship, then, these radical entrepreneurs also critically highlight aspects of
mainstream entrepreneurship which may have been overlooked. Figure 5 presents some of these tensions
between orthodox and radical (Punk) constructs of entrepreneurship in diagrammatic form.
25
Beyond the competitive free market conceptualization of the world, then, there are other logics, like this
Punk Rock ethos of community and mutual support. The concept of progress and success is also, not
surprisingly, at odds with the mainstream entrepreneurial narrative. Where stereotypical entrepreneurship
emphasizes commercial and financial success as the destination of the journey, for these Punk
entrepreneurs, success is to be found in sustained authenticity of the creative process, in survival, and in the
all-important relationships with the “family’ of the band, with their fellow musicians, and with their fans in
the wider punk community. The rejection of the profit motive is an important distinction between
mainstream and alternative entrepreneurship. If this were a mainstream paper, I’d be pointing out their
substantial financial success, too, but let’s just let Rancid wryly sing that ““I sit back and I think it’s funny you
were so worried about the money; cloudy days are looking sunny” (‘You want it, we got it’).
Whilst the emotions of the entrepreneur have been less studied than one might have expected, nevertheless
such work as there is highlights the importance of passion, and persistence as the emotional hallmarks of the
entrepreneurial process. These can be found too in the work of Punk entrepreneurs, but they are laced
through here with the anger, the rage, and the outrage which is an integral part of the Punk movement. Just
as the colonized dispossessed retain, reject and mutate certain aspects of colonizers culture, so here we can
perhaps see another subaltern community creating a hybrid culture of entrepreneurship (Bhabha, 1990;
1994).
The social discourse of the mainstream about entrepreneurship is presented to us all in a steady stream of
newspapers, political speeches and initiatives, blogs, books and videos. Yet the alternative entrepreneur also
lays claim to a widely-dispersed, complex and coherent radical social discourse, articulated in their lyrics,
music, graphics, practices, social structures and interactions. This paper has attempted to provide some
insights into the richness, sophistication, and depth of this alternative ideology, and some examples of the
insights which analysis of these artifacts can generate.
26
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APPENDIX ONE - PRIMARY SOURCES
Rancid Albums
Rancid, 1993, Rancid, Epitaph Records
Rancid, 1994, Let’s Go, Epitaph Records
Rancid, 1995, And Out Come the Wolves, Epitaph Records
Rancid, 1998, Life Won’t Wait, Epitaph Records
Rancid, 2000, Rancid, Hellcat Records
Rancid, 2003, Indestructible, Hellcat Records
Rancid, 2009, Let the Dominoes Fall, Hellcat Records
Rancid Interviews and Media Stories
Amberleigh Jack (2009?) http://www.therock.net.nz/Rancid-interview/tabid/673/articleID/5797/Default.aspx ,
Accessed 10th March 2011 16:23
Shield, Matt June 25, 2009 Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen of Rancid
http://www.avclub.com/twincities/articles/tim-armstrong-and-lars-frederiksen-of-rancid,29128/ Accessed 10th March
2011 16:16
http://www.punkrockacademy.com/stm/int/rancid.html
Accessed 10th March 2011 16:09 (Interview with Matt)
http://rancidfans.livejournal.com/78011.html Tim Armstrong Primer and Picspam, Valerie Z2009 Accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/rancid_int.htm, Gabriella, October 1998
Sleigh, R (2010) Interview with Rancid's Matt Freeman http://www.roomthirteen.com/cgibin/feature_view.cgi?FeatureID=790 Accessed 10th March 2011 16:00
MaximumRockNRoll 1 (July 1982)
http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/Maximumrocknroll/MRR-Issue001-1-IntroandLetters.pdf, Friday, 27 May
2011
28
MaximumRockNRoll 42 (November 1986)
http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/Maximumrocknroll/MRR-Issue042-16-924GilmanSt.pdf Friday, 27 May 2011
MaximumRockNRoll 57 (January 1988) http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/Maximumrocknroll/MRR-Issue0578-OperationIvy.pdf Friday, 27 May 2011
Brown, A (2009) http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2009/06/rancids-let-the-dominoes-fall-feels-like-a-punkhomecoming.html posted June 3, 2009 | 6:28 pm Accessed 10th March 2011 4:47 PM
Lanham, T (2009) “Rancid: Hope And Glory, Interview” http://community.hottopic.com/interview/rancid-hope-andglory Accessed 10th March 2011 4:54 PM
Spoiled Rotten, Interview with Tim Armstrong http://www.oocities.org/vivo_80/TimArmstrong1 Accessed 10th March
2011
Annette Ovanessian THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 9, 2004 Interview with Lars Frederiksen from Skratch Magazine. LARS
FREDERIKSEN & THE BASTARDS http://www.epitaph.com/news/news/1627, Accessed 10th March 2011
Janelle Jones THE OLD FIRM CASUALS posted by By alina on Apr 11 2011 http://www.ampmagazine.com/11765/theold-firm-casuals-interview-with-lars-fredericksen/, Accessed 4th May 2011
Epitaph’s Rancid Band Description http://www.epitaph.com/artists/artist/61/Rancid#albdesc. Accessed 16th March
2011
Facebooks, MySpace Pages and Web Sites
http://www.facebook.com/#!/ApocalypseRadio
Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2001
http://www.facebook.com/#!/OfficialBrandenSteineckert
Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/#!/devilsbrigademusic,
Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/#!/epitaphrecords, Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Lars-Frederiksen-The-Bastards/114026291985943
Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.facebook.com/#!/rancid Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.hell-cat.com/ Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.epitaph.com/ Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.epitaph.com/artists/album/334/Indestructible#albdesc Accessed 16th March 2011
http://www.epitaph.com/artists/album/181/Rancid Accessed 16th March 2011
http://www.epitaph.com/artists/album/187/Life_Wont_Wait Accessed 16th March 2011
http://machetemfg.com/ Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.myspace.com/rancid Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.myspace.com/rancid/blog/515497899 (Tony Hawk Foundation Benefit Announcement - May 27, 2001)
29
http://www.myspace.com/rancid/blog/491134704 (Commentary on ‘Let the Dominoes Fall’ - May 27, 2001)
http://www.myspace.com/rancid/photos/albums/album/2888811#mssrc=SitesPhotos_SP_AlbumCover_ViewAlbum
(Album covers - Last accessed May 27, 2011)
http://2020skateboards.bigcartel.com/ Last accessed 25 May 2011
http://unknownstudios.net/ Last accessed 25 May 2011
http://www.rancidrancid.com/ Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.rancidrancid.com/photos.html Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.rancidrancid.com/videos.html
http://www.rancidrancid.com/tim-armstrong-art.html Last accessed 25 May 2011
http://www.924gilman.org Accessed February 1 2011 – May 27, 2011
http://www.operationphoenixrecords.com/archivespage.html
http://maximumrocknroll.com/ Friday, 27 May 2011
http://www.tonyhawkfoundation.org/ Friday, 27 May 2011
http://skunxtattoo.com/ Saturday, 28 May 2011
http://www.nyhctattoo.com/ Saturday, 28 May 2011
http://skunxtattootokyo.com/ Saturday, 28 May 2011
Rancid Video list
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=753bpgYmOT4&NR=1
Lars talks to Eric Blair, 2005 Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfOvdeTXD5M
Brian gets tattoed by Lars Accessed 5/4/2011 12:46 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb_v4EeTpho&NR=1
Lars tattooing Jeff Cardell, at NYHC 1 Accessed 5/4/2011 12:56 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8DGHN25w9s&feature=related
Lars tattooing Jeff Cardell, at NYHC 2 Accessed 5/4/2011 12:56 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GLBQpbug3E&feature=related
KROQ weenie roast 2009 interview - accessed 5/4/2011, now removed from YouTube for copyright reasons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOibahtB5Bc&feature=related
2010 Interview, for onenineninefour, with Tim about the breakup of Op Ivy 5/4/2011 - accessed 5/4/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLkpw-l3sUc&feature=related
japan interview spring 08 - accessed 5/4/2011, now removed from YouTube for copyright reasons
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEiD4nzyXdM
Rancid TV interview, ‘we’re all brothers’ - accessed May 09, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=169vFeq_4p4
DJ Hikaru Interview in Japan, 6 March 2006 Rancid Radio, Residency, and Tours, showcasing young bands - accessed
May 09, 2011
30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2LOXXU3y8U
Joe Strummer Tribute (making of), Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AEw1c2dt1g
Rancid / Hellcat Records, “Red Hot Moon” video, Circulated 2003, Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/artist/Rancid?feature=watch_video_title
Catalogue of Rancid music videos Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOS22o5KLXg&feature=artist
“Another East Bay Night” – Live Acoustic Version, Circulated 2009, Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrKwymyErf8&feature=artist
Rancid / Hellcat Records, “Last One to Die” video, Circulated 2009, Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilsd2ajX6qk&feature=artist
Rancid / Hellcat Records, “Up to No Good” video, Circulated 2009, Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwIbb3McVW4&feature=artist
Rancid / Epitaph Records, “Time Bomb” video, Circulated 1995, Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBjQPjivRiQ&feature=related
Interview with Tim, “Who’s a Punk – I’m not a cop”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEBcEdFqaeE&feature=related
Rancid - "Olympia WA" (BLAST Surf N Skate 2010) Last accessed May 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jK6uDrDe1Q&feature=related
Rancid - "The 11th Hour" (BLAST Surf N Skate 2010)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIOrg5RNqeU&feature=player_embedded#at=24
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 1, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 27 April 2009 - Last accessed May
27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA4h5mMWiXk&feature=related
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 2, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 27 April 2009 Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUJ8AM2vZOs&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 3, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 27 April 2009 Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV8ncKoDg2c&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 4, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 27 April 2009Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df6bCzmAgXE&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 5, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 29 April 2009. Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvmug8wVp4&NR=1
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 6, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 30 April 2009. Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxHpQgVxelQ&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 7, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 1 May 2009. Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGQLXCxvocM&feature=relmfu
31
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 8, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 4 May 2009. Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqS2rgC07os&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 9, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 5 May 2009. Last accessed May 27,
2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-hmvz2cE1Y&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 10, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 6 May 2009 Webisode 10,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf4jeB_vk-o&feature=related
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 11, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 7 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0EWyDiFW18&NR=1
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 12, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 8 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmC8ggREDEY&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 13, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 11 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p91eHKPxVsk&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 14, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 12 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn6nW7xhDgw&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 15, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 13 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3INRunr4Y&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 16, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 14 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cH2UPjthMw&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 17, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 18 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0hrrbUAb3I&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 18, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 18 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBgevPPwXKw&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 19, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 19 May 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCRgKVfEFH8&feature=relmfu
“Let the Dominoes Fall”, Rachel Tejade, Webisode 20, Uploaded by Hellcat records, 20 May 2009
32