L.A.’s DIY scene ponders future
Promoters, venue owners and artists weigh fallout from Ghost Ship tragedy.
Two weeks after the deadly Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, the crackdown on other DIY music venues has begun.
Prominent spaces including Rhinoceropolis in Denver, Bell Foundry in Baltimore and Purple 33 in L.A. have been shut down for building code violations or cited as illegal residences. City Atty. Mike Feuer has launched investigations to identify more unapproved venues, with some promises to help evicted tenants.
On Friday, prominent figures in the local underground arts and music scene gathered at the East Hollywood arts venue Non Plus Ultra to discuss a response to the fallout. Speakers included Jim Smith of the downtown club the Smell, Pauline Lay of the late Echo Park venue Pehrspace, Randy Randall of the punk group No Age and filmmaker Matthew Conboy, whose documentary “Goodnight Brooklyn” follows the life and demise of the New York venue Death by Audio.
Although there was an air of malaise, most at the “DIY Lives” panel agreed that change was inevitable. Many said they were alarmed by the general misconceptions about the DIY scene circulating since the Oakland tragedy, which left 36 dead.
Lay said some media outlets did not understand the DIY culture. Venues that were characterized as dangerous “also felt very safe, like you were around other people who understood what was going on.”
Those in attendance also emphasized the positive aspect of the scene. Many venues like the Smell have led neighborhood rejuvenation, activating underused warehouses and improving blighted areas.
“The more we talk, the more the public will embrace what we do as beneficial to communities,” Smith said. “We have to come out of the underground and get the city and community to help us. We need to not be afraid to reach out to the city and describe what we do and the ways that it’s of value. And if we can make it safer, then we’d do it in a heartbeat.”
Many were also frustrated by media coverage of the Ghost Ship fire as a “rave” that went bad. That word — a descriptor for a large, unregulated outdoor dance music event — had little to do with the culture or logistics of most DIY venues, they maintained.
Several panelists expressed dismay that the DIY culture was also disparaged on social media, with some users implying that the victims of the Oakland fire, many of whom were LGBT and minorities, deserved their fate.
Though some venues such as Ghost Ship were unsafe even by DIY standards, panelists like Randall said it was important to get a more accurate depiction out about what goes on in offthe-grid spaces. He viewed semi-legal spaces as fundamentally American and essential to the intellectual life of young fans. In his view, the DIY philosophy encouraged “being a freethinking person in charge of your own life. We do it because it’s a form of living.”
Conboy’s film, which spliced performance footage from Death by Audio with scenes of a changing Brooklyn, was screened after the discussion. In the film’s central irony, the venue was evicted after Vice Media, the $4-billion culture and politics hub and one of DBA’s early champions, took over the building.
The film was made well before the Ghost Ship fire, but attendees at Friday’s event speculated that the crackdown would negatively affect the ambitious kids that made them thrive in the first place. “It’s becoming a dystopia for all outsiders,” Randall said. “There’s a lot to be said for us getting loud and getting in people’s faces. I’ve got a sinking feeling it’s only going to get worse, so we just have to go harder and bigger.”