Because Serfs Are Idiots: The Birth, Whatever, and Rebirth of D.I.Y. Culture
by Britt Brown

Franmasters Andrewy and Samwell thought it wise that Manders and I edify the populace as to the virtues, origins, and protocol of D.I.Y.—a gay but catchy acronym for “do it yourself.” They thought we might know a thing or two about this topic because our record label, Not Not Fun Records, is insane about making everything by hand. And by “by hand,” we mean “employing our own hands, rather than the hands of others, or ridiculous machines, to achieve our mad, mad schemes.” In other, less stupid words, we do it ourselves—D.I.O.—a similar but-slightly-dissimilar acronym that Ronnie James Dio—vocalist and lyricist of such hard-rock titans as Elf, Rainbow, and, controversially, Black Sabbath—adopted as his solo moniker with such a vengeance that he aggressively (and successfully) sued Hawthorne, CA beach bum upstarts, Dios, for infringing upon his name, forcing them to change to Dios Malos. Most Dio fans think this was a REALLY cool rock ‘n roll move on Ronnie James’ part, and really drives home his cavalier, fuck-you-I-rule attitude towards forging one’s own rockin’, renegade path in life.

Today’s youth, being bastards, take D.I.Y. for granted. They stumble around thinking, “Isn’t D.I.Y. like one of the amendments or some shit? Where’s my gravity bong?” It’s terrible. I mean, your gravity bong’s behind the longboard where I left it, but the right hemisphere of your brain? Your appreciation for radical feminist zines? Band t-shirts drawn with magic markers? Non-fucking-existent. At least part of the problem, not surprisingly, stems from America’s educational system. Nowhere in today’s high school curriculum is there a course on the history of Doing It Yourself! What does the government think? Spray-painted hand-numbered drone-rock cassettes grow on trees? Please.

The truth is, as any graduate student knows, most underground CD-R labels back in the Dark Ages—that is, up to and including the Crusades—operated on a D.I.F.M.I.B.B.I. basis, which stands for “Do It For Me, I’m Busy Beheading Infidels.” This differentiation of labor left the monks and women in charge of burning, dubbing, decorating, and distributing the experimental punk music of the times. (This segregation inadvertently birthed both the original Riot Grrl movement as well as the far lesser known Monk-Core scene). During this period, it was highly uncommon for individuals (non-Monks/women) to actually “do things” themselves. After all, civilization had spent centuries defining and refining its elaborate hierarchical structure for the express purpose of funneling all unpleasant duties down to disheveled, turnip-eating subordinates. This church-sanctioned, government-enforced “passing of the buck” kept the gentry and noblemen’s hands as tender as a baby’s, which were thus freed to pet and pat the babies.

But empires crumble. Aqueducts dilapidate. And so, too, did the aristocracy’s ivory towers come tumbling down. The D.I.F.M.I.B.B.I. system first showed signs of cracking when Death Wealth—a harsh noise unit comprised of a prince and two dukes—began suffering serious sequencing problems on Guillotine the Jesters, their third full-length cassette. The fuck-up was eventually traced down to Igor Orgolovsky, a slovenly serf with no sense of pacing or appreciation for lengthy feedback storms but who had somehow been entrusted with a mastering position at Gatekeeper Studios. Infuriated, the band complained to their protective daddy, brother of King Tony the VII, and quickly heads began to roll. But the impact of this episode was huge. Gradually people found that if they did things themselves, they often sucked vastly less. This trend grew and grew until about 1980, when two stoned dudes accidentally recorded an early Meat Puppets gig on an old 4-track one of them had borrowed from a stepbrother. When they realized the recording was pretty good (they were stoned at the time), they were like, “Fuck it, man. Let’s put this shit out ourselves!” They dubbed 5 copies, inserted a photocopied drawing of a guy chopping a cow’s face in half with a katana sword in each one, and wrote Fag Cactus Records on the spines. This is considered the re-birth of the D.I.Y. renaissance. Which is weird, because renaissance technically means “re-birth” so, like, what the fuck am I talking about?

AND...

D.I.whY. Not Do It Yourself?
by Amanda Holzer

Nylon magazine, Fran’s top competitor for fashion and literary arch-nemesis, once printed a ridiculously desperate blurb on D.I.Y. coolie crafts (not to say that this ever-topical subject isn’t at all fresh and alive in these confusing and murky 90s, or that the editors, seriously lacking in all demographics younger than 40-65, are typically reaching for anything that will link them to the hipness of acronyms) that included a how-to guide on “Doing It Yourself Trucker Hats.” Apparently all you had to do, lazy, aesthetically-retarded everyday person, was acquire some rubber stamps—preferably of the cheeky (i.e. “Return To Sender”) or sensitive (i.e. “Property of the Public Library”) variations—and a trucker hat. Then you, uh, stamp the hat and it looks cool. So, for you blissful idiots, the “do-it-yourself” portion of that craft was: first, the thoughtful, time-consuming exchange of dollar bills for a rare, H.T.F. (“hard-to-find”) mesh hat; second, the stealing of public and often federal property; and third, the tricky objective of moving your fatty, sloppy, near-atrophied limbs in a stamping motion.

To begin with, I’m shocked. Shocked and disheartened at this watered-down, mamby-pamby version of my personal rip-off of Kathleen Hanna’s life credo. Sure, when I was in the womb, I used to be just like you. Creatively challenged, brain-dead, but then the filmy mucus in my eyelids dried, and my bellybutton formed adorably. Ever since then I’ve been doing all kinds of rad shit for myself. Like, for instance, right now I’m writing this awesome, informative article on D.I.Y. while my boyfriend types, spell-checks, edits, and basically re-writes most of it for me! And I own this sweet-ass label, Not Not Fun Records, that Joel, Britt, and a few truly dedicated interns run for me! Score!

See, I’m one of D.I.Y.’s great success stories, doing-it-for-myself while listening to the song “Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves” with my sister! And what about Sam “Koolman” Kuhlmann and Andrew “Frandrew” Hume, boyfriends-in-chief, of Fran Magazine? What would you be wrapping your spoiled, week-old fish in if Andy hadn’t spent countless minutes feeding his freshly baked parchment through a hand-made printing press while Sam stood patiently by with undying support and ribbon-trimmed jars of goodies, warm off the churn, in his rubber-stamped trucker hat? Simply put, indie record labels and humor zines are A.O.K. D.I.Y. and paint-by-number fuzzy black-light posters—while psychedelic and thus far more rewarding—are not. Okay.