--- # What Being in a Punk Band Taught Me About a Corporate Sell-Out! **URL:** https://educatedconfusion.com/what-being-in-a-punk-band-taught-me-about-a-corporate-sell-out/ Date: 2024-07-10 Author: fatherlinux Post Type: post Summary: There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. Categories: Life --- OK, first of all, that was click bait! Just remember, "I didn't sell out, I bought in. Keep that in mind!"... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aNiBktcSvQ   Alright, with that out of the way, I think it's easy to discount how much one learns from being in a semi-successful, regional or local band. There are so many skill necessary to form a band and keep it together. At this point, the [Anthropologist in me](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fatherlinux/) is going to style shift into Product Manager speak 🤪 This entire blog post was sparked by a heartfelt response I got to a [Facebook post](https://www.facebook.com/share/p/X4qJE991sHmFvZPx/) I made where I expressed that I felt like my entire endeavor of leading a band for 6 years was a slow, painful failure. Like all product managers, I made a huge mistake. I forgot about the user of the product.   For approximately six years, starting around 1995, I led a Ska and Punk band in Northeast Ohio called Swing Heil, an **anti-Nazi** slogan [Swing Kids](https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/swing-youth-jazz-nazi-germany) used in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. I know, I know, naming things is hard.... When you have to explain that you are **not** actually Nazis, and are indeed anti-Nazi, it creates friction which prevents *"the market"* from absorbing your message. More on that later, but at the peak of our success, we played out 3-4 times a week in the summer with as many as 200-300 people in the audience. We even played for 1000 people once at an amazing venue called the Peabody's Down Under in The Flats in Cleveland. There's a [home video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaNvgENMLWU) here. Yes, they were called home videos then, and yes camcorders where that bad in late 90s 🤣 We also had an entire team of people creating and selling merchandise (stickers, t-shirts, etc) which we sold at shows. The band had three major iterations with different core members, but the product remained pretty much the same. It created value for young people which felt out of step with society, lost, and looking to feel part of something. We tackled serious issues like drug addiction (we always covered the Minor Threat song [Straight Edge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qsKiwnBSI)) but heartache (Leave Me Alone), but also fun songs about the alphabet (Vowels), Dungeons & Dragons (D&D Dork) and racing cars (we definitely had a comedic element as well. I had been in bands since I was probably about 16 years old, started playing out in front of people at 17 years old, and This band spanned about 6 years from the time I was 18 to 24. [ez-toc]   Product Marketing It might be hard to believe now, but back then, you couldn't just find some place online to get stickers and t-shirts made. I remember many late nights with dirty hands silk screening late into the night, or taking days to draw up a flier or   --- ## Categories - Life --- ## Navigation - [Education](https://educatedconfusion.com/education/) - [Confusion](https://educatedconfusion.com/confusion/) - [Home](https://educatedconfusion.com) - [Confusion](https://educatedconfusion.com/category/confusion/) - [Life](https://educatedconfusion.com/category/confusion/life/)