"Stores can be indifferent to something new"
About this Quote
“Stores can be indifferent to something new” lands like a shrug, and that’s the point. Coming from Greg Ginn - the guitarist and architect of Black Flag’s DIY empire - it reads less like a complaint and more like a field report from the front lines of punk distribution. He’s not romanticizing rebellion; he’s describing the banal gatekeeping that happens when culture has to pass through a cash register.
The intent is practical: don’t mistake novelty for leverage. A new sound, a new band, a new idea arrives without the social proof that retail depends on. Stores aren’t built to be scouts; they’re built to manage risk, move predictable units, and keep inventory from turning into dead weight. Indifference is a business model disguised as taste.
The subtext is sharper: “indifferent” is what power looks like when it doesn’t have to argue. No dramatic censorship, no moral panic - just a quiet refusal to make shelf space. For punk, that kind of soft barrier mattered as much as any crackdown. If the store won’t stock it, the scene has to invent its own circuitry: mail-order catalogs, zines, show-to-show networks, label-run distribution. Ginn’s SST Records did exactly that, turning exclusion into infrastructure.
Contextually, the line also punctures the myth that innovation automatically gets recognized. In the late 70s and 80s, “new” wasn’t an asset unless it was already selling. Ginn’s sentence captures the cold loop of cultural legitimacy: you have to be everywhere to be noticed, but you have to be noticed to get everywhere.
The intent is practical: don’t mistake novelty for leverage. A new sound, a new band, a new idea arrives without the social proof that retail depends on. Stores aren’t built to be scouts; they’re built to manage risk, move predictable units, and keep inventory from turning into dead weight. Indifference is a business model disguised as taste.
The subtext is sharper: “indifferent” is what power looks like when it doesn’t have to argue. No dramatic censorship, no moral panic - just a quiet refusal to make shelf space. For punk, that kind of soft barrier mattered as much as any crackdown. If the store won’t stock it, the scene has to invent its own circuitry: mail-order catalogs, zines, show-to-show networks, label-run distribution. Ginn’s SST Records did exactly that, turning exclusion into infrastructure.
Contextually, the line also punctures the myth that innovation automatically gets recognized. In the late 70s and 80s, “new” wasn’t an asset unless it was already selling. Ginn’s sentence captures the cold loop of cultural legitimacy: you have to be everywhere to be noticed, but you have to be noticed to get everywhere.
Quote Details
| Topic | Marketing |
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