01/09/2026
A well written article about the race to the bottom!
As I outlined in the Secret DJ books, the scene we inhabit mirrors society at large. We are very much a microcosm. And what I see repeatedly now in this industry is a clear and present danger of mirroring Far Right antics. You don’t have to vote to ape the tactics of Trump and Farage et al. You don’t need much in the way of political knowledge to behave like a piece of s**t. But folks have eyes. They see. And some of them see something they like, a lot. Opportunity - alongside a perfect storm of a total removal of personal responsibility and any and all accountability.
The Rise of The Liar is a global movement for rampant opportunists - and encompasses several complexities - but at the heart of it is Libertarianism, hate, intolerance, greed, weaponised self-interest, fake nostalgia and a screeching victimhood when pressed. To see this with vacuous, self-serving politicians is sadly the norm now. To see promoters, DJs and even clubbers mimic it is utterly abhorrent. Yet here we are.
Devaluation is the key to ‘disruption’ and no one knows this better than anyone with the slightest connection to the music industry. First came the Plastic DJs, Gentleman Amateurs, Insta Promoters and Youtube Producers - many in nice, full-time jobs - happy to hobby - and everyone has a great time with Spotify and Pikes until one day no one is getting paid anymore. This is not an accidental phenomena and not unique to us - like I say - we are a microcosm and in some cases - a testbed. We were the Space Monkeys. It came for us first.
The key to this insurgency is to turn the public against professionals. To amateurise a method of income. No one cares about taxi drivers earning The Knowledge for years when suddenly untrained cabs navigating with a bad app are a click away for almost nothing. No one is listening to the stories of traders when everyone is playing cash lego with crypto. There’s no column inches for the words of photographers when everyone is busy clicking and pouting. Who cares about musicians when you just got AI to write your kids a personalised song in seconds. Who has time to read a book anymore? Actors are now CGI? so what? Why are doctors telling us what to with our health? Who needs scientists? Who needs painters? What’s the point of poetry?
And once you have devalued something almost to the point of zero, both culturally and economically, then you can control it. If you own the portal that destroyed, sorry, ‘disrupted’ the system - you own the remains of that system. You preside over the co**se. And only you receive the pittance that is left. You became the sole gatekeeper. But when that pittance is a global amount - it adds up to a lot. It adds up to nearly all. And all equals power.
By simultaneously devaluing us all via political will, AKA ‘austerity’ and strangling councils, services and infrastructure, then devaluing our income by means of increasing prices and driving down wages - the final step is a cultural devaluation. To make our very lives, joys, loves and beliefs next to worthless. From Tinder to Tidal - everything we hold as precious is for sale, whether we agreed to it or not. And under extremist capitalist models, when the prices go up, they never come down again. Similarly when something is practically made free, no one will ever countenance paying for it again - such as with music.
The most grotesque aspect of this is arguing with Turkeys about Christmas. There are at least one, if not two generations who grew up without any knowledge outside of this new system. It’s completely normalised. I’ve been told too many times to count ‘what’s the problem here?’ or ‘why are you so crazy about money man? Where’s the love?’ - they’ve been conditioned fully within the devalued zone. And value never really had anything to do with cash money. Value lies everywhere and most of all in a certain position in society. How it is generally regarded and held in respect. Destroying this consensus is job number one. Prime directive - kill journalism and own the narrative.
I see this issue in our scene with promoters who not only do not pay where they can, but do all they can to pay as little as possible, but here is the rub, only to the artists. There’s been no push to ‘unpay’ bar staff. Although I am sure some may disagree there, after all, the disease is spreading. But the key here is not merely the fat cats at the top aping vile politicians and techbros, it is the artists themselves fully accepting defeat and devaluing themselves in advance before they even arrive at the table.
I use Pikes as an example merely out of habit, it’s such a shining example of the model, and of course it’s proximity to people I know and respect. I liken it to a dwindling water hole on the savannah. As the drought of less and less venues, punters and cash increases, the watering hole shrinks. More and more competing animals are forced to drink shoulder to shoulder. Eventually the hyenas are next to elephants. Rabbits under the hooves of rhinos. All of them dying of thirst. And one day, suddenly, all bets are off. They turn on each other.
It’s not the 90s anymore. As well as a shrewd exploitation of ageing clubbers and weaponised nostalgia, the DJs of that era just aren’t getting booked. Who wouldn’t want to go to a place where everyone still remembers your name and for a few hours you can step back in time to your youth? A jolly Rave Butlins for all concerned, both redcoats and holidaymakers. And when some of the punters want desperately to be a redcoat too for a day, who is going to say no? Especially when they don’t expect to be paid - hell, they will gladly pay YOU for the experience.
It all just connects too closely to the wave of fake nostalgia from the politicians of the Far Right. There never was a jolly green Albion where everyone was white, no more than the drinks are free in Club Tropicana. It's all bulls**t designed to distract you while there is a greasy hand in your pocket.
But you know - as always I say ‘go for it’. Enjoy. Have your fun. This is for industry professionals here not for punters. Nobody is going to stop using Amazon, no one is going to stop having fun in Ibiza. But know that the machine is there, as ever, to serve one obscenely rich man. A man who profits every time you work for nothing or next to nothing. Who claims tax write-offs as huge cheques for charity while barely paying anyone enough to live - bragging about it the whole time. Who is legally not allowed to charge entry to a hotel, so claims this is a gift to you all while simultaneously using it as a method of saying there are no profits to pay anyone with, yet every year miraculously finds millions to give away, add illegal extensions and enrich himself further. All the while authoring hate campaigns against critics and journalists and spending hours online trying to craft a fake good-guy persona while pointedly booking the very worst we have to offer in terms of their affiliations. We’ve seen the exact same model every day coming from the modern politicians and techbros. It’s grotesque and about as far away from the ethos we worked so hard to build all our lives as it can possibly get. And no one objects, lest they be tarred with the brush that makes them ‘difficult’ and therefore outcast. A gig is a gig after all. And aren’t we all basically beige Americans now? Money above all, at any cost.
Devalue the system, monetise the remains, assassinate the character of any critics, own the narrative, brainwash the participants, normalise extremists, unleash the hate, provide shelter to the worst, weaponise nostalgia, count the cash. It’s happening from the very top to the very bottom. It’s the new normal. And if you react “it is what it is” or “it was ever thus” or “supply and demand” then dear reader - you are truly lost. You are too far gone. This was indeed something that was endemic in untrammelled capitalism and the extreme ends of economics and political thought - but in our art and culture??
No.
Wrong.
This is not the place for you. Take it somewhere else.
We’ve work to do to right this wrong.
Go buy some stocks or throw rocks at cats or whatever it is you do for kicks.
The rest of us have some thinking to do.
This cannot stand.
