About Us
DIY Conspiracy is a web journal for underground music and culture. We come from the DIY punk and hardcore community, but our understanding of punk is broader than a music style. It’s about how things are done, the ethics behind them, and the politics that have shaped punk as a culture of resistance, solidarity, and self-determination.
Launched in 2005, the site grew from a simple idea: to create something small-scale, political, and meaningful for our friends and community without chasing hype or trying to please the mainstream punk business. It is run by an international crew of punks, carries no advertising, and has no financial ties or business owners controlling what we publish.
Over the years, we’ve published thousands of reviews, interviews, premieres, scene reports, and other articles, but the number is not the point. We don’t want to treat records as disposable content, skim them for quick reviews, or publish something simply to generate traffic or help sell a release. We just try to cover music and ideas we genuinely care about and keep this small corner of the internet useful to others involved in DIY punk and underground culture.
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Copyright & Reprints
All original content on DIY Conspiracy is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
In simple terms, you’re free to share and adapt our work for non-commercial purposes, provided that you credit DIY Conspiracy and the original author, link to the original article, indicate whether changes were made, and distribute any adapted material under the same license.
Although this license permits full non-commercial republication under those terms, reposting entire articles on another website isn’t very helpful. It creates duplicate content that can hurt search visibility for everyone involved and doesn’t contribute much to the wider DIY ecosystem. If you want to reference something we’ve published, it’s usually better to quote a section and link back to the original article.
What we truly love is seeing DIY Conspiracy pieces reprinted in physical zines or translated into other languages for local scenes. That kind of circulation keeps punk culture alive. If you reprint, translate, or otherwise adapt something from the site, please let us know, we’d love to see it! If your intended use falls outside the license, please contact us first.
DIY Conspiracy does not intentionally infringe on copyright.
In our From The Archives section you’ll sometimes find out-of-print interviews, articles, or other materials that we felt were important enough to preserve and share. Whenever possible we credit the original creators and sources. If you believe we’ve published something without proper permission, please contact us and we’ll address it as quickly as possible.
We also try to credit the photographers behind the images used on the site. Sometimes that can be difficult, especially with older pre-digital photos circulating online. If you recognize an uncredited photo and know the photographer, please get in touch and we’ll happily update the article.
As punks, we believe in keeping our content free and accessible. At the same time, we’ve seen our articles scraped and republished by spam sites and online scammers. That being said, we do ask for a bit of respect for the work we put into creating it. Please give credit where it’s due, or better yet, reach out to us before you republish anything from our site.
We’re more than happy to provide additional information, high-res photos, or whatever else you might need to use our content. Let’s keep the punk spirit alive by supporting each other’s work!
DIY Solidarity
In 2024, we started a new project called DIY Solidarity. This project came to life thanks to an old punk who decided to put an unexpected inheritance to good use. The application period for DIY Solidarity is open annually from March 1st to March 31st.
DIY Solidarity allows us to allocate annual funding to support DIY initiatives globally. There’s a pretty straightforward application form that keeps bureaucracy to a minimum, while allowing us to identify the cornerstones of the project.
Our goal is to distribute the funds among bands and venues, zine makers and distros, festivals and gatherings, social centers and living spaces. While applications over $1,000 may go through, chances are limited. Our aim is to benefit a broad array of projects rather than a select few.
Write for DIY Conspiracy
DIY Conspiracy strives to be a collective effort, and we’re always happy to welcome new contributors from different parts of the world who share the same passion for punk and DIY culture.
If you’d like to write for us, send a short introduction about yourself, the scene or communities you’re part of, and the kinds of hardcore punk or related sounds you’re most excited about. It also helps if you include a short review of a recent record (released within the past year) so we can get a feel for your writing.
We’re interested in interviews, scene reports, opinion pieces, and the occasional rant about the bands, zines, DIY venues, labels, and collectives that keep punk scenes alive in your city or region.
DIY Conspiracy has always been about documenting and supporting the people who actually make things happen. If that sounds like you, drop us a line.
Conspirators
