Because I’ve been around a minute, people sometimes ask me if “the scene” down here in New Orleans is better now or then—then being way back in the early ‘90s when I was just a wee lad buying my first Born Against records. And by nearly every metric, I’d say the scene is way better now (except that back then we never used words like “metrics”). There are so many things that the indie/counterculture/youth culture/what-have-you scenes in New Orleans have now that were in extremely short supply back then. It might be hard to appreciate for anyone growing up in the past 20 years how many good record stores there currently are, with deep, varied inventory and friendly staff. Back then New Orleans was limited to maybe one decent record store like Underground Sounds (Hi Laura!) and a handful of spots that would gouge you for the world’s shittiest copy of Abbey Road while blowing cigarette smoke in your face. Nowadays, local bands of many genres abound, and a lot of y’all go on tour—practically unheard of 30 years ago. I’m also happy to see the scenes have evolved since the ‘90s to be much more inclusive and representative of people who are not angry young white men. And if both eras share one thing—especially here—it’s that creativity flourishes.
But here it comes, my one old man gripe. Indulge me, please. One thing I miss about the pre-internet dark ages is that back then, if you were into any kind of subculture, you really had to work to be a part of it. Your scene wasn’t just served up as thousands of fully-formed choices at your fingertips. If there was a band I was obsessed with, like Born Against, I usually had to order their records from an ad in MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL, which meant I had to find a copy of MRR—not the easiest thing to do at the time either. One time, I rode my bike to this guy’s house (he lived in Carrollton like me) who ran a mailorder out of it, just so I could save a little time and a few bucks on postage for some records I wanted to buy. Looking back, I realize that was a crazy thing to do, and put the guy in a weird situation with some punk high school kid showing up like that (shout out One-Way Distro, and sorry Ed!). My point is that seeking out those records like they were far-away treasure, going to Underground Sounds because that’s where you’d see the flier for a cool show, getting to the show, sometimes at another random dude’s apartment (Hi Carl!)—that all took a lot of time, searching, and planning. And for many people, that was a big part of the charm: this shared sense of jumping through hoops and crawling around proverbial tunnels and literal back-alleys to arrive at this place together—one reason we call it the underground in the first place. I’m not saying those bonds aren’t forged today in dark clubs with loud music—I know they are and the pages of ANTIGRAVITY are fuller because of that. And back then we didn’t have an ANTIGRAVITY, so score another point for our current times!
I’ll fast forward past 10,000 words on the internet and social media, which has done wonders for underground subcultures and also cursed them, and arrive right to the current evil, which is AI. It sucks that we have to keep circling back to this topic month after month, so I’ll spare you the full diatribe and simply offer the following: If you’re a venue, band, artist, writer, designer, whatever, who finds themselves operating in independent art spaces and subcultures—or you just consider yourself part of a community of freaks and weirdos, wingnuts, and free spirits—stop fucking using AI. Not only is it tacky as hell, it makes you look lazy—like you really don’t give a shit about any of this. And if there’s one thing that unites all of these little scenes, it’s the communal care, labor, time, resource, love—dedication—that goes into them. Let’s please keep that flame alive, where artist and audience can look at each other and both know we earned this. —Dan Fox
March 2026 cover by Airily Arts
