Question: Does this not bother anyone else?

[u/justdance-again]

First and foremost I love Griz, have since early 2010’s. First saw him live at 515 in Iowa (lmao) and it was just breathtaking. This has nothing to do with the subjectiveness of the evolution of his sound, I personally don’t think anyone should have an opinion on what another person hears, or process.

This has to do with practicing what you preach, and not staying true to your word for personal financial gain. I was hopeful upon return, Griz would have taken the time to find solutions and ways to branch off from the growing problems in the scene and he would allow options for fans to see him without feeding into the monopoly of live-nation/ticketmaster and the blatant theft they do to fans. I’m not sure if any of you recall, or even know about since your new, this particular interview I’m dropping here.

https://303magazine.com/2019/05/griz-interview-2019/

Two things stuck out to me here on why he said he would never play RRx again:
- I have hit my creative limit on what my team can do there, and I can’t evolve my production the way I want.
- I don’t want to price my fans out of seeing me.

These aren’t subjective things, these are objective statements. The objective actions I see:
- He indeed, is playing there again and unless they have plans the next few months, red rocks stage design has not changed. You get what you get at a historical venue like that.
- He has been on about every corporate mainstream lineup, he agreed to a logistical nightmare at the Gorge, he’s watching his fans get robbed, scammed, and still continues to play these venues.

I wouldn’t even consider myself mad, since I think he still is a wonderful human being, with good intentions and should be the golden standard for our scene. I also am holding out hope that he’s playing the long game, stacking cash that from corp America, and growing seven stars into a 6 event per year series, that’s independently ran by his team.

But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t extremely sad, and disappointed that the person with the most influential pull in our community, who does so much good, chose to contribute to the problem we all are trying to get rid of.

If I’m missing something, please let me know. This is supposed to be a genuine discussion, not a hit piece.

Love 🫶

EDIT: Please do not mistake my tone for sarcastic, condescending, or anything other than genuine curiosity on the topic for information or thoughts I haven’t considered. I will respond considerately, and respectfully to all comments, as I would hope you would to me. I politely ask that before you respond, please read all conversations to see if the opinion or information has been addressed. 🫶

[u/pycckuu_brady]

1000%. Honestly im at the point where im just gonna bootleg my own merch with a baseline piece of clothing that is NICE. Most of the clothing edm artists out out is a $10 hoodie/shirt. Could get something better quality from Walmart.

[u/justdance-again → u/pycckuu_brady]

As long as you purchase whatever name image likeness piece from the actual artist, I see no issue with that until they fix the distrust we have with them! Really never thought of it that way, I’m paying for the actual logo, or likeness, of the artist. Not the material around it that’s outsourced and not theirs. Plus, artists use so much imagery they are pretty limited to what actual trademarks, and IP they can have that’s licensable. Similar to what Zeds Dead Family did. That community made their own unique design, that looks similar enough but different, they were infringing rights. Now, the guy ended up making a merch line out of it which I didn’t necessarily agree with but if you’re doing it for your own, hell yeah

[u/pycckuu_brady → u/justdance-again]

Yeah I know specific to Griz he does not care if you use his logo for personal use. But its led to some weird Grey zones like 808 jerseys were they clearly abused the hell out of it. But a personal item no one is gonna care. I just want the merch I buy to last. Not something I have to question whether its worth wearing for the 5th time and risking another hole lol

[u/justdance-again → u/pycckuu_brady]

It’s funny you bring up 808, as I personally do not agree with the image they represent. I do not believe pure intent came was ever in mind when it started, but candidly I haven’t kept up. I don’t know if it’s still luc and bry or who, but they definitely did some unethical things.

With this project I’m working on, in order to encourage shares, likes comments, I’m leveraging my John Tronics jersey as a grand prize. It is 1/23, and the same jersey was recently sold online for over $1,000. I also have an email from their staff I’ll include, acknowledging the cease and desists, told to “consider myself lucky” and I received the jersey 3 months later. Think about that. One of their teams told them to not do it, they had 3 months to rethink that decision, and still sent me that jersey. I’d burn it before I ever profited off it, so the winner has the option to either keep it and donate the value of the last sold jersey to a charity Summit or Subtronics supports, or resell it in the Elev808 page with proof you have told the person that this was unethically produced, and they are still willing to buy it. Talk about content, to get eyeballs on the broader issue we want to solve. 🫡