I’ve never really paid much attention to hardcore merch collecting much, is it like a sneakerhead thing?
Hardcore Twitter kids just love to overhyped shit in hopes of being perceived as "legit hardcore" or tough guys because they own a hoodie.
Honestly it kind of it. Which I don't think is a bad thing in and of itself. But collecting hardcore merch has kind of taken on that kind of thing with certain hardcore fans.
The fact that Sunami is a joke band is precisely why I enjoy them. I think most beatdown hardcore is pretty crappy, but the fact they're just leaning into it with the absurdity that they do is enjoyable. Gulch is legitimately my favorite "new" hardcore band so I'm probably a bit biased in my assessment of them, but there's something there that I think puts them a tier above their peers. I can't describe it, but they just put out such damn good metallic hardcore that it's a weird earworm in my brain. Between Gulch, Sunami, Drain, SPY, World Peace, and Scalp - the Bay Area is my favorites scene in hardcore at the moment. So many fucking good bands.
From what I remember, they asked fans to meet them in the airport to get one and of course 100’s of people showed up.
That is def overboard haha. Whatever happened with that is def an L for the band, but who goes to an airport to buy merch haha. I know you don’t need to lead people on, that’s not right, but some of it is on the people too. Like what the hell are you doing lol?
I will say too along the Sunami/beatdown thing, I definitely think it’s a fun joke for the band. YAB with the incorrect spelling is part of it to me. But there was something truly funny and cool about watching the LDB crowd in Louisville yell, “You’re either from the bay or you’re a b*tch”. Gonna assume most of that crowd wasn’t from the bay and so they just called themselves a b*tch. At least their other songs are about race and police from what I remember. I don’t listen to them much but I actually think that band is pretty funny.
Re Gulch merch: I get the vibrator was a joke, but I can't really judge any band who does weird merch stuff after Ghost put out a full sex toy kit with religious iconography on it. You do you when it comes to the hype merch stuff.
And as long as you aren’t gouging on the price, I’m good with it. Obviously the band needs to make something on it so if you print on name brands you should expect to pay a little more. It can be a fine line sometimes for sure. If there is a market for sex toys with Ghost fans, more power to em.
I don't see the big issue with the Gulch vibrator. I thought it was funny, even if it was a bit dumb.
I think the issue is that it was fake and as we discussed, fans of hardcore are crazy and will literally buy anything when it comes to merch, especially with Gulch. Then the band continued to harass people on social media after they found out it was fake. I agree that it’s pretty funny as a merch item.
the band has stated multiple times that they think it's dumb people will pay crazy prices for their merch and they do not endorse buying from second hand sellers that overcharge like crazy for it. the vibrator was a joke about how people would buy anything they sell because its become a stupid meme to own their merch.
trolling people who flip their merch and overcharge so much for it that fans cant buy it you really think a bunch of broke hardcore kids can buy $300 for a hoodie on ebay?
Speaking of, I actually was thinking of looking on Discogs to seeing what the 7 inch goes for right now! Anyway, a lot of people who genuinely like the band will get caught in the crossfire of the joke. As I stated, their response on social media didn’t help either.
It's probably going for an insane amount of money. The band doesn't see any of that money. Imagine you make a product, pay for it to be produced, sell at a price that your fans afford, covers the price of production, shipping, paying back the record label, while still making a little bit of money off of it. Then some dipshit on the internet buys 10-20 of them to resell for 5 to 10 times the amount they paid for them and most of your fans can't afford that.
I just don't get why they don't press more records or print more shirts. They have put out subsequent presssings, but when any of the pressings sell out, it just makes that one more "valueable"