Andrew Mall 6/10/25 Andrew Mall 6/10/25

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #06: Challenges (Season 1 Finale)

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #05: Mental Health. Hosts Dana Bollen and Andrew Mall are joined by ten of our Season 1 panel members to discuss some of the biggest changes that we've experienced within the DIY music scenes over the last few decades & the challenges that we face today. Several panelists also share advice that is valuable to anyone who is involved in these communities.

Andrew Mall 6/2/25 Andrew Mall 6/2/25

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #05: Mental Health

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #05: Mental Health. Hosts Dana Bollen and Andrew Mall are joined by nine of our Season 1 panel members to discuss the mental health benefits that we gain through being involved in DIY music scenes and communities.

Andrew Mall 5/28/25 Andrew Mall 5/28/25

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #04: Community

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #04: Community. Hosts Dana Bollen and Andrew Mall are joined by eight of our Season 1 panel members to discuss the communities that we build around D.I.Y. music scenes, as well as values that are essential within these communities.

Andrew Mall 5/27/25 Andrew Mall 5/27/25

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #03: Exposure

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #03: Exposure. Hosts Dana Bollen and Andrew Mall are joined by nine of our Season 1 panel members to discuss the impact that exposure can have on D.I.Y. music scenes and what happens when these bands and this music reaches mainstream attention and success.

Andrew Mall 5/6/25 Andrew Mall 5/6/25

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #01: Pilot

Live Free Or D.I.Y. Episode #01: Pilot. Hosts Dana Bollen and Andrew Mall introduce themselves and the panel of twelve individuals that we will hear from throughout Season 1 of this podcast series. Each panel member also chimes in to describe their personal connection to the term “D.I.Y.” (do-it-yourself) and its connection to their experiences in the D.I.Y. music scenes and communities.

Andrew Mall 3/27/25 Andrew Mall 3/27/25

Hardcore Community at Furnace Fest: Nostalgia, Belongingness, and Vulnerability

Punk Scholars Network conference presentation (2025). In this paper I reflect on the meaningfulness of the Furnace Fest community to individual participants. My findings are based on four sequential years of fieldwork at Furnace Fest (2021–24) with ever-growing research teams, hundreds of survey responses, and dozens of hours of semi-structured interviews with organizers, community members, and random attendees (around 50 conducted at the 2024 event alone). I argue that nostalgia at Furnace Fest is generative as much as it is reflective, affirming participants’ identities while also empowering them to take risks and be vulnerably transparent in relative safety.

Andrew Mall 4/13/24 Andrew Mall 4/13/24

Hardcore Community at Furnace Fest

IASPM-US conference panel (2024). In 2023, our six-member team was on site in Birmingham, Alabama for five days, building upon over two years of prior research in 2021 and 2022. In this panel, four fieldwork team members share their findings along distinct themes. Together, we explore the ways in which community is substantiated and maintained at Furnace Fest.

Andrew Mall 3/21/24 Andrew Mall 3/21/24

Hardcore Nostalgia at Furnace Fest

MEIEA conference presentation (2024). What is the nature of hardcore, and how does hardcore nostalgia reflect its values and meet its needs? More than merely a marketing ploy, is hardcore nostalgia also an invitation to revisit and romanticize the anxieties of our youth; an attempt at a do-over; or perhaps even an act of emotional and mental self-care? In this presentation, we trace these trends in hardcore and emo to ask: what do we do with nostalgia that asks us to remember when we were young and angry and sad?

Andrew Mall 10/21/23 Andrew Mall 10/21/23

Mosh Pit Methods: Team-based Collaborative Fieldwork at a Hardcore Punk Festival

SEM conference presentation (2023). In this paper, we address the complexities of collaborating at these multiple levels: with each other, research assistants, festival organizers and staff, community leaders and members, and festival attendees. In attending to these challenges and opportunities, we open a conversation about the power and potential of team-based, collaborative fieldwork.

Andrew Mall 10/26/22 Andrew Mall 10/26/22

Collaborative Ethnography at Furnace Fest: Initial Findings on Affect, Community, and Commerce in Hardcore

Colloquium presentation (2022). At Furnace Fest (Birmingham, Alabama), attendees travel from across the U.S. and Canada for three days of emo, hardcore, metal, and punk performances. Based on ongoing fieldwork, in this talk I consider what my research collaborators and I have learned so far about working together—both in terms of our research methodologies and in terms of festival organizers and their communities.

Andrew Mall 9/22/22 Andrew Mall 9/22/22

Furnace Fest Community: A Public Conversation

Public research presentation (2022). Prior to Furnace Fest 2022, I helped organize a public conversation as part of an official pre-fest event. The plan was to present some of our initial research findings and moderate a public conversation with the participation of two of Furnace Fest’s organizers and one of the Furnace Fest Community moderators.

Andrew Mall 8/18/22 Andrew Mall 8/18/22

(Post-)Christian Hardcore, Community, and Nostalgia at Furnace Fest

Conference presentation (2022). At Furnace Fest 2021 (Birmingham, Alabama), attendees traveled from across the U.S. and Canada for three days of emo, hardcore, and metal performances. Based on ongoing, collaborative fieldwork in the Furnace Fest community, in this paper I build upon prior work that posits festivals as physical places for imagined communities (Mall 2015; cf. Anderson 1991 [1983]) and scenes (Mall 2020) to consider how music festivals, as sensational forms (Meyer 2009), substantiate musical community itself (see, e.g., Shelemay 2011).