Apropos of yesterday’s discussion of the pressures Against Me! faces, check out Ted Leo’s public service announcement knocking down misrepresentations that the collapse of the music industry is forcing him to retire. Here’s a guy who’s trying to stay DIY and live his life on his terms, making his music the way he wants and staying true to his values, and he’s thinking through the practical pressures of what an era of what you might call forced DIY ultimately impose.

There’s no money in it for us anymore, and to maintain even a semblance of solvency, we have to keep up the same touring schedule that we and I have been keeping up for the last nearly twenty years – a touring schedule that even the most hardened in our community will tell you is exceptional.

The energy we have inside us is not as boundless as it once seemed, and the amount we have to expend each year becomes more and more of a drain for less and less pay off.

I don’t really know what to say to this, except I made it a point to a) buy the vinyl version of The Brutalist Bricks and leave my LimeWire tucked away in my applications folder; b) buy a ticket to his May show at the 930; and c) buy a t-shirt at the show. Fifteen years later, we’re back to saying support the scene that supports you — if for no other reason than to validate that the scene will in fact support you. Or as a more eloquent man put it: I’m going back underground so c’mon in where it’s warm and it feels like home.