JACKSON, Miss. by Maeve Rigney (Mississippi Today) — Baristas serve pie as the walls shake with noise at Urban Foxes coffee shop near downtown Jackson. It’s nighttime, and the 88-year-old house with hardwood floors and lots of windows is now a venue for an alternative music show where local artists shred electric guitar against recordings of cicadas and static.
T-shirts for Mississippi band Filth Eternal sit on a merch table next to a used copy of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” Audience members wear orange paper wristbands. Outside, artists smoke cigarettes and pull equipment out of cars. After the show ends, all proceeds are donated to the Animal Rescue Fund of Mississippi.
The July 25 show was one of many in Jackson’s DIY scene. Jackson DIY is decades-old and encompasses a wide range of alternative music genres, including punk, metal, noise and hardcore, as well as independent publications, like zines.
DIY stands for “do-it-yourself.” According to Lucy Isadora, one organizer of Jackson DIY shows, the style is characterized by a lack of industry influence on artists. Local people organize shows and post flyers to Instagram. Isadora often hosts traveling artists at her house. Bands split money made from shows, which generally have an entry fee of $10 to $15…