“Underground” forms of popular music, their collective local appearance as well as the spaces they constitute recently undergo considerable transitions. Taking into account broader processes of urban regeneration, the appearance of a rather commercialized live music culture and changing spatial strategies of local scenes, the paper examines how originally underground music venues – as spaces of bottom-up movements and as breeding grounds of music production – handle ongoing transformations within urban environments.
Therefore, the paper presents some insights from three case studies undertaken in Hamburg St. Pauli. Basing on space as theoretical tie between urban, cultural and economic developments, fieldwork around Golden Pudel, Molotow and Mojo Club shows that in each case, the actors apply different strategies in order to preserve their basing – and individual - idea(l)s of self-governed cultural work.
As the results show, current developments lead to new forms and levels of autonomy, professionalization and institutionalization. Regarding the venue´s relationship towards urban policy and planning, the status of these venues – from highly precarious to “subcultural institutionalized” – clearly refers to their “symbolic value” appreciated by and their proximity to local government. All in all, it is questionable in which way attributes like “underground”, “scene-based” or “established” and “Mainstream” can still be appropriate in urban music culture.