Accountability in Music • Page 664

Sweet Trip, probably the biggest indie cult success story of the decade, broke up in January when one half of the duo mysteriously left the band. Now we know why.

 

Old news but I'm on the Distillers chapter of Sellout and Tim Armstrong of Rancid comes off like such a creepy loser

 

he 100% groomed Brody

 

I never knew anything about his personal life prior to this and I was floored.

 

If this fits better elsewhere I can delete/move the discussion.

I don’t know if anyone saw the tweet from Wednesday outlining their expensive from SXSW but if you didn’t, they posted all their SXSW expenses and how they wanted to be COVID conscious and not sleep in a van and a bunch of hardcore dudes came out and were being very “LOL at these ridiculous expenses” “let me tell you how you should tour” “I did it this way therefore you should too” and it just reeked of mansplaining and patronizing towards a woman led band trying to advocate for better working conditions for bands.

There’s a discussion that can be had about the financial side of this and how they spent their money, but my whole point is that it sucks being transparent on twitter is causing hardcore dudes to be harassing this band, especially when women in the music industry already face a lot of unnecessary shit that they have to deal with.

 

literally fuck anyone who’s trying to tell them to just sleep in the van

 

It’s not exactly safe and pretty impractical for a band like them who I’m pretty sure has over 5 members. Touring is hard enough and they deserve basic comforts like beds and safe, reliable bathroom acccess.

 

Asking to sleep in a van is a bit much. That stuff is uncomfortable and I've never once slept in a van without it being followed by a morning of mates getting irritated at each other.

I would recommend anyone to skip traditional hotels, though. Def sucks when certain accommodation raises prices when they know a festival or tour leg is coming through, which I'm sure is a major issue for smaller bands playing SXSW. Like, dude, give musicians a break.

 

if they can avoid sleeping in their van then by all means why the fuck shouldn't they proceed to do so? there is no honour in roughing it when you have the option to not do that. the dudes in dime-a-dozen hardcore bands roasting the band for uhhhhh *checks notes* being transparent about their finances as a touring band WHO STILL MADE A LOSS ON THIS TOUR can shut the fuck up. more power to them. anyway you should buy Wednesday's music.

 

Kinda agree with this take though

 

all the sleep in the van comments are dumb and people should consider minding their own business for the first time in their life but at the same time the way the tweet was structured it reads like the dril all of my money goes to candles help me budget tweet lol

 

DIY level touring sounds like it kind of sucks.

 

I agree about having someone in the van each night but the other part is very meh.

Her own sense of being able to handle touring without “extra accommodation” is fine and maybe even admirable, but to say that obviously at-risk and targeted people are DEMEANED by people trying to get touring culture to just acknowledge the benefits of a room & bed & bathroom for the night is… idk it’s almost incoherent.

It’s much worse that she’s responding to someone who’s not saying anything unreasonable. They’re not demanding special treatment, they’re saying “just sleep in the van” is a shit take that ignores all the people who simply can’t do that.

 

touring sucks

 

It does which is why I went back to college. Props to those who can handle it.

 

I said it in the other thread but it's dumb to give them crap when it seemed like the point of her original tweet was to highlight that broke people don't really have the option to tour or play SXSW, not to complain for complaining's sake. I doubt they could have gotten much cheaper lodging at least for the week they were in Austin and by COVID safe I assume they didn't feel great about sleeping at strangers' apartments. So it's either have multiple people sleep upright in car seats for a week or spend more on gas to still be uncomfortable or do what they did. There isn't a home run option and I'm sure plenty of bands that played down there last week did the same thing.

 

every guy in their replies

 

idk, it definitely sucks that people are coming at them with that attitude, extreme "stop ordering avocado toast" boomer energy, but, being a small touring band sucks and was stupid expensive/not profitable before covid. it just feels weird to post a list of expenses that is mainly food and gas and expect, pity? idk.

 

It's weird how people in that thread seem to think $1200 for 5 days in an Airbnb is a lot of money compared to a hotel lmao. I spent that much on a 1 bedroom for two people, nevermind a place big enough for a full band. Totally reasonable price when a huge festival is going on nearby

 

I think one of the real problems that nobody is really talking about is the fact that the system is set up in a way where many touring artists actually believe they have to rough it in a van in order to be a touring musician. I'm probably not phrasing this properly but the conditions that have created the belief that sleeping in a van for the whole tour is "part of the process" is something that needs to be addressed. Touring musicians shouldn't have to do that, and they shouldn't feel like they have to either.

 

idk they literally said "Just for transparencies sake & cause I feel comfortable posting this: here is why it is so hard for bands to go to SX !!"

It sounds a lot less like a pity party and a lot more like useful transparency about why it's hard for bands to go to SXSW lol

Genuine non-rhetorical question -- Is "we should talk about the money stuff" something that's growing in the touring musician community the way it is among white collar workers? That's the context I interpreted the tweet in.

Agreed. It's not musicians' fault, they've been taken advantage of for all time. But you give an inch, they take a mile, and in 2022 people think a bed is a luxury.

 

Maybe venues could start partnering with local hotels/motels for some kind of subsidized rooms to give artists that don't have a bus? Idk. I'm sure that would create all different sorts of abuses too though. Just sucks that forcing up-and-coming artists to struggle is just taken for granted as part of being an indie artist. Can't even count how many great bands I loved that had to break up because of the financial stresses of being a small touring band.

 

They also tweeted that 2 bands shared the Airbnb. $1200 for 5 days split amongst 8-12 people is almost nothing. Multiply that by 6 to get a month that's roughly $600, aka cheaper than what most people pay for rent/mortgage

 

A lot of this also just comes from the long-held misconception that it's noble to suffer for your art, plain and simple.

 

Long Island used to have a pretty big community of young adults and parents that would house traveling bands, but I don't know how that network looks anymore.