Pinegrove - Skylight (September 28, 2018) Album • Page 56

So I'm still leaning towards listening to the record but I might just ignore it for a week or two while I think about things. In the past I've drawn a clear line about bands where abuse accusations surface against a member (haven't willingly listened to BN since all that came out for example) and while I was pretty quick to react positively to the article--and I still think that Jenn Pelly did a great job wrestling with tough questions publicly--I'm not sure I'm willing to change my established stance of walking away from artists after abuse allegations.

 

It's a pretty meaningless sacrifice in my case to wait to listen though because my life is so fucking busy these days I usually don't listen to new music for a few weeks anyway haha

 

i think its a pretty bad idea to drop the album immediately after this article. im extremely hesitant to say it was done with malicious intent though. i think it wasn't thought through enough, but if i had to guess its because the album has been done for so long they just want to get rid of it. which may be why they presumably will be giving all proceeds to charity if it really is bandcamp only. they should have waited a month. at the same time, most of the conversation is about everything besides the album. itll be interesting to see what happens when the album is out i guess.

 

Just read. Terrific. Thanks so much for sharing.

 

Oh I should clarify--I don't think it was done with malicious intent either, I think it's just further cluelessness/not thinking things through enough.

 

I also keep going back to what Kayla said about the fact that this entire situation becoming public is completely against the victims wishes and that all of this discussion and speculation, while coming from primarily a good place, is probably harmful. As I said before, everything is bad. It's bad that there's probably people out there who don't know the victim who are shitting on everyone allowing him to take part in restorative justice without ever considering how the victim feels. It's shitty that there are people who are brushing off the incident as meaningless. It's weird that the band is putting out an album a little over a day after this information was dropped on the public.

 

I have no angle, except that I think there's a larger societal issue where the pendulum has swung all the way in the polar opposite direction and I am hoping we eventually, someday moderate and land somewhere in the middle.

Allegations should be taken seriously. Men need to stop viewing women as objects. There are degrees to the levels of abuse perpetrated. Rape culture is real and must be actively dismantled. True contrition in some cases should lead to redemption because we as a society should believe that no one is irredeemable. All of our heroes have done terrible things to other human beings. Kill your idols. Experiencing redemption may be the perfect reason for someone to have a platform. Callout culture can be incredibly toxic and some people ARE desperately looking to build their own social capital. There should be consequences for behaviors. Nothing is as black and white as we would prefer. There isn't always smoke where there is fire. Mob justice isn't always just. But justice through the courts in these situations is usually worse. Something has to be done.

I don't think anyone has to listen to this band, like Evan as a person, or feel the situation is completely cleared up. It's not. We're never going to know all the details of the allegation because they aren't ours to know. But the bias of the article doesn't have any bearing on how the actual events played out and the eventual outcome we are seeing now. Nor does Sheridan's role as an extremely bad actor to all parties involved, including her own organization, automatically absolve Evan of any wrongdoing in the actual allegations. But we do know this victim is satisfied with the outcome and much time has passed.

If people feel Pinegrove should never be allowed to come back from this situation, then I don't see how any band will ever be able to come back from an allegation that they take seriously. Can someone outline a situation where a band would actually be able to come back from a serious allegation that they don't just slough off?

edit: sorry for the wall of text

 

Its a lose lose really, they want the album just out of their lives so they're releasing this and dropping it as soon as possible, they probably considered releasing it immediately with the article, just getting it out of the way to move on. It seems shitty or like a very weird press stunt in a certain lens. But if they push it off for a month it can still seem shitty through that same lens, and they have to deal with it longer.

There's really no way to say "hey I need to remove myself from this for a while, I've done some toxic things that need to be taken care of" to "ok I'm good let's do this", without it being weird. It'd only really make sense if the band just kind of fizzled and they never released the thing. This situation is so weird and I don't really care to hear the album, its not like I'm hyped for it in context.

 

I just don't know what to make of bands like Nervous Dater or Slaughter Beach Dog or Harmony Woods and a whole slew of others from a particular scene coming down super, super hard on Pinegrove and the situation after this. Are they saying it b/c they know more than we do? B/c they interacted with Evan before? Or simply because they don't fuck with the article and his response and the way it was handled? I remember a few people from the Orchid Tapes crew coming out and talking about horrible experiences with Evan right when the news dropped. Was that for clout? Or were there actual horrible situations that took place? that's what makes Twitter so messy.

Edit:
Like, I get everyone wants to get their 25-words or less zinger in on the subject and people are riled up but saying shit like that is very vague and leads many people not in the loop left wondering what your real stance is

 

Just so there is some understanding that not every single DIY band has had that same take. Felix from Told Slant actually had good perspective on this back in April when the PunkTalks stuff came out.

 

Oh there have been a ton if posts about Punktalks throughout this entire situation, fuck them for what they did

 

But it relates to the situation. That's what he is saying.

If you don't think all of the bands you're quoting or your favorite bands or whoever are watching this situation and nervously wondering if or when their dirty laundry is going to be aired, then I'm not sure what else to say. If we only care about this stuff when it's public, there is only incentive to push allegations down, deny deny deny, avoid being honest and open, and to hope that you aren't the next "gotcha."

 

Are you implying that most of the bands speaking out are guilty of abuse? I don’t understand your point

 

I think in a slightly messy way they're saying everyone has garbage (ok, not everyone has committed abuse) and if we're not creating a culture that allows for people to grow from their mistakes then how do we expect anyone to ever be honest about who they are and what they've done?

Is that a fair interpretation @activepassive?

 

Still got very cluttered thoughts about all of this. 12 months ago if you'd said Pinegrove were releasing an album the day before my birthday I'd have been out of my mind excited. However I haven't had the stomach to listen to them since then, and I don't know how I'd react to listening to Cardinal again, even though I cherished it.

I won't be listening on Friday, but at this stage I won't rule out trying it further down the line. I guess I like to believe that at least in some cases redemption is possible and appropriate. Whether or not that is the case with Evan I can't say for sure yet, so I'm going to take my time to mull everything over.

 

I feel like a far more honest conservation can take place when the majority of you admit and come to terms with the fact that you don't actually want people to get better

 

I want to clarify that I also don’t know any additional information outside of this article, other than anecdotes from Autumn that aren’t relevant. That’s why I landed on my hands up in the air who fucking knows stance. Because I don’t know these other people coming down super hard either- I know their bands, but I don’t know what they know or what their clique is. I have heard less than nice things about the Mobo guys, which is why I feel a little miffed that Jake’s tweet keeps coming up as the ultimate gospel when he is also just a dude in a band looking for social capital.

As far as the “Evan got better” narrative, it is obviously difficult to say. We’re never going to know what his true intentions are and that’s why I think it’s best to keep a critical eye on this band. Like it or not, they’re a weird experiment now of how this process could work. I wish we had more from the victim, but she doesn’t want us to have more and I think respecting that is more important than trying to drag it out and find more info.

Speaking from a personal standpoint, when I was younger, I had a weird relationship with a guy in a band I liked. We were able to talk through it when I was older and we rebuilt our friendship into something positive and healthy. He went to therapy. He apologized. He fixed his shit. I don’t feel compelled to name him or to try and stop his career because I truly care for him and his recovery and appreciate his efforts to make things right to me. That’s my situation and I want people to know it is possible to come to these kinds of resolutions. Sometimes when survivors tell you it’s fine, they really do mean it. I do. And I hope that this woman does too.

 

Wonder what bands from run for cover weren’t comfortable with the skylight release. Bet you it was camp cope

 

Really tough situation all around. The immediate reactions from some scene bands seem odd to me as well. Not sure what to make of them. I do not know nearly enough to have a true opinion on anything than what has been made public.

In that case I am OK with listening to the band moving forward, as it stands today. From what I know it sounds like Evan has followed the wishes of the abused and that (other than all of this blowing up by what sounds to me like exploitive business practices by PT) all parties are ready to move forward. I honestly don’t know what else people want, but I’ll continue to listen.

 

This is a massively unnecessary and likely inaccurate comment that weirdly enough, has already been answered in discussions in this thread.

 

This is sort of how I feel.

I spoke to someone in the industry yesterday and they believe the backlash is more at the timing of the album and pitchfork article are the main reason why there’s been a ton of backlash. Not necessarily that they know something we don’t.

So you still have to decide for yourself, if the article dropped this week with no mention of an album and then the album dropped on bandcamp in a few weeks I think people would be handeling this a lot better. That part seems to have been handled incorrectly and it makes peole uncomfortable and confused about the actual purpose of the piece written.

 

It seems like something to latch onto. Calling it a “press release” misses the point. There are going to be people who are angry/upset about Pinegrove releasing new music in any capacity at any time. The backlash was going to happen. This is pretty unfamiliar territory for music fans so the reactions are bound to be all over the map. Maybe I don’t understand enough about restorative justice. But I think the only I can do is defer to the victim and her wishes in this case, not tweets that lack context. Too much gets lost in translation on that damn site.

 

would pitchfork have published this article if there wasnt an album coming friday? probably not.

 

I mean yeah, if the Tweets are all just anger over how it was handled in relation to this specific case, I'm going to go with how the victim feels about the situation. My point is that I'm unsure if there are other instances that people are still upset over. A lot of confusion there

 

There are definitely people on twitter who are commenting because they’re clout chasing. I firmly feel that Jake is not one of those