Accountability in Music • Page 238

I don't know if its innapropriate to ask, but does anyone remember which band the person that came forward re: better off was in? I remember they were singing in a really sick hardcore band but I can't recall their name for the life of me.

 

Bleed The Pigs if I'm remembering correctly

 

I am confused. Do you mean the Better Off response?

 

What they said in response to Luke from Better Off's bullshit tweet, i.e. this

 

The band replied to Better Off's statement

 

Real bummer about Heart Attack Man, I just listened to their last record for the first time not too long ago and enjoyed it a lot. Just deleted it from my phone though, see ya.

 

Teebs, how many times do we have to go over that talking to a guy a few times doesn’t make him a good person? He was nice to you because he wanted you to buy merch. Please stop posting shit like this and derailing threads- this usually turns into a 2 page argument where a bunch of dudes jump on you, you apologize and admit you were wrong, rinse, repeat.

It’s immature and I hope they do regret it. But your anecdotal nice guy story is just not needed in this thread.

 

I think the point is that his being nice and humble toward you doesn't mean he isn't capable of being shitty toward abuse survivors

 

yes. I originally was searching for "all pigs must die" haha

 

you shouldn’t have made the post at all

 

Agreed, I deleted it

 

There are some groping/assault allegations against L.I.F.T going around. Not sure what specifically but I keep seeing stuff on Twitter.

 

Not being in a band, I wonder if band members succumb to the same nice guy routines that the rest of us do from time to time. It would explain the number of artists who seem to back idiots like Better off.

I mean, obviously, bands want to gain clout with each other to establish connections.

Though that doesn't absolve anyone of their choices, cause once you're in a position of power, it is your responsibility to objectively understand the situation and react accordingly..

 

There’s some of this shit in our local scene, especially the heavier bands. I’ve disaccoiated myself from them and have been kinda outcasted because I call them out. I’ve flat out asked some of my friends how they can play shows with certain people or why they continue to work with problematic people and the answer is always “you have to dude. It’s all part of it.”

 

I’m in a band, if we found out someone was doing some shady shit it’d be really easy to play with other bands and not them.

It’s all part of these people protecting their friends, they either don’t want to believe their friend did something bad and dismiss it, or they know their friend did something bad and value their livelihood and career over the value of their victims.

Classic patriarchy defending and uplifting monstrous people system in place across all scenes predominantly run by men.

 

I imagine that smaller scenes like Wausau find more struggle with it than bigger scenes like Chicago.

 

Can confirm, am in the Chicago scene. I surprisingly haven't come across much "#metoo" type stuff (at least in and around my circle) but there are plenty of fuckheads in the scene who we've learned to stay away from and not play with, work with, etc.

 

Usually those bands get backlash and break up, which I’ve seen happen, including to a larger band recently who’s name I’ve forgotten.

It may be harder when you’re only around a handful of bands, but you do not have to play with people who you know are abusive.

 

Something I've noticed from talking to friends and locals about Better Off is that a lot of people (mostly men) want their new album to succeed to prove that DIY musicians accused of wrongdoing (also mostly men) can return and be accepted. I do think some of that comes from a good place where these fans think they're helping, but don't understand the full picture. I can understand wanting a model of a successful accountability process and an example to point to and say "this is what accountability in the DIY space looks like, this is how it's done." I don't think Luke's apology was even a decent start to make up for how awful his original statement was in 2016 (and then he further undermined it on Twitter), but I can understand how someone who wasn't affected by that initial statement and hasn't kept up with Luke's crazy tweets can see a simple "I handled this poorly" in that blog post and think "oh good, he apologized, he learned his lesson." I think that's assuming the best out of someone who hasn't earned it at all in my opinion, but I can track that thought process.

But I also think a lot of their current wave of support comes from people (men) who, whether they know it or not, want to silence anyone who is speaking out against the behavior of their favorite bands. You can see Luke, Heart Attack Man, that Many Rooms artist (who I admittedly know nothing about and don't care to) make up this "the SJW boogeyman just wants to watch good guys hang" narrative in an attempt to silence critics. I started writing about the Better Off thing over the weekend and I read that 2016 statement again in full for the first time in years. One line that stuck out to me is "Good luck to all those who continue to pursue what they love in the spotlight and try to withstand the constant critiquing of their character.” I think Luke has always believed to some extent that he is the real victim here. He is the guy who is putting himself out there and anyone who says "I disagree with something you did" is a character assassin because they're not loyal to him. I think he, Heart Attack Man, Many Rooms, and the people I've seen post crazy shit about their album on Facebook and what not, all believe that making music publicly is the most vulnerable thing a person can do and that critiquing someone's bad behavior is essentially kicking them while they're down. I think this is the problem with the male-dominated scene. There is no empathy or even like, basic understanding, for abuse survivors or marginalized folks. So many of these bands are just privileged men who only talk to other privileged men and cannot understand what accountability is or why it's important.

I think everything Luke has said and done has suggested that he's only doing the bare minimum to shut up his critics, and for that reason, I will never support that band again. I don't think there's an accountability process for Luke that would make me believe he's earnestly changed his mind and worldview. I think Luke has demonstrated many times now that he would rather brush abuse allegations under the rug, call survivors liars, play the victim, create a straw man, even break up his own band if it meant putting out another album and playing another show down the road. I think he and his band are emblematic of all of the institutional problems facing this scene at the moment and by emboldening his fans, he's only setting progress back further.

 

I’d argue it’s imperative to weed out problematic individuals/bands at the local level before they gain any sort of national platform (not that this would solve the overarching issue, obviously)

 

Yeah. It seems like it’s a lot of yelling and no desired outcome. It’s exhausting. I just hosted/played a show and I bet ya we ended up scratching 5-8 bands just on assault allegations alone. And the attendance reflected that honestly. We had a decent turnout, 200’ish people but nowhere near the year prior, which was about 500 but had a lineup of problematic artists.

 

Very well put. Thank you.

 

On today's episode of fake apologies from white men who abuse their platform:

 

I feel like there's just a massive piece of context needed here, there is absolutely no way to process an apology without skepticism (and this reads like a bad one ANYWAY) without context.

 

Someone posted this in the replies. Imagine being “shocked” when you’re doing things like this.