Fireworks - Higher Lonely Power (January 1, 2023) Album • Page 11

I don’t care if anyone listens to the album, or even talks about it. I just want people to acknowledge that this band did some fucked up stuff and is directly complicit in JJR continuing to hold power and HC being in a band with a very popular member of the scene.

 

who else do you need to acknowledge it

this is a band jason doesn't fuck with bc of the very information you refer to

 

i agree that beachdude's post is fucked up though

 

I guess the people who got this thread to roughly 250 replies while choosing to ignore/not engage/actively shit on the idea that the band has done some fucked up stuff? I also don't know what Jason has to do with it, haha

 

I completely understand people not wanting to listen to/support/talk about the band for the JJR/Harry Corrigan stuff. I respect that decision.

 

this "choosing to ignore / not engage" talk is weird to me. what talk or engagement about/with this years-old information that principally concerns a different band would be helpful?

I suspect most people read that twitter thread, said to themselves "this is fucked up but also just kind of depressingly typical, I'll make a mental note of the specific bad actors named for future reference" and didn't feel the need to post about it at all, which is, imo, totally fine

 

I think you're giving this band too much of a break. The fact that they continued to maintain a very public relationship with the dude throughout the entire ordeal directly relates to him still holding a position of power within the scene, and it directly relates to the reason that the abuser is in a band with Parker Cannon.

Most people will do exactly what you said, or even less. And that's the reason that abuse is allowed to go unchecked within the scene. Thinking that supporting this band does not directly correlate to toxicity within the scene is a problem, which is why I bring it up in here.

 

typical scene issues aside, roughly 99.9% of the small number of people reading/watching this thread do so to keep abreast of album news, especially since the band has been teasing it for seemingly a hundred years. if and when the album turns out to be real and the press remembers this band exists and interviews start up again, you might have better luck in terms of engagement. when preorders are up and there's money to spend or not spend, the struggle session can kick off in earnest.

 

Echoing the sentiment that I don't give a shit about anyone listening to Fireworks, or, honestly, whether they want to talk about it on the site. I know that's a controversial opinion, but I've seen it help people rectify their relationships with problematic artists, and I think that's a healthy thing to discuss in a community setting.

What I DO give a shit is @beachdude going out of his way to smugly post about how unbothered by it all he is. What kind of message does that send to survivors on this site? I've spoken with him before and I don't think he's a bad person, but that post is way out of line. I can't make you care (you probably should), but support survivors or shut the fuck up.

 

That’s fine, I also don’t see the harm in popping in when the thread gets bumped after a while. I’ve seen important discourse get washed away more times than I can count

 

Can confirm. Keeping track of this thread because of the album. I have exactly zero knowledge what the hell are people talking about here for the last couple of pages. I have no idea who the hell is Harry Corrigan, what is a JJR and what is going on.

 

Which is exactly why I posted the thread, because I'm sure a ton of people have no idea who they are/why this band is implicated in any way

 

You can catch up now while you’re here:

 

I'm not saying that I don't care about the Harry Corrigan situation. What I AM saying is that the relationship between this person and Fireworks is VERY tenuous, at best. @OhTheWater said that Fireworks were "supporting Harry Corrigan", when the actual situation is that one of the band members is apparently personal friends with a guy named JJR, who had previously defended Harry. As far as I can tell, this isn't something the band publicized at all, it's just one of the band members of Fireworks posting on their personal social media hanging out with JJR (who again, isn't even the person who's accused of sexual misconduct here).

While yes, I'd probably argue that the member of Fireworks in question should have better choice in friends, that's really none of my business, and it's a BIG leap from that to saying that he, let alone the band as a whole, are "supporting Harry Corrigan". Unless I'm mistaken, neither the band nor the members themselves have ever publicly commented on that case in any way. I just don't see what the value in continuing the bring up this very weak association between them is... what exactly would be expected here? For Fireworks to put out a statement saying "We're sorry one of our band members is personal friends with someone"? Why do you expect that's something that would actually happen, and furthermore, why do you immediately jump from that to assuming the band as a whole is actively defending Harry?

 

Yes, I've read this thread and I still have no understanding how it relates to Fireworks.

 

If you truly believe that a popular band in the scene (250+ posts for an album that doesn't even have a release date) continuing to publicly associate with JJR through social media isn't problematic, I don't know what to tell you. If you can't see the very clear thread from members of Fireworks and The Wonder Years and Transit publicly associating with both dudes (HC was brought on stage during a Transit show!) and HC now being in a band with one of the most popular bands in the scene..I don't know what to tell you. The reason that JJR thinks that he can silence people who speak out about abuse within the scene is DIRECTLY related to the fact that popular bands still pal around with him publicly!

 

Starting here and going through the rest of the page and on goes over the relationship JJR still has with a lot of people in the scene.

 

And, to be clear, this isn't me seeing JJR with the dudes on social media in 2021 (Although as recently as the beginning of this thread they were still publicly hanging out with him). In the heat of the entire thing happening in real time they were not shy at all about associating with him in public, almost proud to be doing it. If you search "Fireworks" in the accountability thread you can see people who were fans of the band discussing boycotting their final show over it. Their brashness about their friendship with him while the situation was still ongoing was incredibly harmful to attempting to get him out of the scene.

 

I'm a little confused too. Did Fireworks come out in support of JJR in this situation? And, I saw someone else say The Wonder Years also are involved but I thought they got rid of JJR pretty quickly. I know he may still be friends with people in the band, seemed like he was pretty close with Nick from TWY in general.

Not saying these things aren't wrong I just feel like I am missing something

 

Whenever Christian posted the original post about the entire JJR/HC situation, it caused ripples within the scene. TWY, a band that actively employed JJR, were silent throughout the entire thing. Ultimately, it was revealed (I'm not sure how) that he was let go. Privately, band members talked to some members of the site about how some members wanted to completely cut ties with him while others refused. AFAIK, it caused turmoil within the band. As recently as last year, members of the band (I forget who, exactly, I think I posted it in the accountability thread when I saw) were posting about hanging out with him, so the "Cutting ties" thing was just for show imo. Sure, you don't employ him anymore, but you are still palling around with him in a public way that allows him to retain clout within the scene.

Fireworks still brought JJR around and posted/promoted his other band, and vice versa from him. Just very clear that even though he was exposed for attempting to use his connections within the scene to silence people coming forward about abuse, he was still (and still is) welcome with open arms.

 

I think the thing that a lot of people are missing is the idea that JJR used the close relationships he has with bands like Fireworks in order to threaten and discredit the survivor. Just because he wasn't the one who sexually assaulted someone doesn't mean that his actions aren't incredibly fucked up. The reason I speak so openly about this is because he's still cool with all of these bands! He still has that clout, he has never spoken out or apologized for what he did, and he can hypothetically do it again. The connection is not tenuous, the connection is the exact reason he was able to do what he did.

 

Ok, but again my thing is that there are two issues here. There's what Harry Corrigan is accused of, and then there's JJR's actions. I'm not saying there's not a connection at all, but you're even outright saying that TWY for example no longer employs JJR in any professional capacity, directly because of the situation you're talking about. It's unfortunate if there are still members of Fireworks, or The Wonder Years, or any other band that are still friends with this person on a personal level... but I don't think that's the same thing as what you said, which is that they're "supporting Harry Corrigan" directly. It just sounds a lot to me like "guilt by association" here, where the band themselves didn't actually do anything wrong, but because some of them still possibly associate with a person who did defend someone with accusations, they're still getting flack for it.

I think there's a reason almost no one outside of this website associates Fireworks specifically with the Harry Corrigan situation at all... because as far as the public record is concerned, none of them were involved in it in any meaningful way. They didn't comment on it, they didn't publicly go to bat for Harry Corrigan, etc. If they wanted to defend the guy, they certainly had plenty of opportunities to do so. I understand what you're saying about JJR using his connections to bands in a negative way, but if TWY and others did sever ties with him professionally it sounds like he actually did lose some of that influence. I just think it's going to be an uphill battle for you guys to convince most fans this is actually something that Fireworks themselves shouldn't be supported over, when the explanation of their connection to the situation requires the text equivalent of one of those flow charts in a crime movie where you're "connecting the dots". So I'm sorry, I'd personally rather spend my time worrying about situations where band members themselves are directly involved in problematic behavior.

 

The Wonder Years were the only band that publicly disassociated themselves with JJR in terms of removing him from his position of influence and financial gain as their tour manager. Every other band he was involved with, from what I can tell, didn't do anything about it. Those include Four Year Strong, Forever Came Calling, Light Years, Eternal Boy, and others. And then there are the bands that have brought him out on tour as a member of Keep Flying, bands like Real Friends right before they broke up or whatever.

Fireworks was basically on their way out the door when the situation with him blew up so they almost snuck by without having to deal with any of the blowback from it. They were always going to have to reckon with this when they tried to come back.

 

idk "I'm friends with _____" carries way less weight than "I'm the tour manager for TWY" when it comes to abusing power

Regardless JJR is kind of a creepy adult child who has always given me bad vibes even in the early TWY days (and FYS? he was weird on warped one year) so not really sure why anyone would want to be friends with him

Certainly both bands could have handled the situation better, probably cast light on some stuff and at least not publicly maintain a relationship but idk. maybe some gray area here for me.

 

I think the band shamelessly hanging out with JJR throughout the entire ordeal counts as them doing something wrong. It shows that they don’t care about accountability or safety within the scene. That should be enough to not support them.

The second paragraph lends itself more to my point than yours: there are very, very few people outside of a small circle that remember/know ANY aspect of these events. That shows that JJR and Harry were able to get away with what they did. They are both in bands that tour regularly. JJR recorded with Ace Enders last year. I completely disagree that JJR lost influence, and I still firmly believe that the firing by TWY was for show. It’s not like him losing that job caused him to not be able to associate with people within the scene. It’s the equivalent of Judd Apatow not having a Franco cameo in his movies anymore but still posting pics with him on social media (a hypothetical, idk if that happened).
Overall @beachdude , it seems very clear that you understand the significance of HC’s actions, and JJR’s involvement in them. You attempting to jump through hoops to absolve a band you like is a bad look, and your last sentence about saving energy for bands that deserve it or w/e is clearly in bad faith.
My disruptive posts aren’t for people like you, who know and simply don’t care enough to take action. They’re for the people that don’t know but will actually do something to attempt to keep abusers out of the scene. Viewing it as a futile gesture is fine. I’m frustrated with nothing being done. But I can sleep a little bit better knowing that I’m speaking out, rather than mocking it like you are