Accountability in Music • Page 51

I would say yes, you are in the wrong for calling out that tour. Not every tour is going to be an extremely diverse lineup of race and gender.

Also, Tiny Moving Parts just toured with Jetty Bones, Fever Blush, and Covet (all have female members).

And they're on the upcoming Wonder Years tour which also has Jetty Bones and Worriers.

Oh and I also see they're touring overseas in April with Orchards. So no, the TMP tours are not the whitest male tours ever.

 

except every TMP tour before that one was generally all men. and they even got called out at first because that jetty bones/fever blush/covet group was added AFTER the tour was announced

there is no reason that a group of four bands, approximately 15-20 people, should have no women in it. no matter what

 

^I don't necessarily think Cody is in the wrong about calling out that particular tour because I do think these issues of representation shouldn't fall by the wayside. However, I DO think it matters a bit more when we're talking about larger festivals or showcases OR bands or scenes that have historically had worse representation for women/POC folks like the pop punk or metal spheres. Just my 2 cents.

 

the problem is that you have to figure out where the lack of women on these tours is coming from. you can call out the tour but what solution is that proposing? and who are you calling it out to? you're not gonna convince people to not go see bands they like because a tour doesnt have the representation we would prefer on it. if you can access a direct line of communication with the band or their tour manager or whatever then yeah take it up there for sure. otherwise like i said the best way is amplification of voices youd like to see have better representation. not just in tours but at all levels. i dont see a reason to get mad at people who want to go to that afi/rise against tour, like if someone says i wanna go to that and youre like "but its all white males" what good is that doing? not saying anyone is doing that but i just wanna put out there the best way to approach this problem is probably the old cliche "be the change you want to see." go to diverse tours, tell people about diverse tours, listen to diverse music, promote diverse music, and hopefully others will see what you're doing and follow suit.

 

i think it's worth calling out these tours but there are dozens of tours each week that are made up of all dudes and it's impossible to focus by calling out any one in particular. if a band puts on the guise of being progressive and this happens, it's a different story. for example, when modern baseball announced that one tour, they got called out hard, and then came out and apologized for fucking up.

it is absolutely very important to at the very least call attention to the trends though, and not ignore or give excuses for how questionable it is

 

all super good points. pretty futile and ultimately pointless message i was even trying to convey.

 

yup. people give the excuses that "there aren't bands with women in them that fit sonically" all the time. so the best thing to do is throw support to the smaller bands that do, which in turn will land them on more tours, which in turn will motivate more non-dudes to start similar sounding bands. but there's also merit to doing what we can to make sure that these all dude tours are noticed as problematic as well

 

i saw some women journalists recently talking about how they're so sick of seeing articles about the lack of represenation in certain music scenes instead of, you know, actual journalism focusing on the subjects they feel arent represented. so instead of an article about how, random example, electronic music doesnt have enough women producers, itd be better to write an article about some dope women producers.

 

it's interesting to see the pendulum shift from "stop writing about only dudes!" to "stop clumping all these non-dudes together to make an article!" because media has shifted their topics without actually realizing the actual thing that's needed here

 

yeah like lamenting "man i wish this tour had less white dudes on it" is fine and normal but in the long run the change is gonna come from really pushing diversity not just noticing the lack of it

 

like, for example, the moogfest thing. how caroline polachek was mad that they made it such a spectacle to announce that their initial lineup was all non-dudes! while people praised arcosanti for putting together a dope diverse lineup and not making such a big deal of it. it's not about special treatment, it's about accurate representation

 

i think theres a pretty fine line between otherizing minority voices by listing them separately from the normal categories, like "all female band" stages or whatever but also trying to make sure that representation is happening sometimes means having to deal with that kind of separate categorization. like idk if the threads on this site still exist for women/trans/non binary folks but thats a good way to make people aware of bands but ideally you dont need that thread and can just make threads for those bands on their own amongst all the other band threads on the website

 

i mean, it's the same argument of like why we have a black history month. in an ideal world we wouldn't need to celebrate marginalized voices because there wouldn't actually be any marginalization. but we do, so it's absolutely very important to elevate these voices.

i might have accidentally misphrased something here so if something seems off i'll fix it/clarify, i hope people get what i mean here

 

yeah exactly it SUCKS that we need a month for black history because its not normally represented or taught in every day society like the history of white people, but that month is a good tool to use to teach about that history

 

but you do get cases like warped tour i think? having a separate female stage instead of properly integrating women into the tour at large. in that case its an organization doing the absolute bare minimum to skate by without criticism.

 

well men thinking diverse artists dont exist is exactly my point of why articles should focus on women and not the lack of them

 

the real problem is the environment being completely uninviting to women/poc/trans/nb people but i think articlse highlighting the people in these groups who do exist in music will motivate people who dont think there's a spot for them in music to say hey, maybe there is, and pursue it when they wouldn't have otherwise. to me the whole point of representation is so people on the other side, in the crowd, see themselves up on stage or hear themselves on the album and want to get into music themselves because they think there's a place for them. right now if you're not white or male its easy to feel like music doesnt want you and there's no place for you in it. i think its far more beneficial to give those people a place than to just point out the lack of representation. it should be both, ya know?

 

im not saying its the only solution but i also dont think as you said it "doesnt do much." with more diverse voices in the mix, different perspectives and viewpoints are being heard as well which in turn helps assess why the environment is so unwelcoming to women and POC. if you have more women and POC in music, you have more voices to express why that environment is so unwelcoming and what they had to go through to get where they are

 

more women and poc involved in environments creates more women/poc friendly environments

diversity and representation ends up sorting itself out once those people have platforms, just look at bills full a mixed group of people. those crowds are incredibly diverse

 

This is what I'm getting at in wayyyy fewer words haha

 

hah, that's really the importance of mixed bills. mixed bills get a more varied group of people in crowds which in turn join bands and create more mixed bills, which leads to changes in crowds as these people can get platforms to make positive change, and in turn just keeps going.

 

well I'd say that probably stems from a lack of representation in journalism too.

 

white people almost always lack the proper perspective to accurately write about those topics and we should absolutely be pushing for more diverse writers in music too. the problem in representation is a problem in every aspect of music. from bands and artists to engineers and producers to promoters and venue owners to journalists and website owners

 

i don't disagree with you here. but at the same time, more diverse voices in the room holds that behavior back. more women would be signed to record deals if more women were in label A&R. more women would be on tours if more women were booking agents.

 

Unfortunately most of the production staff on Warped Tour is women, and we've seen how that shakes out every year. But that's an issue with the very top of that food chain.