Pinegrove - Skylight (September 28, 2018) Album • Page 102

I honestly agree with you. Which is why I said people should do some serious self reflection before posting. I'm not sure if you are referring to me as the "devils advocate" But in case you are... I don't mean to come across that way.

 

What one does in private is on them. If someone is comfortable giving streams to a band, or paying for vinyl/merch, or going to shows, then that's their decision and they have to live with themselves. Nobody is saying you shouldn't listen to music that you need to get through the day, or that helped you in the past. It's just about not contributing to the culture of abuse that is rampant in music, not just this scene but all of music, by posting positively about artists in public spaces, or defending them when other people call them out for their actions.

Basically, just keep it to yourself. That's all. Then you're good with me and, I'd imagine, 99.9% of everyone else on here.

 

Do you consider streaming the album and posting about it in here support?

 

Depends on how you're talking about it. "I'm enjoying this song" "I'm enjoying this album" "I think it's good" putting it on your AOTY list, or any other positive discussion about the music is saying that the abuse experienced by the victims of Evan are second to your personal enjoyment of his artistic output. Positively discussing the music Evan created is praising Evan and you're choosing to ignore and not engage with the context within his art was created, which is him abusing multiple people and having a disingenuous and/or nonexistent reconciliation with the victims.

 

Posting about how much you're enjoying an album or a show or anything positive is support, yes. You're perpetuating the acceptance of abuse as a part of the culture of the scene and making others uncomfortable/likely triggering people who have suffered abuse in the past. Stream away but keep it to yourself. That's all. It's so easy.

 

yeah sure but it doesn’t really matter what you call it, if you don’t want to call it “supporting” them, at the end of the day your being vocal in public about a band that at best has a member who has done extremely harmful shit and at worst an outright abuser in it, why would you want to do that?

 

You are completely right. If you are going to discuss the music it would be better served to do it in an objective way. But that isn't really possible, which is why people should think long and hard about posting in here. If they want to praise the music and such, there are plenty of other places on the internet to do so. This isn't the place to do that.

 

Thanks for your input. I don't listen to or support the band, but I was curious on other people's thoughts on that.

 

It's not just this band, it goes for any band in a similar situation.

 

To me it seems the fundamental issue is between those that believe if allegations about an artist are made the only worthwhile discussion about the band, and all related to it, should be centered on those allegations, and those that have a desire to discuss a myriad of other things related to an artist even if allegations against them have been made. I feel like this exact conversation keeps happening because of this fundamental difference in what the two sides believe. When allegations first come out, or there's news around them, it's the main topic of conversation, but then as time passes, and there's an absence of more news or information about a particular artist, the conversations shift and change. Some artists with problematic pasts end up just never being talked about at all. Others, it continues to be discussed as there's never been any closure.

On a practical level it is virtually impossible to moderate the *specific topics* that people talk about in threads. There are too many threads, too many people, too many conversations, and only one me. Furthermore, as I've said in the past I agree with Anna's posts about what people are saying when they decide to publicly talk about certain bands, and the calculus of what/how/when it happens. And, I think people forget that everyone deals with trauma or pain in different ways and there's different levels between allegations for certain artists vs others, Pinegrove and Brand New, for example, walk similar lines but have different parts to them. I've already written plenty on why I think threads for artists with allegations should still exist on this website and why they are beneficial to many people, so I'm not going to rehash that.

The thread ignore feature is virtually done, so that will be released in the next week or so, but to make a few things clear: It's meant for those that don't want to see threads bumped because they are upset by seeing the band name. It'll be used by a very small number of people on the website, and it's so if they don't want to see the Brand New thread at the top of the forum list while browsing, they don't have to. I've heard from a number of people that agree that there should be places for people to talk about bands that hurt others, but just don't want to be exposed to it. This is the first step in trying to help with that a little bit.

I disagree with changing any thread titles because the thread and conversation isn't going to just be about the allegations and what would happen is someone would just create a separate thread to talk about everything else. It doesn't end up scaling. This brings us back to the fundamental issue, when say something about a band with allegations comes up ... like an unreleased song from Brand New hits the internet.

(Sidebar: I've spent the last couple years not writing about this band at all because of how badly it still hurts me and because I haven't worked through my thoughts on everything and I don't like the mental space it puts me in when I do think about them, or even have to type their name. So, this entire thing remains upsetting to me. However, I recognize there are others that are further along in their journey with what to do with the music or the band and even others that probably just don't care at all.)

Now, I think there are ways to discuss news like this, or even talk about the song itself, in ways that can be very cathartic and helpful. I saw a few people posting this weekend about how they wish the BN thread was open so they could workout some thoughts in a place specific for that, because posting it in a different thread felt like exposing people that may not want to see it to it anyway. This is one other reason I think trying to remove all conversations about a band can have the opposite effect as intended. And at the same time reading a thread where there's just a bunch of people talking about a new song saying "yeah this fucking rules" or some variation of that, is also going to come across as very tone deaf. It looks like people are just giving a pass to a band and pretending like nothing happened. Again, I agree with what Anna's written before about how you react to things like this and what you choose to publicly say reflects a lot on you as a person. And going along with that ... people that want to praise or "only talk about the music" need to be aware of the backlash they will see *because of what they are projecting to the world about who they are.* You need to be aware of what you're saying to people when you do that. If you're discussing the conflicting feelings you have about seeing a new song from a band you once loved and not knowing what to do, versus just plowing ahead pretending there's not a big issue, you need to be aware of what that says and why you're going to get justified pushback.

 

I think that if you feel uneasy any time someone brings up the allegations against a band you like when you're "just trying to discuss the music" you should stop and reflect on why that might be.

 

After reading through the posts and what went down yesterday, I want to make one thing clear, I do not support Brand New or their actions. You can check my FB, Twitter, Instagram, or my post history. I havn't posted about them on this website or anywhere else since the news broke. On New Years Eve i was feeling a bit nostalgic about the music and was drinking heavily and liked a post that I definitely shouldn't have. For this I apologize, and have since unliked the post, and I am going to unlike the post made by my friend in here yesterday.

I really did think the Pinegrove situation was different, don't care if you buy that or not. I see now that it isn't and I will not be posting about that band on here or elsewhere again. I thought two conversations could happen at once but I was wrong, and admit to that. It was stupid of me to bump this thread yesterday and hopefully it can become a learning tool for others.

I will admit I've been a huge part of the problem in the past and am going to work on that being less frequent in the future. I think @dylan calling me out on my shit yesterday was really eye opening to how i conduct myself in these situations, and that the best way to move forward is to own the stupid shit I've done. I do care about this community and am very grateful that this exists, and am very regretful of the hurtful things I've said in the past. It's been an awful cycle and I am going to do my absolute best to break it. That's the best I can do right now, I know it isn't enough and I know that it is going to take time to prove that I can change, but this is where I am at currently.

 

Thank you for this.

 

Anyone itt attending the Albany show? Any recommendations for food/drink, etc?

 

I'm not going (and I'd encourage you to read through this thread a little bit more), but it looks like the venue is about a minute from Van's Vietnamese and that's one of the best restaurants in the area. There are also some really good places on Lark Street (about 4 minutes away).

 

Pinegrove derailed at the height of #MeToo. Now the band wants to sing to its skeptics.

 

I will be at one of the Chicago shows if anyone else is going.

 

This last paragraph (which is very good) is so inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the article.

Also, dude who says something like "at least he's not Ryan Adams." Like, that's how we're measuring this? He's not as bad as this really bad guy so it doesn't matter as much??

 

Right? I made that comment in the Accountability thread. It seems like such a weird article until the end there

 

It honestly read like one of those "Dispatches from Trump Country" articles until the end.

 

That didn’t take long for you to show up!

 

Hell yeah you know it bb!!!!1

 

How dare he comment on something he wants to bring awareness to!!!

 

What are you even doing...?

 

WE HAVE A NEW TRACK