Swans: Classic or Dud?

even if incontrovertible proof came out that their was proper consent, i wouldn't regret immediately and consistently believing larkin's story.

I don't think dip knows what 'rings true' means.

But then again, he should just shut up.

but the brute-force insistence strikes me as potentially counterproductive and kind of depressingly anti-intellectual besides. maybe the anti-intellectualism is politically expedient, i dunno...

it's compensatory, to be sure. it has bothered me on occasion (very very rarely) and only in cases when the accuser and accusations are obviously delusional and false, (based on personal knowledge of the person in question).

This is pretty much where dlp reveals himself to be a cheap troll & nothing more, fgti drops some very real stuff about friends in his life that have raped and that aftermath and all you do is play high school social studies class mock trial lawyer:

Being a friend is pretty pertinent.

What is up with the accusation that kicked this all off? That seems to have vanished. US Maple>Swans we agree.

― dlp9001, Wednesday, March 2, 2016 9:00 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Honestly never heard of prison abolitionism. Just been reading a little about it. I suppose most in the movement aren't in favour of scrapping it entirely?

Gira's ex-wife Siobhan Duffy, who figures heavily into Grimm's account of what happened between her and Gira, has been speaking out on Facebook in defense of Gira.

http://observer.com/2016/03/i-stand-with-kesha-why-men-should-address-musics-rape-culture-problem-right-now/

She posted a link to the article above with a note to see the comments, and sure enough, she shared her side of the story: http://i.imgur.com/ywakzna.png

"Hello. My name is Siobhan Duffy and I am Michael's ex wife. The wife married to him (together for 12 years) while Larkin and Michael worked together. It is shameful what Ms. Grimm has done. Michael is not a rapist. And we will be making a more official statement soon with proof of either her instability and her intent to ruin Michael's life work. Michael and I divorced in 2011. In 2013 Larkin wrote me on Facebook messenger (not a public post) which starts... "Dear Siobhan, I'm Sorry, I'm sorry,i'm so, so sorry for being an immature manipulative untrustworthy whore,losing my way,being constantly high, and not follwoing my conscience when you welcomed me into your home." She goes on to tell me about the drunken night of fooling around that never included coitus. And many people that worked with both Larkin and Michael reveal that she was bragging about it at the time and finding it laughable that he was afraid his wife (me) would find out. She taunted him with telling me. When she wrote to me and spoke to Michael about it, I asked him to remove her from his label out of respect of me. Larkin claims that when she confronted him with rape, which never happened, he removed her from the label. Another false statement. And this one Facebook post has brought his 30 plus career and his name into question? It seems the media does not fact check anything anymore. Making false claims of rape can ruin someone's life, but also it undermines every true report of rape. And as seen from above, Larkin is now trying to capitalize on the current hot topic of rape in the music industry. She even mentions Kesha in her FB post. Yes Larkin, you finally ogt your name in Billboard, but at what price to Michael and his family? Check your FACTS.

And I would like to add that Michael Gira is one of several men being accused by Larkin Grimm of sexual misconduct, all of whom terminated their working relationships with her. Who is the problem?"

Both, this keeps turning into more and more of a mess. Up to this point, I thought Grimm had been handling herself with a remarkable grace and clear-headedness, and to my outsider's perspective, it didn't seem like she would have any reason to lie about what happened. But this statement from Duffy really complicates things. It contradicts most of Grimm's account, and sketchier still is that a comment Grimm left on one of her posts about Duffy asking if it was safe for Gira to be around his daughter after Grimm told her Gira raped her has been deleted. Since this is the internet, naturally someone managed to take a screenshot of it...it was up for days. I remember reading it and feeling sick to my stomach. http://i66.tinypic.com/de613.jpg

"Who is the problem?" indeed

Again without wading into speculation about what the actual ~truth~ is, I would like to point out that everything in your post is circumstantial evidence or stuff about the victim's character, except "She goes on to tell me about the drunken night of fooling around that never included coitus" (Siobhan's words--significantly, this is the exact point in the letter where she stops quoting Larkin) which you have interpreted as "contradict[ing] most of" Larkin's story although it's already been made clear throughout the thread that not all parties agree about the definition of "coitus" (&, I would probably add, of "fooling around"). To then connect this to a "sketchier still" deleted (and therefore unverifiable) facebook comment, provided with minimal context (...but she deleted it, so she must be a liar!), is equivocation of the commonest sort.

Question for my fellow SWANS fans....

Regardless of how this is all going to shake out (and will we ever know the full story?), do you feel you're able to continue to listen to Gira's music objectively anymore? I honestly haven't spun any since this story broke (nor have I felt compelled to), but I was quite looking forward to the purported tour-de-force the impending album has been promised to be. Regardless of your stance on the allegations, can you listen to his music without associating all of this?

I have mostly avoided Swans and AoL music since the allegations. I have found Xiu Xiu to be an acceptable substitute

This 'proof' is really taking it's time, huh?

Swans are a band I only feel the urge to listen to once or twice a year under the best of circumstances. I last listened to them several months ago. By the time I'm in the mood to listen to them again, absent an actual criminal trial or something similarly attention-getting, I will probably have forgotten all about this.

Swans are awesome, I'll probably listen to them today

i haven't really gotten into this thread at all but i think that posts by fgti, justine, sarahel, and others are excellent and i am inclined to support grimm in this whole thing. the character assassination shit and calling out grimm's alleged mental illness or whatever as reason to be suspect of her statements is really fucked up.

i rarely listen to swans to begin with but i think it is safe to assume that a significant chunk of the artists i listen to have probably done something like gira did, and fgti's outstanding post about drinking, rape, consent i think highlights how common this really is. you can throw out your swans albums if you want but if you think the other artists in your collection are "clean" then you are fucking naive

Bowie's 1987 rape charge is a good analogue - he said/she said, where he says it was consensual but she didn't and he throws round phrases like 'attention seeker' and 'ridiculous'.

In fact, his example is potentially worse because at least in Gira/Grimm there seems to have been some kind of relationship at the back of it acknowledged by both parties whereas Bowie's was a drink/drug fuelled one-off event.

Also, her claim was easier to refute - she also said Bowie explicitly told her post-assault that he had given her AIDS.

plus bowie & the underage

gimme some reggae

no immediate plans to listen to swans cuz winter

user "dispossessed" has made exactly 1 post to ilxor.com

wtf is even going on itt

i am not a big swans guy but i went to see them on the last tour
parts were pretty cool like overwhelming sound
but parts felt just really flat and oppressive and dull like a 90s pink floyd show or something

you just described "To Be Kind"

even if incontrovertible proof came out that their was proper consent, i wouldn't regret immediately and consistently believing larkin's story.

― just1n3, Thursday, March 3, 2016 2:45 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OK, now this is the most idiotic thing I have ever read

who is this terrible poster?

xp fortunately nobody ITT cares what you think, at all

maybe I was just referring to the 'there / their' confusion, which my ten year old niece seems to have licked but not the person arguing to discredit a man forever despite the testimony of three credible women and no further accusations against the accused

you've gone from blind to cruel to petty

for absolute starters you need to ditch the 'no further accusations' bit ffs

there are other boards where your oh-so-fresh typo gags and arbitrary assigning of which women are credible and which aren't will be welcome, try to find them

wow there are some v toxic posters itt huh

fucking hell mods fucking lock this fucking thread

You gotta be sitting me.

The "poor grammar = UNRELIABLE" method?

Is this a BBcode message board in 2002

might be a good idea esp after the mystery poster upthread

For all the people like Wimmels who are incapable of walking away from a conversation to which they have so little to contribute: it is my sincere hope that your stubborn persistence here attests to a nagging kernel of doubt, buried far beneath the glib surface of your rhetoric & the arrogant confidence you place in a manifestly untrue & self-serving worldview; and that this seed may yet grow into a flourishing beanstalk of earth-shattering revelations & beckon you to undertake a journey of self-discovery that someday, in a few years, leads you to reread the things you wrote here & shake your head sadly in disbelief.

OK now we can lock the thread

you've gone from blind to cruel to petty

this reads like an Elvis Costello lyric

also why is this thread still a thing

Oh wimmelpaws

"a conversation to which they have so little to contribute"

Just a thought -- Wimmel's contributions are just as valid as anyone else's here. Whether you happen to agree with him or not is entirely incidental. It's a public forum, fer cyrin' out loud.

They can be valid and still worthless. And they are.

give em enough rope

Btw, how long are people willing to wait for this 'proof'? Gira said this wasn't a 'he said / she said' thing, so talking of it like that is already saying that he's lying.

I honestly, at the beginning, thought that Gira probably didn't do it, because otherwise why would he bother talking about 'proof'? That would backfire in a major way. But no.

there's a little bit of that worthlessness

Xp to alexNYC -- admittedly I may have been conflating Wimmels with dlp (of the thousand & one "this conversation is stupid & pointless!" posts); but given that Wimmels' last two posts itt were 1. Calling another poster idiotic (no elaboration), and 2. Attempting to discredit an alleged rape survivor's story based on typos, I would argue that those contributions not worth the keyboard they're typed on

A good keyboard can set you back

Responding to Alex in NYC's question about listening to Swans going forward. I can say this. I always thought Kim Fowley was an untrustworthy creep and some sort of half-formed musical genius, but after the Jackie story (which immediately did ring true and was backed by witnesses) I consigned him to the dustbin. He probably died the way he deserved to, and I can live without relistening to his albums. Done. It's safe to guess that the Beatles all committed statutory rape, but we'll never know so we'll keep on having lovely Beatles threads.

I could also live without listening to Swans again. It's not a band that's central to my life, though I do think that one of their live albums (Feel Good Now) is the best example in rock history of a live album improving on the original version. I'm not sure how important that is in the grand scheme of things. I've never felt that liking Gira had any particular relationship to liking his music given what it is, but at the same time Boyd Rice apparently has some decent albums that I'm not planning to buy. Ever.

To be brutally honest, I've thought for a long time that Gira's obsession with sex/power dynamics comes from the fact that something probably did happen to him in prison that he's been skirting around for decades.

As far as other stuff, Larkin's comments about why she threw the white guy under the bus aren't encouraging. She had eight years to make this known, and for at least four of them has been completely outside of his influence in terms of her career, but decides to go public right after being kicked out of a band that includes her ex-husband, and after accusing its leader of sexual impropriety also. Which story seems to have vanished from the internet entirely. I really don't know much except for two things:

1. Nobody other than Larkin and Gira knows what happened the night they got drunk and ended up in bed together.
2. The hand wringing, "Oh, everyone who disagrees with me is a sensless monster who didn't take the same women's studies classes that I did" is sad.

Sleeve asked for the thread to be locked. I agree. If more reasonably credible accusations against Gira come out, I'd say he's toast.

wrong on nearly every count, thread should have been locked after bernard's post, primarily to prevent you and wimmels from continuing to post horrific garbage, now you've fucked it up again.

We wouldn't want to listen to people who disagree with us. I think that might have been a Smiths' song.

fucking hell mods fucking lock this fucking thread

http://www.standbyformindcontrol.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/phantom-zone.jpg