Albums you own or used to own from artists that turned out to be awful people.

the narrative about Jesse in that EODM documentary is that he found his true self by shedding a dad/husband mask and discovering his inner "rock star" after his wife cheated on him, but he now seems trapped in this alter ego that we are supposed to take as not at all ironic. but he is kinda a shithead if it's not ironic.

Ironically being a jackass means you are being a jackass.

yeah, the subtext is that Homme is genuinely looking out for the guy and likes to play drums in a band sometimes. and this is way EODM exists.

Morbz otm

xp

xp to Morbs: I don't usually spend too much time thinking about this kind of stuff either. I couldn't just stop loving a piece of music all because of something the artist did in their life.

I am trying to think of anyone I have kept in my music collection knowing they are a gigantic racist; the only person coming to mind is Morrissey and that is only for pre-Strangeways Smiths songs. I also almost never listen to The Smiths anymore.

I wouldn't own any records at all if I applied the same rules to musicians I did to, say, friends and family members who want to come round my house. From where I'm sitting now I can see LPs by Notorious BIG, Miles Davis, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Johny Cash, The Fall, Fela Kuti, Siouxsie, Swans, Mayhem, Nico, Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa and my eyesight's not so good. If I actually got up and went over to the shelves...

I try not to listen to anyone who uses their fame and influence as a platform to push abhorrent views or to promote their own abhorrent behaviour as being fine. Even so I'd admit to a certain amount of hypocrisy. Shamefully, I did a good enough job of ignoring the problems with Morrissey for a long time (but haven't listened to him at home or gone to see him live for about a decade I think). I don't want to diminish the experiences of any of the victims of men mentioned higher up in this thread but it's the proactively evangelical I simply can't take any more. Morrissey is a cancerous presence in popular culture and my observations are that racists flock to him and are energised by him. See also to a lesser extent: Death In June, Burzum etc. What Gary Glitter did was unforgivable (to pick an example) but I don't see his music as being likely to promote pedophilia or sex tourism or him acting as a totemic figure for nonces to draw succour from. (Although I don't have any evidence for this and this is such a serious subject I would happily - happily - change my position if someone were to point out why I was wrong.) I wouldn't buy any of Glitter's records new because of the financial implications but I'll still listen to them on YouTube, buy them from a second hand record shop or download them for free. As was mentioned upthread though - he's clearly just part of the 'tip of the iceberg' when it comes to musicians from the 70s and before who were straight up sex criminals. There's a chilling bit in Simon Reynolds' glam book where he quotes from Glitter's (pre-disgrace) autobiography talking about how Keith Moon switched him on to sleeping with teenage groupies - something he claims he'd always resisted beforehand. The subtext was clear: Moon was telling him 'We're all at it - you're an idiot for not joining in.' I don't see anyone attacking The Who - because they're classic rock cannon and not some 'fake' glam shit. It's always easier to take a stand against uncool musicians you don't like. I'm probably as guilty of this as anyone - I lost a lot more hair fretting over Swans than I did over Ariel Pink. Although I've pretty much stopped listening to Swans as well.

There's obviously a big grey area here as well though - artists who transmit coded messages about their behaviour.

That Swans/Ariel Pink comparison is somewhat unbalanced. Apologies. But the wider point still remains.

I've been skeezed by the Who since Townshend's involvement with child pr0n was revealed.

The queens of the stone age guy belongs on this list just for creating a band as awful as the eagles of death metal in the first place. He's worse than Wagner just for that alone. At least Wagner had tunes!

"for nonces to draw succour from"

my fave Mayhem EP by the way...

V. guilty LOL.

John Lennon said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus so I burned all their albums

xp no guilt, no shame in that LOL

My position on Gira/Swans is basically "Wait - the guy who wrote a song called 'Raping A Slave' is a piece of shit? You're kidding!" Also, he laughed out loud when I called him a moralist while interviewing him. The evidence was there, is what I'm saying.

idk i used a lot of the swans songs about abuse as a way of processing my own experiences of abuse and i experienced that whole thing as a deep, personal betrayal, but i guess the evidence was there all along

a friend of mine just interviewed ol Glenn D. and said he was not only amazingly nice, but he stayed a lot longer than he had to and the only time he took a break was to go home to feed his cats, and also turn on the lights for them in the house since it was getting dark.

meanwhile this is just the best

the Waits story is so nice

i still don't know the whole story about gira but it did make me lot want to listen to swans. i don't really listen to them much anymore anyway.

NOT want to....

if i get "shaman" vibes off of a frontman i usually steer clear

the Gira story seems to have just vanished after the initial fallout, enough that I think Swans "final" tour just went off without anyone bringing it up? I even know people who went who seemed to have forgotten the whole thing.

i mean i LOVED swans. let's be clear. mostly for the early 90s awesomeness though i was certainly a fan in the 80s as well. but i listened to that stuff SO much and swans are dead tour was a great end to a cool band and it was kind of nice to move on in my own life.

though i did join jarboe's swans e-mail list a long time ago when i first got a computer. just to see what that was like.

there was definitely a palpable dip in enthusiasm for The Glowing Man (imo it was alos just not that exciting an album, which did not help). can't speak to whether the shows were more sparsely attended or not, though.

*also

the Gira story seems to have just vanished after the initial fallout, enough that I think Swans "final" tour just went off without anyone bringing it up? I even know people who went who seemed to have forgotten the whole thing.

― akm, Monday, November 13, 2017 3:47 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

people worldwide stopped mentioning it because they were afraid ilxor what's his name would drop in and pester them

the guy who can't get over glenn mcdonald being a spotify employee. him.

I've been skeezed by the Who since Townshend's involvement with child pr0n was revealed.

― droit au butt (Euler), Monday, November 13, 2017 2:54 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What actually happened was this: after a close friend of Townshend's, who had been abused as a child, committed suicide, Townshend posted an essay he'd written called "A Different Bomb," to his website. This was a year before his arrest. Included in this essay was Townshend decrying the ease with which one could view child porn -- unwisely (to say the least), he used his credit card to access such a site to prove his point. He also alerted at least one UK-based child protection agency, who brushed him off (after his arrest, they loudly denounced him, then had to backtrack once it was pointed out they'd ignored him a year prior). He contemplated going to the cops, but his lawyer advised against it.

No images were found on Townshend's computers and hard drives, and he was cleared. There's no evidence that he did anything other than something really fucking stupid in order to prove a point.

the guy who can't get over glenn mcdonald being a spotify employee. him.

― harbinger of failure (Jon not Jon), Monday, November 13, 2017 12:57 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that guy is mentally ill i think

idk. i kind of think that when an artist puts their art into the world, it becomes part of the world, they have to surrender it to an extent. some of that swans music (or miles, or lennon) -- it's mine, now, you know? it has meaning to me and resonance in my life that is independent from the asshole who made it. sometimes the art's connection to the artist as a person is too stark for me to get beyond that, and certainly the artist's life as the art's creator has inherent interest and value to me, but with some art that i engage with a deeper level, i can kind of claim it as my own, it's not theirs anymore. i remember larkin grimm saying something like "i don't care if you throw out your swans records or not, art is higher than morality" and i generally agree with that even if it's not always the case.

i recognize though that it's a pretty subjective thing and a very personal decision to make whether or not to engage w/ art from a reprehensible shithead

If that Townshend story is true it’s kind of funny in a twisted way.

I think right now my stance is:

I might continue listening to the music as long as the overall shittiness of the people behind the music is not projected on its lyrics, but I’d rather not buy any album of theirs.

Many rock and pop music revolves around sex though, so unfortunately my view of the song gets ruined when I know an artist was thinking about underage girls when writing it. It feels dirty.

xpost that version of the story is pretty broadly not known, maybe more so in the USA? I routinely hear people making pedophile jokes about Townshend

I think this thread has effectively ruined 70’s classic rock music for me. Now I can only think of all these bands fucking 14 year old groupies and having a laugh about it.

xp: That version of the Townsend story is exactly how I remember it being reported when the whole thing broke.

I think where I draw the absolute line is whether or not the artist is alive. Like, I own one James Brown album, and when I bought it I knew he was a wife-beater, but at that point he was already dead, so I wasn't supporting him financially in any way. And like someone said upthread, it's not like he made songs glorifying violence towards women; I wouldn't listen to such songs even if they were made by someone who'd never hurt a soul, because why would I want to listen to something that's against my core values?

But then you have someone like Varg Vikernes; I'd never buy anything he's released, cos I'd know the money would go into supporting him and his spreading of fascist propaganda online. (Not that I listen to the kind of music he makes anyway.) So if I know someone who's alive is a fascist or racist or an abuser etc, I just don't buy his music. There's so much good music in the world I'm not gonna miss one artist's catalog.

Though tbh, even with dead artists, if I've never been particularly interested in their music to begin with, like with John Lennon or David Bowie, knowing they were assholes and abusers is good excuse to keep ignoring their material.

whenever i hear the townshend story i can't help but think of that whole "i was doing research" excuse.

For the most part I don't really seek out much info on the artists I listen to, mostly because I don't like discovering terrible things about artists I like.

Terrible people sometimes make good things and it feels unfair to have to stop listening to these good things just because the artist who created did some unrelated terrible thing.

re: the Who, Keith Moon beat his wife, and that story about him and Glitter doesn't surprise me at all.

This is interesting, though:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-who-charity-work/

As Townshend recalls the story, the band members were in the midst of recording their Quadrophenia LP when they received a call from Joanna Lumley, the actor now best known for her role as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous. Invited to meet her in London, Townshend demurred, but offered to send one of his bandmates in his stead — and Moon volunteered because, as Townshend put it, he was "very much hoping that it would lead to something sexual, I think."

The reality of Moon's meeting with Lumley turned out to be life-alteringly different for the drummer — and his bandmates. "It turned out that what she’d done is invited him to the very, very first women’s refuge in the world [the domestic violence shelter Chiswick’s Women’s Aid, founded in 1971]. And Joanna got him cleaning toilets," said Townshend. "He came back in tears. And he said, ‘Pete, we’ve got to do something for these women!’"

Moon's epiphany took on added meaning for Townshend later, after he realized Moon had been guilty of "real violent outbursts against his wife" during moments when he suspected her of infidelity — sadly ironic because, as Townshend pointed out, "in fact, it was the other way around." In seeing the error of his ways and spurring the band to action, Moon helped spark a lifetime of efforts on behalf of others.

"We started to do shows for the woman [Erin Pizzey] who started [the refuge]. And that’s how charity work began for me and for the band. And we’ve gone on from there," added Townshend. "Anyway, that was a great moment. And it was one of the nicest stories about Keith, I think: that something had touched his heart, because usually he would turn everything into a gag."

whenever i hear the townshend story i can't help but think of that whole "i was doing research" excuse.

― scott seward, Monday, November 13, 2017 4:34 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As Dave Marsh put it at the time, "Yes, the cops had a right and an obligation to look into this. But that isn't what happened. They took somebody and dragged him through as much mud as they could dig up. This is basically about criminalizing investigative behavior — saying, 'You're not allowed to investigate certain things.' And any journalist who doesn't feel threatened by that is not paying attention."

i never much cared for any of his bands, but i was listening to the trap set (podcast) interview with carmine appice for a few minutes when he started talking about how he watched his band members assault a neighborhood girl (and joked about it landing him in prison these days) and then casually said he would "force himself" on girls after they said "no no no" and I almost barfed. Of course, I have heard exactly 0 other people talking about this but it really stuck with me. He was very casual about it. The part starts at 6:06 or so, and I doubt i made it 10 min into the interview before i bailed bc I do not care what this guy has to say about anything. it's possible his feet were held to the fire at some point but i didn't stick around to find out.

tarfumes, i do love that you are captain save-a-who. i love the who! i don't want to think that they were terrible people.

I haven't enjoyed Swans in the same way (or much at all) since the Grimm situation

so much musician stuff is terrible drug & alcohol stuff. i'm NOT condoning or defending behavior, but so much of it is. and being miserable. while high and drunk.

and widespread cultural acceptance of treating women like garbage

that carmine appice story is loathsome!

carmine appice of shit more like

yeah
the teaser for the ep also claimed that he had "slept with" over 4K women :(

Wow, just listened to that Carmine Appice clip. "When Mike Tyson went to prison, I thought 'we used to do that every night'".