rolling #metoo thread for sexual harassment in the music industry so no one misses out when artists we don't give a fuck about like Tim Westwood and Bassnectar get caught

thanks

freshman in college or high school?

lol, not sure it matters. and i even say that as someone who was trying to get into Anti Flag around 1998/99 since the girl i was dating at the time loved them.

i loved them, i saw them live in 1998, i was 13 and I remember feeling weird about the show. it felt more “bro-ey” than other shows i had been to, punching the air about being against “the government “ and of course i had a lot of fun, but left feeling weird about A-F as a band and never really listened to them again! it’s strange how seeing a band live can sometimes do that.

they did a split with The Dread that year on which they covered Mission of Burma, so in some way they changed my life because MoB did a lot for young table

Um whats the news about Lizzo?

Charges against Till Lindemann of Rammstein dropped

Berlin’s public prosecutor’s office on Tuesday said it had dropped its sexual assault investigation into Till Lindemann, the frontman for the rock band Rammstein, citing a lack of evidence.

The investigation began in June after several women said that Mr. Lindemann had plied young people with alcohol and drugs before, during and after concerts in order to have sex with them. Lawyers for Mr. Lindemann denied those claims in a statement and threatened legal action against those making the claims and news outlets reporting on them.

“I thank all those who have waited impartially for the end of the investigation,” Mr. Lindemann, 60, posted to Instagram on Tuesday.

When the German news media reported on the allegations of impropriety against the leader of one of the country’s most successful modern music groups, commercial partners ended their ties with Mr. Lindemann. Universal, which distributes Rammstein’s music, said it would stop any promotional activities. And politicians condemned the described behavior.

“We need more awareness about abuse of power and sexualized violence, and not only in the music industry, but in the whole cultural industry,” Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture minister, told Der Spiegel, a newsweekly, adding, “The times of foul machismo combined with abuse of power up to sexualized violence should really and definitely be over.”

According to the prosecutor’s office, however, it was impossible to substantiate the reports against Mr. Lindemann because so many accusations were made anonymously. Kaya Loska, a prominent influencer who had described her experience backstage during a concert in 2022, was interviewed by prosecutors. But they said she was of little help because she did not witness any crimes being committed.

“It was therefore not possible to sufficiently substantiate any allegations of the crimes, nor was it possible to gain an impression of the credibility of the alleged injured parties and the believability of their statements during questioning,” Sebastian Büchner, who speaks for the public prosecutor’s office, wrote in a statement.

Shelby Lynn, a former fan of the band, helped make the allegations public when she posted on social media about her experience at a concert in Vilnius in May, during which she believed she was drugged. Ms. Lynn took her complaint to the Lithuanian police, but they declined to investigate.

Long RS piece with many detailed (and horrible) stories about the Anti-Flag guy: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/anti-flag-justin-sane-1234817170/

jfc

that was a hard but an important read

also a good reminder to keep a healthy skepticism for musicians/artists who appear to 'tick all the right boxes'. which is hard when you're so desperate to have positive allies in the music industry

i have listened to 16 (out of 17) seasons of Something Was Wrong podcast and this guy seems like a carbon copy of the guy from S14, who was outed by name on the podcast and was an enormous piece of shit who hid behind his work with a socially conscious media company.

beware the charismatic man who says all the right things

jesus that article was sickening

what a fucking scumbag

the band broke up immediately after the first allegation a few months ago but considering the timespan in this story and their statements after - it really makes you question whether they and other people around the band truly didn’t know what was going on. not a single person looked out for these women, it’s devastating.

it really makes you question whether they and other people around the band truly didn’t know what was going on

it's impossible they didn't know stuff was going on imo

maybe I'm naïve but I don't think that's a given. I'm guessing they suspected something uncouth was happening but they didn't know for sure and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt

I don't know, it's not like Anti-Flag was likely ever "every member riding solo in their own tour bus" successful, particularly during those 90's years where he was also doing awful stuff. It's pretty hard to imagine a group touring that closely together, while he was pulling this shit on tour, not having at least some inkling that he was up to sketchy shit.

the fact that many of these incidents were occurring at their shows, i kinda find that hard to believe.

The women, alongside some of the band’s fans, also chastised the other band members for failing to take an immediate hard stance against Geever publicly or even acknowledge the blind eye they may have turned, as three women claim some of the members were present when Geever brought them on tour, backstage, or on the tour bus as teenagers and young women. “They knew how young everybody was,” Rebecca, who dated a then-25-year-old Geever as a 17-year-old in the late 1990s, claims. “There was a clear boundary that he kept crossing over and over that should have raised flags for everybody.”

Guys in rock bands and teenage girls, the rest of the band probably just shook their heads and got on with playing the gigs.

it's very easy to brush aside improprieties that you become aware of, directly or indirectly, when you like the person enough. it shouldn't be, but for many, it is.

There was a cast party for a production I was doing back in 2009, and a bunch of us left. a friend of mine was very intoxicated and stayed behind, as did a handful of others, and only a little while after I'd left, one of our other cast members, who was new in town at the time, raped her while in that state.

She was not someone who held onto her story for years only to come forward later - she started speaking up about it almost immediately. The couple in charge of the theatre company chose to believe him over her (he claimed she seduced him, consensual - the usual). The story didn't circulate widely because once my friend realized nobody was going to believe her, she just swallowed the story for years.

More stories of abuse/etc followed this guy for YEARS - but it wasn't until around maybe 2015-2016 that they got any traction and probably 2017 when people finally began distancing themselves from him.

The same director couple who failed to believe my friend 14 years ago are now touted as allies and forward-thinking members of the community, and are still holding to the story that they were naive and blind to his misdeeds and were finally called out on them, when in reality they knew all along and only cut ties with him when people threatened to start boycotting their theatre company/projects.

suffice it to say....the things discussed in this article, there is usually smoke, and often people turn a blind eye because they don't awnt to believe it, not because they don't actually believe it.

"Dated"

Geever lied about his age at the time too

yea I'm sure there were plenty of red flags raised for the other band members but when it's a friend (not to mention your meal ticket) it's def very natural to give them the benefit of the doubt if you don't see it directly. being aware they were just teenagers though...yikes

you forget musicians are the biggest gossips in the world

In (unfortunately) my experience it's absolutely possible that no one in his circle knew what was going on with any certainty. I'm sure he was very secretive about his private life, and passed everything potentially suspicious off has either innocent "just friends/fans" interactions or consensual relationships.

you forget musicians are the biggest gossips in the world

I'm sure there was some gossip and conjecture but it's very possible there was no evidence that you could confront him with or take public action on. Reading this was wearily, terribly familiar based on people I've known.

(well, person)

the speed with which the band shutdown everything feels there was a (sickening) sense of relief that the gig was up and it was finally time of move on, like they already had their plan-b. Probably an awareness that plan-b was not going to be in politically aware rock, or even music.

In (unfortunately) my experience it's absolutely possible that no one in his circle knew what was going on with any certainty. I'm sure he was very secretive about his private life, and passed everything potentially suspicious off has either innocent "just friends/fans" interactions or consensual relationships.

yeah -- if some of this happened on the bus, then they probably saw him bring people onto the bus, but if elsewhere? I get along real good with my band but I'm very much in my own bubble now, because I need rest, I turn in long before they do -- I ~think~ I know what they're doing after the show (because most nights I can hear them howling as they watch the third consecutive episode of impractical jokers, and because I clean up the empty bags of chips ahoy et al from the front lounge when I wake up before everybody else) but if somebody was going off somewhere else to do evil, I would have absolutely no idea. OTOH: I've known these guys as long as or longer than the AF guys have known each other, and we've been on the road a long time. I feel like there'd be a vibe shift. but literally my entire band could right now be engaged in some massive criminal conspiracy that took place after shows and all I'd be able to say would be "idk I go to bed before they do"

Not trying to make a parallel comparison exactly, but there have been enough serial killers doing the most vicious terrible shit imaginable while maintaining the facade of a typical quiet conservative seeming suburban dude with a wife and kids. If someone is doing something wrong, either on the most hideous level imaginable or the more unfortunately banal and everyday, they will try to do it out of sight from others.

Meant to end the first sentence: ", that we should recognize people can have a whole other shadow life that no one knows about"

Sometimes people are of course gleefully and publicly sleazy, but you know there are those who want to be the good guy in public and maybe even use that to cover for what they're doing.

And in those serial killer cases, I don't think people are going after the family and acquaintances of the perpetrator on some "they must have known" shit (or maybe that does happen? idk).

I definitely have read stories where people accuse spouses of having some knowledge, sometimes tempered with a bit of sympathy suggesting that maybe they had some Stockholm syndrome or whatever.

But you're right I think it happens more with bands. I think people just group them together visually so much as band members that it's hard to imagine them going off and having their own lives and not doing things are a crew.

I think it's mostly because there have been so many accounts over the years from victims saying that they were assaulted backstage/on the bus/in the hotel room while other band members were present. It's practically a rock star cliche at this point. Serial killing isn't nearly that kind of a systemic issue with so many complicit witnesses.

Yeah obviously true there, I guess it just illustrates the point though that people are able to hide their dark side if they want to, and put up a public facing front that is completely at odds with that side, and zero people know about it except for those unfortunate enough to be in their crosshairs.

All of the incidents reported on in the RS Anti-Flag piece are thoroughly described as happening in very private areas (inside hotel rooms, private residences, secluded backstage areas at venues and festival grounds). A great, albeit hard to read, piece of reporting.

The women, alongside some of the band’s fans, also chastised the other band members for failing to take an immediate hard stance against Geever publicly or even acknowledge the blind eye they may have turned, as three women claim some of the members were present when Geever brought them on tour, backstage, or on the tour bus as teenagers and young women. “They knew how young everybody was,” Rebecca, who dated a then-25-year-old Geever as a 17-year-old in the late 1990s, claims. “There was a clear boundary that he kept crossing over and over that should have raised flags for everybody.”

Harley Flanagan and whoever's currently in Cro-Mags apparently sexually assaulted (and then assaulted-assaulted) a zine editor and her co-editor at a show that they had invited them to come and sell zines at:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F57OYyaXUAAgrme.jpg

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F57OYyYXsAAHxMl.jpg

That's pretty fucked up

more on it, it's got some footage posted but it's hard to tell what the hell is going on in it

harley's story is like 180 degrees opposite, he's claiming he was attacked. seems unbelievable that any sane person would purposely try to get into it with harley flanagan!

https://loudwire.com/cro-mags-harley-assault-claims-sliced-maced-show/

Well, yeah.

Second accusation against Danny Elfman, reported in Rolling Stone.

A second woman has come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against composer and musician Danny Elfman, according to a lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone.

The woman, who filed the lawsuit anonymously as a Jane Doe accuser in Los Angeles on Thursday, claimed in the suit that Elfman frequently exposed himself to her and allegedly told her that he masturbated next to her while she was asleep and couldn’t consent to the act.

The suit comes three months after a Rolling Stone investigation revealed that Los Angeles composer Nomi Abadi previously accused Elfman of exposing himself and sexually harassing her in 2017, before entering into an $830,000 settlement and non-disclosure agreement to silence the claims. Abadi filed a lawsuit in July over breach of contract, alleging that Elfman missed multiple payments related to the settlement. Similar to Abadi’s allegations, the Jane Doe accuser claimed in the suit that from 1997 to 2002, Elfman would expose himself to her frequently when they would meet.

A rep for Elfman didn’t immediately reply to request for comment.

“It’s important to this Jane Doe that Nomi knows she’s not alone anymore, that what was done to her by Elfman mirrors in so many ways what was done to Nomi,” Attorney Jeff Anderson, representing both Abadi and the Jane Doe, told Rolling Stone, adding that the woman spoke out to send a message to those who “made efforts to destroy the lives of others who found the courage to speak up.”

As he’s done frequently over the past several years, Elfman is slated to perform at the Hollywood Bowl next week from October 26 – 28 to reprise his role as Jack Skellington in the Bowl’s The Nightmare Before Christmas show. (Elfman was the composer behind the film as well.) Halsey and Catherine O’Hara are expected to trade off roles as Sally.

In the suit, the woman alleges that she met the then-47-year-old Elfman at a mutual friend’s home in April 1997, when she was 21. The two “immediately connected,” the suit says, and kept in touch for the next several years.

The woman accused Elfman of grooming her, and after “a few times” of hanging out, the woman alleged that Elfman had exposed himself to her while they were in Elfman’s hotel room at the Mercer Hotel in New York.

“Defendant Elfman suddenly removed all of his clothing until he was completely nude, and walked around naked in front of Plaintiff, exposing his genitals,” the suit said. “He proceeded to go in front of the open window and stand there in an effort to expose his naked body and genitals. Defendant Elfman then coerced Plaintiff to take her clothing off and stand naked with him in front of the open windows in full view of the public. Defendant Elfman told Plaintiff that he hoped someone would look at them and that it was fun.”

The Jane Doe plaintiff “felt uncomfortable being naked in front of him,” per the suit, “so she left the window and put her clothes back on. Defendant Elfman remained nude in front of the window for another five minutes.”

The next time they saw one another, the woman alleged, “Defendant Elfman stripped nude and exposed his genitals again, and started taking a bath. He insisted that Plaintiff come to the bathroom and watch him take a bath.”

After that occasion, the suit alleges, Elfman would expose himself to the woman every time they saw each other. Elfman allegedly told the woman that being naked “was the only way he could work, be creative, and successful,” a similar allegation to what Abadi had alleged to friends of hers who spoke with Rolling Stone in July.

“Plaintiff felt uncomfortable” with the nudity, per the suit, “but did not say anything because she did not want to risk losing [Elfman] as a friend and mentor, given what she perceived to be a very lucky position she was in, as a consultant for his work and protégé.”

Per the suit, on about seven occasions, the woman would stay in the same hotel room as Elfman and sleep in the same bed as him, keeping her clothes on and usually sleeping on the top of the sheets while Elfman slept naked next to her.

“Plaintiff always felt the imbalance of power and pressure to act a certain way around Defendant Elfman,” the suit said. “Plaintiff felt like she had no choice but to always comply with his requests, and Plaintiff felt this was a condition of their continued relationship.”

By 1998, the woman allegedly told Elfman she was looking to move to Los Angeles from New York, and she stayed at Elfman’s home for several weeks while looking for her own place. While living there, Elfman continued to expose himself to her, she alleges, and “on one occasion, he coerced Plaintiff to take off her clothes too, which she complied because she felt that she owed him a little more than just tolerating his nudity.”

In 2002, during a conversation, the woman claims that Elfman told her that he masturbated next to her every time she would sleep next to him, a claim that allegedly left the plaintiff “horrified and shocked.”

“Defendant Elfman further explained that he enjoyed watching her sleep and would masturbate to her, anytime and every time,” the suit said. “His fetish, which she did not consent to being a part of, required her to be sleeping.”

Their friendship abruptly ended after that conversation, the suit said. The woman had come forward with the suit after reading Rolling Stone’s initial article, the suit said.

Along with Elfman, the company De La Muerte was included as a defendant. The official listed causes of action are sexual assault, gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual harassment and negligence.

Paywalled, but apparently it's easy to copy the text.

Not to make light of this at all but how do you “groom” an adult in their 20s?

She is very clear about the exploitation of a power imbalance.

Yeah I thought groom was the wrong word (because by definition it refers to minors), but like it’s just a semantic flub of minuscule importance compared to the weight of the allegations here

not wanting to diminish elfman's pattern of sexual misconduct, but i missed the last revive and wanted to say some shit

sexual harassment, sexual assault, patriarchy, these aren't simply issues of individual Bad People doing Bad Things. geever was doing this shit for his whole career. i do think it's important to address that he did all of these things and didn't face accountability until this year.

so yeah, people look at the band and start arguing about how culpable they were. and these posts strike me as being... they get at the core of things

I'm guessing they suspected something uncouth was happening but they didn't know for sure and wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt

― frogbs

Guys in rock bands and teenage girls, the rest of the band probably just shook their heads and got on with playing the gigs.

― Monthly Python (Tom D.)

and for me, that's the core of it. you give people you know the benefit of the doubt. you just shrug and get on with things. what geever did was exceptionally bad. what his band did was... normal. that's normal behavior when confronted with this stuff. and it usually works to the benefit of cis white men, but it can happen whenever there's a power imbalance. someone in a position of power, if they do awful things, people will go along to get along, give powerful people the benefit of the doubt to a greater extent than they would give people who aren't powerful.

geever is the kind of person who would tell you that. tell you that to your face. i don't know whether he actually believed it when he said it or not. it doesn't matter. he said this stuff, these true things, and then acted in a way directly contrary to those things. people in position of power who say the right things... i think it's important to listen to what they say, but it's also important to watch what they do.

Not trying to make a parallel comparison exactly, but there have been enough serial killers doing the most vicious terrible shit imaginable while maintaining the facade of a typical quiet conservative seeming suburban dude with a wife and kids that we should recognize people can have a whole other shadow life that no one knows about. If someone is doing something wrong, either on the most hideous level imaginable or the more unfortunately banal and everyday, they will try to do it out of sight from others.

― omar little

because sure, a lot of times people want to hide in plain sight. but it's also true that people see what they want to see, a lot of times. there's this image... you know, it used to be that whenever a serial killer would get caught his neighbors would say "he seemed like such a nice, quiet man." that's not a reflection on him, that's a reflection on _them_, on _their_ cultural values, on what they _wanted_ as a next door neighbor. nowadays you wouldn't ask something like that, i mean, i haven't known my next door neighbors since i was 17. there's no expectation that you know your next door neighbors.

the people who maintain these facades... it kind of reminds me of walter white. i actually haven't seen any episodes of breaking bad. at some point though it becomes obvious that the dude is not right, doesn't it? that he's not right and has never been right. the tough question - and it _is_ a tough question, most of the time - is what to _do_ then. how long to let it go. how much benefit of the doubt to give a person.

and a lot of times we're afraid to speak up.

Um, not to be weird, but I know all of my neighbors— the people across the street, the people next door, the people a few doors down, the people on the other end of the block. Frankly the weird thing to me is not knowing one’s neighbors, but this is better for a different, perhaps new, thread.

sexual harassment, sexual assault, patriarchy, these aren't simply issues of individual Bad People doing Bad Things.

i don't think there was anyone arguing that it was just individuals? that seems pretty obvious