#3: everything is rotten

on celebrity, gatekeeping, power, and the abuse thereof.

If you know me, you might suspect that this week’s newsletter might be about the Burger Records shutdown. And it is, sort of. But it’s not about Burger per se. While deeply reprehensible, the varying levels of sexual violence—the grooming of teenage girls, many sexual assaults from groping to rape—aren’t Burger-specific. They’re part of the music industry writ large.

Everyone knows it. It’s out there, it’s been written about ad infinitum (I’ve written plenty about it, and my own missives are the tiniest drop in the tiniest ocean). It’s the subject of songs and interviews. (Part of the whole rock n’ roll mystique, right?) It happens at the smallest scale, in local DIY scenes, and at the largest, at the top of the charts. Sometimes the people abused are chart-topping artists themselves. Most always, the producers and other executives responsible for that abuse go on about their days. It always catches in my throat when I see festivals booking bands that we’ve been through the whole callout cycle with, and sometimes people who claim not to condone abuse on the same bill. Have we not gone through this? 

It happens in music journalism, too. Of course it does; it happens everywhere. But in an industry where being fucked up after hours (and sometimes on the job) is de rigueur, an industry which doesn’t have just the power dynamics problems of any workplace but also butts up against the architecture of fame, the problems are particularly acute. There are many ways to have power here—to be a celebrity or micro-celebrity, to have the ability to lift someone to celebrity or micro-celebrity level—and where such a structure exists, there will be those who abuse the power given to them, especially if such abuse is normalized, and there are few consequences. Every once in a while, a rotten person—or, in the case of Burger, scene—will be toppled by the force of outcry. But the system will keep on keepin’ on.

It’s an odd thing to go from a person with no power at all to one who holds a small amount. In punk, it came through booking shows, putting out records, being in bands (albeit none of them particularly big). It also happened because I stuck around long enough, and because I wrote, which conferred upon me the power to hype people up, to get them attention. I didn’t do any of this in the service of acquiring power; I did it because I love music and was deeply invested in the community. (I still am, though not to the degree I was—I think that’s just hitting 40 for you. Still yelling in a band, but shows aren’t my entire social world any longer—they can’t be right now, anyway—and I like to sit on the couch for longer and longer stretches.) 

This got me noticed by mainstream music journalism, and wow, it felt incredible to write and feel recognized for it not just as a hobbyist, by my friends and family, but a Serious Writer. A writer! I always wanted to be a writer, but never felt it was achievable. And all of a sudden, it was. It was, because other people who had power pulled me up. They did this because they thought that I was good at what I did, but they had power over me, at that time. And now, I am in their position, trying to follow their lead and use the power I have to pull people up, too. I am trying to use my power responsibly, but I would rather the structure that confers it on me not exist. I would rather power not be individual, but collective.

What would it feel like to make music without the architecture of celebrity, even micro-celebrity? Even musicians who have eschewed the spotlight purposefully end up mythical, sometimes partially because of that. What would it feel like to write about music without market commoditization being a part of the equation? Every time I get a PR email with metrics like numbers of streams, numbers of followers on different platforms, I feel so sad, like This is not what makes music good, or relevant—but to some degree, even those of us who try to Do Things Right as best we can, without the zeitgeist driving us, are engaged in capitalist exchange. We are all, DIY or not, good intentions and good practices or not, Movin’ Units. 

And so the system that invites sexual assault continues. Where there is power to be abused, it will be. There are things we can do to make it all safer, of course, while we still live under capitalism. You shouldn’t wait for a callout to do any of them. There are harm reduction practices around alcohol and drug use; if you’re going to be out with coworkers drinking and/or using, there are ways to get people home safely, to look out for one another. There shouldn’t be so much industry pressure to get fucked up, either, and it shouldn’t be entertaining when someone is. There should be checks and balances implemented at magazines and labels and so forth (no one person holds the keys, and so forth), and we should all work together on building a culture of accountability (some of us have been trying!). Old boys’ club shit has to go. (Never another Kim Fowley; never another Shane Smith. Please?) 

Companies have to stop viewing sexual violence as a cost of doing business, for which there is litigation money set aside, and start viewing it as a moral issue. Corporate culture, even in the swinging entertainment industry, asks not whether a rapist being employed is a moral issue, but a financial one. This is why callouts that hit a certain level of attention on social media work, like the Burger one—because they hit the bottom line. They’re bad for business. And we should think about who we look up to, and who holds power, and what qualities got them there. Capitalism, as we all know, rewards sociopathic behavior. There should be standard consequences for abuse of power, and there should not be rewards. Not because it’s going to cost the company or institution, but because it is the right goddamned thing to do. These are priorities set at the organizational level. (Will this happen? I wish I was not as cynical as I am, but hey, I’ve been around the block a few times. This stuff has to be set by the people at the very top, and the people at the very top don’t care. But it’s something to think about, and should at least be noted: when someone asks how do we stop all this, that is how.)

Those of us who have power, even small amounts of it, should think all the time about what that means, and how we can be responsible in everything we do. Nobody is unimpeachably cool; nobody is beyond critique. Nobody is beyond responsibility to others. We need to keep tabs on the voices in our heads that say It is nice to feel validated, it is nice that people see me as valuable, it is nice to be Somebody, even a Small-Scale Somebody. It does feel nice to be valued, and that is an important human need. But when the drive to be validated by others overrides all other moral concerns, lives are destroyed.

I’m not going to list any music recommendations here. That’ll resume next week. There are feds coming to my city. Maybe they’re already in yours, or they’re coming to yours too. Let’s look out for one another at every level, k? K.