Remember last year?

Samstag, 16. Oktober 2021 | Sonstiger Scheiß

Sor­ry folks, mir ist ge­ra­de ein­fach nicht da­nach, die­sen Bei­trag zu über­setz­ten. Der soll­te ei­gent­lich nur ein Fe­di­ver­se-Post sein, aber dann dach­te ich, dass der ei­gent­lich auch hier rein ge­hört.

Um… so there's a new Es­cape-ism re­cord out and the si­tua­ti­on around last year's awk­ward self-can­cel­la­ti­on of Ian Sve­non­i­us is still mur­ky as fuck.

Quick re­fres­her: Last year, around the time when it be­ca­me known that the Ca­li­for­nia ga­ra­ge la­bel and re­cord store Bur­ger Re­cords had be­en a hot­bed for se­xu­al pre­da­tors and creeps for ye­ars at that point, rei­gini­ting the dis­cus­sion around se­xism and pre­da­to­ry be­ha­vi­or in the punk sce­ne (al­so lea­ding Bur­ger Re­cords to cea­se ope­ra­ti­ons so­on af­ter), Wa­shing­ton D.C. sce­ne le­gend Ian Sve­non­i­us (of Na­ti­on of Ulys­ses, The Make-Up, Weird War, Chain and the Gang, Es­cape-Ism, XYZ…) did a weird kind of self-can­cel­la­ti­on post on in­sta­gram, ad­mit­ting to pre­da­to­ry or at least very cree­py be­ha­vi­or towards wo­men in the past and apo­lo­gi­zing for it, then de­le­ting the who­le thing so­on af­ter.

The re­ac­tions we­re va­ried. Mer­ge Re­cords seem to have gai­ned so­me deeper know­ledge about the ac­cu­sa­ti­ons and de­e­med them se­ve­re en­ough to se­ver ties wi­th Ian Sve­non­i­us.
Di­sch­ord Re­cords, on the other hand, who should al­so know a thing or two, are still working wi­th him, kee­ping his old re­cords in print and in-stock. The new Es­cape-ism re­cord, while not a Di­sch­ord re­lease, is be­ing sold via the Di­sch­ord Re­cords web­site right now. No clue how to in­ter­pret that co­ming from a la­bel that has be­en so well known for their strong ethics in the past.

I'm just gon­na say, the who­le si­tua­ti­on stinks. It's be­en over a year and we know pret­ty much not­hing about what was hap­pe­ning around Ian Sve­non­i­us. As a fan, mu­sic blog­ger, web­cas­ter, i am espe­ci­al­ly con­flic­ted. What kind of per­son am i sup­port­ing if i buy his re­cords? Can i still ju­s­ti­fy pos­ting his stuff? Should i re­mo­ve all of his mu­sic from 12XU Ra­dio?

At first, i re­al­ly wan­ted to gi­ve Ian Sve­non­i­us the be­ne­fit of the doubt. It see­med li­ke he was ac­tual­ly fee­ling re­mor­se for his ac­tions (their se­ve­ri­ty still be­ing unknown) and so­me du­de ac­tual­ly apo­lo­gi­zing, be­ing ho­nest about it and wil­ling to work th­rough his shit would have ac­tual­ly felt kin­da re­fres­hing at that point.

In­s­tead, it looks to me li­ke the punk sce­ne has coll­ec­tively agreed to sho­ve the who­le thing un­der the rug, not de­mand any ans­wers and mo­ve on as if not­hing ac­tual­ly ever hap­pen­ed. On­ce again, ever­yo­ne gets the si­lence tre­at­ment. I think that's the worst pos­si­ble way to go about this. This. Sucks. So. Much.