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Jalal Kaiser Raja's avatar

I was so surprised at which subscription would be sending me this article when I read the email subject, and then I made a brand new surprised face when I saw it was from here. Then I laughed! Then I grimaced! Then I pondered. This is genuinely thought provoking. I think concerts for shady people is weird - even for mega popstars, this is weird. Inauthentic and strange just on a human level. Then, with the things their fanbases say to defend them, the mistakes of these people mold the morality of masses.

The unticketed thing might be a big non-issue though.

Also I'm going to take this opportunity to say that one of the reasons I hold this band in my heart and head above all else is the sincere humanness and authenticity that you guys have shown for so many years. My adult life was just starting when I started listening to you and I've always had this sort of example of two people just being good fun humans and doing what they love and making it work without any of the strange sellout strategies which are so recommended to every person trying to make it these days. It seems a bit crazy to say "I'm fine doing what I'm doing because I like what I do" in the face of corporations, leaders, and now even pop stars telling you to hustle every which way until you die, and so in that ocean of desperate work ethics and actions, I've always liked that we have We Are Scientists.

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Regular Miles's avatar

I feel like there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with playing corporates because artists need money for food and shelter but there is something fundamentally wrong with musicians providing positive press and entertainment for ie. homophobes, dictators, etc - and I agree that collapsing the two very distantly connected things into one issue is not helpful.

I also think with ticketing companies and venue ownership being what it is, artists are probably playing for companies whose values do not align with their own in small ways a lot more often than they’d like and I don’t hugely judge anyone for that because there’s not really a way out of it - if you can afford to only play DIY shows at anarchist house parties that’s cool but it makes your music immediately much less accessible to a lot of fans.

It’s nice when artists you like have good politics and shout about it and if that dissuades people with bad politics from going to their shows that can help foster a nicer experience and environment for everyone there - but again, you need to already be in a comfortable position to be able to turn down the money of people who like your songs but you wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with.

Still, all that said, I don’t think you guys should have played that party for Orphanage Crushers Inc marking their thousandth orphanage destroyed, not cool.

(PS: Great show in Birmingham last night, death to capitalism, long live We Are Scientists)

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