Re: Burger Records in deep feces

Holy crap.

Details.

I've been to a Burger event at SXSW. I had no idea.

Seems like some shitty rock values (teenage girls = prey) just won't die.

Aw man, that sucks. Burger is such a great label , they’ve done as much as anyone to bring back good ol fun rock n roll. Always sucks when you find out shtty things about people you admire. Hope the new head will keep the rock rollin.

The new interim label head sent out a message late yesterday resigning - barely a day after bringing appointed. Not a good sign. I don’t see how the label can come back from this.

Only own one Burger Record, their Three O'Clock live album. When I went to their website to buy it, I saw a cover to one release that was only a tight shot of nude, female buttocks and got bad vibes that such a thing was happening in the 21st century. Now we might know why.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Have to admit I was totally oblivious to Burger Records before reading this.

Also have to admit to being oblivious to how something like this happens. Of course I can imagine one or several people being creeps, but a whole organization like that? Were they actively recruiting scum bags?

Maybe it’s like the hot dog analogy where you may enjoy the results of the music biz but you don’t want to know what went on behind the scenes to make it....?

It sounds like the whole label, with its physical record store and a live music festival, was a pretext to attract and groom teenage girls, at least as much as it was actually about music.

And those Burger fests looked so great. Never got around to schlepping all the way up to Oakland for one, but I had friends who did. Delvin went to one hosted by John Waters...and Traci Lords, who made her name as an underage porn star OH CRAP.

I attended a Burger Records SXSW showcase...last year? The year before? Great lineup, for the most part. Too bad about all this. I think this label is done - no amount of re-org is going to save it. A publicist I've worked with for years has a reunited 70s band about to release a live album on Burger, but the band promptly left the label after this news, making the promo CD he sent me a collector's item. Ditto all of this label's releases, now. Assuming they don't all get dumped on the market at once, too toxic to touch.

Yeah, I went to Burger Boogaloo in Oakland last year. John Waters has hosted regularly for quite a while now, I understand. The 2020 festival (featuring Bikini Kill, Circle Jerks, Plastic Bertrand et al) has been postponed twice now -- first till Halloween, then till next July. No word yet from the promoters, as to how this chain of events will affect ticket-holders (such as myself) for next year's event.

UPDATE: As of March 2021, Total Trash Productions has taken over the festival. They haven't settled on a name for the event yet, but you can bet your last dollar the new name won't include the word "Burger." No date for the upcoming festival either, although the lineup remains unchanged. Frankly, with the country just starting to ease out of pandemic/lockdown mode, I don't see how the new promoters expect to pull it off before fall.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2021 11:42AM by Delvin.

A thorough accounting of Burger's fall from grace, told by the women who experienced it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2021 02:45PM by Michael Toland.

Sadly, this predatory behavior by musicians towards teenage girls still seems to be going strong. Look at the allegations at indie R&B/pop singer Rhye that emerged over the past few days: [www.stereogum.com]. You may not be able to have a top 40 hit with a song like "Christine Sixteen" these days, but plenty of musicians are still living out the same attitude.

It’s funny (not funny ha-ha) to me that a lot of folks still think that “Christine Sixteen” attitude is something that old-time classic rockers or metalheads do, not supposedly inclusive and sensitive indie rockers.

They’re weren’t part of the Burger scene, but members of Real Estate and Cheap Girls (guess the clue was in the name) were exposed a few years ago as well, leading to the demise of the latter. And you don’t have to Google very hard to find horror stories about the Warped tour.

It’s past time to let a lot of rock values, both musical and philosophical, die. Predators will be predators, regardless of atmosphere. It’s very sad that rock of all types creates such a fertile ground for them.

It is incredible how many songs there are when you actually think about it. One of my favorite hair metal songs, Seventeen, by Winger is a perfect example. Ringo Starr You're 16. Maybe even Cigarette Daydreams by Cage the Elephant, although hard to tell on that one because he may have been 17. Only 16 by Sam Cooke and later even a creepier version by Dr. Hook. I hate to hear that about the Warped tours, went to a few of those when my flaming youth post college was starting to wear thin. The sheer number of drunk +? in the daylight teens was pretty alarming to me and I am a party kind of guy.

Amanda Petrusich wrote a very good essay about the allegations against Marilyn Manson which grapples with the fact that the "rock star" idea of rebellion actually bought into American norms about how men treat women: [www.newyorker.com]. It feels like there's been a lot of cultural reckoning with the ways celebrities have abused their power sexually in the 4 years since the #metoo movement took off - as well as how female celebrities have been treated like crap; look at the response to FRAMING BRITNEY - although I wonder how far it's possible to disentangle the positive and negative energies that often come with the impulse to make music and try to get the world to pay attention to you.