can't believe ilx has no lostprophets thread

King of the syrupy duet

Tbf, the tour manager didn't do the mis-spelling..

Also, spot on what he said.

I'm really surprised that nobody has made mention of the fact that one of the last bands to support Lostprophets before Watkins was arrested were the very young all-girl band Cherri Bomb, whose guitarist would have only been about 15 or something at the time. Christ, if only they'd known eh?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaXCkRS2j5Q

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/29/lostprophets-removed-hmv-ian-watkins

HMV's decision reflects the gravity of Watkins' crimes. It is unusual for a major retailer to entirely remove an artist's catalogue, even after a major conviction: HMV continue to sell records by Gary Glitter, Burzum and Charles Manson.

suspect "HMV's decision reflects their interest in sidestepping flaming-torch Twitter campaigns for the sake of a band who no-one is going to buy albums by anyway" might be more accurate

theres also the possible need to avert a ratm style xmas chart entry SCANDAL where all 2396 tru believer lostprophet fans alongside some bantz kids get them into the top 75

They'll just have to settle for Gary Glitter's 'Rock'N'Roll parts 1 & 2' instead then.

find it hard to believe 15 yr old girls in that scene wouldnt have already known him a lecherous creep though, even if that was maybe the first couple of milimetres of the iceberg

Can't believe the Guardian mentioned Burzum before an ILXor could

Finding it hard to credit that HMV is stocking Charles Manson albums atm

They're going big on A Very Manson Christmas: 20 Family Favourites.

They never have them when I ask for them

If anyone's near an HMV today can they go in and ask for Burzum, Manson, Glitter and a Polanski box set?

Was reading Neil Young's book recently and he had quite favourable words for Charlie's musical skills.

They're not confusing them with Mansun, are they?

This was a half-decent read too: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/charles-manson-today-the-final-confessions-of-a-psychopath-20131121

xpost

I saw some of Hitler's paintings, they're a bit rub but he's still better than me at painting.

But that's not the point, right?

Manson's a much better singer than me, but my guitar playing is better

i'm definitely a finer batsman than chairman mao zedong

lol

deems is prob a better striker than marlon king. or at least in and around the same level.

striker of footballs sure

a rain shall come

Yah mo school Lavrentii Beria at Sensible Soccer

The woman who initially reported Watkins a few years back was on This Morning today, apparently.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/nov/29/ian-watkins-art-sins-artist

http://news.sky.com/story/1176015/lostprophets-angry-disgusted-at-ian-watkins

Even as I've been writing this paragraph, a new tweet has appeared: "Did I just see a hashtag #IanWatkinsIsInnocent WTFFFFFFFFFFF"

expanded quote for context

Such was the level of vitriol aimed at Watkins that earlier this week, entirely accidentally, the hashtag ianwatkinsisinnocent started trending on Twitter. In fact, no one had been tweeting his innocence: the hashtag was coined by fans a year ago, when he was first charged. It began trending because people searching Twitter for Ian Watkins found it coming up in their searches, and leapt in to condemn the coinage. Even as I've been writing this paragraph, a new tweet has appeared: "Did I just see a hashtag #IanWatkinsIsInnocent WTFFFFFFFFFFF"

Sorry about this

http://scontent-a-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1477499_10152062219862673_2145596369_n.jpg

ok, that's almost funny

Don't want to do too much amateur analysis as the case is so fucked up.

However, I am wondering if the women giving him their children to abuse has something to do with a certain kind of fandom specific to LPs genre?

I was explaining to someone yesterday how LP weren't a 'fuck fuck fuck kill everyone with a gun' type of rock band (who you might 'expect' to be real sickos, maybe, whatever) but rather a 'Sometimes I feel so insecuuuuuuuuuuuure' type of rock band (and maybe to find the real sicko over in this genre instead was 'surprising', maybe, whatever).

Watkins, like a lot of lead singers in this genre – 'emo' is probably inaccurate but covers similar types - is supposed to be a 'voice' or 'leader' for the depressed fans, someone who understands them. That's a different relationship to the one where fans just think of their favourite band as 'cool' or 'great', right?

If this specific type of fandom exists, and these women had that relationship to him, maybe that's how he was able to convince them. It seems like it would be a magnet for vulnerable people.

This also requires adults to still be fans in a very teenage way, of course. But 'emo' (again not an accurate genre label but it's the closest I know to whatever LP are) is a scene that people stick with in quite a frighteningly serious way, well into adulthood

"Don't want to do too much amateur analysis as the case is so fucked up."

should've ended your post there.

The other element to consider is that whereas in LP's heyday (which was 00-05, IIRC) in provincial British youth music culture there were two definite 'sides'. Numetal/pop punk/emo/similar, VS garage/hardcore/r'n'b/hip hop.

But then the numetal type stuff was very quickly killed off by arrival of Strokes type indie and lots of bands whose names started with 'The'. So the rough aesthetic constellation that Lostprophets were part of suddenly shrunk to a footnote. British nu-metal being an offshoot of a big American trend, that just got chucked out in favour of a new one.

It's odd to notice that some people are still into nu-metal and emo in 2013: what if that scene's dwindled to a hard core of fans, who are the only people who would take LP/Watkins seriously? You've got the makings of a cult situation there – perhaps.

But like I said. Amateur analysis, and it all feels distasteful given the severity of the abuse. I'm leaving it here in case my ramblings about provincial British youth culture can get us any closer to working out how this kind of thing happens.

jim in glasgow, yeah you're right, but I wanted to say something more than just how terrible it all is. By all means point out idiocies in my posts – I don't offer the above with any kind of authority, just trying to make sense of it all.

There are every year in Britain numerous cases of men persuading women to let them abuse their children. Most of them are not rock stars, or rich, or famous.

yeah but what about all of the landfill indie bands who don't try to rape babies, thus lending support to cardamon's theory

But imagine being part of a scene even less valuable than landfill indie – that wd take some dedication and among these fans (besides a majority of totally healthy ppl who just really like a bygone genre of music increasingly cut off from current trends) one might expect to find some people who were so invested that it constitutes a vector for extremely abusive relationships with other, higher status, members of that scene

the codefendants in this place let him rape their children, why are you treating them like ingenues induced into transgressive behaviour rather than psychopaths in their own right?

CASE oy

if only these women would have heard arcade fire

There is a possible analogue with Polanski if you replace the world of one specific music fandom with the world of 'the film world': both men have positions of power and status, in a demi-monde isolated from the rest of society

cardamon - your cultural studies analysis is clumsy and inelegant at best

the codefendants in this place let him rape their children, why are you treating them like ingenues induced into transgressive behaviour rather than psychopaths in their own right?

Not attempting to downplay the latter part. But do we know what the balance was, between him and them, i.e, do we know yet to what extent he induced them? And again, say they needed no inducement and they are just that type of psychopath, how did they end up interacting with Watkins specifically, instead of the abuse happening in some other context

if you analogize it with something as nebulous and wide as 'the film world' you lose whatever tendentious argument you had with respect to the specific dynamics of the provincial british emo-metal-trash scene

Michael B, point me in the direction of some good studies of abusers and I will read them. I was under the impression that there's a fairly common pattern where, as I said, abusers 'have positions of power and status, in a demi-monde isolated from the rest of society'.

Whiney, you know that's not what I'm saying

I mean I dunno if we were talking about Charles Manson we'd talk about the world he moved in, and ask if answers could be found there?

*some of the answers

seeking the cause of something that happens across all barriers of age, class, gender and sexuality in a specific socio-cultural milieu looks like a fool's errand. as to why people commit these crimes - it may have some interest to us if it could provide useful evidence in the search for means to prevent future crimes. beyond that, i think it's irrelevant why somebody chooses to abuse a child. it's not an act that admits of mitigation.

Do you see my posts itt as arguing for mitigation?

I think that when we are confronted by the extreme fringes of human depravity (the subject of evil) it is natural to try and understand said events however clumsy, even if it helps no one but our own psychological relief. Cardamon: mine and our Arendt.