Was that from Cassandra?

Hi,

She finally had time to write a statement about this and hopefully it explains where the design came from:

"I was asked to write a statement concerning the video I made for the band sex stains. I say this because I don't believe any artist should ever be required to explain themselves (freedom of expression is at the crux of creativity and inventiveness) let alone face persecution, harassment or even death threats, all of which I have encountered the last couple of weeks. That being said, any ideas I believe in concerning creative integrity weigh very little in comparison to the very serious and heinous crimes that we are dealing with today. Let me make this very clear. I do not promote violence or harm in anyway against any human being. I was in no way representing any symbol or image other then the design itself , what is commonly referred to as an 80's vector pattern. more over, the band Sex Stains had no involvement in the creation of the images included in the video "Land of La La". Iv included a lot of the images I used as visual reference guides when creating the video, but I also encourage you to google "80's vector patterns" where you will find triangles, spirals, squares, circles, squiggly lines etc. You can clearly see that I used many geometric designs and patterns in the video, not just triangles and spirals. In fact I had absolutely no idea that that symbol ever had a specific meaning attached to it prior to the band alerting me of this controversy. I hope this clears up any confusion concerning the interpretations of the art I have created. "

Vigilia,

Thank you for listening to what I have to say.

What is "Producers Library"? Where are you seeing that? I've never heard of it. Does it have something to do with the video or is it a general music industry thing?

Joe

Absolutely don't take the video down. Several of us were censored and had to move here. If its intended to be what many think, then that's sucks. But removing the vid won't make it not have happened. Do. Not. Censor. Yourself.

Hi,

It might take me some time to get up to your speed on this whole this. Most of this came to my attention just before thanksgiving and I am still spending it with my family. As I type this my mother and sister are in the other room and my child is sleeping. I basically did enough reading before coming here only to figure out why people were harassing me over one of our youtube videos. And honestly, after seeing the similarities, I do understand why people wanted to know more. I am just also hoping that knowing more they were realize this isn't really part of the thing and can move on and we can go back to our lives.

1) I know a lot about Sex Stains and feel comfortable answering almost any questions you would have about them. I know very little about Comet Ping Pong in general. But I know a fair amount about the bands that play there. It is one of many rooms of that size booked in DC by music promoters. So sometimes bands I know or on the label play there, sometimes they play other rooms, and then most of the time they have bands there I've never even heard of. But as someone who works in music, I understand how this kind of stuff works. Sometimes our bands play coffee shops or burrito places even for example, and the coffee shop/Mexican restaurant has almost nothing to do with it. this just how being in a small band works. The owner doesn't even always take a cut and usually just lets someone use the room because they know people will come to the concert and hopefully order food or drinks. The shows at these place are small. They may bring in just hundreds of dollars a night to share with 3-4 bands + the promoter which is why sometimes the places don't even take a cut. That said, I don't know anything about the agreement or how it works with Comet Ping Pong specifically or if they take a cut or not, just that the room is booked by a promoter, not the owner.

2) Sex Stains got involved through a promoter booking them there, which now that this is all being investigated seems like awful luck since if they had been booked into a room like the black cat downstairs that night of the same size no one would be harassing them. I said this somewhere else, but bands don't get to ask what room they play in on tour and rarely even have opinions, promoters deal with that and it has to do with what rooms are available that night.

As for the art/imagery involved in the punk bands that play there, I wrote this earlier: "I'll just add to that too, because truly the only thing I can help shed any light on related to this whole thing just has to do with music and bands work, not pizza, sex trafficking or politics work, is that I really wouldn't read too much into bands names or imagery in the punk community. While I personally do not agree with this mentality, there is a general mentality in many parts of punk to try to be as offensive and vulgar as possible as a way to essentially celebrate freedom of speech and push its boundaries. While I am a huge free speech proponent, I personally tend find this stuff immature and somewhat offensive (though I believe they have the right to say it). So its true, that I would probably be very offended by a band with a name that alluded to child sex trafficking, it would be because i was offended that they were making light of a serious issue, not because i believed they were involved in it."

3) No, but this may also be something I can help clear up in general. It's not like a chuck e cheese where people sit around eating pizza and watching bands play. There is a full dining area, and then in the back there is ping pong tables. Late at night after children would be in bed they move the ping pong tables and bands play in that area. People probably wouldn't be allowed to enter the show part till closer to 9pm and then Sex Stains wouldn't go on until around midnight, so I would be a much worse parent for letting my kid stay up that late and exposing them to the loud noise than I would be because the band had a provocative name. There are many venues small bands play like this across the country, one that used to be by me was called Maxwells in Hoboken, NJ where there was a really good restaurant in the front and then there would be concerts in the back. People would come to the restaurant just to eat not knowing there was a concert and people would come to the concerts not realizing they could eat there (unless it wasn't their first time). So if people are getting images if like a 3 year old having a birthday party and then provocative punk bands playing profane music, I wouldn't really be supportive of that kind of thing either (though I also wouldn't assume it meant the bands were out to hurt kids).

Joe

He didn't name the band. It isn't his band.

Anything that I can do to help! As for the second part of that though, just be aware that I have like 40 bands on the label playing all across the country during the course of a year and almost never know where they are playing even if we send posters to the promoters there. I just get a list of addresses and the posters go out in the mail by machine. Bands will often talk to each other about where they should and should not play in cities, though they don't always have a choice. I can honestly say though that I hadn't heard anything bad about Comet Ping Pong as a venue until your investigation started.

I tried to explain above why I find the harassment worrying. I don't find the investigation of us and the band worrying at all, because like I said, we are innocent.

As for explaining the image you posted, that is what I came here to try to explain and what I shared in my post which you said you didn't even read, here is that part:

"When someone told me that there was symbol for pedophelia in one of our videos I was horrified. Even if it was unintentional since i don't think most non-pedophiles are aware of those symbols (I certainly wasn't till someone linked me to the FBI document because of its supposed connection with the video), I wouldn't want it showing up in the video. But when I looked at the symbol in the document and the one in the video they really didn't seem all that similar. In an email I wrote someone else it would be like the difference between an "M" and an "N" or something. There are similarities, but they have different amounts of lines in different directions and thus have different symbolic meaning. This site I am on right now (Voat) seems to have a blue triangle for a logo, for example. I doubt it is part of this whole (though if people feel its worth investigating, then maybe it is)."

Joe, one thing you need to bear in mind here is that this isn't exactly the centre of investigating this, and so far as we know publicly there is no official investigation either. It could be where most of the work is being done, but my point is that people are talking about this far and wide by now, not your situation specifically but the matter at hand.

Trolls are trolls, I wouldn't be at all surprised if you and your artists get flak for years now as a result. Thus, it doesn't matter what people do here - we could come to say "yeah, this guy put across a very good defence and it is our conclusion that the label and band have nothing at all to do with this issue" or that "somebody else put the logo in the video in full knowing of what it meant, but the label and band were oblivious to that and saw it as a simple twirl in the deco".

Idiots will come to idiotic conclusions and there is jack either you or we can do about that. Such is life I guess.

Nonetheless, you are doing the right thing here by placing on record where the label (and presumably the artist) stands on the matter. At least if the media started to look at it then they'd see what you've wrote and probably back you up and that would be far more important than what a few trolls think or say.

just the one question who put the logo/symbol in the sex stain video ? you aware it is symbol associated with pedophilia its keeps on coming up in the investigation. The symbol is known to the FBI as to what pedophiles use to communicate with each other as pedophile friendly http://www.snopes.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Intel_Bulletin_Pedophile_Symbols.png

You have nothing to worry about if you're not involved.

No, there is plenty "to worry about if you're not involved". On another thread, a member of Heavy Breathing's work info is being posted and people are being encouraged to call and try to get her fired.

There is literally zero proof of her being involved in any crime whatsoever, there are just a lot of people who don't like her sense of humor.

I fully appreciate that and have witnessed that exact same thing to be true within our own community. I wasn't saying that you should blindly trust me because we have worked to fight sexual assault in the past. I was saying that because we have, that people come to us and our bands looking for solace, and thus that seeing all these nasty hateful comments on our pages when looking for comfort is damaging to them. I will just reiterate again, I really have no problem with you investigating us and our bands, because there is nothing to hide, you just need to stop the harassment which isn't part of the investigation.

Tyler is very successful though and makes a lot of money and probably. I'm sure it is a lot easier to walk away. For me and our bands this stuff is very direct. It's also very scary. The singer of sex stains has literally spent her entire life fighting against sexual assault in the punk community and is extremely well known for that, its not her first band, there are books about punk with sections about her and her work in that regard. So seeing that kind of thing is deeply upsetting and would bother the exact type of people that come to her music looking for support. Our label occupies a similar role. I have a two year old who I work hard to protect from many scary things like this. My wife and I don't even put pictures of her on the internet anywhere other than private groups. We are scared when we get these mass levels of harassing comments, especially about child exploitation.

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that myself and the bands on our label are basically on your level as far as power goes here. Were not rich, we don't have anything or anyone to hide behind, and this stuff scares us. We don't have protection that someone like Tyler the Creator who made that tweet could afford to hire. We live our lives out in the open just like you do. We aren't part of society's elite even if our bands play at the same building that they frequent. The elites who you believe are involved probably also have some kind of cleaning staff who come in and clean their places. I would doubt they are involved in this whole thing either even if there is a blue triangle on one of their brooms or mops. The bands that play comet at the janitors, not the power brokers. We fight against power just like you. We fight for freedom just like you. But we do it with our music.

I appreciate hearing that, and like I tried to say, any interactions I've had like this via email with people in your group are also very kind and just seem to have questions. At the same time though, like I said, during those interactions this band and then now me and the label are being harassed for what seems like no reason. It took me a while to even figure out what was going on honestly since I didn't really know anything about the pizza thing.

Here is something I had sent someone privately via email who was discussing it with me, which is advice for your general investigation:

"As for whatever is going on with Comet Ping Pong, I don't really know enough about the controversy to even try to comment on it. But I can tell you as someone that works with many artists and has played in bands themselves, that when a band is on a national tour like Sex Stains was (they are from LA and that venue is in DC) they have very little say or even knowledge of the places they are playing. Where bands play on tour usually just has to do with what spaces promoters are able to find available that night. It is often the case that a venue will have a very bad reputation for one reason or another, not usually as extreme as this, but for something like not paying the bands properly or the owner being a drug dealer or something, and bands don't even know about it till they show up. So I would be careful about reading too much into the type of bands and names of bands etc. that play the venue, especially if they are nationally touring bands because most just play wherever the promotor is able to book them."

I'll just add to that too, because truly the only thing I can help shed any light on related to this whole thing just has to do with music and bands work, not pizza, sex trafficking or politics work, is that I really wouldn't read too much into bands names or imagery in the punk community. While I personally do not agree with this mentality, there is a general mentality in many parts of punk to try to be as offensive and vulgar as possible as a way to essentially celebrate freedom of speech and push its boundaries. While I am a huge free speech proponent, I personally tend find this stuff immature and somewhat offensive (though I believe they have the right to say it). So its true, that I would probably be very offended by a band with a name that alluded to child sex trafficking, it would be because i was offended that they were making light of a serious issue, not because i believed they were involved in it.

My label and the bands involved, like Sex Stains, and truly most of the bands that would play a room as small as the one at Comet Ping Pong do not make any money and do not have any money. Many are barely scraping by with money from day jobs making coffee and stuff like that. So I would also try to keep that in mind too. If you are trying to make an argument that there are these power brokers out there covering up huge scandals, like I said earlier, I do believe that happens. But it would be a joke to think myself or any of the bands involved at this scale are power brokers. If anything is really happening, they are just caught up in it because of where the DC promoter booked them on their tour.