I don't know Amber Coffman. I think we probably have a few mutual friends, but we've never met. Even if I did know her, I could not say that I know for certain she's telling the truth when she says a music PR guy "rubbed my ass and bit my hair" against her wishes in a bar a few years ago. (She just revealed that in a series of tweets, and it's now a story being posted around Facebook.) I'm not accusing her of lying, not one bit, I'm just acknowledging that we're talking about something someone said on Twitter, not something that was proven beyond the shadow of a doubt in a court of law.
(read the story here http://pitchfork.com/news/63017-dirty-projectors-amber-coffman-best-coast-and-more-accuse-publicist-of-sexual-misconduct/)
That said, there's a reason I find it incredibly easy to believe, the same way it's very hard to see any bit of doubt in the case(s) against Bill Cosby, with his tens of accusers. (And not, as an alarming number of friends and people I look up to seem to believe, because he's a black celebrity I want to 'take down.') The reason is because I have observed this phenomenon in one form or another with basically every female artist I have worked with in my 15 years of professional music-making in New York; they probably number more than twenty-five, and I've heard about it first-hand from scores of other female colleagues and friends.
Let me quickly clear this up: none of this is to say that all my wondrous female performer friends shouldn't sleep with any and every older man in the business (or anyone else for that matter) who catches their eye; this is about not being able to do one's job (or pursue one's artistic dreams) without being bothered if not straight-up made to feel in danger by everyone from annoying nobodies to gatekeepers and idols.
Sexual harassment. Look, yes, it runs a range. At the very least, I have observed every female artist I have ever worked with receive comments (supposed 'compliments') about her appearance from fans, bandmates, bandleaders, clubowners, managers, producers, ""producers"" et al that go beyond just the minor offense of focusing on their looks rather than their art. They tend to be overly specific and creepy, or else some variant on 'You look so good that I'd like to...' There's often unwanted personal communication, like middle of the night texts from someone who's supposed to be booking gigs for them, or flowers with a winky card from the curator of a series. With older grandpa guys, there's a cheek kiss they try to turn into a kiss on the lips, an arm around the shoulders or hand on the back that stays there too long. Sometimes there's a weird, quasi-business-sounding 'you should come up to the Catskills sometime this summer,' or an overt 'we're going skinny-dipping this weekend, come join us!' Every so often it's just a 65-year-old man with power or perceived power in the 'industry' straight-up propositioning a young musician in her mid-twenties in the phony spirit of 'I'm from the 60s/70s, when attitudes were different.'
Attitudes have always been the exact same. Men try to use any power or status that comes their way to have sex with women who are younger, better-looking, more intelligent, more talented, and more interesting than they, and tend to do so in the rudest, most expedient, transactional way possible. This exists in every walk of life and every conceivable career and industry, but it feels especially rampant in the entertainment world because a) professional female entertainers are not taking their careers very seriously if they don't try to make themselves as attractive as they possibly can when they perform (so people are constantly seeing them in sexier clothing and more makeup than you'd expect to see your lawyer or dentist or head architect in,) b) quite often a vibrant flirtatiousness is (true to the style) 'part of the act,' (in cabaret, jazz, country, etc etc etc,) and people get confused and think they have the right to engage the performer in that arena the same way idiots think they can take a swing at Jason Statham in a bar because they saw him in an action movie, and c) there is no human resources department in the world of freelance art. If a veteran musician hires a woman to play a gig with him at a club and says lewd things to her or pinches her ass, there is no one to formally complain to, no one who's legally bound to then relieve him of his job, or allow her to walk off the job and still get paid. This kind of behavior is generally expected and accepted from major artists, and it's often played up as part of their persona; "oh, careful, sweetheart, he LOVES the ladies..."
It's also expected from the non-talent in the industry: bookers, agents, money men, venue owners etc etc etc, but in much less of a romantic sex, drugs, and rock n roll way and in much more of a 'guys with money and power think everything belongs to them' way. As someone who has played with these shiny entertainer women, been employed by them, hired them, and dated them, when I see this behavior, it makes me want to kill. Firstly, I just want my friends to be happy and comfortable and free of fear and the feeling of being objectified. Secondly, these are some of the greatest musicians and artists I know, and I find I'm ecstatically making (their) great music with them to the thrill of a big crowd one minute, and the next, I watch them take the $60-on-a-good-night it earned them and walk across the street in their 'show shoes' to try and get a taco from the truck, only to be tailed out there by the lectchy clubowner, the handsy freelance producer, or the middle-aged fan who comes to every show and always flirts while assuring her and everyone around her he's a 'harmless old man,' (or to be cat-called by some asshole who jumped off a garbage truck as she got out the club door.) This can absolutely shatter the amazing high of artistic accomplishment they were riding (which I would be allowed to hold onto in that moment,) and returns them to the role of a lone woman on the street who's got to be careful. No one deserves to be bothered that way when they're not initiating it, but to know what these particular women can do, hell, what they just did, and to know that everyone SHOULD be bothering them at that taco truck with a pure sentiment of "I love your music, thank you for playing it, you're incredible..." God damn it.
And so, each time this happens, I have ultra-violent fantasies that exceed the limits of both what I am physically capable of and what people will go through without going to the cops. But I know that punching and shoving and throwing down stairs would do nothing to change this old, tired situation, and would probably horrify my friend/bandmate/girlfriend in question, and most certainly be a case of me projecting a damsel in distress thing onto her that she wants no part of. So I swallow my anger, and support my friends in whatever way they think will help. But from now on, I am most certainly going to ask them to consider following the brave example of Amber Coffman. Sure, there are circumstances where things seem ambiguous, and you don't want to cause someone big problems for dubious reasons. But in situations like hers, where she was openly harassed by someone who had a reputation for that kind of behavior, I say go for it. Out him. Shame him. Make him famous for it. Because consequences like those are the only way this is going to get better.
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