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On November 21, 2017, at the height of the turning point, the #MeToo, Hall movement wrote a surprisingly long text message on Pinegrove's Facebook page, acknowledging that he had been "accused of sexual coercion". The statement described a "short but intense" relationship with an anonymous woman, and her apologetic but defensive tone, especially when Hall was trying to rationalize behavior by noting, "I thought all of our decisions were based on love." Following his opaque chronicle of the relationship, he also wrote that he had once said that he "could feel who from the crowd would be interested in sleeping with me on how they have me." watched the play. "The statement ended seriously -" I've never felt remorse like that before "- but it raised a monumental number of troubling questions and answered little.
After publishing the statement, Hall did not divert the responsibility. In accordance with the wishes of the alleged victim, which were communicated to Pinegrove through a mediator, the group began a one-year hiatus during his tours. Hall entered therapy. skylight has been set apart. A group that in the past gave priority to clear and open communication became completely silent.
The mediator clarified that in this case the alleged sexual coercion took the form of "verbal and contextual pressure" and that "the accusation was not at all physical in nature". The alleged victim asked him to remain anonymous in public. speech and refused to talk with me on the record for this piece.
Hall's statement was just the beginning of a story that has persisted this year in the search for new ways to get rid of it. As an April report of TURN revealed, the statement and the ensuing repercussions were caused by a series of e-mails from the Philadelphia-based Punk Talks organization, which claims to connect tour musicians and music industry workers with a free therapy. Their motto: "You must not be sad to make good music".
Sheridan Allen, 27, founded Punk Talks in 2015, after receiving a Bachelor of Social Work and Sociology from Northern Kentucky University, where she also took classes in domestic violence and forensic interviewing. On November 14, 2017, Allen sent Pinegrove's label, Run for Cover, as well as promoters of a Cleveland, Ohio, festival called Snowed In, which the group was scheduled to perform on November 25th. Allen wrote that she had been moved to speak with an alleged victim of Hall, with whom she had connected via social media. "In the wave of influential people called to adopt dangerous behaviors," she wrote, "I've been contacted today about Pinegrove."
Allen then described Hall's "predatory and manipulative behavior towards women attending Pinegrove shows and the women he was sexually involved with." She stated that the alleged victim was "NOT THE FIRST". She shared her belief, "as a mental health professional," that Hall should "pull out of music for intensive treatment." She noted that the cancellation of the Pinegrove tour would be almost impossible without making a public statement. Although she did not specify who was to write such a statement. Allen offered to speak to Hall herself and also suggested that Punk Talks could offer him "rehabilitation services".
But even sending this initial email to the label and developers at Pinegrove, Allen may have been pushing his limits. If Allen's mission was to facilitate the treatment of mental disorders, then, as one chartered therapist said, it would be unusual to "provide this service and participate in these unofficial accountability processes." community accountability process. "It would be incompatible with the mission [of a mental health provider] to approach this person and to say to him: "You are a perpetual," the therapist tells me. "If a therapist engages in restorative work, it would be extremely confidential. Everyone would agree to participate.
Two days after Allen's email, in an internal update sent to the Punk Talks team, she wrote that if Pinegrove did not turn away for Hall to enter therapy, "the initial victim and another victim identified to support 10000% ". She added, "I hope you will be with me on this, it is not an easy task to work directly to dismantle the biggest indie group right now and I am very tired. Allen dropped these comments on Twitter, writing that "Punk Talks" are not and will never be in the business of "dismantling" groups, it was a bad choice of words and not an indication of the work we are doing. )
Allen had approached his efforts from many angles. According to Snowed In's promoter, Cory Hajde, Allen first contacted him to tell him vaguely that someone was going there "fainting Evan". He was considering removing Pinegrove from the festival, but without details keeping the group because they were in a contract. Allen continued. Hajde stated that she had then offered the band members to participate in Pinegrove's Adult Mom and Saintseneca tour about the allegations to cancel the concerts. Hajde refused to intervene. "I think she felt like she had something to gain, which was very odd," Hajde said. "I felt intimidated by the way she spoke to me throughout the process."
Steph Knipe, who plays the role of adult mom, is a queer feminist voice of confidence in underground music. Knipe said they had received an Allen text a week before their planned tour with Pinegrove, warning them of a problem with the tour but offering little details. "She put me in a strange position," Knipe said. "Many people, including myself, do not have the tools to know how to handle situations like this. I had the impression that Sheridan was a licensed therapist, social worker or counselor. Sheridan – coming from [Punk Talks], saying, "I am trained to cope with this situation," fundamentally abused this security, which made it doubly confusing and difficult. When I got this text, I thought to myself, "Oh my god, that's exactly what we need in a situation like this – it's going to be okay!" their dates with Pinegrove after speaking directly with the alleged victim.
Saintseneca arrived at their decision in the same way, according to the leader of the group, Zac Little. The same alleged victim, who knew a member of Saintseneca, contacted the group to say that she had been sexually forced by Hall. "We took this seriously and decided to withdraw from the tour," said Little. The next morning, Adult Mom and Saintseneca fell, just a week after the first email from Allen – Hall released his statement; Pinegrove canceled the tour.
But it turned out that the alleged victim did not want his allegations to be made public. "Sheridan Allen did a lot of things without my knowledge, without support or permission regarding the Pinegrove situation, even after I asked him to withdraw completely from the situation," she wrote in a statement. TURN earlier this year. "I never asked him to ask or require any type of declaration from Pinegrove or Run for Cover. I never said or suggested to Sheridan that I wanted to "cut down" Pinegrove. Allen inserted herself in several ways, she continued, "without my knowledge or consent."
When I arrived at Allen by e-mail – she refused to be interviewed by phone – she said that she knew the victim wanted the situation to remain private, which is why she sent an email to Evan or Pinegrove. social media. She denied asking Pinegrove to make a statement. "There was no other motivation than to help a survivor come out of her trauma," she wrote.
In his email to Punk Talks staff, Allen mentioned a second "identified victim" from Hall. This person was – in the spirit of Allen – Autumn Lavis, a Phoenix-based organizer and educator who helped run an organization called Safer Scenes, who traveled on Warped Tour to teach the intervention of groups, crews and fans. "I am a victim of sexual abuse and I have spent years working to make sure it does not happen to anyone," says Lavis. "But my involvement with Evan was not like that." Lavis and Hall met for the first time in the summer of 2016. They had a brief intimate relationship that, Lavis said, ended with the return of an ex-girlfriend. "After me, I felt bad," Lavis said. "But I've never felt that it was abusive to me at all. If anyone had a negative experience, I want to validate it, but mine was consensual.
When their relationship was still painful, Lavis said she had gone to Allen, who was her friend at the time. In the fall of 2017, Allen contacted Lavis to discuss Hall again. "It has somehow made me worse by the situation," said Lavis, who was concerned about seeing a screenshot of Allen Punk Talks' internal email. "I asked Sheridan if she was referring to me [as a victim]because I had a strong feeling and she said yes. I told him that I felt like I had been misrepresented. She was sorry. But that did not solve the problem. (Allen confirmed that Lavis "was absolutely misrepresented in this email," adding that she "misunderstood their interactions" and that he was taking "full responsibility" for the error.)
"I thought it was invalid," said Lavis, "not only to me as someone who has been sexually assaulted, but also to other people." Lavis is at school to teach where she studies restorative justice idea that a perpetual can reconcile with the community. "In this email, Sheridan was talking about" taking Down Pinegrove, "she said. "Restorative justice does not look like that. This is not a vendetta.
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