todays audio is “star witness” by neko case. it’s been a minute since i’ve had time to learn a new song or crack open my logic to do even a cursory recording. i’m not bothered by how imperfect this little snatch is. it’s just good to keep a foot in the game. i also find neko very hard to cover. so much is communicated by the tone and quality of her voice - the pain, the rage, the age, the wildness. it isn’t enough to just execute the chords and melody and lyrics. she is singular, and having attempted to cover her for the first time, i respect her more than ever.
a few weeks ago, a famous male singer-songwriter passed away. like a lot of my peers, i had crossed paths with him occasionally over the years, and he had mentored and launched an early friend of mine. and like a lot of people, my social media feed was filed with clips of his songs, tributes to his impact, and then his memorial service. the music was beautiful, the songs undeniable.
it’s always sad when someone dies too young. and. i also watch a bit cynically as death becomes the best thing to happen to an artist muddling through a mid-career trough: we are no longer the young fresh faces on the scene, and we are not old enough yet to be a legend. my friend jill sobule was in just such a place when she died a little over a year ago at age 66. her legacy is now secured in ways that might never have happened if she hadn’t passed away tragically. that’s a hard and uncomfortable truth to hold.
and. that’s not what this episode is about. it’s about something else, something important that is happening on the edges of this male singer-songwriter’s recent death, that i want to underline.
a few days after his death, musician neko case wrote one of the most important substacks i’ve read in a long time. you can read it yourself here, but to summarize: neko had known and been on tour with this recently deceased singer-songwriter and had had some deeply fucked up personal experiences involving him attempting to pimp her and his predilections for young women. unfortunately, it was the gross but usual stuff. egregious all the same. she too had seen all the tributes in her feed, and it had enraged her. the response to his death, the immediate lionization and elevation of his work, stirred up a rage in neko, one for the forever free-pass men like this get for their behaviour towards women. it also stirred up a rage in her as a survivor, like alot of us, of abuse and assault.
reading her story, something stirred in my memory as well: a general ick toward this guy that i hadn’t thought about in years. for me, it wasn’t about sexual inappropriateness, though that oozed from him as well. it was more about a performance of how important he was and how profound his songwriting was.
my compounded rage was for the free-pass men like that get not just on their behaviour but also on their appearance and their voices - they can sound and look like whatever (and by whatever i mean real people) because their songs are “so good”. they can do whatever they want to others because they are such “real artists”. video after video played of this man playing on the street, in pubs, as well as famous stages. he just looked and sounded like an ordinary man, but he was figured as a profound genius.
people raised as women, people coded as women do not get this pass. ever. to have mainstream success, to be deemed profound or impactful or genius, we are held to a vocal standard that is narrow and gendered - we must sing in a higher register, with smoother tone, showing much more vocal prowess and skill. we are held to a visual standard that is also narrow - certainly more mainstream feminine, but even if not (in the example of musicians who might wear pants or suits or boots) it must be an elevated version of ordinary life. no woman is allowed to walk onstage in dirty jeans and a work shirt. even if that’s a considered costume for a man, it is not an option for women who want to make the same impact on culture as this man, and others like him, was able to. for women, it’s not enough to write beautiful, simple, well-crafted songs and place them unadorned into culture.
i can perhaps hear people now chalking my critique up to jealousy or self-pity for the state of my current career, or of others who share these same observations. of course that’s part of it. of course i wish i had more financial security at this point in my life, the same opportunities i had when i was younger. maybe i am an imperfect or compromised messenger but that does not make these facts go away. watching the reaction to this man’s death, they feel truer than ever, and larger than my personal experience than ever.
and yet, this isn’t criminal behaviour, so having vented it, let me put it aside and return to the specificity of this moment. i wish something different could have happened. i wish 20 years ago someone had had the power to speak up. to stop the cycle, the churn of young women picked up and put down. tale as old as time!
as neko noted pre-emptively in her essay, the response to her post was predictable. reddit was already scrubbing mentions of this man’s behaviour from its boards (neko’s was the most prominant but not the only tale of shitty behaviour). no blog or aggregator picked up the story (even to just recycle her substack). what was on the edges of the conversation FOR YEARS has stayed there, even though neko and others have taken the step to name it publicly. in the last few weeks, as they have for years, stories were told again: on texts, on group chats, among work relationships. they all said the same thing: this guy was a skeeze, he was a problem, everyone knew that. people stopped working with him because of it. people took precautions because of it.
i wonder can this ever change? i think about what happened in the #MeToo window, and i marvel that it ever happened at all. something about the scale of the players involved and the scale of the accusations must have made that blip of accountability possible for a moment.
just like any other business there are tiers in the music world, defined by audience size and income. in the world of smaller festivals, singer-songwriters, those of us just below the mainstream, everyone is scrapping to surface above the radar. the hustle and scarcity are real. i wonder if this just doesn’t keep stories like neko’s and behaviour like this man’s ultimately unheard and without recourse. everyone has too little and thus too much to lose.
hey yall! it’s the end of summer, savor savor savor these precious days.
i’m right in the middle of co-producing a record for the excellent singer-songwriter anand nayak. it’s reminding me how much i love helping artists make the records they dream of. if this is something you’d like to do with me, please reach out!! erin@erinmckeown.com
i’ve just announced the first of what will be several Anti-Holiday Spectaculars - November 28 in Turner’s Falls MA. look for additional shows coming in providence, DC, philly and more. if you want me to do an Anti-Holiday Spectacular in your town, drop a line. erin@erinmckeown.com
and finally, my dear friend tessa blake was kind enough to invite me to do a cameo in her first feature film, “If I Tell You”. i got to play a musician at a 4th of July picnic and jam musically with christopher jackson, the original george washington in HAMILTON. the film is finally getting its well-deserved wide-release on Aug 27, all across the US. please consider buying a ticket and watching this beautiful film about family and accountability. complete cities and dates are at ifitellyoufilm.com.
thanks as always for listening, we’re doing ok on subscribers now, but more would always be helpful. let’s get that number up to 3% of listeners.
i can think of several examples in my own personal experience of bad behaviour from artists - across a spectrum of areas and degrees of damage - that just can’t get told. certainly not by me. maybe someday someone more powerful will break the story of that female singer-songwriter who, even though profoundly talented and now very famous, has from minute one been an absolute asshole, even when they had no power or clout to throw around. and if and when she is exposed, will i feel satisfied that finally everyone can see what i and others experienced? no. i imagine i will feel sad for all the other artists who didn’t get the same opportunities that one person did.
so why write this now? why jump on neko’s bandwagon? one reason is easy - i believe neko, i support her, and want to amplify her experience because it is SO COMMON beyond this particular man. she took a huge leap in writing what she did, when she did. i want to honor that.
secondly, i’ve been thinking about something my therapist said to me once - how when someone tells a joke, the first laugh is important, but the second laugh is just as important because it opens the door for a collective experience. it’s the second or third or fourth person saying “yes that’s funny” that allows everyone in the room to laugh. to get on the bandwagon.
“getting on the bandwagon” has often had a pejorative connotation for people - that somehow it’s the province of strivers and sheep who can’t have their own opinion until someone else makes it safe or approved.
here is a bandwagon i would get on in a heartbeat.
i’d like to offer a different take, one more literal and in line with what my therapist was talking about. it’s lonely to be someone of the type of bravery neko case shows time and time again - you’re saying something people don’t want to hear, you’re breaking a taboo, you’re charting new territory. there you are, alone on your horse, riding for hours on the desolate prairie. but then you hear voices, people saying yes! i believe you or yes! that is a terrible thing that happened. and so we get to hitch up a wagon, the more the merrier, strength in numbers. the bandwagon! get on, there’s room.
x erin
ps - here are carl and i on the summit of sharp top mountain in southwestern virginia. it was even more magical than pictured.
ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
the airBnB i was staying at in virginia this last month had appleTV so i can now tell you that “widow’s bay”, “your friends and neighbors” (featuring my pal miriam silverman), and the new “ted lasso” are lovely. especially “widow’s bay”. what an unexpected delight.
don’t ask me why but this commercial from my childhood has been on my mind. it has not aged well.
a few years ago i produced an album for the excellent philly gutter-punk band Makeshift Hammer. then some crazy spotify AI shit happened. i mean CRAZY. don’t come at me and tell me you can embrace AI for creative pursuits. you’re kidding yourself. the train has left the station, and there is no good ending.
of course monica lewinsky has a podcast. of course it is wonderful. this episode with roxane gay, especially.
there have been a few of these type things around the 250th - the history of america in stuff. 99% invisible’s is wonderful, but this one from the nytimes is truer, and more tawdry.
UPCOMING SHOWS
2026
Sep 18-19, 2026 - Hillsdale NY
Beacon Music Factory Song Camp
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November 28, 2026 - Turners Falls MA
Pioneer Valley Anti-Holiday Spectacular
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stay tuned for more winter 2026-spring 2027 show announcements soon!
