Real Friends Announce New Tour

Count me in for the Chicago date. I think Tiny Moving Parts is my favorite live band right now.

 

20 Monroe Live? Is that a new venue in Grand Rapids?

 

Yeah, next to the BOB and owned by House of Blues I believe. I'm interested to see how it is and how well it does. It seems to be getting some cool shows!

 

Ah alright, I was thinking it might be that one. I read about it awhile back. I hope it doesn't end up shutting The Intersection down though.

 

I'm assuming the Cleveland date is the Spring Fling Fest or whatever it's called.

 

Tempted to go to this one.

 

Correct

 

Awful band, can't believe they're playing headline tours like this when it should be TMP.

 

Girlfriend and I will be at the Chicago date! Excited for this tour

 

Anytime I hear FOB's lyric, "Nobody wants to hear you sing about tragedy" I think of this band.

 

Everyone should go early for Nothing, Nowhere. Been listening to them pretty regularly since the Thrice tour.

 

very important to keep in mind here

 

Just playing devil's advocate, but it is possible that schedules didn't line up for some of the more diverse acts. It is a numbers game in the sense that there is way more supply of male bands. I definitely prefer more diverse bills myself. I'm probably not as close to the situation as that guy is, but I think there is a lot of good stuff going on in other corners of the "punk" scene right now. Bands like the Menzingers, Angel Du$t, Turnstile, the Bouncing Souls, etc all seem to be empowering women at shows or taking female bands on the road.

 

how can you have five whole bands and not one of them has a woman in it?
this is the same situation as what happened on the modern baseball tour as well. same booking agent. there is no excuse.

what about the TWY/real friends/knuckle puck/moose blood/seaway tour? what about the mayday parade, real friends, as it is, this wild life tour?

when was the last time real friends went on a tour with a band with a woman in it? not to mention in the comments, apparently the drummer did some creepy shit to carly from slingshot dakota after she opened for them as the local, so i mean, what woman would actually want to tour with them?

 

That all sounds valid to me. I don't listen to this band (I don't why I even commented in this thread in the first place). I definitely feel like "this" style of punk and pop punk has a boys club feel to it. I guess what I am trying to say is rather than myself try and change people, I've just moved on and focused on areas of the scene that are inclusive.

 

oh absolutely, i agree. but i mean, look at the menzingers tour! jeff rosenstock is super outspoken about things but it's still an all dude tour. great tour and i'll be going but i still feel really odd about going to and enjoying that tour.

these things won't change unless we're outspoken about things and hold the band accountable for this. there is no excuse to not have a single woman on a tour right now.

 

I don't blame the Menzingers on this tour. I should say I guess I give them the benefit of the doubt. I remember they took Chumped out on their last ever full tour. They've taken Hemming and Cayetana out before. I'm sure there are plenty of others that I didn't mention. Yeah, it sucks they couldn't get something cool this time, but being from Red Scare and having good ethics, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, it sounds like Real Friends has a systemic problem with this issue. And to me, that is the big difference.

 

Not a tour necessarily, but the Real Friends/Knuckle Puck holiday show in Chicago had Mat Kerekes' band open and the bassist was a female.

Also during Real Friends' set right before a small "encore" the entire band went off stage and the Real Friends singer talked for about 5 minutes about how the pop-punk scene has become a toxic place for white dudes acting and speaking inappropriately and how we need to teach eachother that these actions are not acceptable. He said something like "we cant just say 'fuck you, you're wrong - we need to show each other why you/I/we are wrong."

I'm not the # 1 Real Friends superfan, so i dont know if they have any history of this kind of behavior, but it looks like they are acknowledging it and trying to raise awareness.

 

I believe that they're trying to raise awareness. Modern Baseball does the same. But still, there needs to be some action done as well. how do we get more women i bands? by putting more role models in front of young women on stage, and the way to do that is to stop making all dude lineups

Even if someone is generally trying to make change there is every right to call them out if they fail to do things right

 

Definitely think it starts with the local scenes as well. Most of these bands started at the local level and worked their way up. I can't speak for other areas, but in the South Jersey scene there aren't many females in bands from what I've noticed. In fact I can't remember the last I went to a local show and saw a female member in a band. But I will say there are many females involved and active in the Jersey scene when it comes booking, management etc. Almost everything except actually performing, which is very unfortunate.

 

oh absolutely! it's great to see women working as management, i know someone made a statement in the comments of the slingshot post that real friends was managed by a woman. but at the same time, they're in the back and people in the crowd generally aren't aware of that. and the most important thing to do right now is put women on stage, which in turn will motivate more young girls in the crowd to learn an instrument and join bands, and will hopefully snowball from there. this is the first step.

people make the argument that "well there aren't many women bands so it's harder to get them on tours!!!" well this is how to change that.

 

As someone who is friends with many female musicians and was in a female fronted band, I completely agree!

 

It's a bit ridiculous to sit here and say that all male bands are packaging tours on purpose without female representation. Music isn't just an art it's a business as well. You take bands on tour that will pull fans. I work in construction management, which is a heavy male industry, but we always hire women when the opportunity arises. It's just a numbers game. I'm sure I'll get backlash for this, but this argument seems unnecessary.

 

so you think it's more important for bands to bring out the acts that will pull more than create representation and add diversity?

will the fifth band on this bill really make a difference with draw?