BORT AND JIZZY DISCUSS SCAMS AND BATUSHKA

Hey Bort, there's a show coming up in December, if I buy two tickets would you be interested in going as well?

I don't see why not, who's playing?

Batushka!

[dramatic orchestra sting]

What??  Are you fucking kidding me?  Do you really want to support that... that SCAM ARTIST?

What do you mean?

Well, since you're a noob I'll fill you in.  That Batushka album you like, Litourgiya, wasn't written by that same Batushka that's on tour.

Oh really?  That's weird.  So they won't be playing any of those songs?

Well, I'm sure they will.

So... wait what exactly is the problem?  I love that album and I want to see those songs performed live.  I don't understand how it's not the same band if they have the same name and are going to play those old songs.  It's barely a few years old, did every member get replaced already?

Well, no, not exactly.  See, what happened is that one man, Krzsysztof Drabikowski, wrote Litourgiya.  Batushka was his band.  He hired a drummer and vocalist to fill out the group and the three of them recorded all of the songs he wrote for the album.  That vocalist was named Bartlomiej Krysiuk, who Krzsysztof knew from his time in the band Hermh, when he went by the stage name "Derph".  After Litourgiya wound up being a surprise underground smash hit, Bart went behind Krzsysztof's back and trademarked the band's name and kicked him out of his own band.  I don't remember if he signed the band to Metal Blade before or after or at the same time as when he usurped the band, but the end result is the same.  They're currently fighting this case in the Polish courts right now, and so as a result there are two bands named Batushka right now.  There is the Krzsysztof version that released Panihida a few months ago (which rules), and there is the Bart version that released Hospodi a week or so ago (which sucked).  That second version is the one going on tour right now.

Wow, so basically a session vocalist just straight up stole the band from the hard working creative force behind it?  Man that's unbelievably shitty.

Right?  So that's why you're not going to buy those tickets.

No way, I don't want to support that shit.

That's good, so do you want to help me rebel against the Hospodi band?  I plan on spamming every venue's social media page with this info in hopes of getting the tour dropped.  This man deserves to fail and Metal Blade should take a huge hit for enabling and encouraging this behavior.

Now hold on, I agree that Bart's version should fail on moral grounds, but do we really want to go trying to actively sabotage it?

Yes!  Why the hell wouldn't we?!

Well, mostly because I... don't actually care all that much?

I... just, what?  Jizzy what the hell are you saying?  How could you possibly not care about a thief benefiting from his thievery??

Let me rephrase.  Morally, I hope Bart fails completely in his heist, because that's what this is, a heist.  But frankly, there are so many larger problems within our scene that I think I'd rather take a more active focus on rooting out fascists and white supremacists and rapists and whatnot.  In the grand scheme of things, something like this is just fraud, and I think it's disingenuous to not only equate it with the aforementioned crimes, but to also actively campaign against it while letting these much more pressing and dangerous issues slide off into the shadows.

Putting aside that I think you're blowing the other problems way out of proportion, I think you are being disingenuous by saying that this isn't a big deal.

Really?  Bort, in what way is trademarking a popular band behind somebody's back worse than raping or murdering somebody?

Don't put words in my mouth, Jizzy.  I'm not denying that monsters like that exist in the metal underground, but what I'm saying is that in terms of the scene as a whole, scammers and thieves have a MUCH larger immediate impact on everybody and that's why I think we shouldn't go lightly on them at all.

So we should just let Nazis and murderers off the hook?

That's got to be a record when it comes to invoking Godwin's Law.  No, I didn't say that, and you're veering off course here.  Do me a solid and respect my argument by keeping it on topic, will ya?  My issue with scammers is that of all the crimes that metalheads find themselves most guilty of, scammers do the most material damage to the scene itself.  All of these other things you're bringing up out of nowhere tend to, generally, not affect metal fans themselves.  I am not saying they aren't horrible things, but I am saying that you can affect dozens more people at a time by stealing their money in a widespread scam like what Blake Judd did with Nachtmystium and the Judas Iscariot bootlegs or Bart essentially committing fraud and falsely advertising himself as the "true" version of a popular band he had basically nothing to do with than you can by raping one person or futilely shouting your dumbass genocide fantasies off in the corner.  In terms of pure numbers, theft and fraud is a much bigger problem within the scene.

I think you're off base here.  Materially, sure, you're stealing more money by scamming or committing fraud, but by that same token you're also committing infinitely more rape by raping somebody than you are by selling shitty bootlegs.

That's not really the point.  This has to do with scene integrity.

Do you really think outsiders look down on metal more for some inside-baseball shit about a dude unethically trademarking a band name than they do for the murders and church burnings from the 2nd wave bands out of Norway?

I'm not talking about outsiders here.  People who don't already enjoy or understand metal are always going to find things to freak out about because it's abrasive music made by scary outcasts.  That isn't my argument.  My argument is that this Batushka situation is a flat out betrayal of fans' trust.  Of course I'm going to be emotionally charged about that strung out human bouncy castle hijacking one of the most promising bands of the current era and throwing the guy who made them good in the first place off a metaphorical cliff.

I don't blame you, I feel betrayed too, I almost bought tickets to see that fraud live, but I think I draw the line at your idea of trying to sabotage his endeavor.

Okay but why?  You agree that Bart is a shit person who is taking advantage of a vulnerable guy with legitimate creative talent for his own selfish goals, no?

Of course, but we have an infinite amount of anger to give out, but we have a finite amount of time and energy, and I think dedicating that time and energy into a smear campaign against a crime as comparatively petty as fraud or deceptive business practices is a poor choice of time management.  There are so many more important things you could tackle instead of some asshole stealing a band.

You're doing it again.  You're implicitly bringing up worse crimes as a reason not to care about this one.  Can you make an argument without doing that?

Well... I guess not.  The problem is that you're being myopic here.  Nothing happens in a vacuum, there is context everywhere, and in the context of "metal dudes doing bad shit", scamming fans is so far down on my list of priorities that I practically have to squint to see it.  Let's not act like you've never pirated music, Bort.  You only care about somebody losing money right now because somebody you don't like is gaining it instead.  Or, more worryingly, because you might have lost money this time if you didn't know about this whole situation going on in the first place.  Look inside yourself, do you not see how selfish it is to get nuclear pissed about a band theft simply because you liked the original incarnation while simultaneously making excuses for objectively more harmful and dangerous crimes that metalheads make excuses for on the regular?  You like Emperor don't you?  Don't you see how shitty it is to still listen to the albums Faust drummed on even though he murdered somebody simply for being gay?

Nobody is giving money directly to Faust, but people are indeed giving Bart money for this whole Bartushka fiasco.   

So why is money the prime concern now?

You're not listening.  It's about integrity.  Bart completely betrayed fans of Batushka and he's made a mockery of legal loopholes to maximize his own earnings and clout.  By doing this, he's turning his disgusting nature inwards towards the scene that supported him.  This, to me, is so much worse than something that can easily be shoved off to the periphery.  You can still listen to Vektor without thinking about David DiSanto abusing his wife, you can't listen to Fartushka without knowing deep down in your gut that Hospodi was made with utter contempt towards the very people it's supposed to appeal to in the first place.

Who the fuck said I could easily listen to Vektor without thinking about the horrible shit DiSanto did?  Some people separate art from artist, some people don't, but with you and so many others doing it selectively and focusing your rage most directly on some dumb bullshit scam artist you're doing a disservice to society at large by downplaying much bigger issues and that's fucking irresponsible.

I didn't get into metal because I wanted societal responsibility.  This cynical money grubbing horseshit is fucking antithetical to what metal is even about in the first place.  Thieves and scammers have no place here and do not deserve to be treated with kid gloves simply because "oh at least they're not raping anybody".

I think this is the biggest problem in metal.  Not the scammers, not the fascists, not the murderers or the rapists or the pedos that crop up from time to time like Dave Holland or Dagon, it's people like you who focus so much more white-hot burning rage against the scammers than anybody else.  Check any metal-centric forum on the internet, you'll find dozens of pages long threads on the continuing exploits of Blake Judd or this Fatushka situation, you'll find doxxing threads on trading forums whenever a scammer is discovered, you'll see that Judd's page on MA is amended to include vitriolic diatribes about his scamming activities.  But do you know what you'll also see?  Apologetics for the church burnings and murders from black metal's heyday, people strung up for even daring to point out that Peter Steele wrote some incredibly misogynistic and homophobic songs, people mercilessly mocked and run out of internetical town for saying they will no longer support any artist who had ties to white nationalism uncovered, people bending over backwards to excuse or handwave away accusations of abhorrent shit, hell even for something as mild as saying it was kinda sketchy that Lemmy collected Nazi memorabilia.  The people who see wider societal problems get reamed for pointing them out while the artists responsible for the shitty views in the first place get a free pass because their riffs are good.  And the only artists who ever earn the ire of the entire community are the thieves and scammers.  How can you not see why that is a problem?

Those wider societal problems are not my problem, and it's irresponsible to think I'm even up to the task of changing things.  Judd and Bart affect me, they affect the scene, they affect the escapism that I love.  And I can help change this.  It's a smaller problem, but that means it's a needle I can actually fucking help move for once.

You're uprooting and moving the goalposts so far in between each point that I think you're starting to get washboard abs...

And you're flexing your own moral superiority so hard that I'm starting to notice some real definition in your biceps....

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[Bort and Jizzy start making out]




RATING: THIS IS A LEGAL FIGHT BETWEEN TWO GUYS NAMED BART AND DERP AND NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE THINK THAT'S AS FUNNY AS I DO%