Label Drops Whirr Over Transphobic Tweets

Label Drops Whirr Over Transphobic Tweets

Bay Area shoegazers Whirr just Tweeted themselves out of a label deal. Alternative Press reports that whoever controls the band’s Twitter account spent the weekend heaping scorn upon the really great Olympia, Washington trans-feminist punk band G.L.O.S.S. (who released a truly powerful demo earlier this year). Before long, they moved onto talking shit about trans people in general, using the sort of shitty, bullying invective that’s so common among anti-social justice online warriors. Here’s what they had to say:

Pretty cool how they jumped straight from band beef to suicide there. They also retweeted all the angry things that people had to say about them afterward. This kind of activity is par for the course with Whirr, who have gained notoriety for their aggressive and offensive social media presence. In an interview with Noisey last year, guitarist Nick Bassett commented on their internet activity: He said that any lost fans were a result of “weeding out the pussies,” called their critics “absolute morons,” and, when asked if they reached a point where Whirr couldn’t sell any more records because of their behavior, responded: “I’d be stoked that we didn’t suck anyone’s dick as a band and were just real dudes being real. If we weren’t selling records anymore, that would be a wrap for us.”

But last night’s activity ended up being one step too far: Run For Cover Records, the band’s label, immediately decided to drop Whirr and disassociate themselves from the band entirely:

Meanwhile, G.L.O.S.S. frontwoman Sadie Switchblade started a Twitter just to fire back at Whirr:

This is all deeply obnoxious and depressing, but turn it into a positive by checking out that G.L.O.S.S. demo. UPDATE: Whirr blame last night’s tweets on a friend who had access to their account. Bassist Nick Bassett apologizes for “letting things get to this point” and says he will manage the band’s Twitter and Facebook going forward:

UPDATE 2: Following the above statement, Graveface Records — who have also put out Whirr releases in the past — disassociated with the band as well. “There are no contracts at Graveface so there’s no booting anyone off,” the label said on Facebook. “Simply enough I will not be releasing records by anyone I know to be hateful, especially in regards to all of this.”

UPDATE 3: Here’s a statement from Run For Cover via Pitchfork in response to whether or not their apology changes anything:

Frankly, no, it doesn’t change anything. We were aware of the information in Whirr’s statement when we made the decision. Although the band is not signed to our label, and never have been, we have decided to not work with them in the future, and stop selling their releases we did have a hand in. Also, despite being at a financial net loss with Whirr and Camera Shy, we will be donating $3,000 to a TBA non profit in support of equal rights for LGBTQ.

We will be posting what organization later today, we just didn’t want to jump the gun on that decision.

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