Since Covid restrictions started being lifted across Europe, Rebekah has been keen to get back out there. Over the past couple of weeks, she’s done gigs in Dublin, Warsaw, Naples, Paris, numerous gigs in her native United Kingdom and some in her adopted home of Berlin.
The lifting of a travel ban between Europe and the USA will no doubt result in more bookings soon. Excellent news for the DJ, whose real name is Rebekah Teasdale – not such good news for the environment. But having thrown herself back into a busy touring schedule, the techno DJ appears to have forgotten about a project she started last year.
And that was the #ForTheMusic movement which she founded to campaign against the sexual assault of women. This campaign was launched in a blaze of publicity last autumn, but has never done much since. Given how large an audience Rebekah is capable of reaching, I find the movement’s lack of traction to be quite bizarre.
A few weeks ago, this blog published an article about Rebekah collaborating with Francesco Tristano, a man who helped conceal the fact Derrick May cannot play the piano from audiences who went to his orchestral shows. Rebekah responded in a long Instagram story – mostly avoiding my questions and instead talking about my criticism of the movement she spearheaded.
She said my criticism was “unfair”, that a “number of things are going on behind the scenes” and that she’d have “more news for you soon”. So, over six weeks after Rebekah said this, it seems only fair to ask – where is this news you promised your 248,000 followers on Instagram?
Infact, she has said nothing whatsoever about the beleaguered movement since, with the sole exception of an event in Berlin. An audience member on the day got in touch to tell me “Rebekah just sounded muddled on the subject. You got the sense this movement is bigger than she expected and she doesn’t quite know what to do next”.
This would be understandable if it was true. These are incredibly delicate and complicated issues on the table here. But Rebekah doesn’t run this movement alone – and those who are involved need to bang some heads together and get things moving. Because they’ve potentially got something very good going here.
The way women are treated in the music world generally is appalling. Just look at videos for songs in the charts – plenty of scantily clad ladies to be seen. Curious that the men don’t have to do such things, isn’t it? And this is surface level stuff, nowhere near the dark, depraved depths of some corners of the scene.
The critics are already circling. As much as I’d like to get behind this important movement, but when all everyone gets the equivalence of radio silence, it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore the naysayers…