I just really struggle to see how this snowballed into them getting kicked off the tour by Buzz.
Reading the zine, the tour wasn't mentioned until Buzz informed them that they wouldn't be able to continue and to end the collaboration. In some ways it seemed harsh and out of the blue, but at the same time i can totally understand why Melvins took that decision. It might not have been an insulting exchange of words between the two bands prior to that, but it was enough to - possibly suggest to Buzz or anyone really - that it could easily lead to future conflict whilst out on tour. Obviously they didn't want to deal with that.
Firstly thanks for putting some more meat on the bone as I haven't read the zine and I'm not arguing with you personally in anyway this whole thing is bizarre to me really. Taking the step of kicking another band off your tour is a very serious thing to do. Aside from depriving that band of income and exposure it's hugely frowned upon in the industry. Plenty of bands have toured together that hated each others guts and you just be professional get on with it and generally try to stay out of each others way. There hasn't been a punch up here between bands it's a minor disagreement over poster artwork, it's bizarre.
Look at the longstanding feud between RHCP and Mr. Bungle. It culminated in RHCP (Anthony Kiedis) as headliner on festival bills and having the right to kick other bands off chose to kick Bungle off of about 10 festivals they were also playing depriving them of income and a shit load of exposure that all the Bungle guys were so furious about they did that infamous Halloween send up video of RHCP and some of the guys said played a part in the premature break up of Bungle.
It's likely that none of us know all the factors- that is, this is just "evidence" produced by shitkid and we haven't gotten the melvins side (to their credit)- and sometimes context can be lost in mere text "evidence," so we might not have all the things to consider, such as long running issues that might not be evident in the text itself.
But, that being said, from the Melvins perspective, they are taking a band with little draw in the states on an extended tour. From the melvins perspective, this is probably somewhat of a "gift" in that there are 100s of bands they could have picked (some with a bigger draw) but they chose Shitkid because they think the band is artistically interesting. But then, when the melvins do shitkid somewhat of a favor by doing a split ep and taking them on tour, they get grief for it. I think I'd kick them off the tour at that point as well.
The argument would be a little different if Melvins were taking a relatively equal sized band on tour such as High on fire- in that case, kicking them off the bill would be more knee-jerk. But, if you are a smaller band and a bigger band is helping you out with a bigger audience, it's probably not the best move to go on the attack over something that probably won't affect your band in the long run- that is, I'll give shitkid the benefit of the doubt that they truly did find the nude woman offensive, but in, say 1 year from now, would anyone hold it against them that a band they did a split with used a drawing of a nude woman in a promotional ad? No. so for them to get that riled up over that would definitely be a red flag to the melvins. I back them in this battle, going off the evidence we've seen.
