A Rock Concert With The No Asshole Rule For Performers

The New Yorker, as with every other publication, wrote about Kanye West's rude intrusion and insults aimed at Taylor Swift during the Video Music Awards, or VMAs. The thing that intrigued me in this article was The New Yorker described another rock concert that seems to be operated much differently, known as the ATP or "All Tomorrow's Parties," which uses the the no asshole rule and is damn serious about it. I quote author Sasha Frere-Jones:

ATP Director Barry Hogan maintains a “no assholes” policy for all the performers who appear at his festival. If you read this oral history of ATP in the Village Voice, you will see exactly who has violated that policy and how Hogan feels about them. It seems unlikely that Kanye would ever make it past one appearance at ATP, and less likely that he would want to be invited in the first place.

And if you click to this link to the Village Voice, you will see that Hogan and his co-organizers Deborah Kee Higgins name the bands that banned under the no asshole rule... looks like this guy has pushed the eject button! (I couldn't resist putting it here). And please note from this little excerpt that, most wondrously, one of these asshole bands is called Butthole Surfers (I couldn't make-up anything nearly as good). To quote the Voice article:

Higgins: We have a "No Assholes" policy. You can play once because we don't know you're an asshole, but you can't play twice.

Hogan: Killing Joke and the Butthole Surfers will never play ATP again, and they can both suck my balls. And you can put that in print. The Black Lips will never play again—they're assholes. They broke into a chalet and started stealing stuff.

I have some odds and ends to wrap up over the next few weeks, but I clearly need to update my list of places that don't tolerate assholes.  I have had some great examples lately, like the one at Shakespeare Miami.  Plus one of the great things about visiting Singapore was that I had a nice long chat with CEO Robert Care from ARUP about why and how he implemented the No Dickhead Rule -- so I can update that example too. Robert was about as charming a guy as I ever met and was most serious about the eliminating the financial and human damage done by jerks.

This post almost feels like I am writing fiction or a parody of organizational life, but I am not making this stuff-up, I am just reporting it, and I confess, smiling a lot as I type.

P.S. A big thank you to John for pointing me to this article.

Comments

[Sue]

I would greatly appreciate tips on interview questions - and answers - useful for detecting assholes at the interview stage. I'm in government, so once we hire an asshole, we are pretty much stuck with an asshole until we can 1) promote them, or 2) pass them off on another division or agency, or 3) they retire. Please help! Thanks greatly - Sue

[Bob Sutton]

Dwayne,

Perhaps you are right. Pretty said if it is true. But whether he was playing an asshole or being his authentic apparently drunken self, he was still an asshole.

[Dwayne Phillips]

Kanye West wasn't being an asshole, he was being a star. He brought publicity and viewers to an otherwise dying awards show. He did his job, what he was paid to do, it was all an act, a planned act according to script.

[Audley]

I can think of 1,000 other places that this rule can be applied.

Thanks

[Naomi Momosis]

The No-Asshole Movement makes me happy, so very happy... thanks for the smiles.