![]() ![]() The label did not follow a traditional business model. Many women interviewed by The Times described rampant drug and alcohol use, even at shows where alcohol was not for sale. Young fans, including those in high school, often mingled with older fans and musicians. The shop soon became a popular gathering spot for music fans.Īs Burger grew, the label hosted a slew of popular shows and festivals around Southern California including Burger-a-Go Go, which paid tribute to all-female-fronted bands, and the two-day Burgerama, which annually drew thousands of fans and featured eclectic lineups of dozens of underground garage bands and indie rock giants including Weezer, Ariel Pink, Fidlar, the Spits, Ty Segall, Roky Erickson and Gang of Four.īurger’s reputation was burnished internationally in 2014 when fashion design house Yves Saint Laurent featured the label’s music in Paris runway shows.Īn all-ages ethos was key to Burger’s identity. It opened a record shop in Fullerton in 2009 and Bohrman and Rickard lived there, washing their hair under a spigot in the alley and running the label out of the back. ![]() Burger championed catchy, homemade power-pop, surf-rock and bubblegum punk. (Mackenzie Reiss/Orange County Register/SCNG)īurger Records was founded in 2007 by Bohrman and Rickard, in part to release music from their own band at the time, Thee Makeout Party. Their stories about what happened in and around the Burger scene illuminate a broader culture of sexual abuse in Southern California’s underground music world that - more than three years into the reckoning brought by the #metoo movement - has remained largely in the shadows. The Times interviewed nearly two dozen women who detailed varying degrees of sexual abuse and harassment by musicians in Southern California’s indie rock scene during the past 15 years.Ī number of women spoke on the record others chose to remain anonymous, either because they feared reprisal or had already experienced it after posting their experiences online. And it’s not clear that management was paying attention to the exploitative sexual dynamics of the scene Burger fostered.Īs the allegations emerged, the label issued a statement that read in part: “We extend our deepest apologies to anyone who has suffered irreparable harm from any experience that occurred in the Burger and indie/DIY music scene.”īut the problems did not involve Burger musicians alone. But Bohrman acknowledged in an interview with Seattle radio station KEXP after Burger’s collapse that the label - which published recordings by nearly 1,200 bands during its 13 years in existence, in addition to hosting concerts and festivals and running a record shop in Fullerton - did not scrutinize the personal behavior of the musicians with whom it worked. The other, Lee Rickard, did not respond to a request for comment. One of Burger’s owners, Sean Bohrman, declined to be interviewed for this story. Within a week, the label ceased operations completely, prompting a long-overdue reckoning about the prevalence of sexual abuse in Southern California’s underground/DIY music scene. The page quickly accumulated thousands of followers, spurring online outrage, national media coverage and public apologies from many of the accused musicians. Redd went public with her experience last summer, sharing her story on her personal Instagram page and soon after on a page she created called Lured_By_Burger Records, which posted accusations about men in the Burger scene from other female fans and artists. Salina did not respond to multiple requests for comment by The Times. That friend, who regularly attended Burger Records shows with Redd, corroborated Redd’s story to The Times in a phone interview. She did tell one of her close friends about her sexual encounters with Salina. “For years, many years, I didn’t really talk to anyone about it - I felt really ashamed - I felt like it was my fault for engaging with him in the first place.” ![]() “I felt confused and violated,” she says, adding that it took time, reflection and therapy to come to terms with what happened to her in 2013. (The age of consent in California is 18.)Ī few days later, they again had sex outside of a house show in Pomona, she says. He told her to meet him at the far corner of the parking lot at the Burger Records store in Fullerton, she says, then instructed her to drive a few blocks away to a darkened neighborhood where she alleges the statutory rape took place. Three years later, when Redd was 17, she says Phil Salina, the then-29-year-old singer of the Portland-based goth-pop duo Love Cop, had sex with her in the back seat of her car. The concerts, featuring contemporary garage and punk bands, were often all-ages, and a swell of excited teenage girls would be in attendance. Casey Redd was 14 when she began going to shows put on by popular indie-rock label Burger Records. ![]()
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