Folks thinking about starting up a “rape rock” band in Sacramento may want to shelve those ambitions.
About 30 people showed up across the street from local venue On the Y Monday night with generators, speakers, guitars and a drum kit to protest the Mentors, a self-proclaimed “rape rock” band that plays music loaded with violent, deliberately misogynist lyrics under the guise of satire.
The group’s Sacramento show was a stop on what they had been calling their “Anti-Antifa” tour, a name that caught the attention of local protesters. The fact that the Mentors hide their faces with hoods that resemble blackened versions of those worn by KKK members also set off some red flags.
“For me, seeing the imagery of what they’re trying to represent as satire, there’s no place for that right now,” said Mone’t Ha-sidi, founder of Black Arts Matter and a performer at the protest. “We should be evolving instead of regressing.”
Protesters made their case against the venue’s booking of the Mentors for about an hour and a half before sheriff’s deputies asked them to leave the private property that they were occupying across the street from On the Y. The protest briefly moved to a large concrete median before deputies advised them that the space would also not be a legal zone for their action, leaving Grass Valley punk band Slutzville as the only group slated to perform in protest that didn’t get the chance.
Folks who came to see the Mentors were both amused and visibly agitated by the event, as were employees of On the Y. All requests for interviews from employees and attendees were denied or ignored.
Some of them, including members of Twitch Angry, the opening band, came over to the protesters to share their thoughts–every encounter more or less filling the air with calls of “fuck you,” “fuck rape rock” and “dump Trump.”
More details on this event, including audio of some of the performances, will be included in Episode 2 of the Voices: River City podcast, to be released September 14.
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