Back in the day, when I was working as a manager at Hot Topic and I was always getting free tickets to events I normally wouldn't attend, the Warped Tour, promoted by Vans was a summer attraction featuring punk/emo bands that my kid and the customers listened to. I went, but not without much complaining that I'd rather be at Rockstar Energy Mayhem Fest because even if it was heavy metal and dark as hell, at least those bands didn't creep me out.
Things haven't changed.
This year's Vans Warped Tour offering have served up an attraction called Front Porch Step aka Jake Mcelfresh. This young man [aged 23] sings a kind of "My heart is breaking!" acoustic lyric confessional rock. It has a following, and Mcelfresh was on his way to becoming successful. I have to say, it's not my thing [obviously, if I am a vet of the Mayhem Fests] and from all the video I've watched, there are a whole lot of young girls in the crowd at this dude's shows. Looking at his band's Facebook, and this is also his personal Facebook since he IS Front Porch Step, it IS a lot of young girls. He has 69K likes. But I'd hope that we aren't going to come at him like that. Proof, people. We want proof, not allegations. In January of this year, a number of accusations have surfaced online that Mcelfresh has had inappropriate text message and social media relationships involving at least half a dozen underage girls including in some cases, exchanging sexually explicit photographs.
In some states, including his home state of Ohio, it is a crime to possess sexual photographs of minors or to encourage a minor to be photographed nude.
When all this hit the fan, and it didn't hit it in the way we'd like it to, meaning in a court of law, with charges and proof, he suspended his touring activity and shut it down until he could figure out how to respond to everyone calling him every kind of sexual deviant under the sun. No charges were or have been filed against him. Noone has come forward to make a complaint against him as per, a parent of an underaged girl who was a victim of this guy. So what happened? Fast forward to this summer....Nashville,TN....the organizer/promoter of the Warped tour, Keven Lyman decides to let Mcelfresh play a stripped down, 20 minute set as part of his "theraputic" return to the music community. Bands have a collective attack and declare the tour and grounds an unsafe environment for young female concert goers, completely ignorning the fact that all the girls in question reportedly lied about their ages in context to Mcelfresh and NO CHARGES have been filed against him.
Email....and I had to print this one because it is just too priceless.
Annarocket,
How can you make excuses for this sexual offender?
Mrs. Karla Gonzalez, Ponca City
Okay, first, he hasn't been charged in a court of law so he isn't a convicted sexual offender. Second, I'm not making excuses for this miserable . I have strong feelings about anyone who admits to contact of this nature with a minor, and he DID admit to such. Let me tell ya, if this had happened in my home with my underage daughter, heh. The would have hit the fan like you can not imagine. Noone filed charges against this dude so how can you call him a sexual offender? Riddle me that Batman and get back to me. I'll be waiting.
attack and declare the tour and grounds an unsafe environment for young female concert goers, completely ignorning the fact that all the girls in question reportedly lied about their ages in context to Mcelfresh and NO CHARGES have been filed against him.
