A Holly Oak bar pulled the plug on a hardcore punk concert after anti-fascist activists complained that some of the band members have neo-Nazi ties.

Last Friday's show at Bar XIII on Philadelphia Pike was supposed to feature four out-of-state bands: Banged Up, Combate 49, The Sentinels and Embattled.

But bar co-owner Matthew Jester nixed the event Wednesday, after local antifa supporters sent him a 118-page dossier with photographs of band members in The Sentinels and Embattled hanging out and making 211 hand gestures with members of 211 Bootboys, which is a far-right, ultra-nationalist skinhead crew, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Antifa is a term that has been used to describe far left-leaning militant groups that resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Jester was bombarded with phone calls by supporters of antifa. Within 24 hours of the call to action, the show was a bust. Jester also cut ties with the event's promoter.

Guilt by association, coupled with warnings about possible violence at the event, was enough to persuade Jester to cancel the concert and scramble to schedule a fundraiser Friday for animals impacted by Hurricane Harvey. The new theme: "man-made horror goth-industrial."

"I was afraid for the safety of everyone involved," the 37-year-old explained last week. "I don't want to have my bar turned into a war zone."

Some band members called it a witch hunt, explaining that there's a difference between regular patriotic skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads.

"There's not a single racist among us," said John Weber, a Navy veteran and bass guitarist for Embattled and Banged Up.

"We all lean right. We're libertarian," the 49-year-old said. "We believe in hard work and taking care of yourself."

Founded last year in Maryland, Embattled describe themselves on their Facebook page as "alcohol-fueled skinhead rock." One of their songs, "Can't Feed 'Em," is an expletive-laced, hard-driving tirade with lyrics like "If you can't feed 'em, don't breed 'em. If you can't feed 'em, we don't need 'em."

Weber said that was meant to be "tongue-in-cheek" social commentary.

The Washington, D.C.-based Sentinels, whose members are racially and ethnically diverse, describe themselves on Facebook as "working-class men." Their song, "Might Makes Right," goes like this:

"We like our ideas and we put them in your head. And if you don't like it, you're going to wind up dead."

The band did not respond to a request for comment.

It's the second time in less than a month that Bar XIII, formerly Mojo 13, had to cancel a show because of hate speech accusations. A couple weeks back, Jester cut Texas-based black metal band Nyogaethblisz from a "satanic death metal" show because he said he saw anti-Semitic messages on their website.

The band also appeared on a 2006 compilation called Declaration of Anti-Semitic [sic] Terror, with cover portraits of Nazi gas chamber victims and song titles referencing "Jewish Kikes."

Nyogaethblisz ended up playing an Aug. 18 concert at a Bensalem, Pennsylvania, bar, during which they were booted off the stage after mutilating their arms with razors, according to a local news report.

Jester, who books about 800 acts a year, says he doesn't have the time or the staff to conduct background checks on every band coming through his doors.

The 225-person club caters to an alternative crowd with comedy, trivia and karaoke nights interspersed with "no pants" parties, sword-swallowing sideshows, little people wrestling and "fire-induced suction cup massage," the last of which Jester calls "performance art."

"I'm very anti-Nazi. I'm very anti-racism in general," he said, adding that his bar prohibits hate speech and visible tattoos of Nazi symbols. "No agenda, no drama and absolutely no fights," an advertisement for Friday's concert read.

When Bar XIII first opened in 2015, about six neo-Nazis wearing red suspenders, white T-shirts and swastika tattoos, tried to infiltrate, Jester said. He and his friends beat them up out back, he said, and they never returned.

Bands have the right to "yell and scream about how much God sucks and how much of a punk Jesus is," Jester said on Facebook recently, but "discrimination and hate based on uncontrolled choices like race, gender or orientation are unacceptable."

The burly barkeeper also makes a distinction between personal beliefs and professional conduct.

"If someone with a Nazi tattoo wants to play, for instance, Celine Dion covers, should I tell them no?" he said.

Absolutely, says Kristin Bricker, a Wilmington anti-fascist activist.

Bricker grew up in the punk scene and criticized the bands originally scheduled to play Bar XIII for engaging in "crypto-fascism."

The logo for Combate 49, for instance, is a bare-knuckle punch decorated with four lightning bolts. Two of the bolts resemble SS symbols, Bricker said.

Maryland antifa's research on Combate 49 also found members affiliated with Battalion 49, which the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as an ultra-nationalist skinhead group.

"I don't believe that we have to tolerate these nasty views coming into our community," Bricker said.

A bassist for the New Jersey-based Combate 49, who declined to give his name, said antifa has ruined the band's reputation. The band's Facebook page includes a statement "opposing all forms of state control whether it be commies or Nazis." Combate 49 is comprised of two Jewish people and two Spanish people, the bassist said.

"We can't book a show in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or anywhere else because of this," he added.

None of the bands in Bar XIII's original lineup are included in the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate bands. Technology providers have cracked down on distributing such bands' content in recent years.

Following the violence at a Charlottesville, Virginia, rally last month, streaming music service Spotify announced that it would remove from its catalog bands associated with the white power movement. Other technology companies like GoDaddy, Paypal and Apple have similarly denied service to white supremacist and alt-right organizations.

'Hatecore' and Aryan black metal

White supremacists have long infiltrated the punk subculture to espouse hate to marginalized youth.

Hatecore, or neo-Nazi black metal, promotes Nazi ideology and ethnic European paganism and is one of the most effective recruitment and networking tools, according to experts in radical movements.

In the past, non-racist skinheads kept neo-Nazi punks in line, which led the musicians to pursue more subversive tactics, according to research by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In June, the small German city of Thmar doubled its population to nearly 6,000 when a group of neo-Nazis organized a "Rock Against Foreign Domination" concert. Fans wore T-shirts with "I Love Hitler" and "Hakenkreuz," the German term for swastika.

Closer to home, two local musicians encountered blowback last year after they appeared in a video with white nationalist Matthew Heinbach. Delaware-based bluegrass/folk singer Patrick "Paddy" Corcoran and Sean Giffing, a member of a punk band in Cecil County, Maryland, were openly criticized by several local musicians who refused to play with them.

STORY: Local bands boycott musicians tied to white nationalist

Corcoran declined comment at the time, but Giffing of Plague Bubonika said the band was not aligned with hate groups.

Jester said he was initially reluctant to cancel his hardcore Oi punk show without concrete proof that the band members were neo-Nazis. Oi is a punk rock subgenre that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s as an outlet for working-class rebellion. Over time, it has attracted white nationalist followers, including fans who perform Nazi salutes at shows.

The 211 Bootboys are part of the New York City Oi scene. They promote themselves as a nationalist, anti-communist nonprofit social club, but opponents note the similarities between their name and that of a Colorado white-power prison gang called 211 Crew.

In February, members of 211 Bootboys attacked two Columbia University graduate students outside of a Manhattan bar because they had an anti-fascist sticker on one of their phones, according to court records. One of the members, John Young, was eventually convicted on multiple charges stemming from the attack.

Research on white power movements indicates that there are those who proudly salute Hitler and flash their swastika tattoos, and then there are the "hangers-on" who attract the same audience but fly under the radar, according to Mark Bray, a lecturer in history at Dartmouth College and author of "Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook."

To an anti-fascist, Bray said, skinheads who pal around with fascists and neo-Nazis and don't publicly disavow racism are just as bad as those who wave the Nazi flag.

STORY: Jailed Klansman 'belligerent' leader of KKK group

After receiving antifa's detailed report last week, which he described as "probably one of the most slanderous things I've seen," Jester posed a question to his Facebook fans:

"If I allow someone who identifies as a Nazi to perform music on my stage and they agreed to do so within the parameters I've set, does that make me a Nazi sympathizer or an ally to the alt-right?"

The lines are blurred, acknowledges Wilmington activist Fe Echavarria, but that's not an excuse to ignore a possible threat.

"To me, obviously these [bands] are white supremacist, fascist people," the Hispanic accountant said. "I will never stand by and let it escalate to that point." You're not going to come to my state with the intention of putting me on a boat and killing me."

"How many of us would stand for a pedophile conference coming to the neighborhood?"

Contact Margie Fishman at 302-324-2882, on Twitter @MargieTrende or mfishman@delawareonline.com.