This weekend, four Brooklyn venues were set to host The Good English, a trio of sisters from Oakwood, Ohio who've been described as "the lovechild of Nancy Sinatra and Black Sabbath" and were going to play several shows affiliated with the Northside music festival. But after it was revealed that drummer Leslie Rasmussen wrote a letter to Judge Aaron Persky defending convicted rapist and former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner, those venues were besieged by requests from New Yorkers asking them to cancel the band's appearances, and as of this afternoon, the band's Brooklyn tour has been completely scrapped.

#GoodEnglish #Daytongram #daytonmusic A photo posted by Bill Wendel (@billjwendel) on May 7, 2016 at 5:48pm PDT

Turner, who was recently sentenced to six months in jail after being convicted of several felonies in the rape of an unconscious woman who was visiting campus, is also from Oakwood, and graduated Oakwood High School in 2014. Rasmussen appears to have graduated in Turner's class, and, according to the letter she wrote to the judge, she'd known Turner since elementary school and was good friends with him in high school.

Like Turner's father, who argued his son was paying too steep a price for "20 minutes of action," Rasmussen defended the convicted rapist and was also quick to blame the victim, whose powerful statement has drawn considerable attention to the case:

It's pretty frustrating to see the light that people are putting him in now. It used to be 'swim star' and now it's like he is the face of rape on campuses...there is absolutely no way Brock went out that night with rape on his mind. I think he went to a party and was drinking, like almost very student at a university does, and was flirting with this girl, like he said. The woman recalls how much alcohol she drank, which was a lot. She was no doubt about to black out if not already.

[...]

I don't think it's fair to base the fate of the next ten + years of his life on the decision of a girl who doesn't remember anything but the amount she drank to press charges against him...where do we draw the line and stop worrying about being politically correct every second of the day and see that rape on campuses isn't always because people are rapists.

Rasmussen's letter, originally posted to Twitter, got a fair amount of press yesterday, at which point some people began to realize Rasmussen's connection to The Good English, and her intentions to perform across Brooklyn this weekend. Last night, Northside Festival's Facebook page received an onslaught of angry posts, as did Bar Matchless, which is hosting the festival on Thursday and Friday; The Rock Shop, which is hosting an unofficial showcase that would have featured The Good English on Friday; Industry City Distillery, which was also hosting an unofficial showcase on Saturday; and Gold Sounds, which is hosting a separate showcase of women in music on Sunday that would have featured the band.

By this afternoon, all five shows had been cancelled, with Industry City Distillery and Bar Matchless making public statements condemning rape culture while The Rock Shop and Gold Sounds quietly removed The Good English from their lineups.

Northside announced the removal of the band from the festival on its social media accounts, but didn't respond to a request for further comment, nor did The Rock Shop or Gold Sounds. In a statement, Bar Matchless said that "Good English will not be playing Matchless. We do not support victim blaming or rape apologists of any kind."

"It all kind of came as one big whirlwind last night," said Ronak Parikh, who runs sales and operations at Industry City Distillery. "We got notifications on our page about the band, which is when I first heard about the story, and it kind of hit us all at once. We have zero tolerance for the act itself, for anyone that would seek to defend that act, and certainly for the sentencing, which seems incredibly light."

Since cancelling, Parikh said, Industry City Distillery has received an overwhelmingly positive response, and was pleased to hear that the other venues scheduled to host the band had cancelled, as well.

"I'm just really happy that instead of it being about censorship or protest, it's more about having real life consequences for your actions," said Danielle Guercio, who helped spur the social media campaign against the band. "It's about sending a message that if you're a woman, we protect you. Especially in New York and in the music scene in Brooklyn, you can't just come here with this kind of shit...you're coming to New York! People with that kind of small-town sexism have no place trying to make money off or our independent infrastructure. She stands to get fame, opportunities, things that local Brooklynites have to fight to get in those festivals, so why should New York welcome somebody with that kind of attitude?"

Neither The Good English nor their manager responded to a request for comment, but we'll update if they do. The Brooklyn shows are still listed on the tour page of their website, but their Facebook page was taken down some time between the onslaught of last night's outrage and this afternoon.