The Highway Murderers are a crypto-fascist rock band from Santa Cruz. Since the band’s formation in 2002, they have constantly been subject to criticism and resistance from the northern California music community for their consistently violent, misogynistic, and racist behavior. For the past months, members of the band and south bay area neo-nazi Nick Sherman have been working hard to get the band booked for a show at a South Bay venue.

The band is generally good at masking their white power and fascist symbols and aesthetics behind the violent and authoritarian imagery that permeates in contemporary metal music scenes. Despite this, members have slipped up and revealed their true colors with careless social media posts that expose their neo-nazi leanings. The Highway Murderers and their supporters continually try to deflect charges of being fascists by pointing out that one of the members is a Latino man. The use of token non-white people associated with fascists and neo-nazis to dodge being called out on their racist actions is a common occurrence in the contemporary moment.

The Highway Murderers are currently scheduled to perform on Saturday, May 27 at one of the domes in west San José which used to house the Winchester Theaters. Located at 3161 Olsen Drive, this property is owned by Winchester Investments LLC, and is owned by the wealthy South Bay Farris and Raney families that also own the nearby Winchester Mystery House among other large real estate holdings. These owners include Ray K. Farris II who has this corporation and many other business entities registered to the address of 1515 The Alameda in San José.

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