Changes: R. Kelly, Ted Nugent, The Horrors

You can forget about seeing R. Kelly at the Fashion Meets Music Festival in Columbus, Ohio, at the end of August.

The multi-day event is just what the title describes – a mashup of fashion and music happening Aug. 28-31 at various venues.  The lineup includes O.A.R., New Found Glory, Maps & Atlases, Afroman, Future Islands and others.

But no R. Kelly.  While a posting on the festival’s Facebook page says it was time for Kelly and the event to “part ways,” the NBC affiliate in Chicago says protests by “locals and artists” resulted in Kelly being dropped from the lineup.

You’ll need to go back to 2008 for why people are protesting Kelly in 2014.  Six years ago the artist was facing multiple charges of child pornography. Although Kelly was acquitted of the charges in 2008, the shadow of those accusations still follows him to this day.

Plus, former Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis wrote a scathing blog posting earlier this year detailing Kelly’s alleged actions with young girls. 

Damn The Witch Siren and Saintseneca canceled their appearances after learning of Kelly’s involvement, according to The Columbus Dispatch, which says radio station WCBE “withdrew its sponsorship shortly after.”

Regarding Kelly’s appearance getting the axe, the announcement posted on the festival’s Facebook page is short, brief, and doesn’t allude to any controversy.

“FMMF and R. Kelly have decided to part ways,” the message reads.  “We appreciate the ongoing support of our Festival partners and look forward to kicking things off next month.”

The Columbus Dispatch also has a quote, citing festival spokeswoman Melissa Dickson who said a public relations firm is helping the festival polish its image.

”We wanted to make sure we heard the Columbus listeners … to make a statement and support the city we live in,” Dickson told the newspaper.

Ted Nugent suddenly has a lot of free time on his hands during the first few days of August.

The Motor City Madman’s Aug. 2 and 3 gigs scheduled for Aug. 2-3 at the Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma, Wash., have been scrubbed because of comments Nugent has made, including his Guns.com interview in which reportedly called President Obama a “subhuman mongrel.”

Apparently some people didn’t like that characterization.  The casino received death threats as well as threats that protests would be held in front of the venue, according to the News Tribune.

Dropping Nugent from its August calendar marked the first time the casino operated by the Puyallup Tribe has ever canceled an act because of its views, the newspaper reports.

But casino officials were also thinking of ending the venue’s relationship with Nugent for some time.

“About a month ago, our tribal council decided that it would not book him any further based on his racists comments,” Tribal spokesman John Weymer told the News Tribune. “We’ve been getting a lot of pressure from some activist groups, a lot of phone calls, a lot of concerns.”

News of the Emerald Queen Casino’s decision to drop two evenings of Nugent came after the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, citing the rocker’s alleged “racist views,” canceled its night with the guitarist scheduled for Aug. 4 at its casino in Worley. 

British indie rock band The Horrors has reworked its itinerary for late 2014.  The Horrors were supposed to launch a North American outing Oct. 11 in Mexico City and follow the run with a tour of Europe beginning Nov. 21 in Rennes, France.  But that was then.

Now the band has the following message on its Facebook page:

“Unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control we have had to reshuffle our US and European tours as the end of this year.  We can only apologise to anyone who already has tickets to the dates affected – we hate cancelling shows but this situation was unavoidable.  We’ll be back on the road next year and make sure we return to all the places we missed on this run.”