Story by: Nick Lamoureux
Moon Landing supports victims of sexual assault and wants to provide a voice for victims. I wish I didn’t have to write this piece, but felt like it should be given more attention.
I think we can all agree the current state of the dance music community, quite frankly, fucking sucks. Sorry if that’s being too harsh, but sadly the growing number of victims and the dangerous cancel culture are becoming a normalized part of the day as people scroll through social media.
More and more artists are facing accusations of sexual assault and friends are engaging in heated debates regarding sensitive topics. The passion and pain of trauma can make it hard for everyone to fully acknowledge all the perspectives, at times making it challenging to have productive discourse.
How did it get to this point, and better yet, what can we do to start pointing the ship in the right direction? Can we all just take a pause, step back, and evaluate how each of us as individuals can create more positivity every day?
I think we can all agree that things need to change. We can start by being kind and more open to others’ experiences and beliefs. Maybe it’s the shutdown getting to everyone and raising the tension in the air, but conversations need to continue in a productive way because we’re starting to hit topics that really matter.
Sexual assault can be a variety of unwanted actions or words. Let’s get one thing straight, unless you have CONSENT – keep your hands off of other people, don’t send unsolicited photos, make sexual innuendos, or do anything that would make someone uncomfortable. Sadly there are situations where the aggressor genuinely doesn’t know their actions are wrong and it is a heart-breaking testament to how much rape culture has become normalized. Plain and simple – IT IS NOT OKAY! There are far too many stories from survivors, predominantly women, at festivals who have been physically violated and it needs to stop.
For the record, if you do sexually assault someone, you deserve to have your ass beat. That’s fair, right? It’s important to bring attention to the social cues of sexual assaults so others can be educated to keep an eye out for this egregious behavior. It’s a sad reality we have to face, but a reality nonetheless. The latest accusations have come to fruition against well known bass artists Jasha Tull, aka Space Jesus, but have we also completely forgotten about Fred Durand, aka Snails? Is everyone just turning a blind eye? These allegations have been around for quite some time, but haven’t reached the level of engagement this issue deserves, so it felt necessary to bring this to light.
This is just ONE example that someone told to me just this week – for anonymity I’ve left their profile information out – but this is at least something we should talk about. Datsik, Moon Boy, Graves, and now Space Jesus and Snails have allegations resurfacing. How many others could there be that we just haven’t heard about yet?
In March of 2018, allegations of sexual assault and rape were brought against dubstep producer, Datsik. We saw that story run rampant, and since then Datsik has vanished from social media, and essentially the world. His latest appearance led him to issue a weak apology that didn’t quite resonate with dance music fans. From that moment forward, Datsik has been cancelled in the eyes of the electronic music community.
At the time in a Dancing Astronaut article, Space Jesus’s name was thrown around in the mud along with Datsik, but for whatever reason the allegations blew over for Jasha. Recently, allegations of sexual assault have resurfaced from the Ninja Nation Tour in 2018 in which Space Jesus toured with Datsik, as well as another seemingly main story people are following which has come from a woman identified by the name of Caeli La.
There’s even been a dedicated Instagram account @evidenceagainstspacejesus created in the last five weeks that includes messages from several women making allegations against the bass music producer. The allegations range from knowingly having sex with a woman that was 17 to groping women on the tour bus and rape allegations.
We will let you make your own judgments on the allegations and his response – but you can read Space Jesus’s full response to these allegations here and make your own conclusions based on the information provided from both sides of the story.
In Space Jesus’s response, he explains that he had been in a romantic relationship with Caeli La, and after several months of staying with the accuser, he says that “she disclosed to me that her services included sexual intimacy with her clients.” From his response, at this point he decided to cut ties to the relationship. He then goes on to say for the next six to seven months after ending the relationship, Caeli continued to email and text him saying that she “pleaded with me to get back together.”
Messages exchanged shows Caeli talking about how difficult it was to talk with Jasha about their past experience and that she was feeling suicidal. These messages then turned into Caeli threatening to “expose” Jasha for the way that he had treated her. To tell both sides of the story these messages should also be seen, because in his response, Space Jesus made claims that Caeli has been involved in false accusations in the past with other musicians. One message in particular that Jasha received from Caeli reads: “Karmas a bitch… wrongly accuse someone of sexual abuse and never apologize for it, and you may end up getting wrongly accused yourself.”
Objectively, this text message is important to this story because the threat to falsely accuse Jasha is blatant in her message, and supports his statement about Caeli accusing other musicians. I am not insinuating that she is lying, or that any of the other accusers are lying – I’m simply providing all of the information I believe is important to form an educated opinion on the whole story. I will leave it to the readers to pass their own judgment and leave you with the entire evidence folder from Space Jesus’s side.
Caeli has vowed to tell more of her story with a full statement coming soon.
Switching gears back to Snails briefly because I think this needs to be said again. How have his allegations gone completely unspoken among all of the allegations of other artists? I will provide you with what I have gathered and let you make your own decision about this one as well.
In the first message from 2016, Fred is outright accused of raping a girl and leaving her without pants, unconscious, where he had committed the heinous act. The following messages are also eerily similar to the one that I received directly about him this week.
Most of the experiences recount Snails getting obnoxiously drunk and high, and then attempting to make sexual advances on several females. Even after several accusations have been made against Fred over the years, there has yet (from what I can gather) to be a response to any of them from him.
If you are a victim of an unwanted assault from either of these artists, or another artist or person, PLEASE come forward and let yourself be heard. I understand it is difficult to speak about it, but speaking up could prevent this from happening to another person.
Too many times women are being violated with no follow up, and no legal retribution on the aggressor. It’s time that we, the community, stand up to prevent sexual assault from occurring, and we can by holding the perpetrators accountable.
If you or anyone you know is a victim of sexual assault and is in need of support and resources, please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline (1-800-656-4673) and they can help guide you through what steps to take.
Please consider donating to an organization that supports victims of sexual assault – RAINN, the nations largest anti sexual violence organization is one of the leaders: https://donate.rainn.org/donate.
P.S. – Wear a damn mask – Be kind and love one another.
