When Neil Simpkins—drummer for Philly's cabaretronic The Nite Lights—wrote to tell me their gig at Standard Tap for Feb. 15 was cancelled, I thought nothing of it.

Until the next line: " … because of Joe B.'s promotional flier."

FLIER CONSTRAINT: The controversial poster that prompted The Standard Tap to remove The Nite Lights from the bill.

The usually quiet Joe Boruchow—singer/graphic artist—had come up with something not so quiet: an image of a Klansman holding a Bible and a U.S. flag with a cross burning in the background, an image he designed, then posted, around Northern Liberties (see right).

"I looked at it as an editorial cartoon where the religious right had co-opted the country," says Simpkins. So did its creator. Between President Bush's State of the Union address and its outlook on terrorism, the controversy of Muslim cartoon art, and having to hear Southern politicians praise Coretta Scott King after years of damning her husband, Boruchow snapped. "I saw a real immorality in all of that false morality," he says. "The Klan itself was a terrorist organization long ignored by this country and the FBI."

So Boruchow came up with what he thought would be a thought-provoking image, sans text, that band members agreed would disturb people. "In my mind, it was a political/editorial commentary," says Simpkins.

"I wanted people to stop when they saw it—to intellectualize their emotional response," says Boruchow. "From what I understand, a lot of people didn't share that view."

One of them was Standard Tap owner William Reed, who not only asked that the posters come down, but cancelled the Lights' show. Reed found that the poster lacked context.

"We just didn't want the Tap to be associated with the Klan," says Reed. "Without context beyond that, it's hard to read anything but—just our name, their name and all this KKK imagery." Reed figured that the only way to not show tacit approval was to take the Nite Lights off the Feb. 15 concert bill. "Normally when I see something like that, I assume that it is a political statement. But I just couldn't see how this was one."

Neither could some of the Tap's habitués, a few of whom complained to Reed. "But we took it down based on our response—our own good name," says Reed who, after a conversation with Boruchow, found the two at calm loggerheads, agreeing to disagree.

Reed says he's offered the Nite Lights (who will play this Sunday at The Fire) a future gig. Just without the posters.