UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST,The Stage Manager
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 09:27 AM

I think maybe the best way of protesting about this issue is going to play in as many pubs, clubs, shops and cafes etc as possible and actually entertaining people.

Hopefully this will result in getting thrown out a few times, so a few more people might begin to realise how stupid and irrational the legislation has become. Particularly if these performers were to hand out leaflets on the issue as they were led to the door. Be nice if some 'popular names' involved.

I am reminded of a vist to Hamburg, where a quartet of music students were busking in a 'nice' shopping area. The polizi were called to move them on by a shopkeeper. The Polizi were then themselves asked to move on by a group of middle aged hausfrau who were enjoying the music and demanded that the quartet be allowed to continue. The Polizi knew when they were beaten.   

Ministers demonstrating themselves to be ignorant or misinformed pratts is hardly news. Frankly its what we've come to expect of them, particularly when it comes to indegenous, ethnic, "f word" music or indeed most art forms.   

In the old adage if you want to communicate "Show, don't tell"

SM

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: Cuilionn
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 10:31 AM

Aye, that! Ye need "sing ins" & "listen ins" tae demonstrate the SATYAGRAHA (sp?) or "soul-force" o music. Stop nit-pickin an stairt pickin yir citterns & banjos & aa that. Gie the silly blighters a splendit shaw o force that sweeps across the land. Enlist the help o disaffectit youth o ilka stripe--they love bein rebels WI a cause. Enlist the help o local elders whae're wantin a bit o meaningful fun. Get 'em tae come in wi the disaffectit youth an demand the music thegither! Get them all tae carry on intae the wee hoors, an after the "focal folk" are dane wi their sets, hae the youth an elders stairt tradin tunes & teachin ilka ither their sangs! Rouse the populace! Ye cuid ca it sumpit like "The Hell of a Guid Time" maevement...

(Tae quote poet Marge Piercy, "...how beautiful is trouble/ actively pursued...")

--Cuilionn, whae regrets bein on the wrang side o the pond whaur she cannae instigate as muckle as she'd like

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: Grab
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 10:35 AM

Can I protest about the issue of cretins reopening three-year-old posts which were of dubious relevance in the first place?

Graham.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 11:53 AM

Sure! And can I complain about the gratuitous use of an endocrine imbalance as an insult? We don't use "spastic" in that way anymore, quite rightly, and we shouldn't use "cretin" either.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST,The Stage Manager
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 12:44 PM

Yeah, and I'd like to complain that at the level where it matters, people singing and playing in pubs, we're no further forward in three years.

All we're asking for is the restoration of common sense and the continuation of a 1000 year old tradition. Obviously this is too much of a brainstormer for the bureaucrats.

Maybe if they won't let us sing or play in our local pubs, we should move to the local council offices and sing during council or commitee meetings.   

Personally, I'd love to hear three Somerset folk singers performing in the public gallery of the House of Commons next time Mr Howells gets up to make a speech. I bet it would get on "Yesterday in Parliament" on Radio 4!

SM

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: The Shambles
Date: 06 Feb 04 - 12:58 PM

We will not be any further foward as long as incorrect information -such as the following - is being supplied as advice to local councillors by their legal officers.   

Mr Gall may be comforted by the fact that Section 177 of the Licensing Act 2003 will, (providing the requirements contained within sub-sections (1) and (2) of it are met) mean that unamplified live music or facilities to enable persons to take part in it, will not require to be licensed. However, the implementation of this Act has been greatly delayed and it is now expected that the earliest date the new licensing provisions will come into effect will be June 2004 and it may even be as late as September of that year.

Of course s 177 does not of course mean that 'unamplified live music etc' will not rquire it to be licensed.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: The Stage Manager
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 11:10 AM

Oh good grief.

I'm sorry, if things have reached this sort of nit picking lunacy, someone, somewhere, needs a good rogering with the rough end of a pineapple until such a time as they start to see sense, cut through the crap, and begin to rediscover the plot.

No wonder we are no further forward. So the Minister is a self confessed "simple urban boy" for whom "the idea of listening to three Somerset folk singers sounds like hell."

In my book he's obviously not up to the job then, pineapple or no pineapple.

SM

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST,BIG ANDY
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 12:00 PM

So dose this mean i can still hang ten politicians over breckfast though.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: The Stage Manager
Date: 07 Feb 04 - 02:17 PM

Hi Big Andy, I suggest you stick to effigies. In real life the b***ers are as slippery as eels and twice as slimy.

SM

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: Ernest
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 06:11 AM

After reading all that stuff (much of which I can agree with) I am still wondering if the title of this thread is wisely chosen:

Hands up, all you folk musicians, who never insulted a politician on stage?

Many of the jokes I heard musicians make about politicians are just as stupid.

Yours
Ernest

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST,ET
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 05:18 PM

The message about unamplified music went out to Libera Lords - or at least they failed to understand that it was no exemption, but they backed off leting the bill in. Now DCMS is launching a formum to see what is happening to live music, the chair being one Fergal Sharkey of the undertones - not a notorious folkie!.

The Act is so simple a peice of de regulation that it has been delayed many times because it is not possible to understand it. Now in force abut Autumn 2005.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: vectis
Date: 08 Feb 04 - 07:20 PM

There have been reports in the press that the new laws will make it impossible for circuses to continue to operate. At this point the polititions started to realise that the act might just be a tad more far-reaching than they had envisiged.

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST,Andrew
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 08:09 AM

I heard the same reports vectis.

Apparently Circus Performers have a big problem as often they don't know where they will be performing in 5 - 6 weeks therefore can't apply for a licence.

This was big news on the BBC - What a good job that impromptu folk sessions are so meticulously planned that we don't have the same problem. If we did I am sure the BBC would rally to the cause just as they did for a few clowns -

mm clowns - didn't this thread start off talking about Kim Howells ?

Andrew

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 09:48 AM

Why is it we always complain that politicians don"t say what they think, then when they do we go all argy bargy and cry foul. For God's sake is there nothing more important to write to MPS about ?

Subject: RE: UK Minister insults folkmusic: complain!
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Feb 04 - 10:02 AM

There are certainly more important things to write to MPs about - but it doesn't follow that we shouldn't have written about this one. (Obviously, given the age of the thread, we need to be thinking in the past tense here.) There was a chance that my local MP could affect the legislation on licencing, but I seriously doubt if there was ever a chance he could influence whether we went to war or not. Again, he can affect laws going through the house but has precious little opportunity to introduce new laws. So there is no very easy link between what is important and what is worth writing to your MP about.