Conrad Bladey is an American bigot from Baltimore, not an Irish or British authority on the Orange song tradition.He copies songs out of songbooks he finds at the library, and posts them on the Internet. In the past, his posting was so malicious, several IPs closed his account for racist and sexist harrassment of other posters. He was, as has been mentioned, kicked off the Irtrad list, where a number of Irish musicians who truly are authorities about the Orange music traditions exposed him for the fraud that he is.
Speaking of authorities on the Orange music traditions, I don't suppose any of you have ever heard the names John Moulden and Fintan Vallely? People with a knowledge of the Orange music traditions of great breadth and depth, who don't use their knowledge as a bigot's bully pulpit to further their petty personal agendas?
You see, this is the real problem with Mudcat. Too many people embrace these sorts of fraudulent pretenders, thinking they are real music authorities. Because the DT is so widely used, the poison and misinformation just keeps spreading. Many of you are belligerent and arrogant about it too. You do no service to the music traditions of Ireland engaging in this behavior
All you are doing by defending Conrad and uncritically accepting him as an "expert" on Orange music, is demonstrating to the potential funders of this place more reasons not to fund it. No one who knows anything about the Orange music traditions has ever acknowledged Conrad as an expert--in fact, the exact opposite has been the case.
The Irtrad music list is the best source for Irish music traditions on the Internet. They are not perfect by any means, but there is good reason why knowledgeable authorities like John Moulden, Tom Munnelly, etc post on the Irtrad forum, and not here. The level of ignorance surrounding the discussion of Irish music on this forum is shameful. Absolutely shameful.
Of course, it is also to be expected I suppose, when the BSers are the stars here, and no one even recognizes names like John Moulden, Jean Ritchie, Frank Hamilton, etc when they pop up in the forum to post. That says a tremendous amount about the damning ignorance being peddled here as musical expertise, just because a badly designed and maintained song database is attached to it.
The level of racism, sexism, and bigotry in this forum never ceases to amaze me. But just when I think I've seen the worst I've ever seen, something even more disturbing happens here--many Mudcatters then jump on the jingo bandwagon and defend the racists, the sexists, the bigots, and the pig ignorant parading around as music experts.
There are many worthy places to send your money if you truly want to support folk music on the Internet. But it isn't this place.
This message/thread is a personal attack. By rights, it should be deleted, especially since it was posted by an individual who doesn't have the courage to identify herself. Since so many people have responded, I guess I'm better off to leave the thread alone. Thanks to those who send me personal messages to call my attention to this thread.
-Joe Offer-