BS: BNP and folk music

Subject: RE: BS: BNP and folk music
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 May 06 - 05:43 AM

The BNP types in Stoke-on-Trent are so far conspicuously absent from the folk scene, as far as I am aware(though I appreciate that not all BNP members have BNP and George crosses tattooed on their foreheads, so I may not have spotted them.
   I should have thought one thing folkies in positions of influence in clubs and festivals might do is book a few more acts from black and minority ethnic groups. The black Zimbabwean singers that live in Stoke, for example, have a fantastic a capella group called Simunye. Its members are working as shelf stackers on night shifts, which seems to me a terrible waste of talent. It would be sort of nice(and a fabulous experience for audiences) if a few more festivals, clubs, and companies that take workshops into schools, took a bit more interest in the real traditional folk music that we all have on our doorsteps. A few more black and Asian local performers made welcome on the folk scene would surely provide a welcome balance to any potential infiltration by the "whites only" brigade from the various unsavoury parties of the right which occasionally float to the surface for a(hopefully) brief period.

Subject: BS: BNP and folk music
From: GUEST,wordy
Date: 06 May 06 - 05:29 AM

TV item last night on the millionaire who is bankrolling the BNP. He had a room full of stringed instruments and was shown playing a jolly folk tune (very well) on his mandolin. We should remember how Germany lost its folk music when the Nazis took it over. If the BNP go for the "it's English, so it's ours and to hell with your World Music" ploy,how do we keep them out of infiltrating festivals etc? Call me paranoid, but read your history books first.