Rock concert linked to hate groups

Organizers of a Grantville concert featuring white supremacist music hope to lure money and recruits for Neo-Nazi and skinhead groups, a spokesman for a watchdog group said.

Uprise 2006, to be held near Grantville tomorrow, “is a concert of white supremacists,” said Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center of Montgomery, Ala.

The concert promoter, Final Stand Records, is a white hate group, according to Potok.

“The music really is effective at bringing in teenage potential recruits,” Potok said.

People listen to hate music on the Internet, then go to skinhead concerts and sometimes join white hate groups, according to Potok.

“What they find is a whole world there, a kind of subculture most people don’t know about at all,” Potok said. “The point is it’s not just merely the music. With the music comes drugs, girls and women, and camaraderie and people just telling you how smart you are, ‘Yes, you’re right, your parents are fools.’ That kind of thing.”

Information about the concert is posted on the Web site www.finalstandrecords.com. The site says the concert will be held near the Grantville exit of Interstate 81, with doors opening at 2 p.m. and bands playing at 4 p.m.

To keep police and pickets away from the concert, promoters place someone near a gas station just off the interstate to give skinheads and others directions to the exact location.

“These kinds of concerts are of interest to police because of the violence,” Potok said.

But not all such concerts become violent.

“It all depends on how they are run,” Potok said.

The Web site for Uprise 2006 cautions that weapons and fighting are forbidden, and notes that people must be 21 to drink alcohol at the event.

The party will continue after the concert at a local bar, according to a man who tracks white hate music and groups. The Web site also suggests nearby motels where people attending the concert could stay.

Daryle Lamont Jenkins of a New Jersey group known as One People’s Project said tomorrow’s concert is the fifth in the past year at the Grantville location. He expects about 100 people to attend.

In the past, he said, the promoter has tried to keep police incidents to a minimum.

“They have to play it cool or otherwise they won’t be allowed to have more shows there,” Jenkins said.

Trooper Linette Quinn, spokeswoman for Pennsylvania State Police Troop H, said police know about the groups gathering in Grantville.

“The troop is aware of the concert,” Quinn said. “If we get calls or complaints, we’ll respond to them.”

As such concerts go, this one is medium sized, Potok said. Larger concerts bring in 400 to 500 people. More common are the concerts that bring in several dozen.

“Music is the single most effective methods these groups have to raise money,” Potok said. The other method is membership dues in local organizations.

Jenkins said that Final Stand Records of Newark, Del., which is promoting the Grantville concert, is a one-man operation, run by Robert Huber. Huber did not return a telephone call asking about the concert yesterday.

Huber plays guitar with the group Teardown, one of six groups that will play tomorrow, Jenkins said.

Other groups scheduled to play are Empire Falls, Straightlaced Nightmare, Grand Belials Key, Those Opposed and Wotanorden. The event also will feature vendors, the Web site says.

Jenkins said Huber uses Final Stand Records to promote Teardown’s music.

“Final Stand is one of about a dozen white-power music distributors in the United States,” Potok said.

What is called white hate music started in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, then spread to the United States.

Potok said Pennsylvania has always had more such groups than most people realize.

“It’s had a fairly large concentration, particularly in the middle sections,” Potok said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s 2004 count said it found 32 hate groups in Pennsylvania.

“That is relatively high,” Potok said. “It puts you in the top 20 percent” of the states.

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