Scrump, well you did rather misunderstand. 'Acoustics' and 'open mics' have a lot of rubbish in them too which is rather painful to sit through in order to discover the occasional gem. I was saying, additionally, that the Arts or Leisure Centre venues (not necessarily large) are very much more inclusive towards the entire community than the narrow cliques that inhabit old-style clubs (bear in mind that I did stress earlier that I was generalising wildly).

I then went on to talk about a completely new circuit, characterised by The Fence Collective, or Peter Paphides' promotions, The Magpie's Nest, that boat in Bristol which I can't, for the moment, remember the name of (it's my age), all of which are the subject of threads passim. Can't say I'm over fond of absolutely everything that goes on in all of them. But they're run by and predominantly for young people, they don't judge and don't mind if you're noisy and they let me in. Air, Fresh and Breath of spring to mind.

I have, from time to time, brough people I've met at ceilidhs to 'f*lk clubs' to see an act they've first encountered at, say, an LNE. Time after time they've been horrified and vowed never to go anywhere near such an establishment again because they've been shushed and glared at and made to feel so unwelcome. Quite a good reason to think about calling them something else, and running them differently.