There are two premises in this thread that are quite capable of co-existence - that well-run folk clubs are a good thing, and that there are an awful lot of absolutely dire places.

In my experience, however, the dross outweighs the gold. I'm with countess richard in actually liking to see an eclectic mix, it's one of the reasons why festivals are so inspiring; seeing a bunch of youngsters at an LNE gives me confidence that the music of the people of this country isn't dying.

The first time I took my now-wife to a 'folk music' event was a pub singaround at Chippenham at which everyone was in full voice, backed by a wall of sound from the Wilson family. She found it truly awesome, and when she recovered the power of speech was easily persuaded to go to Sidmouth the following month.

We arrived late, and the first exposure she had to the festival was the Late Night Extra. Her jaw dropped at the band playing a bhangra-morris crossover tune, and at the heaving lines of dancers that would have put an eighties rave to shame. "And thisis folk too?" she asked. The atmosphere was electrifying and she was instantly hooked on folk music in its purest sense.

And then...
Then we started going to clubs and smaller events to feed the new-found craving. Some of them, like Sharp's and Maidenhead, are gems; well-run and welcoming, and I wish we could have gone every week. But others have been dire; so dire as to make my wife (a complete newcomer to folk music) shake her head and wonder why so many apparently odd and inadequate people are drawn to it - life's shaky eggs, as she calls them.

And yet it's that sort of club that is associated with the phrase 'folk club'. A dank, unlovely place where people stumble humbly in and then endure a grotesque parade of egotism and musical and social ineptitude in the hope of hearing one good item. Such places are hopefully the past rather than the future of folk music, and yet they are probably the first experience of it for many people. Hence 'f*lk', because 'folk' is a dirty word. Hence 'roots', 'world', 'accoustic'; anything but f*cking f*lk for fear of scaring the punters.

My local venue here in west Wales is a case in point. The guy who runs it has worked bloody hard to build up a series of excellent nights that draw musicians and audiences from a wide area to play jazz, rock, techno, bhangra, house - you name it and it packs the punters in.

Apart, that is, from the folk nights. "I love folk music," he says. "I come from a morris background, for f*ck's sake and I spent my youth getting pissed in folk clubs; and yet if I put on a 'folk' night here I know it will bomb and I'll lose money. Open mic nights and accoustic nights are fine, although we get some crap stuff - just as crappy as the folk stuff that people say they hate - but call it 'folk' and the punters run a mile." And that's from the horse's mouth.

Think of the stock comedic cliche of the fat, bearded teacher with tankard and finger in ear singing driges about how horrid life is down the pit. It's a cliche because it's bloody true! For myself (fat and beared though I am) I'd love to see a few more tattoos, piercings and general unruliness at folk clubs. If the music isn't robust enough to withstand that, thrive and infect a new generation then words fail me.