No that's not true. I didn't mind going and not singing, but all these fucking idiots started going on about how we must protect the tradition. And it bloody well finished off the scene.

First of all they were nasty to people whom I would happily sit there and watch, and a lot of the prformers just pissed off abroad to work.

Johnny Silvo, Wizz Jones, Gerry Lockran - they used to talk and act disrespectfully through their sets - because they said it wasn't real folk music.

If you could produce people like that, I'd still be going to folk clubs. But you broke up the continuity. Nowadays these young kids are being suckered into thinking folk music is like the civil service.

They think they can sit their with melodeons and fiddles with faces like they're sucking on a lemon and producing excruciatingly boring and unmemorable music and they will be awarded a place in the folkmusic hall of fame.

And awarding them a major recording contract isn't going to work either. Believe you me, I know - I would have sold my ass musically speaking, but if they don't think you'll shift the units - they will lose interest so quick you won't believe it.