The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #118525   Message #2575864
Posted By: GUEST,THE CLAQUE
25-Feb-09 - 04:50 PM
Thread Name: should the BBC folk awards be scrapped
Subject: RE: should the BBC folk awards be scrapped
I'm reluctant to infringe,off-topic,on this thread's origin,but if anyone would like us to come and sing to them at their event,I can be contacted at sean.oshea@hotmail.co.uk.In its own limited way,this thread spreads our name a bit.We don't travel a lot because we don't have a PR stream and because that's not what we want in a big way.We have an album on WILDGOOSE RECORDS that was critically acclaimed on a national level,last year and played on Radio 2 and 3 and across the US and Australia.As a group,in the last two years,we've done WHITBY,CHIPPENHAM,WADEBRIDGE,SIDMOUTH,CHELTENHAM,TENTERDEN festivals as booked guests.

Awards on this scale don't apply to us.It seems to me that these awards celebrate success on a bigger plane than we aim for or would want to achieve and I think that's all right.But there are many working folk artists who underpin and continue to underpin the folk world at a genuine roots level-this is,to my mind,not where many of the award winners are.
It's like two different co-existing strata,one youth-driven,one veteran maintained and it's the former group who would expect the gongs as it stands.Having said that,I think that the veterans who do get the gongs are the ones who have embraced the young thrusters more visibly and ,at times,for non-esoteric motives.How do you,as a veteran,appear cool to the kids?Why,you fawn over them,of course.