"Hardly reactionary, old man"
Anybody who lumps in Harry Cox and Phil Tanner with Heavy Metal is as reactionary as it gets.
"Jim, no case to answer."
Bryan - I didn't really think there was. My problem arising, (as you rightly point out) from my not attending UK clubs often, is on the one hand I have SO'P's rag-bag as an example of legitimate fare for a set-up that calls itself a folk club, and on the other I have clubs like the Lewes ones which, I have no reason to doubt consistently present good folk-music well performed - what's a poor girl expected to do in those circumstances?
I know from personal experience that the number and quality of the clubs have declined radically over the last twenty-odd years, as have the audences numbers - I don't know to what extent.
I do believe there are remedies to improve things, if not to put them back to where they were - it's happened here in Ireland.
"Wow! That's a pretty serious ambition."
My reference to our failure to influence the public at large was a response to S O'P's claim that 'The world has moved on' as far as a definition of 'folk'; my point being that the world in general has shown no interest in the subject whatever and goes through life either unaware or not caring whether folk music exists or not. The arbitrary manipulation or abandoning the definition is solely the work of people like S O'P with a vested interest.
I said earlier that I believe clubs that call themselves 'folk' take on a responsibility for the music they claim to present.
Just before we left London we 'pigged out' on folk clubs, visiting as many of them as we could because we realised we wouldn't get the opportunity here.
We were in a West London club one night were the performances were diabolical and the songs were - indifferent (not one of Sweeney's wannabe but failed heavy metal mobs, just somewhat dismal). A youngish couple came in, the man had obviously been before but the woman appeared to be a first-timer who sat looking a mixture of bored and bemused. After a while she slipped the man a piece of paper and shortly afterwards they disappeared through the door.
To my shame, in the interval I found the piece of paper which had been left on their vacant seats and read it. It said "What the **** have you brought me to".
Jim Carroll