Hi Corny.....As your foemost bullying fuckwit, let me be assured you read what Howard wrote, can understand it, and KNOW it to be true.......It is. Read the following paragraphs again and again until you see the truth:

HOWARD WROTE---The role of folk music in the pre-industrial world (and industrial world, come to that) was entertainment. People then didn't have access to professional entertainment, so they had to make their own. When the invention of the gramophone and wireless gave them access to professional entertainment, they had no further need for folk music, and all but a few willingly abandoned it. We may find that regrettable, but it was their choice.

The simple fact is, modern society doesn't need folk music. It no longer has a role, except for a few hobbyists. Even those of us who are deeply involved with folk music engage with it very differently from the way traditional singers used to. To imagine that the majority of people just need to be exposed to folk songs in order to return to some imagined pre-industrial idyll where they spend their days singing to each other is simply fantasy.

While we have a forum filled with musicians and lovers of folk/trad, we are the tiniest of populations. If you had ever taken the time to notice, there is a younger contingent as well and every few years there is a resurgence which in this day and age is driven by an interest in what some "professional" does. Is it safe for the future? I think so though you may not. I do know that your bullshit won't help, especially when your real world actions are far from helpful as Skivee pointed out before. Remember that? Let me repost it just as a memory booster:

SKIVEE STATED---Conrad, I have seen you drunk at several festivals. I've seen you drunkenly interupting performers on stage shouting out demands for your favorite songs...that had nothing in common with the performer's repetoire. One of the performers you did this to was me.
I've seen you invite yourself to a private party after a festival. At that party, you repeatedly interupted invited guests mis-song to squeak out unrecognizable tunes on a penny whistle. When asked, you admitted that you had no idea what tune *YOU* were tooting out. You were just making noise to screw with the folks who'd been asked to sing songs for our hosts.

I've seen you come breath-takingly close to running over festival participants by driving your truck down a crowded access road at 50mph just after closing. Venders were in the process of tearing down their displays and packing up. People were quite literally jumping out of your way to save their lives. You were gunning it so hard that you were throwing gravel behind you skidding. Make no mistake. You nearly killed people that day.

This was at a fest where you had volunteered to be a stage announcer.
You talked about your personal "potato Famine" fetish for 15 minutes into a Welsh choir's 1/2 hour set, then cut them off after they'd done 15 minutes because you "had to keep the stage on schedule." There's a reason that you aren't asked to announce at many festivals in the area anymore.
I could share other stories of your drunken self-serving inappropirateness, but I doubt you even remember these few that I've related.

AND THAT, my unbathed, uncouth, dimbulb, friend, is truly bullying behavior as well as boorish to the 100th power! It is you who can stop the interest in folk music, not some professional----YOU!!!! On that basis I feel no chagrin in telling your dumb ass to fuck off.


Spaw