Does Folk Exist?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 10:27 AM

Jim is looking at a grand old house through a keyhole and claiming he has a firm knowledge of its interior. He can see some beautiful block-printed wallpaper, there's a corner of the Adam firplace and what looks like some tassels on a Turkey rug. He is now happy to pronounce he knows what what all old English houses look like.

If you believe any music is dying and set out looking for dying music you'll find it, of that there is no doubt. It's my misfortune to believe the thing you'll find is what you set out looking for, not the music of the people, or indeed folk music. Both are alive and only sometimes resemble keyhole views.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 08:18 AM

As long as there Actual Folk there will be Folk Music and Folk Song - likewise Folklore, Folk Custom, Folk Tale etc.

I completely agree and totally disagree. This goes back to my semi-facetious comments about the Snelgrove Process in an earlier thread. Unless one of us is calling Jim a liar, I think we're agreed that he spent a lot of time and energy documenting something that people collectively used to do, and that he was witness to the fact that people don't collectively do that thing any more. (This isn't because people have changed but because society has changed. There are lots of things in the world that people don't do any more.)

The big controversy seems to be about what we call that thing. Calling it "folk music" doesn't bother me in the slightest, but it obviously bothers you a great deal. But all those are just labels, as someone said - the important thing is that Jim is reporting what he saw, and that he did see something real.

(Where I agree with you is that I do think people getting together and making music - in singarounds, in battles of the bands, wherever - is a folk art, & deserves to be celebrated as such. But I don't believe it produces folk music, 99.9% of the time; not because people have changed but because society has changed, and the place of music in society has changed.)

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 08:04 AM

'Glueman', let's imagine a community of musically talented people (working class, of course - 'horny-handed sons and daughters of toil') somewhere in England who are participating in a continuation of the Tradition. They sing ballads, based on traditional models, about the Internet, motorways and supermarkets; in their community centre they perform 'up-dated' jigs and reels to the accompaniment of fiddles and electric bass. Every May Day their children dance around a mobile phone mast with ribbons in their hair and bells on their ankles.

So who is stopping them? Is it likely that the fact that Jim Carroll, Pip Radish and I doubt that the Tradition is still operating going to phase them one little bit? Perhaps I'll meet them one day and be invited to join in their Utopian revels (?)

Contrary to your opinion I do not go around saying things like, "stop doing that, it's not traditional!" If asked for my opinion I will give it and may express myself robustly - but I have no power and no desire to tell people what to do, or what not to do.

If Jim Carroll says that the tradition is no longer operating then he may well have a point and has at least earned the right to be listened to (I also happen to be familiar with his work - I'm not familiar with yours, 'glueman'). Don't shoot the messenger!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 06:24 AM

So at last we have our answer.

Folk continues to exist, but in forms that are, for whatever reason, altogether invisible to the Folkies. As long as there Actual Folk there will be Folk Music and Folk Song - likewise Folklore, Folk Custom, Folk Tale etc. - but it would seem this Actual Folk will be of no interest whatsoever to the Folkies to whom Folk is tightly bound construct which must comply with the Nebulous Agenda Ridden Aestheticism of the Revival (which Folkies laughingly refer to as The Tradition) which is, most pointedly, altogether invisible to Actual Folk.

What, for example, would members of the Folkie Morris Ring make of the teams who comprise the non-Folkie North of England Morris Dancing Carnival Organisation?

THEY NO LONGER DO SO.

Let that particular shibboleth be writ on the headstone of the revival when the last of us is passed away & it is finally dead, buried and, one hopes, soon forgotten.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 05:48 AM

But folk music is continually spoken about in terms of regional, national or racial identity. If it isn't I have no argument. If it is it leaves nowhere for those who want to explore their local identity through in a traditional idiom without the interest of those who want to declaim what they're doing 'isn't folk'.
My point is people can decide for themselves where boundaries lie but there can be no institutionalised definition of those boundaries that doesn't undermine the prospect for a continuation or revival in the need for that common idiom. It uses language to cap the future potential of that music as effectively as an ex-mine is sealed. No-one can predict where common music will go or what societal changes might bring about its re-evaluation.

Having a running agenda about authenticity is priggish and proprietorial over a subject in which prigs and owners had no stake.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 05:29 AM

They've decided a music is not characterised by subject matter, preoccupations, themes or even the instruments on which it is played

Correct.

but by its tense

No. By the way it's created, received and transmitted; by when it's played as much as how or by whom; by what happens to a song after it's been listened to.

a few insist common music is dead and by association the common people with it

This would be insulting if it wasn't such nonsense. Jim again:

"Nowhere has it been suggested that the 'folk' are unable to create their own songs and music, but that, thanks to the development of and accessibilty to technology, they no longer do so."

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 05:15 AM

Anyone who suggests a national music 'died' and those who continue to create it are in error are guilty of intellectual mischief. They've decided a music is not characterised by subject matter, preoccupations, themes or even the instruments on which it is played but by its tense, and that contains no present or future.

The conseqence of that sealing is to disenfranchise those who believe there is a popular idiom in which folk continues to be mined and that expression is important to on-going identity. Most people with an interest in folk music see the danger of that position and describe folk in the continuing line from the tradition into the various strands we have today but a few insist common music is dead and by association the common people with it.

That is a political act with ramifications.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:57 AM

"A minority group have decided society can no longer contribute to making its own indigenous sound by introducing artificial statification. If not racist it's a branch of musical eugenics."

This is a contentious and inflammatory statement, 'glueman'. Who are these 'statifiers' (stratifiers?) - how do they achieve their wicked ends? Musical apartheid happening under our very noses - and I, for one, never even noticed. No-one has tried to stop me from singing - have they tried to stop you? If they have, I think you should name names - we need to know who they are so that we can stop them!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:30 AM

Of course there are exceptions, but I would say it was no longer a part of these communities' cultural identity, rather an isolated occurence.

Probably all too true.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:17 AM

Sorry Will,
You are, of course right,
I was talking in general termsonly.
Of course there are exceptions, but I would say it was no longer a part of these communities' cultural identity, rather an isolated occurence.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:13 AM

Common folk do still create their own music, it merely has a different sound to the one that's been appropriated by 'folk music'. Technology is a completely arbitrary way of deciding typology. If that were the case folk would cease to be 'folk' the moment it was disseminated through an electronic medium of microphone, record, CD. No one denies youtube footage of Morris is folk because it's perceived through a digital format.

American rural poor black music and white music does not have the same stasis or closure that has been projected onto the folk of the UK, nor do asian or east european indigenous musics. They are recognised through form and those who want to continue with that form are folk musicians.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:05 AM

Jim Carroll:
Nowhere has it been suggested that the 'folk' are unable to create their own songs and music, but that, thanks to the development of and accessibilty to technology, they no longer do so. They/we have become passive recipients of, rather than participants in our culture.

Jim, with respect, that's not 100% true. I was at a singaround in a Surrey village last Monday, in which at least a couple of the songs were about the village and the area and had been composed by the senior member many, many years ago. The whole company sang them with obvious knowledge of the words (and not an instrument in sight). And good, rousing songs they were too. My intention is to get the words and music "down" at the next meeting in August.

What other pockets of such activity - which I think meets your criteria above - might exist elsewhere, without it being common knowledge?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 03:39 AM

Folk song was created by the people - 'folk' - pretty well defined in numerous works listed elsewhere and accepted universally since the term came into use in the first half of the 19th century.
Nowhere has it been suggested that the 'folk' are unable to create their own songs and music, but that, thanks to the development of and accessibilty to technology, they no longer do so. They/we have become passive recipients of, rather than participants in our culture.
There is ample evidence to prove that communities in area such as the West of Ireland, the North east of Scotland, East Anglia, Travellers, fishing communities....... at one time not only took up songs from the outside and adapted them to suit their own particular circumstances, but also made new ones to serve the same purpose.      
                        
                                                 THEY NO LONGER DO SO.

The Irish and Scots Travellers were probably the last to cling on to their culture, thanks to their relative isolation, but this disappeared virtually overnight with the advent of the portable television and the social changes brought about by the urnanisation of what were essentially rural communities.
It has never been a case of suggesting that people are UNABLE to create songs and music for themselves, just that circumstances have now changed for them to no longer do so.
Off to West Cork to see if I can catch sight of the Greater Spotted Cap'n Birdseye.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 02:59 AM

The wider point still stands. A minority group have decided society can no longer contribute to making its own indigenous sound by introducing artificial statification. If not racist it's a branch of musical eugenics.

No one has the right to say what is or isn't common music. Certainly not self-appointed intellectual elites.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 02:23 AM

"I have to apologise unreservedly."
Me too - I have to admit it was buried among much of the obscure garbage Glueman was giving forth and missed it completely until it was pointed out and I re-checked, disguised as it was with asterisks.
Sorry,
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: TheSnail
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 04:32 PM

Azizi

In addition, I note that one other poster quoted an excerpted form of that comment which I consider racially insensitive, and another poster quoted that full comment. I also note that neither poster-nor anyone else before my post-indicated that they had any thoughts or concerns about the racial inappropriateness of your sentence.

As one of those people, I have to apologise unreservedly. I hope I have learnt a little about myself from this and will do my best to take that lesson on board. Please make allowance for the fact that phrases that were, sadly, more commonplace fifty years ago are difficult to shake off. I know of nobody who would use a line like that in conversation today.

In mitigation, can I say that I take very little notice of anything glueman says but simply took the quote as an opportunity to have a gentle dig at someone else who probably gets the joke.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 04:32 PM

No, 'glueman', I'll give you the benefit of the doubt - you're probably not stupid enough to be a racist - that requires a degree of stupidity which even you haven't quite attained yet.

Although, come to think of it, when I think of you the word 'idiot' keeps bubbling to the surface and I keep having to suppress it (don't call him names!).

So, does ALL (note: capitals for emphasis only) of my dialogue remind you of Terence Rattigan? That's odd because I don't think I've ever seen a Terence Rattigan play. Of course, I may have seen the odd TR play on the telly and subconciously been so influenced by the script that I've slipped into that mode of expression without realising it. How amazing!

So, getting back to my original point, you've told us what you're against (sundry inventions, myths and stereotypes) but you've not told us what you're for. Unburden your soul 'adhesive one'!

That last coining was, of course, an homage to Mark Twain ... or was it Ernest Hemingway? ... F. Scott Fitzgerald? ... drat!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 04:32 PM

Azizi you have PM. I won't re-read what I posted on this thread because your interpretation of it may be, indeed is based on inferences within it, rather I'll explain what I intended to say, clearly inadequately.

The N-word and the sentiments behind it are designed to maintain an outsider group, those acting as shopkeeper and those beyond who can only admire the goods but are forever on the wrong side of the glass and intended to stay there. Folk music, depending on your point of view, is clearly not on the same level of discrimination. It is however, meant to be the indigenous musical expression of a people or sometimes a race. There are people who have hijacked folk-music for spurious nationalistic reasons and there are a second, and I believe much larger constituency, who have annexed the 'music of the people' and created an academic structure and a populist language intended to separate it from its creators and intended audience.

That separation relies on certain shibboleths - the 'folk' who made it are dead and anonymous without any 'claim' from contemporary 'ordinary people' who cannot continue its creation, delivering folk music into the hands of finer sensibilities who understand music unsullied by modernism. The comparison I made may be overwrought and of an entirely different order of magnitude but the underlying divisions are similar, to corral a once popular currency into a deserving minority who agree on its terms and conditions and create an underclass who disagree on those conditions, not through race or skin colour but through intellect and discernment.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 04:10 PM

So why are you in my thread?

I've responded to your comments for the same reason I respond to anyone else's - I agree with some and disagree with others.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:51 PM

glueman, I recognize that my comments are off-topic. I also recognize that four days have passed since you wrote that post that I find concerning. However, I just read this thread this morning for the first time.

I consider your use of the "N" word in your post to be racially insensitive. Furthermore, I think that the "Black person" as outsider wanting the "sweets in the back of the shop" analogy of your post is racially problematic.

In addition, I note that one other poster quoted an excerpted form of that comment which I consider racially insensitive, and another poster quoted that full comment. I also note that neither poster-nor anyone else before my post-indicated that they had any thoughts or concerns about the racial inappropriateness of your sentence.

As an African American, and as a human being I felt that I had to publicly indicate my concern about that sentence.

glueman, As I have written, I consider the use of the "N" word and that entire sentence to be racialy insensitive. However, I don't believe that you are racist. Nor do I believe that the other posters who quoted that full sentence or part of that sentence are racists.

I publicly indicate this in the hope that in the future you and/or others might refrain from using racial analogies to make the points that you are striving to make.

Having made that point, I leave you and others to continue this discussion about folk music.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:37 PM

"So why are you in my thread?"
Not the first time you've tried to manipulate this threadto include only those who agree with you.
Jim Carroll
PS For the record, while I believe his words were thoughtless and ill chosen, I don't believe there is any indication that our sticky friend is in any way a racist, and pursuing this point is rather adopting his own evasive tactics.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:27 PM

So why are you in my thread? The title alone might have suggested it wasn't going to be your thing so why ferment trouble?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:04 PM

So the sentiment of this board is that I'm a racist?

Nobody - including Azizi - has suggested you're a racist. Nobody knows what you are or who you are, and I don't think anyone greatly cares.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 02:35 PM

All your dialogue comes from a Terence Rattigan play, e.g. "Publish your manifesto and be damned."

Nobody spoke like that after 1956 outside cloisters.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 02:29 PM

No, 'glueman', I don't work at a "minor public school" - what the f**k has that got to do with anything?

Come on, stop being such a 'big-girl's-blouse' and tell us what you're for, rather than what myths and stereotypes you're against.

Publish your manifesto and be damned, 'glueman' - I'm all ears!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 02:22 PM

"I think, considering your behaviour, you've got off very lightly."

Please, tell me you work at a minor public school.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:47 PM

"It's an unreconstructed word worthy of some very neanderthal sensibilities, a lynchmob mentality I've encountered virtually from the first post and it shows no sign of going away."

Talk about a 'drama queen'!

'Glueman' you make vaguely contentious statements and people (like me, Pip and others) ask you to back them up and to expand on them. You then become evasive. If the questioner persists you become aggressive and start throwing all sorts of accusations around. Eventually you start casting doubts on the questioner's morality and sanity.

You remind me of a bloke who goes into one of the roughest pubs in the area shouting, "you're all a bunch of tossers, I'll fight the lot of you!" And then wonders why he gets his head kicked in!

Actually, no one has 'kicked your head in' - even though you've thrown a few wild punches yourself. I think, considering your behaviour, you've got off very lightly.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:35 PM

So the sentiment of this board is that I'm a racist? No stone unturned indeed.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:31 PM

Show me a post where I've exhibited any racialist sentiments.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:30 PM

Get over yourself, glueman. Disagreeing with your comments and challenging you to back them up is a long, long way from a "lynchmob mentality".

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:30 PM

I used the term, with asterisks, precisely because of the outsider status a (very) few people on this forum are prepared to offer anyone who disagrees with them. It's an unreconstructed word worthy of some very neanderthal sensibilities, a lynchmob mentality I've encountered virtually from the first post and it shows no sign of going away.

The term and the attitude behind it are indeed, disgusting.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:28 PM

I used the term, with asterisks, precisely because of the outsider status a (very) few people on this forum are prepared to offer anyone who disagrees with them. It's an unreconstructed word worthy of some very neanderthal sensibilities.

A lynchmob mentality I've encountered virtually from the first post and it shows no sign of going away.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:27 PM

Uppermill was wall to wall with folkies yesterday, and that was just the High Street. I kept my eyes peeled and my notebook handy, but I only spotted:

pewter tankards: 3 (only one in use; all owned by Morris dancers)
'folk trousers': 1 pr
duffel coats: 0
leather hats: 0

Not much of a haul, I'm afraid. On the other hand, there weren't many beautiful youths in skinny black jeans either.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 01:02 PM

AZIZI,
I agree it was unnecessary,I missed it because so much of these posts are twaddle,and tedious to read.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 11:53 AM

glueman,

I considered sending you a private message, but I feel the need to respond on this public forum about your use of the "N" word in your 15 Jul 09 - 07:14 AM post.

Reading that was like kick to my gut. It hurt more because it came out of nowhere. Did you really need to use that word to express what you were saying?

Beccause of such casual uses of racial slurs-and for the sake of the historical record, I'm excluding the retention of that odious "N" word" in the text of minstrel songs- I'm now resigned to the fact that Mudcat is likely never to have any but a few Black people and other People of Color who publicly acknowledge their race/ethncity and who regularly posts to its threads.

Sometimes I need to remind myself why I am a member of this community.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 06:48 AM

Can I add that I'm a huge fan of Dudley D Watkin's original Desperate Dan artwork? I'm a huge fan of DDW in general actually, including the more singular turns of craft which (from time to time, when he wasn't bringing life to Lord Snooty, The Broons, Oor Wullie, et al) resulted in things like THIS, which I might gaze at through multiple layers of reverence, secular or otherwise...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 05:59 AM

PS Spleeny, your Desperate Dan Tankard SO beats mine! >:-<

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 05:57 AM

Cripes SO'P!
Or in the words of PJ & Duncan...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 05:46 AM

And certainly no chance of any sense ...

Oh no? Well try THIS matey!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 05:12 AM

"Thread drift good, sunshine breaking through, little chance of thunder."

And certainly no chance of any sense ...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 19 Jul 09 - 03:56 AM

Thread drift good, sunshine breaking through, little chance of thunder.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 09:21 PM

Well...

I did what I did, and it was folk music. Folksinger was the name I was proud to carry. I came of age while there was a folk music scene here in the USA---with all that that entails.

As Utah said, "The past didn't go anywhere!"

Please---turn around, look back, and there it will be---existing for all who treasure history.

How do I know? "The older I get, the better I was."

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:37 PM

Slight thread drift, apologies offered, etc - SO'P, take a look at your emails...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:32 PM

you can never have to much insurance in your grotto

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:28 PM

And further on you get This...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:22 PM

When I googled "folk grotesque" (my kind of folk!) I got this... EEEK!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:15 PM

Nice plates Spleen.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:10 PM

Going back to folk clothing, or at least folkie clothing in the grand manner, what irritates me is the lack of any context. I get the donkey jacket, duffel coat, even the schoolmasterly bit of Harris tweed and leather elbow pads. What I don't understand is leather hats. I mean, to me leather hats say Clarrisa Dickson Wright, Jilly Cooper and Range Rovers.
Clearly there are so many things I don't understand about this scene.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:09 PM

I have a fantastic NALGO commemorative plate designed by anarchist artist-for-hire, Clifford Harper...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 06:02 PM

Toby Jugs are simply grotesque and anything from the grotto is okay by me. Whimseys are another matter. In a confessional mode I'm rather taken by commemorative pit plates, popular with mining closures in the 80s.
Wouldn't dare bring one on the house, the wife would file them with doillies and antimacassars as household waste.