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The Concept of FREED Folkmusic
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Smokey. Date: 15 Sep 10 - 10:07 PM Just as a matter of interest, how strong is the beer over there? |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:49 PM hey don there is no defense for keeping prices high. Folk music is for everyone more than every other genre. It is special. It is for peasants nto for your elitist bozos that you seem to excuse. Simple....cheap eats and drinks then maximum audience. What can't you see as truth in that. You are simply an elitist! Expand folk music or keep doing as you are. Ration it to only the good people. I just wish you could sit down with the rustics who preserved the music several hundred years ago. You would probably have to leave immediately. So lets move on. Why not keep the costs down. Why keep up any barier any time any where. Seems simple to me. Or you can continue with the small elitist world that keeps bringing your money in and take baths. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:40 PM No one has to spend money if everyone is dedicated to the music. Once a year evryone gives whats the big problem?> |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Smokey. Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:40 PM Conrad, if you can honestly down a gallon of beer without getting plastered you've got a problem. That's genuine concern, by the way, not an 'attack'. I've had some experience of it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one here. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:37 PM hey howard even the cheap biers are much more expensive than the going price in the many fine corner bars of baltimore- your and your elitist crew need to shop around. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: catspaw49 Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:37 PM Messenger???........................LMAO...................Messenger???? Of What???? Gimmee a fuckin' break Corny......Messenger?.........Yeah, Right........the only thing you send out is body odor...........and rest assured, you are a friggin' drunk! Messenger my ass...............Delusions run rampant in the vast wasteland of your brain........... Spaw |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:34 PM Ok then read Ben Jonson on the muse and driniking. Easy If you dont understand the folk lifeway then go into rock and roll. We are different. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:29 PM Iam never ever intoxicated.Stop attacking the messenger! So you have trouble thinking of a response then maybe you need a drink! |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 15 Sep 10 - 04:44 PM Don. From a long long way away....Well said. Ralphie (in London Town) |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Don Firth Date: 15 Sep 10 - 04:22 PM " . . . am not advocating no profit just fair profit. The landlord would do very well with greater volume." Conrad, if a particular establishment that offers folk music as entertainment is already FULL, as most of the places I know of generally are (often with people lined up outside waiting to get in), how are you going to attract greater volume, even by lowering prices? It would just increase the line of people waiting outside, and what good is that? If you think it through, Conrad, an increased volume is a strong incentive for the landlord to raise his prices! And other than being good enough so that lots of people want to hear them, a singer can't do much about that, no matter how much he or she is being paid by the landlord. " How can you say you wish to expand folk music when you dont take steps to make that happen.[?]" WHO doesn't take steps, Conrad? Stringsinger, just above, was one of those who established the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. I have met quite a number of people who learned their first songs and learned to play guitar or banjo from him. I have seen some of the material and the song sheets that were passed out in his classes, and it's good stuff! I first started teaching guitar (both folk and classical) in the late 1950s, and in 1960, I began teaching folk guitar classes, first at the University YM/YWCA, then the downtown Seattle YWCA (open to both men and women), and was then asked to teach classes at the Creative Arts League in Kirkland, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings, I taught folk guitar classes, on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings, I usually sang in one coffeehouse or another, and during the day I gave private guitar lessons, either classical or folk. There are literally dozens of people who started learning guitar in my classes or private lessons who went on to sing and play professionally, and hundreds who play and sing just because they enjoy it, and a fair number who went on to teach others themselves! I would not compare the length of my reach and my influence with Stringsinger's by any means, but there are many (Barry Olivier in Berkeley, Bess Lomax Hawes in Los Angerles, to name only two) who have done what Frank and I have (and from whom he and I have learned). Beyond bitching and complaining about the price of "bier," Conrad, what have YOU ever done!?? One of the reasons that I feel I was particularly lucky was that the main outlets for folk music here in Seattle, and throughout most of the country, and the main opportunity for people like me to sing in the late Fifties and through the Sixties was the springing up of coffeehouses. The coffeehouse where I did most of my singing was called "The Place Next Door." It was next door to the Guild 45th Theater, where they showed European movies and art films, and both The Place and the theater were owned by the same man. The clientele consisted of folk music aficionados, large numbers of college students from the University of Washington, Seattle University, and Seattle Pacific University. It also attracted audiences from the theater next door who dropped in after a movie, and on week ends, toward the end of the evening, it was not unusual to see a few people in formal gowns and tuxedos who were dropping in after attending an opera, play, or symphony concert. The audiences were SOBER. And they came in to have some refreshments (specialty coffees and teas of various kinds, some fairly exotic, chocolate drinks, some light snacks, and a selection of very nice pastries) and LISTEN to some ballads and folk songs. Bob Weymouth, whom I mentioned way above, sang in a posh cocktail lounge in downtown Seattle, and although at Clark's Red Carpet he was being paid five times what I was making at The Place Next Door, he envied me because I was able to sing for audiences who had come to listen and not just get soused! And one of the by-products of singing in an establishment like The Place Next Door was that I often got singing jobs from people who heard me there. Concerts, private parties, other out-of-town coffeehouses, various clubs and organizations, a couple of arts festivals. . . . Conrad, if you need alcohol to awaken your "muse," then obviously you have a much greater problem than you realize. It sounds like you just what to listen to folk singers while you sit there and get bleary-eyed, falling down, barfing, s**t-faced DRUNK! Conrad, I DON'T WANT people like YOU in my audiences! (If that makes me "elitist," I think I can live with that.) Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 15 Sep 10 - 03:19 PM Conrad. It seems to me from (albeit) many thousands of miles away, that you are a very unpleasant person. Your concept of "Free Music" has been shot down in flames by the very people that you accuse of not providing it..... Even when, that is what they are doing every day! Please, Go away. The good people of Baltimore have already told you to do so, and I would urge you to do the same here. We're not interested in your peculiar hippy philosophy. We live in the real world. I will carry on making the music that I love. I find it incomprensible that you would ever appreciate it. Probably because you would be too drunk. So, do us all a favour....Bog Off. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 15 Sep 10 - 02:33 PM Actually, looking again at the Wharf Rat's website, it appears the shanty session (which I assume is the folk session Conrad refers to) is only once a month, not every fortnight. Come on Conrad, can't you manage just one night a month without the beer? |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 15 Sep 10 - 02:22 PM If you go to an event in a bar then you're expected to buy a drink, I agree. If someone can't afford the cask beers at the Wharf Rat (mostly around $5 a pint) they can get a Bud or Coors or something similar for $3.50. I should have thought that most people could afford $3.50 once a fortnight to enjoy folk music - if they can't that's too bad, but then they've probably got more important things to worry about. Conrad, your difficulty is not with the prices, its the amount you expect to consume. Even in the cheap bars you're so keen on you must be spending between $10 and $20 in an evening on beer. For that, you could go to the music session and have three or four pints, which most people could get by on, and maybe at that modest level of consumption you'll find that cask beers won't make you ill. But you're not really interested in music, are you, otherwise you'd do that, or else you'd start up these sessions and festivals you're so keen to encourage others to do for you. As for me, I enjoy a few beers but when I go out to play music at my local session I never have more than a pint and a half, since I'm driving. Of course, those are proper-sized pints, not the puny measures you have there. If I'm gigging I often have only water, as I don't want to doze off while driving home at 2am. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Stringsinger Date: 15 Sep 10 - 12:18 PM I don't drink beer but I love folk music. The problem with getting out in front of a parade is that you never know who you are leading up "San Juan Hill". Folk music has always and will continue to be free as long as it is practiced off the stage and media as well. "Populist" gatherings can be phony. Consider the "Tea Party" in the US. Conrad says: "This means proper food and proper consumption of alcohol which is necessary to awaken the muse." The muse has little to do with alcohol and is also sometimes an impediment. As to proper food, the jury is out on that one big time. The working-class in the UK is different then the one here in the States. I hate to admit it but UK working-class is generally better informed. Even so, there is a tendency to glorify "the people" in a Rousseauian manner that borders on pretension. Essentially to try to force folk music down anyone's throat is self-defeating. Taking over malls or stadiums won't work because other people have taste and money that they want to spend for entertainment. There are those who would be bored with folk music that was limited and relegated to what the general consensus of what folk music is. As to a socialist approach to making music, I am not opposed to this idea. It will not come from conservative Republicans however as much as they try to hide behind the mask of "the people". A socialist approach would be to share expenses as well as any profits that can be taken by such a gathering. I think that from what I've read and heard, the pub in the UK serves this function in a way. It allows singers and musicians to gather for sessions on their own terms, at least that was my experience in Ireland. Somebody has to spend money to make what Conrad suggests happen. In this way, there is no "free" music as there is no "free market". An instrument has to be paid for as well as a facility to make music happen. I would love to see another folk music revival wherein people would take up instruments and sing the old songs. This isn't going to happen because there are so many diversified tastes today. Being autocratic as to what people want to hear won't work. Sorry to have to rain on your parade, Conrad. I share your enthusiasm for folk music, though. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity Date: 15 Sep 10 - 12:07 PM I see some posts about 'elites'...hmmm .."Elitist, Folkies"??? Isn't that sort of a contradiction in terms? GfS |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Jack Campin Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:47 AM For most publicans, alcoholics are a net loss. Serve somebody nine pints in an evening and you've got a smelly heap of obnoxiousness that will put off more than nine one-pint customers. There's one Edinburgh folk bar that used to have a more tolerant attitude to self-destructive drinking than others. I found it horribly depressing to go in there and watch people slowly killing themselves. I do occasionally go in it now, since they've cleaned their act up a bit. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 11:14 AM The more I see a kill the messenger post here the more I realize how RIGHT I am! And no I could not care less about numbers..... |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 09:42 AM Yes indeed if you can afford not to be concerned about money nothing will stop you will it. You dont care about the poor people kept out of the music because they cant keep up with your spending I see you like sipping one beer in the evening probably holding your piknky finger just so and gently daubing your lips after each sip with the napkin in the correct hand. So I guess the landlord will let poor people come in and order the free glass of water and stay for the evening.....dont think so. The reason for this thread is to expand the audiences and access to folk music. Elitists just go away. Political correct folk just go away. Drinking moderation folks well.....when has anyone ever described folk customs as moderating. You are taking all the reality and fun out of distinctive populist gatherings. Stop it. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Surreysinger Date: 15 Sep 10 - 08:47 AM Strange - I thought that this was a forum about music. Yet what we seem to be discussing to the exclusion (mostly) of anything about music, is the cost of food and drink, which to me would be a very secondary thing. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 15 Sep 10 - 07:40 AM "Find the cheapest food and bier in town and bring the music there." So, yet again, why won't you do that yourself? You still haven't given us an answer. These things you keep referring to are only limiting access to people like you who are more interested in guzzling food and beer than listening to music. Anyone who's really interested in music won't let it stop them - they can keep their beer and food consumption down to an affordable level, and go guzzling on another night and at another bar if they wish. If you were really as interested in music as you claim to be, you'd do the same. Surely you can manage one evening without drinking 9 pints? |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 07:25 AM Just in case you are wondering- Anything over $1.00-2 a pint is a rip off price. As I said you cant be expanding the community when you keep so many people out. Sure you will get some, maybe what the land lord thinks of as enough customers but you wont maximize access to the music by bringing in people to be ripped off or keeping poor people out. Simple. Do the math. So you advocate exclusivity- proven Not good Find the cheapest food and bier in town and bring the music there. Competition will soon begin and the more expensive place will lower its prices. Go back and forth till the prices stop falling- competition is the american way. Bargains should be obtained for our audiences. Yes in the past folk music was found in the halls of the kings. Good thing that they were swept asside and the dancing masters were forced to serve ordinary people bringing more music to the community. Lets sweep asside our current variety of elitists and their dedication to paying too much for food and drink for exclusivity and to keep the peasants out. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 15 Sep 10 - 07:18 AM My liver is fine thanks. There is a difference between fair market value and fair profit and rip off profit levels. When musicians play at a venue where the landlord is ripping people off they are limiting access to our music. Higher the price the fewer people can afford to attend and stay. I am not advocating no profit just fair profit. The landlord would do very well with greater volume. Either you are taking steps to improve access- that is make prices most affordable and reasonable or you are hindering access. How can you say you wish to expand folk music when you dont take steps to make that happen. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Smokey. Date: 14 Sep 10 - 07:20 PM Simply offal. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Tootler Date: 14 Sep 10 - 06:46 PM I shudder to think what Conrad's liver is like |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 14 Sep 10 - 12:28 AM "Once again, the answer is in your own hands." 99, 100, .... |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Sep 10 - 09:03 PM Its also home to virtually every Unlimited Hydroplane team in the country. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Don Firth Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:59 PM ". . . the affluent east. . . ." You know, Conrad, when I was in Denver, Colorado for about a year and a half back in the mid-1950s, I met a doctor who lived all his life in New York City, where he also went to college. He had chosen to intern at a Denver hospital, and he was mightily surprised when he got off the plane at Stapelton airport and discovered that Denver was not a log fort surrounded by Indian tepees. Denver was a big city. Not as big as New York, but a major metropolitan area nevertheless. When he heard that I was from Seattle, he wanted to know if the Indians gave us very much trouble out there. After a few questions, I ascertained that he was under the impression that Seattle was a little clump of log cabins and igloos surrounded by The Forest Primeval where the only industries were logging and fishing. He asked me how tall the biggest building in Seattle was, and at the time, it was the L. C. Smith building, the "Smith Tower," 42 stories. CLICKY. It's the building on the right, with the pyramid on top. As you can see, some taller buildings have been built since then. He didn't believe me. He thought I was pulling his leg and the tallest building couldn't possibly have been over four stories. Seattle is the original home of the Boeing Airplane Company. There are three Boeing factories in the area, one of which (a few miles north of Seattle), is the site of the largest building in the world, in terms of enclosed space CLICKY, even larger than the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral, although the latter is often said (erroneously) to be the largest. The scale in the photo is so massive that it's hard to tell that the doors on the building, out of which finished airplanes are rolled, are larger than a football field set on edge. Seattle is also the site of the world's first floating bridge: CLICKY. The one picture is the first, and it crosses Lake Washington, from Seattle to Bellevue. There is another floating bridge (at Evergreen Point) north of this one, and yet another some miles away, crossing Hood Canal out on the Olympic Peninsula. A view of part of the Seattle skyline, from Highland park on Queen Anne Hill, showing the Space Needle (a legacy of Century 21, the 1962 Seattle World's Fair) and Seattle's answer to the Paris's Eiffel Tower, the Gothic arches of the Pacific Science Center toward the lower right corner, with 14,411 foot Mount Rainier in the background. Seattle boasts the fourth largest opera company in the United States, CLICKY, in a newly refurbished 2,900 seat McCaw Hall (my wife and I have season tickets), which is also the home base of Pacific Northwest Ballet. In downtown Seattle is the newly constructed Benaroya Hall which houses the Seattle Symphony. Under the baton, first, of Sir Thomas Beecham, then Milton Katims, and most recently, Gerard Schwarz, the Seattle Symphony has become a world-class symphony orchestra. Benaroya Hall boasts a main concert hall of 2,500 seats, and a smaller 500 seat recital hall. Then, of course, there is the Seattle Classic Guitar Society, the Early Music Guild, the Medieval Women's Choir, the Seattle Folklore Society, and the Pacific Northwest Folklore Society. For the sports-minded, there are the Seattle Mariners (baseball), the SeaHawks (football), and the Supersonics (basketball), along with some to the world's finest ski areas within an hour's drive (Snoqualmie Pass, White Pass, Crystal Mountain, others). Over the three-day Labor Day weekend, the Bumbershoot Music and Arts Festival CLICKY (only one of a dozen performance stages) is held at the Seattle Center, which draws huge crowds, as does the aforementioned Northwest Folklife Festival CLICKY (free of charge) over the three-day Memorial Day weekend. I have sung many times at the Northwest Court Stage, one of many such stages around the Center grounds. According to Forbes 400, some of the world's richest people live in Seattle or environs (Bellevue and Evergreen Point, across Lake Washington from Seattle). –Bill Gates, Microsoft, $50 billion, ranked #1.A London-based market research company says that there are 68,000 millionaires living in King County (Seattle is the county seat of King County). "Affluent East" indeed, Conrad. So tell me again how cheap things are out here in the boondocks, where we are all so poverty-stricken! The Hopvine Pub, about five blocks from where I live, has various kinds of music on weekends, including singers of folk songs. They serve a variety of beers from the local micro-breweries in this area (good stuff!!) and they charge around $5.00 a pint (16 ounces). Several other such places within walking distance. My wife and I are not rich. I am retired, save for taking the occasional one-shot singing job, and I write and sell a few articles from time to time. My wife has also recently retired from her years at the Seattle Public Library. She also writes. We have a few small investments socked away, but we live on our monthly Social Security checks (which you Republicans would like to take away from us if you could, despite the fact that we've paid into the fund all our working lives!). With careful, intelligent management, we own our own apartment in a co-op building in a fairly posh area of the city (Capitol Hill, near Volunteer Park. You can never tell what you might run into on a sunny afternoon in the park! CLICKY). Our mortgage is all paid off, and we pay off our credit card completely every month. We are completely debt-free. Yet we live quite comfortably, have good friends and neighbors, we entertain often, and we frequently get together with folk singing friends, and we enjoy what the area has to offer. Including a $5.00 pint of beer when we feel like it. We dress in a civilized manner (little children rarely point at us and giggle), and we bath regularly. And no, we rarely have any problems with the Indians anymore. They're all busy getting rich running casinos. Poet (and folk singer and folk song collector) Carl Sandburg once said that if one were to adopt his "Eleventh Commandment," it would render the previous Ten redundant and hence unnecessary. His Eleventh Commandment is: "Thou shalt not commit nincompoopery!"So, Conrad— as another Famous Man once said: "Go thou, and sin no more."Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:54 PM "Mommy? Why does Santa smell like BO and beer?" Spaw |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Smokey. Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:08 PM Words fail me... Click me |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: catspaw49 Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:48 PM And btw Cornhole......Gluing tacky trash to an oil burning piece of shit car is NOT art.............. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:35 PM women who otherwise would be well coved exposing cleavage. Regardless of gender or sexual orientation - would anybody out there rather look at what Conrad likes displaying to the world rather than this from a renfaire? Overalls are my american national costume you mean the American national costume is this? |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:11 PM So stay away from renaissance fairs if they're not your thing. Go to a folk festival instead. But it seems a bit pointless criticising the people who do go to them for what they do there. Try to understand this: a bar owner sells beer. That's what he does. He needs to make a profit to stay in business and carry on selling beer (what would you do if all the bars went broke?). Don't criticise a bar owner for putting on music to bring in customers - of course selling beer is more important to him. Why wouldn't it be? Why should it matter, if it means he's putting on music? The question is, what is more important to you? People who appreciate music are prepared to pay for it, and if the beer is a bit more expensive than they'd prefer, they'll drink less of it in order to be able to listen to music. You've made it very plain that you'd rather drink beer than listen to music, so much so that you refuse to go to folk events because they charge too much for beer. You'd rather have lots of cheap beer and no music than have less beer with music. Once again, the answer is in your own hands. If you really believe there are a lot of others like you who are 'excluded' from the music because they prefer to spend their money on beer, then open your own folk event at one of these cheap bars. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Smokey. Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:03 PM By 'eck, it's a while since I did any coving.. Conrad, with all that beer, I'm not surprised you aren't too fussy about the quality of music or the stench of raw sewage. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 13 Sep 10 - 06:46 PM you missed the point- renaissance does not include doctor who or pirates from the 18th century. They used to be kept to the acutal renaissance and ours features a specific reign each year. They are way way over priced and although they do have some good music generally it is a free for all with kids running a muck and women who otherwise would be well coved exposing cleavage. Everyone is different metabolism is everything along with body weight. One knows when one's muse is awakened. Yes I generally get to a place around 5 and dont leave til lit closes at 2 give or take. Lots of food as well as beer. The question is if the venue is accessible. Accessible means affordable at prices average or lower- otherwise music is not important bringing in the beer profit is. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 13 Sep 10 - 05:35 PM We don't have Renaissance Fairs in the UK, but they have been discussed at some length on here and it seems fairly clear that they are not folk festivals, although they may include some folk music. As Don pointed out, the whole point of these events is the dressing up, so it is a bit strange to criticise people at them for doing so. The majority of people at folk festivals don't dress up in costume. Admittedly, at some festivals in the UK a few people can be seen wearing distressing trousers, and in the case of some women, fairy wings (!), but these aberrations are confined to a small minority and are easily ignored. I've visited folk clubs and sessions in most parts of the UK. It's true that my experience of the North East is limited, but elsewhere I've seen little evidence of heavy drinking. Steady drinking, yes, but there's a difference between sinking 9 pints in the space of a few hours and drinking the same amount over the course of a whole day, which is the more usual pattern at a festival. At a folk club, most people manage with 2 or 3 pints - less if they're driving. Conrad, you appear in your travels to have the unfortunate habit of ending up in places with extremes of behaviour - heavy drinkers in Newcastle and compulsive fancy-dressers in Baltimore (although no one else seems to have seen them). However, you're missing the point. If you were truly interested in the music but concerned about the cost, you could easily cut back on your intake of beer to make the evening affordable. Your priority is clearly drinking beer rather than listening to music. To claim that this is an essential part of the tradition is laughable. You don't have to be fighting drunk for people to find such behaviour objectionable. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 13 Sep 10 - 04:40 PM I would never ever drink lite beer. Perhaps you are too far away from the affluent east to have the costuming thing. Once the renn faires kept to period costume. It was great. Now they just want money so have let the standards go it is pure masquerade pirates- dr. who- whatever..... When I attended sessions at folk clubs in the uk including great Northumbrian pipe sessions in working mans clubs in newcastle no one, absolutely no one was dinking moderately- ever. And they could smoke too. and they did that in extreme which was good. Overalls are my american national costume rather them than kilts. Never drunk and disorderly, never been tossed out of any place, never in a fight. Just a well trained drinker. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Sep 10 - 03:06 PM While we're on odd costumes: where did dungarees go, in the UK? I had some when I was a kid in England in the 50s, but haven't worn them since. I think the last people I saw wearing them in Scotland were lesbians in the 1980s. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Don Firth Date: 13 Sep 10 - 02:54 PM "To do otherwise [make food and drink what Conrad considers "affordable," i.e., free, perhaps?] is stimply to use music as the bait for profit taking and I dont think anyone would agree that to be appropriate." Well, of course!! What else? Why would Bob Clark hire folk singers to sing at his coffeehouse if he didn't think that they would attract more customers. Or John Timmons at Pamir House? Or Stan James at the Corroboree? Or Eric Bjornstadt at the Queequeg? Or why would Club 47 in Boston hire Joan Baez to sing there before her breakthrough at the Newport Folk Festival in 1959? Or why do you think San Francisco's Hungry i hired people like The Kingston Trio or The Limeliters? And why, pray tell, is that "not appropriate?" Why should anyone hire a theater or concert hall if they didn't expect, at the very least, to make back through ticket sales what it cost them to rent the hall in the first place? And who wants to stand around among the cow pies and sing in an open field? Conrad, you said up above that you are a conservative Republican. How do you reconcile your political position with the idea that people should not seek profits from their livelihoods? It seems to me that this "give it away for free" idea of yours is usually labeled (by conservatives and right-wingers) as "socialist" and therefore an abomination in the eyes of a vengeful God. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: MikeL2 Date: 13 Sep 10 - 02:53 PM Hi I don't know about dressing up for the music. If Conrad drinks 3 pitchers of beer a night he will spend more time in the toilets undoing whatever trousers he has put on for the occasion. Cheers MikeL2 |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Don Firth Date: 13 Sep 10 - 02:29 PM "Yes everything in america is now masquerade trouble is that no matter what the theme of the event they dress up in whatever suits them. At the Rennaissance festival you can see pirates, dr whos etc...." What the hell is Conrad talking about here? At Renaissance Faires and Society for Creative Anachronism events, of course you are going to see people in various costumes. That's what those events are about. At science fiction conventions, I have seen Enterprise crew members, people wearing Vulcan ears, armies of Klingons, at least five Darth Vaders, and even a couple of smurfs. But at the umpteen folk festivals I have been to and/or sung at, most people were casually but normally dressed—shirts, slacks, jeans, T-shirts, skirts—yes, and even an occasional pair of bib overalls. But no costumes. When I sang in coffeehouses or at folk festivals, I usually wore a nice looking shirt and pair of slacks. Casual. When singing at the Overlake Friends of the Library banquet, I wear a suit, like the other folks at the banquet. When I sing in a regular concert hall, such as the Seattle Center Playhouse or Seattle University's Pigott Auditorium, I generally wear a pair of grey flannel slacks, a navy-blue blazer (plastic buttons rather than brass so I don't scratch up the back of my guitar), and either a white shirt and tie or a light colored cotton turtleneck. Formal but casual as well. Appropriate for a concert or recital situation, but not quite as far as Richard Dyer-Bennet's white tie and tails. Is that what Conrad considers a "costume?" Well, to me, a pair of bib overalls and no shirt strikes me as a bit—I can't think of a good word here. . . . So where has been Conrad been seeing all these costumes? After a couple of pitchers of bier? No, of course not! Unless somebody else is buying. Something he's smoking, perhaps? When I have a beer, I want a beer, not Bud Lite on tap. My neighbor's cat can pee a better beverage than that! #### Fear not for those of us in the Colonies, Ralphie. The book-burning minister is generally regarded as certifiable, if not verging on treasonous (his intent to violate Constitutional guarantees and flout local fire codes) by most of the population, And nobody pays any attention to Sarah Palin except comedians who consider her the best source of material to come down the Pike since George W. Bush and a few people too stupid to find their own butts with both hands and an anatomy chart. And as far as the free-loading drunk who expects talented people who have put in years of practice and research to come from all over the world at their own expense and perform for him free of charge so he can have a "folk experience," I'm afraid he has a long and lonely wait ahead of him. Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 13 Sep 10 - 01:21 PM OK Tim! Dyslexia lures OK. I woke up this morning wondering if there really was a Dog... |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Tim Leaning Date: 13 Sep 10 - 11:50 AM "Dinking"? Now that really is sic. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 13 Sep 10 - 10:32 AM OK. The genie is out of the bottle (!) Conrad is a Piss Head. With no interest (and I expect no talent) When it comes to the performing arts. His only mission in life seems to me to be to drink as much bier (sic) as possible for the least money. Doesn't sound like any folkie I know in the UK. I feel sorry for my American friends. Not only have you got a bonkers Vicar, who for some strange reason wants to burn copies of Kerrrang magazine. (It's a UK Heavy Metal music publication) You've also got a free loading drunk who expects people to play something for him while he's dinking. And you've got Sarah Palin too!....I suffer for you all, my friends. You deserve better. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Jack Campin Date: 13 Sep 10 - 09:03 AM I was a bit surprised at the Whitby folk festival to see how little effort people put into dressing up - you tend to see a lot more people making an occasion of it at Scottish folk festivals. (I was the guy at Whitby in a brown kilt for part of the time). But there were some - guys in waistcoats and women in brightly coloured dresses. I think it adds to the spirit of the event if people do that. But I didn't see anyone in such an outlandish costume as what Conrad's wearing in those photos. My usual consumption is a pint every two or three hours. Nine pints? I don't think I've ever drunk more than half that much at a sitting in my life. Playing wind instruments, my fingers would have problems finding the right hole after that. I'd guess Conrad has the same problem even though he doesn't play wind instruments. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:24 AM My impression from photos is that its mostly steampunkers and masqueraders. Yes the key is the immediate neighborhood. Fells point and silver spring are upscale and IMHO not appropriate venues for folk music in a traditional sense. Too plastic and way too expensive. Why make the music less accessible just for the atmosphere? Makes no sense to me. "hey I'm a folkie can I pay double for beer please>?" But the elitist attitude is indicative of the problems the music is having. I have yet to find any one of these venues matching the proper market prices and baergains indeed advertized by the folk clubs on the BBC programs. I applaud them for making food and drink affordable when combined with the music To do otherwise is stimply to use music as the bait for profit taking and I dont think anyone would agree that to be appropriate. Accessibility is everything. When the folk sang they did not go out and buy exotic clothing. They just did it in their flannel shirts and wellies most likely in the fields as well - keep your fancy dress for the opera thans! Folk should not be opera. We dont do concerts and we dont need to get our hair done-hold the perfume unless it is that of the barn. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: jeffp Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:16 AM Costuming is not required at the shanty sessions. The professional performers who attend frequently dress in their performing clothes, but others come in street clothes. The price of beer is the same as other bars in the immediate area. If Conrad can get beer for a dollar at corner bars, he should persuade them to have folk music, rather than persuade other bars to lower their prices. Simple, no? |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Rob Naylor Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:08 AM Will: Forgot to say - saw the Carrivick Sisters at Seaford Folk Club last Friday nights I keep missing them locally due to prior committments! I wouldn't mind a ride in their Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupé!!! Ralphie et al: Bear in mind that a US pint is 16 fluid ounces, not 20, like a proper pint! |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: *#1 PEASANT* Date: 13 Sep 10 - 08:00 AM I dont need to pay extra to go to a "nice" bar. So non folk. I went to University in Munich Germany where I learned to drink correctly. Then I attended Durham University and learned to drink as a Geordie-properly. Then spent graduate school in tennessee where I learned to drink my corn from a jar.- Trust me I know what I am doing! I am a strong believer in keeping the rest of culture together with the music. This means proper food and proper consumption of alcohol which is necessary to awaken the muse. A proper pitcher the larger of the two does five pints. An evening is not one hour nursing one pint but 4 or more hours enjoying a feast of drink. I find craft beer way too hoppy and rich for proper working mans beer drinking. Its for the dress up crowd. Beware- attacking the messenger sets back your argument! Music is most accessible when it is to be found in venues which are inexpensive. The landlord will make more money packing people in for a bargain and in volume than he will running a "nice" place. Yes there is a real shortage of real men around. Generally at a table most are drinking diet soda and ice tea. When they drink bier they drink lite which is disgusting. Conrad |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: Howard Jones Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:57 AM According to this a beer pitcher holds 3 3/4 US pints, which is a little over 3 Imperial pints. I don't think anyone swigging 9 pints in a session would be all that welcome in a UK folk club either. If Conrad were really interested in music rather than getting pissed then he could cut down the amount he drinks and spend the same in the Wharf Rat as he would in other bars. If he doesn't like the real ale they serve other stuff. But I think we've established that the music isn't his priority. |
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Subject: RE: The Concept of FREED Folkmusic From: GUEST,Ralphie Date: 13 Sep 10 - 07:15 AM I don't really know (please correct me if I'm wrong) but I'm guessing that a US "Pitcher" would be the equivqlent to a UK "Jug" (often bought by 3 or 4 mates to avoid having to keep going to the bar? Well over here They usually hold about 4 pints of beer....So, It takes 12 pints to satisfy Conrad does it? No wonder he's not very welcome in nice bars! |
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