Is folk music folk music?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 12:51 PM

Show me where I've used insults, sarcasm or evasion, 'glueman' - or, for that matter, where I've mentioned one of the late Kenneth Williams's alter egoes.

All I've done is questioned your opinions - which appear to be based on nothing much except prejudice - unless you can prove me wrong of course ...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 01:00 PM

More folk trousers:
Raeburn's Niel Gow

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 02:01 PM

"Not my cuppa tea. Far too pleased with himself and disappointed at the rest of the world."
I was totally sold on his singing, but that's me.
My memories of him were of a top-rank professional singer who devoted ten years worth of one night a week working with unknown singers while all the other superstars got on with their careers.
It's enough for me that those 'career folkies' who spent more time knocking MacColl than they did sharing their talents and ideas are still doing so 20 years after his death - he must have been doing something right!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 02:44 PM

Isn't this supposed to be a fun thread? I was enjoying it. Why has it turned into the usual nastiness and bickering?

Indeed and oh bugger, it's gone pear shaped again.

Oi, "glueman" & "Shimrod" - sod orf back to your bunkers! You're no fun at all.










but we kind of knew that already, innit?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 02:44 PM

he was a fine songwriter,and both he and Peggy were the epitome of Professionalism,I booked them at my folk club,and they were superb.
I also did a 30 min support for them at the phoenix arts centre in Leicester,again they were superb ,playing to a packed house,and getting several encores.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:20 PM

Don't ever get in the way of a hagiography

Always a bad idea to get run down by haggis recipes.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:35 PM

"Don't ever get in the way of a hagiography"

there's nothing worse than a hagiograhist with something to prove....

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:40 PM

Jack, hate to be be a pedant here on such a tolerant board, but I think you will find that they are actually Post Punk Celtic Folk Rock trousers...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:03 PM

Here's the Thing. There's traditional music which is defined by it's history. Then there's the trappings: the attitude, the clothes, the mannerisms. At some point those trappings became so dominant by self-fulfilment and practice, that the mannerisms grew legs of their own so you got historical style acoustic music that's also known as folk.
That music is a direct consequence of the folk stylee and it ill behoves traditionalists to complain about something they contributed to at least in part, by conflating old songs with a wider pop-cultural stance I know as grump, the artsy-crafty-beery folk police thing.

Right, I'm off up the pub for a pint of Bladder's Old Leatherbottle.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: frogprince
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:40 PM

Saw Peggy two years ago in Evert, Michigan. Absolutely great performance. My wife got to sing in a little backup group she called up for a song.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 07:31 PM

Folk music is like sex -

only valid if performed before 1954?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 07:38 PM

If you Google Image Seach for Folk Trousers, here's one of the first things you get.

Folk Slim Trousers

Who is this Folk Slim? Doesn't look particularly folky to me. Most festivals I go to I only see Folk Tubby, but he doesn't seem to have any trousers. Indeed, if you Google Image Search for him you come up with a picture of Tubby The Nutter.

Is Google trying to tell us something profound?

I'm worried about this too . . .

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:20 AM

More folk trousers

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:34 AM

"Then there's the trappings: the attitude, the clothes, the mannerisms."

What have clothes got to do with it, 'glueman'? Nobody I know dresses in any particular way to sing trad. songs. Leaving the 'not very funny' in-jokes about trousers aside, you seem to be setting up 'straw men' again.

And please translate the following passage:

" ... by conflating old songs with a wider pop-cultural stance I know as grump, the artsy-crafty-beery folk police thing."

I genuinely have no idea what it means! What the hell is a, "wider pop-cultural stance"?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:34 AM

BLUE JEANS are folk trousers, nothing else is.

Insults, intolerance, snide remarks and grumpyness, the very best fun on the Mudcat.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:42 AM

more of this please

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 03:45 AM

Don't worry about it Shimmy. Your branch of pop culture is as valid as any other.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:40 AM

Primary meaning: Fair or pleasing to the eye. Oxford English Dictionary.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:50 AM

Glueman I presume you would like to have more of the totty that's wearing the dress, rather than actually have more folkies wearing said dress?
I have my limits. And middle-aged ale-drinking beardies in cheesecloth frocks might just be too much, even for my robust sensibilities. Bring on the colourful trousers!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:51 AM

To respond to the original question I would say, probably not. The folk revival is a manifestation of pop culture IMO and it would take some very persuasive arguments to convince me otherwise.

The harder folk tries to define itself against popular culture the more obvious it becomes that the revival's values are those of post-war baby boomers. Absolutely nothing wrong with that at all but the special pleading for folk's 'difference' is wearying.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:00 AM

Indeed Crow Sister, more Lost in France, Flake advert, folk-lite style totty blowing dandelion seeds in back lit cheesecloth dresses. But the image you've just implanted of a 20 stone bloke of uncertain continence singing Lord Randall while wearing diaphanous linen is a punishment for those lecherous thoughts, damn yer eyes missus.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:01 AM

Yes, Crow Sister, my cheesecloth days are well and truly over (although I did look good in it in the 60s).However, the day that I put on a pair of colourful trousers, I have instructed mrsleveller to shoot me!

BTW, I don't have a beard, either - or a ponytail, or an Aran sweater and I don't wear socks with sandals. Bloody hell, does that mean I'm not a folkie at all?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:23 AM

I don't have a beard, either - or a ponytail, or an Aran sweater and I don't wear socks with sandals.

Metal beer mug? Hat or waistcoat with badges? Leather hat? Horse brasses? Partner or progeny in Laura Ashley? A 2CV or VW camper van? A bhodran? A late '80s Oyster Band tour T-shirt? Tin whistle sticking out of pocket? Stickers on guitar case from obscure Celtic festivals in Brittany? Folk LPs on vinyl? Am opinion on Ewan MacColl?

Damn 5th columnists in here now. Probably not interested in politics either. No wonder nobody answers the question.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:34 AM

"BTW, I don't have a beard, either - or a ponytail, or an Aran sweater and I don't wear socks with sandals."

..... how about hair?

Pete, sorry mate, even without the trappings described you still look like a folkie to me (in the best possible sense you understand!)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 05:34 AM

Crow Sister

I have my limits. And middle-aged ale-drinking beardies in cheesecloth frocks might just be too much

You haven't been to Towersey then?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:02 AM

You haven't been to Towersey then?

Now you're talking. Middle aged ale-drinking beardies in pink tutus and fairy wings there, mate. And "14 year olds in big hoodies, skinny jeans, monster trainers and Paris Hilton shades . . . who look more like they should be breakdancing in the Bronx rather than galloping down longways sets" according to a report on the ceilidh tent last year.

However I think that's possibly describing "fun" which as any fule kno has no place in a discussion about folk music.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:04 AM

"Metal beer mug? Hat or waistcoat with badges? Leather hat? Horse brasses? Partner or progeny in Laura Ashley? A 2CV or VW camper van? A bhodran? A late '80s Oyster Band tour T-shirt? Tin whistle sticking out of pocket? Stickers on guitar case from obscure Celtic festivals in Brittany? Folk LPs on vinyl? Am opinion on Ewan MacColl?"

"Pete, sorry mate, even without the trappings described you still look like a folkie to me (in the best possible sense you understand!)"

Phew, thank god for that! I was beginning to have an identity crisis. Bless you! (BTW, you missed out earring, bandana, fob watch to go with waistcoat, obscure green man/celtic/pagan brooch/pendant, vast selection of instrument picks, collarless shirt, inflamatory t-shirt, rotting caravan etc.)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:20 AM

Horse brasses?!?! What nightmarish branch of folk idiom have I been missing here? Do these people style themselves as a kind of mobile Harvester restaurant, a perambulent mantlepiece?

Are there no limits to these people's self-delusion?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:22 AM

BTW from that list I have Folk LPs on vinyl.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Banjiman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:27 AM

I want an "inflamatory t-shirt" for those cold nights at festivals.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 06:35 AM

Paul, you have several. They relate to banjos.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 07:29 AM

Do these people style themselves as a kind of mobile Harvester restaurant, a perambulent mantlepiece?

No, just as complete pillocks. Whole fields full of 'em nesting together, like a senile human version of all those massed seabirds on far-flung lumps of oceanic rock. Sound much the same en masse to, come to think of it. Hence the cod.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:06 AM

By the way, I'm taking notes here, so I know exactly what kinds of folk cliche's to blag off of all you nice folkie people at 'designated folk contexts', for my functional and wearable woolly 'folk poncho' scrapbook... Funnily I found an horse brass kicking around in the dust buried behind stuff cluttered about the fireplace. I'm not sure if my fireplace counts as a designated folk context yet though.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:26 AM

Folk is music of the folk - plain and simple.
Folkies on the other hand are arseholes who hide behind terms like 'folk police' 'Finger in ear' and 'Jimmie Miller', whinge if a song has more than four verses and:
"Right, I'm off up the pub for a pint"
scurry off to the pub to steady their nerves when confronted with an awkward question.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:33 AM

Nice picture glueman, I knew her when she had both legs.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:35 AM

Crow Sister

I'm not sure if my fireplace counts as a designated folk context yet though.

If you, as a folkie, sing a folk song in it, then it is a "designated folk context". Then, by definition, all you have to do is sing in it to be to be a folkie and anything you sing is a folk song.

The panchromatic trousers are optional.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 08:42 AM

Says Chief Inspector Jim Carroll of the Ethnic Purity Division, Room 101. Yes thank you I had a lovely evening though failed yet again to win the quiz. But as I neither read a newspaper, watch TV or listen to the radio what can yer expect.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 12:08 PM

"Nice picture glueman, I knew her when she had both legs."

Nothing as drastic as that! It's purely a discreet veiling of the brown sandles with brightly coloured houmorus socks that she's also wearing.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 12:41 PM

"Ethnic Purity Division"
Casn you add this to my 'folkie' list of mindless Clichés
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 01:33 PM

Casn?

Is that the Bristolese "Casn"? As in Thees got'n wur thee casn't back'un asn't?

Adge Cutler! Now thees talkin' folk music, isn't?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:15 PM

"my 'folkie' list of mindless Clichés"

the author of this quote..speaking of clichés

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:16 PM

Only if I can add going up the pub as an admission of intellectual legerdemain, Jim.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:19 PM

Nice frock but on second viewing that monopede bird looks a bit high maintenance.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 02:39 PM

"the author of this quote..speaking of clichés "
Ah come on lads, fight fair - one and a quarter against one........
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:04 PM

"I'm not sure if my fireplace counts as a designated folk context yet though. "

Hey, I'd love to have a 'folk fireplace' in my re-imagined village cottage where we old gits can sit and....hang on, what bloody thread am I on?

OK. Right, I'm there now. When I stripped off the old wallpaper on the chimney breast of the old Station Master's house where we live there were signatures from, you guessed it - old station masters - going back to 1863. The old range has gone but I've put in a woodburner and it's still the heart of the house and we do sit around and sing folk-style-and-folk-inspired songs (when we're not watching Corrie), so I claim this as a folk fireplace and am going to apply for an Arts Council grant to hold performances there.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:07 PM

Suggesting that Jim Carroll is concerned with "Ethnic Purity" is like some idiot (who has encountered the word in a book, but hasn't really grasped its meaning) accusing the Pope of being a "Satanist".

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:12 PM

"Ah come on lads, fight fair - one and a quarter against one........"

He really DOES think 'e's amusing dun 'e...gawd...!*LOL*

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 09 Jul 09 - 04:14 PM

If you can't take it don't give it out as Ewan MacColl sang in 'If You Can't Take It (don't give it out)'

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:35 AM

Chimneys,Chickens and France
What have they all got in common?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 03:21 AM

"Ethnic Purity",
Sorry Glueman - missed the significance of this one first time round (wonderfully busy week listening to music and song).
I expect you'll scurry off to the local for some Dutch courage rather than answer this but Where have I EVER expressed an opinion on the ethnicity of folk music - pure or otherwise? It's about as far away from my opinions as you can get.
I expect that this is once again another example of your crass sloganising, so I won't hold my breath for an answer as I have long realised that you don't do answers.
Jim Carroll