Subject: RE: Excellent Mudcat parody
From:
The Borchester Echo
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 03:30 AM
Mr Chadwick hasn't the faintest idea of that which I may or may not "approve", though had he actually read my previous contributions he might have had a slightly less muddled idea.
"Vermin" is representative of the old-style country singer or perhaps a traveller, an entirely separate concept to the lazy, incompetent "floor singer" who's learned (or hasn't) his/her material off a recording. It's only by sheer accident that Vermin has been dragged into a revivalist "f*lk club". Like my grandfather, his music was an essential part of his life, not an add-on hobby.
It's a slur to describe him as not a "professional" or "amateurish". He may or may not have been an "amateur", though, as he was clearly modelled on Fred Jordan, he would probably have been paid sometimes. And have you ever witnessed travellers (because that's about all that's left who still do this) performing their handed-down repertoires? I think not, or you wouldn't have the temerity to look down on them with such bourgeois sneering. They don't label their music "traditional", it's simply what they do because it's theirs. Nor would they ever dream of referring to themselves by the poncy term "source singer", beloved of the faux cognoscenti.
The entirely artificial environment of a revivalist venue is a wholly different matter. It is a public place of entertainment in which representations of what used to be is re-enacted, or better still, reinterpreted and rearranged, for a paying audience. It is (or should be) a showcase where the uninitiated can get a glimpse into a bygone culture (because that world no longer exists and in many instances never did).
The all-too-common practice of allowing incapable (or not yet proficient) people onstage in public to perform really badly serves to reinforce the perception out there among the "normals" that "f*lk" is a joke. That is what Borfolk lampoons again and again. Frank was trying (and lamentably failing) to do it better.
It's been said over and over again (and not just by me) that the experience of bringing new people along to a club night has been a dreadful mistake of toe-curling embarrassment which has resulted only in turning them off the genre for life, having had all their prejudices confirmed. It's not (and never really has been) the way to go. Borfolk illustrates this and what's scary (and no longer all that funny) is that things are not changing - or at least not nearly quickly enough.
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sj
