Is folk music folk music?

Subject: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:38 PM

Surely the ultimate Mudcat question? (And no, the answer isn't "42".)

Well, is it?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:45 PM

No, they're totally different. Folk music is music for folk, whereas folk music is music by folk.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: olddude
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:47 PM

It is any music the major record companies don't want
and the only music worth listening to IMO yup

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 05:55 PM

At times it is and at times it isn't. On occasion the reverse is true.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:09 PM

Don't you know there's no such thing as folk music?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:11 PM

Folk music is any music made by ordinary folk, even if it's not folk music - whereas folk music is all the music that was made by ordinary folk, even if it's not folk music now.

Folk music, on the other hand, means anything that sounds a bit like James Taylor, June Tabor or Pentangle - whereas folk music means anything that sounds a bit like artists who sound a bit like James Taylor, June Tabor or Pentangle only different.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Zen
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:13 PM

According to the 1594 definition it may or may not be. Is that the question?

Zen

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:16 PM

So, we've had the music of the people, by the people, for the people.

For those who remember ablatives, what about "with or from"?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:25 PM

The Ablatives? Weren't they a foalk group? They always sounded a little hoarse.

** wasn't everybody definitely dead by 1594?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:27 PM

Only by the 57th verse, after faire Eleanour and the brown girl...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:50 PM

57th? Do you mean exactly 57? We could argue about this.

Surely if folk music is folk music, then Karl Marx was wrong when he said "why a duck?" At least, I think it was Karl.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:52 PM

Groucho. But as with many songs that may or may not be folk, tradition has perhaps changed the original somewhat.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Peace
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:57 PM

Musta been Karl.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 06:59 PM

It's music that can please some of the people, some of the time, if sung in the right accent..but never can it please all of the people all of the time, unless of course it's....

Angie Palmer

..who was probably born in 1954, as were possibly the entire Oysterband, along with They Who Must Not Be Mentioned...

Sometimes you can please all of the people some of the time, as with Seth Lakeman, or some of the people all of the time, as with...er...Seth Lakeman.

But you can't please The Borchester Echo's music reporter any of the time, unless it's the third Wednesday of the 7th month of 1954, in which case, you could be pretty damn near to Paradise!

However, it's only TRUE folk music if sung by Cecil Sharp with his electric guitar, which brings me back to Angie Palmer and her rendition of one of Cecil's best known Collectables....All Along The Ploughman's Watchtower

And THAT is folk music!

But hell if I can remember what the question was!

;0)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 07:03 PM

Groucho.

It was Chico actually.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 08:05 PM

So, is this a BS thread?

Yeah, it's music - but isn't it BS, too?

America wants to know.
The UK doesn't care...
Oz and Ireland and the rest of the world, seem to be a distinct minority here.

And maybe, just maybe, it doesn't matter anyhow.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Dave MacKenzie
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 08:12 PM

If you're getting paid for it it isn't folk music.

If you're not getting paid, and you aren't a horse then who knows.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:20 PM

Joe, wasn't that Buddy HOlly?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 09:37 PM

Joe-

Move it down to BS.

The topic is too heavy to float naturally to the top.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Ernest
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:39 AM

You can`t answer that question what "folk music" is before you haven`t defined what "folk" is first.

So you have to define which parts of the population are folk.

And beware: you will be called "racist" if you exclude indigenous people, foreigners, certain professions or horses....

;0)
Ernest

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:55 AM

We should create a centre for folk music, where only folk music is allowed. We could call it Folk Hall. Any band that plays there can truly say thet they've done Folk Hall.

On the other hand, those who prefer folk music can adapt the works of a modern German composer and folk Orff.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:59 AM

Crikey chaps is there nothing on the telly there either?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:28 AM

Is this the right room for an arguement ?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 02:48 AM

Is this the right room for an arguement ?

I've told you once ....

I suspect that this one will be the full half-hour though: I presume the related 'celtic rock' one has already descended into anarchy, questions of parentage, and Mud[cat]-slinging, I've not even bothered looking :)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Acorn4
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:30 AM

I can see this thread ending in tears!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Darowyn
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:45 AM

Well I think that everyone who disagrees with me deserves every sort of foul calumny!
And I know that many of the Mudcatters of old England could say exactly the same thing.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 03:55 AM

The folk revival, that manifestation of 50s and 60s popular culture is alive and reasonably well. Once the baby boomers die out it might go the way of The Twist or it may evolve it's hard to say. It'll need new takes on the tradition if it's going to move beyond Grumpy music and speak up for itself.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:16 AM

"Grumpy music"

I've searched my extensive racks of folk and traditional music recordings looking for this sub-genre and still not found it. Examples, please...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 04:34 AM

As ever on Mudcat one gets a thrilling sense of deja vu. Back in the spring of last year when The Observer was haunting the forum I assumed his mantle and started the Folk vs Folk thread, my opening post for which read:

To what extent, if any, is Folk Music the music of an actual Folk other than folkie Folk, whose actuality is compromised by their adoption of objectivist methodology entirely at odds with the subjectivist criteria of actual Folk, thusly perceived?

Folk music is like sex - which is to say a mostly participatory act that I might even occasionally watch, and apt to keep me awake in the dead of night trying to get my rational mind around its darker persuasions...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:16 AM

"It'll need new takes on the tradition if it's going to move beyond Grumpy music and speak up for itself."

I suppose by that, 'glueman' you mean that it'll need to more closely resemble the types of recent popular music that you like? Punk, perhaps? I seem to recall that you're of the 'punk generation'? Remember, though, that punk is already over 30 years 'out-of-date'!

If that's not what you mean, what would a 'new take on the tradition' be like? What form would this 'new take' take, so to speak?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mark Powell
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 05:29 AM

"Folk music is like sex..."

Do you mean that when it´s good it´s great, and when it´s not good it is still all right?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Hamish
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 06:18 AM

Ah, but if only sex were like folk music. Seems to go on for ever.

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

If folk music was like sex, we'd have stopped reproducing around 1856.

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

By the folk, of the folk, for the folk.

Or something like that.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:31 AM

.............& noone? no one has defined how traditional the 'folk tradition' is!





J'obtiendrai mon manteau!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: The Sandman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 07:49 AM

this is folk music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0zAr1t6nTE&feature=channel_page

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:00 AM

Folk music is folk music if you're one of the folks. If you're not one of the folks it's something else.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:07 AM

Ah but !! do you have to be made of grass to like bluegrass music ?
and do you have to be a c**t to like country and western ?

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:09 AM

Doesn't it depend on what "is" means?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:16 AM

this is folk music

No it isn't - it's some old folkie singing a ballad to the wrong tune.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:21 AM

Just had a message of complaint from Foul Calumny, who's rather peeved. Almost dropped his whistle.

As Mr Barker has observed, isn't it odd how you never seem to get deja-vue for the first time?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:22 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4XT-l-_3y0

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:25 AM

THIS is folk music

Ramblin Sid

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:34 AM

Folk Revival is nine parts clobber and attitude with a side order of old songs. At least that's how the flower's bloomed in the UK these last 50 years. I last bought a punk record about 1977 and those only ever get an airing when young people visit and insist.

The stuff that gets heard most in Glue Towers is probably experimental modern classical, closely followed by The Tradition - or Grumpy Music after its adherents - obscure soul records, brass bands and English Light Music (very big on Eric Coates).

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:38 AM

"What form would this 'new take' take, so to speak?"

It'll have to stop pretending to be sung by pressed naval ratings and plough hands by way of Ewan McColl for starters. That'll never do. And those clothes, no, they won't do either. Absolutely not.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 08:44 AM

So, is this a BS thread?

America wants to know.

-Joe Offer-


Methinks that over there in the former colonies you may once again be missing what Mr Donegan once sang:

Any old irony, any old irony, any any any old irony . . .


But you see, it's not any easy one to answer is it?

Things like "was folk music folk music?" or "will folk music be folk music?" were much easier, and have already been thoroughly exercised by Mudcat's great team of existential philosophers in many previous threads.

But this is the big one. Thiiiiiis big.






Then again I might have been testing my powers as a folk troll.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:00 AM

glueman

Folk Revival is nine parts clobber

Nobody's mentioned panchromatic trousers for ages.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:16 AM

Nobody's mentioned panchromatic trousers for ages.

Ah. Trousers. Now we're getting somewhere. Punks were defined by their haircuts. World music fans by their world music hats. Jazzers by their facial hair.

Subsidiary question: Are folk trousers folk trousers?

(Note to US readers. Do not substitute the word "pants". That means something else entirely in English.)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:25 AM

Don't get me started on folk trousers. Or those pointy felt hats. They make me reach for my diabolo.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:28 AM

"World music fans by their world music hats."

I know not of these. Is it like Verity Sharp in a titfer?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:29 AM

You can get arrested for reaching for your diablo in Sidmouth, although most of the local population have forgotten where they keep their diablos, so we don't get too much of it going on.

Do people who wear pointy hats have pointy heads, do you think? I've often pondered on that one...

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:38 AM

Punks were defined by their haircuts.

I'd say the trousers were more important - that all important reaction against flares which many of us adopted even before cutting our hair, as did The Ramones of course.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:42 AM

What you call 'folk' trousers, I used to call 'gym' trousers because it's what we used to wear when weight training. I was gobsmacked when I first saw them being worn by someone at a folk festival who, obviously, had never been near a gym in his life.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 09:50 AM

gym, gym, gymmy, gym gym.....

So, is folk music pants, then? Lawdy, I is so confooosed!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: evansakes
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 10:11 AM

"Do people who wear pointy hats have pointy heads, do you think? I've often pondered on that one..."

In some cases they do (according to Harry Nilsson anyway). If you don't have one (and your name's Oblio) you might even risk being banished from the Kingdom to the Pointless Forest.

Hope that helps.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: evansakes
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 10:15 AM

"Is folk music folk music?"

In my experience 'folk music' is mostly in the eye of the beerholder.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Banjiman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 10:21 AM

Gerry,

That's superb....... you should put that slogan on a T shirt. To go with the "folk trousers" obviously.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 10:43 AM

Can anyone post a pic of 'folk trousers'? Do you mean stretchy easy fit type 'slacks' with elasticated waits?

Further to folk apparel, I've yet to purchase my 'folk poncho' for camping - and stitching on miscellanious 'findings' like feathers, badges, ribbons and bar runners... I'm going to start collecting suitable folk findings, and turn it into, well a bit of a wearable scrapbook I guess.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 10:55 AM

"Do you mean stretchy easy fit type 'slacks' with elasticated waits?"

They're those loose, baggy ones made from thin cotton with a very loud print design. They usually have an elasticated waist and sometimes elasticated bottoms (unlike the people who wear them). Think harem pants for men.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:05 AM

Yest another wind-up thread that will in its time become completely circular
with added blatant self promotion

"this is folk music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0zAr1t6nTE&feature=channel_page"

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:12 AM

"Can anyone post a pic of 'folk trousers'?"

The bloke on the right, with the black painted toenails (don't ask) is wearing folk trousers.

Folk Trousers

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:16 AM

Does a frog have a water-tight aperture?? This is, obviously, some jester's irreconcilable conundrum, cloaked in an enigma and shrouded in mystery. Enough of this folking around!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:28 AM

added blatant self promotion

Anything to oblige!

This is folk music:

Another old folkie singing a ballad to the wrong tune

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:34 AM

no thanks, not the least bit interested

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:36 AM

"This is folk music:"!

YEAH! That's it! That's folk music. Like it!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 11:44 AM

That Long Lankin clip and others of the ilk were the background to a very cidery weekend earlier this summer. You are the green man SoP and I claim my £5.

Folk trousers look like climbing pants to these weary eyes. By their rainbow mohair jumpers shall ye know them.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:07 PM

Folk Trousers

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:34 PM

"By their rainbow mohair jumpers shall ye know them."

Aha! Yes, I understand now...

Ahh, that's the way my fellas mates know the err 'liberal' part of town (where they don't glass people). Funnily enough I've been considering moving there myself. Wonder why...

Never had a "colourful jumper" myself, though I did once have a pair of African print trousers, which probably fitted the bill well.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Jul 09 - 01:58 PM

What was the old slogan?



"Folk Music.... better than it sounds."

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:21 AM

"By their rainbow mohair jumpers shall ye know them. "

Ah, but they could be archaeologists.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Banjiman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 03:51 AM

My wife is an archeologist and sings a bit of folk....... should she have a really,really colouful jumper or a full ranbow mohair suit?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:02 AM

Folk singers, archaeologists, bodgers, face metal merchants, same fing. Untroubled by the problems of aesthetics.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:23 AM

'glueman'

I asked: "What form would this 'new take' take, so to speak?"

and you replied:

"It'll have to stop pretending to be sung by pressed naval ratings and plough hands by way of Ewan McColl for starters. That'll never do. And those clothes, no, they won't do either. Absolutely not."

So that's what, according to you, The Tradition will have to stop doing (leaving aside the question of whether or not a Tradition can stop, or start, doing anything!). But you still haven't told us what new form The Tradition should take. Surely, you must have some ideas or you wouldn't have made such a bold assertion (?)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:33 AM

It's not for me to say what form the tradition should take, a living music will find its own way. I'm 'asserting' that it won't carry on forever by adopting cod historical modes of presentation.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 04:58 AM

Sod the music, let's get on with the drinking. That's what makes folk music folk music - when you're too pissed to care.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:04 AM

A couple of problems that I can see there, 'glueman':

- Like it or not many traditional songs feature plough hands, pressed naval ratings, milkmaids, highwaymen, knights, lords and ladies etc. So do we drop these from the repertoire, or what? If we throw these 'babies-out-with-the-bathwater' will there be enough left to represent a Tradition?

- Lots of different 'modes of presentation' have been tried for traditional songs and music: orchestral, choral, rock etc. What seems to work best (at least it's the form which seems to have endured) is the unaccompanied voice or voice lightly accompanied on a portable, unamplified instrument.

I'm not sure what you mean by, "cod historical modes of presentation" but leaving that aside, what other modes of presentation would you like to see tried, 'glueman'?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 05:22 AM

"cod historical modes of presentation"

Surely a historical cod would be a bit whiffy? Just like those folk music fans I suppose.

Dressed as a cod? Wearing cod pieces? There's definitely something fishy about this folk music.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:12 AM

Isn't that a Playford tune? Gathering Cod Pieces.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:20 AM

By conventional definitions 'shimrod' only the words and a tune make the 'tradition' traditional. So everything else is up for grabs, arrangement, instrumentation, idiom, style, presentation.

Unfortunately a whole load of other stuff got tangled up with those definitions, largely because of the enthusiasms of the original folk revivalists. A presentational mode that hints of a generalised agrarian past, what I call the Ewan McColl default, is seen as unproblematic whereas it is specious and arbitrary and resistant to vying modes.

Until the baby boomers go back to the hearth from which none return, we're stuck with folk signifiers as well as the tradition.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Tim Leaning
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:25 AM

Will Skegness come out in the wash?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:30 AM

You should check the meaning of "specious". You really don't I think mean "Persuasive".

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:42 AM

specious:
having deceptive attraction or allure
having a false look of truth or genuineness

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:42 AM

The Ewan McColl default glueman ? you can't even spell it, MacColl.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSnail
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:44 AM

Indeed. What is The Origin of Specious?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:45 AM

M-I-L-L-E-R - McColl!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 06:51 AM

Kirsty MacColl - now there was a singer. Met her a couple of times, lovely woman. Heart as big as you like, fine song writer too. Her old man said he couldn't hear the words properly, silly bugger.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 08:10 AM

A presentational mode that hints of a generalised agrarian past

Hear hear! I've seen many a singaround ruined, ruined I tell you, by presentational modes hinting of a generalised agrarian past. Everyone thinks they're Walter Gabriel - even the women. If it's not Oi've just bin singin this one to the sheep it's Zorry oi be late, oi 'ad to fettle the zoider press - and you know damn well that they've just got in from a hard day's chartered accountancy. Inveterate poseurs, they city folk be. (Oops, sorry - it's catching.)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 08:16 AM

As in:
Z-I-M-M-M-E-R-M-A-N - Dylan!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 08:25 AM

"By conventional definitions 'shimrod' only the words and a tune make the 'tradition' traditional. So everything else is up for grabs, arrangement, instrumentation, idiom, style, presentation."

Give us a flavour of what you're hoping for, 'glueman'. I reckon that if you're so insistent that what's on offer is, in some way, wanting, then you have a responsibility to offer concrete alternatives (not just 'wishy-washy' abstractions).

I'm told that Kirsty MacColl was very talented - possibly she was. She didn't do a lot for me - just another 1980s pop singer as far as I could tell.

I did meet her "old man" on several occasions. As a callow 1960s teenager, already sick of 'pop pap', MacColl's singing, and the songs that he sang, came as a huge revelation to me. Not only that but he was accessible and eager to share his knowledge and his ideas. He gave me the confidence to get up and sing - something that I've been doing ever since.

I would dispute that MacColl's approach to singing traditional songs was "specious and arbitrary" (I suspect that you mean 'not to your taste'). He had a deep knowledge and appreciation of traditional singers and singing. His theories on the singing of trad. songs were convincing and profound.
As for "resistant to vying modes", I can't comment because I don't know what it means!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 08:36 AM

Ah but glueman, when Kirsty and Steve [ Lillywhite ] first played their music for Ewan, the first thing he did was ask them to turn it down, then he listened in silence throughout, at the finish he told Kirsty he LOVED it.

Try getting your facts right, it is so well documented.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 08:56 AM

"Try getting your facts right,"
Don't be silly Dave - why let a few inconvenient facts spoil a good bit of corpse-kicking?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 09:25 AM

Why indeed let a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a hagiography? He wrote The First time Ever I Saw your Face so isn't all bad and then er, became Grumpy Music's first saint.
Not my cuppa tea. Far too pleased with himself and disappointed at the rest of the world.

An UberGrump that launched a thousand acolytes.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 09:54 AM

An UberGrump that launched a thousand acolytes

Are they folk fish as well? Shoals of the little blighters that swim around the tank in tiny but brightly coloured Aran sweaters with their fins in their ears?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: theleveller
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 09:59 AM

"An UberGrump that launched a thousand acolytes"

Maybe it was because his renditions of Sixteen Tons and Sam Bass got such bad reviews.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 10:00 AM

I heartily loathed MacColl until I had the misfortune to be given an entire album of his songs (recorded by other people), and the bad judgement to listen to it. Damn.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 10:01 AM

Well he won't do at all as The Future Of Folk, so we're 'narrowing' 'it' 'down' 'for' {["Shimrod]}".

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 12:06 PM

Lots of snide (remember that word?) digs and insults, 'glueman' - but no answers or any real substance.
Come on, 'glueman' put your thinking cap on and give us your "Future Of Folk"! You have got some answers, haven't you?

I'll make it easy for you. Here's one of your recent assertions:

"So everything else is up for grabs, arrangement, instrumentation, idiom, style, presentation."

Here's some forms which have been applied to trad. song/music in the past:

- Unaccompanied
- Accompanied on portable, unamplified instruments
- Orchestral
- Choral
- Jazz settings
- Rock Band Settings

So what else is there left to try? Let's see if you can answer this question without resorting to insults, sarcasm or evasion.

I'm not holding my breath!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,Chris Murray
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 12:30 PM

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

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 12:30 PM

"Let's see if you can answer this question without resorting to insults, sarcasm or evasion"

Says the man (?) who's made them his stock in trade. So you actually believe the traditional will be sung by Rambling Syd Rumpo tribute acts of uncertain temper in perpetuity?
That's a very grand claim - and most unlikely.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 08 Jul 09 - 12:33 PM

It's the grumpiness at its heart Chris.

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

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 05:37 AM

Ethnic purity, folk purity, ethnic folk, folk schmoke, diddly-dee, diddly-di.
Scurrying, I never do. Think more Berlington Bertie than Peter Lorre.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 05:39 AM

Or even Burlington. Irritable vowel syndrome - ae ee ai ou ue.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 06:19 AM

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

Um... everyone's got one? they all smoke? None begins with an N?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 07:59 AM

Glueman,
You have a particularly dishonest and cowardly way of making unsubstantaited statements then, when challenged, refusing to back them up.
Shame really, as, unlike our fick friend, whose aim in life seems seems to be to prove to the world how unpleasant he can be, you appear to have thought through some of your ideas.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 08:14 AM

Well I hate to serious in a single playful thread in a sea of grumpiness, but what is the difference between folk roots as defined through nation states and nationalism?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 08:58 AM

"but what is the difference between folk roots as defined through nation states and nationalism?"
Wha....... did I really say that, if so, where?
As I said - spineless - and fairly consistent.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 09:12 AM

Thing is Jim you call people cowards, spineless and arseholes but bristle at anyone questioning your unimpeacable credentials. I find you a deeply humourless type and very brittle but am happy to listen to your more measured contributions on the rare occasions they get an airing.
What we're talking about is an internet board of opinions. Other users will weigh them by generosity, accuracy, pithiness and whatever self-evident truths emerge. There is no other measure. BTW I checked in case my hackless rose without reason - you started it, as usual.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 09:20 AM

Still avoiding my questions
Provide me with the evidence of your accusations.
"but what is the difference between folk roots as defined through nation states and nationalism?"
"Ethnic Purity"
Is it my imagination or taken over the role of 'thread policeman' now?
"Well I hate to serious in a single playful thread in a sea of grumpiness"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 09:54 AM

It's a question. Those who are adamant that nation states ('England') have an indigenous and exclusive music that defines its 'folk roots' should see their observation is a nationalistic one. I think it's complete rubbish BTW. I don't believe there is an 'English' music, certainly not a folk one.
I'd like to know how folk 'purity' differs from ideas of ethnicity in this regard. There are differences but the two are uncomfortably close.
As for folk police - don't make folk laws and the accusation dies.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 12:40 PM

Carroll I personally find you to be an EXTREMELY unpleasant human being, always have done, always will do

"As for folk police - don't make folk laws" exactly!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 12:52 PM

I like all the grumpy old gits on here!
It took a while at first though.

And it does help not having any strong feelings about all this stuff of course. So I get to watch and smile a bit.
Plus knowing that you're likely to outlive them all by several decades makes one a tad indulgent. The future as always, belongs to the young. So why not let 'em grump while they can?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 12:55 PM

"I like all the grumpy old gits on here!"

hate to disappoint you, dearie, (no I don't) but at the age of 38 I'm hardly an 'old git'

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:03 PM

"at the age of 38 I'm hardly an 'old git'"

Yes, not quite Dearie, we're both still apprentices.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: TheSilentOne
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:03 PM

What tedious bickering this sometime fun thread has degenerated into!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:11 PM

"What tedious bickering this sometime fun thread has degenerated into!"

How dare you accuse me of "bickering"?

I demand you provide evidential proofage of such execrable behaviour! And whatsmore Mrs big nose, I say "poo poo to you".

And let that Sir, be a lesson to you!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:15 PM

"sometime fun thread has degenerated into!"
fun? This thread is yet another variation on the theme of What IS Folk Music!

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:42 PM

Still avoiding my questions
Provide me with the evidence of your accusations.
"but what is the difference between folk roots as defined through nation states and nationalism?"
"Ethnic Purity"
Is it my imagination or taken over the role of 'thread policeman' now?
"Well I hate to serious in a single playful thread in a sea of grumpiness"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 01:55 PM

The idea that folk music is not a genre is promoted by some of those who write their own songs. They don't get it that some songs go through a folk process by which they are smoothed out as water flowing over a rock in a stream. The songs are added to, subtracted from and changed by cultural influences over time.

The bottom line is that many of those who write their own stuff are looking for commercial success and folk music doesn't fit into that agenda. A lot of young people who want to be "hip" or "with it" do a number here.

Folk music is part of a national heritage. It will always be around despite the commercial music business and rarely because of it.

Some writers do "folk-type" songs that have the flavor of trad songs. They can be wonderful. Some trad folk songs can be awful if they're bowdlerized enough. But the
best stand the test.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:14 PM

Show me a question Jim. So far I made a statement that had nothing to do with you and you claimed I said you'd said it. That's the stuff of bewilderment if not obsession.

This thread was bumping along so nicely as well. It really doesn't HAVE to go along grumpy lines, though it will if you insist.

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

Um... everyone's got one? they all smoke? None begins with an N


Breasts !!!!! or breste? oh well suit yerself

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 02:58 PM

Provide me with the evidence of your accusations - doesn't get more simple than that.
I joined this thread to comment on your bout of anti-MacColl necrophobia; wasn't being grumpy (or Sneezy, or Happy...), just attempting to ansewer the question which you appear to have comandeered and are now attempting to censor.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:07 PM

at the age of 38 I'm hardly an 'old git'

Old gittedness is in the mind, not the birth certificate.

Now, you bickering lot, bog off outside and finish it off in the car park and let us debaters of the finer points of philosophy get back to important matters. Like who is the folkiest trouser wearer of them all? Name and shame!

This thread is yet another variation on the theme of What IS Folk Music!

Infamy! 'Snot! Prove it! You just don't understand! Are we there yet?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:30 PM

"Ethnic purity, folk purity, ethnic folk, folk schmoke, diddly-dee, diddly-di."

I still don't believe in any of them. Do you? A simple yes or no will do JC.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 04:32 PM

Folknacious's last post trumped mine. Apologies, shouldn't have bitten.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jul 09 - 07:46 PM

So, when a thread reaches 175 posts, is it irony?
Or is it just boring?

-Joe-

175


(Can I put this thread in the BS section now?)

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 03:32 AM

Can't see why threads with 'Folk Music' in the title attract such ire and contempt. Some people want to discuss the big picture of a phenomenon they enjoy but recognise has accumulated a lot of preconceptions and plain bull around it and some don't.

If the don'ts stay out of the thread Folk Music threads are usually knockabout, good natured and contain some intelligent posts (not necessarily mine). Having a background thread on the boil to remind us what the hell this thing is we're listening to seems healthy.
Some folk are just hypertensive and waiting to be offended. If we bring the board down to a level where no-one gets miffed it would be dull indeed.

Before I found Mudcat I believed I was the only person who loved folk music while recognising its contradictions and absurdities but I find there are a considerable number and for that I'm grateful.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 03:34 AM

See, all the best folk music seems to have come from close to (or even to have straddled) the border of wherever its from (talking national or emotional borders here). If the national isn't porous it'll quickly be dead. If the emotional isn't porous it will quickly be dull and relentless.

Thought for the day. Typing while dumping.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 04:27 AM

"I still don't believe in any of them. Do you? A simple yes or no will do JC. "
No - when did I say I did? Your suggesting that I did is typical of the distortions and dishonesty that go on in these discussions, as is your phrasing of this question (rather like "Do you still beat your wife/partner - a simple yes or no will do").
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 05:08 AM

Still not biting JC.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 05:24 AM

I saw MacColl once and he didn't sing one traditional song rather used the opportunity to bore a bewildered audience with his self-written political songs which supposedly spoke for Black South Africans suffering under Apartheid. Embarrassingly atrocious. The only song I remember Peggy Seeger doing that night was a dreary singalong ditty about the radioactivity of tobacco. I came away numb and depressed feeling as if I'd witnessed the death of folk music; fortunately Peter Bellamy was on hand later in the month to bring it back to life again... Happy days, eh?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Folknacious
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 06:19 AM

So, when a thread reaches 175 posts, is it irony? Or is it just boring? (Can I put this thread in the BS section now?)

Depends on how much you enjoy watching ugly people wrestling in the mud.


Whether it's about sartorial folk elegance or the boringness of Peggy Seeger, is it any more folk-irrelevant bullshit than many other threads on Mudcat?

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 06:29 AM

Oi! Wos wrong with ugly all of a sudden?

My thesis is simple befitting a simple fellow. Somebody knicked folk music, swaddled it in silly clothes and a comedy voice, gave it a fake passport and passed the changeling off as their own. I wanna know how and why and would like the real baby back.

Signed,

The Folk

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:19 AM

I have listened to MacColl for continuously from the time somebody gave me 'Chorus From The Gallows' for my 21st birthday. In Liverpool, when he and Peggy were booked, you had to get your tickets at least a fortnight in advance otherwise you didn't get in. Singers club nights when they residented, were nearly always full houses. MacColl continued to pack 'em in right up to the point when his health forced him to stop singing.
On the other hand, wouldn't have walked down the road to King George's Park to listen to Peter Bellamy's Larry The Lamb imitations - so I suppose it's all a matter of taste really.
I suppose Glueman's silence is the nearest thing I'll get to an apology or a retraction of his crap.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:23 AM

You got an answer. It wasn't the one you wanted so you're saying you never got one. An old trick and one I'm not falling sweetie.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 07:50 AM

"You got an answer."
When or where did I say what you accused me of saying and where did you reply? You really do need to clean up your act.
So'P
"which supposedly spoke for Black South Africans suffering under Apartheid."
Incidentally. where did you ever hear MacColl and Seeger claim to be speaking for black South Africans or is this one of Glueman's 'let's make something up to score points' statements.
I assume you disapprove of Rossleson, Dick Gaughan, Christie Moore or early Dylan singing and making songs which comment on political oppression - or is this another display of 'corpse wrestling'?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 10:05 AM

There isn't actually such a thing as folk music because there isn't actually such a thing as the folk.

'The folk' can be defined as a homogeneous group of people who never accomplish much and don't deserve much. Its function is to work, subsist and fight for worthier people who possess wealth, genius or dignity. Its music is bland and predictable.

There is no folk. Humans are variable, and genius, wealth and dignity pop up everywhere.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 10:19 AM

I like Leeneia's post above. Especially the last sentence.

Subject: RE: Is folk music folk music?
From: glueman
Date: 11 Jul 09 - 01:45 PM

JC your main gripe so far as the casual observer can tell, is that there's no such thing as folk police, i.e. those who believe folk is a particular ethno-cultural artefact and Absolutely Nothing Else and will apprehend anyone who disagrees with that conclusion.

The folk police force believe its job is to save folk music from some threat or other, nail it down with definitions, establish a pantheon of approved artists and forms and act outraged or wounded if anyone suggests otherwise. Police force members closely align themselves with this artefact and take any debate about it as a personal attack on themselves, using a variety of strategies that puts themselves centre stage.

I also like leeneia's post but if s/he were to post such sentiments too often s/he'd have her collar felt.