Old Songs Festival 2003

Subject: Old Songs 2003
From: bigchuck
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 08:14 AM

Well gang, the new camping rules are now available on the OS website. Real different for many of us. Dunno if I'll go or not now.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: MMario
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 08:18 AM

WOW! Big changes indeed! The whole "music at night" area is new, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Midchuck
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 08:49 AM

It appears as how all the "music at night" camping is now outside of the fairground proper, where they used to park the day visitors. And all spaces are assigned, randomly. The only way to camp with friends is by sending all your ticket forms in one envelope.

I don't gnow vhy it shouldn't vork! It vorks in Chermany, Nicht Var?

P.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 05:55 PM

I don't know if I want to go now, and I'm a pretty faithful attendee. The biggest reason I love(d?) this festival is the campground jamming, and this may put a real damper on it. I also had quite enough of assigned housing in the military.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: SINSULL
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 06:08 PM

This from the crowd who stole a portapotty because it was too far away? I suggest that we all take "Quiet" spaces and jam anyway. You can't move your car out of the "Quiet" area once the festival starts...so...aren't they stuck with you?

On a more serious note: instead of just not going, let them know how you feel. Maybe some arrangements can be made.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Midchuck
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 06:32 PM

There are mutterings about a Gathering in the Rutland area as an alternative. Bigchuck's daughter and son-in-law (those of you who were at our campsite - remember the skinny and argumentative one with all the whiskers and the mandolin?)have a location that could be a natural. But we have to get him drunk enough to talk him into it. Send beer or ale.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 06:40 PM

Remember, this is not the brainchild of the Old Songs organizers; it's being imposed upon them by the city of Albany. If we boycott this festival, the wrong folks will suffer. I'll be there!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 07:42 PM

I know it's not the Old Songs folks that came up with the requirement for assigned spots, and I wouldn't even mention the word "boycott." They just came up with the rule about having to send ticket orders in the same envelope to get spots near one another. I can't even complain too much about that, because the only other way I could see to do this would cause a pile of problems. Still, it might be nice if we could just ASK to be near so-and-so,

I've complained about folks cramming tents into every spare inch, but I've done it myself. This WILL helpn people who can't get there early enough to find a reasonable spot. I'm not really nuts about having to walk the length of the field just to mooch a cup of coffee off someone OR to get to the flippin' showers! Oh well, I'll just have to see if the thought bugs me enough to not go once I get my flier.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: DonMeixner
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 09:15 PM

The City of Albany?

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: bbc
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 09:31 PM

Yup, it sounds less convenient, but it's still a great festival. I plan to be there. I hope you all will be, too; I'd miss you!

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Gloredhel
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 09:47 PM

I hope to go for the first time this year. We have a place in the Catskills that we come to every July, and I made a deal with Mom and Pop that if they let me come early, I'll paint the living room the next week. I'm sure going to Old Songs would make it well worth the effort!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 13 Mar 03 - 11:44 PM

I'm a relative newcomer to Old Songs (3 years) and I haven't camped - yet.

I'm confused at what the issue is. I do see that they have designated what appears to be a large section of what was the day parking for a music section. Am I wrong or isn't this an increase in the amount of space that was available for camping? I know more than half the fun is the party at night, but what is so wrong about designating a "quiet" area?   The "party" section is still there, only in a different spot. Adapt. Unless I am reading the map wrong, it looks like these new rules have really expanded the on-site camping area.   Yes, the night camping is "outside of the fairgrounds proper", but hasn't it always been that way?

And as for the suggestion that people book the quiet area and jam anyway, that is not very cool.   If I was camping in the quiet area and somebody was playing a banjo at 3am, they would quickly have to figure out how they can play that instrument internally because I will make sure it is shoved into a new "case"!!!!   It would be a whole new meaning to "jam" session!!!

I'm just teasing here. I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything, and as I said at the top, I'm a relative newbie to Old Songs. This has quickly become my FAVORITE festival and I'm rather shocked to see such negative comments posted here about a few rules that to me really don't seem to have a huge impact. Again, I haven't camped so I am sure I am missing something, but I'm hoping people can expound on their negative comments so I can get a better understanding.

I'm thinking of camping this year, although I would be alone. Is that a problem for a person to take up a camping space by themselves? I want to see what the proper etiquette is.

From my point of view, as an outsider, I really don't think these problems should be so negative. Adapt! There is a whole NEW area to be conquered - it sounds like it is going to be a real party. It isn't that hard to get your friends together and send in requests at the same time. If you can't, the worse thing that will happen is that you make new friends!   Hey, this lot isn't that huge. It isn't like you will be walking 2 miles to get to the showers.   From what I've seen, some of us can use the excercise anyway!!!!! :)

Seriously, please enlighten me. I'm not trying to start an arguement, just trying to understand what the big deal is.

Old Songs is great.. change is always a rough thing. Don't let it spoil what is probably one of the top festivals in the country!

Ron Olesko

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 06:42 AM

Ron, I wouldn't take out my irritation on the adults & kids in the quiet area either. I think Sinsull was just having one of those 'evil fantasies'.

The problem isn't necessarily that they've moved the noisy area to the other side of the main festival area from the quiet side. They're telling us which exact piece of ground we can claim. Ron gets Q112C and Jeri gets M138B. You stick your tent in the wrong place and perhaps get smacked around by the campsite...er..Enforcer - probably using one of those jingle-stick thingies.

In other words, I may want to camp in the music-at-night section, but I may want to be next to the Chucks and NOT anywhere near that constant bluegrass jam whose members are continuously plastered and only know how to play Sail Away in minute but infinite variation. (This has happened in the past. I'd probably like bluegrass more if it hadn't.) I do NOT like to be trapped like that.

I'm not taking this personally Ron. I understand the Old Songs folks are stuck with the rules and are doing the best they can. I also understand that if Ed McMahon shows up and wants to give someone a check for 10 million bucks, it's good to know which campsite to go to.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 08:02 AM

The new music-at-night camping area is where we parked last year with our RV for the day. It was actually very convenient, just outside the gate near the Dutch Barn. The area was grassy and flat and will make a nice camping area. Most festivals in campgrounds have assigned spots (think "reserved") for festivals. If people show up without reservations, together with friends, assume that they will all get adjacent spots.

Interesting stereotype above about the "constant bluegrass jam whose members are continuously plastered and only know how to play....."

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Hollowfox
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 03:49 PM

Thanks, Animaterra. At least now I know why this is happening.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 08:08 PM

Barbara, 'interesting stereotype'?? It might be a stereotype, and it might even be interesting, but I swear one year was camped by some folks who did that. Maybe it just seemed like they played "Sail Away Ladies" continually because I put my ear plugs in and went to sleep after 20 minutes of that tune and the next thing I heard the next day was..."don'tchu rock 'em, daddio." And then there was that year I camped right next to somebody with a flippin' (6 AM) ALARM CLOCK!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: kendall
Date: 14 Mar 03 - 10:58 PM

Last year, they put me in the RV area, way the hell and gone where old people go to bed with the chickens (not Llamas) then walk their damn barking dogs at 6 am. My tent has wheels, so, I moved nearer to the infield, and no one mentioned it.
I,m on the fence, but, will probably go. Florida sucked this year, 9 inches of rain in 5 days. Then heavy showers for a day or so. Being cooped up in a small motor home with a wet dogt is not my idea of fun.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 12:21 AM

I see the jamming issue a bit different. It also has a social element. Knowing where, say the Chuck's are & that you know late in the evening they'll be a jam at their house is part musical & part social. A bit like going over to a friend's house & you find eveyone's playing music on the front porch. There is a reason that some of the campsites are set up to have a homestyle atmosphere. Me I don't mind wandering about at 2 or 3 in the morning but there are some folks that don't want to lug their instruments, chairs, coffee, tables & beer all over some field just to find that the music was so much more when played in the company of friends & creature comforts where at hand ("here would you like a beer " or "you look cold, toss on this blanket" or "you didn't bring your guitar here have a go on mine"). I'll be going but I think it's gonna lose some of it's special flavor & taste. I don't go their so much for the concerts or workshops as I do for the cozy late night jams. Barry

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 07:19 AM

Barry, we had to get the "lay of the land" when we camped haphazardly and it'll be the same this year - just that there are two separate areas and more ground to cover. I think my resistance to the idea is primarily just because it's a change and I'm not sure what to expect.

If the camping had been set up this way from the beginning, I doubt I'd be complaining about it. I'll most likely go. I've loved this festival for years and would probably feel like bad if I let that natural distaste for change, rules, and Fear of the Unknown keep me away from all the good stuff.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 08:28 AM

I've never heard the song "Sail Away" and I'm a bluegrasser. So I did a search on the Mudcat and found it. Also found a thread complaining about an old-timey jam that played Sail Away all night long. Maybe we have a confusion of labels here. I'm never happy when a stereotype gets perpetuated, but I'm personally upset with categorizing bluegrassers this way. I'm very serious about my music and my bluegrass friends, none of whom get plastered or play Sail Away all night or at all.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Dani
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 10:10 AM

Kendall on Dani's computer:

I am well aquainted with both Jeri and the Shaws, and I can tell you all that the Shaws are wonderful people and I love their music. They never drink to excess. Sure, there are assholes in ALL kinds of music, and, I doubt that Jeri really meant to say that all bluegrass people are drunken oafs.

"Stereotypes afford us the luxury of not thinking, but, eventually, they will extract the PRICE of not thinking." (Jean Harris, author of STRANGER IN TWO WORLDS.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 10:40 AM

Hey, I've heard the Shaws make great music, and I've met them. I can't imagine NOT wanting to fall asleep hearing them!

There WAS no stereotyping. It was something that really happened, and the genre doesn't really have anything to do with it. Bluegrass musicians DO play Sail Away, Ladies, and they DID sound more bluegrassy than old-timey. It's quibbling. It doesn't matter. If it had been a group of people playing "Over the Rainbow" on musical saws, a group of people playing "O'Carolan's Farewell to Lunch" on the most angelic-sounding harps or Bearded Men with Fingers In Ears singing "Pull on my finger, my finger, pull," ALL NIGHT LONG, it would have driven me crazy. I'm not even stereotyping drunken people here. The main theme is people who play one song long enough to drive people like me, who at best don't have far to go, nuts, and they come in ALL genres.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Midchuck
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 10:53 AM

If they play one song continuously for more than fifteen minutes, and they're at a folk festival, they're either old-timey musicians, traditional ballad singers, or people showing off their knowledge of Dylan lyrics. If they were doing "Sail Away Ladies" they were old-timey musicians in their heads, even if they were getting a bluegrass sound.

Just so long as they weren't drumming. A few years ago I almost took the hatchet, that I brought to pound tent pegs, over to a drum circle. But that's just me.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 11:08 AM

For the record, I was joking. Hopefully, if i make it this year, I will have spot mates who will not view my cabana with such distain.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: kendall
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 11:42 AM

FIRST TIME i HAD SEEN A HALF TENT. (damn caps lock)

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: bigchuck
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 02:21 PM

Mary, I'm not sure distain conveys quite the exact reaction...or maybe we were politer than I remember us being.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 04:53 PM

You embarrassed me so much that I slept in the car and used it for storage. The fact that I didn't fit in it had nothing to do with my decision. Never pass up a sale!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: MMario
Date: 15 Mar 03 - 09:46 PM

couldn't be much smaller then mine....(which is usually the smallest in any campsite I am at!)

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: SINSULL
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 09:40 AM

disdain...I hate misspellings.
Always the gentleman, MM. Though I am not quite comfortable having a "Mine is smaller than yours" battle with you.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: bigchuck
Date: 16 Mar 03 - 10:03 AM

Oh it was MM, it was. Although I think it was the fact that if it had been there on Thursday night when the monsoon went through, anyone trying to sleep in it would have drowned.

After some correspondence with Andy Spence, I think the camping thing may work out all right. They are willing to be as accomodating as they can be consistent with the rules they need to operate under. The key is to reserve spaces as a group. I do think the large canopied areas we have all seen in the past may not be practical. Hopefully we'll see you all there.
Sandy

Subject: Old Songs 2003??
From: Peg
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 09:37 AM

Okay, who's going this year? I think I may try to make it. I will not be in England for a change, and Old Songs falls right before I will be heading out to western New York to camp for a month...

peg

---

Combined new with old. Presto - replies before you asked! --JoeClone

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Jeri
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 05:44 PM

Got my flier today. The camping consists of 30' squares separated from other squares by 10' of open space. Up to 3 'camping units' per square. The camping may turn out to be roomier and less dog-eat-dog than ever before.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Peg
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 09:47 AM

hope to see all of you there! I only went once; camped with Kendall and Dharma Bum and his friends, on the edge of the field nearest the toilets and not far from the showers. A good spot, I thought; quiet at night, though a bit of a walk to get food or go to the workshops (but walking is good). I camp every summer and there are always rule changes of some sort; best to adapt quickly and don't let it spoil your fun.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Midchuck
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 10:50 AM

It looks like the Chucks will be coming and try to camp in the "Yellow" area. I don't know how this will affect the use of the Great Canopy - although a 30' x 30' space would still allow room for it and a couple of small tents.

I wonder how far it will be from these new spaces to the nearest toilets - or tree line.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 05:22 PM

Sent my check in yesterday!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Burke
Date: 28 Mar 03 - 06:20 PM

Seems like the noisy at night is awfully far from the showers & other running water.

Oh well, I may have to miss it this year anyway.

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 12:40 AM

Hi Peg, It'll be good to see you again. I think the last time I saw you there you slept straight though Norma Waterson & hubby. Must've been real tired, don't know about you young'ens anymore. If you'd like a copy of the picture let me know. Barry

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Peg
Date: 31 Mar 03 - 12:07 PM

Really Barry??? I do remember the concert and enjoyed it. But I may have had my eyes closed to rest them as I usually do not sleep very well at these things...and was that one of those rainy miserable nights?? I sure would like to see the picture, but in every pic of me I have seen from Old Songs that year I look really awful...than again I am not always photogenic...
Young'un??? thanks for that! I'm pushing 40!
It will be good to see you and yours there, too. I am working out the details and if I do come I will ride there with Kendall from New England, and then head off to Elmira after.
looking forward,
peg

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: kendall
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 05:52 AM

I received my ticket yesterday. My site is number 401.
Glad I have rubber boots and my bed is 8 feet off the ground!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 06:12 AM

Go my tix, too- I'm site 560-something in the Quiet section. Maybe the snow will have melted by then!

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Barry Finn
Date: 18 May 03 - 08:54 PM

Always the procrastinator, just sent the check with tommorow's post. It'll be a full house for us this time, both kids & my wife deceided they'd make it this year. They found someone else to walk the fish & my mother's gonna take the dog to keep her's company (depending on the weekend could mean 4 lg breeed mutts). See ya all there. Barry

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: bbc
Date: 18 May 03 - 09:34 PM

Between my son's high school graduation on that Sat. & the fact that I will be moving on June 30th, I've decided I just can't swing it this year. I'll be sorry to miss the festival & seeing all of you!

bbc

Subject: RE: Old Songs 2003
From: Stewie
Date: 19 May 03 - 04:56 AM

A tip from Oz: I see that Danny Spooner is booked for this festival. Don't miss him. There are few better bearers of traditional song and the depth of his repertoire is simply mind-boggling.

--Stewie.