Lately I lament the absence of original and interesting tunes at folk gatherings, where 99% of the time it's something off a Chieftains record and more often than not, the player even apes the bad tempo as well, no to mention odd ball settings designed to accomodate the sqealin pipes or make em even more the center of the music - which BTW they aren't and never were It has become so bad that if you playe Irish stuff from the years before the Chieftains were out of school - as I did - and that is different to what the great Party Chief recorded, then now sooner are you over bar one, some smart Alec will correct you with suitably 'in the know' insults. What ever happened to the good time Irish music that the Dubliners made so popular?
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