(lots of kooky folks use the bus).

But not many kookie folkies, eh, CS?

This is a fair point actually but if that was truly the case in the present mutterance I wouldn't have said anything, either here or on the night in question. I know that folk has more than its fair share of genuine nutters, and the more the merrier really; eccentricity is built into the DNA of the thing, which brings to Richard's comment...

It seems unavoidable that those doing the telling off think they are better than those being told off

...because very often it seems to me it's the other way round actually, with the accompaniments being offered by way of learned instruction and/or correction by individuals who feel they are inherently superior in some way. Personally, I don't feel 'better' than anyone, I just don't like it when people feel the need to 'improve' on what I'm doing by adding something utterly unnecessary then have the neck to look all wounded when I tell them so. If it only happened the once then fair enough, but it seems to be a frequent issue. It's not just the one club I've been in where 'the guitar guy' feels the need to join in with everything whilst making a consistent hash of it. One time I was visiting a club and noting his tendancy to do just that I asked him if he wouldn't try and accompany me and got into a pre-song situation that was so ugly that I just went home without singing.

We don't get out to Folk Clubs much these days as we don't live in a very Trad Friendly County - which is why our Friday night Sesh is dearly & rightly cherished. I don't go for Agro, I go for great music and great crack; and I hate being put in a situation of confrontation by 'guitar guys' who feel that just because they can strum the chords to the Fields of Athenry that somehow qualifies them as a musician. There are plenty of clubs where it will, especially round here, but precious few which appreciate the pure principle of The Modal Drone essential to a more spiritual communion with the heart and soul of Traditional Song, where the intonation of such sacred texts as The Crabfish, Butter and Cheese and All or Long Peggin Awl require a certain finesse to do them justice...