Hey Sam, GOOD FOR YOU & hi, nice to hear from you espically with what you're attempting! In these days where funding for the arts is going down the toilet, the music for, by & in public is getting the life taxed out of it, media gaints want to own & sterilize what ever is creative for the sake of a few cents & you musicians in the UK who are losing you're musical heritage & are having your government try to stamp out your culture & not for the first time I might add, need this more now that ever. We all need this more now than ever. I once heard a very young (at the time) musician, Eliza Cathy speak about how England in the past were so good at crushing cultures because they first practiced & perfected the practice on themselves. This, she said was one of the reasons that her research into finding traditional English tunes was so difficult. To me it's strange how many of the musicians play Irish tunes in England & stranger still the how & whys that Irish music still flourishes in a country where their own musical traditional does not (the way things are going in the US we may be right behind you). A culture lives on through it's youth only if it's passed on by it's older representives. Look at the Copper Family, the Stewarts of Blair, the Carter Family or the songs of Elizabeth Ccroin. What traditional singers & musicians carried on their tradition. It certainly wasn't the older generation they were to busy trying to pass on what they already knew to all those young kids who had all the piss & vinegar & the passionate desire to learn & love what they were handed. We don't have much left of those past generations left. I was probably in my mid to late 20's when an old cape horner gave me just a spark of the torch that they all carried, he died in his late 90' a good few yrs back now. If the youth don't carry our past & their present into the future they'll be no future & what we all know & love will become a memory in the wind. Those of us that are older should be, not criticizing the youth for trying to keep what we should rightfully be passing on to them, but doing everything in our power to make this a reality & help them to have a future. Shame on any that would say we (the elders) should've been included & cry fowl over our age. It's now their world & maybe in time when they have a little more control in what direction the future takes they'll take us along for the ride. Dis them now we may be left behind because of the disrespect shown them while they were younger & struggling. I do remember how hard some of those struggles were. Wasn't that part of the reason why some of us went to Woodstock, who was there to witness the birth of the "British Invasion" or that special sound from the West Coast. Back then some of us Yanks had to go to England just to be appreciated without a fight & a struggle (Jimi Hendricks) & the same the other way around. Our elders hated what we sounded like, what we were & how we lived but we're here dispite some (or many) of the roadbocks that were placed in front of us.

Sam, I don't give a hoot how young I'm not, I do care that the likes of you & others of your generation & the ones just behind you get every opportunity that's available to you & don't look back. Some day you'll be giving it up for free, like alot of us, to those that will continue the cycle. I'm sure that old gizzer Bill Sables is right there (probably always was too) backing you up to the max.

Sorry if I've offended any of you non youths but it's all about them now not us, we had our day.

Sam, Best of Luck with your endeavors & your future.
Barry