If I remember when I was young (the late 60's, by definition a bad time for memory cells) I didn't folk.   That was mainly because the principal purpose of a young man's life is to f**k. Hormones 'n' stuff. Dance was then and may still now be the primary socionormal way to start physical contact (with a view to a f**k). Ergo I went to discos (indeed I ran a mobile one) and preferred bands that played danceable (quite a wide range in the university context) music. Those who did not go out with the same primary purpose and indeed were not socially prepared to be seen to be pursuing that social purpose went to folk clubs. Many women students did. It was part of the polarisation of the times.


Folk guitarists however found folk clubs successful hunting grounds (no names, no pack drill) but the rest of of us either did not believe or could not emulate.

The early 60s may have been different - I think then the dancefloor sent a different social message, and the hunter on those plains needed perseverance - whereas the folk club (and maybe then jazz club, remember beatniks?) probably showed a distribution skewed towards the less conventional and so increased the prospect of a truncation of the socio-normal waiting time - a positive cocking of a snook at society.

Bring that up to the present day - the reason the young don't find folk clubs interesting is the opportunities for sexual hunting are limited, whereas festivals even folk festivals may be quite the opposite.

Got to go - going to a folk club (well pub session) and fancy the landlady.