El Greko,

I know and like your work but I've never seen you perform live, either because I couldn't get there or didn't want to go (to the venue, you understand, not to see you!) This is way off topic and belongs rather in the recent 'Are Folk Clubs Crap?' thread but since you asked...

What deters me is that benighted legion of cliquey inverted snobs inhabiting the outmoded 'club scene' who insist on inflicting a full 45 minutes of unrehearsed, amateurish garbage on punters who have paid £6 or so for an artist they have waited a long time to see. Many's the time I have dragged along a 'non-folk' person who has listened to the guest artist's CD only to have them vow never to enter a 'folk club' again after such an appalling and depressing experience.

In another recent thread it was suggested that the MH show should be broadcast direct from a folk club, to which someone replied that this was not perhaps the best way to interest the general public. Too right.   Unless maybe it was Sharps (which is one of only two on your list that I have visited recently). This is primarily a singers' club and you just don't get on if you're not good.

Which brings me to one of Betsy's accusations: that I'm not a performer. Wrong, but rarely nowadays because I feel I'm not good enough. I'm no more than a 'competent' musician in that 'damned with faint praise' sense and don't have enough time to rehearse properly.   I'll play in a session, which is where the majority of aforementioned 'floor volunteers' should confine themselves, if not to their locked bedrooms, for a quite a while longer.

In yet another recent thread I wrote in defence of the Twickenham club which, although its booking policy is not always to my taste, is at least run efficiently and professionally. The complainant appently couldn't get a floor spot there. One can only wonder why - all the support acts I have seen there have been excellent and well-chosen and have interested me enough to seek out a full set from them.

In short, if you persist in presenting a hotch-potch of MOR crap, whether on the MH show or its downmarket equivalent on the club scene, it is hardly surprising if the public at large continues to fail to recognise the worth of our cultural inheritance and think, with some justification, that 'folk music' is a joke. I'm for the venue (or broadcaster) who promotes music relevant to how we live today regardless of genre, that tells our story and encourages our present population to add to it, with the only proviso being that it is *good*.