I just joined a minute ago after blundering into this site looking for more information on Reynardine. When I read that that you consider the blues, and other regional styles, folk, I joined. Oh, my God, I have found kindred spirits! Yippee!!
I was just described as a music geek for buying the new Sandy Denny five CD set, A Boxful of Treasures. I was not offended and decided that "music geek" was perfectly descriptive of my mental state.
I live in the Columbus, Ohio area. We are blessed with a wonderful public radio station, WCBE, which has a huge membership and supports all the different and fascinating varieties of folk music. WCBE also carries Toss the Feathers, Thistle and Shamrock, and Afropop Worldwide. Columbus also has the Dublin Irish Festival and lots of local music venues. We are only fifty miles from Northern Appalachia and have a strong fiddlin' and pickin' tradition.
Despite all this, I still feel somewhat isolated because I have an overwhelming tendency to enjoy research and discovering connections as well as listening and appreciating. I find I can kill entire conversations by wondering aloud if (for instance) Reynardine is an offshoot of the French Reynard the Fox tales (his teeth gleaming in the dark is one foxy clue) or telling someone the story of Tam Lin, that there is supposedly a map of the place the story occurred, and that Charles Vess even made an illustration...and by the way, you should see his "Corn God". I have seen what the expression "their eyes glazed over" means too many times, so I have kept most of this to myself. Furthermore, I am not a musician although I have a decent singing voice and played cello and viola when I was younger.
I also read the thread on weird instruments and thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe I will take up a weird instrument and then nobody will be able to tell if I play well or badly.
I am glad this group exists and know that I will visit often.