Okay, I know this will sound 'snobbish', but...

Young performers who are only prepared to perform their own compositions tend to be somewhat lacking in the audience communication department.

Whilst there are many folk performers who only play their own stuff (Harvey Andrews is a good example), the ones who make it have to be exceptional at what they do... many of them don't even manage to be 'run of the mill'.

We've all seen the Dylan-esque types who announce they are going to do a song they wrote themselves, which is mostly prolonged strumming of 'clever' chords (sometimes not clever!) with a bit of singing thrown in occasionally.

I'm sorry, but such people are often too far into themselves to see they are boring their audience senseless.

A performer is primarily there to entertain. Okay, they must believe in what they are doing, and such enthusiasm will 'rub off' on to an audience, but only if the quality is there.

I've never written a song in my life, so maybe I have no right to comment... but I've had to sit through such performances far too often.

One guest we had recently at our club was one such. For some inexplicable reason this person seems to get rave reviews, but our audience was losing the will to live... so much so that our MC asked me to do a couple of songs after the break just to wake people up before the second 'set'!!

Any club organisers who want to know who I'm talking about, please PM me - I'm posting no names here. The person in question seemed to be making it up as they went along, and each item was in excess of ten minutes in length, with no apparent structure. Very insulting...

Had this person's performance been in the background at a wine bar, or some such, it would probably have been acceptable.