Bastard son (can't be bothered with the rest)
What a pile of clichéd cobblers.
A club should be a means to an end, not an end in itself.
If it fails to present the music it claims to, if the performers are crap (as many of them are), if it doesn't give me pleasure and satisfy me aesthetically it is of no use to me.
If I don't find what I want at a club, your solution appears to be 'lower my standards and look for something else' - arrogant crap ("sorry, we haven't got any cheese - try bananas")!
My musical tastes are wide and varied - I know where to go to find jazz, classical music, blues, opera.... in my latter years in the UK I found it virtually impossible to find good folk music.
Why should I adapt my tastes to accept - now who was it "Damien Rice, David Gray, Kate Rusby" - sorry - tried them all and found them falling very short of what I consider good folk singing, and if your concept of a folk club is "a dreary rundown building that offers a singaround and a raffle" - that may be what folk clubs have become, but I can only say you missed the best of it.
To repeat - arrogant crap.
Jim Carroll