I think in some ways, its to do with how much music is available these days. You can get most kinds of music on Youtube nowadays and - there ia lot of music available on podcasts, budget cd's etc....

But in the folk clubs of those days - if you met someone who had mastered or who was attempting to master a Bert Jansch song, or a Martin Carthy melody - it would be of genuine interest to meet someone else from another region of planet folk - the rest of the world was anaesthetised at home listening to the Val Doonican show.

Automatically you were brothers under the skin - because of your presence in a folk club - it was like a meeting of subversives and extra terrestials. The traddies broke all that up with their theories of having an exclusive vision of what is folk music. But I still feel the same way a lot of the time - we are still the last best hope of the world..

Nowadays - you can get any amount of recherche stuff sitting in front of your computer. The main thing about the people in folk clubs is - have they had the decency to at least try and not to bore you fumbling about with some unrehearsed crap - which they expect you to applaud and appreciate, because they once had an Abba or a Fred Jordan album. Really if they know most of the words and some of the tune - its about as much as you're allowed to expect.