Nick,
If my views are bizarre then they apply to every single performance activity - unless you can name one where standards don't apply and where people will continue to support activities which are poorly carried out?
Folk music died because it became unskilled and uninspiring. I watched as the clubs, apart from the ones where the opposite was the case, gradually (and in some cases, not so gradually) emptied. I followed a recent thread inquiring about where to hear singing in London and was absolutely staggered at the lack of response - this from a city that boasted a multiple choice seven nights a week.
Blaming those (three quarters of the scene) of us who walked away when the music became unlistenable to is, a suppose, a good cop-out for those who refuse to guarantee audiences a good standard, but there are enough hits on this thread to suggest that there are still those around who care enough to try and change things.
Last night we put on an excellently attended concert of local musicians and singers to raise money to pay for the premises we have recently purchased for the musical archive and resource centre we have established in this 'one-horse rural town/village in the arsehole of nowhere'.
I got a chance to talk to a number of people who attended the marathon sing-in of the night before - I didn't meet one of them who would be going back there - the reason they gave - 'too much crap singing mixed in with a tiny handful of singers who could find their way around a tune' - says it all really.
"Applause is neither sought nor acknowledged"
Sessions here are also occasions where musicians and listeners communicate with each other - it really is the 'done thing'. You Never get the 'me musician, you listener' syndrome, Cappuccino described so vividly (not even at last nights concert).
Jim Carroll