you won't get written up in fRoots as a good wedding band! English folk journailsts, by and large, go to watch the jolly locals having fun in the local shebeens abroad, but at home they strictly write up what is put in front of them by the larger festivals and the BBC.

I don't think they do anything different abroad. I'd love to have more information about the equivalent of the session or singaround scenes in other countries, but I've never found fRoots or the Rough Guide to World Music any help at all. They focus exclusively on commercially marketed recordings and commercially promoted concerts: amateurs and the local equivalent of the ceilidh band never get a look in. When I've needed grassroots info I've always had to use local sources in the local language, and the sources I've used have never even been referenced by any publication of an English journo.

Who needs fRoots when we've got Google?