until I read this thread I thought Richard Bridge was right 23/3 04:17 but as we know there is no such thing as a new idea - so when I thought of the term sitting in The Swan Inn in Stone Staffordshire I was only coming independently to an existing concept

If it helps anyone to understand where I am coming from, this is the justification I put forward to Joe O to get the feral folk music what's on thread accepted -

The purpose of the thread is/was to highlight folk music that is not taking place within the folk establishment where it is relatively easy for the artist/venue to communicate with the folk world to publicise what is going on. Regular clubs and annual festivals can be easily found but where would you look to find folk in your high street ?

The What's On has lots of these club dates many of which are repeats weekly and monthly and I reckon that many people would not bother to look in there if they are familiar with the venues they frequent - they would go to their club website or would already know what's on because it was announced at the last show

Where public venues (mainly pubs) are presenting folk music and artists are going out to the general public I think that it would help if folk fans had ready access to this information to give them the chance to support these ventures. Many pubs offer live music but relatively few offer folk music hence my desire to make it successful when it does happen (plus of course Norcsalordie, play mainly in pubs so I know the problems well)

Also with less clubs offering guests (refer to Tom Bliss) this outside work is becoming more important for the artists and as an opportunity for folk fans to see the guests. It would be a shame if ONLY joe public attended such gigs and folk fans missed it for lack of information

The idea started off from the thread Musicians Quitting and Venues Dying started by pub owner Wrotham Arms Jen who does promote folk music in her pub and who is saying what a struggle it is and how she often loses money in doing it

The thread concept is that people post a one line entry simply giving time, date, venue, artist and a link to somewhere else that holds more detail. Without being moderated it turns into another chat thread as people don't bother to read the first entry. As far as the moderation is concerned it would simply be to remove anything that does not conform to the one line principle or anything that is mainstream folk club/festival - not because I don't wish them success but because they are catered for elsewhere and it just isn't the point of this thread. At the outset a number of people added their gigs to it before it descended into chat and discussion/argument

- and that's how it became a permathread