"TO PLEASE DO A LOT MORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "
Hi Jim Martin,
Sorry, meant to respond to this earlier.
While I have no desire to throw the cat among the pigeons (sorry – I'm lying; I'm delighted for the opportunity to clamber onto my favourite hobby-horse); I strongly believe that the question of media access rests, if not completely, certainly to a great extent in the hands of the folk song/music enthusiasts themselves.
The scales didn't suddenly fall from the eyes of the Irish media establishment regarding the social and cultural importance and marketability of traditional music. Fifteen/twenty years ago traditional music was still regarded with contempt by them upstairs - diddly-di music was the common term for it. What gains have been made have been won as a result of the music scene here getting up off their collective arses and getting their own act together and treating their music with enough respect to improve standards - self respect has won the respect that the music now has. It is this and this alone which has turned the scene round and guaranteed that the music will still be played for at least another two generations.
If I hear another Brit folkie tell me that standards are not necessary for the performance of folk song, or that they no longer know what folk music is, or "why think about it, or make any serious effort to sing or play it, let's just enjoy it" - just like Violet Elizabeth Bott - I'll scweam and scweam, and scweam.
Nobody is going to go out of their way to take our music seriously if we don't respect it ourselves, if we allow our clubs to be practice sessions for out-of-tune singers reading from a crib-sheet and near-enough-for-folk-music musicians who can't bother their arses to get their instruments in tune.
If I'd have taken a collection every time somebody told me that the above attitude was not only acceptible but desirable so as not to scare the horses (on this forum and elsewhere) I'd have gathered in enough cash to buy a TV station to present wall-to-wall folk music seven nights a week, twelve months of the year.
Nobody loves a crap musician who won't try to improve, and if I were still a Brit tax or licence fee payer I'd be grateful for that fact - sorry!!!!
Jim Carroll