The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #123446 Message #2719854
Posted By: The Borchester Echo
09-Sep-09 - 11:52 AM
Thread Name: The Ol Boys Folk Club & Festival Network
Subject: RE: The Ol Boys Folk Club & Festival Network
The "Colin" referred to above rather oddly as "my friend" (I hope he is but I fail to see what that has to do with it) is Colin Cotter, a member of the Gloworms, a highly respected and talented English ceilidh and concert band. Along with Jon Brenner and Laurel Swift, he grew up each summer in Sidmouth along with children of other "folk"-related families (like the Oates and the Unthanks to pick out just two).
Colin could have chosen a musical career but decided on academia, continuing to pursue music as a hobbyist because he loves it so much. There are many hundreds of performers like him, of whom the OP clearly knows nothing at all, unable as she is to recall the band name. These are the musicians who are the backbone of the festival circuit, always to be found in sessions, doing ceilidhs and running children's workshops. All three Gloworms are Morris dancers.
If the OP were to actually go to a few festivals and look a bit further than mainstages, she would fall across the most fantastic array of young talent under the auspices of a whole new bunch of enthusiastic young organisers. Dave Delarre of Mawkin, a music industry graduate, has spent the past five days doing 5 gigs and over 900 miles, He's also a leading light of the Association of Festival Organisers and has huge plans for his own festival in the future. He's 23. Six years ago he was writing more sense as a schoolboy chez the BBC than any of the stuff the OP spouts . . . and still does, ad nauseum. It's not hard to pinpoint which of the two: the lifelong activist or the very occasional punter with rather odd musical taste, knows what they are talking about.