There are so many misconceptions and so much misinformation in Conrad's posts that I think it IS valid to ask him what planet he inhabits!! One statement from several of his posts back:

"People dont generally learn songs from recordings, most dont they use them for further entertainment whilst remaining mindless."

The vast majority of the songs I know (pushing 700) are learned from recordings. In fact, during the mid-Fifties and into the Sixties, everybody around here was buying recordings (Folkways, Elektra, Riverside, Vanguard, and others) to learn songs from—AND we would borrow each other's records and often tape them (most of us bought tape recorders—big, honkin' suitcase-sized beasts back then), not with the idea of bootlegging records, but as a means of swapping songs. We would often lug these tape recorders to hoots and songfests, turn them on, and let them run, with the idea of trolling for songs. Later, small portable cassette recorders saved the wear and tear of lugging around both a guitar case and a tape recorder. Now, there are neat little digital recorders like the Zoom H2 which we use for the same purpose.

The "folk process" has gone high-tech!

I have four feet of shelf space devoted to vinyl folk records that I bought over the years. And recently, I have at least seven feet of shelf space containing CDs of folk music—from which I am STILL learning songs. And the swapping is STILL going on.

I have many records of early Burl Ives, Susan Reed, and Richard Dyer-Bennet up through Ed McCurdy, Joan Baez, Jean Redpath, Ewan MacColl, hordes of Seegers, and on up to just about everything that Gordon Bok has recorded—and scads of other singers in between.

I have dozens of tapes I made years ago. Bob Nelson (Deckman) has over 300 tapes, most made at song fests and "hoots," that he is digitizing for archiving purpose—to be made available to anyone who wants to learn songs from them.

An even more high-tech, not to mention long-distance, method is the number of web sites devoted to folk music that offer MP3s of entire songs that one can download on one's computer.

PLENTY of material to learn and sing. More than one can possibly learn in a dozen lifetimes!

Jayzuz, Conrad!! Join the 21st century!!

Don Firth

P. S. Perhaps, Conrad, if you'd show up sober and be willing to simply shut up and listen instead of insisting on telling people they're doing it all wrong, you might learn of more musical events going on in your immediate neighborhood. There may be a very good reason why you think that you (and the rest of the world) are living in a barren desert. Quite possible (judging from a lot of things you've posted here) that you've made yourself so obnoxious that local singers don't want you around, so they make sure you never hear about local songfests and musical events.

Because the folk music realm isn't barren at all. It's quite lush and green.