i once wondered up to the troubadour back in 73 i think. i didn't knw any of the history at the time and played a couple of scottish songs. some git was in my face telling me i shouldn't be playing scottish songs--i had no idea then what he was on about but i supose now he thought i was american. for those who don't know i am a nova scotian franco gael. well i was sitting in the audience duely chasened(from my child hood in the educational system i had learned we were to be duely chasened when anglos told us what to do) and he began to sing the mist covewred mountains of home--well i knew the chorus to that one and started to belt out the classic gaelic chourus!!! i didn't notice they were singing in english, but back home we always sang that chorus in gaelic. well he shut up and i looked around at people gawking at the odd ball(that would be me). years later i realized he was a lowlander pretending to be a gael. i didn't understand that back then but people want to get "folkie cred" by pretending to be gaels.was he hot with me afterwards, he claimed i was trying to publicly embarrase him--i was just singing it the way we did back home. i really wish they would wait to do play gael untill after they have been refused a few jobs or a place in a university course(as i was ) before they play the holy gael.

am i a cynic?YES

there used to be so many poncy gits pretending to be gaels back then who may have once know some one who actualy met and talked to an actual gael once when they were on holiday on skye or ireland. what can i say? that's why for years i stopped calling what i do folk and called it traditional music. now they have co opted the term traditional music so i just say celtic music from nova scotia and new foundland with a few ole vieux acadie chants!!

so other than the occasional lecture i was way too unsophisticated to understand back then( i really was fresh off the turnip truck)i had a great time. and outside i saw the tallest and oddest woman i ahd ever seen. she saw me staring and began to upbraid me. again later i realized she was a he and i was a rube from a place so rural we not only rarely had in door plumbing but had few in door ideas as well. i had at the time worked on a fish boat and in a carpet factory and that was pretty much it, and had dropped out of school so i didn't even have grade twelve.we rural nova scotians used to go to the city and smile and act friendly and expect people would be nice to us--good fucking luck with that!!!!(see bruce cockburns song going down the road for a great story of those days)

now on the bright side i found a home first in a squat huse populated with a couple of finnish dope dealers, a cuban political activist and a couple of buskers-- who were the ones who took me along and showed me the ropes for busking. then the house burnt to the ground and i found a spot on a huge river boat that was divided up into tiny rooms near battersea bridge. last year i went back there and a couple of the old boats were still there but much renovated and much spiffier and up market. we paid fourteen pounds a month for ourpart of the boat. divided three ways--buskers rent for sure. we had parties all the time. i often had to go visit friends to find a place to sleep as my room would have several people passed out thewre when i got home. i still am amazed the police didn't once pay us a visit. we couldn't aford heat, but during the coal strike--the edward heath coal strike--when every one lacked heat we charged a bottle of parafin fuel every so often for entrance to the parties.so we were the only warm place in london that winter.

i didn't go back to the troubador but i'm glad to say i went once. i got into busking and then went over to france and didn't revisit the uk for twenty years, but over all i had a ball there.