Re surveys and statistics," there are lies, damned lies and statistics". To add one of my own, recently read somewhere, there has also been a 10% increase in the sale of acoustic guitars each year for the last two years. Considering the exponential growth in Mudcat in the last little while and because of my involvement with youthful musicians, in the 17 to 25 age group here on the west coast of Canada at least, I am not surprised.

There is a mini rennaisance in folk music interest going on here. These kids are longing for melody and substance that they can't find in the usual places.

Yeah, some of it is testosterone driven. When was it ever not? Are they folkies? As much as Joanie Mitchell and Bob Dylan ever were. These kids are busy making music on their own terms, in their own voice, without primarily commercial intent.

When you play them a cut of Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella's Tarantella of Paganini or Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night, the lights go on. They use Napster and Macster without hesitation, not only for new alternative stuff, but to search for the music of the world, to which they have not been previously exposed . They aren't ethnically, generically nor culturally biased and a folk song from Greece played on instruments of antiquity is as exciting to them as Green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers.

They do not look to MuchMusic and the usual packaged stuff and are deeply into seeking out the roots of the music they play. Rather than hindering their search or casting aspersions, we should be helping.

IMHO, University and PB stations that ignore this group and their interests, do so at their peril. As the bottom line for radio's content seems to be the buck, they should remember, that these children also have parents, who are part of the other 60%, who are part of the 70%, who don't read the newspaper on line or off. Maybe some one should write a song with the words "So you'd better start swimming, or you'll sink like a stone, for the times they are a changing". End of Rant.