We were at at the Kit & Cutter Folk Club in London recently which was everything a Folk Club should be. Well organised, focussed, festive, atmospheric, only one guitar, and, age 50, I was easily the oldest in the room by 25 years. The place was packed out, the joint was jumping, and we came away feeling happy that such venues are no longer the exception to the general rule. Renewal, enthusiasm & a youthful outlook are the order of the day. Just a shame it's taken so long really - after nigh on four decades of folkin' in the blasted hinterlands I'm beginning to feel a bit long in the tooth really, but still sprightly enough to welcome the sea-change.

I don't think the problem lies with Folk Clubs, rather with the nature of Folk itself, and Folkies, whom I love dearly, but when it comes to thinking (& listening) outside the box they're hardly the most dynamic breed. This suits the nature of the beast, which to me is Traditional Song & Ballads and a hearty respect for the Old Traditional Singers, which is so rare these days as to be endangered. To me the ideal folk club is part piss-up and part Seance; I like to see ghosts, spectres and ectoplasm oozing from the mouths of singers in a trance of mediumistic possession. Time was I would seek out such sessions all around the country, just sit in, and listen, and bask in the cracked idiosyncratic eccentric uniqueness of it all without feeling the need to join in. Don't see so much of that these days, alas; instead we see a lot of interminable singarounds where ne'er a traditional song is sung or a harmony dared, and a new breed of elderly unaccompanied singer who've come to 'Folk' by way of second-life recreation thus pushing the demographic up even higher whilst lowering the overall standard. That said, I know some amazing second-life folkies, but some of the attitudes I've encountered have been utterly inhuman - shocking, in fact.

Again, I'm being positive here; it's just the way things are and each to their own. Takes all sorts to make a folk scene, though going by Little Hawk's comments once more I'm very happy indeed I don't live in Canada...