Bar music is great, Gerry, and I really enjoy 'open' sessions. One of my favourites is at Swinton Folk Club (plug, plug) October 19 this year - All day session and sing in the bar.

However, the upstairs and back rooms provide a vital function, as Les says, where people can go and hear music without listening to the barman play Sunshine of your Love on E flat cash register and smokey bacon maracas (Thanks Mr Wedlock). In addition, without the folk 'concert rooms' for want of a better description, how would you propose to charge the audience so you can pay the artist? They are also rarely dingy these days.

I think that at times we are our own worse enemies by perpetuating the myth of the dingy back room and being shushed by Arran sweatered folkies :-) If that is how we portray it, is it any wonder that people are reluctant to go?

Cheers

DtG