Why are new ones opening? Because the old ones have gone stale.

A generalisation, of course, which - like all generalisations is only partly true. There are several long-established clubs in my part of the country (Sussex) and, yes, many of the attendees are grey-haired - but many are not - and a large proportion of the guests booked are up-and-coming youngsters.

What really pisses me off about many of the threads of this ilk is the stupidly artificial division of performers into "oldies" and youngsters" - as though some point has to be made and as though it matters. Music is for playing and it doesn't matter a tiger's tit whether you're 16 or 66 - as long as you can do it. You can gauge for yourself the stupidity of trying to make divisions by age when you look at the variety of good people on the scene. Young Sunjay Brayne performed in Lewes recently; the slightly older Carrivick sisters have been down here in Sussex a couple of times. We had the middle-aged'ish Michael McGoldrick, John McCusker and John Doyle down in Shoreham a fortnight ago and the fairly old Tom Paley has performed in Lewes on several occasions. Why would you want to "classify" these people by age when all that matters is whether they can do the business or not?

Seems to me too many people are bullshitting about the "politics" of the scene - whatever they might be - rather than getting down to some hard practice and concentrating on making the music. You see - if the music is good, people will follow it regardless of age, sex, class, etc.