"fecking clear when you turn up at a folk club what kind of folk music you are going to get you look at the guest list."
In the spirit of discussion I'll respond to this up to the point you become abusing or threatening, then you ca find a blank wall to abuse or threaten.
As thiings stand at present, yo have no idea what you will be given when you turn up at a folk club - the suggestions here range from Barnara Allen to Boomtown Rats.
That should not be the case - as with a classical concert, or a jazz session, or a country and western night.... the description of the place should tell you what you will find when you turn up, then you can make your judgement on the quality of what you hear and not whether it was what it said it was going to be.
As for looking the guests up - why should I do that?
I'm a bit like Britten when he suggested "you should try anything once except incest and Morris dancing" - though I would draw a line at the former maybe!
I like to hear new singers I haven't heard before and don't know anything about - reading the ads for many clubs, they don't specify enough to make a reasonable decision.
One of the things there can be no doubt of is that folk music in Britain desperately needs new blood - if that's going to happen, clubs wishing to attract people for the music need t be specific on what type of music they are presenting - that's the way most people I know came in to it.
Anything goes doesn't hack it - you can't please all of the people all of the time.
Ireland has never had much of a club scene, and, in my opinion, song would benefit very much from developing one.
The fact that the scene is largely non-accompanied here is fine, as far as it goes - the repertoire here is largely a non-narrative, lyrical one which really doesn't need and, in my opinion, wouldn't benefit from accompaniment - very few instrumentalists I have heard are competent in accompanying lyrical songs in my opinion, they don't need accompaniment anyway - the Irish song tradition has never been an accompanied one.
Should the scene open up to include the entire repertoire - lyrical, narrative, Irish and Anglo Irish, then perhaps instruments can be added (though I don't believe they are ever needed).
An interesting thing happened a couple of years ago at the Frank Harte Festival, when they advertised a "mysterious guest", who turned out to be Christy Moore.
The organisers contacted Christy and told him that, while they ran an unaccompanied set-up, they would be happy if he brought his guitar along.
He refused, saying he respected their policy and was happy to go along with it.
Would that all performers where as respectful.
Jim Carroll