Folk - a target for comedians

Subject: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 03:25 PM

A conributor raised this in a recent thread: Folk - how do you relate to it?

Look back to when common currency for comedians were racist and homophobic jolkes.

As humour based on these are now illegal, and unacceptable to all but a rump of racists / homophobes; they are now rare.

But humour trades on riducule is still alive and kicking. They simply change their targets to groups who are not protected by any law. Examples?

Trainspotters, anoraks (more general enthusiasts for an 'uncool' area of interest or study); Real Ale drinkers, Morris Dancers and of course FOLK singers.

Similarly trendy it seems, is having a go at budget supermakets like Lidl and Aldi (UK ref) "Where the poor people go" ie: anyone who is 'right on' would obviously pay higher prices at big name supermarkets - so as not to brush with poor people perhaps?

I buy nearly all of my food at Lidl or the Co-op. What would the trendy comedians make of a trainspotting Real Ale drinking folk singer who does this?

Ask him in the wine bar where he's drinking the ltest Bubblfizz punterlager and listening to the 'Sounds' music industry is telling him are the gretest yet.

Ian Fyvie

The reasons, we can debate

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 03:28 PM

Apols for spelling mistakes etc above. Should have gone to....

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 03:29 PM

£

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 03:38 PM

"Ask him in the wine bar where he's drinking the ltest Bubblfizz punterlager and listening to the 'Sounds' music industry is telling him are the gretest yet."

Aren't you doing exactly the same there?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: saulgoldie
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 03:57 PM

I dunno. Perhaps I don't have the right attitude. But one of the songs on my "learn this" list is "We Are The Folk Song Army" (...each and every one of us__cares....) by Tom Lehrer.

I enthusiastically endorse the activist record of folk music and its practitioners. Yet, it is kinda funny. Why not laugh a little?

Saul

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,BobL
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:05 PM

Seems to me the folk world has never been short of its own brand of comedian to hit back with, e.g.

- Sid Kipper
- Les Barker
- the late Fred Wedlock

Further suggestions welcome!

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:23 PM

Smothers Brothers?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:24 PM

anyone who is 'right on' would obviously pay higher prices at big name supermarkets - so as not to brush with poor people perhaps?

Whoever thinks that certainly hasn't been shopping at our nearest Waitrose where I have been repeatedly rammed into from every direction by teen mothers with push chairs.

I see all kinds in Aldi. Most laughable experience in Food Lion (think Lidl) where two well dressed women, apparently acquaintances bumped into each other and immediately started making excuses for shopping in Food Lion when they always only ever shop at Giant or Fresh Fields (think Marks and Spencers). I could not help laughing out loud at the blatant pretension.

I think anything and anyone is ripe for ridicule given the circumstances. Based on the number of young people full on participating in the folk music scene at Sidmouth a couple of weeks ago, a little ribbing won't do the genre too much damage.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Tootler
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:45 PM

It's quite well known in Middlesbrough that many of the well-to-do descend on Lidl just before Christmas to buy their continental [European] specialities because not only do they have the real thing, but also at prices much lower than the fancy deli's for similar quality products.

As a steam train loving folkie, I couldn't give a damn. If the comedians want to get cheap laughs out of us, let them. Cheap laughs at the expense of any group doesn't say much for their ability as comedians.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Gurney
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:58 PM

I just do what other 'picked-on' people have done before me; tell the jokes first.
I do think they are often funny, if tongue-in-cheek.

Ian, might I suggest you take up birdwatching and nudism next?

Of course, in England, eccentricity may still attract a little less ridicule than elsewhere. It certainly used to, once.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:19 PM

sounds to me like something specific has upset you. Its not nice to have something that you value, disrespected.

there are some people who think my sort of music doesn't even have the right to regard itself as folk music. I think those people are are a bit pitiable. They can only define themselves by negativity.

I think if you feel there is real malevolence behind what you see as an attack on your values - speak up. It will upset some folks - but sod 'em. You've got a right to live by your own values.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:20 PM

I find the fact that 'folk' in all its forms is the butt of so called trendy comedians to be a great sadness.   We have an incredible folk heritage that deserves to be revered and appreciated not ridiculed and demeaned.

I had the privilege and honour to represent the UK at both European and World Folklore festivals as a member of "Dorset Folk Dancers."
At the first European Folklore festival we danced on a mountain top in Portugal in front of a live audience of over seven thousands. The concert which was televised live across the whole of Europe was taken by every country in Eurovision - except the UK.   

We don't deserve the rich folk heritage we have. Thank goodness there is a dedicated band of enthusiasts that protect and promote it.

It was also a salutary discovery to find that after performing in front of an estimated audience of 250 million on the Sunday, back home in England on the Wednesday, we 'danced out' at a Dorset pub to a 'crowd' consisting, literally of two men and a dog.

I just wish there were some way to reflect the denigration back at the comic perpetrators, but then, I've always been a dreamer.

BobH

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:32 PM

I wouldn't worry about it. There's not a stand-up "comedian" in the business who is on the same planet as Les Barker.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:39 PM

"What would the trendy comedians make of a trainspotting Real Ale drinking folk singer who does this?"

I ain't no comedian, but first thing that came to my mind was "You'll have to decide which you want to do." See? I said I was no comedian.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:41 PM

"Ian, might I suggest you take up birdwatching and nudism next?"

He'll have to. Ducks, turkeys and chickens love--well, you know.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:42 PM

Your music is excellent Al - but it ain't "folk". Why do you want to call it that?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:44 PM

PS - although my band does mostly traddish stuff we are looking for something funny-ish adn USAian-ish. If we can get it off would you mind if we did "Buster the line-dancing dog"?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:53 PM

"there are some people who think my sort of music doesn't even have the right to regard itself as folk music"

The answer that poped into my head has to do with a story (untrue but purported to be true and believed by lots of people including me) about WC Fields on his deathbed.

A close friend (Lionel B) was in with him and Fields said, in that Fields voice, "Lionel, when I think about the dogs and orphans I have snapped at, the children I've been mean to, well, Lionel, I'm sorry. Fields' head dropped to the pillow and he exhaled deeply and no air could be heard reentering, Mr Barrymore began to leave the room. As he was about to exit, he heard WC behind him say, "Lionel, on second thought, fuck 'em!" Whereupon WC Fields did expire.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 06:16 PM

My version of buster won the Lancashire Dialect Cup at Fylde won year. My version isn't USA is. I'll record you the present version - and send the words if you PM me your address.

Its not USA -ish, I'm afraid.

I think I do folk music. That's my opinion. Based on nearly a lifetime of careful observation. That's what I'm going to call it. Its clear in my mind, Richard. I'm an old man Richard, don't confuse me.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Will Fly
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 06:23 PM

To be honest, I've never heard any comedians really ridicule folk music to any extent that matters. To be sure, there have been parodies of folk singers and folk singing through the years, from the Two Ronnies to Reeves & Mortimer. But I don't think any of it sticks. And if it does, so what?

There will always be someone who takes the piss out of what you do, or dislikes what you do, no matter what kind of music you make, simply because everyone has different tastes - and you can't please all the people all the time. Who gives a toss? I've never let it bother me in all the years I've been playing, and I don't intend to start now. As the great Fields (may have) said, "Fuck 'em!"

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 03:28 PM

We're all a bunch of resillient folkies.

My concern is media trendies sublimimally dictate what is acceptable to be in to. Many youngsters would thoroughly enjoy our folk heritage if it were a credible option.

These trendies (*perhaps not that trendy as they've been knocking things culturally grass roots English for years) are deciding that Folk is non cred. And what is cred? Probably something Corporate.

Ian F

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 04:01 PM

What he said

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 05:29 PM

Two things spring to mind immediately.

1. The jokes do at least let the world outside know there is such a thing as folk music, and some of the audiences will undoubtedly be intrigued enough to investigate, and even possibly like what they find.

2. Taking oneself too seriously is the certain road to becoming the butt of comedians.

I too take the attitude of the worthy W.C.Fields, who never took himself too seriously.

Being joked about is not so bad when you consider the alternative.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 05:44 PM

It's something like what Will Rogers said when he was criticized for telling jokes about Congress: "THey make the jokes, I just tell 'em"

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,Bill S from Adelaide
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 06:18 PM

No mention of Rampling Sid Rumpo? The master of the genre

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Smokey.
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 06:34 PM

If you take yourself too seriously, it's inevitable that there will be people who take you less seriously. Being offended by the inevitable is worthy of not being taken seriously, and no-one has the right to be universally respected.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: CamiSu
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 12:34 AM

I seem to recall Stan Rogers making some pretty funny comments about Morris Dancers...

If you don't laugh, what good is it all?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 04:11 AM

Comedians telling jokes can't damage or hurt folk music, I welcome it.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,Richard G
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 09:29 AM

I think it depends on the joke and how well researched it is. I remember when David Baddiel was a TV critic on the Mercury Awards the year Norma Waterson nearly won it. After she'd performed, all of the critics had their say. Baddiel made a comment along the lines of "the problem that I have with folk music is that it all sounds like the theme to Captain Pugwash". This annoyed me because of the sheer ignorance behind it, never mind the factual inaccuracy.

However, if the comedian has done some level of research into folk music, or if they are laughing with us rather than laughing at us (as various comedians such as Billy Connolly, the Fast Show team, Reeves and Mortimer and a good few others have done over the years), then it is to be encouraged and enjoyed. The ability to laugh at yourself is a commendably British trait.

Going back to the original points, folk music has probably never been cooler. Regardless of your opinions on the likes of Eliza, Mumford and Sons, Kate Rusby, the Unthanks, etc... what they have undeniably done is destroy the myth that folk music is the sole preserve of Aran sweater-wearing, tankard-swinging beard wearers. Any comedian trotting out that old cliché today would just look a bit foolish.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: alanabit
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 11:39 AM

Most folkies nowadays are a bit older - although there is no reason that folkies have to be. To some extent I see the jokes as being aimed at older people hanging on to older values. It does not really bother me at all. My twelve year old son - along with many other young people - can not stand to listen to anything which includes the backward and outdated convention of a tune. It does not bother me at all that other people find us ridiculous. What makes us look even more ridiculous is when we try to be hip. Fred Wedlock used to score a lot of good jokes off people trying to be trendy.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 04:23 PM

Further to Richard G's post, I remember Alan Coren being disparaging on the News Quiz about Norma, the year she was a finalist for the Mercury prize. I'd always had a high regard for Alan Coren as a humorist until then, but it plummeted... of course, I never heard him sing....

Kitty

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ref
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 09:14 PM

I was at a festival a few years ago when the crowd booed a mention of "A Mighty Wind." All I could think was that they were taking themselves WAY too seriously. Everyone is grist for a comedian and that kind of self-importance grinds particularly fine.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Darowyn
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 04:35 AM

Folk is funny.
There are things things that folkies do which are ridiculous from an outside standpoint- such as wearing festival trousers, straw hats, beards, singing in funny accents, drinking ridiculously named brands of beer, etc.
Pop music and music fans are funny. The artists are useless, and the fans go to gigs and scream so loud they can't hear them.
Metal music is ridiculous- middle class boys pretending to be satanists!
Rappers try to be streetwise, but actually live on Avenues and Groves in pleasant suburbs. Rappers is funny, man. Innit?
Nobody who wants to seem normal would consider spending hours of precious time watching railway locomotives, collecting used postage stamps, singing boring old songs (Kipper family quote, not my opinion!).
What sort of freak would want to get involved in any of this when they could be out having a laugh with their mates, wearing the same clothes and trainers as everyone else, drinking the same factory lager and alcopops, terrified of seeming different and maybe smashing the odd shop window and taking home a new mobile or a nice big telly?
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Musket
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 05:09 AM

The folk scene has contributed to the stand up industry, and we all laugh and have laughed at their material. Comics who started in folk were perhaps the first mainstream stand ups who could spend a night without a single ending punchline. We might call that social observation, which means laughing at the differences in society.

I laugh at anybody who is different to me, especially if it points out a large difference.

That makes me... a human.

Laughter can be for many reasons, some spontaneous. But planned laughter is through hearing a joke. Jokes are always at the expense if others. Always have been and always will be. A joke about a dog is all the funnier for giving it human traits.

And jokes about people who live differently to you? Well, it's a hell of a lot better than making snide comments about them. If Darowyn found a funny angle about the "freaks" who wear the same clothes, drink the same lager, smash shop windows etc, I might laugh, but as his comments seem to show contempt, I find this worse, much worse than taking the piss. Especially the metal leap that drinking anything other than fusty bilge water made in a shed makes you break shop windows (!)

I take the piss out of folk clubs and the sorts of people who go to folk clubs. I have people laughing their heads off on a good night. Where do I deliver this? In folk clubs mainly....

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: paul vaughan
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 12:03 PM

I must admit I do like a bit of piss taking, I've had plenty of it aimed at me over the years and I'm still standing!!
Regarding Lidl, one guy who often comes to the Ark on a wednesday does terrific parody of "Stuck in the middle with you" called "Shopping in Lidl with you"

I'll see if he'll let me put the lyrics up, and maybe get him down to the Roung Georges some time!
Seeya

Paul

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: CamiSu
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 06:56 PM

T'was my daughter introduced me to the 'Cat, and all my kids (even the 19 year old) enjoy folk and trad music. They also like other stuff, but then again, so do I. Imagine my surprise when my youngest actually ENJOYED the opera!

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Aug 11 - 09:38 AM

People are funny, that's the truth of it.

And "folk" is another word for "people".

Maybe we should start calling it "people music"...

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 25 Aug 11 - 10:05 AM

Even back in the day this seemed about right; still does really...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC0uNnG-AI8

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ernest
Date: 25 Aug 11 - 12:16 PM

Ah come on, as folkies we should be friendly to the poor and the envoirement: there is no harm in poor second-class comedians recycling the banjo-jokes they found here.... ;0)

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Aug 11 - 12:50 PM

Maybe we should start calling it "people music"...

But the big question is:- What is the definition of "people music" ?

?;-)


DC

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: RamblinStu
Date: 25 Aug 11 - 12:51 PM

Oh what a great thread for the Folk police to make noises.

Folk is just music, like it or loath it, same as most things in life.

Folk is prime for jokes and p*** takes, because there are so many very funny things going on within it, be it "op Noorrrth" or "Darn Sarfff"

Music is just music so enjoy what you do. If you enjoy it, then all is well, but then remember, everybody is someone else's nutter.

Stuart Pendrill

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 16 Oct 11 - 10:08 PM

Nice discussion!

Apols for 2 months off mudcat and missing the later bits as they came in.

Ian F

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Acorn4
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 04:11 AM

I agree with a lot of the previous posts - the English have a great folk tradition but also a great tradition of taking the piss!

And we all know that Sainsbury's only exists to keep the riff raff out of Waitrose.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 04:22 AM

May I ask, what has a comedian said about folk that's funny?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 05:14 AM

Folk is just music, like it or loath it, same as most things in life.


Liking it or loathing it notwithstanding, since when has Folk ever been just music much less the same as most things in life? Maybe this begs another thread, but the last thing folk can be said to be is just music - as far as just music can be said to exist at all anyway. As for Folk and Comedians, we got a very lovely review by Stewart Lee in the Sunday Tikes the other week; still seems okay to mention this occasionally, especially as he called it The Ideal October Album

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 05:23 AM

Would you rather be a source of amusement or totally ignored ?

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 05:29 AM

Bruce its not folk that's funny...its us, the English. He we are earnestly discussing the class implications of which supermarket we use. can you imagine the Spanish making presumptions of which political party they support, which music they like, which lifestyle they support....based on which supermercardo they're seen going into?

We are a classridden society. And it throws up some very funny (for us) conundrums and paradoxes.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: Often
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 05:45 AM

Personally I think it's a good thing, at least in a broader sense.. as even if some comedian's acts bring a little bit of a sting at least it keeps Folk Music within the broader discussion.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 06:48 AM

We are a classridden society. And it throws up some very funny (for us) conundrums and paradoxes.

I don't find social-class funny in the slightest; it is a measure of entrenched systems of social apartheid and cultural oppression going back to the Normal Conquest, and possibly beyond, that barely conceals the civil unrest which is a requisite of the privileges enjoyed by a civilised elite. As a Working Class person I'm acutely aware of the inequalities that have effectively penalised my people for hundreds of years, and continue to do so today. On this level, the bourgeois concept of FOLK is interesting, because the whole thing was predicated on a notion that the vestiges of the rural working-classes A) no longer appreciated their own culture and therefore B) didn't understand it's true meaning or significance on account of their debased impoverishment thus necessitating C) The Folk Revival, which has always been a largely middle-class / bourgeois contruct for those with leftish/bohemian leanings who mistakenly believe that D) the British urban proletariat no longer have their own Folk Music because that which they do have (from Music Hall to Hip Hop) doesn't fit with the letter of the 1954 Definition which effectively turns Folk into an Academic Concept which can only be fully grasped a The Learned Elite, rather than the Unlettered Folk Masses themselves.

Hilarious!

As for Supermarkets: I like Booth's for Gleenhalgh's speciality bread; ALDI for tomato sauce, breakfast cereal, spring water, grape juice, and mushrooms; and ASDA for pretty much everything else. That said we couldn't resist the clock-work revolving musical-box Xmas Biscuit tins on sale in M&S because the musical component plays a version of Winter Wonderland that sounds like its been arranged by Les Dawson.

Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Oct 11 - 08:20 AM

Serious matters make more much of the best humour. Hence the saying "If you don't laugh you'd cry".