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Folk - a target for comedians
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 11 - 08:39 AM Sweeney, how come you have not grasped that the fact that a music is consumed by the proletariat does not make it folk music? Are the strange capitalisations and malapropisms in your post intended to betoken anything and if so what? What you seem to wish to be doing is to encourage the working class to abandon their historical cultural roots, which is in turn to disenfranchise them and leave them prey to consumerism - a thing that IMHO we have already seen and which appears to tend to get worse (aggravated by the Bozos of the world who conflate wealth with class). What you are doing, on a political level, is a parallel to the activities of the unknowing morons who mock folk arts of any type, and the consequence is that the working class are deprived of their roots. Why on earth is civil unrest "a requisite of the privileges enjoyed by a civilised elite"? Your wording makes no sense. Mind you, tangoed Essex girls in white stilettos performing a ritual mating display dance around their hambags (sic) - now that IS funny. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: banjoman Date: 17 Oct 11 - 09:22 AM As a dedicated banjo player, I have been subjected over many years to "Banjo " jokes. I have no problem with this and find most of them very funny. However, when I started turning the tables and making them into "Melodeon" Jokes I was met with all sorts of naff comments. The best jokes about folkies are the ones we make up ourselves. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 17 Oct 11 - 09:38 AM Sweeney, how come you have not grasped that the fact that a music is consumed by the proletariat does not make it folk music? Grasped, Richard? Grasped what exactly? Grasped that the primary purpose of any given Folk Music is its relevance to its Culture and Community, specifically those perceived to be of a lower social order which has unwittingly preserved such things? I would have thought that much was elementary even to someone (such as yourself) who abides by a very orthodox reading of the 1954 Definition - which doesn't tell us what sort of music Folk Music is in terms of its musicology or genre, but rather in its relation to its community. As an truism of Tradition Music, I'd say fair enough, but I'd also argue (as I have done on this forum) that the very term Traditional Music is tautologous, and that any given Folk Music is best understood in terms of musicology and genre - which of course it is by those involved with it. Are the strange capitalisations and malapropisms in your post intended to betoken anything and if so what? The capitalisations are simple emphasis, Richard - or else marks of a greater respect. I'd be interested to know what you think are malapropisms though. What you seem to wish to be doing is to encourage the working class to abandon their historical cultural roots, which is in turn to disenfranchise them and leave them prey to consumerism - a thing that IMHO we have already seen and which appears to tend to get worse (aggravated by the Bozos of the world who conflate wealth with class). I do not wish to be encouraging the working class to do anything other than to keep on doing exactly what they're doing. Observation is enough, and maybe a little respect thrown in by way of good measure. I'd say the role and meaning of any given music in any given community is more relevant than its musicological content - and that any given music which is adopted by any given community must be heard through the ears of that community, as far as it is humanly possible to do so. What you are doing, on a political level, is a parallel to the activities of the unknowing morons who mock folk arts of any type, and the consequence is that the working class are deprived of their roots. Unknowing morons? WTF sort of language is that? And since when are the Folk Arts integral to working class roots however they (i.e. the folk arts) may, or may not be derived? Are the working class truly deprived by not having access to their perceived roots? Of course not! How arrogant and patronising to suggest otherwise, or suggest that anyone who points this out is somehow a moron. The Folk Arts are very good things, but lets keep their general relevance to the vast & thriving culture of the UK (not just the working class) in perspective here. You'll be calling non-Folkies muggles next. Why on earth is civil unrest "a requisite of the privileges enjoyed by a civilised elite"? Your wording makes no sense. The wording makes perfect sense, Richard. Read it again. Disagree if you will, but it seems to me that the economic, educational and cultural deprivations of the urban proletariat has always existed as a deliberate policy on the part of successive governments to keep people in their place, whilst a relative few may enjoy the privileges on the back of it. The recent riots were a consequence of that policy - as much as similar riots going back across the centuries have been. The Myth of Pure Blood Collectivism and the Authenticity thereof is a fond one amongst exponents and enthusiasts of the so-called of Folk Arts, as oppose to the Arts of the Folk, which are generally held in derision by aforementioned exponents and enthusiasts. Mind you, tangoed Essex girls in white stilettos performing a ritual mating display dance around their hambags (sic) - now that IS funny. I rest my case. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Margaret Date: 17 Oct 11 - 12:22 PM I generally manage to blight the urine extractors by pointing out that trad music is *classical* popular music - so popular that it's still remembered and sung long past the time and far from the place it originated. That sometimes stops the brighter ones in their tracks while they work it out, and then we might have a discussion about what, if any, popular music from recent memory will similarly pass into the tradition and still be loved and sung a hundred years from now (if, of course, there's anyone left to sing it, a hundred years from now). |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: BTNG Date: 17 Oct 11 - 12:37 PM Folk music and folkies in general are just easy a targets, by anyone.... |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Big Al Whittle Date: 17 Oct 11 - 12:50 PM 'Sweeney, how come you have not grasped that the fact that a music is consumed by the proletariat does not make it folk music?' Why can't you grasp Richard, that unless its consumed by the proletariat - its not really folk music. Its an absurdity. Like the express train running into the fireplace in the Magritte painting. A dissociated sensibility. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: DMcG Date: 17 Oct 11 - 01:10 PM And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself "unless its consumed by the proletariat - its not really folk music, unless its consumed by the proletariat - its not really folk music" and sometimes, "that music is consumed by the proletariat does not make it folk music" for, you see, as she couldn't see a contradiction in the assertions, it didn't much matter which way she put it. With apologies to LC, RB, AW, SA and all. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:01 PM I believe in a contuinity of Popular Music from prehistoric times to the present day. It exists in an unbroken cross-fertilised border-breaching ocean-hopping tradition of musical creativity in which one genre seques and cross-polinates perfectly with the next giving rise to the myriad musical idioms & possibilities we know (& love) today with an infinite number still to come. I'm using Popular in a non-commercial sense, in the same sense Prof. Child used it (but never 'Folk' which means the same thing really). That said it would be folly to deny the essential role lively commerce has had to play by way of Industry and Celebrity to underwrite the tradition of creative process. Watching that Nowhere Boy film the other night about the early life of John Lennon brings you back to the very vivid notion of a musical continuity lining up with destiny, as it has done since the year dot, and has done again countless times since. Even as I write this some young human being near you will be having a Musical Epiphany after which things for him / her / us will never be same again - and on it goes. Deo Gratias. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:19 PM One test as to which popular music has a folk relationship with ordinary people would be whether it would be possible to get a bus trip singing it. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:26 PM As i tell people when we are out dancing, especially in the winter months when we do border with our faces painted, We arn't dressed funny it's everyone else. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Richard Bridge Date: 17 Oct 11 - 02:40 PM Music does not have a purpose. A composer may. Unrest does not create privilege of the few. Rather, it tends to disturb it. A dog has 4 legs (apart from Bonzo 3 legs). That does not make all things with 4 legs dogs. Muggle (disambiguation) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Look up muggle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Muggle or muggles may refer to: "Muggle", a person without magical abilities in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy books and films. The term was later adopted by various subcultures to identify those outside their group or lacking in a skill. "Muggle", the term used by participants of Geocaching, an outdoor sporting activity, to refer to those who do not Geocache, particularly when they inadvertently or deliberately interfere with a cache. "Muggle", a person who is studying intensively - based on a Singapore colloquial term for intensive studying - derived from British colloquial term to mug up. "Muggles", a slang term for marijuana in the 1920s and 1930s, associated with the jazz scene "Muggles" (recording), a 1928 recording by Louis Armstrong and His Orchestra, derived from the above cannabis usage "Muggles", a character from Carol Kendall's first Minnipins novel, The Gammage Cup (1959) "Muggle-Wumps", a family of monkeys in The Twits, a novel by Roald Dahl first published in 1980 "Muggles", a race in RAH (later retitled The Legend of Rah and the Muggles), a 1984 book by Nancy Stouffer "Mr. Muggles", the pet Pomeranian of the Bennet family in the NBC drama Heroes. It may also refer, in scriptwriting, to a character introduced to hold up to ridicule. I cannot be arsed to plough through the rest of the crap - most of it is no better informed than the parts I have addressed. Bah! |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 17 Oct 11 - 03:22 PM Music does not have a purpose. A composer may. Purpose is implied by music's universal significance to human culture & the individuals thereof for whom it most certainly does have a purpose; language, art, religion likewise (though there are significant overlaps). Unrest does not create privilege of the few. Rather, it tends to disturb it. The unrest is both an inevitability of privilege and means to further repression, both to justify it and disempower the revolutionary potential of the proletariat whilst given them the illusion of power. Unrest is a carefully controlled pressure valve that simultaneously placates and terrifies (and by implication pacifies) civilian populations who crave social stability. Thus do I say requisite, in the same sense that poverty is a requisite of wealth in a functionalist society. "Muggle", a person without magical abilities in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy books and films. The term was later adopted by various subcultures to identify those outside their group or lacking in a skill. That's the one! In certain folk circles the term 'muggle' has come to used to refer to non-folkies. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: fat B****rd Date: 17 Oct 11 - 03:38 PM Anyway, the Charlbury Morris got vengeance for all folk persons by drowning out Mr. Cameron, didn't they? |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Big Al Whittle Date: 17 Oct 11 - 03:46 PM No it isn't back of the bus stuff. I doubt you could get the bus singing The Dowie Dens of Yarrow. But at sometime the proletariat must have related to this song. That's why its survived. Fpok is another thing though. Its meaning has changed somce 1954. Like Gay and mand many other words. Prior to that it was mainly the stuff of a few earnest traditionalists. before that decade was out - contemporary musicians had borrowed the sound of various folk forms and folksounds and were using them in contemporary creations. it was and is an artistic movement popularly called folk. And all users of the English language know exactly what it means - even if they pretend they don't. Doubtless there are still people who insist that Gay still only means joyful and carefree.The 1954 definition - no doubt. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Don(Wyziwyg)T Date: 17 Oct 11 - 07:18 PM ""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,"" Please elucidate. Exactly when did the Normals conquer Britain, where on Earth did they come from and how do we know they are normal and we aren't? Don T. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Rob Naylor Date: 17 Oct 11 - 08:32 PM Norman if you're Normal I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life and baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen, incessant quotations from "Now We Are Six" through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant, poisoned, electric head. So Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere! |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Richard Bridge Date: 18 Oct 11 - 03:14 AM See what I mean? |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 18 Oct 11 - 04:22 AM Oh come on - when did we pick up on typos on Mudcat? We'd be on with little else! Though I have to admit the Normal Conquest is too good to let pass... |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Hamish Date: 18 Oct 11 - 04:31 AM It does seem a pity that folk music - or any niche interest - can be further marginalised by stupidity masquerading as humour. Too many people fall into the trap of ignorant prejudice. I think this is a long way of say "I agree with Ian Fyvie's earlier post about "sublimimally dictat[ing] what is acceptable" But, yes, Rambling Sid and Messers Kipper and Barker are all funny. Dave Taylor (acorn4) also takes the p1ss out of folkies and is a hoot. |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: MGM·Lion Date: 18 Oct 11 - 04:43 AM We had a thread not long since about the Morris, in which I recollect being something of a lone voice in the face of a whole lot of Morris people who appeared to rejoice in having the piss taken. ~~ I couldn't, and still can't, make out why this was so, and remain unrepentant about regarding it as regrettable. Which is not to say that folk, like anything else, can never provide a topic for wit or humour. It has its pretentious aspects which I suppose need deflating. But it the tone which is important: it should be affectionately witty, surely, rather than vindictively hostile? ~Michael~ |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: meself Date: 18 Oct 11 - 10:10 AM 'Exactly when did the Normals conquer Britain' Didn't they conquer the entire English-speaking world sometime in the early 1950s? |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Date: 18 Oct 11 - 10:44 AM Around 1954 if Sir Richard is to believed... |
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Subject: RE: Folk - a target for comedians From: Richard from Liverpool Date: 18 Oct 11 - 11:33 AM It's true that a lot of people are dismissive of anything that's not absolutely mainstream, and populist comedians feed into that. However, I'm still a little bit surprised to see this thread for 3 reasons a) I haven't see any specific examples of comedians mocking folk b) Some comedians are quite into folk. Stewart Lee, for example, is a big fan of (some) folk music. I'm sure I've seen him on TV talking about Martin or Eliza Carthy, he chose Nic Jones' Penguin Eggs as one of his favourite albums in an interview, and he played an acoustic version of "Galway Girl" (almost folk?) in one of his shows. c) some comedians were folk musicians. Billy Conolly being a pretty famous example... |
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