Venues are a changing.

Subject: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:32 PM

I've been suggesting for some time that the music scene is in a constant state of flux. When I started out, small cultural clubs and folk clubs (coffee houses) which ran nice wee folk festivals once a year, were pretty much the way it was.
What I'm experiencing now is that a whole number of cafes are being run by 50 & ups who happen to be former folk musicians. Add to this that most of these places are now smoke free and serving health food they've turned out to be nice wee venues which compare much more favourably with what we called "Coffee Houses".
This all falls into line with what many of us see wrong with the music industry & large "Folk" festivals.
I think that today I can say with the utmost sincerity that the pendulum has finally swung full circle!
What say ye?

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:40 PM

Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:43 PM

The more things change, the more they stay the same?

Another day another dollar?

Birds of a feather flock together?

Every dog has its day and that's how the cookie crumbles?

I give up!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: open mike
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 02:54 PM

how did you get musical notes in the subject line?!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:03 PM

Hello,

I agree...same seems to be happening in my neck of the woods!


....and yes....how did you get the notes in the title line?

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Stewart
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:16 PM

♫

Just go to MW Word or similar program
Pull down "Insert" menu
Choose "symbol"
And choose the musical note and "insert"
Then 'copy' it and 'paste' it into the MC

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:18 PM

So easy when you know how!

Thanks Stewart!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Stewart
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:21 PM

Alternatively
type "& # 9 8 3 5"
without any spaces in between
and you'll get it.

Cheers again, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Skivee
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:30 PM

Jim me lad, arrrr'
In order to help you understand Peace's remark (Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ça change) I ran it through the online "Inter-trans" translation which produced this version in English:
"Anymore is her meme thing , anymore thanksggiving foreign exchange".

I hope that this is useful to you.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Stewart
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 03:40 PM

Here in Seattle there does seem to be more small venues
(coffee houses, pubs, etc.) that will host live music.
The key is an owner who loves the music.
Too many times the bottom line is money.
If it doesn't bring in more paying customers
it may not last.
But I like the idea of a "wee folk festival"

♫ S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 04:52 PM

Well, the bottom line is always money and more and more places seem to be paying out the cover charge. I think too that there is a move away from sitting in pubs and some audiences who were never into sitting in community halls are coming to cafes.
█ █ █ █
Jim

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:47 PM

During the late 1950s and until the middle or late 1960s, there were very few weekend evenings when I was not singing in a coffeehouse somewhere. I've done concerts big and small and participated in the "Seattle Center Hootenannies" in 1963 that drew audiences of up to 15,000 (police estimate of crowd size), but my favorite venue is either coffeehouse or house concert.

A vast sea of faces stretching off into the distance such as at the Seattle Center Hootenannies or an audience that I can't see, such as when doing television, tends to make me feel sort of isolated. I like to be able to see individuals in the audience. Much warmer.

I heard Linda Ronstadt say in an interview that she hated going on the road and, blinded by spotlights, singing at a huge sea of people "in an arena so large that a guitar break from a concert two weeks ago is still reverberating around the place." She much prefers a small, intimate setting. Easy to see why.

I have lots to say on folk festivals, but that's for another time and/or another thread.   In any case, small is good! I'm glad to hear this!

♫ Don Firth ♫

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 07:52 PM

Peace;s wisecrack says "The more things stay the same, the differenter they get"

To which I can only add, "Chacun a son mauvais gout."



A

Subject: RE: ? Venues are a changing.
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 08:13 PM

Amos-

""Chacun a son mauvais gout."

Which when translated means:

"Each to his own ill-tempered goat!"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 09:14 PM

Someone mention goats?

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:03 PM

"Chacun a son mauvais gout."

Old Chinese, Acadian proverb.

Chihuahuas can't marry goats?

I'm all in favour of the smaller venues myself. My only real comment here is that the long predicted change is finally coming to fruition.
I'm really tired of playing pubs to counter the fact that folk clubs can't afford very much and do not want to get into the "Demise of the folk festivals" either.
What I think may be going on, to put it very simply, is that the audience today is made up of the same individuals who sat in cafes and coffee houses in the sixties.
If you don't believe me, count how many men in the audience adjust there hearing aids as soon as the music starts.
I won't speculate on why the males who live longest are hard of hearing nor how they lost it.

♪
Jim

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 08 - 10:10 PM

I lost mine to rock and roll.

Much truth to what you're saying, Jim. However, folk has not exposed itself to the newer generations. It was not presented and found lacking. It's just not been presented in a medium the kids use. That is important, IMO.

I am, btw, in awe of your abilities in both music and those music note thingies, fyi.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:18 AM

The young ones are coming on fine, Bruce.
As a matter of fact, they don't do it that much differently from "The House of the Rising Sun" days but they are trying out Dave Mathews licks in their own company and not really interested in the traditional stuff.
I of course, kneel at the foot of your altar.
► Jim ◄

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:56 AM

Jim ...... take off your cap when you say "House of the Rising Sun" ..... ****chuckle****

I really like what I see with the young folks. They really enjoy the older music I do, and they seem to really be into the issue oriented music I am doing by contemporary writers like our George Papavgeris. And they seem to be heading in the same directions that those of us raised in the '60's were, that being they enjoy their version of folk influence music, and they enjoy real trad folk. I guess I am saying that our market isn't just aging baby boomers, these young folks are pretty savvy too. And to bring it around to Jim's premise, the venues seem to be switching to the more intimate. I like that.

All the best,

♣   ♫    ♣   ♫    ♣    ♫    ♣

Mick

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Mr Red
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:10 AM

the venues are changing in the UK. Folk Clubs vary in their ability to continue as ever, landlords of the pubs change overnight and new "boutique" managers have no concept of steady, trouble free business or real ale for that matter (don't even get me started on cider).

And concert venues have got steadily louder (don't get me started on festivals). I remember seeing Show of Hands in the Countess of Huntingdon Hall in Worcester. An oratry designed for singing and for one hellfire and damnation preacher instilling the fear of erternal retribution in the rapt congregation. So how come a very quiet and attentive audience hearing sensitive music with meaningful lyrics need it so LOUD? It doesn't, it is a want of those that make the decisions. Needs and wants are not the same.

I don't want so don't go. Now what ever happened to Folk music?

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:55 AM

Hello,

Nothing's happened to folk music! (But quite a lot's happened to this singer and player of it!)

With regard to the young...give 'em time...I bet not many of us started out by singing all the verses of Chevy Chase!

Best Wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: ? Venues are a changing.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:38 AM

Has anybody in the UK ever spotted one of those coffee-house thingies over here?

I have only the haziest idea what Americans mean when they talk about them. Sounds like a restaurant that serves neither hot food nor alcohol and has both floor spots and resident musicians, which here would stay solvent for about a week. Is Tchai Ovna in Glasgow along the lines they mean? (They only keep going by using premises on the edge of going the way of the House of Usher and furnishing the place from skips).

Anyway, we never had them here to abandon and we certainly aren't taking them up now.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Banjiman
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:46 AM

JC says of coffee house "Anyway, we never had them here to abandon and we certainly aren't taking them up now."

No, luckily we still have some pubs left that are prepared to put on/ allow real music...can you imagine folk music without beer......just wouldn't be right!!

Paul

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: GUEST,ritchie
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:56 AM

Funnily enough I just noticed earlier today that there is a cafe on the Quayside in Newcastle which has started to 'put live' music on and advertises have a snack/coffee/beer and listen to good music" there is a small cover charge.

and here is the 'rub' the smaller the venue the higher the cover charge to 'pay for' the acts I would have thought!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Mark Ross
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 11:54 AM

"♫", Hey it works!

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: ? Venues are a changing.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:24 PM

What you are seeing as a musical note (I think) looks like a question mark on my system.

Numeric character codes are not guaranteed to work across different platforms.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:39 PM

Play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on your telephone.

You all know the rhythm.


3 2 1 2 3 3 3

2 2 2

3 3 3

3 2 1 2 3 3 3

3 2 2 3 2 1


Amaze your friends. Be the hit of the party.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 12:42 PM

A bit more upbeat--

use 6, 5 and 4

To get called by Mensa, NASA or Homeland Security, use 9,8 and 7. It's amazing what 16 oz of white rum can get a guy to do.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:11 PM

***guffaw***

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:56 PM

Any chord required?

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Peace
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 01:59 PM

You folks are astonneshing/astonesheng/aschtonishing incredible.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Dan Keding
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:04 PM

Neighbors,

I agree that the smaller clubs and coffeehouses are much more performer friendly. Venues change but often new audiences come with the change - take bookstores for example.

Most of my gigs are as a storyteller (have been for over twenty years now) but even in that art I see the smaller venue as an advantage.
Storytelling festivals seem to be healthy right now but as we all know that can change. Libraries and schools are still a big part of most storytellers gig list.

Enjoy each audience.

Dan

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Jim Lad
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 02:19 PM

Just remember though. No matter how many times the owner tells you that it's only 50 seats and you won't need any gear..... he'll start that coffee scoosher thing up right before the last line of your quietest piece.
Guaranteed!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Stewart
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 03:35 PM

I'm still looking for that small perfectly-acoustic venue, which needs no sound system, and with an appreciative audience and no "coffee schooser thing" disturbing the music.

And that "wee folk festival" sounds intriguing (is that a festival for wee folks, or a wee festival for folks?).

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 04:20 PM

We visted a Coffe House in Phoenix, Arizona, which was recommended to us by Bill Zorn. We had a great evening, the names of everyone were placed in a hat and on your name being pulled it was your turn to do a song. I have rarely experienced such enthusiasm - probably because they didn't have the hideous "wesident" system operated in folk clubs in the UK!

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 05:04 PM

"Has anybody in the UK ever spotted one of those coffee-house thingies over here?

I have only the haziest idea what Americans mean when they talk about them. Sounds like a restaurant that serves neither hot food nor alcohol and has both floor spots and resident musicians, which here would stay solvent for about a week. Is Tchai Ovna in Glasgow along the lines they mean? (They only keep going by using premises on the edge of going the way of the House of Usher and furnishing the place from skips).

Anyway, we never had them here to abandon and we certainly aren't taking them up now."

Oh, dear!

Jack, let me now attempt to plug a hole in your knowledge of history regarding coffeehouses. The following is from a book I am writing about the folk music scene in the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, 1960s, and beyond, as I saw it.

I first began singing regularly in coffeehouses in 1958. By way of background for the book, I put in a considerable amount of research on the history of coffee, and of the phenomenon of the coffeehouse, a most important institution in the gradual development of Civilization. Really!

Pour yourself a—er—cup of coffee—sit down, and prop up your feet. This is a fairly long post.

        As early as Homer, there were stories of a black and bitter brew that had the power to endow increased alertness on those who drank it, but it was not until much later that the details of the discovery of coffee comes into sharper focus.
        One of the many legends that surround the discovery of this universal solvent of intellectuality and sociability holds that sometime in the 9th century, in the part of north Africa now called Ethiopia, a young goat-herd named Kaldi noticed that his goats became particularly alert, frisky, and playful after eating the red berries that grew on certain leafy bushes. Kaldi tried a handful of the berries, and soon found himself experiencing a refreshing lift of spirits and a pleasant sense of heightened awareness. He eagerly recommended the berries to his fellow tribesmen, who subsequently agreed that Kaldi's discovery had indeed been a worthy one.
        News of these wonderful berries spread quickly. Local monks heard of them, tried them, and noticed that the berries had the salutary effect of producing more alertness and less dozing off during prayers. They dried the berries so they could be transported to other monasteries. There, the berries were reconstituted in water. The monks ate the berries and then drank the liquid.
        Coffee berries soon made their way from Ethiopia to the Arabian peninsula where they were first cultivated in what today is the country of Yemen. Coffee then traveled north to Turkey. The Turks were the first to roast the beans. Then they crushed them and boiled them in water. The result was pretty stout stuff, hardly what we today would call gourmet coffee, but it was well on its way. They sometimes added spices to the brew, such as anise, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom.
        Venetian traders carried coffee to the European continent sometime in the 16th century. Once in Europe, enthusiastic imbibers regarded this new beverage as the Elixir of Life and the Invigorator of Thought.
        But, as frequently happens when humankind discovers something pleasurable, there emerged those people whose lips are stiff and whose faces are grim. These unhappy souls declared coffee to be "the beverage of infidels" and "the Drink of the Devil." Some members of the Catholic Church called for Pope Clement VIII to ban it. Consider their dismay when instead, the Pontiff, wide awake and alert because he'd already had his morning coffee, blessed it and declared it a truly Christian beverage.
        The first coffeehouse in Britain, called "The Angel," opened in 1652, not in London, but in Oxford. This is, perhaps, not surprising. After all, Oxford had been a college town since the 12th century. Soon thereafter, coffeehouses began flourishing in London. They swiftly became gathering spots for artists, poets, and philosophers, along with their disciples and groupies. Since coffee at these establishments cost a penny a cup, coffeehouses became known as "penny universities." James Boswell and Samuel Johnson were two well-known coffeehouse habitués.
        King Charles II considered coffeehouses to be hotbeds of discontent and a breeding ground for revolt, so in 1700 he banned them. This act nearly caused a revolt. The turmoil was so great that eleven days later he rescinded the ban.
        In 1732, Johann Sebastian Bach composed his "Coffee Cantata." The work is an ode to coffee. At the same time, it takes a poke at a movement extant in Germany at the time that sought to forbid women to drink coffee because some people thought it made women sterile.
        In the late sixteen-hundreds coffeehouses made their way to the New World: to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, where they prospered just as they had in England. They were also patronized by musicians, artists, poets and other suspicious and undesirable characters. Such as Tom Paine and Ben Franklin. In fact, when the United States were still "The Colonies," the Continental Congress, in protest against the excessive tax the British levied on tea, declared coffee to be the national drink.
        So when coffeehouses sprang up like mushrooms in the dank undergrowth of the 1950s, they were nothing really new; they were just another phase of a centuries-old tradition. This renaissance spread through the previous sites: New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; then it vaulted across the continent to California, particularly to San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles.
        Coffeehouses tended to pop up near college campuses. Many of them became hangouts for students, mostly fledgling artists, writers, poets, and musicians. And hordes of chess players. Occasionally someone with a guitar might be quietly strumming away in a corner. Some places discouraged this sort of thing, but many did not. Many coffeehouses had a small stage, and on certain afternoons or evenings, a jazz combo might be trying out a few things. Or a string quartet, composed of student musicians with dreams of Carnegie Hall would hone their performing skills before a live audience by giving an informal recital. Or there might be a poetry reading. Or poetry and jazz. Some places had a more-or-less resident folksinger. Folksingers were not all that common then, but their numbers were rapidly increasing.
        Most coffeehouses didn't serve just coffee. They generally featured a variety of coffees: a demitasse of espresso, strong enough to take the enamel off your teeth and served with a twist of lemon to bring out the flavor(!); a rich and robust Swedish coffee; a dark, French roast; Turkish, thick, rich, and sweet; café au lait; cappuccino, and many others. In addition to these potent potions, the menu included a long list of teas, from English breakfast tea to aromatic brews with strange and exotic names, like "Oolong" and "Darjeeling." There were chocolate libations, from a regular (but very rich) hot chocolate, to café mocha, to mixtures that contained such components as orange rind, cinnamon, and other spices.
        And they often served light meals, such as sandwiches of various kinds (a bit more elaborate than peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese), cheese boards (a variety of cheeses and slices of exotic breads along with fruit, such as orange sections or apple slices), and a variety of exotic pastries, sufficiently elegant to delight the most dissolute of sybarites.

© Copyright 2008, Donald Richard Firth

I don't know how things were in the British Isles, but in the United States, and I believe Canada as well (someone correct me if I'm wrong), starting in the mid to late 1950s, a strong association developed between coffeehouses and folk music. The first coffeehouse folksingers were often college students and they frequently sang for tips. But as more coffeehouses came into existence, a level of competition developed, and many of them hired regular singers. The pay was nowhere near what a singer might earn in a nightclub, but picking up anywhere from ten to twenty-five dollars per evening for singing four or five sets a couple nights a week was not bad. Many well-known singers cut their teeth and polished their acts in coffeehouses. For example, when I was singing at "The Place Next Door" in Seattle for $15.00 a night, Joan Baez as singing at the "Club 47" in Boston/Cambridge for $10.00 a night. And as far as the coffeehouses making money, they were usually jam-packed on weekends.

In a fascinating book entitled Around the World in Six Glasses, author Tom Standage, explains how early farmers saved surplus grain by fermenting it into beer, the Greeks took grapes and made wine, and Arabs learned how to distill spirits. Water was often unsafe to drink because of the prevalence of water-born diseases, and not knowing that the cause was bacteria, which could be killed by boiling the water, most people tended to avoid water and drank beer or wine, in which the alcohol killed the germs.

Which is to say, most people wandered about half-spashed most of the time!

When coffee spread from Arabia to Europe and coffeehouses became popular gathering places, for the first time in history since the early discovery of fermentation, people were drinking something which was not only safe to drink (boiling having killed the bacteria), but didn't send them into a foggy stupor! Suddenly, lots of people were alert and could think clearly! Standage credits coffee with being the Universal Solvent that brought about what we now call the Age of Enlightenment. He refers to coffeehouses as being "the Internet of the Age of Reason, facilitating scientific and rational thought."

So it seems that Charles II was right to be apprehensive about coffeehouses. The "Rights of Man" movement started over cups of coffee.

Respectfully presented for your enlightenment, edification, and general amusement.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Stewart
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:00 PM

Hi Don,

You might call these times "The Age of Starbucks."
I try to avoid those unfriendly, all-business,
move-the-customers-through-as-quickly-as-possible
places. Instead I go to the
small independent coffee houses (not hard to find
in Seattle, you are never more than a block away
from a coffee house here).
Still it can be a bit disconcerting playing music
in a coffee house to a half-dozen or more patrons
whose faces are glued to their lap top computers,
and are probably annoyed by the musical distraction.
But there are certainly some around here that are
friendly, comfortable places in which to relax,
have a cup of coffee and snack, and listen to some
good live music.

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: ? Venues are a changing.
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:19 PM

You could add this bit: when coffee roasting arrived in Istanbul it didn't get an easy ride. The Old Testament forbids burnt foods and this Jewish prohibition was adopted by the Muslims. So was coffee really some sort of carbonized pagan sacrifice, or just a rather enthusiastically toasted food? Some local clerics got extremely hot under the turban over it. Part of the problem was that tobacco had arrived at almost the same time, so the Ottomans had two drug problems to cope with at once. Usually the two were consumed in the same places; suddenly there were hundreds of exotic dens where men drank black sludge in rooms so thick with smoke you couldn't see who was in there, which must have been a problem for the Sultan's secret police. (It was also seen as a problem that coffee might impair men's sexual urges). It took several months of committee meetings for the ulema to rule that it was sort of okay, maybe.

(Source: Bernard Lewis, "Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire".)

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 06:41 PM

How did Mick get the colors?

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:15 PM

As as we see, there's always one in every crowd. -:)

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: GUEST,Peace:
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 07:16 PM

That was me, above. Friend's house. No kookey/cokeey/cuckee/cookey biscuit.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:04 PM

Ah, yes! The Age of Starbucks and the advent of the laptop computer. As someone once said, "the times they are a-changin'."

During the mid to late 1960s, with the coming of the "British Invasion," and increasing prevalence of "singer-songwriters" in the "Pop-Folk Revival," the coffeehouses like the ones where I usually sang began to close their doors because the audiences just weren't coming anymore. I think that was one of the ravages of traditional music becoming associated in many peoples' minds with "pop-folk," and then, in turn, with popular music in general. And when pop music tastes changed (in come the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Petula Clark, et. al.), traditional music was no longer "flavor of the month" and it went underground (still here!). But it was a great run while it lasted.

The coffeehouses in this area that featured folk singers generally opened at about 7:00 in the evening and stayed open 'til around midnight, or 1:00 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. And the singer didn't just sit at a table somewhere; there was usually a riser or small stage area. I generally started my first set about 8:00, and sang four or five 40 minute sets, sort of like a night club act, with twenty minutes between sets, allowing the wait-folks (how's that for "PC?") to circulate among the tables and ask people if they wanted to re-order (hint-hint). This kept a bit of circulation and change of audience going. People came to the coffeehouses mainly to listen to the singer, and justified their existence there to the coffeehouse owner by buying a $1.85 cup of coffee or chocolate and spending another buck or three on a piece of rich pastry.

Some coffeehouses were open during the day, but there was usually no singer around. This was when people would sit around talking and solving All the Problems of the World over coffee or tea, or play endless games of chess. Sometimes there would be someone sitting alone at a table, writing furiously on a yellow legal pad with a Ticonderoga No. 2 wooden pencil (another attempt at The Great American Novel). No laptops yet. If a particular coffeehouse that was open during the day featured a folk singer in the evening, they would usually close about 5:00 p.m., then re-open at about 7:00.

Starbucks is a whole different breed of cat. The one closest to where I live (Capitol Hill, down on Broadway) has a walk up window. You can plunk down your wad of bills and grab your latté without even going into the place.

They may be there, but I don't really know of any coffeehouses around now that feature entertainment in the evenings, like the ones where I used to sing. The ones in Seattle, anyway, were not really "hippy hangouts." They may have had a sort of artsy, Bohemian-style atmosphere, but they were more like non-alcoholic night clubs. They drew a lot of students, but they also drew the posh after-show or after-concert crowd. You'd see the occasional evening gown or tuxedo late in the evening.

I did a lot of concerts and sang on television from time to time, but my favorite venue was the coffeehouse. Maybe forty or fifty people, and you don't really need a PA system. Warm, intimate, good rapport with the audience.

Good times!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 08:51 PM

Of course, there were never had house concerts back in the day. The poor Brits never experienced a coffeehouse.

Naturally times change. There aren't many buggy whip manufacturers around either.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Jan 08 - 09:29 PM

♪♫

If you can see the musical notes and Mick's shamrocks, you can make similar stuff & more using this guide

Colors are simply a matter of defining them. If you view the HTML 'source' of a page, you can see the patterns.

or, if you have a PC, you can cheat with this program, which merely automates the process...(using a bit more code) ☺☻☺☻

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: open mike
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 01:01 AM

♫
♪♫
♣   ♫    ♣   ♫    ♣    ♫    ♣

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: IanC
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 03:16 AM

Don

I'm really interested that Charles II banned coffee houses in 1700. That's because he died in 1685.

Is the rest of the article as accurate?

:-)
Ian

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Fidjit
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 04:39 AM

In Norway they call Coffee houses "Kafetria/Cafeteria" But the slang word for them is, "Brun Cafe". Meaning that the place was well used with smoke filled walls/ceiling.

There's one in Oslo that still has it's juke box from the fifty's. The records have changed. Although out of respect "Rock Around the Clock" is still in there I believe.

Chas

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Grab
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 07:56 AM

I was most surprised when I went to the Windsor Ontario folk club with DDW (ex-Mudcat) and found that all you could drink was coffee! Even more so another time when he took me to a folk club round a friend's house which was similarly dry. It was a strange experience, playing without a pint inside me. And I'm not convinced by coffee as something that goes naturally with performing music - with the usual slight nerves beforehand, the last thing you want in your system is caffeine!

Graham.

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:14 AM

<font color=red>red</font> looks like:

red

if you cut and paste from this post

Subject: RE: ♫ Venues are a changing.
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 10 Jan 08 - 08:41 AM

I'm amazed that there seems to be a feeling among the Brits that having a pint is the only way to enjoy the music!   I love my pints too, but it seems that the music can be enjoyed just fine without it.