BS: Why are Folkies so critical?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:27 PM

Myself, I like to pop into one of the singing sessions of my local festival with a mate, stand at opposite sides of the bar to one another and exchange text messages saying stuff like "Talk over this bloke's song-he's a wanker!". With the keypad tones switched on and at full volume. Good, clean fun- and free (until I realise I'm blocked in with no escape route until the end of the session and feel compelled to buy a drink out of decency). Doh!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:30 PM

Yeh Allo Moto! they don't like that!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:41 PM

Another good one is deliberately walking right through the middle of a morris team performance on the pedestrianised bit of the high street...only to realise you've gone the wrong way and then retrace footsteps back through said morris team performance. Most effective if done with a cheery self-deprecating grin and none-too-apologetic wave of the hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:43 PM

Yell out, "Rock and Roll will live forever!"

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 07:45 PM

"Hey hey, My my
The Folk Police will never die"

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 09:23 PM

"Are you sure you hit submit without the preview box checked?"

Er..no, sir. Oh wait, hang on (looks nervously around)...is this a trap?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Slag
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 10:15 PM

What the Hell does this have to do with Anchoies?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Beer
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 10:45 PM

99 Bottles of Beer on the wall. The worst Rock "n" Roll song ever written.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: number 6
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 11:01 PM

Anyone have the lyrics and guitar tabs to 99 Bottles of Beer on the wall?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Beer
Date: 20 Feb 08 - 11:57 PM

That's a real tough one biLL.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 12:41 AM

It's a standard 3 chord song. The lyrics are almost endless, but they are also entirely predictable, and that is why the song has remained popular with generations of really stupid young men.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gurney
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 01:25 AM

Perhaps they/we are so critical because they/we are literate, intelligent, experienced, and talented, or some of the above. In 50years, I've never met a stupid folkie

To turn it around, why are some people so uncritical? do they like being fed rubbish?

I'll vote with BillD (was it?) and say we critique.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Ernest
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 02:16 AM

I don`t like this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 02:34 AM

If you really want to gouge your mark on a folk festival, heres a tip:-

Try and spot anybody who has paid about two grand for a guitar - Martin, Lowden something tasty like that. Ask to 'have a look'. To achieve the maximum effect, you need a sharp belt buckle - American Eagle with sticky out wings is perfect.

Its amazing how few of these folk people have never tried to play Roll Over Beethoven with a really sharp pick. When using an old sixpence for this purpose - smile ecstatically and murmur, 'I just love Brian May!' or 'You could get a really great sound doing Stairway to heaven with this box, man - d'you do that one, man?'. Always finish off with Wild Thing. I have found an amazing number of folkies don't know these simple traditional melodies and have never heard their guitars played in this fashion.

Soon you will be able to spot your handiwork on all the main stages of England, and at every singaround in the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 02:48 AM

People who do that should be beaten to death with a blunt object...

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 04:51 AM

Now THAT'S being critical.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:25 AM

I suppose on reflection. About the original question. There is much that we are at odds with in this quick fix world that we live in. Our music is, for the main part, assembled painstakingly and the few technological aids that help - don't really seem to speed up its creation.

Also on the mudcat, continually we find ourselves taken to task by people who are quite old enough to know better. It is quite obvious, that we occupy the same space spiritually - on the mudcat we are like wolves that meet in a forest clearing - we damn well KNOW we are all the same species. And yet we get told, what you do isn't folk music - as though its written in stone somewhere what is folkmusic. It isn't - I have checked.

Another area of discontent seems to be aggressive marketing of the young turks of our kind of music. It seems out of proportion to what they have to say artistically. They ain't going to kick a hole in my world like Bob Dylan did in 1964 - but perhaps they would if I were still 15 years old.

And because of this factionalism, we are so much weaker as a movement that we should be. We have our own website - damn it, we should have our own satellite channel. If religious groups who still believe in a flat earth and that God created the world in 7 days can get it together - we should be able to.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 06:51 AM

Gonna struggle to match WLD's last (non-serious) post...but, on the subject of guitars...how about, at the end of a festival session, finding a superficially similar-looking but substantially more expensive case than your own, calmly packing your own axe away in it and sauntering off. Then the following afternoon, saunter back into the same session with your brand new snazzy case; and come face to face with the guy who paid for it...having been confronted, calmly look him in the eye and intone, "But monsieur, where is ze proof?"

Seriously, I did actually manage to do this one time (not gonna say where!) so this is a true story...except the very last bit. The man got his case back, albeit a little dented, breathless and over-exited.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 07:57 AM

Critical ? Moi ?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 09:52 AM

The fact people are making jokes about Wat Tyler shows how far out of touch we all really are--

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 10:17 AM

It's the mass wot makes it critical, Guv!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Green Man
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 10:50 AM

Critical? Me no I have too much fun playing the box.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 10:52 AM

...and I have plenty of fun bringing folk music OUT of the box!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: number 6
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 11:21 AM

I find it difficult playing 99 Beers in the 3 chord structure and trying to memorize the lyrics.

I gonna play it in 2 chords and just hum along ... and I don't give a rat's ass what anyone says ... it's just a good ol' folk song.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 11:26 AM

I got a vote! I got a vote! I got a vote!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 11:26 AM

I am critical only when all these dumkopfs and ne'er-do-wells I am surrounded with do things which deserve criticism, which is most of the time, unfortunately. If only they would behave, I would not have to be so critical, but they keep setting me up, goddamit. I wish they would give me a break and evolve into sentient, intutiive, intelligent, articulate, reasonable, balanced beings like Yours Truly, because then I could spare them the criticisms they heretofore have so richly deserved. But it is not me, you understand. It's them. ALL of them. I hope that is perfectly clear, now.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: number 6
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 11:45 AM

Amos ... do you know how to play 99 Beers in a 2 chord structure?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 11:59 AM

Yes. I also know how to jack off in public, spill my beer on the next table over, fall down stairs, play a guitar badly out of tune and mess up the beat on music played with others. But I don't do these things. I know how to do many things the actual execution of which I reserve, in my generous spirit and keen mind, to the responsibility of a-wipes, dog'sbodies, befuddled twits, stunod banderlogs, or half-wit nincompoops who need someone to be critical of them.


AS

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 12:56 PM

You forgot simploid valdersplitz, no offense.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 01:13 PM

Well, critical comes right before flatlining!!!

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 01:37 PM

Maybe I should sign up for a Critical Care nurse. Some of them are pretty. Dunno if I could stand being told off every time she wanted to take my temperature, though....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 04:15 PM

MTed

I did actually try a serious post, while this thread was above the line, about Ewan McColl's Critic's Group, which was a critiquing group as described by Slag, and which raised issues that were genuinely above the line. I also flagged up that other people were treating this thread as a BS one. I only posted the Which Tyler contribution to the thread when it went below the line.

Kitty

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 04:35 PM

I am sure you'd be positively brill at it, Lizzie. Do you know anything about the Care part, also?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 04:47 PM

In my experience the Mudcat is somewhat at the more worldly end of discussion formus. Ballance is around, people rush to your defence.

There are other formums that seems to polarise around the flickaswitch society and you can't get much if you ask questions outside the communities' interest.

Here I can joke and on other threads I can get useful erudite answers.

Try that on the BBC message boards - and come back and tell us how it works for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Slag
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:04 PM

Yes HK. I haven't really looked at it since so much leaden "humor" sank it below the line. I've been accused of not reading or posting above the line and it is true to some extent. I read quite a bit up there but I know I'm out of my league with most things "folk" so I mainly listen. Gee, and when I do post up there, look what happens! Right to the bottom!

Footnote, and footnote only as I really don't want this thread to enter the debates that are going on in other thread, however since WLD opened the door with his 05:25AM post, God is described in the Book of Job as "...He that hangeth the world upon nothing." Pretty advanced for its day and time ( and yes I know about the Babylonian astronomy, spare me). And It also says that One day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day (i.e. an indeterminate amount of time). Another point; the order of creation is pretty much the same order as Evolutionists have used. Coincidence? Perhaps. I always try to keep in mind the audience and their mode of understanding in the day those words were penned. It matched their ability to comprehend. There was no science as we know it. I don't have much tolerance for the Seven Day Crowd either but that's not the point is it? You delight in getting your digs in when and where you can. I've had my say in response to your ridicule and will not respond again in this thread as I believe it should remain on topic. I know it will eventually lead to anchovies at some point regardless, so critique away!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:05 PM

While enjoying the badinage...there is a more serious point here.

Some threads do get...now what's the word I'm looking for?.....populated? Yes! Populated by those who may be a trifle over-enthusiastic about ensuring that their point of view is carefully considered by the assembled multitude. (I'm trying to be polite here, folks. In chatting with other folkies about Mudcat, I often find that such threads are the reason they have dismissed Mudcat and, thus, missed out on all the good things that this site has, does and will achieve.


Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:12 PM

Dare I suggest that folkies don't tend o be critical at all. They do bitch a lot, and are partial to using words like "great" or "crap", but performed folk music has suffered greatly from a lack of real criticism. I don't know of any other performing field where performers can get away with so little preparation, stage presence or
fundamental performing technique.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:37 PM

I couldn't agree more Dick.

I'm with FR Leavis on this one - the critic's job is to isolate quality. Not tell you what folk music is.

Mind you Leavis was pretty bloody wrong on novelists - all that stuff about being 'morally earnest'. As CS lewis said, I'd rather play cards with someone who simply doesn't cheat - rather than someone who is 'morally earnest' about not cheating.


And that's the whole fucking game really. You give your life's work to this music and it should be enough. Your best shot. Some dimwit should not be questioning its validity, because of some vapid theory. Your life's work should have bought you serious consideration - if only out of decency from one human being to another.

As Eugene Delacroix said, to be a poet at twenty is to be twenty - to still be a poet at forty is to be a poet.

As I said, to still be kicking ass artistically at sixty is a bloody miracle.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 05:46 PM

"...but performed folk music has suffered greatly from a lack of real criticism."

Amen to that, Mr Greenhaus!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 06:45 PM

This is so true.. Just recently I saw a guy called Brian Peters that I hadn't seen for about thirty years. And of course he was SO improved from when I remembered him.

Brian and I probably wouldn't agree about anything regarding the nature of folk music.

But in a way that is an irrelevance. For these are just ideas - mere abstractions.

I could see that there was substance in what he was doing and I think the feeling was mutual.

What we need is someone who can actually understand the substance, The nature of artistic endeavour - rather than a load of bollocks about what some kat thinks is valid folk music and what isn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 07:10 PM

Oh hell I should not have ignored this thread as a vapid witticism. There is much of substance here and I don't know in what order to treat it.

First, Kudos.

Kitty, great crack about Wat Tyler. My local hero, the man from Dartford, lured into a trap under flag of truce and murdered.

Mr Red - right on. Both on Beeb and the land of the one-legged flautist. Don't go above the parapet.

Gene - we often see things in the different directions, but yes, bring folk out of the box. Arrange it. Rock it. Electrify it. Ram it up the arse of the ignorami that this is the primordial soup from which they evolved (or maybe in sone cases devolved). But remember what is folk and what is not.

Poppagator – 20th, 0526 – exactly right.

Second, Brickbats/

Perhaps top of the list. Dick Greenhaus (and Shimrod): rather to my surprise, not among the usual suspects). Folk music is not simply (indeed perhaps not mostly) a matter of performance. It is not about vapid entertainment. It is not about the faking of sincerity. It is not about how WELL you can play it. Go back, and consider what the folk arts are. Slick (apart from maybe Grace Slick) we don't need. Got enough politicians to do that.

I am ignoring 99 bottles of beer(s) but reserve the right to return.

Close – Gene on walkthrough. Two stories. Two Hells Angels tried to ride through (mumble mumble) Morris. They found that longswords or border sticks will stop bike wheels, and they were outnumbered about 50:2. Second, a "yoof" (this is a young person with no education) tried to walk through Bishop Gundulf at Broadstairs last year. Val, the squire, lifted his beer and drank it in one. Never did I see a yoof look so scared of a woman before.

WLD – you know better. The expression "folk music" has been defined authoritatively. For some reason, although you do not like folk music, you want to call the music you play (and play so well) "folk music. You would not, I am sure be so disrespectful of a guitar. Try it on mine and we WILL fall out, no matter how tall you are. And, as you know perfectly well "Roll Over Beethoven" is Chuck Berry, not Brian May.



Third, synthesis: Why are we critical? Every other bugger shoots at us. We cannot defend ourselves??

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 10:36 PM

richard-
Read what I said. I was referring specifically and ONLY
to performed folk music. You may consider this a contradiction in terms--I wouldn't want to argue that one. Should I have said performed "folk" music?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Slag
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 03:27 AM

In regards to art of any sort, once you put it out thereit is no longer yours. I'm not talking copyright. I'm saying that it belongs to the audience and to the ages. They will ultimately determine its meaning and quality. For example, consider Van Gogh. He had some peer review/critisim, some favorable some not, but he never sold a painting. He always considered himself a student of oils, always learning. His landlady burned hundreds of his works after he died.

But when his work finally reached the public, the audience...WOW!

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 04:25 AM

Well let me tell you Richard Bridge, last weekend I went on the Folkus weekend and Alan Bell was doing the songwriters workshop.
He asked me to do a couple of my songs, and he's asked me to do a spot at Fylde Festival.

So I must be a folksinger, if I'm going to sing at a real folk festival. Perhaps I wasn't one at the start, but I've evolved into one. Like Hairy Mammoths become elephants.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 10:41 AM

This thread'll make 100, or I'm not a folksinger...

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 07:21 PM

...or am I?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 03:39 AM

Now now WLD. You know perfectly well that although there is a measurable and determinable difference in the derivation of folk songs and other songs, we pedants do not deny the right of folk festivals to host and people to perform other songs. I sing some non-folk songs and even a couple I wrote, myself.

The similarity between mammoths becoming elephants and songwriters becoming folk singers intrigues me though. Is the main similarity that as they get older the hair falls off?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 04:21 AM

Richard ask not what the pedants can do for you, ask what's in it for them?

The only reason they bother about this bollocks is to inflict their parsimonious views on the community - usually from some position of power or influence they have done nothing to deserve.

Seriously, have they EVER done anything for you that you feel in the slightest bit grateful for.....come on think about it. Given you a gig, a plug on the radio, a friendly review, brought to your attention a decent song......they are to a man and woman, self serving miserable gits. Its an ego trip for them, limiting the success of artists, who work harder at what they do everyday, than these buggers have ever done.

The elephants migrated to Africa - that bit worries me a bit. Whereas the hairy Mammoth was once a common sight in the country byways of Derbyshire. They dug one up in Cresswell Crags - he was heading south at the time of his demise, by the look of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Melissa
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 05:46 AM

I grew up in a rural area, largely uninfected by mainstream recording influences. As a very young child, I spent a good deal of time listening to very old musicians who sang/taught me songs they had learned when they were young from people who were old.

It amazes me that according to the general opinions at mudcat, I do not 'fit' anywhere in the Folk category although I haven't strayed far from my foundation.

Wooly Mammoths might have been able to keep their hair if they hadn't been moved to the cities.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gene Burton
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 07:30 AM

101! 'Tis proved! I DEFINITELY is an folksnigger.

"...have they EVER done anything for you that you feel in the slightest bit grateful for...." (WLD on the f*** pedants)

As a young (ish) man, I am grateful to them, if nothing else, for providing me with textbook examples of what I DON'T want to become like 20 or 30 years hence. When I see the way they conduct themselves both on forums like this and in the course of their professional lives; I think to myself, if ever become that sour and embittered, dear God let somebody shoot me. We all have our issues when we're young; but you'd have hoped most people would've resolved the worst of theirs by the time they hit middle age...pretty depressing when you have to watch damaged people seeking to project their own misery on to others.