BS: Why are Folkies so critical?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 04:37 AM

Rupert Brook?

Well, if you read some Rupert Brook, you might come to the view that his death (due to a mosquito bite on the upper lip during his service in the navy, which must have made it pretty stiff, boom, boom) was a saving from more nationalistic rubbish...

"If I should die, think only this of me
That there's some far corner of a foreign field
That's for ever England"

or

"In the grey tumult of the after years
Oft silence falls, incessant wranglers part,
And less that echoes of remembered tears
Hush all the loud confusion of the heart".

With the benefit of hindsight, he wasn't great was he?

Or are you smitten my the meretricious introduction of some classcal Greek into "Grantchester"?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Feb 08 - 02:43 AM

"Wow! I guess I've reached pedant stage at last."
Why spoil a good statement with a piece of nastiness
Shame
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: meself
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 10:24 PM

"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."

I suppose that takes care of a whole passel of dilettantes, then: Burns, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Rimbaud, Rupert Brook, Wilfred Owen, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath ...

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: meself
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 08:55 PM

'Didactic intercourse'? Howdya do that?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 06:53 PM

LOL! I knew that would get you going, Amos. Heh! Heh! (chuckling evilly)

I have watched with increasing distress the mounting avalanche of florid prose, overblown poetry, and didactic intercourse that pours forth from your keyboard to this forum, Amos, and I see a mind and ego veering out of control. I ask myself, "Where does he find the time? Does he have any time left to eat, to sleep, to attend to bodily functions? How does he earn a living? Is he perhaps confined to a sealed upstairs room in some mouldering Victorian mansion, like some bizarre half-human creature in an H.P. Lovecraft novel, typing madly away on his computer while frightened family members slide a tray of food under the triple-locked door? Flecks of foam upon his lips, fingers feverishly pounding the keys? Whence cometh his perpetual doggerel? What nameless impulse or dark demonic influence hath brought forth this ceaseless flow of Amosian codswallop? And what will ever bring it to an end???"

Yes, I ask myself these things. Then I have another cup of tea.

Earl Grey, hot.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 06:26 PM

LH:

You are an unprincipled scoundrel, an immoral varlet, and a fetid kipper, sirrah.

For one thing my taste in after-shave is impeccable--usually, fresh water.

For another, I have never indulged in vanity publishing, except by posting to this forum -- a sin for which you are as much to be faulted as am I.

Pfui.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 06:22 PM

'WLD how do you hold two drumsticks in that proboscis and manage to play the drums?!!!'

genetic engineering, it will save us all......

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Slag
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 04:41 PM

Wow! I guess I've reached pedant stage at last. Why, it is a pretty lofty view from up here LH! I can see for miles and miles! I shudda copyrighted that post as is will now be framed and hung in every creative person's living room.

WLD how do you hold two drumsticks in that proboscis and manage to play the drums?!!!

I heard Kristofferson at a concert long ago in Bakersfield (CA) and it was pretty terrific but when I talked with him afterwards he was nothing but apologies because he felt he had messed up on his harmonies. His band members were reassuring as was I but he knew what he was capable of and felt he had missed his mark. The man is an artist. I know he loves whatever he is doing and tries to put his all, his best into it. That is to say, he works at it which means practice, which means getting it right. Self criticism is probably the hardest master but it is not the only master. You have to find out how you are being perceived and that means listening to your critics, whether you like them or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Feb 08 - 04:28 AM

Slag wrote:
"Criticism is an important tool for advancing in any field of endeavor. It is a chance to learn how what you are doing is being perceived. It is a chance to learn from others who are knowledgeable in your field. If you don't clash ideas together and see how well they stand up you may just wind up being an audience of one! Or living in a house with a weak foundation!"
SHOULD BE FRAMED AND HUNG ON THE WALL.
This is part of an interview we did with MacColl in the eighties when we asked him about criticism and self-criticism - still makes sense to me.
Jim Carroll
"Now you might say that working and training to develop your voice to sing Nine Maidens A-milking Did Go or Lord Randall is calculated to destroy your original joy in singing, at least that's the argument that's put to me from time to time, by singers who should know better.   
The better you can do a thing the more you enjoy it. Anybody who's ever tried to sing and got up in front of an audience and made a bloody mess of it knows that you're not enjoying it when you're making a balls of it, but you are enjoying it when it's working, when all the things you want to happen are happening. And that can happen without training, sure it can, but it's hit or miss. If you're training it can happen more, that's the difference. It can't happen every time, not with anybody, although your training can stand you in good stead, it's something to fall back on, a technique, you know. It's something that will at least make sure that you're not absolutely diabolical
The objective, really for the singer is to create a situation where when he starts to sing he's no longer worried about technique, he's done all that, and he can give the whole of his or her attention to the song itself, she can give her or he can give his whole attention to the sheer act of enjoying the song".

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Gurney
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 05:53 PM

LH, would that be a taste in aftershave, or a taste FOR aftershave?

I thought Shane had that fetish sewn up.







If it is for, how do you know?

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 02:43 PM

Yes, well, I could say the same about your lamentable taste in aftershave and your various adventures in vanity publishing... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Amos
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 12:48 PM

LH, this is one problem you can't blame on ole Maggie Thatcher, I am afraid.

Very different origins indeed, I would submit.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 12:19 PM

Well, I am so critical because I am one of those naturally superior people endowed by either God or Nature with the inherent qualities of nobility and perfection that set me far above the common herd. I gaze with lofty disdain upon the general public, particularly upon those people (and there are so many of them!) who do not have any appreciation or any understanding of folk music. Such types are really beyond help. The world would be far better off without them. Hopefully, science will one day come up with a means to genetically weed out these wretched philistines and degenerates, the greater part of the human population, those who do not appreciate folk music. They are worthless rabble. May they all be exterminated, I say!

;-)

By the way, I got the above worked out by parsing through a copy of Margaret Thatcher's unpublished memoirs and I just altered the odd word here and there. The essential spirit of the text remains the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 11:43 AM

Folkies critical? What kind of bloody stupid question is that..?

:-P

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 09:53 AM

It wasn't climbing the steps in tower blocks that killed off the wooly mammoths, or negotiating the one way system in Loughborough.

They probably died of hay fever after trying to shelter under haystacks out in the country, or some bloody farmer put DDT on their tusks.

Subject: RE: BS: Why are Folkies so critical?
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Feb 08 - 07:48 AM

Getting lulled into complacency or being required to believe and behave as everyone else in the clan do, are requirements for the religious conservatives.

As I learn how limiting ego can be and as I divest myself of its worst trapppings I have found that people are not nearly as critical as I had formerly thought.

While self regulation and self criticism are importatnt developmental tools sometimes a swift kick in the ass from the the outside is a postitive thing.



so ed, why do you feel so threatened and criticised anyway...
was your father distant and your other co.....(just kidding)

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.

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: 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: 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: Gene Burton
Date: 22 Feb 08 - 07:21 PM

...or am I?

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 12:56 PM

You forgot simploid valdersplitz, no offense.

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: 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 - 11:26 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Bryn Pugh
Date: 21 Feb 08 - 07:57 AM

Critical ? Moi ?

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: 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.