Our ghastly folk tradition

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:43 PM

'Well, Guest, I'm very glad to hear that. Errm (nervous laugh), Que??'

Long ago and far away , well at least somewhere near the top of this thread, there was this.....

From: Herga Kitty
Date: 30 Mar 08 - 02:25 PM

I've now checked the Pick of the week site - Matthew Parris played part of a programme broadcast on Easter Monday (so can be heard again until tomorrow - ) on the demise of the black boy
as a pub name. I found it particularly interesting because the broadcast excerpt included an interview with the sole black customer of the Black Boy pub in Bushey Heath, which is pretty near where I grew up.

Kitty

Cheers

Charlotte (the view from here)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Gene Burton
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:37 PM

Well, Guest, I'm very glad to hear that. Errm (nervous laugh), Que??

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:29 PM

there is still a Black Boy in Winchester and its a good pub - what is this website

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Gene Burton
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:20 PM

Good question, Backwoodsman. Wouldn't blame the music, though- some people just ARE that way.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: tijuanatime
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:18 PM

The open-ended nature of the thread title has allowed all the usual suspects to park their hobbyhorses on the lawn. I would estimate that less than 100 posts are in any way relevant to the subject of the original post.

It's the price of frredom,but, as Tom has pointed out, it's also deeply depressing.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 12:10 PM

It's little wonder young people don't want to involve themselves in folk music, if some of the stuff on this thread's anything to go by. If I was a 16-year-old again (please, PLEASE!!) reading this little lot, I'd be thinking, "What a load of dysfunctional old farts - I'll stick to ..........(insert pop-fad-of-the-moment)".

How can something so wonderful that makes me so happy make some people so unhappy and f**kin' horrible?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,The Mole catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:59 AM

'I thought this thread was about what a pillock Mathew Paris was regarding Folk Music'

Well according to one poster the opinions expressed here are of far more importance than anything Matthew Parris has to say, and thus the thread has morphed into what you see now.

Charlotte (the view from, at the moment, this computer)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: sapper82
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:46 AM

Funny you know, I thought this thread was about what a pillock Mathew Paris was regarding Folk Music.
Kitty, I bet you didn't have this length of thread in mind when you started it!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:40 AM

Playground bullies and keyboard warriors - keepin it real my @rse. You can say 1954 as long as you like, it still sounds like alcoholism/autism from here. Bye.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:39 AM

Tom Bliss

I don't know if it's genuine or malevolent

Things run a lot smoother if you assume genuine till proved otherwise.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:36 AM



To have never been disappointed is a blessing that few people have been given.

Did I say that? I've certainly been disappointed to have paid out good money to see a main guest who turned out to be somewhat lacking in star quality but to let one mediocre floor singer spoil an otherwise excellent evening takes a fair degree of determination to be miserable.

By the way, my parents are from Merseyside and one of my grandmothers came from Manchester. I still say glass to rhyme with ass not arse.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:31 AM

Evo stik man - just try and get certain facts right and you will be fine:-

1) Richard Bridge knows all about the 1954 definition of folk music.
2) He is right
3) Captain Birdseye knows about the 1954 definition of folk music
4) He is right
5) There are areas of s disagreement between the two men about the nature of folk music and it 1954 definition
6) No one else gives a stuff
7) Tom Bliss is a sort of Kofi Anan character, constantly expressing dismay about the fact that the 1954 definition of folk music doesn't make us all a happy band of brothers. Too many treaty incursions, you see.
8) Everybody cares about folkmusic, but not necessarily the same folk music and not necessarily in the same way.
10) its fun!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:10 AM

You are indeed a lucky man, Bryan. To have never been disappointed is a blessing that few people have been given. I hope it never happens to you but I am afraid that I am the one with bad news. The people of Sussex are no different to the people of Lancashire. They have their fair share of optimists, pessimists, good and bad performers, just like everywhere else. Sorry, but sunshine is not exclusive to the south east. Even up here amidst the dark satanic mills we do get the occasional glimpse of brave Helios:-)

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 11:06 AM

Thanks for the gen Tom, it's appreciated. I'm off to play some clawhammer banjo, petrol on troubled water no doubt, but as 100% English urban white trash I'm qualified.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Tom Bliss
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 10:42 AM

Hi Glueman.

I'm sorry you've had a rough ride here. You've stumbled in on a bad patch, I'm afraid. I've been posting here for a good while, and I've never felt so personally sandbagged, or been so depressed by the state of the debate, as I have been by this thread.

Mudcat is usually lively and feisty, but not normally nasty for very long. Sadly, this topic has touched a lot of personal sore spots, and brought out the worst in a number of people. I mentioned above that Mudcat was largely self-policing. I'm afraid here this has broken down, and what we're reading is a series of separate but overlapping arguments, where the people are re-fighting old battles, on which their minds are long made up and will not be changed however well-reasoned the point.

Some of the comments above are almost libellous, and the tone of the debate at times reflects badly on us all.

On most other forums, when this happens, some host or moderator steps in. But Mudcat has a very hands-off approach, and behaviour that would be edited in other places is allowed to run on regardless of the hurt and damage it is causing. (Which is why I remain a guest, by the way).

That said, there is been some valuable debate in between the tirades, and you have made some excellent points. I'm afraid I don't feel able myself to contribute any more here. Having failed to make any progress on these topics in the past I know that further debate will only generate more misunderstanding (I don't know if it's genuine or malevolent) and conflict, which I can live without.

However, I do hope you stay around and are soon accepted.

Good luck

Tom Bliss

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 10:01 AM

WLD, I'm fine with anyone expressing their opinion on folk music. I began collecting stuff in the early seventies when I was a teenager, from ancient 78s that would tick all Richard's boxes, Irish music, Scottish music, the Morris Motors Band, Sandy Denny, you name it. It's seamless to me.
What I can't accept is music as a rarified history lesson. That precludes adoption, adaptation, nuance and anyone not bright, worthy or gifted enough to do the research. And I certainly don't take kindly to being insulted for wandering into someone's personal fiefdom before I've barely opened my mouth. If there's a guard dog at least put up a sign.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 09:54 AM

Oh, WLD, you overcomplicate: tory media hogs are our enemies.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 09:38 AM

Dave Polshaw

By that do you imply that I have ever seen it?

No. I'm saying that I have never seen it. I'm not sure what you want me to do about that.

Tell us honestly that you have never had an experience, folky or otherwise, spoiled by something which, in hindsight, was pretty trivial.

Not that I can recall. Perhaps we just have a sunnier outlook in Sussex and see the bottle 15/16ths full not 1/16th empty.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 09:30 AM

most of us have developed immunity to the venom.

Glueman - you miss the point. No one pays Richard and I. We have done folk music , cos we want to, cos it means a lot to us.

Thats why we get ratty with people who consign our work to the scrap heap - we know its never even had a decent listen.

Personally I don't give a fig or a fart about the 1954 definition of folk music. I think tory media hogs who get on telly when there should be folkmusic on there, are perceived as the common enemy by both of us.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Rich
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 09:11 AM

Well done Nigel Spencer for picking up on the unnecessary comments regarding guests. Had a scan and it raises a few things in my mind:

I think the comments from (I think Melissa) are valid regards mudcat being hard to penetrate and somewhat brusque at times. I have posted before and chuckled at the light hearted p*** taking responses, but been dismayed at the more venomous ones.

I think there is a burgeoning young scene (amateur and professional) and I think Ruth makes this point well.

Most importantly, we are all pretty much agreeing on the inappropriateness of MP's POTW comments. However, just have a think about how (collectively and individually) mudcat sometimes treats other musical genres. I repeatedly see the 'rap-crap' analogy on here. Do you investigate this musical field before casting such aspersions? Have you looked into the development of rap music in the late 70's as a cultural phenomonon giving poor, predominantly minority neighbourhoods of various districts of New York a voice and an identity? Have you thought to consider the different periods and styles of this genre or have you just outright said/thought rap = crap.

When you do this, are you behaving as you expect MP to behave, or are you doing the same thing that he has done, to a musical genre that you maybe don't understand, just as he has to a musical tradition that he obviously doesn't understand?

Just thought it was a point worth raising...

Rich.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:47 AM

I have never seen ANYBODY do that.

By that do you imply that I have ever seen it? If so, why not just come out and call me a liar? I would be more than happy to prove otherwise. Just because you have never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist!

So after an evening of, say, Geoff Higginbottom people come out saying "Wasn't the bloke in the first half $%*&£! awful?"?

Yep - That is exactly what happens. Small things do indeed spoil the night for some people. Tell us honestly that you have never had an experience, folky or otherwise, spoiled by something which, in hindsight, was pretty trivial.

Cheer

Dave.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 08:40 AM

I can't get further than Gigi(II). If your frame of reference on a web forum can't get further than occluded in jokes how inverted your musical scope? Your argument is as hermetically sealed as Miss Haversham's parlour - you're entitled to it but it's full of cobwebs. Are you in a profession where people are paid to listen to you Richard, there can be no other explanation for such self-regard.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 07:50 AM

But no-one ever thought Mick Jagger - from down in the deep south - Dartford, via Richmond - had any direct knowledge of the cotton fields. And my memory insists that the Stones sang "step" not "stride" but I have not checked.

Gigi(II) and GJ - you should check the 1954 definition before you assert that it cannot deal with accretion to or modification of folk music and song. It can and does. It is a point that most of its critics miss, although it is there in the words. It is why Gelbhard is wrong in that particular assertion, although it may be open to discussion whether the idea of "folk" traditions was itself polluted by a romantic conception of the noble savage.

Once the 1954 definition or something similar is lost then the idea of a folk art is also lost, for the horse definition takes over. It is the same reason why Parliament failed so dismally to achieve a menaingful definition of "rave" music when it was trying to deal with the social problem of outdoor raves in the UK.

Wikipedia on taxonomy


We do need a term for things that are not folk but are a bit like it - and we need to know how like is like enough. I've been waiting for sensible suggestions on these two points for some years here and have seen none yet. Without them musicologists cannot study the characteristics of the forms of music. SWMBO of course ignores these points simply because in her fevered mind she thinks she saw someone perform who wasn't good enough for her (or maybe made an un-p-c joke about a woman) and would scrap the word and definition and replace it with nothing. The she substitutes petty insults (like "Silly Hat") for discussion or rationality. See above for examples.

But if there is a form of music to which Parris's foolish insults were addressed (absent which what he said meant nothing at all) then it is obviously the core 1954 definition English (1954 definition can apply to other cultures as well) that is insulted. If it were the traditions of any other culture that he insulted it would be thought as unacceptable as Boris Johnson's references to "picanninnies".

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 07:44 AM

As someone remarked to me the other day, I certainly hope this stramash doesn't come to the attention of Steve Knightley or we'll be in for another tedious rant on the lines of Roots and Kim Howell.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: fat B****rd
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 07:19 AM

Is this Parris bloke aware of all this stuff he's caused?
BTW Pedant Calling - Down Home Girl was by Alvin Robinson.
Charlie - on the sidlines.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 05:37 AM

Purity is the wrong word Jon. Your idea of material that 'feels it belongs or follows on naturally' is much better. Most of us think the tunes, musical modes, instrumentation, subject matter, etc., give off enough signifiers to be readily identified as folk and/or traditional style.
Pure, authentic, 'real' are too expensive for a living tradition.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 05:24 AM

Folk purity is about normal lives in a big and often uncaring universe, not just authenticity to ploughing and shipbuilding.

I'm not sure I like the term "folk purity" but I do not base folk on words. To me with new material, it's whether or not it feels it belongs or follows on naturally from the material we know from the past.

A difficulty I have with the use lyric content and meaning to define folk is that that overlooks the fact that a fair chunk is tunes and dances.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 05:09 AM

Put your coat back on Sue, I'm buying. Still chortling at the idea of RB as taxonomy bully, yer couldn't make it up.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,Sue Allan
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 05:04 AM

From Matthew Gelbard's 2007 book 'The Invention of "folk music" and "art music":

"Patent, 'objective definitions of both folk and art music, whether by the International Folk Music Council, text book authors, or anyone else, are doomed to inconsistency, tautology, and ultimately self-contradiction because folk music and art music are not timeless, objective truths, but very human constructions."

and:

"..it is the histories of the concepts - the nebulous masses of connotations that build around them - that give them meaning ... an act of historical 'defining' that uncovers the deeper assumptions and prejudices that the terms have picked up."

Discuss.

Sue Allan
(gets coat and runs ...)

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:58 AM

'I can tell by your giant strides you been walking in the cotton fields' that was from Alvin Alcorn's Downhome Girl, and I believed it when the Stones covered it.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Folkiedave
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:49 AM

The one time I saw Carthy, there was 10 minutes of chat between each 5-minute song!

Carthy? Never. Ten minutes of tuning possibly - but chat?????? And 5-minute song? Ten minutes at least!!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:42 AM

"I was nice to him first, and he refused to learn"

Ah, a pantomime baddie soliloquising. I thought you were someone with a serious point for a moment. As you were.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:33 AM

Welcome to Mudcat, Glueman!...

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:32 AM

Very funny SWMBO. Mirror? Pot, kettle?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:31 AM

That's all right. This one we can clearly do without. I was nice to him first, and he refused to learn. I told him, 1954 definition. I made it plain that the difference is not one of quality but definition.

And you stole my 400, and I'd worked for that!

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:30 AM

do the regulars accept this overbearing nonsense

No, of course not.
But in my case, I ignore it (eventually) until he hangs himself with his own rope.
Very tedious though, innit?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Giant Folk Eyeball (inactive)
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:27 AM

Oi, Richard, give it a bone! That's exactly the sort of snide comment that deters guests from becoming members.

No need for it. Ever.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:25 AM

Your definition of classic being as fluid as all your others, i.e. from the fingertips of Richard Bridge and beyond reproach. I'm new here - do the regulars accept this overbearing nonsense or is your view the received one on musical nomenclature?

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:18 AM

Looks like you can't read, any more than you can think. Classic "GUEST" behaviour.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 04:06 AM

Shallow? Slipshod? If relevance to the modern world is so lightly dismissed folk will die out with the current generation of historiographiacally suspended enthusiasts determined to posit 'folk' in their own temporal fantasy.
Who has given anyone the right to say what folk is? When was this distillation of national verisimilitude decided? Was the music that went before irrelevant because it didn't exist on an aural record? Folk by your definition is as authentic as druidry, costume cosiness for the disaffected.
Folk is whatever anyone with the balls to stand up to self-styled academics says it is. The points are as meaningful as shouting 'Judas' at Bob Dylan, a fifth-time removed songwriter castigated for having an electric wire dangling from his guitar.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 03:47 AM

I think you make my point for me, Gigi(II). Is that course one in folk arts, or in craft? If it is in "craft" generally then that is the analogue of the thing for which there apears to be no term in music, namely music inspired and influenced by the tradition.

Think of "folklore" - it is not about what is invented today. THe urban myth is not folklore.

Think of "folk dance" - is is not the twist, the frug, the shag, the shake, and thier yet more modern descendants. It is Playford, Morris, and their analogues in other cultures.

Think of "folk medicine". Is it the modern belief that ibuprofen is an anti-inflammatory, or the herbal remedies and poultices handed down over history?

Think of "folk tales"

etc, etc.


But if you think of the modern extensions of folk music, why then the topics dealt with, from industrial exploitation, modern shipping methods, the modern army, motorcycles, housing shortages, ethnic cleansing, computers, the internet, (oh, and of course "boy meets girl") fully encompass the modern world.

And if you don't see the lineage from the Flapper to today's club and society girls, and from the Teddy boy to today's gangs, then you are the one in blinkers. So are songs such as "The Well below the Valley" and maybe "Prince Heathen" the forbears of modern arguments about abortion, etc, etc.

It is why Jon Loomes, when asked why he sings traditional material replies that he has not yet found a topic to which it is not relevant (or words to that effect).


If the shallow "relevance to the modern world" that you seem to advocate were the criterion, then Shakespeare, Sheridan, Shaw, Dickens, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker, the great constitutional writers like Dicey, most classical music would all be irrelevant.


Look around. Modern children's literature reaches back to folk tales of wizardry. Modern television draws on folk-tales of vampires. Terry Pratchett's pointed commentaries on today's conditions are set in a world of wizards and bucolics.


The chalk is there. It's the 1954 definition. What lies outside the chalkline is not necessarily any less worthy for that, and it is most of what is incorrectly called "folk" by the slipshod. All the hard of understanding need is a new and accurate label, so that they canunderstand that what they currently call "folk" is the analogue of "new country" (which, I understand, plenty of country purists complain is not "country" although they have no equivalent definition of "country".

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 05 Apr 08 - 02:59 AM

"Glueman, whoever said that was *really* wide of the mark there!"

Yep, like I say the facts aren't watertight but go to the heart of Parris's and many other's critique of the English folk style: an aspic pickled view of the world that's unable to leave behind the bucolic framework for the essence. Most people don't get any further than the frame, they see folk as relevant as Teddy Boys or Flappers to the contemporary experience.

" (the) meaning of the word "folk" in understanding a whole range of other folk arts".
Richard's comments, if I have understood them correctly, are misplaced. My wife runs a successful crafts degree course; the students enjoy exceptionally high placement in a range of areas from French couture houses to TV and film companies to the fashion business by updated authentic craft skills into the modern era. The skills are identical, the application is different. The alternative would be to seek work in non-existent mills or weavers cottages. The analogy to folk music is a direct one, you can keep the world-view of folk music and attract new audiences by building on common experiences, not historically specific ones.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:56 PM

Grab, that was probably for tuning, in that he did once have a habit, which he has since consciously tried to lose, of doing successive songs in different open tunings.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Grab
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:50 PM

Glueman, whoever said that was *really* wide of the mark there! Clearly they'd never heard of Woodie Guthrie, Ewan McColl, Bob Dylan, Cyril Tawny, Jez Lowe, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Steve Knightley, Christie Moore, etc., etc.. All writing songs about the modern-day world around them.

You want pure traditional folk, it's a niche market. So is pure traditional country music from the days before the "&W" was added. Although it affects today's music, people mostly prefer to listen to today's music. In this, we're no different today from how we were many thousands of years ago. If we weren't, we'd still be bashing a rock against a treetrunk because it was good enough for our great-great-and-then-some-grandfather.

On Carthy: But to listen to his thought processes, because he doesn't chat a lot onstage

The one time I saw Carthy, there was 10 minutes of chat between each 5-minute song!

Graham.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 08:32 PM

WLD, apart from SWMBO, there seem to be a number of people above who criticise the performance of folk music as typically involving some sort of fake accent - it therefore being (so they say) fake and unconnected with "real life".

Now everything I have heard from links to your performances shows me that you are a terrific singer and player (although, no offence, I think that Martin Carthy's guitar playing is without peer) - but everything that I have so heard shows me that what you are doing is more rooted in americana than in anglicana - yet you are not american. So that too is fake.

Shirt murderer, that is your explanation.

WLD, in context therefore I have to prefer Norma Waterson's theory of relevance to yours.

Similarly suspension of disbelief is not part of the function of a musician. It is the centre of the function of an actor. No-one is supposed to come out thinking that the Rolling Stones ever had been "walking in the cotton fields"

And what whoever the fool being quoted by the new Gigi above misses is that there is a definition of folk music - a definition that is consistent witht he meaning of the word "folk" in understanding a whole range of other folk arts, whereas that has never been true (at least as far as anyone on this learned forum was able to say when I started a "what is country" thread) of "country". Once you abandon that definition of "folk" (which SWMBO seems to think is justified because some people are not as good as her) then it is twaddle to say that folk (or whatever you want to use as a term for "folk-like" music that is not 1954 definition folk) has not moved on to a world in which teh horse has been replaced by the motorcycle, as much of RIchard Thompson's output, or even Jim Causley's recent project album (extending by analogy the land grab of the Inclosure Acts to the purchase of the Royal triangle by the stinking rich) demonstrate.   Ironic, isn't it? By and large the same people who complain that "folk" is stultified are often the same people who use the word in a way that proves that it is not.

Oh, and another outright lie from SWMBO further above. At no stage did I say that homophobia was not immoral. It is immoral (but although some discrimination against those of specified gender preferences is illegal, not all homophobia is illegal). My point (which she wilfully misses) is that the unfounded derogatory categorisation of English folk music or other English traditions is just as immoral as the unfounded derogatory categorisation of other ethnic traditions or of gender preferences. That is why Parris was wrong, as well as gratuitously offensive, and should apologise.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:57 PM

Diane, name a GEFF.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: Dave Earl
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:48 PM

"Maybe some people just like a good grumble."

Yes Bryan

Dave

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:45 PM

Slimy person with eggshell-like outer covering:

You need the entire quote to get the full effect

Snail: the quotation is from the GEFFs' Mantra as indicated. Perhaps they chant it as a waulk and that's how they end up with bizarre tie-dyed fabric

The second sentence comes from my imaginative attempt to explain their behaviour but not the mantra itself. That's entirely the GEFFs' own effort. Waulking Back To Happiness the GEFFs' fave f*lky-jokey ditty,

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: TheSnail
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM

Dave Polshaw

What I have NEVER seen a professional do is go on stage, mutter that he or she doesn't know what they are going to do next, get out a dog eared book of lyrics and then stop part way through the song while they try and find the missing verse.

I have never seen ANYBODY do that.

As to That is sad. Yes it is. Unfortunately it is true.

So after an evening of, say, Geoff Higginbottom people come out saying "Wasn't the bloke in the first half $%*&£! awful?"?

Maybe some people just like a good grumble.

Subject: RE: Our ghastly folk tradition
From: melodeonboy
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 07:35 PM

An interesting post, WLD. And I am aware that you appreciate much of what Carthy does. However, much as Carthy has his heart in older material, he did rewrite The Begging Song to reflect Thatcherite Britain, and he has sung songs about relatively recent military conflicts such as the Falklands and Iraq/Kuwait. And Heartbreak Hotel comes not from a time of kings and maidens but a period of intense activity on the motorbike front!

Broom, broom!