FOLK: Image & Presentation

Subject: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Alan Surtees
Date: 29 May 08 - 08:30 AM

FOLK - IMAGE & PRESENTATION

I'm not intentionally trying to be contentious but I'm sure Mudcatters will have a view on these issues and I would like to hear them. There will be those who think folk is fine where it is, as a small but interesting musical genre, and there are those who would think folk deserves a bigger audience, more respect, and more serious coverage by the media. And there are a few who would like to drag folk back to an era that never really existed.

Music in all it's forms has developed over many centuries; in fact all music must have been folk music until ways were found to present music to large audiences. Songs and music around the world would have been played by individuals to entertain themselves and others in very small groups. The church recognised the power of music and song and used it alongside their awe inspiring buildings to influence and control their congregations. Then we found ways to record sound and all of the boundaries were gone, we could listen to music from almost anywhere in the world. Eventually we could go out and record the people who were still playing music and songs which had been passed down, from one performer to another over decades and, perhaps, centuries - Folk Music.

That folk music was, originally, of its day, not traditional, but pertinent to that moment in time, in the same way that pop music has relevance today. It was the only form of musical entertainment available to anyone. There was no competition and each country had its own musical style and its own instruments. Travel, conquest and trade routes would have introduced new styles and instruments across the continents and then across the world.

Now music is dominated by businesses who wish to sell music into mass markets. Folk music isn't given much exposure by the media and when it is they very often make fun of it. Editors send their photographers to festivals with clear instruction to find the fattest bloke with the biggest beard possible or some daft bugger dressed in red.

Youth culture doesn't look backwards for its inspiration but believes it is living with the very latest that music can offer; and apart from a short period in the sixties, when music seemed to be driven by genuine musicians, young people buy into the crap sold to them buy businessmen.

So; are we happy with a lack of respect, and lack of exposure and the possibility of a receding audience for the music and the songs that we love? Or should we be thinking about the promotion, presentation and the image that folk music has, and the image we want it to have. Folk music has the best musicians, the best singers, and the best songwriters. It has diversity, a sense of history and loads of humour. It is accessible and encourages everyone to take an active part in performance. Folk is unique in the festival world, attracting and catering for the whole family. We have a lot to offer, including a good standard of behavior. We don't want to compromise or spoil what we have all enjoyed for a long time, but surely we want to share this great movement; even, this way of life.

If we do want to share our music and increase the number of people attending folk events, we need to dispel the quite unreasonable and ridiculous image that folk has been given by the media. There has never been more competition in the world of music. We can ignore that; folk music will never die, but if it is so good why not let everybody know. Folk artists have become very professional and care about their image, they deserve the very best presentation we can give them as promoters. In fact, we could all; artists, organisers and audiences give more support to change. And although change can be risky, there are enough thoughtful participants to ensure that any change is properly considered.

There will, of course, be a curmudgeonly bunch who will want to retain the cliquish "Our Little Club" attitude, but surely folk music is bigger and more welcoming than that.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 May 08 - 09:12 AM

What are you suggesting? THe Pussycat Dolls sing the Child Ballads?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 May 08 - 09:18 AM

There will, of course, be a curmudgeonly bunch who will want to retain the cliquish "Our Little Club" attitude

Nice to see you encouraging a free and open discussion.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 May 08 - 09:26 AM

Last year we went to a free folk festival on a Sunday afternoon which seemed to have attracted every chav within a fifty mile radius. They just seemed intent on getting pissed and weren't particularly interested in the performers on stage.

I think we need to beware of the baseball cap count getting too high which might happen if things were over-promoted. My late dad always said that a good product doesn't need any advertising - the best of the performers on the folk scene won't become millionaires but can get into a comfort zone where they don't have to worry about starving.

Festivals are, for us, an escape from all the hype and don't want to be a part of it.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 29 May 08 - 09:32 AM

I have just resolved never to read another thread with the word "Folk" in the title.

IMO, if a person takes 8 paragraphs to frame the question, an answer is not really being sought. Rather, a platform for defining the pseudo-questioner's ideas, and in the process closing out a few options, as the Snail already observed.

I could just have said, "TLDR" and left it at that. Why didn't I?

CC

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 29 May 08 - 09:32 AM

Hmmmm....Some very thoughtful points Alan.

IMHO Folk music has always been "under the radar", happily subversive and providing an alternative musical experience. Sometimes it does attract the attention of the rest of society, e.g. when a particular song or group has a success, but most of the time we subvert people's musical tastes gradually!

Yes...there are always those who will ridicule, but this is true of many different activities...not just folk music.

Many of us go out and share our music with the general populace...and the majority of them are appreciative! (More converts!)

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Ewan Spawned a Monster
Date: 29 May 08 - 10:59 AM

"Youth culture doesn't look backwards for its inspiration but believes it is living with the very latest that music can offer; and apart from a short period in the sixties, when music seemed to be driven by genuine musicians, young people buy into the crap sold to them buy businessmen."

Sweeping, pointless and wildly inaccurate generalisations, Alan. Just like the ones the media make about folk music.

"We have a lot to offer, including a good standard of behavior..."

Is this part of the problem or part of the solution?

"There will, of course, be a curmudgeonly bunch who will want to retain the cliquish "Our Little Club" attitude, but surely folk music is bigger and more welcoming than that."

Given that the "curmudgeonly bunch" are all over (the UK arm of) Mudcat like a cheap suit, this is the bit they will home in on, not the interesting points you make. Anyone who dares to criticise the status quo will be issued a folk fatwah and have their eyes put out for trying to destroy the folk scene as they want it to remain. Thankfully the music is more enduring than a superannuated 60s youth movement is likely to be...

I actually agree with some of the points you are making. To me folk has two arms, and they have nothing to do with traditional versus contemporary, for instance. On the one hand we have the hobbyists - those who favour the singaround and session and those who inhabit the strange and murky world of the folk club. The model railway enthusiasts as Sedayne would call them. On the other we have those who would "professionalise" folk music in order to have it compete in the marketplace as one genre amongst many, to sink or swim depending on a mixture of merit and quality of the PR and so forth. As Tom Bliss has pointed out, the two arms have a symbiotic if at times fraught relationship. And I believe both arms are as old as the hills - singing/playing for pleasure and singing/playing for recompense.

My problem with the professionalisation of folk music, and particularly traditional music, is that so much of it is so fecking bland. It's as is a whole swathe of talented musicians and singers have ambitions no greater than making music that would sound alright on Radio 2: safe, anodyne, easy listening pap. No rough edges or experimentation or vision or challenges: just twee, lowest-common-denomintor aural wallpaper.

Give me the Owl Service or Alasdair Roberts or Pumajaw any day.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Peace
Date: 29 May 08 - 11:06 AM

I don't understand the question. More meat, less matter.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: PoppaGator
Date: 29 May 08 - 11:33 AM

We disagree about a lot of things here at Mudcat. Some of us, for example, feel that only unaccompanied vocal music is pristine enough to be considered "folk," while at the other extreme, some of us accept garage-band punk-rock as a contemporary folk-music form because it is a personal musical expression of a contemporary societal group.

On the other hand, there are a few basic principles that pretty much all of us can agree upon ~ one one of them is that ANY music conceived and performed for the expressed purpose of appealing to a particular audience is very likely NOT the kind of music we're interested in. We like music whose creators play and sing for their own enjoyment and that of like-minded members of their own community ~ mass-media reaction be damned!

I'd advise you to worry much less about the "image" of folk fans and folk culture that you see promulgated in the media. Who cares? If "they" fail to understand, too bad for them!

The music has its own irresistable appeal, something that a few folks will recognize and love right away, that others will gradually find more and more appealing, and that still others will never understand.

Just worry about yourself, keep the beard and the belly nicely trimmed if you're sensistive to ridicule, and sit back and enjoy.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 May 08 - 11:46 AM

You wouldn't like this dish of meat, Bruce.

Basically they have embraced a set protocols about performing that makes them sound weird to the rest of the population. They're absolutely convinced they're right - all that stuff about we have the best of everything - ho hum!

Having set their face against modern culture (its all crap sold to undiscerning idiots) - they are now wondering why they don't have the effusive gratitude of the everybody for their percipience and powers of analysis.

They dug the bloody hole, the only grim satisfaction is that they'll eventually bury it along with all the other cults of wrongheadhedness like the flat earthers.

let no one lament their passing, they have rejected the common tongue of their own nation.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 May 08 - 12:14 PM

GUEST,Ewan Spawned a Monster

To me folk has two arms...
On the one hand we have the hobbyists...
On the other we have those who would "professionalise" folk music...

It is precisely the fact that there is no such separation that. to me, gives folk music it's strength.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 May 08 - 12:31 PM

Wot, WLD, weird, like goths or punks or rockabillies? Or even you (or, in a different way, me)?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Ewan Spawned a Monster
Date: 29 May 08 - 12:54 PM

Richard, WLD: bring on the wierd (wyrd?) I say. A damned sight more interesting than the bland leading the bland.

WLD, by the way, your posts are linguistically ever more evah so literary. I quote: "Let no one lament their passing, they have rejected the common tongue of their own nation". Now that's almost poetry.

Snail: dontcha know that two arms are better than one? Any more than that of course and you start to look like a Hindu goddess. It's not a "seperation" anyway. If you read my friggin' post rather than trying to fight with shadows, I call it a "symbiotic relationship"... any attempts to seperate the two arms would be downright cruel. Guantanamo Bay stuff, in fact.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,ESAM
Date: 29 May 08 - 12:58 PM

Some things that aren't weird:

Chart Pop
Boy Bands
Girl Bands
Radio Two
X Factor
Catherine Cookson and Maeve Binchy
The architecture of Robert Adams
"Past Times"
Tescos
The Daily Mail
Status Quo
David Cameron

Need I go on?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Peace
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:01 PM

"any attempts to seperate the two arms would be downright cruel. Guantanamo Bay stuff, in fact. "

Addressed by Hemingway, no? "A Farewell to . . .".

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:04 PM

GUEST,Ewan Spawned a Monster

It's not a "seperation" anyway.

You are the one who defined two categories, the hobbyists and the professionals. How do you decide whether someone is, on the one hand, on the hobbyist arm or, on the other hand, on the professional arm?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:21 PM

Okay, we're all agreed.

weird is good.

Sod the lot of 'em!

But don't get all - 'why don't the love me? I've done nothing wrong'

Yes you have. I have. We all have. No use pretending that Robbie Williams singing the best of Andrew Lloyd Webber was one of our eight records for a desert island.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:29 PM

Snail:

For instance, I'm not Kate Rusby.

I'm also not Eliza Carthy.

Nor am I Rachel Unthank.

Or Jackie Oates.

They are not better human beings than me. Or worse.

But they are "professional folksingers" and I am not.

Do you see the difference?

Surely you must?

The teenie weenie one of "what their/my job is/isnt"?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Ernest
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:30 PM

Those who can DO

Those who can`t TEACH

The rest of us are discussing it on the mudcat....

;0)
Ernest

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:31 PM

Gross oversimplifications. That, all too often, is why these discussions rarely go anywhere.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Ewan Spawned a Monster
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:36 PM

Yikes, that was me above.

WLD: "But don't get all - 'why don't the love me? I've done nothing wrong'"...

Neither do I, WLD.

If someone plays "hobbyist" music like traditional "traditional" English folk, for example, or folk influenced singersongwriterliness, surely they can't complain if an S-Club 7 fan thinks they're a bit of a wanker? If they DO complain they're in the wrong flamin' job as far as I can see.

Surely you have to do what you do and if "they" love us - great!

If they don't - well, as long as everyone's happy and no-one's getting hurt...

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,ESAM
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:38 PM

Peace - that was hilarious!

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 May 08 - 01:52 PM

GUEST (who can't be bothered to speak his name)

Do you see the difference?

Yes, they are at one end of the continuum and the chap who hums along quietly in the chorus songs is at the other. Inbetween, there are a wide variety of levels of skill and earning power from people who do the occasional floor spot, through those with full time jobs who can still get on the bill at folk festivals and some who supplement their performance income with temp jobs. Where do you see the dividing line?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:03 PM

"I think we need to beware of the baseball cap count getting too high which might happen if things were over-promoted.

That is certainly a stereotype!! No wonder you have problems in the UK!!

"I'm not Kate Rusby.

I'm also not Eliza Carthy.

Nor am I Rachel Unthank.

Or Jackie Oates.

They are not better human beings than me. Or worse.

But they are "professional folksingers" and I am not.

Do you see the difference?"

Sure, why would someone want to listen to you when there are others who are trying to make a living with their music and deserve support.


You folks seem so concerned about image, presentation, respect and definition that you fail to realize that most important factor is "content". If it is good, genuine and welcoming - people will be attracted to it.   No one wants to be part of a snobbish social club anymore.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:08 PM

well yes but we need more unity - us weirdoes should stick together and present a united front instead of squabbling, and more important - stop playing dirty tricks!

Like refusing to review or grant airplay, or places on the festival stages to artists of distinction who have clearly come from the folk club phenomena.

Its petty. its vindictive. malicious, and destructive of the overrall potential of the movement.

The thing that unites us is that we're all a long way from home as far as the popular sensibility lies.

I supose I had already strummed a guitar and been to folk clubs from when I was about 15. By the time I was 17, I'd heard playing live, to name a few - Martin Carthy, Gerry Lockran, Cyril Tawney, Spider John Koerner, Fred Jordan, The Young Tradition, The Watersons, Johnny Handle, Leon Rosselson, Bert Jansch - and a host of other stuff on record.

But the voice that really excited me came over the ether of steam radio - a programme called The Northern Drift on the old Third programme. Alex Glasgow singing My Daddy is a Left wing Intellectual. Here to me was the voice of the educated working class. I didn't have to pretend I was drunken sailor, a pretty ploughby or a member of a Texas chain gang. It was something to aim for - self expression.

Its still my aim and after a lifetime trying, I think its decent instinct worthy of respect. And it gets me so angry to see my work and others equally hard working, rejected - because it doesn't fit into somebody's fantasy of what is folkmusic.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:39 PM

Re the "baseball cap" - I keep forgetting that this has different connotations in the US to UK - in UK it is part of the uniform of the "chav" (difficult to explain this phenomenon in a few lines)- not general wear by all social groups as it is in the US.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:46 PM

Doesn't matter - you have stereotyped anyone wearing a baseball cap. Baseball caps are in style around the globe, but because a social group in the south of England seems to favor them, you create an assumption that anyone who attends your festivals are out to make trouble - at least that is what you indicate in your previous remarks. That is what causes problems.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Def Shepard
Date: 29 May 08 - 02:49 PM

Chicken Charlie said, "IMO, if a person takes 8 paragraphs to frame the question, an answer is not really being sought. Rather, a platform for defining the pseudo-questioner's ideas, and in the process closing out a few options, as the Snail already observed.

It read more like a sermon to me, in the vein of "though shalt" and "thou shalt not", with far to many sweeping generalisations. I made it a habit along time ago of only "shalting" what I feel comfortable with, and 1854/1954 or whatever, be damned

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Acorn4
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:03 PM

Apparently there is a sociology professor who put forward the theory that we reduce our intelligence by 30% when we put a baseball cap on our heads -this becomes 60% when the cap is worn backwards

There is now a new fashion for them worn at 45% - meaning the brain is having complete out of body experience!

On the other hand I did see a morris dancer wearing one at Shrewsbury last year!

Please note - this is only a JOKE!

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,ESAM
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:08 PM

"Sure, why would someone want to listen to you when there are others who are trying to make a living with their music and deserve support."

Christ on a friggin' bike, why are Mudcatters so obtuse?

Ron, Ron oh Ron... can't you see that that was exactly the point I was trying to make?

As for hats and trouble: do we not think the folk world could handle a bit of good old "trouble" (behatted or otherwise) to shake it out of its complacency?

You're right about one thing though, Ron - the UK folk world is heaving with snobs. That's why every morning I look inthe mirror and thank the "lord" I'm not a folkie...

Snail: Ok, we'll call it a "continuum" if it makes you happy. I'm at one end. Can we agree SOMEONE must be at the other? Doesn't matter where you draw the "dividing line" (your term, not mine). Wherever you want, I s'pose.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:13 PM

I've never been convinced that popularity is something to be unquestioningly sought - unless your goal is lots of money, of course.

I was watching that Gryff Rhys Jones programme about British mountains the other night. Part of it was about the Mass Trespass, in the Peak District, in the 1930s ("Altogether, now! I'm a rambler, I'm a rambler etc., etc."). In those days lots of brave working men and women, from Northern industrial towns, risked injury and imprisonment for the right to roam. Now, 70 odd years later, you have to queue to get to the top of Kinder Scout and the Pennine Way is a sort of 3 mile wide muddy groove in the landscape. I know it will probably be considered patronising to say so but lots of people are just sheep-like fashion victims. Things have a tendency to become popular when certain elements in society declare them to be 'fashionable' - and members of the 'flock' have a tendency to destroy such things and then move on to something else. Do we really want this to happen to Folk?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:23 PM

"christ on a friggin' bike, why are Mudcatters so obtuse?

Ron, Ron oh Ron... can't you see that that was exactly the point I was trying to make?"

Don't be so full of yourself. If you writing was clear, it would not have been questioned. You are getting like the snobs you complain about!!

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Def Shepard
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:37 PM

Shimrod said, "Now, 70 odd years later, you have to queue to get to the top of Kinder Scout and the Pennine Way is a sort of 3 mile wide muddy groove in the landscape."

You think that's bad, you should see the queue to get to the summit of Everest, and I'm not kidding

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: glueman
Date: 29 May 08 - 03:55 PM

I am Rachel Unthank. Worship at my clogs.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:21 PM

Over the 50 plus years that I have been in and around folk music, I have seen people dressed like young bolsheviks, frowsy housewives, prim maidens, cowboys, hobos and farmers in bib overalls. Some of the early success stories revolved around groups of young collegiate types in pinstripe Gant shirts and Ivy League haircuts. They have been clean shaven (yes, the women too), bearded, professorial and tweedy - often seedy. In short, there is no "image" in folk music. It reflects us and our history and we reflect it in all sorts of unique and diverse ways.

When you start trying too hard to package this genre of music, or any other, the package becomes the focus, not the music. If you need to package yourself as a performer, that need may well transcend the music itself.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Peace
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:28 PM

"I made it a habit along time ago of only "shalting" what I feel comfortable with,"

I will not say it.
I will not say it.
I will not say it.
I will not . . . .

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,ESAM
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:36 PM

"Don't be so full of yourself."

I'm not.

But if you'd read the whole post rather than just the part you selectively quoted (and just for context if you'd noticed - as I made clear - that I was responding to an earlier post by L'Escargot), you wouldn't have missed the point by about 180 degrees! Nothing snobbish about that, wouldn't you agree?

And anyway it was YOU complaining about snobs. I merely had the gall to agree with you. Sorry 'bout that. God knows the extent to which you'd spit the dummy if I was DISagreeing with you...

Ho hum.

Currently listening to "Ballad of the Black Country" by Jon Raven with John Kirkpatrick, Dave Oxley and Mike Billington. Lovely, spirited stuff.
TJ - with you entirely. Wear what is right for you and bugger the rest of 'em.

I draw the line at hideous pseudopsychedelic juggling pants though. Especially on people my age. It's not big or clever. They seriously get me doing the opposite of "shalting" fit to burst.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: glueman
Date: 29 May 08 - 04:43 PM

Once told my wife her trousers looked like they belonged to a diabolo user which was enough to ensure they never saw the light of day, as befits a fashion and textiles lecturer (or whatever it is she does). It has to be said most folk festivals are attended by people who don't own mirrors.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Ewan etc
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:21 PM

To be honest, Glueman, I wish "folkies" still looked like this YES!
That's REAL psychedelia, not any of this half-arsed baggy-arsed nonsense.

I own a pair of black straight-leg Ben Sherman trousers with a narrow white pinstripe, which in my own way, like to think of as a personal tribute to that brief period when folkies looked halfway decent...

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:24 PM

spit the dummy???????????

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:26 PM

Sorry ESAM, it was my fault. This language difference made it difficult for me to understand you.

I do like "spit the dummy". How cute!!!

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,Ewan Spawned A Monster
Date: 29 May 08 - 05:56 PM

In the spirit of your last post, let's say it was at least 50% my fault too then, Ron.

Generally I do tend to agree with a fair few of you posts, by the way.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Folkiedave
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:34 PM

It has to be said most folk festivals are attended by people who don't own mirrors.

So?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:55 PM

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: meself
Date: 29 May 08 - 06:56 PM

Okay, now that we're all friends - is anyone going to explain "spit the dummy"?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: Tangledwood
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:01 PM

It's something to reflect on.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: GUEST,ESAM
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:02 PM

It's actually an Aussie term, Meself - it means to indulge in a sudden outburst of anger, irritation, petulance, annoyance or general grumpiness. It's not usually meant particularly harshly.

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:10 PM

Thank you ESAM. You also taught me to not jump to conclusions and to read more carefully!! Sorry about that!

---

Sorry, that was me apologizing at 06:55pm.   Lost my cookie!

Yes, I spit the dummy.   

I guess that is better than loping the mule!

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: meself
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:15 PM

Ah, thank you. Now, as for "loping the mule" ... ?

Subject: RE: FOLK: Image & Presentation
From: melodeonboy
Date: 29 May 08 - 07:38 PM

"the UK folk world is heaving with snobs"

The part of it that I inhabit certainly isn't! The places where I sing and play are heaving with easy-going, friendly and often rather amusing characters. Yes, we know that snobs are out there, but let's not exaggerate their number or importance.

You know the squeakiest wheel always gets the most oil!