should the BBC folk awards be scrapped

Subject: RE: should the BBC folk awards be scrapped
From: TheSnail
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 03:40 PM

No Dave, I haven't disagreed with the judges about anything (apart from a slight puzzlement about the Best Original Song). That isn't the issue.

Just to make a couple of things clear -

Nobody has suggested that The Claque should have won the award.

Nobody has suggested that Lau should not have won the award.

That isn't the question. The question is, what did they win the award for? The title says "Best" which suggests that their performance, either on stage or recording, was better than anybody else's. Maybe it was, I don't know, I've never seen them. (I saw The Claque three times last year.) The guidance for voters says "most impact". With your concentration on gig lists and foreign tours, you seem to favour the latter. They aren't the same thing.

Faye's point (excuse me if I've got this wrong) is that "best" is meaningless if you aren't comparing like with like.

Subject: RE: should the BBC folk awards be scrapped
From: GUEST,THE CLAQUE
Date: 25 Feb 09 - 04:50 PM

I'm reluctant to infringe,off-topic,on this thread's origin,but if anyone would like us to come and sing to them at their event,I can be contacted at [e-mail] its own limited way,this thread spreads our name a bit.We don't travel a lot because we don't have a PR stream and because that's not what we want in a big way.We have an album on WILDGOOSE RECORDS that was critically acclaimed on a national level,last year and played on Radio 2 and 3 and across the US and Australia.As a group,in the last two years,we've done WHITBY,CHIPPENHAM,WADEBRIDGE,SIDMOUTH,CHELTENHAM,TENTERDEN festivals as booked guests.

Awards on this scale don't apply to us.It seems to me that these awards celebrate success on a bigger plane than we aim for or would want to achieve and I think that's all right.But there are many working folk artists who underpin and continue to underpin the folk world at a genuine roots level-this is,to my mind,not where many of the award winners are.
It's like two different co-existing strata,one youth-driven,one veteran maintained and it's the former group who would expect the gongs as it stands.Having said that,I think that the veterans who do get the gongs are the ones who have embraced the young thrusters more visibly and ,at times,for non-esoteric motives.How do you,as a veteran,appear cool to the kids?Why,you fawn over them,of course.