What is 'feral folk music'?

Subject: RE: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: katlaughing
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 11:53 PM

Amos, I hope he uses a Have-A-Heart trap!

Subject: RE: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 11:30 PM

I hope it's not like alt-folk. I never have been able to figure out what that one means.

Subject: RE: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: Amos
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 11:23 PM

I think it's where the songs played slip out the coffee-shop doors and windows, and end up crawling the alleys, resonating down the streets, leaking into church services and disrupting the stiff-collared hymn-singing, oozing into diners and discombobulating the teenagers trying to listen to the jukebox and putting stranger ideas in their heads, and seeping into banks and ruining the Muzak there. It's a terrible thing, causes all kinds of disruptions and leaves people with their hearts raw and bleeding.

Towns where feral folk music has become a problem have been known to hold special elections to appoint an official Song Catcher and provide him with a good supply of duct tape, styrofoam, and weather stripping to put things right.


A

Subject: RE: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: Uke
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 09:04 PM

Apologies Joe, 'twas moi - the cookie somehow got reset without me noticing.

My query was a genuine one.

I tried googling "feral folk music" and didn't come up with much, apart from being used to describe the work of a few artists like Will Oldham. Perhaps it is still a pretty underground thing.

Subject: RE: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: Tootler
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 08:15 PM

I looked up feral in a dictionary and got the following definition:

"Wild; untamed; ferine; not domesticated; -- said of beasts,
birds, and plants."

The term is commonly used of domesticated animals that have returned to the wild. Feral cats are common here the UK, for example. These are domestic breeds of cat living wild as opposed to wildcats which are a distinct species.

The parallel with folk music would then be as was described in the earlier thread - folk music being played "in the wild" ie not in its normal habitat of specifically folk events - folk clubs, folk festivals, definite series of folk concerts such as are put on at the Sage in Gateshead under the Folkworks banner, etc.

Subject: What is 'feral folk music'?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 09 - 07:38 PM

This thread
intrigued me, but because it's set up to be used as a gig guide - thought I would start another.

Greg Stephens gives a brief definition there:

'...the established term "feral folk" to describe folk music in its original habitat, as opposed to the concert arrangements of the Benjamin Brittens, the post-50's revival folk clubs etc etc, which have been termed "domesticated folk"'.

This sounds pretty darn interesting to me - people don't use this term down here in New Zealand. It seems to be a British thing. I'm curious if anybody can tell me: When did the term become established? What are some more of the groups or people associated with the genre? Once the music gets recorded (tamed into digital bits and bytes) can it still be feral?

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-