fRoots magazine and the EFDSS

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jun 19 - 11:19 AM

Lot of people missing from 2009

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jun 19 - 11:17 AM

The spam has been deleted, but what surprises me is that two members looked at an obvious phishing message that didn't have a hot link and still plugged it into their browsers. Just ignore that shit and a moderator will eventually find it and remove it. If you think it needs to be addressed more quickly, send a message to a moderator.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 12:20 PM

with the knowledge of reading what I've been reading, so get over it!

I'm out of this too with this remark, but I assume this reading knowledge is the same knowledge that leads you to state someone who has posted at least twice today is no longer here. I'll get over that.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:58 AM

(and I think in your case without knowledge)

with the knowledge of reading what I've been reading, so get over it!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:37 AM

Wrong Rifleman. Lizzie Cornish posted to both the Tom Bliss thread and started a Kate Rusby thread today and may have posted to more. On the two I did read, at least last time I looked, she had been left alone.

I'd imagine if her posting is reasonable (which does not mean she is not allowed to find SOH's music the most enjoyable music she has ever heard or to have her own "what is folk?" definition), she will be left alone. I don't think anyone is particularly interested in gunning for her just because she is Lizzie.

The last 3 "refreshes" were sparked of by people ticking others off (and I think in your case without knowledge). Kindly stop and let this thread drop off to the bottom.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 27 May 09 - 11:27 AM

This Lizzie Cornish person is no longer here, so why continue picking on her? Could it be that you have absoluterly nothing better to do with your time, or is the fact that she's not here make her an easy target?

As I've said before, ad nauseum, opposite sides of the samer coin mayhap.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:21 AM

I don't know what happened to ghost. She seemed to disappear during one of my periods away from newsgroups.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 May 09 - 06:10 AM

What happened to "ghost"? She was slightly off her trolley and drastically underinformed but did at least believe passionately in something.

Janet Ryan pulled a similar number on Ian Anderson in uk.music.folk, which ended up with Anderson leaving and Ryan as well shortly after. Ryan actually knew something and her heart was in the right place, but her normal style of interaction was to parade around with a KICK ME sign on her arse and then to storm off singing "nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go and eat worms".

Neither of them was in the same league as Lizzie.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 27 May 09 - 05:18 AM

I'm so sorry. Please supply a list of approved thoughts and modes of expression and I will endeavour to follow your edicts.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 26 May 09 - 11:11 AM

Smedley and others (you know who you are) Give it a rest will you? How many bloody times have you got to be told...back in your prams!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:46 AM

Thanks Diane.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 May 09 - 10:07 AM

Such is the democratisation facilitated by the internet that it allows individuals to have a voice - and if this music is about anything, it's about the wide range of individuality it encourages, engenders and, ultimately, depends upon for its survival - however so wildly idiosyncratic that individuality might be at times. Comes to something though when a band admits to being embarrassed by their own fans - or worse, one fan in particular. Wish I had someone like Lizzie fighting my corner - or even Lizzie herself... ;-]

Ah, the sweet delights of folk!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:58 AM

Anarchy In The UK by Simon Ritchie on Squeezebox Schizophrenia.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:53 AM

Talking of the Sex Pistols... EFDSS gets Vicious (by David Owen)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:48 AM

Or even sanG.....

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:48 AM

Does anyone know who sand the clever 'trad folk' reworking of the Sex Pistols' 'Anarchy in the UK' with one line of the original lyrics rewritten as "is this the EFDSS ?" ?

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:45 AM

The EFDSS Strikes Back (by David Owen)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: treewind
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:23 AM

"I've never seen anyone else do what Lizzie does"
In terms of not knowing when to stop, Roger Gall a.k.a. The Shambles was a worthy (FSVO) rival.

Anahata

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:31 AM

I am beginning to wonder if 'Lizzie' is an actress putting in extensive & long-term rehearsals for a forthcomning Mike Leigh film.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 26 May 09 - 04:01 AM

ghost was probably the closest but she didn't have the fan bit.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 26 May 09 - 03:57 AM

I had been leaving this thread alone but.

but at least acknowledge that she is only doing the same as anyone who post's here

In 10 years on these folk forums, I've never seen anyone else do what Lizzie does.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 25 May 09 - 08:36 PM

I think that was all done early on, and sort of wound up by Ian. I thought that the Lizzie bit had been sort of answered by Phil. Agreeing with Darowyn and Mary Brennan above, Lizzie is being unfairly pilloried, despite her own self destructive tendencies ( some of her adversaries share these)she is a human being, therefore important and lovable, so get off her case and ignore what you don't like, but at least acknowledge that she is only doing the same as anyone who post's here.... giving expression to her beliefs. She may not do it to everyones taste, SO DON@T BITE . End of ? ...... No, not on Shitecat.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:30 PM

So now that's all over and done with, can we talk about fRoots and the EFDSS? As a subscriber to one and a member of the other I should declare an interest, but I thought it was a reflective and timely comment from Ian.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:13 PM

I couldn't agree more. I enjoy the music that Lizzie puts on her MySpace page and I agree with lots of what she says.

On this occasion, however, she seems to be digging herself in deeper with every post. Even Phil Beer and Eliza Carhty can't get through to her.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Darowyn
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:25 PM

I think you can.
This has gone way off topic, and is tending towards the unpleasant, but, in Lizzie's support, I'd just like to say that I often click on the profile tracks she put up on her Myspace page- and she doesn't pick many duff songs or artists.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 25 May 09 - 03:11 PM

"Please understand that no good can come of the way you conduct yourself online. You are damaging things that are very fragile more than you'll ever know."

Can you say opposite sides of the same coin?

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:17 PM

Leave Lizzie alone, everything that needs to be said was included in Phil's mail. Squiggle, do you really think that you have added anything or are likely to have more impact. Drop it.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Squiggle
Date: 25 May 09 - 09:59 AM

"And I know for a fact that good publicity is as great as bad...ALL of it helps...

But, Lizzie what you fail to understand is that this is bad publicity. Every fawning 1000 word monsterpost you write puts people OFF the bands you champion. Because you come across as frothing at the mouth crazy lady, over time most readers assume that's what all fans of SOH or Seth are like, and it puts them off investigating any further.

People got sick of you on the BBC board not because they dislike SOH or were trying to suppress "freedom of speech", but because you went on and on at great length about the same acts with an increasingly long word count, more emoticons tacked on the end and ended up picking fights with anyone who said maybe you should tone it back a bit.

Please understand that no good can come of the way you conduct yourself online. You are damaging things that are very fragile more than you'll ever know.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Phil Beer
Date: 25 May 09 - 06:35 AM

Sorry everyone. I tried. Good luck.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:28 AM

Come on now, Eliza... deep breath!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:25 AM

i take it back. i'm going to make sure she can never, ever join...

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:15 AM

"I saw Colin the other"

Nooooo..that makes him sound like Gandalf The White...

I meant to say.....I'm sure I saw Colin the other *day* LOL

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:13 AM

"Madlizziecornish first heard their music a couple of years ago and embarked immediately on a crazed cyberfanzine, incorporating a scattergun approach to other performers causing untold embarrassment and alarm."

So, er....WHY do they send me their CDs?

Actually, it wasn't about a fanzine, it was about standing up to you and Colin, from Gloworms, who launched an all out attack on me immediately..well, Colin did..and you told him off for referring to Show of Hands fans as 'women of a certain age'.. ;0)

I'm *sure* I saw Colin the other, by the way, dancing with Hammersmith Morris, outside The Anchor. I was at work in the National Trust shop right opposite. We grinned at each other. Barry was there too, not dancing though. There were two teams and they danced all day long in the sunshine..it was great!

Hey, Diane...WHAT are we going to argue about now?????

If Phil won't let us be 'us' any more, WHO are we going to talk about next? LOL ;0)

Howz about The Oysterband? Ooh, they're Blood Red Roses is such a great song! Here...put it on really LOUD!

Oysterband myspace - Absolute Heaven!

And as for their 'Here Comes The Flood' Ohhhhh!   I'm off to put it on my page to play..

:0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 24 May 09 - 11:05 AM

Oh...hello Sweetums! Fancy seeing you in here. :0)

Hey!!!! Phil has UNITED US IN MUSIC! Show of Hands too.

How fitting is that then. :0)

We *both* have Alianza and Rhythm Methodist.

Well, who'd a thought it, eh?

The Sidmouth Seagulls are all very unhappy over here, by the way, because we now have those incredibly ugly dustbins all over the place..which stops them from ransacking the black bags, but creates an aura of grey and green gloominess, as front garden after front garden becomes swamped in bins...

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 24 May 09 - 10:55 AM

Since my name is mentioned in this diatribe, I must, reluictantly, throw in a point or two of clarification.

Phil Beer in his eloquent plea though gritted teeth for his most misguided and deranged "fan" to cease and desist, remarked that most people made up their minds 15 years ago whether or not they liked Show of Hands music.

Certainly I did. While I have nothing but praise and admiration for the work of Beer & Knightley in other incarnations, I continue to have little interest in that particular project but if it pays their bills, good luck to them.

Madlizziecornish first heard their music a couple of years ago and embarked immediately on a crazed cyberfanzine, incorporating a scattergun approach to other performers causing untold embarrassment and alarm. Her "battle" was against those who attempted to channel her undoubted enthusiasm and energy into something resembling a learning curve which might place her "discoveries" into some kind of context.

And to arrive (at last) at one half of the context of this thread, she is using the publication of a "reassessment" piece in fRoots as "proof" that she has no need to "defend" Beer & Knightley any longer because the "battle" is over and her heroes are being taken seriously by "those who have changed their minds".

While the stock of the dishevelled and razor-shy ones has rocketed over the past few days as a result of revelations about their integrity and self-awareness, I don't think this means sales of Roots will rocket, though I might be playing an old tape of Alianza or Mr Beer's solo Rhythm Methodist again.

The other strand, contextually, of this thread is the EFDSS where I was on the staff many years ago. C# House has quite nice doors actually that open very easily. It's better than it was in many ways, and improving, though I'm unable to afford any credibility to the Sidmouth Seagull's mode of assessment since she has never set foot there nor been involved in the society in any way whatsoever. Far too busy ripping off other people's efforts to make her plagiarised webpages, presumably.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Leadfingers
Date: 24 May 09 - 10:19 AM

Pardon me while I throw up !!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 24 May 09 - 09:03 AM

>>>RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Phil B (Sighing in resignation) - PM
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:40 AM

"Ok Enough now!!
I pass through these boards once every couple of weeks but simply don't have time to peruse them regularly. I'm too busy gigging or recording and they are my priorities in life. I'm far more concerned with doing it than talking about it. Please forgive me posting this in one thread when it is relevant to several, and indeed to other boards as well. (Please feel free to cut and paste, anyone who chooses to!) The last bit of this piece is completely relevent to the thread.

LC. I don't know who you are, only that you are from my patch and seem to have seen us rather more times than is,perhaps,healthy...."

Now, Phil, 'tis no good you tryin' to get around me, by calling me Elsie...that joke was done on the BBC board, waaaaaay back. ;0) Heck, I've only seen you guys a few times, last was in 2007 at the Royal Albert Hall...twice at Abbotsbury, about twice at The Barnfield and at Sidmouth 2 or 3 times..and that's it.

But WHAT an impact you made on me, first time round! :0)



"Maybe I spoke to you even on the last two local shows . I don't know....."

Nooooo..whoever that lassie was who threw her arms around you, kissed you passionately, then smoothed down her Show of Hands T shirt as she walked away, it wasn't me. Honest! ;0) I've always, always kept in the shadows, even when surrounded by Longdogs, and despite numerous people trying to get me to talk to you guys at gigs, I'd never do that. But just for reference, so that you can dive into the vegetables, should you ever happen to spot me in a supermarket, or pour a bucket of cold water over me from a very big height..this is me



"I understand that you mean well and that you feel you are championing some sort of cause on our (and indeed others) behalfs. Let me explain a bit about this internet place. Its not a universal fanzine. Its a genre specific place of chat and discussion for a bunch of folks, many of whom have a great deal of knowledge and indeed expertise in their subject. I know many of them as both friends and acquaintances."

Yup, me too, Phil. Mudcat is a wonderful place...in fact, it's THE most wonderful place on the internet, because not only is it where the musicians themselves come, alongside the likes of me and others like me, 'out there' but it's where you can learn one helluva lot about everything from Cecil Sharp to the best kind of condoms! I mean WHERE else on the internet could that ever happen? It's just absolute magic..and whilst you miss so much due to gigging, I myself miss quite a lot to, due to giggling...because there are some of the best brains ever in here...such great musicians too.

ALL of that...AND...Joe and Max believe in Freedom of Speech as well, which means that we can tell each to stick our heads up our arses or sparkle and shine about something or some band that has brought a bit of magic into the world..


"My band makes music that has one of its (Possibly cloven) hooves in this place and the other three 'Out There' in the rest of the world. Many of the folks here consider themselves as (self appointed) guardians of something rare and precious. I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with this."

Me neither Phil. Absolutely no problem...until knowledge is used as a weapon...and then, I have every problem in the world about it...


"All I ask is that they maintain visiting hours so that I can get on with building the new wing (Crap metaphor, sorry!) whilst having access to the edifice. (Also a self appointed task) Virtually everyone contributing here decided whether they liked/disliked our music more than 15 years ago."

She raises her hand high in the air, Hermoine Grainger style.."I love it, Mr. Beer, I LOVE it!" :0)


"Our task is as always to bring the music to a wider audience and whether or not anyone here likes or dislikes us is not relevant."

Ah, but that's where we differ. I know that many people read Mudcat who never contribute, and that not ALL are musicians, many are just 'ordinary folks' passing through. That's why I always defend your music from being er...'misrepresented' by er...certain people...It puts both sides forward and keeps it all on an even keel, so that folks can then make up their own minds..Much fairer that way.
And I know for a fact that good publicity is as great as bad...ALL of it helps...and Mudcat has a far wider audience than perhaps you realise..heck it's taking over Google when you ask Mr. Google about someone musical, Mudcat nearly always comes up..


"What is important now is that I must try and make you understand the difference between things like, say, the Folk Awards, the Mercury Prize and the EFDSS badge."

Okie dokie... :0) She puts her best behaved face on and sits quiet and demure for a minute...

"They serve their purposes in order to obtain a degree of status in the world at large. They give us something to say about ourselves in press releases and are sometimes good for the personal ego. Thats all.
When Ian A pushed for the EFDSS badge for Walter Pardon, it was an entirely and utterly different ball game. The EFDSS at that juncture was internally and politically in a very odd place in which song took a very poor back seat to dance ( Hence---DEAFASS the Dance Earnestly And Forget About Song Society) I never bothered with the Sidmouth festival in my younger days because it was 90% dance oriented.
This small but significant internal award to Walter was actually very very important in terms of getting the powers to recognise that here was a person of great stature and importance as a real, living, singing, purveyor of traditional song."

Oh heck, I understand that part..always have done! :0) I used to help Sam make many sites about traditional music and folk music in general...and I've got over 20 pages in Myspace about many folk artists too.

Adventures In The Tradition

Mainly Norfolk - With Walter


"None of us can ever be that. At best, if we're very lucky, some of what we do may pass into the song line. It would be good to think so, however, nothing that we do can possibly be compared to what Walter actually WAS (To quote SK)."

Nope, with all due respect, I disagree entirely. Walter loved to sing, singing was his life, the songs flowed through him, they were part of his life, part of the lives of many back then. They still are. We may sing different songs, indeed even some of the same ones, but you and Steve,and MANY others also are the music. Nowadays the music is carried out to far more people in very different ways, but those who take the music out have exactly the same love for it flowing through them, as did Walter and all the other singers.

Yes, Walter is worthy of his gold badge, but so are you and Steve, and so are all the others who have the music flowing through them, including Barry Lister, who...is singing in my ears on his gorgeous 'Ghosts & Greaspaint' CD, as I write this to you Phil.

Barry's met me by the way...and lived! ;0) He met me years back at the first ever Sidmouth Folk Week, when some of those who are now singing its' praises were bemoaning it and wishing it ill. At the time, my husband (now divorced) was one of the directors of Sidmouth, all of them were determined to make Sidmouth live again..and thank goodness, it has. Anyway, one evening I met Barry and a few others, down in The Bedford, after a meeting had taken place and I was invited. Barry and I got the giggles...he's a terrible giggler! Well, actually, he's a beautiful giggler...but that evening he and his friends, Tom and Sean, treated peter and I to the most wonderful evening of traditional songs and singing. There were just 7 of us in that room that evening..I was the only one not singing, because I was absolutely transfixed! Such *beautiful* songs and singing, it moved me to tears at times.

So yes, despite what the Moaning Minnies think, I have always understood the beauty of traditional songs...but I also know that there are far more people 'out here' who know sod all about it, and they probably never will.

Some believe 'the music' should find the people...or that at least, the people should search long and hard for that song...I don't. I believe that if the right people are laying down the right paths, in the right way, then MANY will follow those paths, as I did...and find this beautiful music.

It breaks my heart that so many people are totally ignorant of it...and whilst without Walter many of the songs people now sing may not have survived, it's also equally important to recognise the people who are doing so much to ensure that Walter's love lives on.

I came to Walter, Barry and so many more, through the paths that Show of Hands lay down. I recognise that and I recognise how important that is. Others come in from different angles, I also recognise that too. But what needs to be recognised by the EFDSS (only in my opinion) is that without those laying down these paths, the songs will remian unknown to the many, performed by the very few, with a high risk of dying out altogether in the not too distant future.


"Please Lizzie. I'm delighted that you like our music. We are absolutely clear about who we are, what we are doing, and where its going."

Yup, you're going the way all of us 'out here' who love your music always knew you'd go. Doing it your own way, despite all that has been said across messageboards, by those who've tried so hard to give you a bad press.

"I just turned 56 last week. I still have the will and the energy and the best is yet to come."

A belated Happy Birthday, Phil. :0) xxx

"I can handle any form of abuse, misconception, or downright vitriol."

Hmmmmm....well, it's good to hear that, and to be honest, if you'd said that 5 years back I may have kept quiet, but then again, perhaps I wouldn't have, because of the depth of vitriol that was being slung at you two and at me too. I've always felt that you shouldn't have to have endured any of the crap that was thrown at you both for so very, very long. It was deeply wrong and should never have happened. But such is the effect of Show of Hands music on some folks.

"What I do NOT wish to be portrayed as is a member of some form of geriatric Boy Band. This sort of adulation is utterly embarrassing and I'd really like it to stop now."

Er...I think you'll find it was my opposite who brought the boy band thing to light. And honest, I don't idolise either of you. What I latched on to was the music and the songs, the message within many of Steve's songs, which touch the hearts of many people, ignite the anger more than a little and make many of us feel that at last we have a voice. It's why the Longdogs are so loyal, so supportive of you both, because apart from loving your music, they believe, admire and respect what you've done, what you continue to do and the way you're doing it. But my little house in Sidmouth is truly not filled with posters of you both placed above a shrine, so don't panic! :0)

"Sorry to take up everyone elses time. I'm delighted that the EFDSS is in the shape its in now. It bodes well for the future. We are not just passing through, we are taking it with us. Keep the doors open and the pages turning!!!
Phil (Should be in the studio) Beer"

Ah yes....and it's those OPEN doors that I've been banging on about for so very long, Phil...because for many a long year, they've been closed in the faces of those deemed not good enough for traditional music. The wider they're opened the better for everyone concerned.

This music was once the music of 'the people', sung by ordinary folks, a part of their lives, something that gave them a voice, a way to express their lives, to pass it down...but it has been taken over, in some instances, by those who have sought to intellectualise it, to surround it with rules and regulations, to put it upon a Holy Altar and worship it.

Well, I believe that the music belongs with 'the people' again. It's been locked away in dusty, fusty, musty rooms and clubs for way too long. It is the music of the people, and you, Steve and Seth, all of whom have been much maligned by a certain segment, are taking it back to the people, alongside many other artists, who have NOT been so maligned...

You're all doing a grand job!

And if this thread has proved anything at all, it has proved that we are all heading in the same direction, that we are all saying the same thing, in a roundabout way (some on bigger rounbabouts than others);0)....but more than that, what is now so heartwarming about this thread...and the one on fRoots too, is that ****finally**** you and Steve ARE being taken seriously at long last by those who have seemingly finally changed their minds.

It remains to be seen whether they have changed their minds because of the music, or because they feel that in you speaking out, they have finally won their battle against me, which has always been the weirest thing anyway.

As I said way back, The Battle of Show of Hands was won, not by Diane or me, but by you two yourselves...and that is simply Fact, NOT adulation.

RI'm really glad that Ian Anderson has jumped aboard with the rest of us too. :0)

If you want to find out more about me, Phil...then ask Reg Meuross, Duncan McFarlane and his band, or Barry. They have all met me and will testify that I am not some raving nutcase with Show of Hands tatoos. All it ever was, was that you two opened up a whole world of music for me, much of which I never knew existed and for that, I'll always be grateful....and so I chose to defend you against The Black Lordette.

You won't have to face any more vitriol now, as that's been killed off with this thread, so I've no need to defend you two any longer.

I happily lay down my sword, not in Surrender, but in Joy.

Love and hugs
Lizzie :0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:07 PM

Don't forget - the lady is absolutely not a "lady"

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:14 AM

Where does this leave that song?

L in C

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 09 - 07:38 AM

May I mention that the word "upcoming" is another nasty neologism?

All logs were neo once upon a time, Richard.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:04 PM

"Hasan't done the Stones any harm..."

Phil Beer has performed with them as well *LOL*

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:54 PM

Yes, it was probably invented after 1954 but don't worry, give it a while and it may be traditional. That's the way of these things.

Canute K (failed).

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 09 - 01:17 PM

May I mention that the word "upcoming" is another nasty neologism?

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Zimmerman
Date: 21 May 09 - 01:17 PM

Phil Beer says:

What I do NOT wish to be portrayed as is a member of some form of geriatric Boy Band

Hasan't done the Stones any harm...And if you split up you can always re-form. Look at the Take That tour - even Joanna Lumley couldn't get you a ticket.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: irishenglish
Date: 21 May 09 - 12:41 PM

Much like a lot of people, I got into this music by accident, in my case seeing Fairport open for Jethro Tull here in the U.S. in 1987. Like some rocked up version of my dad's Clancy Brothers records, I was spellbound, and tried (in those pre internet days, remember that?) to find out as much as I could about them-who's this Swarbrick guy, and who is this Martin Carthy guy he used to play with? From there it went further-who's Walter Pardon, Sam Larner, Fred Jordan, etc. When I first started I would have honestly run for the hills if I heard some of the source singers, but now I love it. I love hearing comparisons-for example, May Bradley singing Willow Tree, and Eliza Carthy doing it in her own way, yet owing much to Bradley's version on VOTP. When I went to England in 1990, despite being young, and not really knowing what it was all about, I decided to go to Cecil Sharp House. So there I was, 22, in London for the first time, walking a long way to find this place, yet not knowing why I was going there really. Well, I remember having a look around, buying a few cassettes (at least one I still have, quite proudly) and thinking, wow-what a great thing. A society built on music, archiving this vast collection. Like I say, I really didn't know much then, but I was impressed by just the mere presence of such a place. And I wouldn't have given a damn about if it was a stuffy old institution then, I just knew as a 22 year old American that this was invaluable, and important. What I'm getting at is , like my earlier post, there is no ONE individual performer in all of this field that should be placed on a high pedestal. I like SOH fine, I love Oysterband, at the same time I love Martin Carthy and Pops Maynard, and Johnny Doughty. It's all valuable, its all important, and its all equal in my book. Seems like the EFDSS through various programs someone posted above is doing a lot of good work. Why on earth other than to take it personally would anyone have a problem with them? Why on earth would you say that your favorite band does more to introduce new members to this music than a society that has done so much of value. I don't mean to ramble, but it just annoys me to see "politics" in an area that shouldn't have it.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 21 May 09 - 11:02 AM

Well done Phil.

Seconded. I don't much like SoH, but I think they're basically a Good Thing - any tradition that didn't have people developing it in different directions, & other people yelling at them to stop it, would be a tradition that nobody much cared about. And if that comment is anything to go by, Phil B is definitely one of the good guys.

Phil E

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:03 AM

And sorry but couldn't resist linking this err cheeky homage The Cornish Songbird *


* Disclaimer, I know nothing about LCornish or SoH, but err, it did mek me chuckle....

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:58 AM

"a member of some form of geriatric Boy Band."

Lol!
Though there are some who actively work at achieving this 'look' y'know. Just check out the state of poor old Duran Duran. Eeek..!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:54 AM

It's the Petchouli Oil!!
Cheers mate.!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Phil B
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:53 AM

Ralph
Thought you were years younger. Well done.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:50 AM

Just read Phil Beers post and am delighted to say that I've just turned 55! So there!
But, Phil, If you read this. You are so right. I just hope that your message is listened to.
Ralph. (Weirdly just listened to the Tony Rose CD this Morn!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Phil Beer
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:44 AM

PS. I don't have anything against dance either. Songs are simply more my 'Thang'.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:42 AM

With regard to digitising parts of the collection, there is already a test site in existence which a number of us have been invited to comment on. This will not go live until it is fully ready but the work has already begun.

To Sugarfoot Jack, I'm sorry that your offerings fell by the wayside. One of the most difficult things in administering projects is managing volunteer help. I know this from the Village Music Project which has many offers of volunteer help but I often can't find the time to set up the infrastructure within which they can work. Good project managers are few and far between and those that the society has call on are often over stretched.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Raphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:41 AM

OK.
Tangential point here.
Many years ago a project was set up at the BBC to archive all the John Peel sessions. It took 3 or 4 years to collate, and save to Hard drives.
It's now completed and can be accessed by authorised producers for programming purposes.
Such was the success of the project, that funding has now been secured to digitise the entire BBC Sound Archive...(Hence my quip re the Forth Bridge.)
That's just Audio. (and we're looking at about 80 years worth of stuff!!)
To do the same with the material in C Sharp House. Aaaaaargh!
Audio, Video, Books....Where would you start?
And it would all have to be done in real time.
I'm not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil just yet, but..100 years to do it all?
Wake me up when they've done Doc Rowes collection!! (about 2030)
We can all dream, and Mr Adams is trying to achieve that dream. But, none of us alive today will see the fruits of such labours.
Not to say that it shouldn't be done. Of course it should.
But, You, Me, SOH, Seth Lakeman, and Lizzie, will be pushing up fields of daisies by then.
The past is for the future to find. But Doff caps to the guardians of that past.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Phil B (Sighing in resignation)
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:40 AM

Ok Enough now!!
I pass through these boards once every couple of weeks but simply don't have time to peruse them regularly. I'm too busy gigging or recording and they are my priorities in life. I'm far more concerned with doing it than talking about it. Please forgive me posting this in one thread when it is relevant to several, and indeed to other boards as well. (Please feel free to cut and paste, anyone who chooses to!) The last bit of this piece is completely relevent to the thread.

LC. I don't know who you are, only that you are from my patch and seem to have seen us rather more times than is,perhaps,healthy. Maybe I spoke to you even on the last two local shows . I don't know. I understand that you mean well and that you feel you are championing some sort of cause on our (and indeed others) behalfs. Let me explain a bit about this internet place. Its not a universal fanzine. Its a genre specific place of chat and discussion for a bunch of folks, many of whom have a great deal of knowledge and indeed expertise in their subject. I know many of them as both friends and acquaintances. My band makes music that has one of its (Possibly cloven) hooves in this place and the other three 'Out There' in the rest of the world. Many of the folks here consider themselves as (self appointed) guardians of something rare and precious. I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with this. All I ask is that they maintain visiting hours so that I can get on with building the new wing (Crap metaphor, sorry!) whilst having access to the edifice. (Also a self appointed task) Virtually everyone contributing here decided whether they liked/disliked our music more than 15 years ago. Our task is as always to bring the music to a wider audience and whether or not anyone here likes or dislikes us is not relevant.
What is important now is that I must try and make you understand the difference between things like, say, the Folk Awards, the Mercury Prize and the EFDSS badge. They serve their purposes in order to obtain a degree of status in the world at large. They give us something to say about ourselves in press releases and are sometimes good for the personal ego. Thats all.
When Ian A pushed for the EFDSS badge for Walter Pardon, it was an entirely and utterly different ball game. The EFDSS at that juncture was internally and politically in a very odd place in which song took a very poor back seat to dance ( Hence---DEAFASS the Dance Earnestly And Forget About Song Society) I never bothered with the Sidmouth festival in my younger days because it was 90% dance oriented.
This small but significant internal award to Walter was actually very very important in terms of getting the powers to recognise that here was a person of great stature and importance as a real, living, singing, purveyor of traditional song. None of us can ever be that. At best, if we're very lucky, some of what we do may pass into the song line. It would be good to think so, however, nothing that we do can possibly be compared to what Walter actually WAS (To quote SK).
Please Lizzie. I'm delighted that you like our music. We are absolutely clear about who we are, what we are doing, and where its going. I just turned 56 last week. I still have the will and the energy and the best is yet to come. I can handle any form of abuse, misconception, or downright vitriol. What I do NOT wish to be portrayed as is a member of some form of geriatric Boy Band. This sort of adulation is utterly embarrassing and I'd really like it to stop now.
Sorry to take up everyone elses time. I'm delighted that the EFDSS is in the shape its in now. It bodes well for the future. We are not just passing through, we are taking it with us. Keep the doors open and the pages turning!!!
Phil (Should be in the studio) Beer

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:36 AM

Folknacious wrote: surely that honour belongs somewhere else? John Adams for posting that piece here, for instance?

The credit goes to Ian Anderson. I started this thread because he clearly stated his changed opinion of the EFDSS in his fRoots editorial and I thought it worthy of an extended audience.

I'm pleased that some of the issues surrounding the society have been debated and delighted to see the clear opinion of the society's place from our new Vice President.

The EFDSS is slowly turning itself round but there is no doubt that there is still much to be done. While the establishment ignores our traditional arts to a great extent it is up to us, the activists, to fill the void by supporting the archiving, publishing, educational, promotional, etc. activities of our regional and national organisations, of which the EFDSS is one, and to my mind an important one.

I am also involved with supporting the Doc Rowe Collection and run a support group which raises money to pay the rent on his archive premises in Sheffield. In the early days when we approached the DCMS for support, the then minister Kim Howells (of folk legend) replied that we should go to the EFDSS as 'they do that sort of thing'. That was enough writing on the wall to convince me that the ailing, fusty but still functioning society was the best starting point for getting proper support for our traditional arts heritage. So I joined (2000) up and started contributing from the inside.

Nine years on I've taken a step back and can see more clearly the work that has been done by scores of people who came to the same conclusion and took the same course of action. What has been achieved is down to lots of people doing small things to add into the whole. Even if people don't want to get actively involved you don't have to do much. Subscribing to English Dance and Song would be enough.

The society needs support and Eliza has laid out the reasons very eloquently.

With strong figureheads like Eliza and the president, Shirley Collins, with validation from the media exampled by Ian Anderson and BBC producers like Julian May who made the Radio 4 programmes about the society, it's library and historical figures (Mary Neal) and with a strong membership, the society will grow and add to the good work already being done.

It won't be without mistakes or mis-judgements but perfection is difficult to achieve. I accept that the web site doesn't yet do a good enough job. There is a new web site in preparation at the moment but it's taking longer than anticipated. The new marketing director will help make a difference. Of course the real difference will come when the folk community gets behind what is essentially its own society.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Stu
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:27 AM

"I think it would require a very generous fairy godmother completely to digitise the collection. I wish I could wave a wand, but I haven't got that sort of dosh!"

Not really, just people willing to put the time in to do the job. It'll take a while but it's not impossible and if enough people were involved it would not be a problem. You got to start somewhere.

As I said in my post of 18 May 09 - 05:53 AM, I volunteered to start doing this (as well as free motion graphics for DVDs etc - not cheap!) on my computer here at home and no-one was interested.

Oh well, at least I tried.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: mattkeen
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:25 AM

Banjiman

Cost as in a lot of these things would be primarily paying the staff to do it - technology is really quite cheap, but I have no knowledge of the number of documents or recordings that are involved.

We have just been doing it at work so that why I was thinking of it.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: mattkeen
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:22 AM

I agree Ralphie and anahata - just thinking about the idea and it is the sort of really ambitious project that would make a huge difference

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Banjiman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:22 AM

Anyone know how many pieces of paper we are talking about .... and is the plan to scan and store via an electronic document management system or to transcribe to structured data (e.g. MS Word) Are the sound archives to be digitised as well?

Thanks

Paul

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: treewind
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:17 AM

I believe there's some digitising work going on now on specific collections, but the organisation and management of such a volume of data (and of the project itself) is not a trivial task. It no use converting a disorganized heap of paper, books, letters and manuscripts in boxes into a disorganized collection of files where you still can't find anything. Apparently people go rummaging in boxes (good for them, it's research and what the library's for) but then the bits of paper get put back in the wrong boxes and anyway it's not obvious which belong where.

At least putting Steve Roud's index on line has been a big step forward.

Anahata

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Leadfingers
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:16 AM

Lizzie says S O H led her to the Tradition - So whats new ? Skiffle in the 1950s got ALL sorts of people looking at where those songs came from , the Clancys and the Dubliners in the sixties opened a lot of peoples eyes to Irish music while at the same time the Spinners (NOT the Detroit band) also got people listening to traditional music from round the world .
I personally think most of what Lizzie posts in here is a waste of bandwidth (AND a few others) , but a least she does have opinions , and I DO learn a bit from other people when they point her in the right direction .

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Banjiman
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:14 AM

Does anyone know what the cost would be?

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:13 AM

There are plans, insofaras the EFDSS has a stated intention, one day, to link the current online index to digital versions of the original documents, but I fear that day is a fair way hence.
I think it would require a very generous fairy godmother completely to digitise the collection. I wish I could wave a wand, but I haven't got that sort of dosh!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,cav
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:10 AM

Can someone tell me why post was deleted (and this is the second time)?

---

You want to know why it was deleted?
1. Because it was a personal attack.
2. Because it was a nasty post from a Guest - guests get less leeway because they have not established an identity and taken responsibility for their posts
3. Because it was posted by somebody who has posted under a variety of identities.
Now you know.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:07 AM

Nice idea Matt.
But why does the phrase "Bridge, Paint, Forth, Cash, Got None" spring to mind!
Oh, if only!
Regards Ralphie
(Mind you, if an MP can claim for a Duck House, who knows!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: mattkeen
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:03 AM

Bit of a side issue and I know it is a huge undertaking and potentially expensive for a comparatively small organisation like EFDSS but are there any plans to digitise the collection and therefore make ot more widely available?
Perhaps Ruth or Eliza might know?

MK - Proud Member of EFDSS

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:33 AM

Folknacious.
Fair point and well made. Mea Culpa.
Also the years that Doc Rowe and many others have devoted to the collecting and storing of the history of these isles. Whether it be Music, Song, Dance, Rituals, whatever.
(Hon Mention to Reg Hall as well)
A lot of them can be accessed in C Sharp House. (If not instantly, a phone call would point you in the right direction)
John Adams and the Village project, is yet another arm of this archive.
So Sorry for not alluding to them.
Ralph
(I dubt that Lizzie has heard of any of them though!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:20 AM

Lizzie is an irrelevance, but she has done one good thing. Made us all think about the huge archive of music and words that exists behind that (Pretty ugly, let's face it!) facade of a building in North London

Not wanting to detract from your deification of MLC, but if you go to the top of this thread, surely that honour belongs somewhere else? John Adams for posting that piece here, for instance?

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:08 AM

Can't spell Schwarzanegger either (Thats probably wrong too!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 08:06 AM

Seriously though.
Enthusiasm for music of any sort is to be celebrated.
It's just the marginalisation of one particular genre (or artist) that is so cloying.
Yes, the EFDSS and Cecil Sharpe House, have been regarded as a musty, fusty ancient organisation/venue.
But.....
Without them, who would have housed the legacy which is the Vaughan Williams library?
You? You? You? Where? In a shed at the bottom of your garden perhaps?
Lizzie is an irrelevance, but she has done one good thing. Made us all think about the huge archive of music and words that exists behind that (Pretty ugly, let's face it!) facade of a building in North London.
So, maybe we should thank her.....Discuss!!! (But not too much!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 21 May 09 - 07:55 AM

"That Lizzie Cornish 1 is out there. She can't be bargained with. She can't be reasoned with. She doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are brain-dead.'

The Arnold Schwanegger of Devon perhaps?
Don't worry folks "She'll be back!"

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 May 09 - 06:57 AM

The problem a lot of people have with Lizzie Cornish is that she is a relative newcomer to this wonderful music and she is telling people who have been into it considerably longer [ 40 years in my case ] that the objects of her obsession, Show of Hands are the best band in the world ever full stop. because she says so, regardless of all the other folk groups and bands we have listened too for many many years, regardless of all the other virtuoso instrumentalists, regardless of songwriters of the ilk of Ewan MacColl, Keith Marsden, Brian McNeill, Jez Lowe and many more who are in a class above Steve Knightly, as good as he is.

Dave H

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:35 AM

Wrapping it in plastic, encasing it in aspic so it *never* changes again, is...to me...madness.

Madness to me would be not to preserve the records of the past and keeping them as they are for others to refer to (and use as they wish).

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:34 AM

Actually, I think it is very encouraging if fRoots has seen some of the light. (Richard Bridge)

It is kind of pathetic that someone with NO actual experience or knowledge of an organisation would seek to damage it (Ruth Archer ref LC)

Yes, there do seem to be a lot of people here grinding axes about organisations of which they have little or no first hand knowledge, especially of the motivation of the people working for them.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:32 AM

The EFDSS is not what you think it is Lizzie.
The EFDSS has nothing to do with folk clubs.
The EFDSS exists both to preserve what we have, and to encourage what we can have. Both.
The EFDSS is open to all and I have never, ever in twenty years encountered the attitudes that you describe. Some have: the Society is changing all the time.
The EFDSS does not exist to support the careers of any one musician, it is more important than that. However, it has helped me and countless others, professionals and amateurs, discover music and ideas they could not have found anywhere else.
The EFDSS will be able to do its job better when those who care (that's you) support it and enrich it.
I am thrilled for you that Show of Hands brought you into traditional music. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I am talking about.
If the EFDSS went bust and the Vaughan Williams Library were to close, where would you have the material go? Hundred year old unique recordings and manuscripts, thousands of stories about ordinary peoples' lives, people that are now dead and will never be in a history book, never be recognised by the establishment. Would you look after them at your house please? Would you find somewhere else for them to go? What kind of an activist are you?
Bob Marley said that you cannot know where you are going unless you know where you have been. I do not understand why you don't think there is a place for this in the world. Why on Earth should we not have it all? Everyone I know that works in the Society believes we can, and that is a cause I can stand behind. You know the kind of music I make. The EFDSS and the Society have helped me do that.
e

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:30 AM

Lizzie, I accept that SoH "opened the door" for you and others. It will be interesting to see what effect this has, how many people will walk through the door and like Gervase rightly urges you, get involved - rather than simply stay in the corridor having a listen. In other words, what the long term effect will be. Until this has happened, talk of medals is premature. Meanwhile, I just listen to their music, which I like (there, I outed myself, so shoot me!) and also "walk in" and find some other treasures now and then.

Do come in and do your bit, as Gervase says. Join the EFDSS, go to some of the events. Don't be like those who "see the light" in a religious sense, only to keep shouting it in the streets without ever opening the "good book" (VW library) or visiting the temple - that way lie self-serving sects and wackiness. Enthusiasm and proselytising is good, so long as it doesn't get in the way of actual belief and humility.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 21 May 09 - 05:16 AM

"The folk scene IS irrelevant to the Society, from so much of what I see,"

Explain this please, with relevant examples from your own experience. Because I can cite (at the risk of repeating myself) the following:

Concerts of new and contemporary folk artists, including Jim Moray and the Shee

Sponsorships at Cambridge, Sidmouth and Furness folk festivals of both young artists and traditional artists, and a wide range of performance and workshop activity for adults and young people

The Take 6 Project, which brought folk music to school children in the communities where that music was originally collected

The David Owen and Doc Rowe art exhibitions

The upcoming Olympics partnership project with the Morris Organisations which will get hundreds, if not thousands, of kids morris dancing

Peartnerships with folklahoma

Not to mention the most important relevance of all: the many young musicians and singers who are coming into the library every day to research the tradition and find new material.


So now you give ME the examples, FROM YOUR OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, which tell you that "the folk scene IS irrelevant to the society". Given that you have previously admitted that you have no direct experience of its work, know little about what it actually does, and have never been to Cecil Sharp House, this might be challenging. Please also give EXAMPLES which back up your other claim, that EFDSS has sought to keep you away from traditional music. Tell us about when you tried to access EFDSS's resources and were turned away. Or when you contacted the staff or tried to use the library, and they were anything less than encouraging and helpful.

And then explain whether you really DO have a problem with EFDSS, or whether in fact you've decided to make it part of one of your nasty little vendettas just because one or two people associated with it, past and present, have got up your nose over the years.

Let's be honest and unmask this rather unhealthy obsession for what it really is. It is kind of pathetic that someone with NO actual experience or knowledge of an organisation would seek to damage it, especially one as significant and as fragile as EFDSS, because of their personal issues. Grow the hell up.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:26 AM

Folk clubs have nothing to do with it - they've been discussed to death in many threads here.
And no-one has said "fuck off and leave us alone."
It would be splendid if you did get actively involved in traditional music, instead of screeching on about the same musicians and bands all the time and actually doing bugger-all about it. If, for once, you could venture in with your eyes open and your mouth shut and actually look, listen and learn, then you might stop banging the same drum time and again and irritating the crap out of people who happen to like a wider, more varied musical diet.
It's the screeching, attention seeking proseletysing for your 'boysies' that I would like to see fucked off.
You seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands. Why not get in touch with the EFDSS? Have a read through these two sections of its strategy:

Nationally, EFDSS will continue with and expand its outreach programme by disseminating information through the VWML; through EFDSS publications; through its education programme and by providing access to its extensive network of folk contacts.

Locally, EFDSS will concentrate on outreach projects that: promote use of the VWML through educational activities; and promote use of CSH through folk activities (particularly those involving children, the disabled, the elderly and ethnic groups).

Now go off and have a think about what YOU can do constructively to help.
Meanwhile, please stop the incessant wittering. It's actually helping to drive people away from your "boysies" and must make them bloody cringe!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:21 AM

There's no doubt that the traditional material has a massive influence on contemporary singer/songwriters in the folk genre. I wonder, however, how often it works the other way and how many people go back and rediscover the traditional material from hearing modern interpretations - and even, from there, go on to dig into the social and political history behind the songs. Its certainly works both ways for me. It's that two-way interaction between the past and the present that makes folk music such a joy and, of course, what keeps it alive and relevant.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:16 AM

Actually, I think it is very encouraging if fRoots has seen some of the light.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Stu
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:12 AM

I'm looking forward to going to the session in the pub up road (there's been a session there for 30 years), playing a few tunes and enjoying the craic. People playing music because they love it, sharing tunes and singing the occasional song.

The week after I'll go to a different pub, and the week after that I'll head into Manchester for some top-notch Irish, and the week after that I may well go back to the first pub I mentioned. In the meantime I'll have some mates over and we'll have a few tunes and a beer and on it goes. I'll hear some new tunes, learn some new tunes and perhaps get to sing a song or two.

Show of Hands, the EFDSS and the whole commercial world of folk (and I do paid gigs occasionally) has bugger all to do with the tradition and the tradition will continue whether they're there or not. It's tunes and songs.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:12 AM

And your attitude, Gervase, is *exactly* what keeps the traditional world so shut away.

"Fuck off and leave us alone!"

So people did....

No good complaining that you need more support or that folk clubs are dying...

Look to yourself, sunshine

Then, physician, heal thyself.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 21 May 09 - 04:04 AM

Sadly, it is the attitude that so often lies within some of the folks inside the EFDSS and who support it, which has led me away from it these past years...and *that* is the saddest thing of all.
Led you away from it?!
From your posts you know fuck-all about it and have never been to Cecil Sharp House or the VWML, and I doubt you've even used the online resources. Never mind, I'm sure the collective membership of the EFDSS is even now holding its head in in hands and muttering "Where did we go wrong in losing that brilliant, perceptive, dynamic woman from Sidmouth - she could have been the making of us?"
The 'folk scene' is pretty damned healthy at the moment, and so is the EFDSS. They overlap, but one ain't the other. And both of them can get along just dandy without the fatuous comments of some attention-seeking empty vessel from the West Country who knows not of what she witters.
So stop worrying, get back to your CDs and have a nice cup of tea. The music world can struggle on without you. For today at least...

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:57 AM

Musuems that mutate into Fisher Price activity centres in a desperate bid for 'relevance' depress me. There is nothing to be ashamed of in scholarship; the acquisition of knowledge is something to be celebrated, not dismissed as dry and dusty.
Personally I couldn't give a flying fart if the EFDSS is seen as 'too stuck in the tradition' and not connected to the singer songwriters and everything else that gets lumped uncomfortably under the umbrella of 'folk'. It's doing what it does pretty well thank you.
Its 'mission statement' (shite term, but, what the heck), reads that it aims to:

• maintain itself as a centre of excellence for the study, practice and dissemination of traditional English folk song, dance and music;
• provide national and local outreach services that enable and increase access;
• celebrate diversity and promote equality
It seems to me that it's doing that job pretty well, and that it has discovered a new lease of life with people like Shirley Collins and Eliza actively involved. It's certainly relevant to me even if it doesn't tick your plastic avalon, instant-tradition, folk-lite boxes, Ms 'Cornish'.
And what it certainly doesn't need is to become some fluffy, vague, "hugely interactive, hands on, all encompassing, all welcoming, vibranct vibrance". I seem to remember they tried that dumbed-down, one-size-fits-all approach with the Millennium Dome, and we all remember what a huge success that was.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:55 AM

"Wrapping it in plastic, encasing it in aspic so it *never* changes again, is...to me...madness."

But that's exactly what doesn't and isn't happening.
Check that Imagined Village clicky you posted...

Archives are a resource for creative people to re-imagine the old songs in new ways. But without those archives, there wouldn't be any old songs to draw on. If I were more adventurous, I might be more innovative with them myself. But gladly, I love singing them old songs straight up, just as they are. A bit of breath, is the one and only thing that's needed to bring those dusty old archives alive and sparkling. It doesn't get more 'interactive' than singing them yourself...

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:49 AM

And once again, the *only* reason that I found traditional music was because Show of Hands *led* me there....They lead many, MANY others there too.

Sadly, it is the attitude that so often lies within some of the folks inside the EFDSS and who support it, which has led me away from it these past years...and *that* is the saddest thing of all.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:42 AM

"Both peppers and tomatoes are good, in music as well as anywhere
else."


Absolutely, George.


"What you don't understand is that the EFDSS doesn't have to have anything at all to do with the folk scene. It may have crossover points with it, but the folk scene could be irrelevant to the Society, at least the part of the Society that is concerned with the preservation of traditional music."

The folk scene IS irrelevant to the Society, from so much of what I see, and therein lies the main problem. It chooses to be that way, chooses to keep itself seperate and pure.

The 'music of our ancestors' was already changed from 'the music of their ancestors'..it is constantly evolving, it does each time any one person sings a song, there is always a change, always a difference, and so the next person passes it on.   Wrapping it in plastic, encasing it in aspic so it *never* changes again, is...to me...madness.

Is the EFDSS a museum, or a living, breathing, all encompassing being, with traditional music at its heart, but with arteries that flow out from that heart to many other vessels, each keeping the other healthy, refreshed, filled with oxygenating blood, causing stagnation never to occur?



"The Society should survive whether or not performers do because it keeps something precious for everybody, including everybody that isn't you and me: those people that don't know or care about Sidmouth festival and its like."

Museums still survive. The best museums survive because they include the public, because they have thrown away the old style of glass case museum, and replaced it with hugely interactive, hands on, all encompassing, all welcoming, vibranct vibrance.

The other sort close down, because they have become nothing more than....a collection of artefacts.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Reinhard
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:30 AM

Why, Anahata? It's the English Folk Dance and Song Society, not the English Folk Dance and Scene Society.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Smedley
Date: 21 May 09 - 03:27 AM

I am looking forward to there being a song on Eliza's next album called 'Cucumbers and Radiators'. (Or it could be the other way round, but more words rhyme with radiators.)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST
Date: 21 May 09 - 02:56 AM

"the EFDSS doesn't have to have anything at all to do with the folk scene"

Now there's an essay subject.

Anahata

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 May 09 - 02:24 AM

George: "Lizzie, the world of traditional music was certainly nothing less than welcoming to me, with my at best partial knowledge and understanding and my cultural differences. Neither the music, nor its main proponents at any time sought to exclude me, indeed they have been generous to me and others."

Amen to that. Me too. I found Traddies to be a lovely bunch of folk, very embracing, helpful and encouraging.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 20 May 09 - 08:49 PM

The reason that I didn't want my own contemporary music on folk festival stages, and the reason that I too had a great deal of trouble accepting SOH within the folk scene to start with along with other singer-songwriters, is that when they started the folk scene was very different than it is now, much smaller, not commercial and more fragile.
    There have always been stages for singer-songwriters. The folk scene I grew up in was for traditional music, contemporary or otherwise, was not supposed to be a jumping-off point for people that would then leave it behind to progress in their careers. Now, I'm talking about fifteen, twenty years ago. I thought that SOH were using the folk scene to develop an audience purely for themselves. I thought they were bringing commerciality and acoustic rock, which I saw as "me music" into a scene that was supposed to be for everybody. I could see that growing and swamping the fragile thing that I loved. What I loved was joint, cultural ownership and glorious participation in and forwarding of the continuation of the music of our ancestors. They were not that, and neither was the songwriting stuff I did. I do include myself in that. And I know Phil and Steve, let me stress that they are fine musicians and fine people.
   These days the folk scene is not so much about traditional music, and it turns out there is room for everybody, which is fine. What you don't understand is that the EFDSS doesn't have to have anything at all to do with the folk scene. It may have crossover points with it, but the folk scene could be irrelevant to the Society, at least the part of the Society that is concerned with the preservation of traditional music.
The Society should survive whether or not performers do because it keeps something precious for everybody, including everybody that isn't you and me: those people that don't know or care about Sidmouth festival and its like. It is up to us to support the Society, not the other way around. If everyone on the folk scene did that the Society would have much more clout and power and money to take the music we love out to the wider world. People have it completely backwards. It's no good sitting on the sidelines bitching about it, that achieves absolutely nothing. If those of us that care do nothing we have only ourselves to blame if it fails.
x e

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 20 May 09 - 08:39 PM

That told her...(not)
Lizzie, the world of traditional music was certainly nothing less than welcoming to me, with my at best partial knowledge and understanding and my cultural differences. Neither the music, nor its main proponents at any time sought to exclude me, indeed they have been generous to me and others. I have many real, and personal, examples to support this view. And if occasionally some club organiser "sorry, you're not traditional" to me, who am I to dictate their likes and dislikes? We let each other be and move on. But the latter are few, and none ever excluded me from anything other than their own listening pleasure - fair dos.

There are no differences except those we ourselves choose to introduce through our perceptions and our comparisons. This is why I dislike "list threads" (The best this or the greatest that), they prove nothing and only introduce division. Both peppers and tomatoes are good, in music as well as anywhere else.

And they're just two of the daily five!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 20 May 09 - 07:19 PM

"Lizzie, what you don't understand here is that there are two games in play, and a fair bit of what you care about has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the EFDSS. You are wrong. Misguided. Love what you love, but don't tell cucumbers to be radiators because it ain't gonna happen. I am very proud to be a part of the new organisation; i do have to say though as well that the the old one was very good to me too, giving me full access and encouragement in the library when I was starting out."


Eliza, I've *always* understood that there were two games in play. But to me, that's been the very problem itself.

Traditional music has always been a small world. There are many within it to this day who want it to remain that way. It is seen by many, I think, as a closed world, an unwelcoming one, a somewhat supercilious one too. It has a bad reputation 'out here'.

There are many on these threads and on the BBC too, a few in particular, who have done more damage to traditional music, than anything else, with their hatred spewing out. Why? Why has that happened? Why does it still happen? It doesn't happen in the USA or Canada, but in English music it's rife.

My point about Walter, whilst not intentionally meaning to upset anyone in my somewhat light-hearted way of speaking further up this thread, was about how some musicians are not deemed 'good enough' for the traditional 'world'

I fell into this world because of Show of Hands. No-one else.

I fast discovered many other wonderful musicians and singers along the way, and have written thousands of words about the music I love.
However, throughout my journey, there has been an incandescant hatred surrounding me, purely because I loved the 'wrong type' of folk music. Why?

I don't want two games in play, nor musical rails running parallel along the track, never, ever meeting. I want those rails to join, with an equal amount of respect on both sides for what comes out of it all.

'Pure' anything is wrong.

You, Eliza, have fought perhaps harder than many, to change that all around. When I watch 'The Imagined Village' it warms my heart, not just from the beauty of the music, but for the unison of many cultures into one. I sent this...

The Imagined Village - Cold Haily Rainy Night

...to a friend on the other side of the world recently. They came back saying it had brought tears, within seconds of hearing the music starting..moving them deeply.

Well, it does that to me too.

Tell me though, what is the difference in that, and seeing The Oysterband with Show of Hands and their various guests performing traditional music?

None.

You are ALL *incredibly* talented musicians...and as Steve Knightley rightly says, music is what you 'do'. However, I disagree with what he says about Walter and the other singers of that era...because ALL of you ARE the music. You ALL have the music flowing through you, it is what you ALL are.

That gift, that love of music, that passion, does NOT just belong to Walter, Harry, the 2 Bobs, or Sam...It belongs to ALL of you.

What has incensed me ever since the day I wrote my first ever words about Show of Hands, has been the terrible attacks upon them, first as musicians, then as people, particularly Steve. It was wrong, it always has been. Because of that, I learnt to fight for the music. Fight for it in a similar way that you have all your life, because my battle was fought with passion.

It becamse terribly important to me. For a while, it took over my life, I could think of little else..and how I LOVED to write about it, but those who so loathe Show of Hands fought their own battle, with a passion that equalled mine, then outran it. They won their battle in some parts of the internet. Do you know why? Because their battle was fought with hatred.

Eliza, the one thing I have never understood, is why there is such a division of the music. Why is there such hatred spewed out to others? Why is there this terrible, condescending attitude that abounds, to this day?

It ceased to be just about Show of Hands, a long time back.   

Nearly all the music I have loved has almost always been derided, made fun of, spat on verbally..as can be seen in the SoH and Bellowhead thread. I recall the problems with a certain band at Sidmouth a few years back, when a HUGE amount of upset was caused to the very man who SAVED Sidmouth. A kind, hard working man who gave his all and risked a financial fortune to save that festival...yet he was spoken of appallingly by one of the very people on here who has treated musicians in the same way.

Why? WHY the hatred, always the hatred? Why?

It's shite.

You, Eliza, along with others, have the power to change so very much. You have that power because of the passion you have for the music. I very much hope that you help to take the EFDSS away from the image it has in the eyes of many, of a fuddy duddy world, inhabited by those who don't want to include, merely to exclude and belittle others.

I really DO hope that Ian Anderson does his bit to heal the wounds that have been left to ooze their poison for so many years, because hey, we are all getting older...and I'd LOVE to see a folk world that is large, strong and UNITED, long before the time your little girl grows up to be on those festival stages. I hope she has the freedom to sing alongside the acoustic rock singer songwriters, or traditional singers, or rock stars, rap, hip hop, whoever, without being derided for it because by then all will have come to accept one another on an equal footing, happily and willingly.

The only games I want to see in the folk world are....Jeux Sans Frontieres.



>>>"...Love what you love, but don't tell cucumbers to be radiators because it ain't gonna happen...."<<<


Ah, but if a cucumber is left on a radiator, a radiator that has warmth flowing through it, then soon the cucumber will melt all over the radiator, bringing new colour and scent to a surface that so many had never even noticed was there, giving life to a talking point, to something so special that others want to place their cucumbers on their radiators (if you'll pardon the expression and ignore the images that go with that) ;0) ....

And that will bring forth a whole new era of green, organic and orgasmic music.


:0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: irishenglish
Date: 20 May 09 - 01:22 PM

Great story Eliza. It just strikes me as apples to oranges Lizzie with regards to someone like Walter Pardon versus SOH. The Clancy Brothers brought their brand of Irish folk to thousands as well in the 50's, but for every Liam Clancy, there was a Seamus Ennis or Micho Russell right there with them, not selling out Carnegie Hall. This music should never, ever be about a popularity contest, or records sold comparison. Now to the fabulous Ms. Carthy, I wonder who else came around in your early days?!

Cheers

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,eliza c
Date: 20 May 09 - 01:10 PM

Walter was a lovely man. My parents have a recording of him when he was staying at our house once when i was little, telling a story, and halfway through he stops and says "oh eliza!' because i'd been sitting on his knee and had stuck one of my fingers right up his nose while he was talking.
Apart from that, he was a beautiful singer and a lovely friend, and i will always regret not making his funeral because my little red car broke down in the middle of Norfolk somewhere and the RAC would only take me home, not to where i was going and then home.
Lizzie, what you don't understand here is that there are two games in play, and a fair bit of what you care about has nothing, NOTHING, to do with the EFDSS. You are wrong. Misguided. Love what you love, but don't tell cucumbers to be radiators because it ain't gonna happen. I am very proud to be a part of the new organisation; i do have to say though as well that the the old one was very good to me too, giving me full access and encouragement in the library when I was starting out.
e

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 May 09 - 12:26 PM

I think you'll find them...

Exactly! They're the few who talk up a really good gig...

No idea who you're talking about. Not a single name comes to mind. They sound horrid, though.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 20 May 09 - 11:41 AM

Isn't that just delusions of adequacy rather than navel gazing?

It's all wurds really and not worth wasting good drinking time on!

J

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 20 May 09 - 11:36 AM

"My problem is that I can't identify anybody for whom folk IS a purely academic exercise. "

I think you'll find them in just about any discussion on the various boards (and in the real world) about "What is folk music?", "What is traditional?" etc.

Exactly! There the few who talk up a really good gig, but put an instrument in their hands.....

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 20 May 09 - 11:22 AM

From: Folknacious - PM
Date: 20 May 09 - 08:37 AM

This posted by Ian Anderson last night on fRoots:

Ref Walter Pardon/ SOH: this from Steve Knightley by email, quoted with his permission (and his italics):

Steve Knightley wrote:
Ultimately this music is something we do but with Walter and his like it was what they were and it wouldn't be even be around for us to discover or re-create without his ilk!

Now, I wonder if THAT'LL shut a certain person up?!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Mrs_Annie
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:45 AM

Ruth said:

That's understandable, Leveller. A lot of information about what the society does is disseminated through EDS, which of course you only receive as a member, or if you buy it at a festival

can I just point out that you can take out a subscription to EDS without taking out full membership, it costs £15 for a year (4 copies) which is what I have done for the last few years, though I did in fact join up this year.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 20 May 09 - 08:37 AM

This posted by Ian Anderson last night on fRoots:

Ref Walter Pardon/ SOH: this from Steve Knightley by email, quoted with his permission (and his italics):

Steve Knightley wrote:
Ultimately this music is something we do but with Walter and his like it was what they were and it wouldn't be even be around for us to discover or re-create without his ilk!

Good man!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 09 - 06:27 AM

"My problem is that I can't identify anybody for whom folk IS a purely academic exercise. "

I think you'll find them in just about any discussion on the various boards (and in the real world) about "What is folk music?", "What is traditional?" etc.

"LET'S NOT HAVE THIS ARGUMENT HERE "

Amen!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 May 09 - 06:06 AM

It would be very interesting to see the carbon emmissions figures for the amount of hot air that "Lizzie Cornish 1" creates on the internet! (I saw some figures published recently on the amount of power that the internet consumes globally & it's pretty frightening!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 20 May 09 - 04:38 AM

My problem is that I can't identify anybody for whom folk IS a purely academic exercise.

Zigackly. I'm convinced of the validity of the LET'S NOT HAVE THIS ARGUMENT HERE 1954 definition, which I think makes it unlikely NOT THIS ONE EITHER that any contemporary songs will ever become folk songs I KNOW YOU DON'T AGREE WITH ME ON THIS ONE LET'S NOT HAVE THIS ARGUMENT HERE PLEASE. When I sing Boney's Lamentation, I'm not singing about anything in my life, and it doesn't inspire me to write a new song about the downfall of Saddam Hussein or George W. Bush or Michael Martin. It's an old song about a historical figure. But when I sing Boney's Lamentation, I bring it to life: it's a bloody good song, and I do a good job on it. It's not an academic exercise - the song's the thing (L. Rosselson).

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:55 AM

I think you missed the big smiley at the end!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:54 AM

theleveller wrote:

Personally, I don't think folk music should be a purely academic exercise.

I agree entirely. My problem is that I can't identify anybody for whom folk IS a purely academic exercise. Take somebody who a recognised academic, say somebody like Vic Gammon. He studies folk music in detail and publishes learned articles which help people engage in "re-evaluation of past events" - and then goes on stage and sings brilliantly alongside Annie Dearman and Steve Harrison (another academic).

I could quote lots of other examples of people who engage in detailed study and also perform very well and engage modern audiences. I'm not suggesting you insult anybody by identifying them as such, but I can't actually identify any 'navel gazers' and I'm wondering if they are a mythical creature.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:39 AM

"Ah well, just goes to show that whatever you say, someone's going to take it the wrong way. So much for my 'temperate' side - now you can all fuck off;"

Wow man, thanks for such an elegantly expressed clarification of your response to my earlier post. I guess I'll just remember to completely ignore you in future, if you decide to quote me and comment on something I've posted.

I'm sure you don't take that the wrong way.. :-)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:35 AM

"Archiving and study (is that Leveller's navel-gazing? I'm not sure)"


What I'm saying is, quite simply, that knowing where you've been through the study and appreciation of traditional music, like the study of history, helps you to see where you are and where you're going. But (and here's the point) you have to want to go somewhere or it simply becomes a purely academic exercise (navel gazing).

Personally, I don't think folk music should be a purely academic exercise. It doesn't stop at some arbitrarily predetermined point in time - it's alive and developing and should reflect the society we live in today. That includes a re-evaluation of past events as seem from our own perspective. Whether or not you choose to call that development folk music is another debate. I do.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 20 May 09 - 02:21 AM

With reference to Pip Radish's post:

The EFDSS can have a variety of roles given the resource, including....

a) Archiving and study (is that Leveller's navel-gazing? I'm not sure)

b) Resourcing performance (ie. publishing books and other stuff that can help both performers and audiences have a damn good folk night out)

c) Recycling (Helping people develop folk arts in a modern society)

d) Everything else that I've missed out.

With reference to c) I draw your attention to an event this Sunday at Tate Modern, London which illustrates what some of the young people are using society resources for. Amongst the names associated with the event you might spot some of the young London folkies and also some from the folk degree course at Newcastle. I don't know what's going to be happening but whatever it is, it's young people doing their own thing with EFDSS support in a premier arts venue alongside other sorts of arts.

I'm glad to see this sort of thing happening.

Sam Lee sent a message to the members of FOLKLAHOMA: New Folk ∞ Old Folk ∞ No Folk : The Next Generation.

--------------------
Subject: Folklahoma festival stage this sunday

Dear Friends
        
Sunday, May 24, 2009        
12:00 - 6:00pm
Tate Modern Front Garden by the water feature / brook
House of Fairy Tales area


Folklahoma Host a days entertainment on the Sunday of this Long Weekend festival on the lawn outside the Tate Modern. Artists include Chris Sarjeant & Benedict Taylor, Johnathan Staples, David Vegni, Cosmichorus, Longnotes, Bishi, Dogan Mehmet. Starting at midday until 6pm you will also witness a specially commissioned Maypole ritual orchestrated by Folklahoma and The EFDSS with music composed for the event featuring 9 dancers and costumes by Boxbot - A truly unique event at a unique arts festival inspired by Arte Povera and the principal of art for free and recycled.

Come and join the party - bring your may garlands
--------------------

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 19 May 09 - 06:50 PM

Being rooted in the tradition simply means you know where you've come from. It in no way limits where you might go.

Although, to be honest, I'd be sad to see the EFDSS venture too far from traditional repertoires - as you say, focusing on English traditional music is something nobody else is doing.

I'm glad the organisation is in such good shape. Well done to all responsible.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:21 PM

Fortunately I've had my Dad and Uncle who introduced me to Sam Larner, Walter Pardon, Harry Cox, the sadly missed Peter Bellamy, and all the rest, it's been a humbling experience.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:16 PM

Thanks for posting that, Gervase. I'm off to play A World Without Horses.

Back to the very top of this thread, if Ian Anderson thinks that all he achieved in the EFDSS in the early 1980s was getting recognition for Walter, that's not a bad achievement really.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:09 PM

You might, but some clearly don't.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:08 PM

I think we get the point, Gervase....

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:06 PM

This is the obit for Walter that appeared in the Folk Music Journal of the EFDSS in 1996, written by Jim Carroll and Pat MacKenzie. I hope none of the parties minds it being reproduced here:

Walter Pardon, who died on 9 June 1996 at the age of eighty-tnvo, was widely known as a singer for just fifteen years. The last of the East Anglian singers and one of the best traditional singers ever recorded in England, Walter leaves a void which almost certainly will not now be filled.

Bom into a family of agricultural workers in Knapton, North Norfolk, Walter was apprenticed a carpenter at the age of fourteen, a trade which he followed until retirement at sixty-five. Many of his family were singers: parents, aunts, uncles, and, in particular, his mother's brother, Billy Gee, who lived with Walter and his parents in their small, family cottage and who was to prove his greatest influence.

Much singing by family and friends took place at Harvest Suppers and Christmas parties, but it was not until many years later, when Walter was living alone, that he was finally persuaded by a relative, Roger Dixon, to put some songs on tape. These were passed by Peter Bellamy to record producer, Bill Leader and, in 1975, his first L.P. was launched.

Visits to folk clubs and festivals followed, as did three further L.P. records, a cassette of a live performance at Torquay Folk Club, and a documentary film by American John Cohen, as well as radio interviews and a television appearance. In 1976 he was invited by Bert Lloyd to join the group of folk performers at the American Bicentennial Celebrations and in 1983 he was awarded a Gold Badge by the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

All this, of course, is well documented and the consistently good reviews of recordings and appearances reveal the high esteem in which he was held. Walter's very large repertoire ranged through classic ballads, love songs, songs of the sea, music-hall songs, bawdy songs, songs popular in his youth (learned via a wind-up gramophone) and early Agricultural Union songs.

Walter's generosity with his material was outstanding, as was his appreciation of its worth, and his understanding of the different genres of song and their provenance gave the lie to the all-too-popular myth of the 'simple countryman' unable to distinguish between them. Walter's quiet integrity, strong musical sense (he played melodeon and a little on the fiddle), love for and complete involvement with his material, all contributed to the overall mastery of his craft that made him unique as a singer.

He was entirely professional in his approach to performance; he had great respect for the songs and always gave of his best. When, at the age of seventy-five, he felt that it was getting harder (and therefore more tiring) for him to reach that high standard, he decided to stop singing in public. And Walter was always a man of decision. It was yes or no - no um-ing and ah-ing!

His prodigious memory was not confined to songs; he could relate incidents that occurred throughout his life and information and events related by his elders as if they had happened yesterday. He could keep his listeners entranced for hours with stories of local people, old Norfolk sayings and dialect words, and even the names of all the old fields in the area (long gone, of course).

Walter read avidly, Thomas Hardy being an especial favourite. After receiving a copy of Hardy's complete poems from John Amis following a BBC World Service interview, he put a tune to and sang to us 'The Tramp Woman's Tragedy'. Although he managed to complete from texts some half-known songs in later years, this seems to be the only time he learned a new one. We know that he was writing out song texts back in 1948, but the fact that very few of his large body of songs were heard until he was about sixty years old is quite astounding.

Walter's natural ease of manner, modesty, sense of humour and thoughtful conversation made him a wonderful companion. He will be greatly missed, for these qualities and as a fine exponent of traditional singing style. He leaves a legacy of song that has entertained and enriched us over the last two decades and we can only be grateful that he allowed so much of it to be recorded.

Walter always regretted that he had never met Harry Cox or Sam Larner, particularly Sam. What a grand old sing-song must be going on right now!

And this is Roy Palmer's entry for Walter in the DNB (which doesn't yet have entries for some of the other acts championed on this thread):

Pardon, Walter William (1914–1996), carpenter and folk-singer, was born on 4 March 1914 at Hall Lane, Knapton, Norfolk, the only child of Thomas Pardon (1877–1957), farmworker, and his wife, Emily, née Gee (1874–1953). He was educated at the local elementary school. After an apprenticeship, begun at the age of fourteen, in the neighbouring village of Paston, he became a carpenter, and was so employed (even during his four years' army service in the Second World War) until his retirement at the age of sixty-five. He lived in Knapton throughout his life, except during his army service.

Pardon's life would have been unremarkable but for his emergence in 1975 as an outstanding traditional singer with the issue of a solo unaccompanied long-playing record, A Proper Sort. This came about after a cousin, Roger Dixon, persuaded him to record some of his songs on a tape and then forwarded it to a young revival folk-singer, Peter Bellamy. From Bellamy it went to Bill Leader, then running a small record company specializing in traditional song, who immediately recognized the quality of Pardon's singing and the interest of his repertory.

Pardon's style and songs came from various members of his family, and especially from his uncle, Billy Gee (b. 1867), who had in turn learned a good deal from his father, Pardon's maternal grandfather, Thomas Gee (b. 1827). Billy Gee sang in public houses, but family singing became gradually restricted to occasions such as church and harvest suppers and Christmas parties. When these ended, so did the singing. In Pardon's view, people of his generation turned away from traditional songs: 'They didn't want anything to do with them. Thought they were old-fashioned. They wanted modern things, didn't like the old-fashioned ways' (Yates, disc notes, 3). He set out to keep them alive in his memory by playing through the tunes on a melodeon during his solitary Saturday nights, seated on the stairs of his house, so that the sound did not travel too far. When his repertory came to be fully recorded, some 180 items emerged: traditional ballads, music-hall compositions, Victorian tear-jerkers, bawdy pieces, broadside romances, and songs of the sea and countryside, the latter including anthems from the agricultural workers' union struggles of the early twentieth century: as a boy, Pardon heard the campaigner (later MP) George Edwards speak from the back of a farm wagon.

Such riches led to further LPs, Our Side of the Baulk (1977), A Country Life (1982), and Bright Golden Store (1983). Some of Pardon's songs were transcribed, and printed in anthologies; he appeared in folk clubs and at folk festivals. In 1976 he performed in America with other British singers for the bicentennial celebrations, and in 1983 he received the English Folk Dance and Song Society's coveted gold badge.

As a singer Pardon was quiet, even slightly introspective. He would begin a song in a gentle, thoughtful way, and draw in listeners, almost as if by enchantment. He allied sure musical instinct with excellent diction and first-class memory. A quiet, modest, and intelligent man, he read avidly—Dickens and Hardy for preference. When at the age of seventy-five he decided that his powers were on the wane, he gave up singing in public. He died at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, Norwich, on 9 June 1996, and was buried in St Nicholas's churchyard at Swafield, Norfolk, on 17 June. He was unmarried.

Interest in Pardon's singing continued after his death. In 2000 further recordings were issued in the form of a double and a single CD, respectively entitled Put a Bit of Powder on it, Father and A World without Horses. These confirmed A. L. Lloyd's earlier assessment of Pardon's qualities as 'a fine feeling for the sense of the words, a deep musicality, and that delicate balance of style between the solid traditional and the personal fanciful that is the mark of the true folk singer'. For Lloyd, he was 'the pick of the bunch' (Lloyd, 'Walter Pardon').

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:57 PM

"Leveller, personally I don't see singing Trad. Songs or acknowledging their sources as 'navel gazing'? Not sure, but based on the context of my prior post, that's what your post sorta seems to imply?"

Oh dear! And I thought I was being fair to everyone. Ah well, just goes to show that whatever you say, someone's going to take it the wrong way. So much for my 'temperate' side - now you can all fuck off; I'm off for a pint :0

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folknacious
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:54 PM

I am reminded that some great contemporary songwriters do acknowledge their debt to Walter Pardon: Billy Bragg once recorded the old labour movement song Hold The Fort which he attributed to Walter, and might I think be the only track he ever recorded as an acapella duet.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Gervase
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:49 PM

In case anyone's in any doubt as to the debt we owe, there's this and also this. A very gentle and unassuming giant.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:45 PM

Better than me, Dick - all I've got is one wood pigeon, caught by my new puppy while I wasn't even watching. She'll be taking over from my old lurcher soon (watch out pheasants) :)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:37 PM

Cap'n Birdseye the poacher! It don't get more trad than that!!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:35 PM

while this has been going on,,I have been out with the traps and have got myself 4 rabbits,skinned and cleaned and in to the freezer,that what I call a good use of time.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 May 09 - 02:35 PM

"It's true that: "If we have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants"
But it is also because we aren't gazing at our navels. "

Leveller, personally I don't see singing Trad. Songs or acknowledging their sources as 'navel gazing'? Not sure, but based on the context of my prior post, that's what your post sorta seems to imply?

Anyway, don't want to imply that the artists in question are not creative or musically accomplished - or indeed that they might not be successful in some other musical field, just that without traditional singers, there'd simply be no revival - and thus no modern folk scene to follow it. Of course creative people will always create, but nevertheless, as I say, the modern folk scene is dependent upon it's foundations.

Unlike Lizzie there who say's SoH brought folk to the people (or somesuch statement) I feel Pardon et al, are the real people who brought folk music to 'the people', for without them no-one else could do so - as there would simply be no folk.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 09 - 12:31 PM

Dick Miles is not getting involved,and he thinks we should keep to the title of the thread :froots magazine and the EFDSS:

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 19 May 09 - 12:12 PM

Lovely post George. Thank you.

---

Please remember to use a consistent name when you post. Messages with the "from" space blank, risk being deleted. "Guest,guest" is not an acceptable user name.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Chris Murray
Date: 19 May 09 - 12:09 PM

George, I do love you - you're always the voice of reason. Sadly though, I don't think it will end here.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 May 09 - 11:47 AM

I owe a lot to English folk music, more than just my songwriting roots; my use of the English language, honed through listening to those old songs and old accents; my lifelong friend and partner, whom I met at my first folk club; and a huge circle of friends. All along I have venerated the giants theleveller refers to, and just over a year ago I also took up a subscription to EFDSS, just as a way of showing my support and allegiances. I am pleased that new blood is coming into the EFDSS with Eliza's and other arrivals, and I have taken note of the new concerts being organised at C# House with approval.

I like SoH and am envious of Steve's writing - along with that of Jez, Les, the Cornish writers, Dave Webber etc etc etc - there are too many. I like Seth too - gets a bit much after 30 mins, but I am pleased he's pulling in the young'uns. Jon & John I think are truly special, together and individually. And there are no/few voices better than June's and Bob's, in my book.

But I would put none of them next to Walter of Fred. One day, perhaps - we'll see. But not yet. There are dues to pay, and simple commercial appeal or pulling in the young'uns is not enough to pay such dues. So, sorry Lizzie - I think the comparison of SoH and Seth with Walter was both untimely and unfortunate. I have no worries that Walters reputation can withstand it, but Seth's and SoH's could suffer from it, and they don't deserve that.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 19 May 09 - 11:46 AM

Walter Pardon singing Dark Eyed Sailor must be one of the most sublime moments in the history of recorded English folk music.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 19 May 09 - 11:27 AM

"And the thing being, that without these old singers, there'd be NO SoH, Seth or Kate."

It's true that: "If we have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants"

But it is also because we aren't gazing at our navels.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Songthrush
Date: 19 May 09 - 11:19 AM

I find myself very upset by Lizzie's dimissal of Walter Pardon and by association all the other traditional singers and musicians that I have respected and venerated over the past 40 years. I don't know Seth Lakeman or Show of hands but I suspect that they too are very embarassed by her lack of understanding, knowledge and respect.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 19 May 09 - 10:44 AM

And the thing being, that without these old singers, there'd be NO SoH, Seth or Kate.

No traditional folk song = no revival = no modern folk following in it's footsteps...

Like it or not, the modern folk scene all stems from traditional singers. It wouldn't exist without them.

Such modern folk bands, I'm sure, would readily acknowledge the great importance and significance of their 'roots'. I don't know Seth or SoH, but I know that Kate sings trad. songs. None of which would exist at all without the likes of Walter.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,guest
Date: 19 May 09 - 10:34 AM

Horrified that such a good and gentle man is being made a fool of. Lizzie, do some research.
Like what you like, but do not denigrate.

http://folkopedia.efdss.org/Walter_Pardon

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 19 May 09 - 09:46 AM

Yikes!!

Simon! You've been EFDSS'd! This is SERIOUS!!   

I'll send the boys round immediately to lauch Operation Care and get you out of there! (LOL)

Look, remember Batman! He used to recite his three times table backwards to ward off the brainwashing, it worked EVERY time..

Robin! WHERE ARE YOU?????

Hang on Simon, I'm a-coming!

Meanwhile..do this!

12 x 3 is 63
11 x 3 is 45
10 x 3 is The Albion Band
9 x 3 is Miranda
8 x 3 is Kate
7 x 3 is Seth

6 x 3 is Walter (noooooo Simon, come back to the light!)

5 x 3 is John Jones
4 x 3 is the rest of The Oysterband
3 x 3 is Martyn Joseph
2 x 3 is Otley Folk Festival

1 x 3 is SHOW OF HANDS!!!

Simon...I think you might just make it after all...

;0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Stu
Date: 19 May 09 - 09:29 AM

"Thread drift - if you use electric gear PAT testing can be a considerable cost. I am told that the PAT testing machine is cheap and that with it one can get registered to PAT test things, and so PAT oneself and save £25 testing fee per item (and that includes EVERY lead...)"

You're being ripped off mate. My wife got her stuff PAT tested and didn't pay £25 for each lead.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 May 09 - 09:07 AM

I wish the EFDSS every success,I hope that they are able to acheive their aims,that they can continue to promote the song and dance of the UK.Dick Miles http://www.dickmiles.com

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: melodeonplayer
Date: 19 May 09 - 08:56 AM

Lizzie said "Pah, Steve and Phil are way above Walter...They've brought 'the music' to THOUSANDS, tens of thousands actually, and does the EFDSS recognise that? Nope...not in any way. Show of Hands are also helping many young 'traditional' artists up that ladder too."

Lizzie, with the greatest of respect, it never ceases to amaze me at your ability to shoot yourself in the foot.

There are many hundreds of performers who should receive awards/gold badges for their services to folk music. But your constant bleating about SOH, Seth and Kate does absolutely nothing. Apart from, possibly causing the said artists great embarrassment. I cannot speak on their behalf, but knowing all of the mentioned artists as friends, i think i am safe to assume that your comments do cause a certain amount of consternation amongst them.

I joined the EFDSS last year for the first time, because of the very obvious changes that are taking place within the society. I was recently involved in a Morris/Contemporary Dance project at C# House that was initiated by the society. From my perspective it was one of the most enjoyable, foreward looking projects i have ever been involved in.

I still have reservations about certain issues involving EFDSS but was persuaded that being a member was important and that my voice might be better heard and taken more seriously from within.

It is very easy to knock decisions made by the EFDSS but it is a democratic organisation that can be changed by its membership. So i suggest that if you disagree with their decisions, you join and make your voice heard.

Cheers

Simon Care

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Folkiedave
Date: 19 May 09 - 06:30 AM

I would read that insurance very carefully Vic and make sure it is what you need.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 May 09 - 06:10 AM

Thread drift - if you use electric gear PAT testing can be a considerable cost. I am told that the PAT testing machine is cheap and that with it one can get registered to PAT test things, and so PAT oneself and save £25 testing fee per item (and that includes EVERY lead...)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Vic Smith
Date: 19 May 09 - 05:12 AM

Howard Jones wrote
I've recently rejoined on behalf of an organisation, principally for the insurance

I joined for the first time recently, citing the great improvement that the society has undergone during this century. However, if I am totally honest it was also a way of obtaining Public Liability Insurance whch I am finding that I am increasingly being asked to present at gigs these days - though it is a very grey area in deciding whether venue, promoter or band could be held responsible for any mishap at an event.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Howard Jones
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:26 AM

I joined EFDSS some 30 years ago, because I felt I ought to support it. In those days the DEAFASS stereotype was dead right. It was not interested in song at all.

I visited C# House a couple of times, and found it was like the Marie Celeste but less lively, and with a poorly stocked shop selling dance manuals but very few albums. I stuck my head in the library, but with no specific objective in mind and complete absence of human assistance I got nowhere. The magazine was awful and the Journal too academic for my interests at the time. I let my membership lapse and haven't been near EFDSS (organisation or building) for years. Like many in the folk world, I was generally well-disposed towards it, thought it should exist, but felt it actually did nothing for me or the music I was interested in.

I've recently rejoined on behalf of an organisation, principally for the insurance, and discovered a reinvigorated organisation and a much better magazine. As I now live in t'North, I am still to be persuaded that it is anything more than Camden Town Folk Club but Ruth's reply above suggests that it may be addressing this and becoming more visible outside London.

The website needs work to put over to non-members who don't get EDS what the Society is doing and to encourage them to see it in a new light. I suspect there are many others like myself who would be surprised how it has changed.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:57 AM

Sharp's is run by an EFDSS staff member. I've no knowledge of whether any door receipts are used to pay for hire of the bar room but I don't think so. As I've mentioned more than once, anyone can hire a room at C# House and promote just about anything they like.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:52 AM

And can I also put in a word for Sharp's Folk Club, where I've had several good nights.
I too have had enjoyable gigs there,
But as I understand it, the folksong club,does not have any connection with EFDSS,apart from using the building.
I dont think it receives any funding from EFDSS, Unless it gets the use of the room for free.
as far as I know EFDSS is not involved in the organisational [booking policy or administration]of Sharps club. Dick Miles

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 May 09 - 07:19 AM

That's understandable, Leveller. A lot of information about what the society does is disseminated through EDS, which of course you only receive as a member, or if you buy it at a festival. The new Director of Marketing will be a very welcome addition to the Senior Management Team, as without that post, the society has simply not had the resources to publicise its achievements and objectives meaningfully. Hopefully a sound, well-executed national marketing strategy will attract lots of new members.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:42 AM

Ruth, thanks for your enlightening posts. I now have a much greater understanding olf what EFDSS is all about. Little of this comes through from the website which, as the only readily accessible means of gaining information, is woefully inadequate. Let's hope that whoever gets the new Marketing Director job will rectify this and get the information needed to increase membership out to us in the sticks, especially what benefits those of us who seldom visit London can expect for our membership fee.

BTW, I'm not trying to knock the Society, merely trying to discover its relevance to myself and my appreciation and interpretation of the genre.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:34 AM

My first published work appeared in EDS some time in the mid 60s. Both EDS and I have got better but Tony Wales as Editor was to blame. At that time there were regional offices all over the country. There was a national festival and Bill Rutter was running an international Sidmouth from the Exeter office, Peter Dashwood was in Essex, Sybil Clark in Birmingham, Tony Foxworthy somewhere around Teesside, someone whose name escapes me in Liverpool and Hugh Rippon was seemingly everywhere. That was then . . . no internet, no mobile phones . . . everything done with paper and stamps. Do those who bemoan the lack of local offices (even if they and resulting staff costs could be afforded) really think they are necessary? No-one is entitled to criticise unless that first understand what the EFDSS is for, then join it and contribute to changing it into what they want it to be. Me? I can't at present be arsed. But I've been there and tried that. I know the mountains that need moving.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Brian Peters
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:31 AM

I've been a member of EFDSS for years, but for much of that time I was paying my subscription in spite of, rather than because of, the activities the society seemed to regard as important. It was always worth it, for me, if only to support and to make use of the Vaughan Williams Library.

More recently it's been clear that changes were afoot and that things were actually happening, notably the steady improvement in EDS and - especially - the various publications. On my last visit to the House, to give a lecture in Sam Lee's 'What the Folk' series, I arrived to find Sam leading an excellent singing workshop, Paul Hutchinson teaching a class in the main hall, a number of young people milling around, and exactly the kind of buzz about the place that Ian Anderson described.

And can I also put in a word for Sharp's Folk Club, where I've had several good nights.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:19 AM

"Which prompts the following questions:

Why only traditional folk music and not contemporary folk music (the life blood transfusion that keeps the decrepit and ageing body of folk music alive)?

What national access – I've never seen any sign of it where I live?

Diversity in what?"

I can only answer from my own perspective, and am not speaking for EFDSS, but IMHO:

Traditional music because we are entrusted with the care and maintenance of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, the most important resource for traditional music in England. Traditional music because, to be honest, there is no other national organisation devoted to the preservation and proliferation of the English tradition - other traditional organisations tend to look at the music and traditions of a particular region. Traditional music because there are lots of people dedicated to the proliferation, exploitation and re-invention of that beast known as "folk", so when we say "traditional", at least we're talking about something with some kind of definable parameters. Havong said that, recent EFDSS events demonstrate that our work may be rooted in the tradition, but is very interested and excited by the opportunities which arise from its evolution and offshoots. Take the recent workshop project which combined morris with contemporary and street dance. Or the St George's Day event, which featured songer-songwriters as well as more traditionally-based material.

Being rooted in the tradition simply means you know where you've come from. It in no way limits where you might go.


National access: see my note above about the new national strategy, which is something I'll be contributing to in my capacity as a Board member. Watch this space.

Diversity: what it says on the tin. EFDSS works with a range of cultural and social groups and acknowledges all of England's traditions, not just indigenous ones.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:17 AM

Actually, I think that Ruth Archer's post above is very germane.

That's why it was signed Adolph??

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 May 09 - 06:03 AM

Actually, I think that Ruth Archer's post above is very germane.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,guest mattkeen
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:58 AM

EFDSS is going through an exciting time and , IMO, is becoming increasingly relevant for all the reasons Ruth has outlined and for the ones highlighted by Ian's last paragraph

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: GUEST,Squiggle
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:53 AM

Two points :-

i) Congratulations on a thread derailed by the usual suspects after only one post. A new record score!

ii) Paul Davenport also deserves a lot of credit for his stewardship of EDS before Derek, and I agree that the magazine gets better and better.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Stu
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:53 AM

I joined the EFDSS a couple of years ago and wanting to give something back I immediately offered my services as a Motion and Graphic Designer free of charge. I even offered to start digitising the library free of charge whilst running my own business so it could be made available online to the everyone for nothing, getting the music out there to the people.

In the end, no-one was really interested so I gave up. I can't afford the membership at the moment and it's all in London anyway which makes it more or less irrelevant to us hayseeds out here in the sticks hundreds of miles away who don't have the bunce to make the trip to CSH or the smoke.

Anyway - best of luck to the Society, and the magazine was excellent as were the journals and the new national strategy sounds like a good idea.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:41 AM

Sorry - I was rushing (as I have work to do - the world won't dominate itself, you know). The Bert Lloyd event was in 2008, not coming up in 2009. And Rachel Elliott is the Education Director. And appointment is not spelled like that. :)


Adolf

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:36 AM

As the "What does EFDSS actually do?" question seems to re-surface from time to time, I'll pull up the list which has been printed here in the past, and add some amendments for the past couple of years:

Hardcore English tunebook and double CD published in June 2007. "A sort of English O'Neill's. An essential publication." - Paul Burgess, Living Tradition

Running Joak, the Gloworms debut CD, produced May 2007

Marrow Bones: English folk songs from the Hammond and Gardener manuscripts, published in July 2007. "A most welcome reprint." - Martin Carthy

Traveller's Joy: songs of English and Scottish Trevellers and Gypsies, songbook and CD published January 2007. "The most important book of traditional songs to be published so far this century." - Vic Smith, fRoots.

Treble DVD of Sam Sherry, including archival film, photos and biography, published November 2007.

The Folk Handbook, published in collaboration with Backbeat Books, 2007

£154,500 Heritage Lottery Fund grant for the Take 6 Project, conserving 6 collections from the VWML and taking some of them into the communities where they were first collected. A Take 6 officer was appointed and the project, finishing this summer, has worked with schools in London, Lancashire and Hampshire, bringing traditional songs back to the communities where they were collected. There will be live events celebrating the work of Take 6 this summer: Folk in the Park, Stanley Park, Blackpool 22 August, 2-4pm, admission free. And at Petersfield Museum, discover your own musical talents at two workshops led by Hampshire folk singer Sarah Morgan. Adult workshop on 12 June, 7.30-9.30pm, and a family singing session
on 30 July from 10-12noon. Workshops are free but the museum suggests donations of £5 per adult and £1 per child. To book your
place, contact Petersfield Museum on 01730 262601. Plus the Museum is holding an exhibition on local folk song, past and present from 8 to 27 June, in association with Hampshire Record Office.


EDS magazine continues to develop as an important and relevant resource for the folk world (as noted by Ian Anderson), including its move to being a full-colour publication.

London Links project launched to expand the use of VWML by community groups and individuals, particularly in 3 London boroughs. Part-funded by a £3k grant from the Mercer's Company. Sam Lee, the London Links officer, has been responsible for initiating a wealth of new projects including the What the Folk? series of Saturday lectures and music tuition.

EFDSS 75th anniversary events held throughout 2007; RVW event, celebrating the folk song collecting of Vaughan Williams, Oct 2008; Bert Lloyd celebration event, November 2009; St George's Day event, April 2009, featuring new folk artists. Plus a whole programme of regular concerts including artists such as Jim Moray and the Shee.

EFDSS-sponsored film screenings, talks and workshops at festivals including Sidmouth and Whitby, 2007 - 2008. Festival sponsorship of activity and showcases of music by young and traditional artists at Cambridge, Sidmouth and Furness folk festivals, 2009.

Living Song - A joint initiative devised by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) and Royal College of Music Junior Department (RCMJD) celebrating the English Folk Song as a living, evolving tradition, and coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Vaughan Williams' death. Young composers and singers from Chamber Choir were participated in a workshop with Sam Lee, EFDSS's London Links Officer, and accessed resources at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House. Three student composers worked directly from source material, just as Vaughan Williams did a century ago, to create new work based on folk melody and text. Performed (alongside Vaughan Williams folk song settings) by RCMJD Chamber Choir directed by Joy Hill in December 2008 at Imperial College, London.

There are a number of other projects in the pipeline, including a national Olympics project in partnership with the Joint Morris Organisations which will get hundreds, if not thousands, of children across the country morris dancing.

The development of a new national strategy for 2010.

Appointment of Katy Spicer, new Chief Executive, and Rachel Elliott 2008. Appopintment of new Director of Marketing, summer 2009 (at which point members of the board will hopefully be able to stop making posts like this!)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 18 May 09 - 05:29 AM

I joined EFDSS [for the first time in my life] last year - it was the tune book Hardcore English and republication of the Great Northern Tunebook that made me suspect that, after 30 years of effective irrelevance, EFDSS had actually turned a corner.

To reiterate what IAA said in the article quoted in the OP, Derek Schofield has absolutely transmogrified the magazine English Dance & Song out of all recognition - the first time I saw a modern copy I was genuinely suprised it had colour printing and a decent layout, let alone content worth reading, my expectations from previous contacts with ED&S were so low.

To this long-time EFDSS cynic it looks like EFDSS has, at long last, stopped being a Stuckist clique arguing about little more than the physical fabric of 2 Regents Park Road and monthly tea-dances in the Harpenden area. Interesting one-off publications and hopefully more to come, a decent quarterly magazine, support for the new initiatives in widening access to the VWML, are all positives in my book and worthy of my money & support.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:53 AM

When it comes to taking hall bookings, the EFDSS does not (as far as I am aware) discriminate against any genre of music (though I'd like to assume that they'd turn down a Nick Griffin come-all-ye).

Both Song Links (celebrations of English Traditional songs and their American / Australian variants) launches took place there, a session for the British Bluegrass Association, the Paphides / St Etienne series of concerts with 80s "stars" like Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, the Lal Waterson celebration, Robin & Bina Williams at their new-agey. Bengali best and dance from around the globe have all been staged there.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:53 AM

"It's just not their remit. And I don't see the need for it to be so."

There seems to be some disagreement about that. I'm genuinely confused. What is their remit? They don't make it clear at all on the website. If they are looking to increase their membership they need to be more explicit about what they actually do. Here's one potential member they have lost until they do that.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: matt milton
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:42 AM

well to answer the first, I don't think in using the word "traditional" the EFDSS were thinking of any kind of contradistinction there - they were simply saying that, er, folk music is what they're about.

A quick look at the line-up for the recent St George's Day extravaganza (Wallace, Cheney, King) shows that the EFDSS is very much promoting "contemporary" folk music.

As a Londoner, I get a lot out of the EFDSS via events at Cecil Sharp House, though I do appreciate that that wouldn't be the case if I wasn't. Oh, with the exception of a few CDs and books of course.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:38 AM

"Why only traditional folk music and not contemporary folk music"

Don't get the point of the question with all due respect Leveller.

One could just as soon ask why do the EDFSS discriminate against *any* contemporary music, or in fact in fact what about non-British music...?

It's just not their remit. And I don't see the need for it to be so.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:28 AM

I'm bemused about the EFDSS. In the 45 years I've been involved in folk music it has never been a part of the scene as I know it – just some obscure, fusty institution far away in London. So I took this opportunity to try to find out more from their website. Here is their mission statement:

The English Folk Dance and Song Society will develop its resources, namely the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp House, its professional staff and its members, to:

• maintain itself as a centre of excellence for the study, practice and dissemination of traditional English folk song, dance and music;
• provide national and local outreach services that enable and increase access;
• celebrate diversity and promote equality

Which prompts the following questions:

Why only traditional folk music and not contemporary folk music (the life blood transfusion that keeps the decrepit and ageing body of folk music alive)?

What national access – I've never seen any sign of it where I live?

Diversity in what?

Well, thanks for that EFDSS – but no thanks. Let's see what happens in the future.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:23 AM

Anyone who wants concerts featuring these artists at C# House is free to book them, hire a hall there and put them on. Stranger line-ups than that have occurred.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:19 AM

"Please be loving and kindhearted toward each other, since both of you are valued members of this community"

Forgot to say "Thank You" for that, Joe...xx *Hey, get back to bed, it's 4am over there!) :0)

It's time the EFDSS changed the er..constituency then, because to lock out three of the major contributors to folk and traditional music, both in this century and the last, is total madness. IMHO, of course. :0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Banjiman
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:15 AM

"Show of Hands, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman"

Seem to be doing OK without the explicit endorsement of the EFDSS. Do you really think they want a gold badge?


They don't really seem to be within the EFDSS constituency. I'll leave others to argue if this is right or wrong..... and I'm sure they will!

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: theleveller
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:09 AM

"but try to keep a perspective. "

I agree, Richard. Those artists can't have done as much for folk music as the Yetties who, quite rightly, have a Gold Badge Award :0

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:04 AM

While I am sure that Show of Hands, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman do or might find EFDSS facilities - particularly the library - of use and benefit, I am not clear what they have done for the EFDSS (that may simply be that I do not know) nor do I see what their often self-composed materials add to the music that the EFDSS represents.

On the other hand, insofar as they interpret and reframe folk music (1954 definition) then they possibly take a part in the folk process, and we await to see if the adoption criterion is satisfied. Insofar as their delivery of the material requires substantial PA rigs and commercial resources it may seem unlikely for adoption to be widely possible.

Or, to put it another way, Lizzie, by all means like their output, and listen to it, and even suggest it to others as music to be enjoyed - but try to keep a perspective.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 04:01 AM

Peter Bellamy on the importance of Walter Pardon

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:55 AM

I'm a lady. :0)

Pah, Steve and Phil are way above Walter...They've brought 'the music' to THOUSANDS, tens of thousands actually, and does the EFDSS recognise that? Nope...not in any way. Show of Hands are also helping many young 'traditional' artists up that ladder too.

(ducks under table and waits for screeches)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:49 AM

I am absolutely not a "lady" and am able to choose those to whom I might be "loving and kindhearted" toward. I am here to impart straightforward information. I am a former EFDSS worker (and member till the accounts department screwed up my subscription) and have a whole raft policy issues upon which I do not agree. I am, nevertheless, fully aware of the difficulties faced in attempting what they do on a shoestring.

The OP, John Adams, as well as being an excellent musician in many guises, is a longstanding National Council member who has undertaken untiring voluntary work on behalf of the society and its artistic development, which is lately bearing considerable fruit. The fR editorial is recognising that.

And what has the second "contributor" to this thread ever done to further the English tradarts?













Exactly.

Nothing but dimwitted damage.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:45 AM

Back on topic for a brief moment... If what Ian is describing is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), then it sounds as though the EFDSS is striving to do good works and make itself even more of a player in the traditional music world than before. Which must be good.

I would add, with due respect to contemporary and talented musicians like SoH and others, that Walter Pardon was an original, and worthy of special recognition for that reason.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:19 AM

Ladies, ladies!! Please be loving and kindhearted toward each other, since both of you are valued members of this community. I have to admit that Show of Hands, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman are a bit too commercial for my tastes - but hey, I have a right to my tastes.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 18 May 09 - 03:15 AM

The above response (of mine that is) comes from one who found a music so beautiful, years ago, yet has had nothing but personal attacks ever since, purely for also loving the music of some who are deemed 'unacceptable' by many of those within the EFDSS.

It also comes from one who has discovered more about the English Folk World than she would have liked.

Until they move into the 21st century and realise that the above artists are even more worthy of a Gold Badge Award than Walter Pardon was, I will have no respect for them, nor enter their Hallowed Halls.

And until they stop only supporting 'their own' and cease to be like some sort of Masonic Institution, then I will also *choose* to remain an outside.

And now, if you'll excuse me I have to go and watch the SoH and Bellowhead film again...   ;0)

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 18 May 09 - 02:42 AM

The above was an automatic announcement from a random spam-generating machine that is neither an EFDSS member not a fR reader. Go figure the grounds upon which its author is qualified to comment on an editorial in one on the subject of the other.

Subject: RE: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 18 May 09 - 02:30 AM

"The only thing I achieved (along with Mel McLeod who was the only
other 'song' person on the NEC) was to secure an EFDSS Gold Badge Award for
Walter Pardon."


Gosh, is that as special as a gold Blue Peter badge?

The day I'll believe that the EFDSS is significant in today's folk world will be the day they give a Gold Badge Award to Show of Hands, Kate Rusby and Seth Lakeman.

:0)

Subject: fRoots magazine and the EFDSS
From: johnadams
Date: 17 May 09 - 08:39 PM

Ian Anderson's editorial in the June 2009 edition of fRoots magazine.


There comes a time to stop banging your head against a brick wall and one of
those involved me and the English Folk Dance & Song Society at the tail end
of 1986. For as long as I could remember, the society had seemed a quaint
irrelevance to the larger UK folk world other than in its crucial role
housing the collections in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. The
acronym DEAFASS that Lawrence Heath had dreamed up for our Borfolk cartoon
(the Dance Earnestly And Forget About Song Society) had been much too close
to the mark.


I'd first of all tried helping to change things from within, spending time
on the National Executive in the early '80s, but eventually decided to jette
l'éponge when meetings always got terminally bogged down in trivial admin
matters. The only thing I achieved (along with Mel McLeod who was the only
other 'song' person on the NEC) was to secure an EFDSS Gold Badge Award for
Walter Pardon. I don't think anybody else on the committee had heard of him,
but it was deemed time for a 'song' recipient so it went through on the nod
as they assumed we knew what we were talking about. We could equally have
proposed Joe StrummerS



Anyway, in 1986 there was a legendary and fractious AGM that I wrote up in
fR43 under the heading Doom Day At DEAFASS: Fear And Loathing At Cecil Sharp
House. The dead weight of the 1950s folk dance hordes had trounced the EFDSS
Militant Faction. After it was published - I'm still rather proud of it
actually - I got lovely responses from Society elders Ursula Vaughan
Williams and the Rev Kenneth Loveless, congratulating me on its savageness:
they described the victors in terms like 'grey haired old dodderers' even
though they themselves were some decades their senior! Shortly after that I
let my society membership lapse, and apart from supporting the activities of
the Library under Malcolm Taylor from time to time (and briefly becoming a
'Ceilidh dad' delivering my daughter to Friday night Knees Ups) I have
rarely had much contact since. Life's too short.



Well, this year I finally renewed my membership and should probably have
done so earlier. The Library has gone from strength to strength, the Society
has been putting out a number of really good new publications and CDs, their
English Dance & Song magazine finally entered the 21st century under Derek
Schofield's editorship, Chief Executive Katy Spicer seems to have really got
the bit between her teeth and with people like Sam Lee involved in running
events and Shirley Collins and Eliza Carthy as new President and
Vice-President, the place is humming. Recent exhibitions like those by David
Owen and Doc Rowe have given a new vibrancy to the building and two of the
best gigs I've been to this year have been in the main hall (I never thought
I'd say that!) - Jim Moray's in February and then Sam's mighty St. George's
event with Ian King, Nancy Wallace, Olivia Chaney and Mary Epworth pictured
from page 42, which may well go down in history as a landmark. Good news! '


Ian Anderson

Editor: fRoots Magazine


Lord knows what comment this will provoke amongst those who have issues with either or both of these institutions, but I repost it here for your information.