Does Folk Exist?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 07:27 AM

"Where in the sainted folk process is origination?"

Jesus. Yesterday I tried to approach that question in a rational and non-confrontational way (btw 'photos without names and dates' is exactly what the old songs are, Crow Sister), and in reply I get a load of half-arsed whimsy about Gaia.

Shimrod has a point. What's coming through in this thread is a point of view that:

(a) Any modern composition can be called 'folk music';

(b) Therefore 'folk music' must be no different from any other kind of music;

(c) Therefore traditional songs must have identifiable authors just like 'Blowing in the Wind' does;

(d) Therefore there can be no such thing as 'the folk process'.

Which does look like arguing backwards to deduce the 'facts' from a pre-existing conviction. Bored now. Bye.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 07:32 AM

Gaia says no.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 09:34 AM

By the way Brian P, despite some silliness on my part, I found your prior post of the 30th, very interesting.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 10:27 AM

"Gaia says when she wants an opinion from someone who talks of Folk and Linnaeus in the same breath she'll ask an astrologist."

Who, exactly, was it who was supposed to be mad, 'glueman'?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 12:44 PM

Gaia says the ones who want to turn her music into a history lesson.
Does you bum look big in that asks Gaia?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 01:14 PM

Gaia will still be around when all the silly sods here have stopped arguing about folk music and shuffled off to their reward. ;-)

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 03:25 PM

O'Piobaireachd Venerating Gaia on Fleetwood Beach, 31st August 2009 - or Old Habits Die Hard...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Raymond Greenoaken
Date: 31 Aug 09 - 04:46 PM

Hello –

just popped my head round the door to say that in the past two days I've followed this thread from its midsummer stirrings to its autumnal ripening, and I've found it vastly entertaining, educative and hilarious. And now everybody's flouncing off. Don' t stop, and don't start agreeing with each other, and I'll continue to eavesdrop happily and try to pick out the odd apercu I can pass off as my own.

pip pip!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 05:09 AM

I might conclude here that there is little by way of hard evidence for the existence of Folk. Like God, and indeed Gaia, the concept is real enough for believers who accept its doctrines without question and treat those who dare question them to the sort of hysterical haranguing that typifies this thread. If Folk exists it does so as a curious sort of Cultural Fundamentalism with precious little by way of relevance to Popular Culture as a whole, which carries on regardless. The appeal of Folk will always be Highly Specialised, as any interest in a Cultural Anachronism must be. Maybe that's why I find it so very appealing...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 05:48 AM

I quote "I have known several people who were beguiled into believing that antiquinarinism & scholarship were the same thing...... they no longer listen to the songs at all, instead they collect 'versions'.....Wars, earthquakes, fllos, hurricains & political cataclysms are trivialities compared to the news that so-and-sohas just recorded a three line fragment of 'Robin Hood and the tanner' from a retired mortury attendent in Stow-on-the Wold"
Interesting?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 07:39 AM

Who said that, Ron? Or need I ask!

Hope it went well last night; I came over feint after we took the long route home from ASDA with heavy bags of shopping & I fell to drawing a Cretan Labyrinth in the sand with my gamp (see image link below). By now the tide will have wiped it clean... So, a night in watching Frozen which we recorded the other night on Ivan's recommendation. Great shots of The Jacinta sailing past the Ferry Cafe! So - another film made on-location in Fleetwood (which is the actual location of the film) along with Bell Bottom George. Are there any others I wonder????

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 08:33 AM

"Like God, and indeed Gaia, the concept is real enough for believers who accept its doctrines without question and treat those who dare question them to the sort of hysterical haranguing that typifies this thread."

Oh come on!! I believe that if you read through this thread it is the 'questioners' who have been guilty of "hysterical haranguing". Just look at some of the weird excuses for rational argument that have flowed from the pen of 'glueman', for example: insults, evasions, pseudo-academic jargon, sulks, tantrums and his latest nonsensical outbursts about Gaia. By contast contributions from the likes of Jim Carrol, Jack Campin and Brian Peters et. al. have been measured, thoughtful and, above all, evidence based.

The 'evolutionary theory' of folk song development, as exemplified by the 1954 definition, is a concept based on several lifetimes of careful, field-based song collecting and evidence gathering. It is NOT 'doctrine' and no-one has claimed that it is anything of the sort - that is gross misrepresentation of other people's views! Like all theories it is incomplete and could be altered by additional data. Unfortunately, it does not fit with some people's preconceptions and must be subject to ridicule and misrepresentation. In addition no-one who supports this theory has ever expressed a desire to 'punish' anyone who doesn't subscribe to it and have no power to do anything of the sort even if they wished to do so!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 09:25 AM

So Jack's likening of any questioning of The Revival to the razing of Mosques in Bosnia is rational argument is it? Likewise Jim purposefully contradicting everything I say even when it agrees with his own methods? Methinks you blinker yourself by your sycophancy, Shimrod.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 09:35 AM

SO, no you need not ask, but anyway, the quote is from one Ewan McColl.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 10:21 AM

Gaia says even your insults contain lists Shimrod. Which much amuses her.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 10:25 AM

666!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 10:29 AM

Gaia says when enlightenment dicing meets creative art it's time for a new K-Tel chop-o-matic. She'd like to remind everyone they don't make the rules.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 11:06 AM

I have a friend who says that he can arrange a space at a boxing club in Chicago for a few individuals here who want to take their heated online disagreements to the next logical level and give each other what the English refer to as "a good thumping".

Call Chongo at 1-800-MAD-CHIMP and have your credit card ready.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 11:09 AM

I don't want to thump anyone, though if glueman mentions Gaia one more time I think I might be tempted...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 11:42 AM

Gaia asks Queensbury rules or cage fighting? She asks that folkies give their shrivelled right brain a bit of exercise.

Left Brain:   

Logical

Sequential   

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Looks at parts

Right Brain:

Random   

Intuitive

Holistic
Synthesizing

Subjective

Looks at wholes

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 01:23 PM

We need a whole lot more right brain thinking around here.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 02:11 PM

"We need a whole lot more right brain thinking around here."

It seems to me that "right brain thinking" is the norm everywhere - holistic, intuitive .. lazy, foolish, make-it-up-as-you-go-along, b*ll*cks. It's "left brain thinking" that is rare and that we need more of.

Now if you really want an example of a dubious theory let's just examine this right/left brain rubbish!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 03:03 PM

Gaia says give that pedantic, didactic, egotistic, fussy, pompous, self-important, prissy, blinkered left hand brain a bitch slap.

You've got her making lists now and she needs a lie down.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 03:33 PM

It seems to me that people who elevate their every passing notion into a 'theory' or a 'fact' are egotistic, self-important and blinkered.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: glueman
Date: 01 Sep 09 - 03:46 PM

Gaia says no, it's definitely you.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Sep 09 - 08:21 AM

Gaia exists in the same way Folk does; as a secondary gloss of the evidence in hand, thus is their existence of a very different order to the evident corporeality of (say) Hip-Hop and Nuclear Power Stations, both of which would appear to be something of anathema to believers in both Folk and Gaia (respectively) but I like them well enough myself - just as I like (and believe in) Folk, though I am aware of the difficulties in convincing others of its existence. After all, you can walk many miles in the Real World without crossing paths with another Folkie*.

Folk is a thing we summon by Seance; it feels real enough in the back room of (say) the Beech in Chorlton where we used to go before it became infeasible for us to do so. Folk lurks in the ectoplasmic utterances of The Possessed and we might catch glimpse of something made manifest in the shape of a spirit guide - or guardian, which is enough for me. Folk is an aspect my Faith, just as Christianity is an aspect of my faith, but I no more believe in the literal existences of God and the Holy Spirit than I do in the 1954 Definition the Folk Process, but rather accept them as metaphors for something which remains, in essence, unsayable...

Just this morning a dear old friend of mine sent me a box set which covers Sun Ra and the Omniverse Jet-Set Arkestra's residency at the Detroit Jazz Center between December 26th 1980 & January 1st 1981 in its entirety! That's 28 CDs containing all 26 hours, 13 minutes and 16 seconds of Joyful Noise!! Tonight we begin a 6-day celebration of all things Folk here on The Fylde. I am thus, in every sense, a very happy bunny indeed.

Adios - S O'P

* I was talking to an elderly neighbour of mine earlier who has lived all his life in Fleetwood yet claims never to have heard of the Fylde Festival. Not that I doubt him, nor yet find any sort of fault in this; here on Planet Earth we might live between many worlds. Rest assured though I insisted he checked it out, if only the A69 Band who will be resident in the bar of The Marine Hall for the duration...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 10:19 AM

Even as I sit here on this blustery October afternoon with my new fiddle (that's an actual vintage violin, circa 1920, bought last weekend in Blackpool for £150) scraping Old Time ditties both genuine (The Possums Tail is Bare which I'm learning from Dave Bragger's very splendid YouTube Channel) and bogus (The Porcupine Sways in the October Sycamore which I made up yesterday whilst jamming with Rapunzel on her 5-string) I might reflect on Bob 'Only in it For the Money' Pegg's words in his book Folk (Wildwood House, 1976):

I think we have to face the possibility that folk is an illusion created unconsciously by the people who talk about it, go out looking for it, make collections of it, write books about it, and announce to an audience that they are going to sing or play it. It is rather like a mirage which changes according to the social and cultural standpoint of whoever is looking at it. From a distance it looks distinct, almost tangible. The closer you get the more uncertain its outline becomes, until you merge with it and it disappears entirely.

Keep the faith.

S O'P

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:16 PM

Folk's been banned, everyone knows that.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 06:08 PM

the closer you get the more uncertain its outline becomes, until you merge with it and it disappears entirely.

Keep the faith.Quote.
in a similiar fashion to the Third Policeman and his bicycle,I am intending to merge with my Concertina and my voice.,I am not a conjurer,so I will not oblige by disappearing.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 07:29 PM

Hey! Glueman!

Welcome back from the naughty step!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:18 AM

I haven't been on the naughty step since I pissed in the sandpit when I was 4. I've been pushing my book and negotiating a deal for the next one if you must know. This still looks like a banning, book burning kind of site so I won't be stopping. But thanks for the liberal-minded welcome anyway, I'll take it with the magnanimity I'm sure was intended.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Diva
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 09:08 AM

Well I hope it does exist cos if it doesnt what have I been doing for the past 30 years!!!!!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 12:44 PM

What's the book called, Glueman? You're not the famous author of 'Paranoia for Beginners' are you? Soon, possibly, to be followed by 'Advanced Paranoia'?

Oh! Must stop this. It's so, so childish (but fun though)!

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 11:06 AM

Another archive classic!

Still keeping the faith,

S O'P

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 12:13 PM

If it stands out in any way, it exists.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jan 11 - 01:59 PM

The real question seems to be, "A firewall between folk and other music: does it/ did it/ should it exist?"

The answer "No, no, and no" provides a basis for further discussion. (So does "Yes, yes, and yes.")

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 04:51 AM

This was a good one.

Does Folk exist? I must admit, I'm less sure now than ever I was; certainly none of the recent threads on the subject have convinced me of its corporeality. At best, I'd have to say that Folk is a cultural mirage that has caught on rather, trend-wise, in certain margins of society, i.e. those localised Very Small Ponds wherein swim would-be Big Fish, so convinced of their own worthiness they must perpetrate the myth simply to remain damp.

Takes a lot of work though. You get the feeling that one big heat-wave would leave them all high and dry, baking on the dry sand for the want of belonging even though the fathomless oceans of Popular Music Making roll on as they have done for countless millennia, deep, dark and mysterious. In those waters, all life evolved, and still evolves, ever astonishing in a plethora of knew and wondrous ways where people are too busy doing it to ever bother too much with seeking a definition for what it is they are doing, and where taxonomy is a useful passion, not the defining feature.

Whatever happened to Glueman anyway?

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Mooh
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 11:48 AM

If folk doesn't exist, all those folk festivals I go to must be mirages.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 12:06 PM

its a bit like the urban spaceman, its in the eye of the beholder

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:30 PM

We did have some great arguments back in the day, didn't we Jack? It's just not the same any more.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:36 PM

We are mellowed with age, humbled by experience & heartened by youth...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:43 PM

'Like'

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:49 PM

We are mellowed with age.
you maybe, JC is still like king Cnut,
Cnut's name is popularly invoked in the context of the legendary story of King Cunte and the waves, associated with the futility of "turning back the tide" of an inexorable event.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 05:52 PM

hmmm... have you seen photo's of Pepper Pig's dad...?

He certainly looks like the kind of bloke you'd see on EDF protest marches...

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Sep 14 - 07:07 PM

"you maybe, JC is still like king Cnut,
I am not part of this discussion - I last made a contribution to it five years ago, but since you insist on involving me in your vendetta I think it only fair that I reciprocate in kind.
I have never heard you sing in public so, intrigued at all those self promoting postings, I looked you up on U-tube - pretty run-of-the-mill and unimaginative, I thought - not offensive - nothing really.
I decided to check with a regular at the Cork Club, where you were booked a couple of years ago - he replied in the typically gentle way some Irish people have of cutting the legs from under you without your noticing they are missing; "He isn't as good as he thinks he is".
If you persist in your obsessive vendetta every time you mention my name, I will take one of your songs I can lay my hands on and, , a 'Critics Group' analysis of it - nothing personal, you understand, just a demonstration of how we worked.   
Now will you get off my back, you feckin' headbanger.
I won't be around for a couple of days, so you have a little time to find a psychiatrist and seek help.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 06:24 AM

Er - Peppa Pig? Methinks you've strayed onto the wrong thread.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 08:47 AM

Irish trad and old time Country, some humour too. And I know it exists or if not a feckin ghost with below average duitar skills is inhabiting my body, and I think thats unlikely

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Sep 14 - 12:16 PM

I have been booked at the Cork singers club at least five times, that speaks for itself.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 14 - 10:15 AM

Quick update on this. Folk music has become 2 things,

A, The likes of us lot in pubs sessions playing traditional tunes and making friends across our community

and

B, A weird thing were people get paid to play traditional tunes back to us for money. Also a closed group as shown by this list

http://www.alanbearmanmusic.co.uk/about.asp

Bassically every act you will see at a festival next summer is through one promoter. Weiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrddddddddddddddddd.

Subject: RE: Does Folk Exist?
From: GUEST,Prof. Brainmangler
Date: 29 Sep 14 - 10:46 AM

Does       Exist?

Hmmmm... apparently not.