Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Hamish
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 04:44 AM

Yep: brill in parts, slightly embarrassing in parts, a couple of bits that were actually quite poor, but overall great fun.

Just like most folk events. ;-)

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Vic Smith
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:10 AM

A considerable number of posts ago, Marge said

"perhaps a production style more like the Transatlantic Sessions would be more effective."

.... and it raises the question of why is it that folk enthusiasts consistently find the atmosphere of Transatlantic Sessions so successful whilst they find their music presented on a grander scale to be something of a challenge to watch? Certainly, the performers seem to be just concentrating on their music rather than putting on a stage show on the TA programmes. Is it because the homely friends-getting-together-for-session-in-a-hotel set up is more suited to this essentially intimate homespun music than to a concert stage with a large audience? The TA session atmosphere is closer to the situation in which most enthusisiasts and participants encounter and enjoy folk music. I would be interested in reading people's reactions to these thoughts and their relation to the programme under discussion.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:25 AM

Interesting questions raised by Vic, although of course many of the Transatlantic Sessions guests are more used to the concert stage than the "informal" session.
This is an interesting thread, though contrasts with the one on the fRoots message board on the same topic!
Derek Schofield

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 07:57 AM

Personally, I don't think it's the setting as such that matters. It seems to me to be more about the performances themselves and the overall production styles and standards. I mentioned the June Tabor concert at St. Luke's, which I thought was wonderful. Looking back at that, what made it so good (IMHO) were:

1. The superb performance by June Tabor herself
2. The excellent musicians performing alongside here
3. The choice of material
4. The simplicity of the setting
5. The quality of the sound and camera work

Interestingly, I also absolutely loved the Springsteen Seeger Sessions concert at St. Luke's. If I remember correctly, there were 16 musicians playing on stage - many of them on a variety of instruments - and the overall atmosphere and production was stunning. I then saw a concert of the same things by Springsteen in the open air in Dublin - and it was just as good!

So, my summing-up would be that it's not so much the setting as a combination of things that make the occasion work.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 08:02 AM

I should have added to my previous posts that, if I were to analyse the Royal Oak evenings that Vic and Tina organise, the same parameters apply. The evening is structured - tunes, residents, guest, break, floor spots, guest - and the room is properly prepared. The introductions are extremely well done and the floor spots are carefully chosen. Yes - the setting is smaller and more intimate than St. Luke's or Shoreditch Town Hall - but the same care and attention to detail is applied.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Marje
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 08:52 AM

Good question, Vic. Do we have a problem with seeing "folk" dressed up and presented with fanfare and fuss? And if so, why?

I must say my favourite way of experiencing both music and song is either in a participative session in a pub, or in a small club setting (like the Royal Oak) where we can see and hear our favourite performers close up, without amplification. So yes, that could have a lot to do with my preference for the format used in the Transatlantic Sessions - it preserves the intimacy of those small-scale settings.

I do also enjoy seeing individuals and bands on a big stage (say, at a festival) but rarely find it as rewarding as in a more cosy, personal setting.

Perhaps it's that much of this music is somewhat fragile, and not suited to flashy presentation. Some songs and tunes are better suited to a big-stage performance (The Mistletoe Bough, for example,fitted the music-hall format quite well with its overblown drama) but much of this material loses something of its special qualities on the big stage.

Or it could be, too, that I don't like to hear a big build-up given to an act, only to find that it's something like a dull floor-spot in a mediocre club. If the BBC is going to present a rare concert of folk, I'd like it to be absolutely the best that the folk world has to offer, because I see it as a showcase for a wider audience.

And of course, that's the problem: if lots of us feel like this, we'll fail to agree on what the lineup should be, as we have different tastes and standards.

But I'm not going to dismiss the whole effort and say the BBC shouldn't do it. I'm glad they put on the show, and I can see now that last-minute problems made it not quite the show they'd planned. On the other hand, I'm not prepared to grovel with gratitude that they gave us a folk show at all. There's no reason to not to share our opinions on what we liked or disliked about it, and I've found it very interesting to see what others thought.

Marje

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: evansakes
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 10:21 AM

Here's a rather nice performance scooped up from the cutting room floor (scroll down to the bottom of the page)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/2009/12/christmas_records_day_17_thea.html

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Marje
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 11:06 AM

I'm beginning to think I'd prefer a broadcast made up of the out-takes - I liked both that and Shepherds Arise much more than most of what was broadcast.

Marje

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 11:19 AM

I enjoyed the Seeger Sessions. I also think that Springsteen did the only successful Superbowl half-time show. Being comfortable with your material, your venue and your audience has a lot to do with it.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: mikesamwild
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:57 PM

I saw the lads on Breakfast trail and enjoyed Whiskey is the Life of Man, I thought ey oop New Pogues! Jon Boden's singing really well. Then the show was somehat disappointing because of venue, sound, lack of atmosphere etc but tthere wre some high spots too.


I still don't think the non folkie public would be too taken with it.
my missus said it was bit like the InterVarsity crowd we used to get at the pub she ran, up their own bottoms and too precious.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Gervase
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 02:59 PM

Just seen it on iPlayer and thoroughly enjoyed it. OK, so the sound could have been better, and some of the arrangements were a touch ragged, but huge fun and I wish I'd been there.
And I can see exactly why so may of the thumb-up-bum naysayers here hated it, and would have haed it sound unheard, because it didn't feature hours of noodling, nasal droning and unpolished godawful folk-club amateurism.
But sod 'em - they can carry on going to dying clubs while the rest of us enjoy what we like.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: GUEST,Isawit
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 03:30 PM

But it did feature unpolished godawful folk-club amateurism. That's the problem. Never mind the thumb-up-bum naysayers - take your head out of your own.
As for Lisa Knapp's arresting performance - what about her criminal record?

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 03:34 PM

"As for Lisa Knapp's arresting performance - what about her criminal record?"

Huh?

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: EnglishFolkfan
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 04:49 PM

As pointed out in the link via TwickFolk above:

Serena Cross states
"I recently produced BBC Four's The Christmas Session, for which Thea and her husband-producer-guitarist-sometime co-writer Nigel Stonier turned up mid-tour to Shoreditch Town Hall, gamely donned Dickensian top hats and tails and immediately launched into a version of her Christmas single, helped out by folk musicians they'd never met before that afternoon."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcmusic/2009/12/christmas_records_day_17_thea.html#comments

A show and 13 out takes where there is no evidence of petulance or hissyfits by any performer only their professionalism to overcome difficulties and make it work certainly gets the thumbs up from me. Well done everyone and hopefully the production team will have learnt from the experience too.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Effsee
Date: 21 Dec 09 - 10:51 PM

..." her Christmas single"... WTF is that all about? X Factor?

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: evansakes
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 04:21 AM

You don't have to appear on a televised karaoke game to qualify for releasing a seasonal single Effsee. Even the much lauded Unthanks have wares available in this year's Christmas market y'know...

Talking of Thea Gilmore though....having enjoyed her appearance on "BBC4 Christmas Folk" so much I went to her MySpace for a quick listen to the recorded versions of both songs she performed (That'll Be Christmas and Midwinter Toast) and found something else from her latest album that might be the best grumpy and anarchic Christmas song since 'Fairytale in New York'.

'St Stephen's Day' Murders (written by Elvis Costello) reminds me very much of family Boxing Days in years gone past. Her duet partner is a voice you should know well....in my opinion this would have been a GREAT one to have done with Jon Boden and Bellowhead at Shoreditch.

http://www.myspace.com/theagilmore

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Smedley
Date: 22 Dec 09 - 04:40 AM

Vic Smith makes an excellent point; in my view the Transatlantic shows find favour because they offer an image of intimacy and authenticity, qualities that folky folk usually revere (and often with good reason). But the show puts those images together as a conscious, artful construction, just as the recent BBC show opted to put together a different kind of construction.

Both are artifice, but of different kinds.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 09:40 PM

Well, sorry but I thought it was ****ing brilliant (and I'm usually the first to hate and deride and put down corny slushy stuff). Lisa Knapp's (whom I've never even heard of) rendition of Coventry Carol was stunning. Moray's Emmanuel was imperfect and heartfelt and wonderful. Actually, so was most of it... Imperfection rules!!

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: LesB
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 05:39 AM

I finally got around to watching it last night on my PVR and after the lambasting it got on here I wasn't expecting to enjoy it,but I did. Bellowhead were their usual exellent selves, but it doesn't work as well on TV (you have to feel the Bellowhead sound). The Unthanks bleak midwinter was as bad as I expected, I'm always dissapointed by them, I feel I ought to like them cos Rachael can sing o.k. on her own, but it's this breathy over arty approach that kills it for me. Theo Gilmore never heard of, thought it was agood song & she's got a good voice. Never heard Lisa Knapp before, liked her version of Coventry carol if a bit high in the register & breathy for my taste at times. Jim Moray I thought did a good job, although he is someone who I don't normally get. I think Paul Sartin did an exellent job comparing. All in all a nice way to round off Xmas Eve.
Merry Xmas
Les

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 06:31 AM

Forgot to say in the lateness of the hour - a very happy and peaceful Xmas to all!

Isn't O come Emmanuel a hymn rather than a carol? used to be about my favourite at school, and never heard anyone sing it since - what a gorgeous treat.

I unexpectedly enjoyed the Unthanks last night, having been very disappointed when seeing them live recently.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 06:45 AM

Having read all the various comments on this programme, and having watched it again last night.
My conclusion is......
Bloody Good.
Could you lot have done better?
Must go....I have some nits to pick..
Ralphie
(Well done to the Beeb for booking the show in the first place, and to all the performers for making it work)
PS. Really enjoyed "O Magnum Mysterium" Half an hour later.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 01:27 PM

"PS. Really enjoyed "O Magnum Mysterium" Half an hour later."

Yup, me too, Ralphie, along with everything else in the 'Kings' prog.
Of course, it helps when the performer(s) can actually sing in tune, and hold a note at pitch.

Thea Gilmore and Jon Boden were excellent in 'Fire & Ice', best of the bunch by a very great deal.

And I'd go along with Pete's (Burton Coggles's) suggestion re putting 'Kerfuffle' on next Christmas. A great band.

IMHO, of course, others will no doubt disagree and that's fine, it's their entitlement to do so.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Subject: RE: Heads up - BBC4 tonight Christmas Folk
From: Aeola
Date: 25 Dec 09 - 02:59 PM

I ,unfortunately, thought the programme was rather mediocre. However I think this is more to do with the actual recording within the studio. Have you ever noticed how the '''live rcording''' on TV falls short!!