Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273

Subject: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 12:54 PM

I peeled this off from the Folk 21 thread because I didn't want to contribute to dragging the discussion any further off topic.

Here's a summary of the plot so far. It starts with Big Al taking a pop at fRoots for having the wrong sort of folk coverage. You know, writing about Johnny Foreigner, apparently at the expense of covering British folk musicians:

"Be interesting though to see how many Mongolian nose flute players, etc. - the sort of thing Froots has so selflessly devoted its pages to advancing the caree s of, whilst the people who have made the Englsih folkscene work have seen their life's work relegated to the 'and the rest' column - support this initiative."

I replied:

Do get with the programme, Al! fRoots have noted Mongolian nose flautist Nic Jones on this month's cover. Last month they had nose flautist Shirley Collins. The month before that, nose flautists The Oyster Band. Every month there are leading reviews and features about British folk artists, new and old, nose flautists all. That they also champion folk music from other places is surely a good thing? This month I'm particularly taken by rembetika group, Apsilies. Were it not for fRoots, I'd never have heard of them. No nose flutes, though...

Richard Bridge chipped in with a rather gnomic:

Just a minor point on Al's excellent analysis. Surely fRoots are on one flank among the leading protagonists of the "don't call it folk" army but on the other mainstream horse definitioners.

(At this stage could I add a quick huh???)

Al came back with a snappy response:

So these Apsilie people will be volunteering their services for free to support this initiative.....ho hum!

I'm sure you and your mates from immemorial(Nic Jones, Shirley Collins and the Oyster Band - went out on limb there, eh?)will continue to live apsilie ever after.........

This is what I was going to reply with, but the thread was already in danger of going dangerously off-piste.

Al. I sometimes think you are being wilfully dense. Why on earth should a group from Greece be expected to be involved in a UK folk showcase event?

You make some dodgy comment about Mongolian noseflute music. I assume this is an attempt to disparage the coverage of folk music from non-English speaking countries that fRoots carries.

You suggest that British folk music is relegated to the 'and the rest' column of fRoots. when I point out that the past three covers have been of British folk artists, you make it clear that this still isn't good enough for you. And shock! horror! Magazine that needs to sell copies to keep going puts artists people might have heard of on the cover. What an outrage! Bet none of the other music magazines do this!

Let me try to put it simply. We have a folk, roots and world music magazine in the UK that, despite being completely independent of corporate backers and big publishing companies, has kept going for 33 years and is still going strong. It's the only national monthly music magazine that regularly carries reviews of British folk artists, known and unknown, many of whom wouldn't stand a cat in hell's chance of getting covered in the mainstream music press (there's also R2, but that only comes out every other month, and also covers a lot of other sorts of music).

My view is that the continued presence of fRoots and its continued championing of British and other folk music is cause for celebration. I don't understand why this magazine causes such ire amongst a certain strata of folkies. Not reading it is one thing - this irrational anger at its very existence is just weird.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 01:10 PM

First, and most important, I like Grumpy. Grumpy rules OK.

Second - what I picked out - directly from the Folk21 pages - was the intention to make folk music relevant to the young. I vaguely remember a review from when Nic Jones was early on, I think it must have been in the Melody Maker because the other magazine was for spotty teenagers only in those days - bewailing the fact that Nic Jones lavished such care and skill on music that was not - and here comes the dreaded word - "relevant". It's a big turnoff word for me, betokening the intent to stop folk music being folk music and make it into snigger-snogwriter/ARSS. Now Al and I may part company here because he is a contemporary acoustic writer and player (and a supremely skilled one too) but that dreaded "relevance" still indicates (I think) a barrier, a filter, to (in the case of what he does) insert the rules of taste of the upper echelons of the relevant societies (or, if you like, the Folk Police) between creation and adoption.

I used to read fRoots. I still have some of the free CDs it used to sleevemount. Very few tracks on any were English traditional (ish) song which is my preference.

I have been on its forums. My impression is a narrower spectrum of views - indeed maybe I should say "permitted views" - than here.

Magazine-wise I quite liked "Living Tradition". Does that still exist?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 01:29 PM

Richard - I'd suggest that the only people who have any right to make folk music 'relevant' to the young are the young themselves. And they either will or won't -it's up to them.

Personally I don't give a stuff whether music is relevant on not - I don't even know what it means. And on this I suspect we'd agree.

fRoots still covers loads of traditional English/English speaking music, both in its articles and reviews. The forum is not the magazine, and in common with many forums where you have to be a member to post, there are fewer members and fewer posts, so presumably a narrower range of views. The forum sort of replaced the letters page in the magazine. Anything like that is not going to be as well populated and free ranging as a site like Mudcat.

Living Tradition still exists, I think, but only comes out occasionally.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:13 PM

> Living Tradition still exists, I think, but only comes out
> occasionally.

Living Tradition went through a very difficult financial patch a year or so ago due to other concerns of the Heywoods who form the backbone of LT, but is now arriving regularly again and maintaining its standard of coverage, with a bias towards Scottish music but more than enough English content to keep me happy. I've just renewed my subscription for another two years so I'm certainly expecting it to be around that long and much longer.

The other excellent magazine on the English folk scene is English Dance and Song, which is the EFDSS magazine but I believe can, should you really wish to do so, be subscribed to without becoming a member of EFDSS.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:24 PM

"Living Tradition" is published every 2 months.

Living Tradition Magazine website

I stopped subscribing to fRoots many years ago when it reduced its coverage of the music I am interested in.   Whilst I agree it's an exaggeration to say that it doesn't represent British folk music, and its journalism is always excellent, far too much of its content simply doesn't float my boat. No doubt this is a failing on my part, but there you go. Nevertheless I respect what it does, without often being tempted to buy it.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:30 PM

I'm with you, Howard. It does what it says on the tin. End of!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:44 PM

Spleen you just carry on, mate. Its just a fact of life that that the poor bloody infantry of the folk revival - the hewers of wood, carriers of water, providers of PA - sometimes are going to get a bit resentful of the bods in the officers mess.

Live with it.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:46 PM

You know, I don't have a problem at all with it not floating people's boat, as with Howard and Steve above. Different strokes for different folks and all that. It's the other reaction that mystifies me, where people like Al seem almost angry that it is a different magazine to the one they want it to be...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 02:49 PM

I don't get your point, Al. I'm cheeky enough to think that reflects on you and not me. Who are these people you claim to speak for? Who are the people you think are 'in the officer's mess'? Can you give some examples? Gnomic utterances don't really cut it.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 03:22 PM

Al,
There will always be those toiling forrard and those on the afterdeck and they will always resent each other. That's life.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 03:31 PM

Big Al said silly things and Mr Cringe has spent time explaining why Big Al was silly. It looks like most of the others agree. I don't suppose Big Al will be big enough to recognise this?

Maybe we will have to call him small al for a while

L in C#

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 03:35 PM

Excuse me please. What on earth is wrong with combining a liking for Mongolian nose flute music, or Mongolian music in general. No cancel that. What is wrong with combining a love of traditional music from any and every part of this world, with a love of the folksongs of England, Scotland and Ireland?

Mongolian nose flute music might get up some people's noses, but it sure doesn't get up mine.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 04:13 PM

So, I know that the EFDSS has been trying to get away from DEAFASS but does the magazine?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 05:33 PM

There was a time, well over 20 years ago, when Folk Roots focussed a lot more on British music and the British folk scene, but it seemed quite suddenly to switch to world music. In fairness, I don't think it was jumping onto a bandwagon, rather it reflected the genuine interests of its editor. However in doing so it lost a lot of its readership, me included. But that was a long time ago and it seems a bit pointless to be still going on about it. fRoots is what it is, and for the most part it does that bloody well.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Peter
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 05:45 PM

[quote]
So, I know that the EFDSS has been trying to get away from DEAFASS but does the magazine? [/quote]
You are certainly out of touch with EFDSS - the magazine had got away from DEAFASS long before the society as a whole.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 05:47 PM

Gnomic utterances don't really cut it.

He digs deepest who deepest digs.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 06:24 PM

I didn't know Al was a gnome.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Jul 12 - 07:14 PM

You rather flatter yourself that I feel anything approaching anger. Your organ does not protrude into my life to that extent.

A bit like the Daily Mail really. I don't feel the desire to have intercourse with it, in the general way of things.

I just feel sometimes maybe that considering that I've spent the last forty years on the fringes of the folk world - well maybe we should have run into each other. You seem to inhabit a glossy universe. Kind of unrecognisable as folk music to me.

Still that's only sometimes. I see no conflict of interest. (unlike Richard - I'm sort of quite happy that you're in our small corner, and I'm in mine). He sees you as part of the solution.....etc.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:48 AM

Al, I suspect from you last post you may be under the misapprehension that I work for fRoots. I don't. You don't have to work for them to find value in what they do and challenge dodgy comments about noseflutes.

This may cheer you up. Bet you can't see him at your local folk club: Mongolian Folk Music

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:50 AM

Well said al, but entirely clear how this relates to anything else you have said

Best wishes

L in C#

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 03:55 AM

The glamorous Spleen Cringe eh!

I suppose you are a record label exec? I bet you've made a fortune out of that :-)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 03:59 AM

Yeah, too right, Paul! In two minutes I will be off to my glamorous job as a mental health social worker. Of course, I don't really need to work, because of all the millions I've made off the back of struggling folkies. I just do the day job for the street cred ;-)

First I must polish my face to make it even glossier, though...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,CS
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 04:20 AM

Don't worry Big Al, despite appearances to the contrary it's not all Mongolian nose flutes, take some comfort in this instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0sErJFz_I

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 05:34 AM

'Those lyrics are so much more telling.'

Quote from Froots about about artist performing in an African dialect. last time I wasted my money on it.

Why exactly, am I not permitted my ounce of cynicism about the High Command of of the British Expeditionary force, whom I feel are leading English folk music into no mans land?

Look at the bill of fare at ANY folk festival. You will see nothing but acts that your wife's hairdresser would turn the radio off if it played in their salon by mistake. Just when are the English people going to be considered as a factor in folk music?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 05:35 AM

Spleen. Thanks for that link. Absolutely bloody wonderful. Why on earth would anyone want to kick up about coverage of music as breathtaking as that?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 05:51 AM

"Why exactly, am I not permitted my ounce of cynicism about the High Command of of the British Expeditionary force, whom I feel are leading English folk music into no mans land?"

well of course you're "permitted" - it's an internet chat forum after all. It's only that it's a bit crazy that a mere reference in passing to that magazine can't pass by without a whole faction taking the opportunity to give their opinions about whether they like it or not.

I only heard about Folk 21 from Nyge's post on the fRoots forum. So, QED, posting about folk events on the fRoots forum clearly reaches people interested in reading them! I can't really see that there's anything to argue about there; it's a plain and simple fact.

This all only started when I made an anodyne comment thanking Nygel for posting the info about Folk 21 on the fRoots forum, and politely asked if the Folk 21 folk could continue to do so. (As a Londoner who plays a few folk gigs, I'd be interested in applying to any other regional showcase gigs that Folk 21 might organise. I believe a couple have already been and gone, right?)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:11 AM

al has a point, I guess, although it's difficult to figue out what it is because he so quietly understates it.

"he High Command of of the British Expeditionary force, whom I feel are leading English folk music into no mans land"

Fantastic! But what on earth does it mean?

Hers's another:

"
Look at the bill of fare at ANY folk festival. "

Yes - try Shrewsbury, Whitby or Sidmouth although the Welsh, Scots & Irish do sneak in there - as they have been doing for a couple of thousand years or so.

Better still go to the this website
Here

and you can check loads of festivals and do what the rest of us do - pick the ones you like

Best wishes

L in C#

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,BrendanB
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:12 AM

Having read right through the thread I can only imagine that Al has some kind of agenda focussed on the editor of fRoots. I regularly visit the website and read the magazine. Not all of it reflects my interests but a lot of it does. I suppose that I am fortunate to be free of the xenophobia that appears to inform Al's response to the magazine. I like being introduced to different kinds of music even if I do not always warm to it. Music generally has benefitted from cross-pollination - I really liked Afro Celt Sound System for example and Paul Simon is currently touring a reunion of Gracelands with many of the original African musicians to much acclaim. At the same time I have enjoyed many concerts of pure traditional British folk music. fRoots has made a great contribution to folk music, certainly more than Al Whittle or Richard Bridge - neither of whom I have heard of other than through this forum.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:22 AM

Thanks Brenda,

balanced, well informed, well written, thoughtful, generous ......... but this is Mudcat where some people are none of these things and clearly have little else to do.

L in C#
With clearly little else to do

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:27 AM

When 'World Music' become euphemised as 'Mongolian Nose Flute Music' are we right in detecting just a smidge of xenophobia? I hear this a lot around the folk scene: I don't read Folk Roots / fRoots because I'm not interested in Polynesian Arse Trumpets, Transylvanian Techno Jungle Rap, Ladyboy Courtship Songs from Thailand or (most intriguing of all) The Bellowing of Prehistoric Siberian Mammoths Trapped in the Permafrost*. It's a blanket rejection of other musical possibilities that typifies a 'Folk Music' (AKA The Sort of Music We Like) purely in terms of its cultural insularity & inertia, which does seem to equate with xenophobia, or the belief (actually put forward by someone in Folk Roots back i'th'80's) that this thing we call Folk is somehow The Ethnic Music of the British Isles.

It's a complex issue, of course, one fraught with all manner ethnological dilemmas arising from the fact that whilst of course not all music is Folk Music, we still, as yet, ain't heard no horse singing a song. All music (bar none) is human; all music (bar none) is born of Tradition; all music (bar none) has an ethnic context. So what qualifies Folk to be Folk? Or even Traditional? Thing is, if an ethnomusicologist were ever to study the UK Folk Scene it would, I think, make for very interesting reading. David Toop was behind a Channel 4 Documentary in the 80s which did a nice job (I thought) though no Folkies of my acquaintance were overly impressed and saw the whole thing as an excercise in open ridicule. One wonders how Louis Theroux would get on in the Folk Scene? But, as I keep saying (and it's not a matter of saying something often enough either) it's a million country miles between Harry Cox and Peter Bellamy. One is real and the other illusory, and no matter how compelling that illusion might be, it pays to be aware of how (and why) the one thing is very different from the other. It is that difference that underlies the very essence of what Folk is.

*

I've been enjoying fRoots now for decades; it's an important part of my Essential Media Ambience along with Private Eye, Fortean Times & Wire. I've actually stopped buying newspapers; I used to get The Guardian on a Saturday but got so annoyed by its terminal soppy middle-class bias I gave up (the last newspaper I bought was the Sunday Times but only because it had Stewart Lee's review of our album in it). I may not agree with every word I read in such magazines but I approve of every word, and respect the passion, diversity of opion, commitment and Positive World View that rests at the heart of their very necessary existence. In short, FRoots (along with Private Eye, Fortean Times & Wire) represents Healthy Sanity in an Unhealthily Insane World.

Do we get such a positive World View in Folk as a whole? I keep saying Folk is a Religion: an elite & insular minority convinced of their own particular brand of (generally ill-founded) righteousness and (God forbid) fundamentalism. Those of the Folk Gene find a home here; those to whom Traditional equates with Old Fashioned; those to whom Old Fashioned is as much about ethnicity & 'values' as it is about music, yet those who are (justifiably) horrified that the BNP see Folk as a happy hunting ground. I recently read certain Folk Opinion to the effect that Liverpool Council were being 'racist' for not allowing black-faced morris dancers to dance at the Museum of Slavery. You come across this too often in the folk realms; just as you come across the so-called 'folklore' that will justify it. Go figure...

Obviously you can take this 'Folk Thang' as deep as you like really; most Folkies I know are white middle-English nominal lefties at least a decade older than I am with little interest in any music other than their chosen topic. Most of them (in their cups) will admit to being wary of UK Multi-Culturalism, and not without good reason - we have a long tradition of ethnic conflict in these islands, and humanity isn't exactly noted for its tolerance in such matters. Myself, I've always been a Cheerily Optimistic Individualist Outsider - this makes me a) very wary of Folk as a philosophy-cum-orthodoxy b) inclined to view collective humanity more in terms of the individuals that comprise it rather than by some blanket ethnicity or other cultural norm, musical or otherwise. I find it interesting that whilst in rock, pop & experimental music I regularly collaborate with musicians from all over the planet as well as UK musicians of a diversity of ethnic backgrounds, this is most certainly not the case in Folk. I used to work with a non-white UK singer who was passionate about British ballady & traditional folk song. We went to a folk club once where the MC said You're not from round these parts, are you, love? Needless to say she never set foot in a Folk Club again.

For sure, there are exceptions, but such exceptions only serve to prove rules, and whilst I can well understand the mindset that moves towards such a xenophobic world view I refuse to justify it on those terms. Reasons? God knows there are plenty. Excuses? None whatsoever.               

So enough with the Mongolian Nose Flutes, eh? If you only like Your Good Own English Folk Music at least have the guts to say so, and maybe admit to the reasons why this might be.

* All of these I've heard at one time or other.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:28 AM

I get the impresssion that there are certain elements that champion any folk music except British and American out of fear of being called xenphobic and not being clever enough to see the kings new clothes.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:39 AM

Some of us however might still be able to tell the difference between Brenda and Brendan.

I think Al and I have different concerns. I feel that Folk 21 is primarily there to benefit aspiring young-ish professional (or semi-professional) performers hunting for the acclaim and gravy train that are not there, and that fRoots does English folk (1954 definition) music and song a disservice by concentrating excessively on "world" music. My two big worries about folk21 are that dreaded word "relevance" and the rule (about which I did not at first know) that you have to have 6 paid gigs under your belt to be eligible. Both seem to take the "community" (1954 definition) out of folk.

Al disapproves of the 1954 definition but appears to feel that Folk21 is a prisoner of his version of the folk police who today (he thinks) repress genuine working class culture: the opponents of what gets played in working men's clubs and sung on the football terraces - and that fRoots are or are emanations of that version of the folk police. At least I think that is what he thinks.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: johncharles
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:40 AM

Bah Humbug! Johnny foreigner in a folk magazine, Expeditionary forces and floating boats. Enough of this nonsense let us get back to nice jumpers and big beards.
beard jumper
John (off now to remove tongue from cheek). Cheers.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:44 AM

Owen, no worries. It truly is a lovely clip.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:47 AM

not being clever enough to see the kings new clothes

The interest is in Human Music whatever the county of origin. It is Music of Human Interest addressed to the wider cause of Global Humanism that celebrates unity in diversity. I'm trying not to burst into Rolf Harris's Ram Sam Sam here, but whilst we may have our reservation about singing the other fella's folk songs, we can certainly listen to them & enrich our Global Conscience accordingly. We are only ever citizens of our own skin and the planet on which we were born. Let the differences be cause for celebration not conflict.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:49 AM

"My two big worries about folk21 are that dreaded word "relevance" and the rule (about which I did not at first know) that you have to have 6 paid gigs under your belt to be eligible."

Richard, I don't understand your first worry (might be my lack of a university education)..... and your second fear is wrong. Where does it state that an applicant has to have completed "paid" gigs?

I think you'll find it's just 6 gigs, paid or not.


"hunting for the acclaim and gravy train".

Yeah, I'm thinking about giving up work based on my other half's folk club earnings. There's a huge living to be made, millions in fact, never mind gravy, there's caviar... or maybe not.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:53 AM

Thank heavens I'm not really interested in folk songs - from anywhere - and dip into the English "folk" scene only from time to time. Thank heavens for tunes - from anywhere - which gladden the heart and don't carry an agenda.

When I was a regular participant on the jazz scene in Brighton, I met all sorts of weird characters, frequently drunk, occasionally smelly, often waspish, gossiping, backbiting, what you will - BUT - when you turned up with your instrument of choice at a session, only one thing mattered. If you could play the stuff, you were in. If you couldn't, it was made perfectly clear that you had to go away and do better next time. I remember the first time Diz Disley sat in with our fledgling jug/jazz band in London. We played "Doctor Jazz". Diz was marvellous, as ever. At the the end, he turned to me with a sweet smile on his face and said gently, "Dear boy, next time get the fucking chords right." And of course I did.

And, d'you know, all that seems rather healthier (and more fun) than the acid comments, self-righteousness, carping and jealousy I see when "folk" is discussed.

Anyway I'm off to the Lamb at Lewes tonight to sit in (paid - yes paid) at a session. My mandolin's been warming up all morning and my guitar's ready to throw in the odd Jimmie Rodgers weepie at the drop of a hat... The Harveys is in the barrel, waiting for me to sample the current brew. Hell, I might even warble a stanza of "Doctor Jazz".

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:05 AM

'fRoots has made a great contribution to folk music, certainly more than Al Whittle or Richard Bridge - neither of whom I have heard of other than through this forum.'

what you are not understanding, or willfully trying not to understand is that there are thousand of Al Whittles, and Richard Bridges - running open mics and folk clubs - all round the country. doing gigs in low prestige places for little money.( you know the sort of music Ry Cooders Chicken Skin music album tries to get whiff of). Occasionally getting 'allowed' to do ten minutes as a support act for some of the officer class.

This is folk music. preoved by the presence of folk - not 'the folk audience' but folk. All those songs that you pretend to revere - The Wild Rover etc - that is the forge in which they were created.

Not in the in Right On Performance Centre, by graduates of the hoity toity high and bloody mighty folk aristocracy.

And in our roles - running little studios, little folk clubs, little open mics...

we see loads of of young kids who write their own music, and don't know how to play your political correctness, and 'this is in a modal scale darling' dull bloody conformity games - just give up.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: johncharles
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:05 AM

Will I love your version of doctor jazz played on ukulele and guitar with tuba accompaniment. John

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:07 AM

Both seem to take the "community" (1954 definition) out of folk.

"Community" (1954 Definition) was never in folk, Richard - it was just an illusion caused by patronising academics refusing to see the trees for the wood. Otherwise, all music is born of Community - irrespective of the somewhat condescending (& misleading) usage of the word in the 1954 Definition. All music (bar none) is the consequence of collective cultural ecology and the individuals who give it creative voice; all music (bar none) is, therefore, a) ethnic and b) traditional. Folk is just a style.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:14 AM

Yes, Sean: & as I've remarked before, if every item of household furniture was called a chair, we shouldn't know where to park our arses. Folk is not 'just a style': it is a category, subsumed within the broader category of music~~

~~ which doesn't mean that "all music (bar none) is, therefore, a) ethnic and b) traditional." That is just nonsense ~~ as you know yourself when you're not playing devil's advocate. So stop being mischievous, you naughty little boy ~~ or else go away up to your nursery and play when the grownups are talking.

Regards

~M~

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:16 AM

All those songs that you pretend to revere - The Wild Rover etc

Personally, I wouldn't care if I never heard it (& hundreds like it) ever again. Still, it's a risk one takes entering into any given designated folk context. I'm not a great one for diddle-dee either, where musical creativity is sacrificed to the cause of inane repetition. In conversational terms, this would be like a bunch of people sitting around the table and reciting a rehearsed set of sentences over & over in unison.

Is this becoming a thread where Grumpy Old Folkies can vent their cringing spleens? In which case, count me in! (& I'm only 50...)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:18 AM

Will I love your version of doctor jazz played on ukulele and guitar with tuba accompaniment. John

Good Lord, that YouTube version was done ages ago - just for a laugh, really - I'd forgotten all about it. I've just watched it again - very stupid! (At least I got the chords right...)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:21 AM

no apparently it is a forum to solve MGM's arse parking problem....

park your arse here Mike, any time!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:21 AM

Go on al, I love it when you talk dirty -

L

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:21 AM

Dave sez: I get the impresssion that there are certain elements that champion any folk music except British and American out of fear of being called xenphobic and not being clever enough to see the kings new clothes.

Who are these elements, Dave? Most people I know who like folk music from other places also have more folk music from English speaking countries in their record collections than is strictly good for them. I don't know anyone who likes this stuff out of fear. Still, it takes all sorts, I believe.

I don't think it has anything to do with 'the king's new clothes', either (for a start off, its been possible to buy folk music from all around the world and go to concerts by visiting overseas musicians longer than I've been listening to music). It's just about being open minded and listening to different things, and personally I've never been a fan of resticting myself to a narrow diet.

Will, as the fiend who strted this thread, I get heartily fed up of some of the insular, xenophobic stuff you see on Mudcat from some British folkies. That's why I started it. I'm fine with people having different tastes to me, but when the folk music of entire cultures is cavalierly dismissed and magazines like fRoots who champion it are disparaged because of some sort of weird agenda about it somehow not being fair to English folk singers, as we saw on the other thread, I do think it's worthy of comment. If that makes me 'self-righteous', so be it...

I would like a Polynesian arse-trumpet, though.

***************************

Here's a clip of Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. I wouldn't know about him were it not for fRoots, either.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:22 AM

"what you are not understanding, or willfully trying not to understand is that there are thousand of Al Whittles, and Richard Bridges - running open mics and folk clubs - all round the country. doing gigs in low prestige places for little money.( you know the sort of music Ry Cooders Chicken Skin music album tries to get whiff of). Occasionally getting 'allowed' to do ten minutes as a support act for some of the officer class.

This is folk music. preoved by the presence of folk - not 'the folk audience' but folk. All those songs that you pretend to revere - The Wild Rover etc - that is the forge in which they were created.

Not in the in Right On Performance Centre, by graduates of the hoity toity high and bloody mighty folk aristocracy.

And in our roles - running little studios, little folk clubs, little open mics..."

The thing is, fRoots comes a damn sight closer to covering exactly that kind of thing than any mainstream music magazine could hope to (while continuing to sell enough copies to stay afloat)!

I mean, the last fRoots I bought (which I bought to read the Shirley Collins interview) had a page-long article/interview on Steve Turner in it. Would you describe him as being "high and bloody mighty folk aristocracy"?

And, while I know lots of people loathe and deeply resent the fRoots "And The Rest" reviews section, it does at least mean that hundreds of performers who are working precisely that semi-pro folk-club coalface do at least get some kind of recognition.

It sounds to me like you should start a fanzine, Big Al. It would feature reviews of floor-singers and home-produced CDRs. Its editorial policy would discount coverage anyone it deemed to have achieved even a modest level of "commerical success".

Actually, I'd quite like to read something like that. But it wouldn't be fRoots, and it seems daft to slag off fRoots for not being the precise thing you want it to be.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:30 AM

what you are not understanding, or willfully trying not to understand is that there are thousand of Al Whittles, and Richard Bridges - running open mics and folk clubs - all round the country. doing gigs in low prestige places for little money.( you know the sort of music Ry Cooders Chicken Skin music album tries to get whiff of). Occasionally getting 'allowed' to do ten minutes as a support act for some of the officer class.

So by "officer class" you mean those who are successful enough to do better-paid gigs in more prestigious venues? Sorry Al, but this just comes across as sour grapes.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:35 AM

Blandiver. "The interest is in Human Music whatever the county of origin......."

You sure could sing that if you had an air to it. As a matter of fact I've been singing it for the past forty odd years, ever since I was first blown away by hearing ethnic music (as it was called then).

No I'll not deny the right of anyone to listen wholly or exclusively to whatever style of music they happen to prefer, although I do wish some of them would take the blinkers off. But I will continue to celebrate the samenesses and differences which are such an inherent part of human musical culture. And I'll continue to remember that that Mongolian bloke pounding away so gloriously on his Mongolian zither, is a fellow human being, moved by the self same feelings and foibles and sentiments and emotions that we all possess because we are all members of the one human race.

And if there's a better argument than that for international fraternity and world peace, I'd like to know what it is.

"Hath not the human race eyes? Hath not the human race hands, organs,dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal'd by the same means,warm'd and cool'd by the same winter and summer...............?" With apologies to Shakespeare.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:42 AM

I've remarked before, if every item of household furniture was called a chair, we shouldn't know where to park our arses.

What a vapid analogy, Michael. Furniture is furniture. We have a diversity of types - tables, chairs, sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves. There's nothing inherently (or structurally) different here - they're just different in terms of style determined by their (complementary) domestic function. And within that there are lots of different places to park our arses - stools, settles, thrones, crackets, shooting sticks, misericords... We buy all ours from IKEA in flat packs (shooting and misericords notwithstanding) & I think our coffee table matches our bookshelves - otherwise I don't think there's a case to made that one item of furniture is so very different from another. I often sit on my table - and both of our Poang IKEA chairs are more often used for additional shelf-space than for the parking of arses.

Folk is not 'just a style': it is a category, subsumed within the broader category of music~~

Folk is a myth - it is an illusion conceived of at several removes from the thing it attempts to prescribe. If you accept the reality of that prescription (i.e. the orthodox reading of the 1954 Definition) then for sure, it becomes a category. Folk is not just a style of music, it's a matter of faith. You might say Butter & Cheese & All is a Folk Song for very different reasons than I say it's a Folk Song. I say it's a Folk Song because of its style, otherwise its manifest mastery is due to the same unique creative idiomatic musical genius we find in Bach, Gershwin, Coltrane or Dr Dre.   

That is just nonsense ~~ as you know yourself when you're not playing devil's advocate.

The very nature of Music is defined by Traditional and Ethnic / Cultural context. If this isn't the case, oh wise one, then feel free to tell me one that isn't - and tell me why it isn't. Or even one that can't be slotted into the 1954 Definition if it comes to that.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:43 AM

Bloody Hell Blandy, you've been reading Sweeney Astray again!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:45 AM

I get the impresssion that there are certain elements that champion any folk music except British and American out of fear of being called xenphobic and not being clever enough to see the kings new clothes.

I presume by "certain elements" you mean Ian Anderson - who has been fronting his own blues band for about 40 years. Or perhaps you don't count black American music as really American enough for you?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:48 AM

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,BrendanB
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:12 AM

Having read right through the thread I can only imagine that Al has some kind of agenda focussed on the editor of fRoots.
................................
absolutely spot on Brendan

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:54 AM

Spleen darling, I wouldn't call you self-righteous whatsoever. If I had to park my arse on one side of the fence (or even on one of Michael's chairs), it would probably be yours. It's not that I really care.

I find it ironic that, at a time when "folk" (however you define it) is alive and well and kicking in this country and probably in a better state than for some years, so many people continue to be discontented with whatever happens. And my old local jazz scene has diminished from what it was, say, 30 years ago. All those smelly old jazzers have gone to that great Jam Session in the sky.

I will make one observation: I don't get the point, constantly made by Al, that there is a great Hierarchy or Officers' Club or Folk Aristocracy which is a closed clique, answerable to no-one but itself. Whatever musical path you take, there will always be people better at it than you. There will always be people with better connections than you. There will always be people who push more than you, etc. And by "you", I mean all of us. That's life. Get over it or get on top of it. I was happy to be able to play with people like Disley and Humph and George Melly - and even Bud Freeman - now and then. I would have been a bloody sight unhappier if I'd had to play with Coltrane or Miles Davis, because they were the Aristocracy!

I would have really had to get the chords right!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:55 AM

"There are thousand of Al Whittles, and Richard Bridges - running open mics and folk clubs - all round the country. doing gigs in low prestige places for little money."

True. That would also apply to the artists I work with at Folk Police and other friends who are musicians or who do behind-the-scenes folky things. Most of them don't complain about it - they just get on with it. Most people I know who are involved in folk music as musicians or running labels, clubs, festivals etc have day jobs. In fact that's true of people involved in other sorts of music too. There's loads of music out there. Not everyone can make a living out of it. Me, I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to spend some of my savings on bringing out a handful of albums I'm incredibly proud of. If they break even or make a small profit that's even better, because it means I can do some more. That's the reality for a lot of small labels.

"Occasionally getting 'allowed' to do ten minutes as a support act for some of the officer class."

The larger touring acts usually have their support acts arranged by their booking agents - either someone else one their books or in some cases an artist the headliner have specifically wanted as a support. At least its not like rock music where people often pay to be the support act, though I've no doubt that also happens. Most people I know play gigs wherever they can get them - often not even at folk clubs - or organise and put on their own gigs. It's normal. It's reality. They aren't the 'officer class'. They're just musicians who are doing better than some other musicians.

"This is folk music. preoved by the presence of folk - not 'the folk audience' but folk. All those songs that you pretend to revere - The Wild Rover etc - that is the forge in which they were created."

We live in a different world. Most people who play instruments or sing aren't interested in traditional songs or even non-traditional folk club music. And why should they be? There's loads of other stuff out there.

"Not in the in Right On Performance Centre, by graduates of the hoity toity high and bloody mighty folk aristocracy."

Again, who are these people? The people who play arts centres and rock venues and village halls and so on do so because more people want to see them than can fit in the back room of a pub. They got to that position by all sorts of means, but generally it involves lots of hard work and being good at what they do (even if it's not always to my taste). Luck and promotion also come into it. I look at a venue like Bury Arts Centre, who promote folk and roots music, blues, rock, pop, tribute bands, comedy and so on and have a real commitment to supporting local artists and I see nothing 'hoity toity right-on' about it.

"And in our roles - running little studios, little folk clubs, little open mics... we see loads of of young kids who write their own music, and don't know how to play your political correctness, and 'this is in a modal scale darling' dull bloody conformity games - just give up."

And here in Manchester you can go to loads of bars, open mics, acoustic nights and so on (and even folk clubs) where these kids are gigging. I know this because I go to them. You can go to nights they have put on with their friends. You can go to gigs put on by local promoters who book national and international touring acts who will put them on as a support. You can go to festivals where they get booked (I recently went to Lunar Festival, for example, and you couldn't move for young guitar-slinging singer-songwriters). They weren't giving up because opf alleged 'political correctness'. They certainly weren't giving up becasuse fRoots covers folk musicians from overseas. Equally, they don't tend to be interested in the Grumpy Old Man folk scene when they could be playing to their peers.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:00 AM

Ah ha! Will said it far better and more succintly...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:05 AM

Are Folk chairs different from IKEA chairs? For sure, the idea of the handcrafted antique piece of dairy-maid-made folk-art treen will always be appealing, likewise the miner's cracket, but the underlying principle is identical to any other arse parking device the world o'er. I've got a cracket made by my great-grandfather in his downtime in between shifts at the pit. It really is a fine piece of work; like my folk art fiddle, made in Didsbury in 1930 - one offs, as all things are ultimately. Both our Poang chairs are identical, but they are not the same, otherwise there would only be one of them, thus they are unique. One is presently covered in hard-drives, sun hats (ha!) and DVD boxsets of I, Clavdivs and The Likely Lads; the other with a DVD boxset of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a DVD of Pasolini's The Decameron & several copies of Stirrings.

Actually, the internationalism of FRoots is complemented perfected by the parochial nature of magazines such as Stirrings which serve their local Folk "communities" and generally don't stray too far from UK Folk (other than when they feature some wyrdlore type on the cover as if the editor is determined to put his readers off). How many of these local / regional Folk 'zines are there? Dozens I would think, and whilst not all are up to the journalistic & graphic standards of Stirrings, they all do the job for (one hopes) the very best o' reasons.

UK Folk : It's nothing if it ain't local!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:09 AM

'The very nature of Music is defined by Traditional and Ethnic / Cultural context. If this isn't the case, oh wise one, then feel free to tell me one that isn't - and tell me why it isn't'
.,,.
If I get your point here amidst all the verbiage, Sean, the answer would be that this is merely a variant of the bloody horse ~~ a concept you yourself a. dismissed out of hand, & then, b. quoted approvingly some posts back:

'whilst of course not all music is Folk Music, we still, as yet, ain't heard no horse singing a song.'

I'm not going off on the bloody horse again, except perhaps to remark that I never saw a horse dance in a tutu but I still don't think Swan Lake...

Al ~ tanx. It's parked OK at the moment in that green revolving chair in my study: but I'll bear your kind invitation in mind!

Traditional greetings to all our readers

~M~

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:14 AM

One more point. I had the pleasure of seeing Sunjay Brayne at the Lunar Festival, someone who I know ticks a lot of Al's boxes as a musician and performer. All the things that Al says hold people back don't seem to be holding Sunjay back. He's getting bookings, he's appearing at festivals, he was featured in the Folk Awards young musicians segment and got national mainstream radio coverage from this. He's also talented and clearly hardworking. I'd be interested to know how Al's theories about the hoity-toity-right-on-officer-class-folk-aristocracy-yada-yada applies in his case. Unless he's applied to join it? ;-)

Here he is perfoming at the National Forest Folk Festival: Sunjay Brayne

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:33 AM

I have been tempted to join in with this thread - though wading through turgid postings from entrenched positions has prevented me. It would be very pleasing to read something even vaguely original in the many Mudcat discussions about fRoots and its firm policy that folk music does not just include English speaking countries.
I have written extensively in the past for fRoots, The Living Tradition and for that matter English Dance & Song. I have even been offered the joint editorship of one of them on more than one occasion; an offer which I turned down as I consider that I already have enough on my plate. Over the years, I have also written for a number of regional magazines and more academic publications. I consider myself to be a friend of the editors of the three magazines that I have mentioned. In my one and only posting in this thread, I would like to make the following points:-

* I read avidly (my wife might say "obsessively") every issue of all the national folk music publications and many of the regional ones that I obtain on a "swap issues" basis (I am joint editor of the Sussex area mag The Folk Diary). My firm opinion is that the best written, best designed and most comprehensively interesting of the lot is provided by fRoots. Even though its editorial policy is much broader than just what happens in the UK, I find more that is relevant about the state of the British folk scene in fRoots than the other magazines. It has never failed to meet a publication date in 33 years of its existence and it pays its contributors handsomely and promptly... that is, those who send in invoices. Personally, I stopped sending invoices several years ago when I understood the the recession meant that it was in financial difficulties and I considered that I would prefer to have fRoots continuing than being paid for writing for them.

* If you are interested in "World Music" - a term that I have never liked - compare the content of fRoots with that of its main competitor, Songlines and decide which magazine is presenting in-depth articles and which favours short promotional "puffs" for artists along with a glossy photo.

* Those who consider that interesting folk music stops at Dover and make supposedly funny references to invented foreign traditions such as we have read above in this thread are truly missing out. Believe me, the world is full of exciting traditional music - real people expressing their own culture outside the confines of the music industry of the Western developed countries. There is so much that is exhilerating and fascinating that it is impossible to keep up with it all. I could cheerfully spend the rest of my life listening the fabulous roots, folk and traditional musics of West Africa - but I won't because there is so much of interest elsewhere including the incredibly rich British folk song and music heritage.

* The real world situation outside of Mudcat is nothing like the "Folkier Than Thou - we know what is right" attitudes that I read here. Mike (Will Fly) is right about the songs of Jimmy Rogers, the music of Jelly Roll Morton and Irish dance tunes existing side by side with other rootsy music and songs at the Lamb. It will be the same at the Folk At The Royal Oak in Lewes on Thursday when Jim Eldon sings and plays his amazingly eclectic selection of music from traditional ballads learned from his father-in-law to recent pop hits and his own compositions and "I am Agency" sits happily alongside "The Cruel Mother". On the few evenings when our great kora-playing friend from The Gambia, Jali Sherrifo Konteh, was not booked during the three UK tours that we organised for him, we took our instruments and he took his to the sort of sessions that Mike mentions above. The other musicians just loved him and could not get enough of his playing. He in turn wanted to hear everything that the British tradition had to offer and he loved it.
In March, we got out of Sherrifo's beaten-up old car in Brikama and he took out his car battery so that he could attach his second-hand CD player to it - he has no electricity nor running water in his compound. He then put on one of his Shirley Collins albums.
Next month we are off to Sardinia and apart from having a relaxing holiday, I will be wanting to investigate and follow-up the contacts that I have made amongst the supreme singers of Canto a Tenore. Here is magnificent traditional singing that still exists in everyday life. Open your ears and enjoy it. Here's somewhere to start:- http://youtu.be/cWVCMvbGcPA

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:37 AM

'They weren't giving up because opf alleged 'political correctness'. They certainly weren't giving up becasuse fRoots covers folk musicians from overseas'

They will do.

Sunjay - like Lucy Ward has had mentoring (by people who have informed them which way to jump in this very tricky game)coupled with supportive parents.

Not evety perrformer has these advantages. Sometimes with great talent.

And seeing as you mention it, Sunjay could do with a few more gigs.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:40 AM

Thanks Vic, priceless

L in C#

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Phil E. sans cookie
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:48 AM

Thank heavens I'm not really interested in folk songs

Oi, Fly! Don't forget your promised AFSAY project. We're still waiting!

Me, I'm all about the songs, and the older the better; the coverage of my ideal mag would consist mostly (but not exclusively) of people doing English traditional songs, with perhaps a featured singer-songwriter every issue (we could call it No Listen, This One's Actually Quite Good). I don't really relate to music from places where they don't have the decency to speak English, because when I'm listening to songs I like to listen to the words - essentially I like to learn the words. But it's probably my loss; I'm probably missing out on a whole bunch of interesting sounds which would be to the Benefit of my Musical Education. (Never listen to ambient/electro/whatever any more, either. I was heavily into the Orb for a while back there (until they got silly), not to mention Underworld (until they got boring) and FSOL/AmAnd (until they started giving me the creeps). But anyway.)

Anyway, the reason why I'm telling you all this - apart from having nothing else to do with my lunch hour - is that the bits of the folk scene that can turn me into a massive knee-jerking Grumpy English Traditional Bore aren't "world music" at all, but imitation American styles sung in fake American accents, not to mention sentimental paddywhackery of the Wild Rover/Athenry/You Can Take That Black Velvet Band And variety. Both of which, I think I'm right in saying, Al would file under Real Folk For Real People or words to that effect.

I don't think there's necessarily any consistency to any of this. Most of us are passionate about something we call "folk"; most of us have a few things in mind as really good examples (now that's what I *call* folk), and a few other things in mind as really bad examples (call that folk?). The problems start when we assume that other people have exactly the same mental map as we do.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:49 AM

Hallowe'en, dear boy - not before Hallowe'en...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:51 AM

If I get your point here amidst all the verbiage, Sean, the answer would be that this is merely a variant of the bloody horse

Not so. All I'm saying that whilst all music is human, none is Equine. All music is born of idiomatic tradition, community, culture & ethnicity but is ultimately about the individual mastery of that idiom. That all musical idioms are demonstrably & evidently unique is something else entirely. I suspect the same can be said of different languages - and (apologies to Mr Ed fans) horses don't speak either. I accept 'Folk Character' - in contrasting different approaches to even the same instrument (the violin playing of Jim Eldon, or the violin playing of Nigel Kennedy) I might admit that whilst both are a matter of aesthetical mastery, I'm more inclined to ascribe a greater 'human' intent to the former. But you get muso tedium in any music; to hell with slickness (but another reason I avoid diddley-dee).   

How we see the uniqueness of Word Musics comes down to two things I suppose, depending on your proclivities for nationalism and/or racism. I think it was Hamish Henderson who pointed out that before we can be truly National, we must first be truly International. I also think that lies at the heart of what Folk Roots is about. Music isn't quite so coded as language - I like watching foriegn films with subtitles, rather than dubbed, to get the cadences at least. Japanese cadences appeal to me in a way that French ones don't (though I love French rap); I love watching Icelandic sitcoms for the same reasons, just as I might react differently to (say) Iranian Classical music than I do Indian, if only because the Iranian modes & structures feel closer to home somehow, but I'm prepared to admit that's a personal thing entirely. I once was moved to tears by a recital of Chinese classical Guanzi music - an instrument I'd never heard before up until then but, for whatever reason, it went straight to the heart.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:52 AM

Give in! We inhabit different worlds.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:58 AM

imitation American styles sung in fake American accents

Yo Bro! Here's one guaranteed to turn you quite blonde with grief:

Deep River Blues

That's my mate Wolfie on vocals, with me playing second guitar, doing our very best Doc Watson imitations. Strange as it may seem to you, having been brought up in Scotland and England, with ancestors and immediate family from Scotland, Ireland and England, I actually feel happier, more at home and more at ease singing and playing this stuff than anything else in the world.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 09:03 AM

I might add that the individual voices of any given tradition can be, and ought to be, treated entirely subjectively. The scope for diversity is endless really. As long as human beings are being fruitful & multiplying, there will be new people along to make that a reality...

http://youtu.be/DzahAyVvz94

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: matt milton
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:03 AM

"imitation American styles sung in fake American accents

Yo Bro! Here's one guaranteed to turn you quite blonde with grief:

Deep River Blues

That's my mate Wolfie on vocals, with me playing second guitar, doing our very best Doc Watson imitations. Strange as it may seem to you, having been brought up in Scotland and England, with ancestors and immediate family from Scotland, Ireland and England, I actually feel happier, more at home and more at ease singing and playing this stuff than anything else in the world"

I don't think you're a very good example of what you think you are, Will!

The thing is, the singer ISN'T singing in a fake American accent.

He's singing in his own accent, with only the merest hint of the mid-Atlantic on "I/ah" and "on/awn" sounds. That's so much better than all the fake-sounding bellowing buh-looz voices, drenched in an unconvincing american accent that you hear on Paul Jones' Radio 2 show.

I really enjoyed that. I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly so much if Wolfie literally HAD been trying to do a Doc Watson impression (accent and all).

Now if you want to hear something that REALLY makes this point, check out Frank Fairfield's music: he's an American who paradoxically sounds like he has a fake American accent...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: BrendanB
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:16 AM

Al's last post on this subject was very revealing. He has a massive grudge against a group of people who he castigates as 'high and mighty bloody folk aristocracy' and 'the officer class'. Who and why Al?
I do not pretend to revere The Wild Rover, where the hell did you get that idea from? My preference is playing in our band - melodeon, bouzouki and flute - and we play anything that we like, songs and tunes that we can make work whether they are English, French, American, Irish or Welsh. (We've got a set of Welsh tunes, a bit like Breton andros). The point is no-one tells me what to like but fRoots, uniquely, gives me information about the kind of music I am likely to be interested in which is why I value it. Can I also say that I agree entirely with Blandiver. I love folk music but it does have some adherents who fit into the tosser category.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:24 AM

Bugger, Matt - I was trying SO hard to wind up Phil and get him to turn into a Blue Grumpy Toad... Oh well, another time perhaps!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:30 AM

Yes, M the GM - it's the horse again but he doesn't even know it.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:40 AM

"Sunjay - like Lucy Ward has had mentoring (by people who have informed them which way to jump in this very tricky game)coupled with supportive parents."

Sounds like sour grapes to me, Al. Who do you think was Lucy's mentor? I first saw her perform several years ago when she was just 17 and she just took my breath away (and brought a tear to my eye). The simple, amazing talent came through from the start. That's what it takes, Al - talent. If you ain't got it you can give up. Lucy has always paddled her own canoe and to begrudge her the success she has worked so incredibly hard to earn is, quite frankly, churlish. And what's wrong with having supportive parents? Tony and Chris Ward are great people who take huge delight in what Lucy does. They're a close family and it's a pleasure to see them together.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:48 AM

Leveller, unless I'm mistaken, Al is actually supporting Lucy and saying that, like his good friend Sunjay, she's been lucky in having a good background. He's holding them up as a good example. Others might not be so lucky with guidance and advice and could miss out on opportunities.

If you read his post again, I think you'll see what I mean.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: theleveller
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:54 AM

Oh, sorry - didn't come across like that. Apologies, Al - must try to keep up.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 11:40 AM

Reminds me a bit of my first geography book when I was seven.
The first chapter was about about little Bombo, he was a pygmy in the Belgian Congo.. Apart from the risk of crocodiles Bombo had it pretty cool. Running round spearing things, living in a hut, and runinng round with no keks.

Little Tooktu, the Eskimo - you couldn't really identify with....the blubber diet, the igloo, the Mum who looked suspiciously similar to the Dad and the Grandad. The presence of fish everywhere.

Then every year we got the British trades Alphabet catalogue. you could write off to Australia for a bit of sheep's wool. Cadbury's sent a book shaped like a coffee bean.

No wonder we English find it so easy to empathise with cultures other than our own.

I must check Froots back issues to see if Little Bombo pursued a career in music. If he did, I'll check the same people who organised your tour. Perhaps Little Bombo and i could do a gig in his hut, and run around together with no keks on -spearing things.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 11:57 AM

The Congo?

Now you're talking!

Konono No 1

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:01 PM

Yes Lucy used to go to the same folk club I went to for years in Spondon. Great kid!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:10 PM

Al - "running around with no keks on, spearing things.."
Ah, the dreams of youth...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:14 PM

'Al Whittle or Richard Bridge - neither of whom I have heard of other than through this forum'

Can't speak for Richard, but I might as well come clean. I don't really exist. I am a fictional creation - Big Al Whittle, the private folk detective and bon viveur who first appeared in a book by Mike Grosvenor Myer 'Murder at the Cambridge Folk Festival'.

In the novel, the official folk polic Inspector Cringe and his long suffering Sergeant, Vic Smith are baffled. Superintendent Jim Carrol is threatening to take them off the case. But the case has them all puzzled - a particularly nasty member of the working classes has sneaked in and poisoned the entire Copper family and Little Bombo, an up and coming pygmy folksinger, in order to get their spot in the club tent.

There many twists and turns in the extraordinary plot, but Big Al Whittle steps in and sorts everything out with his leetle grey karaoke machine.

'Unputdownable' The Dorset Gluemakers Monthly

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:19 PM

Spleen Cringe wrote:-
The Congo?

Now you're talking!

Konono No 1

Really lovely stuff, Nigel, and thanks for drawing our attention to it, but do you know what the music in that video you linked to developed from? If not then listen to this fabulous 1952 track (from when it still was called "The Belgian Congo") of the great Baziri Teofili reciting whilst he plays his mbira and then ask yourself where rap came from.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: johncharles
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:32 PM

Big Al Whittle wi' no keks on
singing the big red sauasage song.
There's an image to bring tears to any Folkies eyes.
Only joking Al.
john

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:49 PM

Cheers for the link, Vic. Lovely stuff indeed (and another thing to add to the increasingly long list of music to explore!).

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:53 PM

The same Youtube user also uploaded this recording from 1952 of a Congolese singer and kundi harp player, Bakia Pierre. Again, it's taken from an old 78. This is really good:

Bakia Pierre

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: BrendanB
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:56 PM

Al, I'm glad to hear that you don't really exist, but why on earth would anyone want to invent you?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 12:58 PM

And Al, you need to remember that I'm just a constable.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 01:24 PM

Nigel,
Loved the Bakia Pierre clip.
Sorry to have to add to the long list of music that you need to investigate - but are you aware that both the Bakia Pierre clip and the Baziri Teofili clip that I pointed to are part of the extraordinary collection by the great South African ethnomusicolgist Hugh Tracey?
His work in the 1950s pioneered the documentation of a great body of neglected, extremely high quality music from quite a number of African countries - and working as early as 1951, he made recordings of superb quality, both musically and in terms of their recording quality. Around a dozen of them were subsequently released on the Sharp Wood label, all taken fron the extensive Hugh Tracey Archive which you can read about at http://www.muzikifan.com/tracey.html The only place that I know on the internet where this wonderful neglected music is still avaialable is from http://www.swp-records.com/ - but you are a rich, record-label owner, Nigel. Give your ears a reall treat - buy all of them!

And a big thanks to Al, for creating this very interesting thread drift. It has brightened it up no end!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 01:35 PM

Oh Vic, what have you done? I can feel the Folk Police coffers draining even as I type. Think I may start with this one: Origins of Guitar Music or this: Kanyok and Luba... that's my kind of dilemma!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 01:50 PM

Excellent. Just found I can get SWP releases via eMusic. Now listening to the Origins of Guitar album. Lovely.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:11 PM

Just on re-reading Paul Berliner's Soul of Mbira - & listening to his recordings issued by Nonesuch Explorer. Worth looking out in both cases (the book's still in print - try Amazon).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyp1KbY6R7E

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:22 PM

'Al, I'm glad to hear that you don't really exist, but why on earth would anyone want to invent you?'

Well one things certain, no f---er would invent you, Brenda! (can't stand women who make rude remarks and blame it on 'the change', when its perfectly obvious any change would be an improvement)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:57 PM

Ah-hah: the ipsissima verba, from the folk21 facebook page

"hi

I'm interested in applying for this, but need to clarify something - does our material have to be strictly trad folk? mostly mine's my own songs, but in folk style.

thanks :)



George Papavgeris It does not have to be strictly trad folk. Though we might steer clear of death metal! Go for it Sue."

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: BrendanB
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 02:57 PM

Hi Al, dyslexic as well I see. Try reading my name really carefully.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 03:14 PM

So Brendan...you think we should give you home rule, even after you've been rude....

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 03:37 PM

Blandiver wrote:-
"Just on re-reading Paul Berliner's Soul of Mbira - & listening to his recordings issued by Nonesuch Explorer. Worth looking out in both cases (the book's still in print - try Amazon).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyp1KbY6R7E"

Again lovely, the whole style is reminiscent of the many recordings made by the superb Stella Chiweshe. And, of course, that lovely rolling mbira sound was mimicked on the electric guitar by people like Biggie Tembo with The Bhundu Boys (the first modern Zimbabwean band that I saw live - unforgettable), The Four Brothers, Thomas Mapfumo & The Blacks Unlimited and all those other Chimurenga bands.

Of course, we have got a great mbira player living in this country, in the West Country, Chartwell Dutiro. I believe he is booked at the Sidmouth Festival again this year.

I was talking to Chartwell once and there was a gap in the conversation and then he said, "Do you know how I got my name?"
I thought about it and replied, "Well, Churchill's property in Kent is called Chartwell....."
He laughed and said, "That's it! My mother took me to church to have me christened. She gave the White Rhodesian pastor my African name. He said, 'Oh! I cannot pronounce that, I'll christen him Chartwell' and then he told he that it was the name of a big house in England."

Can you imagine that?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 04:17 PM

I had a South African Xhosa friend who chose the name Lancaster so he could be 'less conspicuous' & 'typically English' whilst living in the UK whilst his wife was doing her degree on the Ruth First fellowship in Durham. Happy times, we to sit around eating squid whilst pouring scorn on Paul Simon whilst listening to Dollar Brand & Johnny Mbizo Dyani.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 04:54 PM

Wow! Johnny Dyani - there's a lot of memories there. I used to love seeing all those great South African jazzers in London in the 1960s and 1970s. The band that he was in, The Blue Notes, was my favourite of all the great South African jazz outfits - as well as Johnny there was Mongezi Feza, Dudu Pukwana, Nikele Moyake, Chris McGregor and Louis Moholo. They were just outstanding - but, for me, the best musician that played in that band was one who never came to exile in England; Kippie Moeketsi was surely one the world's greatest jazz tenor saxophonists but apartheid meant that he made few recordings and sadly most people have never heard of him.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:25 PM

I can't help smiling at the glaringly obvious conclusion that the fRoots-bashers are totally unaware that one of their heroines, Carole Pegg, is nowadays a leading authority on Mongolian music.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:38 PM

I don't remember enthusing over Mr Fox. Openly or covertly.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Jack Campin
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 06:49 PM

I can't help smiling at the glaringly obvious conclusion that the fRoots-bashers are totally unaware that one of their heroines, Carole Pegg, is nowadays a leading authority on Mongolian music.

Doesn't Al Whittle see her as part of the hoity-toity traddie conspiracy?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 07:51 PM

A key member, probably the Chairperson. A bit like Judy Dench in MI6.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 08:46 PM

Think of me as Blofeld (stroking a white Persian cat)

I have zis evil plan to cut Martin Carthy's act down from forty fife minutes to feefteen - an agent of ours vill plant an electronic tuner on his guitar - wissout his knowledge......he will be powerless to mistune his guitar....!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 11:13 PM

Now that's another one that gets my grump. And you, Al, should know better. Carthy goes from one (usually perfect) tuning to another - the other being more suited to the next song than the last, far faster than most people could. And an electronic tuner, set to equal temperament tuning, would not get the tuning as right as he does.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 12:34 AM

Lighten up Richard! Actually, its the other Martin Simpson who got to me on that one. There he was on DVD - advising all huitarists to eschew electromic tuners as works of the devil. I love my Snark. Use it every day.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 12:48 AM

Mind you! I'm not a huitarist.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 01:26 AM

What's a huitar?

And how do electromics work?

And how many people can take an hour to soundcheck one guitar, one banjo, and one voice when they come with their own sound processor that simply goes into a line in on the desk?

Martin Simpson is a fantastic guitarist, no doubt at all, but needs to get over himself a bit. 1 Corinthians 13:1

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 04:28 AM

Kippie Moeketsi was always Bra Joe from Killimanjaro after Dollar Brand's (AKA Abdullah Ibrahim) piece of the same name - there's a famous recording of that which features Kippie, although my favourite was always this solo recording from African Piano.

There's some choice odds & ends of choice Blue Notes turning up of late, like the '78 of Pukwana's 'German Luger' which sounds pretty crisp. Mongezi Feza shines like the sun, but he always did. Blue Notes for Mongezi reflects the different directions they took & inspired in exile, with some amazing collaborations along the way. One of the finest dates was Witchdoctor's Son which found Johnny Mbizo Dyani rejoicing with Dudo Pukwana, John Tchicai et al - a perfect & eternal joy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QdPIPF2rjw

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 04:50 AM

==Al, I'm glad to hear that you don't really exist, but why on earth would anyone want to invent you?==
.,,.,.
Well, he sez it was me who invented him. Can't really remember why ~ suppose he just seemed a good idea at the time. Maybe I realised in a flash of somethingorother or wotsit that the world just had to have an Al...

OTOH, perhaps he just invented me inventing him. In which case...

Er Er Er Er

All too much. Think I'll go back to bed.

~M~

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 06:48 PM

Good stuff Diane, I was just going to point to Carole Pegg too!

Anyway, watch this chaps, a though provoking parable on the consequences of a minor altercation.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cekr16B4Gno

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Jul 12 - 07:42 PM

These others have been altercating.....I've just been my natural sunny self, like Mrs Thatcher in the words of St Francis, bringing darkness where there is light and talking to badgers.....

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 04:00 AM

I thought altercating was when you changed key in the middle of a tune.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Baz Parkes
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 05:14 AM

Blandiver said, amongst much else

"But, as I keep saying (and it's not a matter of saying something often enough either) it's a million country miles between Harry Cox and Peter Bellamy. One is real and the other illusory, and no matter how compelling that illusion might be, it pays to be aware of how (and why) the one thing is very different from the other.
Thomas Hardy makes much the same point about the mummers in Return of the Native, but can't just put my hand on a copy atm

He should know, he played the fiddle...

I'm glad to see the horse finally made an appearance..

Baz

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 05:51 AM

Blandiver also said
> Kippie Moeketsi was always Bra Joe from Killimanjaro after
> Dollar Brand's (AKA Abdullah Ibrahim) piece of the same
> name - there's a famous recording of that which features
> Kippie, although my favourite was always this
> solo recording from African Piano.

Right, that's my listening sorted this evening - all those wonderful 1970s Dollar Brand big band arrangements of Bra Joe, Tintinyana, African Marketplace, and the rest ...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Folknacious
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 03:35 PM

Late arrival here, alerted by postings in another place:

"Be interesting though to see how many Mongolian nose flute players, etc. - the sort of thing Froots has so selflessly devoted its pages to advancing the caree s of, whilst the people who have made the Englsih folkscene work have seen their life's work relegated to the 'and the rest' column - support this initiative."

I consulted the oracle today and asked how many times Froots has featured Mongolian nose flute players or, say, to pick a random example out of the air, Derek Brimstone. The answer came - "never, in either case." Though the oracle did reveal that Froots had once published a letter from a certain folk club comedian guitarist complaining about "funny foreign coloured people" on the front of Froots, but has never, as far as he remembers, published one from a Mongolian nose flute player complaining about people playing The Wild Rover.

I rest my coat.

Ken.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 04:06 PM

'another place'

Does he mean the house of Lords...?

When this skirmish of ideas was at its height, some lines of Auden were just beyond my reach to quote, but I found the book today - its from a poem called 'A Communist To Others'


You're thinking us a nasty sight;
Yes, we are poisoned, you are right,
    Not even clean;
We do not know how to behave
We are not beautiful or brave
You would not pick our sort to save
    Your first fifteen.

Yes, that's now English folk Music leaves me feeling quite a lot of the time.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 04:34 PM

all those wonderful 1970s Dollar Brand big band arrangements of Bra Joe, Tintinyana, African Marketplace, and the rest ...

Just been playing this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt1ZAtC9TUY

Back in the 80's my old Granma used to love this song. I saw Ekaya on various occasions with Carlos Ward & Essiet Okun Essiet in the band. Gorgeous.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 04:41 PM

Here's the original 1985 recording. Just wastes me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orRvnGkxrVA

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: TheSnail
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 05:21 PM

Mongolian nose flute player.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 11:28 PM

How long is a piece of Sting? (In this case about 12 seconds). Hardly enough to say whether it is/isn't an ocarina. This sort of misattribution gets right up my nose, but it didn't look like it actually reached his.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 07:51 AM

The description on the Froots Facebook page says it all really -

fRoots magazine has a lot to answer for. Since it wandered whimpering from the womb as Southern Rag in 1979 it has brought many folk, roots and world music artists to wider attention, sometimes to their great benefit, occasionally not! Many careers have prospered, a few have been blighted. It has set readers on paths to unfeasible musical enthusiasms and profoundly irritated those who didn't share its own. It has catalysed meetings that have led to marriages and lifestyles that have led to divorce. It has set people off on travels to places and cultures they never imagined, and trapped a few at home with more CDs than any sensible human should own. Praise it or curse it, fRoots has changed lives.

That'll be curse then.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 10:10 AM

What happened to Mongolian nose flute player?

Just for the record, the Mongolian nose flute isn't an instrument. It's a way of producing the voice so that it comes out sounding a bit like a flute.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 27 Apr 15 - 07:02 PM

refresh.

they used to sell noseflutes on the back of comics - also seebackroscopes and floating sugat cubes....

why didn't they catch on, 'snot all that much of a mystery..

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 02:50 AM

Weren't we all polite, back then?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 03:56 AM

Les Barker used to play the Lancashire folk banana through his nose....

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 05:03 AM

And I can think of places for you to put one.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 09:13 AM

Grumpy British Folkies--why, I've never heard of such a thing.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 09:26 AM

Stick it up yours and you could still get a tune out of it Bridge.

Perhaps Lennon's Working Class Hero?   You have been trying to be one long enough so some might just be convinced eh?
😎

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Still Very Much Astray)
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 11:04 AM

The BEST Nose flutes can be had here for pennies:

http://www.danmoi.com

Check those sound samples!

*

Otherwise, nice to see this again. The fundamentals of music are like LIFE itself - we understand each idiom as a species on the tree of evolution. It all comes from the same source and all of it shares at least some of the same DNA*. Other than this, by being ancient all music belongs to the future, just as long as there are people left to do it.

* If I understood that last episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's reboot of Cosmos I watched correctly.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Blandiver (Astray)
Date: 28 Apr 15 - 11:08 AM

That link again:

Bocarina - Noseflute Pro

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,#
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 01:40 AM

The coming investment opportunity is a combined nose flute/harmonica combo. Be the first on your block . . .

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 01:59 AM

why stop at nose flutes.. what about arse bagpipes !!!???

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Ellen Vannin
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 02:33 AM

Goodness me, Mr. Bridge and Mr. Musket sound like a couple of politicians at Prime Minister's Question Time.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 04:13 AM

No. Mr Bridge, as you inadvertently respectfully call him, could never be selected by a party. He supports left wing politics but has right wing skeletons in the old cupboards.

Far better leaving him shouting at his keyboard where he can do less harm. I'll keep him occupied. I know, I know, I am statesmanlike enough to be Prime Minister but Bridge needs a key worker and nobody else puts up with the miserable old Sod .

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 08:04 AM

Mither would make an excellent double for Tony B.Liar. A plutocrat, a privatiser, a terminological inexactituder. One of the sort who stabbed the miners in the back. Come the revolution he's going up against the wall, doubtless while still smoking his cigar and in his astrakhan overcoat.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 10:56 AM

I'm glad you know what an astrakhan overcoat is Bridge.. Buggered if I do.

Tell you what, if you are in charge, I'll grease the rifles for them, make sure none of them have a blank up the spout and tie my own blindfold...

I wouldn't have the cigar though. Not good for my health, and anyway, what do you think I am, a solicitor?
😎

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,#
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 11:09 AM

Read 'The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton' (by Sir ACD) wherein is mentioned an astrakhan overcoat.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 12:19 PM

"astrakhan... sounds like a classic era Dr Who evil genius or monster species...???

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 01:56 PM

Possibly from when he collected gentleman's jackets for them at his local con club...

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Apr 15 - 09:52 PM

You can be surprisingly ignorant at times Mither. Still pretending to have a flat cap and a whippet?

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 04:07 AM

The flat cap is real and the whippet is a greyhound to be technically correct. To my knowledge the other Muskets enjoyed a similar upbringing to you, public school, university etc etc. I'm sure either will let you know about pets and headware if they wish.

I do recall being licked to death by two Dalmatians when in Scotland last staying with Musket but flat cap? Naw, trying to appear working class to impress people is more up your street, what?

My cap was a natural progression as I became a slap head. The rain coat for dog walking is Rohan if that helps?

You see, the difference between us is you really want to be a working class hero but the mask keeps slipping whilst I am happy to go to the garage and say eni meni mini mo to choose between the BMW and Merc. Meanwhile, you can take the lad out of the pit estate but like you, I can't take my background away. You appear to want to lose yours whilst berating me for mine. Odd chap.

Look on the bright side. I'm a bit like the deserving poor you condescendingly witter on about, but minted.

I love armchair warriors. 😎

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 05:13 AM

"Jim Carrol is threatening to take them off the case."
I wasn't going to bother with this thread Al, but if you persist with your squalid sniding on a thread I'm not involved iI'll use it as an opportunity to reply to your incredible arrogant stupidity on the thread you and your like managed to get closed Al - please try to act like an adult Al
You've made your point that you don't like folk song - please have the decency not to talk about others behind their backs (and please ,make the effort to spell my name correctly.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 07:13 AM

Al writes some excellent folk songs, and performs folk songs in folk clubs over the years. If he doesn't like folk song, he has an odd way of showing it?



(This thread had to degenerate into 1954 nonsense eventually. It was either that or gay marriage, Palestine or bloody Tories.)

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 08:04 AM

"Al writes some excellent folk songs"
No he doesn't - folk songs evolve and are not made
Al doesn't even like folk songs and he has nothing but contempt for those who gave tem to us - "bunch of tinkers", or something like that, I think he called them
He much prefers pop songs sung 'dahn the pub'
"This thread had to degenerate into 1954 nonsense eventually"
Nonsense to the ignorant only Muskie
As I said, I had no intention being involved (not interesting enough) - it was Al's somewhat behind-the-back snide which drew men in - blame him
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 09:00 AM

ah! that's where we've been going wrong. writing folksongs - when we should have been evolving them...clay soil or a mixture of compost...

don't be a spoilsport Jim.
this thread is about grumpiness on the English folkscene.
You cannot deprive us of the man who should be captain of our team - bronze medallist 1954.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 09:13 AM

"this thread is about grumpiness on the English folkscene."
I'm not actually a grumpy person Al - just somewhat intolerant of idiocy when affects the music I love.
This thread doesn't seem to be bout much really Blair, politicians, whippets, greyhounds - none of which are anything to do with the folk scene I know and I doubt if even you could stretch them to being "folk"
Leave me out of it please - and learn to spell my name if you are goig to take it in vain - that would be appreciated too
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 10:26 AM

"Grumpy British Folkies"


.. what is it about old blokes and protracted feuds and vendettas...?????

..it's a bloody good job none or our lot are politicians
with real power involved in international peace talks and resolutions...😜

The 30 years war would look like a lunch break in comparison....

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 11:32 AM

folk songs evolve and are not made

No. Folk songs are first MADE and then they evolve, or maybe they don't. Maybe even in their natural habitat they remain unchanged - like George Bruce Thompson's McGinty's Meal an' Ale - which he wrote shortly before it was quickly snapped up by singers (Davie Stewart) and academics (Grieg & Duncan) alike. It remains unchanged to this day - but a highly evolved class of a Traditional Song even so. Then there's the songs of Tommy Armstrong, and other amazing things like The Keilder Hunt, The Shepherd's Song and Til the Kye Comes Hame - each sung by one of the finest Traditional Singers (Willie Scott), each with a known author (one may even have been written by him), each of them unchanged, and yet each totally and undoubtedly a bona fide Traditional Folk Song. I'm sure they might even have Roud numbers burned into their hides by now.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,Band Ivor
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 11:35 AM

Me above.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 01:46 PM

oh yes you are grumpy Mij!

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 02:02 PM

That's a thought. I must have sat down and evolved a song recently.

I thought evolution took time. Four hours after evolving it I played it at a folk club.

It being a folk song like. I thought it a more suitable venue than a bingo hall.

😂😂😂😂

Outvoted Jim. Live with it. Grumplily if you like but iTunes seems to know a bit about music.

(Says me, sat listening to some Ewan MacColl on Spotify as I type. All those songs he wrote eh? I'll write to Spotify and tell them to take MacColl out of folk. Where do want him Jim? Country and western? 😂

On a grumpy serious note, there are many folk artists who have made a career or lifetime interest in folk who might be a wee bit upset to keep reading an old man saying they aren't folk because err. He says so?

Obviously they (we?) reckon otherwise. Don't get me wrong, the tit trousers brigade are part of folk but folk is far too interesting to be just the sum of the many individual parts, most of which have been written by real people over the last fifty or so years.

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 02:14 PM

I'm getting a stage closer to clearing out the back room
to finally unbox all my gear and set up my home project recording 'studio'
before it's too late...

Trad folkies - you have been warned...!!! 😈


[..just been sat on the bog mentally rehearsing my BBC Folk Awards acceptance speech...]

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 04:01 PM

As obvious a liar a Tony B.Liar, Mither. I have no problem with my background, but once I'd learned (it took a good woman) I had and still have) genuine empathy with people. Which does not include you. On either end of the stick.   You on the other hand seem to be deeply involved in pretence - a sort of Hyacinth Bouquet with a flat cap. And, doubtless, as a badge of rank, pigeons in a garden shed. Where you leave them while you drive about in your Bugatti.

The point about folk songs is that they indeed evolve, polished like pebbles on the beach, by constant tossing in the tides (ooh that reminds me of Mither). Folk is not a style.

Please note, B. Liar, that I did not bring the 1954 definition into this - but it is still obviously largely correct.


PFR - go for it, but I think you will find that Fairport and Steeleye got there first. And indeed Jim Moray since. I'd like to hear it. I like Al Whittle's work too - but I still know it's not "folk".

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Apr 15 - 04:19 PM

Richard - that's ok..

my little niche for exploration won't be conventional 70s folk rock,
80s punk folk,
or 90s techno dance folk,
or even 2000s folk metal...😉

but it will definitely involve a plethora of fuzz boxes,
cheeky ***** influences and piss poor singing...😜

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 01 May 15 - 03:13 AM

I don't have a bugatti, silly boy. What do you think I am, a solicitor? 😂

Anyway, what with the BMW and Merc, there wouldn't be room in the garage. As it is, the Stag is in a lock up.

It didn't take a good woman in my case. Just heritage, breeding and a good pit.

Tell you what, just for you. I'll stick a ferret down my trousers whilst singing Bill Oddie 's Black Pudding Bertha. Live the dream!!!

I'll have to be quick though. They are coming to service the aga this morning. When the neighbours see the van turning into the drive, they'll think a public school educated solicitor has bought the house. I don't think you can get more aspiring middle class than having your aga serviced.

😎

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 May 15 - 03:28 AM

"having your aga serviced".. if George Formby were still alive today and releasing new songs...😜

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 01 May 15 - 03:55 AM

The song would be as hot as my bottom oven. 😎

Subject: RE: Review: Grumpy British Folkies part 273
From: Musket
Date: 01 May 15 - 04:06 AM

"folk is not a style"

In the case of your performances Bridge, I concur with M'unlearned Friend.

😎😎😎