EFDSS awards funding for new music

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Aug 17 - 01:45 PM

Dear old Derek, I wonder why???

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Aug 17 - 04:00 PM

a lot of its attitude Steve. people used to say to Derek, why did you have less time than the other acts when it came to festivals.

That really pissed off the other lot, the fact is he had the same time, but the time didn't hang heavy, because he'd sat down beforehand and worked out things to say that would amuse and inform the audience and give them some insight and traction on a song they'd never heard before.

he described it as a light hearted approach to serious music.

if your whole raison d'etre is to get intellectual respectability and tell people that folksong is an arcane musical form, found in libraries and museums -occasionally remote settlements - nowt to with folks living on housing estates. then i suppose you will always be drawn to the po-faced and visibly earnest artists.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 06:14 PM

derek brimstone and alex campbell were great entertainers and their presentation was good and they sang some good songs,hoever some so called contemporary singers who sang in folk ckubs were also pofaced earnest pretentious posers, i do not knopw if nick drake ever sang in folk clubs but he is typical of this genre of folky sounding drivel here is an example of meaningless pretentious modern song.
Three Hours



Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search of a master
In search of a slave

Three hours from London
Jacomo's free
Taking his woes
Down to the sea
In search of a lifetime
To tell when he's home
In search of a story
That's never been known

Three hours from speaking
Everyone's flown
Not wanting to be
Seen on their own
Three hours is needed
To leave from them all
Three hours to wonder
And three hours to fall

Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search of a master
In search of a slave

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Aug 17 - 07:06 PM

NicK Drake's techniques were initially grounded in folk - admittedly mainly American folk guitar and jazz. But he was something of a polymath musically - playing half a dozen instruments. By the time he came to make his three great albums, his folk roots were very well hidden in his past. The predominant musical influences were jazz and English classical music of the early 20th century.

I did hear he played Les Cousins in Greek St - but no one would claim what he did was folk music. I believe Joe Boyd sent him on a tour of folk clubs to battle harden him as a performer, but apparently he didn't rise to the challenge

The third very stark album was solo acoustic vocal and guitar, and his lyrics are occasionally psychedelic Some very folky acts like Donovan and The Incredible String Band were into psychedelia. this might confuse people.

i suppose if he weren't committed to doing his own material, he could have done a respectable semi pro folk gig - he certainly had the repertoire and the technique - we know this from amateur recordings made of him. however folk music was not what he was about, and like a lot of muso's he didn't have that streak of pragmatism to give the audience what they wanted.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: theleveller
Date: 23 Aug 17 - 11:38 AM

Sounds like a great idea to me, despite the expected whingeing from the pot-bellied grey beards and Captain Birdseye impersonators who think the own folk music and want too take it to the grave with them. They're jealous because they haven't a creative bone in their bodies. Who knows, maybe someone with the massive talent of Nick Drake will come to light.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 06:19 AM

Pot-bellies and grey beards are quite common among men after a certain age. This has no bearing at all on their musical taste.

If the older generation around the "folk scene" are so out of touch. Why would new song writers be so keen to have their offerings associated with the folk label? the 1960's are well past.

The same old songs are repeated because they have been and still are sung and enjoyed by a great number of people over the years. If everyone decided to sing only material by new writers you would be left with pop music most of which dies very soon. By all means write new songs but don't give them a label which they don't deserve. If the songs are good they will last.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: theleveller
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 12:24 PM

Bollocks, it's the arrogant, head in the sand attitude of the old farts that has driven away more people than it has attracted (me included, and I'm 68). Its just typical that when there's some good news about funding for the folk scene, which is as rare as hen's teeth, all you to is whine. Let's face it, why would the majority of youngsters want to watch you drooling down you hairy chins whilst you bawl out tuneless renditions of the same old boring shanties over and over again?

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 12:40 PM

' Let's face it, why would the majority of youngsters want to watch you drooling down you hairy chins whilst you bawl out tuneless renditions of the same old boring shanties over and over again?'

Sounds like Gabby Hayes and Gagool, the witch. Are they doing Sidmouth next year?

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 02:31 PM

Driveller,

As one who has been driven away you seem to be very much concerned otherwise you wouldn't even be looking at this site.

If you had retained an interest you might have learned that there is more to folk song/music than shanties. It's always going to be a minority sport anyway and I don't see how the EFDSS plan will change things.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 04:53 PM

''By all means write new songs but don't give them a label which they don't deserve. If the songs are good they will last."
correct,furthermore levellers diatribe proves one thing,that deciding what he thinks is good is just a reflection of his taste, however if we listen to Nick drakes perfomance of 3 hours, his performance diction wise is bad, he makes a pleasant sound, and he is musically competent,but what is he trying to say, lyrics are important they should be performed so that we can understand them, and the meaning of the song should be clear.
levellr please explain what 3 hours is supposed to be about. now here is a modern song palaces of gold whose meaning is very clear, i do not know if it is a folk song but it is well written and its meaning is clear.
If the sons of company directors,
And judges' private daughters,
Had to got to school in a slum school,
Dumped by some joker in a damp back alley,
Had to herd into classrooms cramped with worry,
With a view onto slagheaps and stagnant pools,
Had to file through corridors grey with age,
And play in a crackpot concrete cage.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Buttons would be pressed,
Rules would be broken.
Strings would be pulled
And magic words spoken.
Invisible fingers would mould
Palaces of gold.

If prime ministers and advertising executives,
Royal personages and bank managers' wives
Had to live out their lives in dank rooms,
Blinded by smoke and the foul air of sewers.
Rot on the walls and rats in the cellars,
In rows of dumb houses like mouldering tombs.
Had to bring up their children and watch them grow
In a wasteland of dead streets where nothing will grow.

I'm not suggesting any kind of a plot,
Everyone knows there's not,
But you unborn millions might like to be warned
That if you don't want to be buried alive by slagheaps,
Pit-falls and damp walls and rat-traps and dead streets,
Arrange to be democratically born
The son of a company director
Or a judge's fine and private daughter.
compare it to 3 hours
Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search of a master
In search of a slave

Three hours from London
"Jacomo's free
Taking his woes
Down to the sea
In search of a lifetime
To tell when he's home
In search of a story
That's never been known

Three hours from speaking
Everyone's flown
Not wanting to be
Seen on their own
Three hours is needed
To leave from them all
Three hours to wonder
And three hours to fall

Three hours from sundown
Jeremy flies
Hoping to keep
The sun from his eyes
East from the city
And down to the cave
In search of a master
In search of a slave."
I never judge a song by its label but on its merit.

Subject: RE: EFDSS awards funding for new music
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Aug 17 - 09:06 PM

if you are interested there are numerous analyses of Nick Drakes lyrics. He had enough pugnacious incomprehension of his artistic endeavours to kill him in his lifetime.

Quite why you feel the need to defame his reputation beyond the grave says more about why the folk clubs are empty, than Rosselson's song does about modern society.

Why not instead ask yourself why so many people respond to the beautifully crafted work of Nick Drake. No radio played his songs. No great promoter ran campaigns championing his music. None of the critics at the time slavishly applauded his albums - unlike the Carthys version of palaces of gold - was there one negative review? Drake's performances were never filmed.

Yet here we are fifty years after his death. There are more books every year about Nick Drake. Orchestras and jazz ensembles regularly perform his work. His grave is a place of pilgrimage and there is a festival of live music dedicated to his memory.

Would you demand prosaic interpretations of the libretto of Delius's Sea Drift, I wonder? Perhaps you would.

In the world of folk clubs and folk music - we can be proud that we for a while we were the cradle of many great talents like Nick Drake.

who knows. maybe this money will repeat the creative miracle.