Who or what are the 'Folk Police'

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 07:31 AM

I'm not sure I agree Harvey. I think there can be reasons to say "no". The session I go to weekly is Irish instrumental only and is not a complete begginners session (although that is not to say we wouldn't slow down maybe one or two sets of tunes in an evening to help someone get started). It is perhaps narrow and specialised but apart from no singing (I enjoy probably about 95% playing 5% singing mix best), it was what I was looking for when I moved to Norfolk. I wouldn't dream of suggesting they should allow singing but insted enjoy that I was welcomed in to a great bunch of musicians who have helped me a lot. I have since met people accusing this session of being a clique and intolerent. It isn't, it just doesn't want to change from being the strong, more specialised session, that it has been for years.

Don't missunderstand me, I have been involved in the organisation of folk clubs that were open to all sorts and personally have been very keen to help people get started - I've even lost musical instruments that way, enjoyed sessions that are mixed in types of music and songs, have enjoyed nights of purely unnacompanied singing, etc.

If I had the resources, I'd probably be out at a venue of one type or other each night of the week. My overall view is that having more specialised and more diversified venues is good for all of us and it's up to us to seek out what suits us best from what is available in an area.

Jon

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 08:03 AM

Blues=Live quoted Ray Charles: "There's only two kinds of music, good and bad." I read Dick Gaughan's opinion (in uk.music.folk, I believe) that there were only two kinds of music - that which he liked and that which he didn't. I tend to agree with that. How many times have we read (or heard) reviews by people that slagged off someomes music and you got the distinct feeling they didn't like the type of music and wouldn't even listen let alone recognise a good perfomance? There's plenty of music out there I don't care for, but the artists may be among the best in the world and someone else would like them.

As to 'folk police', there are people who think any criticism indicates someone trying to tell them what to do. It's that old "you aren't my mother/father, and you can't tell me what to do" thing. The fact that someone states an opinion, stridently, repeatedly or both, does NOT mean they're trying to tell you what to sing or even that they believe they have a hope of succeding. Police have power. If someone actually believes 'folk police' exists, they're giving them power.

On the other hand, there's an unwillingness to listen on the part of the 'folk criminals'. (HA - how do you like that? If police enforce the 'law', there has to be someone breaking it!) This may be more evident in a situation where the 'folk police' DO have power such as a session. It's too hard to listen and learn what's appropriate in that particular time and place. It may be more effort than people want to expend or they may be afraid they'll get it wrong. That blanket "everything I do should be acceptable everywhere, and if it isn't, YOU'RE the problem" is a cover-up for un-willingness to learn basic musical social skills.

There are no 'folk police'. There are those who want people to learn, to understand, and get frustrated when their knowledge is dismissed as insignificant or annoying. There may be a small handful of folks who actually believe they can tell people what to do. If they exist, they're the other side of the coin from the "I don't wanna listen" folks. Both have a one-size-fits-all opinion about music that, in their minds, make having to adapt to a given situation unnecessary. Both will meet with a lot of frustration and perhaps develop a lot of animosity because society, musical or otherwise, DOES run according to rules.

Personally, I try to learn what the rules are, then I break 'em. Someone may have a problem when I do, but I'll listen, learn, and above all, respect the person. There isn't one person in the world I can't learn something from.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 08:46 AM

Seen any heliocopters lately?

what are they?- Solar powered?

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Wotcha
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 02:34 PM

Elsewhere it is the Muttawah in the Middle East who fulfill this role and Germans during quiet hours ...(Never play a banjo in Frankfurt suburbs at home between 1 and 3pm or on Sundays ...)

Cheers,

Brian

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Ross
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 03:51 PM

They are called intolerance & lack of respect for others

They are everywhere building castles to defend themselves - where seige mentality ensues

They are the hurt ones that hurt others

They are the ones that never connect - that to condemn others will eventually rebound on themselves

As a person

Be kind & considerate to everyone - then the folk police will die

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Willie-O
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 04:39 PM

But ross--I don't want Art Thieme to die! Or Ian Robb, for that matter, who called himself a Folk Nazi enough times in print that Sing Out! wouldn't let him use the Na word any more.

I guess this phenomenon does exist, it's all a matter of degree. Sometimes you gotta tell someone something that they don't want to hear, for the greater good of all. As a small-time music presenter, and a veteran of too many hippie jam sessions, this has sometimes been my lot.

What's obnoxious is people for whom that seems to be all they're about. Really, the only time this type of thing is called for is when someone is truly and insensitively interfering with others' enjoyment.

Willie-O

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 04:41 PM

Nice song... But you know, Ledbelly didn't play it in 'C'... he played it in 'G'.

I love that song... Why did you mix up the second and third verses?

Why do you use a guitar? It's not really a traditional Irish instrument is it?

Actually... "Ned of the Hills" is a Scottish song, not Irish...

Did you write that? ...No, was written Two Hundered and fourty eight years ago, in England... Oh, too bad...

These are just a few of em...

What really gets me, is that I can perform an endless self written song about the most rediculous relationship nonsense, and be paid close attention to and aplauded well, and I can sing a Trad song about a very consistant historical problem in humanity's basic make up, and people can wax indifferent and address me with intollerance afterwards with a why and a don't and a whether and a won't, what's the meaning of your gleaning, where's the tittilating juiciness of codependent leaning... Or visa versa!

And I just learn more great songs, and sing 'em! And the writing of these new songs was never better! ttr

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 05:43 PM

"Folk police"

Members of an underground musical humanitarian sect. Their main goal is to elminate subversive, intrusive and down right shite quasi-musicians - such as; Bodrahan player sand unaccomplished - oops! unaccompanied singers etc, the type well known to invoke the phenomenon known amongst real musicians as "shoe syndrome"!
For the benefit and guidance of said eucaryotic-musicians,
you will perhaps, or more likely not notice that this "syndrome" is exemplified by:- furtive shuffling and gazing at the floor, ceiling, distance, in fact anything to distract from the utter torment of your lack of musicianship!
Read; Why we need folk clurbs.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 05:44 PM

Somebody once asked me "Is that right, what you're playing?". Could this have been a member of this strange law-enforcing body?

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 05:53 PM

Well I seem to have a foot in most camps here. She who must be obeyed and I do a fair bit of traditional stuff (some not English, indeed perhaps quite a bit not English) and if I'm going to sing a tradition I would rather it was my tradition than someone else's tradition (why would I want to pretend to be foreign? - not that foreign is worse, but I'm me, and I'm English). But we arrange it for ourselves - so the contemporaries don't like it 'cos it's trad adn the traddies don't like it 'cos it's been muched about with. And we muck up the contemporary stuff too.

But I don't see why it is wrong to want to be able correctly to define folk, or to know how the earliest known versions of a song went, or how the composer played it or what his words were (or when the second and third verses got elided). Surely it helps you to know where you're going if you know where you've been.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 05:55 PM

As i said, eucaryotic = no brain.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 06:10 PM

I think I might be a member. I do occasionally give guitar lessons...I might say, if someone wants to know how to back Soldier's Joy "well the first bar of the tune contains nothing but D,F# and A notes, you should play a D chord". OK, this may be a bit nazi, perhaps I should say "play any chord you like, horses do".

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 07:53 PM

I reckon, when it comes to real crap, new crap is a lot more offensive than old crap. But that's just me being literal-minded.

There are people with an authoritarian streak, who like to tell other people what to do, in a controlling way. Some of them might do it from the stance of defenders of tradition, some as advocates of innovation. Either way they can be pains when they interfere with the natural flow of a session or an evening, or the development of a performer.

Myself, I place an enormous value both on tradition and on innovation. Alongside each other, and with a distinct identity.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Thomas the Rhymer
Date: 23 Mar 03 - 09:48 PM

McGrath, I couldn't agree with you more! Excellent post my friend. ttr

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 02:52 AM

I agree 100% with McGrath, and I imagine most of us do, in fact I would guess all of us do. The actual identity of the "folk police" is proving a little difficult to establish.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: jonm
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 03:28 AM

I regard the playing of music as a sharing experience. I'm not enough of a virtuoso to believe that anyone would want to listen to me play without liking the song. I tend to introduce songs on the basis that I'm going to play something I really enjoy and want to share it with the audience. This tends to go down well, and I've got away with everything from straight trad. in acoustic "rock" nights to acoustic rock songs in trad folk clubs. I tend not to let on if there's a song of my own in there, but it will fit in with what I'm playing. One of mine has been taken and is being spread around, interestingly, as a traditional song.

I play a lot for morris, mostly concertina, but I made the effort to learn to play most of the original instruments the tunes were collected on (pipe and tabor, fiddle etc.). This gives me a feel for the distinctive characteristics of the instrument and the way it affects how you play the tune. I've looked at Sharp's notations for the tunes and how those distinctive characteristics are evident, and how often the musician played the same tune more than once and it was different each time Sharp notated it.

There are also the "morris police" who will criticise you for not playing the exact version from the Black Book (in some cases Lionel Bacon applied his own licence and that is not the tune as Sharp collected it!), just as they will criticise the dancing for tiny departures from their accepted version of the norm. I have even had a man stand in front of me and tell me I'm playing the wrong version of the tune, while the dance was going on! He was most unamused when I told him his own instrument (melodeon) is untraditional and that, surely, all the Adderbury tunes were collected in F so why are you playing them in G?

I believe we cannot preserve traditions in music or dance by pickling them. The music must be given a chance to evolve and we must all accept that some of the resulting evolutions may not conform to our own tastes and ideals. There are plenty of those who are living in the past and trying to perpetuate the style of folk music and folk club that existed in their own heyday. There are also those who, given one book or one world view, cannot accept that other world views should be allowed to exist.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,noddy
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 04:36 AM

THEY ARE OUT THERE.
They will get you if......
you do not sing ALL the verse all84 of them in the correct order with no mistakes ,no wrong words or nuances.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Ralphie
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 07:18 AM

HOW TO DISARM A FOLK NAZI !!!

Having performed our version of "Amphitrite" at a gig a while ago, a well known "policeman" enquired as to the source of the tune that we had used for the lyrics, because he had never heard that version before, and had really enjoyed it!!

When I told him James had written it in his kitchen in the autumn of 2001.....

He retreated to lick his wounds!

Maybe I should tell his superiors, and get him reprimanded??

Regards Ralphie

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Sam L
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:22 AM

Now trad police are not exactly the same as folk police. I once played lute at a wedding with a couple of people, and one piece had me playing only melody lines, I was going to use a pick. No picks! They wouldn't have it. But picks are traditional, they were used, and I think it sounds better a little brighter. No, but back then, I was told, they'd just use a piece of tortoise shell, or whatever. ...Huh?

I suppose I could've pushed the point, but didn't. Tortoise shell was a luxury material, not a piece of whatever, and I still don't know what the attitude was all about.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:43 AM

The Young Tradition tell the story of how one particular song, "The Hungry Child", was written deliberately to encourage a folk-policeman to praise its authenticity, and be subsequently deflated. (Its a good song, though, in its own right)

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Dave Wynn
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 11:56 AM

Good thread this but everyones said it all.

Spot

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 12:20 PM

The irony of The Hungry Child is that the person the Young Tradition thought had written it had in fact just translated a (genuine) traditional song from German into English; she may perhaps have made up her own tune. The "folk drag" Heather Wood referred to was actually closer to being right than she was. Shows the perils of making assumptions about people and about traditional music, perhaps; as well as trying to be too clever.

Details: Lyr Req: MOTHER I'M HUNGRY

Still, they were very young; and most of us thought at that age that we knew it all.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 12:54 PM

"Those who cannot learn from history are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana.

Haven't we been here before folks? Does anybody else remember the jazz wars in 1950s Britain?

Back then, some jazz musicians were passionately devoted to freezing "their" music as it was played at a particular time and place (New Orleans in 1915 – Chicago in 1925 – New York in 1945 – take your choice). They regarded musicians who played it any other way as heretics and blasphemers.

Other jazzers claimed - equally passionately - that much as they loved and respected the tradition, they wanted to adapt it to changing times and tastes. They dismissed all who did not agree with them as dullards and bigots.

And then there were a lot of hard-working, hard-up musicians, happy to play whatever would earn them a living. If the public enjoyed a simplified caricature of real jazz as a background for drinking, dancing, socialising and seducing, then so be it. Those who complained were just a bunch of amateurs, who didn't understand the basic principles of the entertainment industry.

For far too many people, this three-cornered dog-fight became more important than the music it was supposed to be about. Round about the same time, the public began to lose interest in both the argument and the music . Attendances declined, clubs closed, and the music press turned its attention to the next big thing (a rock band named after some insects, I seem to remember). Fortunately, certain people in the BBC and the Arts Council woke up to the fact that Jazz was "Culture", and therefore deserving of support and subsidy – otherwise it might have disappeared altogether.

Might this story be a useful warning for the folk music community?

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: John P
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 01:39 PM

Yes, the folk police exist.

No, people who are responsible for booking music at a club or a festival and stick to their standards are not the folk police.

I have been accosted by the folk police several times, usually because I play traditional music in what some consider to be non-traditional ways. Never mind that everyone who isn't a confirmed old-fogey traditionalist thinks I'm terribly, boringly traditional.

An example of the folk police: We were playing at a coffeehouse, with a nice stage and a good audience. We finished the first set with a traditional Bulgarian tune played on the hurdy-gurdy and guitar. As soon as we stopped, audience members came up to talk about the music and the instruments and everyone was having a really good time. Suddenly a loud voice next to me interrupted the conversation I was having to say, "I hope you don't go around telling people you play Balkan music. That's not how they do it!" Needless to say, the joy of the moment was rained on for everyone. I made some lame response like, "Yes, that is how they play it, because you just heard it played that way", and tried to get the feeling in the room back on track.

When they speak to me privately, I tell them to mind their own business and ignore them. When they publicly impose themselves on me and my audience they are way out of line. This thing I liked best about this particular encounter was that a week later we were doing the same tune in the women's handbag section of the local department store when an elderly Bulgarian woman walked up and said with surprise and (I think) delight: "But -- that is Bulgarian!"

Here is my definition of Folk Police: Those who don't have any official responsibility to do so telling you that you are playing music wrong.

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Don Firth
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 02:20 PM

My method of dealing with the folk police is to point out to them that I am not in their jurisdiction.

Although I am what is generically referred to as a "folk singer" because I sing folk songs to the accompaniment of a guitar, I do not consider myself to be a folk singer. I was born in a big city and raised in another big city. My parents weren't farmers or miners or seafarers (although my father loved fishing—for sport), they were health professionals. And neither of them were musicians, although my mother took some piano lessons when she was a girl.

My musical background came initially from listen to the radio: classical, pop, Broadway show tunes, etc. The first folk songs I recall hearing were one Sunday afternoon on a radio program hosted by Burl Ives, where he gave the history of the Erie Canal in song and story. I also recall hearing the records of Susan Reed and Richard Dyer-Bennet. I began actively participating when a girl I was going with in 1952 inherited her grandmother's old parlor guitar, picked up a book of folk songs, and started teaching herself. Since then, I've taken voice lessons, classic guitar lessons, studied music theory, took every course my local university English department offered relating to folk songs and balladry, and read widely on the subject.

I learned songs from records and CDs and from a large library of song books such as One Hundred English Folk Songs by Cecil J. Sharp and Folk Songs of North America by Alan Lomax, occasionally learning a song from a live person (who undoubtedly learned it from sources similar to mine). I have performed professionally, doing recitals, concerts, television, coffeehouses, and folk festivals. Now, I sing because I enjoy it (but I will accept pay if offered).

I am not above changing a word or two in a song if I think it sings better that way, and sometimes I will take two or more versions of a song and meld them, taking what I consider to be the best bits from each, possibly rewriting a little to make the result both historically and poetically consistent. I do this rarely and carefully, and, I hope, knowledgeably, but even so, in some circles, of course, this is regarded as a hanging offense. But I subscribe to the principles laid down by Rolf Cahn:

The most ticklish question still results from that awful word "Folk Music", which gives the erroneous impression that there is one body of music with one standard texture, dynamic, and history. Actually, the term today covers areas that are only connected in the subtlest terms of general feeling and experience. A United States cowboy song has less connection with a bloody Zulu tale than it has to "Western Pop" music; a lowdown blues fits less with Dutch South African melody than with George Gershwin.

Most of us agree in feeling as to our general boundaries, but more and more we search for our own particular contributions as musicians within these variegated provinces. There doesn't seem to be much point in imitating—what, after all, is the point of doing Little Moses exactly like the Carter Family? Yet it seems vital to convey the massive, punching instrumentals and the tense driving, almost hypnotic voice of the Carter Family performances.

One the one hand, there is the danger of becoming a musical stamp collector; on the other, the equal danger of leaving behind the language, texture, and rhythm that made the music worthy of our devotion in the first place. So we have arrived at a point where in each case we try to determine those elements which make a particular piece of music meaningful to us, and to build the performance through these elements. By continuing to learn everything possible of the art form—techniques, textures, rhythms, cultural implications and conventions, we hope to mature constantly in our individual understanding and creativity in this music.

I don't see that calling oneself a "folk singer" endows one with any special knowledge, privilege, panache, or general saintliness. I suspect that the vast majority of those who do call themselves folk singers have a background quite similar to my own, and can lay no more claim to "ownership" or "custodianship" of these songs than I can.

I don't just sing folk songs. I reserve the right to sing any song I that appeals to me—pop songs, Broadway show tunes, operatic arias, even rack & ruin rock & roll, and, of course, folk songs—in any way that my knowledge and my taste tell me to sing it. It happens that the songs I like to sing the most are folk songs. To a folk policeperson trying to lay an arm on me, I say, "I'm not a folk singer, I am a singer-guitarist. Therefore, I'm not even in your jurisdiction. Furthermore, since you were not raised in the oral tradition either and learned these songs the same way I did, you are not in the jurisdiction you seem to think you are, nor do you have the authority you seem to think you have. So shuddup and siddown!"

Don Firth

I do, however, try to have sufficient taste and sense to appropriateness not to sing a Scottish border ballad at a chantey-sing, or try to bung an Appalachian love song into a Robert Burns festival. You have to use your head.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Steve Mullinax
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 07:20 PM

I am happy to report that I just returned from the Portland Folklore Society's "Singtime Frolics" camp.

Despite representation from many of the warring camps referred to in this thread, the gathering was remarkably peaceable. We have traditionalists of several stripes, singer-songwriters, country & western fans, shanty singers, political activists, ... We had workshops on early country, playing guitar up-the-neck, even "Sing-Along with Goofy" (Disney songs)!

Even with (one might assume) all the potential hostility, all differences were somehow resolved without the intervention of the folk police.

No arrests, no injuries, no wounded pride.

The community survives.

Steve

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 07:37 PM

Now which is more likely to annoy peopel who feel like getting annoyed about such things? Playing traditional material in a non-traditional way, or playing non-traditional material in a traditional way? I'd guess the former.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Folkiedave
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:00 PM

Certainly as someone who has a bit to do with a festival and the booking of artists. I have to balance a number of things.

My own personal tastes go along the lines of Watersons, Planxty, MacColl and Seeger, Fury Bros and you can now see where I am coming from.

BUT I also like Steeleye and some Fairport.

I also have to cater for new singers, up and coming singers, singer-songwriters, shanty groups, cross-over groups, ballad singers, traditional specialists, folk-rock, blues and so on, the ingredients that together make (to my mind) a good festival. Any one of these can look at my choice of artists and say - he has not booked .......my favourite artiste. "Folk policeman". I have had people who said they won't come because: not enough trad/Celtic/Ballads/singer songwriters etc. I have had people say there is not enough roots music despite two groups from Africa, etc. No matter who I book I can guarantee crticism. I have been asked for Bruce Cockburn, Three City Four etc.

Fortunately I love it and will defend my choices.

See www.holmfirthfestival.com


Dave
I do hope not.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,Longarm
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 09:30 PM

A story re this thread.
Back in the eary seventies a new "traditional' singers club opened in my town(Colchester, England) When a singer got up and announced he was going to sing a Lenard Cohen song an irate organiser loudly said 'english only here mate' to which the singer instantly replied 'it is in fucking english'!!!!!

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: sharyn
Date: 25 Mar 03 - 10:06 PM

I usually refer to "the folk police" when I knowingly break an unspoken rule, such as singing a song without a chorus at a gathering where chorus songs are favored (but where other songs are not expressly forbidden). When I use the expression, it's just a joke.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: M.Ted
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 01:11 AM

JohnP,

Truth be told, when it comes to Bulgarian Music, the folk police turn out to be the KGB.   

Once, I was with friends who wanted to buy instruments from some musicians in a touring Bulgarian performing group. We were told that the transaction had to be made discreetly , out of eye and earshot of the KGB agents who traveled with the group. Several of us sat in the coffeeshop of the hotel while the instrument buyers snuck off. By odd coincidence, the KGB group came in moments after we did, sat next to us--we were a bit nervous. Even more oddly, when we got the discreet high sign that the transaction had been made, and the instruments hidden in our car--the KGB group casually finished their coffees and went back to the rooms.

Turned out that the KGB agents needed to be able to tell customs that their instruments were brought into the country for playing, not for sale.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,Eliza Carthy
Date: 26 Mar 03 - 10:33 AM

My Dad nearly had his guitar taken off him at US Customs because he couldn't produce a receipt for it (nineteenfiftywhat?) and therefore couldn't prove he wasn't going to sell it.
Nothing to do with the Folk Police though. I don't believe in them, although I do get a lot of stick from people who don't like what I do!!!
cheers,
ec x

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Benjamin
Date: 27 Mar 03 - 01:05 AM

I've recieved plenty of crap about not really writing any of my own material and also rejecting some material that doesn't move me. I think the best answer I could give is that it's people's personal tastes combined with ethnocenterism. I personaly think it's a shame when people reject older material. I believe that history is one of the greatest lessons music can teach us today.

Mike (Northumbria) it's nice to hear from you again! I'm still enjoying that African tape!

Benjamin

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: michaelr
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 01:08 AM

You can witness the Folk Police conducting an investigation in this thread.

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Santa
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 05:50 AM

Went there - looked more like an over-indulgent fan unable to accept that not everybody thought his favourite band the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Not "Real" Folk Police - who wouldn't accept bluegrass as folk music anyway.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: greg stephens
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 06:05 AM

Yes, I had a look at that thread, seemed to be the usual sort of discussion of whether a group can be classified as bluegrass or not. Don't see where "police" comes into it. People often vaguely wonder if spiders are a kind of insect, or if sponges are plants or animals: are we to call such people "biology police"?
    Classification is always an interesting and difficult area, but not, to my way of thinking, very similar to criminal investigation and law enforcement.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 02:59 PM

This give me an idea.

If Howells an Jowells (whose names rhyme with "bowels") get their way in the house of commons, can we all argue about folk music until the BBC and the Arts Council decide to subsidise us? It'd be whole lot easier than trying to keep an unsubsidised club solvent!

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: toadfrog
Date: 29 Mar 03 - 03:41 PM

Better question. Where are the folk police, and how do I join?? If they exist, I'm for them!

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Marje
Date: 30 Mar 03 - 01:09 PM

Be a good name for a band, wouldn't it?

I think the "Folk Police" exist only in the minds of those who have found their contribution or performance wasn't welcomed as much as they'd hoped. Rather than think hard about whether they were being insensitive to the mood of the club or session, or maybe whether they're just crap, they lay all the blame on a mythical enemy.

Maybe someone even told them that this particular event was set up for traditional song, or English or Irish music, or just tunes, or just songs, or chorus songs, or unaccompanied or unamplfied music, and pointed out that their item didn't fit. In any other genre of music, it would be seen as perfectly reasonable to have a particular focus, but somehow in folk music, some people assume they can do whatever they like, as badly as they like, at every event, and then whinge "Folk Police" when it doesn't go down well.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: denise:^)
Date: 31 Mar 03 - 01:14 AM

I've always thought of the "folk police" as the folks who:
~come up to you after your performance, and tell you that you did it "wrong," because that's not the way "______" sang it on her album;
~tell you that what YOU do CAN'T be folk music, because it's different from what THEY do...

In other words, the narrow-minded, the intolerant, the self-righteous...those who KNOW the way things 'should be,' and are ready, at the drop of a hat, to tell you so!

They're around in every walk of life--

In our walk, we call them folk police!

Denise:^)

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: HuwG
Date: 31 Mar 03 - 07:34 AM

At one Open Session I regularly attend, someone approached the players after one set and said, "You know you only played twelve bars instead of fourteen in that last round ?"

The guitarist turned to him, jerked his thumb in the direction of the pub's rear car park and said, "Complaints Department out there, mate!"

Perhaps not the most diplomatic reply, but the best put-down I have ever heard.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Alasdair
Date: 31 Mar 03 - 07:58 AM

Think "Fashion Police" and apply the same concept to folk. Also a v good track on the Peatbog Faeries' latest album

Al

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Apr 03 - 09:49 AM

I just refreshed this thread for GUEST, allen woodpecker, from the Eggs and Sessions thread, because I thought he might feel at home here. Fortunately I don't meet many like him in sessions.

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Art Thieme
Date: 05 Apr 03 - 11:33 PM

Eliza,

Have you seen Scott Alarik's book called DEEP COMMUNITY yet? One of the chapters is an article he did on you for the Boston Globe---. That book mentions "the folk police" in several places. Interesting. There is an article in there that Scott wrote back in '86 about my winding up doing records for Folk Legacy and Sandy Paton. But leafing through that book I can see how very much this folk scene differs from the one I knew and was part of 40 years ago. That kind of morphing and change can leave some of us older folkies wondering why what we cared about so much is overlooked so easily by modern folkies. Trying to hold onto what we found to be of value maybe makes us seem to don the garb of folk police.

Does you dad and mother ever feel sprt of passed by on occasion?? It would be good to hear Martin's take on all this, but I doubt he'd care to get into this banter. There is no real point to it---except to vent ones frustrations.

All the best,

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,Eliza C
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 12:50 PM

Art,
   No I haven't read his book, but I know Scott, he's a nice man.
I think that the frustration that you feel is down to the fact that many people of your age (I am assuming you are sort of my parents' age) built the folk scene as it is as young, vibrant poeple, and therefore find it hard to accept that thing you love changing. And I don't blame you, I imagine I would feel the same way. It isn't that nobody appreciates you, it's just that we come from the priveleged position of having most of the hard graft already done and a scene at our disposal-so we will try to improve it on our own terms to express our own excitement, try to expand it to include our friends and peers just as you did. My Mum finds the folk scene bewildering these days, and has as little to do with it as she can. She still loves the music and the ethos though, it's just too commercial for her I think.
cheers,
eliza

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 01:05 PM

Eliza,

Understood----and appreciated.

Art

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Big Mick
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 01:39 PM

I don't know how old you are, Eliza, but you are wise. Very good observation, both on the older and younger folkies. Congratulations.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 02:56 PM

Eliza, you must have very unique perspective as a second generation performer. You can see parts of 'the big picture' most of us can't. Very insightful, that part about what I read as the grabbing of the baton. If the excitement of new 'voices' and styles couldn't exist, there wouldn't be much point in performing.

I can only look at this from a non-performing perspective. We used to get together and primarily talk about the music itself, and now frequently discuss recordings, shows and performers' versions of song. Maybe it's because the songs have been a part of us for so long they aren't news, but what a musician does with them will always be news. I try to look for music I like, whether it's a new, unusual arrangement or a well done, simple version of a song. Reacting to changes or a lack of them would make me miss out on a lot.

Classifications are fine, as long as we use them as descriptions and not rules. Just my opinion.

Subject: RE: Leonard Cohen & the folk/jazz police
From: Hester
Date: 06 Apr 03 - 03:51 PM

Harry wrote:

>>>Funny...we never hear of the Blues police or the Jazz police <<<

And then Longarm coincidentally told an amusing Leonard Cohen anectdote.

So, I can't help posting these pertinent Leonard Cohen lyrics:

"Jazz Police"

Can you tell me why the bells are ringing?
Nothing's happened in a million years
I've been sitting here since Wednesday morning
Wednesday morning can't believe my ears
Jazz police are looking through my folders
Jazz police are talking to my niece
Jazz police have got their final orders
Jazzer, drop your axe, it's Jazz police!

Jesus taken serious by the many
Jesus taken joyous by a few
Jazz police are paid by J. Paul Getty
Jazzers paid by J. Paul Getty II

Jazz police I hear you calling
Jazz police I feel so blue
Jazz police I think I'm falling,
I'm falling for you

Wild as any freedom loving racist
I applaud the actions of the chief
Tell me now oh beautiful and spacious
Am I in trouble with the Jazz police?

Jazz police are looking through my folders ...

They will never understand our culture
They'll never understand the Jazz police
Jazz police are working for my mother
Blood is thicker margarine than grease

Let me be somebody I admire
Let me be that muscle down the street
Stick another turtle on the fire
Guys like me are mad for turtle meat

Jazz police I hear you calling...

Cheers, Hester

Subject: RE: Who or what are the 'Folk Police'
From: GUEST,ozmacca
Date: 07 Apr 03 - 06:20 AM

Why has no-one leapt to the defence of this dedicated self-effacing group of men and women who continue to ceaselessly protect their fellows from the insidious threat of pollution of our mighty traditions? Have you no shame? Have you no sense of gratitude that we all owe our hisory, our culture, our very identity, to these unsung heroes of the folk scene.

For centuries un-numbered these selfless guardians of purity have continued to ensure that the cream of our heritage has remained unsullied, and their struggle continues to this day. They deserve our thanks and our grateful orisons in their praise. It is time for the Folk Police to step forth from the shadows in which they have too long reamined, and to stand tall, proud, and glad to be the defenders of the traditions they serve so well!

And if that seems too much to ask, just remember that anybody who says the music should do something that you don't want it to must be one of their number.... including you if you don't agree with the stuff somebody else happens to like today.

PS, Do you like the uniform? Smart eh?