Apparently folk rock is back...

Subject: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Bagpuss
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:42 AM

Article is todays Guardian I thought some people might want to read.

No beards. Folk-rock is back, and this time it's cool. Almost.


Bagpuss

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Doktor Doktor
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:57 AM

Uh-oh

either

a) We'll be swamped by artyfarty types who want to rediscover Bob Copper in the context of Southbank-Tatemodernist performance art

or

b) people under 40 will start going to folk clubs

Time to clean out the Anderson Shelter .... lay in provisions .....

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Bagpuss
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 11:04 AM

Excuse me, I'm only 30 and have been into folk since I was about 13. So watch what you are saying mate!!! ;-)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 11:08 AM

"In essence," he says, "by choosing folk-rock you are saying no to the cult of growth that drives the Bush administration to push American ideology down the world's throat."

So that's what we've been doing?!!

Love that "hippie twist," too!!

kathopeful

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Bagpuss
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 11:12 AM

I thought it was quite a lazy article - lets laugh at the folkies without knowing anything about them, because someone cool has expressed an interest.

I do like Stephen Malkmus tho - Pavement were a great band. And I note that Bert Jansch has worked with Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler in the past.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: RolyH
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:07 PM

"Acid Folk"   I hate that description of early folk/rock.

Was there ever "Acid Country and Western"?

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:22 PM

the US has turned its folk music into a multi-million-dollar industry...

Really?!? How can I cash in on this?? In my circles, the amount cited is more like "literally tens of dollars to be made..."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: michaelr
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:32 PM

"...obscure English folk singer Vashti Bunyan, copies of whose solitary album, Just Another Diamond Day, have been known to sell for £900."

Has anyone heard of this guy, or his album?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 07:39 PM

Judging from the picture in the Guardian, this guy's a gal!

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Noreen
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 08:02 PM

Read and learn, Michael! http://www.anotherday.co.uk/
I had heard the name, and knew she was a she- but not all the rest of it.
Re-release worth a listen, I think.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Nemesis
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:28 PM

And further evidence that something's about (damn cos everyone's in Yorkshire).. Lewes Folk Rock Festival 16-17 May

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 11:17 PM

I guess I never thot Folk Rock left.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 12:53 AM

We geezers are just going to have to get used to watching wheels being reinvented.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: denise:^)
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:33 AM

Geez, were we gone?
Where?
(Or, as one of my old acquaintances put it, when we met up after several years, and she asked me what I'd been doing lately: "Wow! That's, like, a whole subculture you're involved with, there...")

Denise:^)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Peg
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 02:29 AM

there's a sort of underground music movement happening in the States and some other countries known as "wyrd folk" which harkens back to the English folk rock and psychedelic rock of the late 1960s and early 1970s; i think this will be the next wave of sound in alternative music; hopefully it won't catch on and become mainstream...

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 03:08 AM

This happens every few years, but what a cheek of the author to talk about the atrocious image of folk. It's the media that are responsible for that image.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Chris Amos
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 04:28 AM

I've recently done a couple of gigs supporting "cult" psychedelic rock band Green Ray (who are wonderful, see them if you get the chance). My sets were English traditional, I must admit I was a bit worried about how it would go down (but what the heck I've had tomatoes thrown at me before, sometimes still in the tin). It went very well, people sat and listened, some even came up at the end to enquire abut the songs and these were young people, not just old hippies.

Perhaps he revival of the revival is upon us.

Chris

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Nemesis
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 06:23 AM

But, hey, Peg .. just imagine if it were mainstream and the atrocious "Pap Idol" and manufactured band syndrome wasn't the sum total of many of our young people's exposure to popular music? (Well, at least in the UK ... is it the same in States?)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 09:16 AM

Classical bit of trying to have it both ways pop journalism. Does anybody give a monkeys what this "Alexis Petridis" thinks about anything? The one thing you can guarantee about the Guardian review pages is that they'll get it wrong.

I think "the US has turned its folk music into a multi-million-dollar industry..." probably means New Country. God save us from New Folk. I think you can guarantee that anything with New in front of it is not to be trusted (cf New Labour.)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: dwditty
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 09:20 AM

Oh Boy, can't wait to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash, and 'Spaw.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 09:37 AM

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Peg
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:17 PM

Chris Amos: Hey, funnily enough I am in a "cult" psychedelic folk rock band called Green Crown! (the name comes from an old Incedible String Band song) We are actually forming an offshoot band that I will sing lead vocals in (the larger group plays only the summer festival circuit, so the band's leader wanted an East Coast-based group that could do more throughout the year), and in addition to doing our own original songs will be doing covers of various songs by early Jefferson Airplane, H.P. Lovecraft, Dando Shaft, the Strawbs, Tom Rapp, etc.


Hille: my impression is that yes, a lot of young people have no sense of musical history in terms of popular music, because they are so inundated with this slickly-produced commercial crap, all of it derivative, even the "alternative" stuff, but on the college campus where I work I do occasionally hear some old stuff; recently overheard someone playing real early Joni Mitchell, and Joan Jett (ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch CHERRY BOMB!)
It seems to me that any sort of "new" sound will come about from people listening to older styles and discovering something in it...that's the way it's happened in recent years...

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:31 PM

Music does go in circles and fast.   12 Years ago I attended Philadelphia Folk fest (and yearly after that until 5 years ago) I thought it made a comeback then.   

   As I rock my 7 month old to a silent slumber I sing Summertime.    My husband was wondering why I was singing a Sublime song to our son, my reply was, "No dear, it's Billie Holiday"

    It all goes in cirles, what's old is new again.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: SeanM
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 01:34 PM

There's actually a burgeoning set of bands pulling heavily from traditional and modern song lists - y'all know the litany... Great Big Sea... Young Dubliners... Gaelic Storm... Fenians... etc...

If THAT is what the next wave is, I'm glad. It's not true folk as most of the masses would name it (though the Fenians do a wrenching version of "The Auld Triangle" and a few others), but it's definitely got a lot of connection to it. Some groups are closer to the "traditional" sound than others, but they all sound like they're coming from the same angle.

Anyway, I'm of the mind that it's something that never really goes away. Someone hears something they like, they adapt it to more closely suit their (and their audience's) tastes, and the "tradition" continues. Good enough for me.

M

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 03:56 PM

Folk music lives in a parallel universe to the music industry, a genuine alternative, and maybe it's better that way.

The sneers are irritating, but they probably keep some of the pests out of the way. They probably also stop a lot of people who'd like it, and who could contribute, away as well, which is a pity.

But if people find their way into the music at present, it's a fair guess that they are fairly independent minded and at any rate capable of finding their way out of the paper bag of commercial music, so that's a good thing. The last thing we want is people, who don't really like it at all, feeling they have to latch onto it, because it's suddenly fashionable for five minutes.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Apr 03 - 06:42 PM

Intrigued to read you can get £900 for a Vashti Bunyan record. Somewhere in a box in the attic I have a picture of me performing with her in 1964(give or take a year). myabe I could get ten bob for it. alas I havent got a tape.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: GUEST,eliza C
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 12:55 PM

Now I know I'm in a minority here, but I have always considered EII and the Peatbog Fearies and Shooglenifty and the Albions and most of the stuff I've done to be folk-rock. I hate the bloody hippy associations, and the fact that a genre has its time and then that's it and it has to move on and then be revived at some point. Surely that is the antithesis of what folk music is about? Surely that is what pop music is about?
I thought it was a ridiculous, moronic article. You could have substituted all the people mentioned with any number of different artists and genres, and it would essentially be the same "so you thought folk/jazz/choral/rap metal music was shite (insert older names here)? Well...(insert groovier people here)" article that morons like that churn out every day of the week in some rubbish publication or other. You can do it with food too..."So you thought that pizza was shite(insert joke about ham and pineapple here)? Well...(insert fashionable crispy thing made out of obscure cheese rubbed on the thighs of young maidens here)".
Sorry, but I've had that particular type of article written about me too many times, and it is always about bigging me up at the expense of someone else, be it Morris dancers or people that wear jumpers when it isn't necessarily cold...it certainly isn't about music and was a waste of the seconds it took to read it.
Glad to have got that off my chest!
:) eliza

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Peg
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:17 PM

Eliza; what instrument do you play?
Are you THAT Eliza?? Rock on! ;~)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:20 PM

To my way of thinking, folk rock and folk revival were two very different types of music, played by and listened to by very different types of people and music communities. Folk rock was Steeleye, Fairport, Pentangle, Bothy Band on the east side of the pond, and The Band, the Byrds, Arlo, and Emmylou on the west side.

The revival musicians seemed from another planet altogether, though natives of each did, on occassion, manage to find each other.

I've always defined folk rock as contemporary pop music influenced by folk music, and folk revival as a modernizing influence on folk music. In other words, the music allegiance of folk rock is more to modern, future oriented pop/rock music sensibilities, values, etc. and folk revival music is more akin to the conservative, old fashioned sensibilities, values, etc. of nostalgia and a desire to return to a romantic past.

If that makes any bloody sense to anyone.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: greg stephens
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:31 PM

The guardian article was baloney, I dont know the journalist but it read to me like someone trying to promote some particular artist. I didnt read it deeply enough to figure out who they were trying to promote, In any cse, not something to be taken seriously. Anyway, I'm not going to become a folk-rocker in the hope of following a new craze, I'd have to grow my hair long again.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: alanabit
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 01:54 PM

You lucky bastard. Some of us would be happy to be able to grow it again at all!

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Apr 03 - 06:07 PM

"Now I know I'm in a minority here, but I have always considered EII and the Peatbog Fearies and Shooglenifty and the Albions and most of the stuff I've done to be folk-rock."(eliza C)

A minority? I'd not be sure about that. If someone asked me what folk rock is, those would be likely to be the bands I'd mention, every bit as much as Fairport Convention or Steeleye Span and that generation.

It's a continuing tradition, alongside and outside a shackled music industry which is owned by the money machine. It changes and develops, and every now and again it gets noticed by some creep like the one who wrote that rubbishy article. And it links in to all kinds of other things bearing a similar relationship to the system, and these also change and develop over the years. Such as the Mudcat.

It's interesting to try to imagine where it'll get to, in time. It's got staying power, because it's got roots, and stays in touch with them. Including things like Morris Dancers, and people who wear jumpers when it isn't even cold. (Those would be English jumpers, like sweaters - not the same as what Americans apparently mean by the word.)

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: GUEST,Eliza C
Date: 22 Apr 03 - 07:08 PM

Hi McGrath,
I agree with you, but unfortunately know too many of the musicians concerned in most of those bands...well, not Albions, anyway, apart from the Country Dance Band...(!)
EII and Shoogles and Peatbogs all faint at the sound of the "F-R" definition. Well, I've always thought of it as their problem, not mine!
x cheers
:) eliza

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Matt_R
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 12:34 AM

Bernard Butler is god. That is all.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 02:19 PM

I too, wasn't aware it had left, having seen the spawning of at least 2 FR groups in my local folk club. This group of young lads joined for the opportunity to drink beer after hours. They listened, took it away, learned the words, wrote new arrangements, came back and performed. They ripped the place up, they were fantastic. And this was 15+ years ago, something like 15+ years since the Fairport/Steeleye FR revival. See the pattern here? The only difference is the generation gap is getting smaller. I am expecting any day now the news that there is a 'New Romantics' revival so I get to look at beautiful young men in tight leather trousers and 18th Century ruffled shirts.....

I'll up my medication........

LTS

And yes Peg, she is THAT Eliza, it is her dad we are discussing!

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 06:40 PM

Some people think anything is folk if the instruments are acoustic and you can understand the words.

So I suppose folk rock means anything with electric instruments and words you can understand -- which is an improvement over most rock -- I think.

Subject: RE: Apparently folk rock is back...
From: Frankham
Date: 23 Apr 03 - 06:48 PM

There was a pop record "Walk Right In" rearranged by Erik Darling. It was accoustic duo 12 string guitars done with a rock beat. This was in the early Sixties. It wasn't a standard country four-four or three-quarter. It was boom boom chik. My thesis is this. Erik may have been one of the very first folk rockers. Of course there were early R and B versions of Stackolee and The Midnight Special that predate Lonnie Donegan who was not rock but skiffle.

Frank Hamilton