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08 Jul 08 - 07:40 AM (#2383630) Subject: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Sarah, Barnsley I was sat in a very good real ale (but anonymous for the sake of this post) pub in a northern english city with a strong folk scene, and a barfly, who has clearly used to have something to do with the running of the pub was talking about a folk music session they used to have I can't remember it verbatum, but the key points were something like this "it all sounds the same" "they sit around drinking and talking until 1/2 hour before closing time, then we can't get them to leave" "it doesn't bring anyone in" "some of the musicians are clearly very talented others, not" I'm sure mudcatters wouldn't be guilty of any of the justifiable negative points, but I thought it was interesting to hear an unfiltered opinion on (some) sessions. to add to that, I do find it frustrating how late sessions can get going - those who have to work the next day or have to drive a long way home either suffer in the morning or leave just as things are starting. Sarah |
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08 Jul 08 - 08:49 AM (#2383692) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: John MacKenzie Here we go again |
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08 Jul 08 - 09:22 AM (#2383712) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: r.padgett The bar fly missed the point that the ones in were in fact the musicians and their followers, paying for their ale in a pub which would not have anyone in very likely! The music said to be "the same" is from a none musicians' point of view I bet Ray |
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08 Jul 08 - 09:26 AM (#2383714) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: mattkeen Well, even in folk music, non musicians do listen to music don't they? |
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08 Jul 08 - 09:28 AM (#2383717) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: jacqui.c From experience I know that there are a number of pubs in which the regulars see the premises as their own private fiefdom and resent any changes to the status quo, particularly if it involves a lot of 'noise' that they neither like nor understand. Same goes for bar staff as well. this has happened both in the UK and the USA, to my own personal knowledge. The fact that this might bring in needed income to the landlord goes over their heads. |
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08 Jul 08 - 09:31 AM (#2383722) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Jon "it all sounds the same" I think is common enough. As a player, I don't get how say a reel followed by a jig, then a hornpipe, can feel the same but, sadly, it seems to work that way for some. I must confess I have a similar problem with the fast bluegrass tunes - a couple sound blindingly brilliant but then I can get tired. "they sit around drinking and talking until 1/2 hour before closing time, then we can't get them to leave" I'm not aware of that one sessions I've been to/go to. Some nights may have gaps of talking, esp if a night is thin on players, but usually people want to play the night through (although I will concede many could play on another hr or so given the chance). Currently, the ones I go to are on a 10:30 finish anyway. "it doesn't bring anyone in" I think some do, some don't but mostly people accept the music. I've been in pubs where you can feel some hostility from locals and others where you feel really welcome and do see people come because of the music. I have experienced these differences with the same groups of players. "some of the musicians are clearly very talented others, not" I'm not sure I've particularly picked that up as a listener. As a player, I'm very much aware that some like me get by and others are exceptionally (and I've for example come across 2 Irish champions in sessions I've been to) able but I think what I hear when I'm out of the table listening is the combined efforts of all. There is incidentally, one session I go to less often now as I've been unable to keep up with the change of repertoire (you can get not one repeat in say 3 weeks and I'm mostly "old standards") and am limited in how often I get out and opt for one I can join in playing more. I can appreciate the music even if I decide to go there just as a listener. I doubt many of the other customers really do and I think it's a shame but, to some degree, their loss (by that I mean, of course you are delighted if you pick up for example toes tapping round a table, etc.). Sometimes I think evenings could be made more popular perhaps for example by throwing in the odd Wild Rover or Fields of Athenrye, etc. but that's not what the nights are about or what brings the pleasure to the musicians. |
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08 Jul 08 - 11:01 AM (#2383791) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Sarah, Barnsley Were do you go to sessions Jon?, sounds like the ones you go to start nice and early. To be fair I've not been to a regular session recently, apart from the pre-barnsley folk club one that jsut runs for an hour - but my memories of the last one I went to was that it didn't get going until about 9:30 adn I feel like leaving at 10:30 most nights! (lightweight I know). When playing out in public, generally I get the impression that this sort of music is well received, although this is usually in bars at folk festivals where people expect that sort of thing anyway. Jaqui, the number of boarded up/to let pubs round barnsley now is astonishing (especially ones that had a large smoking clientel)- i think it would be quite easy to get a pub to agree to let musicians play around here at the minute s |
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08 Jul 08 - 12:58 PM (#2383899) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Jon I'm in N Norfolk and usually go into Norwich for music. Music usually starts between 8:30 and 9:00. I'm quite a late night person (although these days I can't keep up drinking and playing until the early hrs) and didn't like the early finishes (pub licence conditions apparently) when we first had them. I've grown to accept it though and particularly in one, have even grown to like it as everyone has a (free) drink and a chat after playing. In contrast to one of your opening comments - I find some weeks, it's the only time I do get to talk to everyone. |
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08 Jul 08 - 01:00 PM (#2383902) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Lord Batman's Kitchener I'm sure this sort of thread has appeared elsewhere on Mudcat, now, if I could just find it... |
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08 Jul 08 - 01:34 PM (#2383942) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: SINSULL Rap music all sounds the same to me as does modern rock. To some, all opera sounds the same. So don't listen to it. |
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08 Jul 08 - 01:42 PM (#2383949) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST aha Jon!, are you the Jon that posted on the sessions in norfolk thread? - I grew up there - keep meaning to go to a session whenever I'm visiting, but never quite manage it (a fifty mile round trip after a 200 mile journey never seems that appealing) S |
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08 Jul 08 - 01:51 PM (#2383957) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: mandotim Lots of pubs closing in Leek at the moment; but the survivors are falling over each other to arrange live music of one sort or another. Rock bands, acoustic sessions, open mike nights, jazz nights, singarounds; so much for the music not bringing the punters in. The landlords around here watch each other like hawks, and the continued success of the Wilkes Head, a small, simple pub with a very strong music culture has been duly noted. Tim |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:06 PM (#2383969) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Jon I can't remember, but I might well have been. Hope you do make a session some time. |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:18 PM (#2383976) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Georgiansilver There are those who have understanding and enjoy the positive experience that Folk Music can reward with...There are those who view any experience of something different as negative and become critical because of their lack of understanding....There are those who couldn't care less........ I like to see myself in the first category....but everyone has choices.....even barflys. Best wishes, Mike. |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:20 PM (#2383980) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: lefthanded guitar Sinsull, I was just going to say the same thing about rap and opera. Any music you don't have an affection for can sound the same. We don't have many English style pubs in the states alas (at least that I know of) but we have a lot of coffeehouses and clubs (which, for the folk scene at least, are often dark,cavernous places without proper ventillation,whose primary purpose seems to be selling liquor) The owner of one I have frequented (more for proximity than anything else) seems to have the same cavalier attitude towards folk musicans as your pubber. I have often overheard him complaining that 'they' (meaning folkies) don't bring in enough people aka money, the music seems hokey to his tastes, etc. et al -but this owner doesn't always seems to have a good instinct for music. Once he booked an 'unknown' performer -unknown to HIM that is, and had less than a dozen people in attendance. Turns out the performer was Bill Staines, who I personally have seen draw a crowd of hundreds when properly promoted to his fans. If you're in the music of business, it seems to me, you should be standing by your audience,instead of stifling a yawn. Better business sense as well. Ah, just my 2 cents. |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:31 PM (#2383989) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Richard Bridge My mother died in January, aged 97. I remember her telling me that her mother told her, when she (my mother) was just a "gel": - "I don't know what you see in these Savoy Orpheans, it all sounds the same, plink-a-plunk plink-a-plunk" |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:37 PM (#2384000) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Lord Batman's Kitchener and you should have heard what my grandmother had to say to my mum about Albert Sandler and His Orchestra(they were of the same period approx. as the The Savoy Orpheans) |
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08 Jul 08 - 02:46 PM (#2384012) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Lord Batman's Kitchener This what you're Granny was on about |
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08 Jul 08 - 03:06 PM (#2384031) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,Jon Brilliant! |
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08 Jul 08 - 03:16 PM (#2384037) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Nick One of my relatives, Maurice Elwin, sang with them |
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08 Jul 08 - 03:54 PM (#2384062) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: GUEST,sarah, barnsley fantastic - now if ilearned that that would make things sound a bit different! |
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08 Jul 08 - 04:18 PM (#2384082) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Jack Campin A lot of Edinburgh pub sessions start too late for me too. Not because I want to go to bed early, but because I live way out of town. If a session starts at 9.30 and wraps up at 11 (like the one at the Tass on Wednesdays) I spend more time travelling than playing. I'm not very interested in sessions less than two hours long. |
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08 Jul 08 - 04:27 PM (#2384092) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: jacqui.c I think that a lot of landlords still rely on the regular customers, the ones that come in every day and stay for a while. I'm thinking of two particular pubs in the town I used to live in where a group of folkies tried to start a regular session. In both pubs the regulars really didn't want this intrusion and I don't think, for them, that the 'don't listen to it approach' was going to work. This was their local pub, they were used to drinking there, without interruption, as they saw it, and a load of 'idiots', as we were once called, coming in and drowning out the muzak did not suit. One pub managed by persuading the regulars to drink in the other bar the night that the folk session was on, the other stopped allowing the session. In the USA a session that I sometimes get to had a problem, for a while, with the kitchen staff who did not like the folk music and countered by playing a radio close by, banging pots and pans and talking loudly. Looks like there has been a change of staff as the problem seems to have gone away. |
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08 Jul 08 - 06:23 PM (#2384212) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Nick I have started music in two pubs and in each case there has been a time when we battled with the locals to some extent or another but it's ok now after 5½ years though they still find us weird. There is a very loud mouthed girl/woman who comes in late on a music evening and just drowns out everything with a talking voice that could strip paint off cars. But even her is starting to show a little interest (bewilderment?) as to what we get from it and occasionally wanders down the pub and listens quizzically. But the landlord is very much on our side. It's a quiet pub in the middle of nowhere. Does no food. Has perhaps half a dozen people in on a normal night. On a wednesday there are probably 30+ people there every week (even got up to 50 one week) with 90% there for the music. And gradually we grow. The locals probably avoid the night we are in though the fact is now busy on a Wednesday mean that more people come because there is something on - which occasionally makes it a bit noisy later. We are at least tolerated and some things are liked. And occasionally something special happens and something gets sung or played that's good and it all goes quiet... |
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08 Jul 08 - 06:29 PM (#2384219) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: Nick We aim to start at 8:30 (though it drifts occasionally) and then it's pretty much solid music through till about midnight. The landlord makes some nibbles for us which is kind (though uncalled for) but that tends to cause minimal disruption as we tend to sing or play through it Very occasionally I go to the Maltings in York where they have a regular weekly session on a Tuesday or the Tap and Spile on a Friday. The tuesday one I think attracts people the Friday one is a bit of a battle against the noise of a busy pub but is at least tolerated and attracts people I tend to agree with a comment on another thread that increasingly music is welcomed in pubs as money gets tighter, two-for-one-feed-yourself-stupid-for-£5 get two a penny and the beer price and smoking bans affect the traditional wet trade in pubs. I keep finding pubs where they have some form of entertainment on where 3 or 4 tears ago there was none. |
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08 Jul 08 - 07:26 PM (#2384242) Subject: RE: Conversation overheard in a Pub, UK From: McGrath of Harlow "they sit around drinking and talking... I'd have thought that'd suit the pub down to the ground. After all, if your hands aren't taken up with playing music, you can drink more. |