Spam, spam, spam, the state of folk clubs, the search for song lyrics and guitar lessons at Old Bridge Music

Originally published in FoT Issue 98: Jan-Mar 2004

As I sat down to write this column, events seemed to be conspiring against me. Had my PC been attacked by some mystery virus? So much spam (see “Folk on Line” issue 96) was clogging up my inbox my email was virtually unusable and my computer was starting to play up. Software that used to give me hours of pleasure now did nothing but generate error messages. I had started going for long walks just to reduce the percentage of each day spent at my keyboard before there was no more hair to tear out. But as my cursor froze for the third time in as many hours I had a sudden and thankfully lateral thought. I put fresh batteries in my cordless mouse and voila! - it’s a new dawn.

Filled with renewed hope, I perused the newsgroups. In uk.music.folk Jacey Bedford, Artisan’s very own cyberbabe, raised an issue dear to all our hearts - and therefore bound to get keyboards rattling:

“... we’ve discussed this subject before, but it seems to me that some folk clubs are dying on their feet while others thrive ... we’re in the 21st century now and with declining club audiences, we need to bend before we break. What can we do to make folk clubs or their equivalent more palatable to both current folkies and potential ones? Let’s face it - a proportion of current folkies are an ageing audience and know that I, for one, am not happy to fight my way through a crowd of underage drinkers in the bar, find an unmarked (secret) staircase that’s sticky with spilt beer and then perch on a hard bar stool for three and a half hours in a cold room - whatever the standard of entertainment.”

It was at this point that bells began to ring. I’ve been up that sticky staircase! Though if I remember correctly there were no hard bar stools left and I had to stand behind the tallest bloke in the room.

“I know we’ve had the floorsinger debate recently - but what about venues? Is it about time we abandoned the scruffy pub in favour of something more comfortable? With lottery funding there are now plenty of places with swish, new or refurbished village and community halls. There are also plenty of arts centres that might be grateful for a regular event, midweek, in their bar. I’m not saying all pubs are lousy, some are excellent, but as we travel round, there’s a definite correlation between low audiences and scruffy or intimidating pubs. The gigs I run in our village hall - mostly well supported, occasionally not - are not a prime example of what’s right with the world because although we’re not in a scruffy pub, our hall is in need of refurbishment. However, we’ve had lots of nice comments about our new upholstered chairs which make the whole evening much more comfortable - so I’m guessing that comfort matters to more than just me. We pay a small amount for the hire of the hall - but we get a good enough audience to cover that. What do you think? Should we be looking for nicer surroundings? Does it really make a difference, or could all the comfy chairs in the world not prevent a folk club decline?”

I was tempted to add some of the responses here, but kept finding myself at first agreeing with the various arguments put forward, then tearing them apart. It was as if I was turning into a grumpy old man before my very PC. OK, an older grumpy old man. If you want to read them, do go to the Google Groups site where the thread will be easy to find. The important thing is that Jacey has thrown the topic open for discussion, and the aspect that caught my attention, but did not seem to be picked up on by many others, is that any avenue we can go down to get lottery money used to support traditional live music should be explored.

One of the respondents in the thread was Hamish Currie, the webmaster (Onine update 130208: at least he was then. Click here for Hamish's Lombardy pages, here for the TFC) for the Tudor Folk Club in Chesham, Bucks, who includes on his site an excellent guide to setting up a folk club along with sections on Floorsinging For Beginners and Joining Your First Session. Here is the introduction to Hamish’s Starting A Folk Club section:

“This is an edit of a thread started by Dave Thackeray, who asked, in uk.music.folk: ‘I’m intending to start up a folk club shortly and wondered if those running established clubs might offer me some (positive) advice about the best way to go about it’ ... which raised one of the more enthusiastic threads in recent years - these pages are a consolidated and edited version of that thread. Read, learn, enjoy! There’s lots to think about: and as many opinions on each and every aspect of running a club as there are versions of John Barleycorn.”

I have mentioned the Mudcat Cafe in these pages before, most recently in issue 89, but then only its Internet radio pages. Originally the Digital Tradition Folk Song Database, it specialises in folk and blues. I was pleased to learn that it seems to be going from strength to strength and is an excellent resource for lyrics, chords and tablature of traditional and contemporary song as well as discussion groups with a lot of UK content. In the 10 minutes or so that I visited the site I managed to find the lyrics to ‘She Moved Among Men’, ‘Slip Jigs And Reels’ and ‘The Galway Shawl’. I even downloaded a couple of midi files of variant tunes for the latter. And let’s not get involved in a heated debate about copyright. I could stick on my June Tabor CD and type out the words to ‘The Barmaid’s Song’ as an aid to learning it and nobody would mind. If I can download it, I don’t have to type it. I admit to laziness, not theft.

No need to steal from Chris Newman’s Old Bridge Music site, for not only has he got a new address - he’s obviously gone broadband - but he is giving away guitar lessons. Yes I know it’s just a trailer for his book but there is an exercise and a James Scott Skinner tune to download so if you will forgive me, dear reader, I feel the need to go and practise. Like I said, it’s new dawn.