music press.

[abby (tank girl)]

so simon, re: your final comment when answering a question about the imagined village here on the board, why should we not get you started on the music press??

[simon emmerson]

errrrr give me a while to think about how I should answer this one..if at all.

[Sir Robert Peel]

Simon Says:

Oh and btw don't get me started on the music press.

Why not?  What's wrong with it?

 

Peel

[Sir Robert Peel]

Colin Randall, journalist extraordinaire and Bloggamist, has answered my questions here

I see what you mean, Simon!  


Peel

[colinrandall]

Crikey, Sir Robert. What have I done now?

Thanks for the link, though - which I have reciprocated at Salut! Live

http://www.salutlive.com/2008/06/loved-your-folk.html  

The little discussion prompted by my Whither Folk articles for the Abu Dhabi paper for which I now work rekindled memories of the Johnstons (including Paul Brady in an earlier guise) which I used as an excuse to dig out a YouTube clip of The Johnstons singing The Curragh of Kildare. If you follow the link, you will probably find out before me whether it was worth including  because my computer at work has no microphone and I haven't scrounged  headphones from anyone yet

 

[simon emmerson]

There's nothing worse than musicians winging on about how they're undervalued geniuses who get ignored and miss represented by the music press, so as a rule I NEVER enter into this debate as you end up sounding like a self-righteous, pompous **** and shooting yourself in the foot...but seeing as we're in a folk forum that encourages debate on issues of folk and acoustic music here's an example.
Colin Randell is a fine journalist of the old school who wrote for the Daily Telegraph with an obvious passion for folk and has continued this with some great blogging that any musician, fan and enthusiast will find of great interest. Good stuff. Now lets have a look at what we have these days  on the Telegraph. This is taken from last years Imagined Village Telegraph CD review:.

It describes Martin Carthy as sounding like a member of the wurzels and tries to dismiss the record as a worthy 'community hall jam':

"alongside the warm wurzelish tones of folk stalwarts such as Martin carthy and his chin pierced, nu folk heroine Daugherty Liza....their modern multi cultural reworking... the sitars, synths and cider sounds...are pretty much what you'd expect if you got this lot together down the local community centre for a jam". She ends up conceding that even though we're at times 'wincingly worthy' we are also  'open heartedly transcendent'.

So Martin Carthy=folk singer=nearest funny folky reference band?? I know the Wurzels!! Brilliant, how funny. Haven't heard that one before.
 
And here's another bit of creative, deductive journalism.  Sitar+folk= multi culturalism + cider = worthy community hall jam.

A review that tells you nothing about the music and a huge amount about the ignorance of the writer who obviously hasn't a clue how music is  made. If any one is interested Sheema Murkerjee our sitarist is at present working with English composer John Taverna on one of his compositons. She is a musician who I have a huge amount of respect for which is more than I can say about this reviewer. Shemma has always wanted to work with Martin Carthy and other English trad players and jumped at the opportunity to get involved in the Imagined Village. We really wanted to do it in her local community hall but it was just too full of all these tecno kids and their synths getting together with other traditional Folk singers and members of the Asian community, drink cider and having these really boring, predictable, worthy mutli-cultural jams.

Now you've got me started I can go on.....I still have my right foot.

[Tasha]

here is the whole review.


FOLK

The Imagined Village
The Imagined Village
Real World, £12.99

"Englishness is the final frontier of world music," argues Simon Emmerson of Afro Celt Sound System, the band best known for fusing techno and trip-hop beats with African and Celtic melodies. So now he's had a go at doing the same thing with olde English folk music.

Alongside the familiar warm, Wurzelish tones of folk stalwarts such as Martin Carthy and his chin-pierced, nu-folk heroine daughter Liza, the Imagined Village's population includes the likes of Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, Transglobal Underground and Benjamin Zephaniah, who resets the old Tam Lyn tale in urban clubland – the faerie lover of the young girl becoming an asylum seeker.

Their modern multicultural reworking of the well-worn stories of sex, death and nut-brown beer are pretty much what you'd expect if you got this lot together down the community centre for a jam: the "sitars, synths and cider" sound veering between the wincingly worthy and the openheartedly transcendent. Helen Brown

[gower flower (Shirl)]

Blimeyheck, how patronising was that (the review, I mean)? I have to say that even in these allegedly folk-enlightened times, I frequently encounter reviews of folk gigs which are, to say the least, clearly written by journalists who haven't got the first idea what they are talking about.

It's all very well to write a critique, if you understand the medium in the first place, but if not, keep schtum!

[Bob Barrows]

Hmm, I'm having a hard time figuring out if that was a positive or negative review. Maybe it's because I'm a yank and I don't get the references that are setting you lot off here (I have no idea who the Wurzels are, and based on what you've said, I don't think I'll bother looking). Is it the "community hall" thing? Is that meant to be derogatory? If so, the last sentence, that on the surface seems to be positive can be now seen to be "damning with faint praise"

[gower flower (Shirl)]

Here you go Bob........

http://www.wurzelworld.com/

[jude]

It makes me sort of huffy that musicians are not allowed (well in the eyes and ears of a lot of people, not only the press) to grow and experiment with others of different genres. 'You started off by being folk*, what do you think you're doing, collaborating with a rapping/bhangra/hip-hopper*? It's not what we like you for'

(* whichever genre you like)

The press do like putting people in boxes. It keeps the music nice and tidy and neat. Stops it spilling out and being messy

[Bob Barrows]

Here you go Bob........

http://www.wurzelworld.com/

Thanks Shirl  
I knew I shouldn't have clicked that link ...

Hmmm ... actually, in the right mood and environment, I might even like that ...  

[colinrandall]

In fairness to Helen, although I have no axe to grind, she is quite fond of folk ( a five-star kind of review for Kate Rusby, for example, when I disqualified myself, having written something for KR's site). In fairness to folk, to describe Eliza Carthy as nu-folk strikes me as perverse and insulting, but that may be because the reactionary in me led me to declare it a banned phrase in my very first Salut! Live posting (http://http://www.salutlive.com/2007/05/salut_live_the_.html)

[Miguel Cajon (Mick)]

"Seth Lakeman, the 31 years old Devonian whose name sounds like a shady minor character in a Thomas Hardy novel, is folk's crossover poster boy.  Now on his third album, he maintains that status not by taking risks, but by playing it entirely by the book.  The thumping drums and martial fiddles of the Wicker man-ish opener 'The Hurlers' could be the Chieftains, and 'Poor Man's Heaven' continues to leave no cliche unused (he actually employs the phrase 'watery grave' at one point).  If you really dug Mike Oldfield's 'Moonlight Shadow' and Chris de Burgh's 'Don't Pay the Ferryman' this is the album for you."


Constructive? Some of them have no idea of what the creative process involves and how difficult it can be. Some, not all.

[simon emmerson]

Who needs the Guardian when you can read the Sun! In last Fridays Glastonbury's review ("Glaso was a Blasto!") they write:

"The Imagined Village aka Martin Carthy, Billy Bragg and their band of multinational musical chums- seemed to get to the heart of Glastonbury.
Shimmering violin sounds wafted over the burger bars as Billy bounced on to the Jazz World Stage to knock out England Half English Meets John Barleycorn. It may have been the refreshing Gaymers Cider but it looked like he was wearing a Marmite T-shirt"

I have offered myself for a page 3  top less spot but they haven't moved into man boobs yet. Their lose.

Interesting they call us a 'multinational band' when we are all born and bread English. I wonder why they got that wrong?

[Anne Dunn]

let me guess - lack of research?

Good to get a positive review in that paper.  

And why didn't BBC4  show Billy in the TV recording?  

[Andy]

Maybe they meant multi-cultural?

[Anne Dunn]

Ah, that would be it. Pity journalists don't study English grammar these days.  

[Goaty]

And why didn't BBC4  show Billy in the TV recording?  

Unilever asked nicely