Glad you're having fun with it!

- Ian B

With the best people in folk music it's not themselves they are showing off, its the songs and the music.

What's happens here on the Mudcat fits into that. Sometimes it's showing off, more times its not exactly that.

for me it's one way of making sure that i get to hear songs and tunes that I like!!

And I think of someone else I know, painfully shy in all kinds of setings, anything involved talking to strangers. Stick him on a telephone to deal with some kind of transaction in a working setting, and he's transformed into this confident sharp character who knows all the questions and the answers.

And the same kind of things happens in any setting which involves getting into role to carry out a task of some kind. It's one reason why I think it can be a real mistake throwing away the concept of working clothes and uniforms - they can be really empowering in a good way.

And I think of someone else I know, painfully shy in all kinds of settings, anything involved talking to strangers. Stick him on a telephone to deal with some kind of transaction in a working setting, and he's transformed into this confident sharp character who knows all the questions and the answers.

And the same kind of things happens in any setting which involves getting into role to carry out a task of some kind. It's one reason why I think it can be a real mistake throwing away the concept of working clothes and uniforms - they can be really empowering in a good way.

Usually it is, because they money's spent before it ever gets to my pocket. ;-) Tires, strings, shots for the dogs, you name it.

I have lots of hobbies, though, so I never get burned out on any one of them. A couple of them make me some pocket money, so it works out pretty well.

Most of the time, though, the greatest reward is being thanked for sharing. :-)

When I was younger, the egoism was more a part of it, I think, than it is lately; everyone thrives on a little admiration, and a little can go a really long way, but it has become less important than the other part.

Songs, to me, are very...what's the word?...condensed messages; if you really tell the tale of Lord Lovell or the Golden Vanity with conviction, your listener, willy-nilly, will be immersed in a holgram of history, and will feel the air of ancient London or hear the screams of alst-sea pirates as he puts the song together. When you do that for someone, you are handing him a huge piece of his heart, as a legatee of all the human centuries on Earth, that he might not have had access to otherwise. It enricheth the spirit to hear a good song becasuse of the amzing dimensions that can be folded up inside a bunch of words wrapped in three or four chords, but song with the full intention to communicate. It's a damn miracle, practically.