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Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!!
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Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! |
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Subject: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: Lowden Jameswright Date: 30 Jun 06 - 09:07 AM Enough evidence in my thread (Folk Club Guest Nights – Who Needs 'em) to suggest the "find somewhere to play, but not bother to listen, and then piss off" syndrome is not just a local disease but spreading far and wide. Here's my two-penneth: (1) Over the last 30 years the number of folk clubs running guest nights in the Sheffield area has fallen. As a consequence, non-performing (paying) audience folk have dwindled. (2) The number of folk clubs and session venues has risen. (3) There are many more performers and "Wannabees" now, and that is to be applauded – it's healthy enough as far as it goes. However, I believe it's a slippery slope to go down if we follow the line of least resistance route and cater for them at the expense of established artists. OK – I know it's difficult for organisers to keep all the balls in the air and sufficient funds in the bank to maintain regular Guest nights, and it's much easier to run clubs solely for the benefit of those who want to play and sing, but I fear the end result may be that many clubs will descend to the level of the lowest common denominator. I appreciate that floor-spotters get a buzz out of performing in front of an audience that has turned up to see an established artist, and I can understand them wanting to repeat the experience as often as possible, but I despair at their attitude (not all – but many) when they do their spot then leave, or don't bother to turn up on Guest nights (either because they are tight-arsed or prefer to go elsewhere where they can play rather than listen). There's no doubt that floor-spotters get more of a buzz out of the borrowed audience than simply performing in front of other "wanabees" - so it's a touch of the old catch 22. Maybe if they spent more time learning stagecraft and musicality from established artists they'd manage to scale the heady heights themselves (or at least raise themselves above the level of mundane). So – Guest Nights – who needs 'em? I suggest that we all do – if the folk club tradition is to survive long term. I urge performers to lift their heads and open their eyes and ears more rather than bury themselves in the intensity of their own performance. Give yourselves a break from performing and go and look, listen and learn from the likes of Vin Garbutt, Jez Lowe, Dave Burland and Co and so on down the entire folk hierarchy. This way we will sustain a healthy and vibrant folk club tradition with sufficient fee-paying audiences to support it, rather than drift inexorably towards anonymity and musical belly-button contemplation! What d'ya reckon? |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: jacqui.c Date: 30 Jun 06 - 10:18 AM I agree. SINSULL has held house concerts combined with a song circle and it is amazing what you can pick up from a good performer. In the UK one guest night at Waltham Abbey stands out - the night that George Papavgeris performed. Not only do you get an idea of how to keep audience attention for a period of time but he sings songs that you start thinking "I wanna learn that!". Guest performers are generally gracious enough, in my experience, to stay and listen to the amateurs before or after their segment and feedback from one performer was to the effect that he was able to access previously unknown material that way. The street, it appears, goes both ways. |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: John MacKenzie Date: 30 Jun 06 - 10:30 AM I've said it before and I'll probably say it again, navel gazing is best done in private. We all have hang ups, and we all get shit on by bosses and girl friends, and boy friends, and just about every other sort of friend. If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it in the dictionary between shit an syphilis, DON'T bring your angst to the party or no one will ask you to play, well more than once anyway. Engage with the audience, that hole in your guitar is for sound to come out of, and not for you to mumble into! Not everybody can have the charisma of a George Papavgeris or a Sidewalk Bob, but you can work at it, sell yourself, then they'll buy your songs too. Giok |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: GUEST,DB Date: 30 Jun 06 - 01:08 PM I wish that rather than just listening to Vin Garbutt etc. a few more people would also start listening to recordings of traditional singers and start basing their performances on them. If nothing else most traditional singers were most emphatically NOT 'navel gazers' and knew how to put a song over. On my way to work recently I've been listening to recordings of the late, great Lizzie Higgins on my MP3 player - now that woman could sing! Each performance is a work of art. She was a very skilled singer, who knew exactly how to present each song, yet her ego never got in the way. The song was what mattered to Lizzie - and that's the way it should be. |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: GUEST,Andy Date: 01 Jul 06 - 07:41 AM In response to a couple of Lowden Jameswright's observations, can I put in my own two-pennorth? I have come across the 'do your spot and then piss-off'types, but very rarely, and it doesn't tend to happen at the club that I organise. I don't know why, maybe it's not the type of place they want to come to!(thank God). However, I know these people exist and tend to regard them as self-centred/heads up own arse creatures which a good folk CLUB can do nicely without, thanks very much. At Kiveton Park F.C, we've a great crowd of regulars, none of whom has any 'prima-donna' delusions and all turn up regularly, whether singer or guest night. Yes, of course all of them like to 'do their spot' and most weeks I manage to get maybe,16 performers up to do two songs apiece. On guest nights though, all realise that they may not get the chance to perform and seem quite happy to accept that! No-one gets snotty about it. I can't count the number of times some regulars have approached me during a guest evening,(or even on a full singer's night) and said 'give me a miss tonight Andy if you're pushed for time'. None of them gives a toss about singing on the same bill as Kirkpatrick, Killen or the Ranters, they're there for the company, the craic, the guest and the atmosphere. A commendable and mature attitude. Yes L.J I do believe that guests can be of a great benefit to a club. Although Kiveton will always be a 'singer's' club, I have eight guests per year (every six weeks or so) and the regulars all seem enthusiastic about the arrangement. A good well-chosen guest can be entertaining AND 'educational' in musical,performance and knowledge terms and I'm sure this rubs off on the regulars and is beneficial to the club, long-term. As regards the non-performing or 'paying' audience who appear on guest nights only, I regard some of these as folk 'groupies' who travel around venues just to see their fave artistes and really don't contribute to the CLUB other than in financial terms. They're welcome, of course and how they choose to spend their money/time is not my business BUT I wish some of them would turn up on singer's nights and become part of the real folk world, rather than just sitting oppen-gobbed at the feet of their particular idols every so often. Well, rambling over, keep folkin' regards Andy |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: GUEST,wayne Kerr Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:08 PM We have a bloke who turns up demands a spot. Sits with his back to other performers' not listening' plays his bit and fucks off! You know the bloke, he gets round SE London and Kent clubs and has an ego the size of the titanic. He has a load of expensive guitars, tells racist/sexist jokes plays a pile of MOR shit about his grandma dying and riding his poxy pony on a boat. We don't need arseholes like this on the scene. The only reason they come is that they are not quite good enbough for the working man's club circuit |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: jacqui.c Date: 01 Jul 06 - 04:50 PM The other ones who can become a trial are those with a repertoire of about a dozen songs, which haven't changed over many many years and who can put off others who can see nothing fresh or new at a particular club. If you get two or three of these types, as I know from experience, it means that sessions can get bogged down in the same old same old and, in those cases, maybe a guest night might give the die-hards something more to think about. Either that, or because the guest is singing fresh stuff, they decide to go away! |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: GUEST,BB Date: 01 Jul 06 - 05:41 PM We have a bloke at our club who's been singing the same 5 or 6 crappy songs for the last 20 years and STILL needs the words in front of him! Nobody tells him he's crap because he's a nice bloke! |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: Barry Finn Date: 01 Jul 06 - 05:44 PM If he's a nice bloke them him nicely. It's really not fair to the others. Barry |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: GUEST Date: 02 Jul 06 - 12:20 AM If you are so bad/unique/non-traditional....but need a gig. Ask the the pub owner to drop the price one-pound-a-pint on the nights you play. Look over the the years and years, past, MudCat postings from Jhon-frum-Hul and his group "Merry Widows that Punch Horses. Publicity will get you everything, including recognition 6000 miles away. Won't pay for the fiddle rozen, and won't pay for your beer, but, bless the spirits in your belly...the results fill leave you jolly.....while others spill bile from the ghile |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: Strollin' Johnny Date: 02 Jul 06 - 03:05 AM Our club has the problem of plenty of attendees on singaround nights (many of them 'listeners', not just performers), but quite a number of 'regulars' seem to have something else to do on guest nights (no matter how good the guest is!). As a result, we've done away with guest nights, just not worth the effort or the financial loss (or the embarrassment of the guest having to play to a half-empty room). |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: John MacKenzie Date: 02 Jul 06 - 04:58 AM Ah Johnny me boy that's because they don't want to have to pay; the miserable bastards. Many years ago I instituted a system at my club of charging everybody, and refunding singers if they got a spot. That soon sorted the men from the boys! Giok |
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Subject: RE: Guest Nights - Who Needs 'em? - WE DO!!! From: Rasener Date: 02 Jul 06 - 05:35 AM You may have a point Giok, however Gainsborough FC is a very good singaround club with a very good family type environment. By that, I don't mean that there are lots of children, more that everybody is part of the family. They enjoy themselves and have lots of laughter and fun. Having guests whilst nice, is not what drives this club. I believe people go there because they feel comfortable with the environment and like and are encouraged to sing or play in a very pleasant environment. When you have a guest, its like taking their evening away from them. Having said that, I am more of a concert (audience) style person, but have had many a good night at Gainsborough FC. The buggers keep on trying to get me to sing LOL, but they haven't succeded yet :-) I hope my comments make sense. |
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