ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Woodford has not booked a good ITM band since TAEDA, is anyone going there this year, has Woodford lost its folkus. For instance there was a jazz band booked for the session bar every day of last year's noisefest. What's going on kids?
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Trouble in the kitchen are playing this year. Tulca Mor play reasonably frequently. My band mates from Evenish were doing the guinness bar last year too. I agree with you but personally i'd be more concerned about the trend away from trad we're starting to see at the National...................
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
A trend AWAY from trad at the National? That's unfair and untrue.
There isn't a trend away from Trad at the National!.
Which of the following don't meet YOUR definition of trad?:-
Bob Fox (England), Women in Docs, The Duhks (Canada),
Genticorum (Canada), Wheelers and Dealers, Cloudstreet, George Papavgeris, Mike Compton (USA), Genticorum (Canada), Faerd (Denmark/Sweden), Pacific Curls (New Zealand/Scotland), Marcia Howard, King Curly, Les Barker (England), Dancehall Racketeers, Big Rory and Ochie (Scotland), Truckstop Honeymoon (USA),
Faerd (Denmark/Sweden), Judy Small, The Wheeze and Suck Band, Jan Wositzky and Tim Heath, Voicepopfoible, Pekka Pentikainen and Catherine Strutt (Finland), Dev’lish Mary, Rory McLeod (England), Peggy Seeger (USA), Jim Conway’s Big Wheel, David Arden, Fabio da Lapa (Brazil), The Spooky Mens Chorale?
My personal observation is that the Artistic Director at the National is passionate about folk (though broad in his definition), and has pushed extra money in to the Masterclass program to support, nurture and continue to develop trad players.
AND his biggest problem is that the National doesn't have a major cash sponsor, and is only supported by ticket sales, and so his budget can't extend to booking all the great acts he is offered. So he has to make choices based on trying to put together a program that is interesting, diverse, shows off the best, and encourages the new, and can only book a small percentage of what he's been offered.
And unfortunately people involved in bands who don't get booked take it personally rather than understanding the process.....and bitch and moan and talk about it being not trad enough or too trad or too celtic or too multicultural....
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Catherine Strutt from Finland?
Big Rory and Ochie trad?
Settle Petal, you've got the right idea, but you have rounded up a few of the wrong suspects.
However I am sure there won't be a jazz band in the session bar OR a doof tent and that the National is still folkussed.
Good plug for the festival though!
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
CurvyFiddle, those artists could certainly be labelled 'folk' but late in the evening was bemoaning the move away from 'trad' at the nash. I think possibly the best evidence would be from a few years ago when Draiocht didn't get a place. That seemed extremely odd to me at the time, and more and more so as I appreciate just how good they are.
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
I think the thing that concerns me most is that New Year's Eve has an ABBA night scheduled - and there's a Beatles night in there somewhere as well. Even my SO, who's not all that into diddly-dee, comment "W.T.F.?" when she read the programme.
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Not to mention the "Grease" competition. i.e. John Travolta
But I think that goes in the comedy dept. Shouldn't change the shape of the festival too much
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Actually curvy fiddle I think pretty much every band you named would take exception to being labled trad. Maybe Wheeze and suck (tony is actually a good mate who I play with in Kate Delaney's band) but they're more at the morris end of things than anything. Genticorum are amazing and one of my favourite bands but they are Quebecois and passionately so. King Curly? Trad!? Women in docs would fall under the singer song writer category if anything unless they've starting playing tunes since the last time i saw them??
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
curvy fiddle how can you say that women in docs is trad???!!!!! they are absolute complete mind numbing sing a song writing drivel! the problem with folk festivals the nation over is the trend away from "real" folk and traditional music and more towards arty farty feel good sing a song writers about the frangipanies blowing in the wind while i look deep into your eyes crap!
Go trad and lets hope that there will be a festival soon that doesnt pander to egocentric sing a song writers! Hup!
You go late in the evening!!!!!
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
John - on the session side of things at Woodford, the only way to show the WFF boffins that Celtic trad is worthwhile is to come and join in.
So if any of you are walking past the session tent, and haven't got a circus, 9-piece gypsy fusion band, or eco-relevant talk to go to,or lentil curry to warm up back at your distant tent, or are willing to sacrifice the chance of yet another Martin Pearson/ John Thompson-themed debate ( No just joking MP and JT), ........ well then: hop in for a few tunes. MAKE it happen, even if your best sesh mates aren't there.
Meanwhile the rest of us will continue to work on the powers-that -be, because yes, they do need some informed guidance.
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
I completely stuffed up with mixing up the words folk and trad and using them interchangeably when they are not...HOWEVER....
Those who criticise the bigger festivals might want to visit their annual reports, funding submissions and 'mission statements' ... and what you'll find is that rather than pandering to anyone to try achieve just a big event for the sake of running a big event.....thought about what they are trying to achieve HAS occured...and it IS about folk and about trad music.
In fact, the boards, managers and directors of the festivals (the powers that be) tend to be passionate enthusiastic people who love (and play) all forms of traditional and folk music and have prescribed some aims for the program managers to try achieve with their festivals...which mostly is to try bring more people to appreciate folk and traditional music....rather than let it die by becoming something only appreciated by obscure academics or obsessive hobbiests.
I know you'll find the program managers trying to walk a tightrope in their programming that means they bring in to the festival people who have the potential to become converts to the music.
They try inculcate the good taste all of us on this mustard board obviously have....by bringing in people who might initially find a 9 piece fusion gypsy band they heard on Radio National the main attraction.......and then offering a program with enough heart and soul and the pure stuff still happening at it's core for those people to discover it and explore it and fall in love with it like we all have.
Some people never will, but for others, this music is like good wine, good whiskey etc.....once you've experienced the really good trad and folk stuff....you can't quite go back to listen to another mediocre singer songwriter expressing mundane views on life, the universe, politics and their love life over and over again.
If you get the chance to follow the programmers of the big festivals...... you'll find that they roam from concert to session to workshop...taking the pulse of the festival......and that even more than the super critics here.....they beat themselves up for getting the balance wrong if they find the sessions thin and uninspiring, if they don't find the instrument workshop tents and singing workshops and instrument makers tents buzzing with people suddenly inspired to re-explore making music themselves.
They have to try please everyone that pays good money to go to their festival, and at the same time get those people to go to the music the powers that be DO want to see survive and thrive....and they don't always get it right....BUT the INTENT of the Beatles nights and debates and fusion bands....is to have a starting place where the trails of breadcrumbs can lead the curious, the better informed, and those developing good taste to the really good stuff.
And those trad players who understand that's what the festivals are trying to do, tend to joyously make pumping sessions happen, rather than moan about the balance of the program....and whether enough of their mates in bands got booked or not.
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
"women in docs is trad???!!!!! they are absolute complete mind numbing sing a song writing drivel!" -- The Curvy Fiddle.
Wow, that's harsh. Whatever happened to the supposed folkie thing of live and let live, let it/him/her/them be?
I don't attend to every act/style/tradition/culture/whatever at every festival, but that's what's so good about festies like WFF is that they're so freaking huge you can go there and have a whole total blues explosion (if you must) or go totally ITM, or absolutely jump into a vat of endless 'sing a song writers' if that's your thing.
Is a song more valid just because it was written in 1895 as opposed to 1985? Would Paul and John have been chased out of the ale house with the threat of a rabid chicken up the date if they'd been 'oooohhing' and 'ahhhhing' and 'nah nah nah nah nah-ing' down at the The Ploughman's Left Testicle in Berkshire in the late 1800s?
(NB. I don't count myself as a Beatles' fan, but strangely I know every freaking lyric at Bernard Carney's singalongs.)
Diddly-diddly isn't everyone's cup of tea either, and of course it comes in all manner of forms and expressions: traditional to its boot straps or slapped down on the back of a bar coaster at The Mean Fiddler on a Sunday afternoon and put out for a niche audience on an EP six months later.
Live and let live, says I. And walk/run/sprint away if WID are playing and it just ain't your glass of tea. I actually quite like their stuff, and the way they engage with audiences intimate and huge.
But that's just me, he says, as an old recorder/whistle player in his youth who's only just getting reaquainted with a very basic FEADOG 'D' whistle. It's the stuff of late afternoons in the middle of very large sportsgrounds or paddocks or rooms lined with egg cartons. The coaster stays over the beer glass less those bum notes send it flat...
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
"And those trad players who understand that's what the festivals are trying to do, tend to joyously make pumping sessions happen, rather than moan about the balance of the program....and whether enough of their mates in bands got booked or not." - curvey fiddle
Hmmm - late in the evening is one of those musicians that sits there noon to sun up pumping the tunes out all the time.. all the time! I think all he was saying was that there was an obvious move away from trad as in 'Traditional Irish music' at the NFF...which is what this website is about after all.
It is not about bitching cause enough friends didnt get on - its about bitching because there is just no irish trad getting booked. Granted last year Grada was there (but only for one gig and only because they were already on tour here), but what about this year? And before you say 'Trouble in the kitchen' I know exactly how that all went down.
Its not about bitching - its about wanting to see at least one good irish trad act - whether it be from Ireland, Australia or wherever. I really dont see the big deal - 1200 acts booked and there cant even be one decent trad act every year? Come off it!
I don't see the problem with mentioning things that you would like to see....I think people should be able to say the things they want to see without fear that the cheerleaders for the NFF are going to jump down their throats.
ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Woodford has not booked a good ITM band since TAEDA, is anyone going there this year, has Woodford lost its folkus. For instance there was a jazz band booked for the session bar every day of last year's noisefest. What's going on kids?
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Couldn't help thinking the same thing as I flipped through the program, McK.
There's still a fair amount on if you know where to look, though.
And some bloke who can't sing or play the accordion will be attempting both at the Duck & Shovel at some point.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Andy Irvine was at the last one wasn't he?
Anyone I've heard talking about Woodford though just thinks "folk" means "chilled". They think Jack Johnston.
# Posted on December 18th 2007 by Bren
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Jack Johnston???????????????
# Posted on December 19th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Trouble in the kitchen are playing this year. Tulca Mor play reasonably frequently. My band mates from Evenish were doing the guinness bar last year too. I agree with you but personally i'd be more concerned about the trend away from trad we're starting to see at the National...................
# Posted on December 19th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
A trend AWAY from trad at the National? That's unfair and untrue.
There isn't a trend away from Trad at the National!.
Which of the following don't meet YOUR definition of trad?:-
Bob Fox (England), Women in Docs, The Duhks (Canada),
Genticorum (Canada), Wheelers and Dealers, Cloudstreet, George Papavgeris, Mike Compton (USA), Genticorum (Canada), Faerd (Denmark/Sweden), Pacific Curls (New Zealand/Scotland), Marcia Howard, King Curly, Les Barker (England), Dancehall Racketeers, Big Rory and Ochie (Scotland), Truckstop Honeymoon (USA),
Faerd (Denmark/Sweden), Judy Small, The Wheeze and Suck Band, Jan Wositzky and Tim Heath, Voicepopfoible, Pekka Pentikainen and Catherine Strutt (Finland), Dev’lish Mary, Rory McLeod (England), Peggy Seeger (USA), Jim Conway’s Big Wheel, David Arden, Fabio da Lapa (Brazil), The Spooky Mens Chorale?
My personal observation is that the Artistic Director at the National is passionate about folk (though broad in his definition), and has pushed extra money in to the Masterclass program to support, nurture and continue to develop trad players.
AND his biggest problem is that the National doesn't have a major cash sponsor, and is only supported by ticket sales, and so his budget can't extend to booking all the great acts he is offered. So he has to make choices based on trying to put together a program that is interesting, diverse, shows off the best, and encourages the new, and can only book a small percentage of what he's been offered.
And unfortunately people involved in bands who don't get booked take it personally rather than understanding the process.....and bitch and moan and talk about it being not trad enough or too trad or too celtic or too multicultural....
# Posted on December 19th 2007 by TheCurvyFiddle
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Catherine Strutt from Finland?
Big Rory and Ochie trad?
Settle Petal, you've got the right idea, but you have rounded up a few of the wrong suspects.
However I am sure there won't be a jazz band in the session bar OR a doof tent and that the National is still folkussed.
Good plug for the festival though!
# Posted on December 19th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
CurvyFiddle, those artists could certainly be labelled 'folk' but late in the evening was bemoaning the move away from 'trad' at the nash. I think possibly the best evidence would be from a few years ago when Draiocht didn't get a place. That seemed extremely odd to me at the time, and more and more so as I appreciate just how good they are.
# Posted on December 20th 2007 by kjay_bc_box
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
I think the thing that concerns me most is that New Year's Eve has an ABBA night scheduled - and there's a Beatles night in there somewhere as well. Even my SO, who's not all that into diddly-dee, comment "W.T.F.?" when she read the programme.
# Posted on December 20th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Not to mention the "Grease" competition. i.e. John Travolta
But I think that goes in the comedy dept. Shouldn't change the shape of the festival too much
# Posted on December 20th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
Actually curvy fiddle I think pretty much every band you named would take exception to being labled trad. Maybe Wheeze and suck (tony is actually a good mate who I play with in Kate Delaney's band) but they're more at the morris end of things than anything. Genticorum are amazing and one of my favourite bands but they are Quebecois and passionately so. King Curly? Trad!? Women in docs would fall under the singer song writer category if anything unless they've starting playing tunes since the last time i saw them??
I think you see my point.
# Posted on December 22nd 2007 by late in the evening
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
curvy fiddle how can you say that women in docs is trad???!!!!! they are absolute complete mind numbing sing a song writing drivel! the problem with folk festivals the nation over is the trend away from "real" folk and traditional music and more towards arty farty feel good sing a song writers about the frangipanies blowing in the wind while i look deep into your eyes crap!
Go trad and lets hope that there will be a festival soon that doesnt pander to egocentric sing a song writers! Hup!
You go late in the evening!!!!!
# Posted on December 23rd 2007 by tombo
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
John - on the session side of things at Woodford, the only way to show the WFF boffins that Celtic trad is worthwhile is to come and join in.
So if any of you are walking past the session tent, and haven't got a circus, 9-piece gypsy fusion band, or eco-relevant talk to go to,or lentil curry to warm up back at your distant tent, or are willing to sacrifice the chance of yet another Martin Pearson/ John Thompson-themed debate ( No just joking MP and JT), ........ well then: hop in for a few tunes. MAKE it happen, even if your best sesh mates aren't there.
Meanwhile the rest of us will continue to work on the powers-that -be, because yes, they do need some informed guidance.
# Posted on December 24th 2007 by Fliúiteadóir
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
I completely stuffed up with mixing up the words folk and trad and using them interchangeably when they are not...HOWEVER....
Those who criticise the bigger festivals might want to visit their annual reports, funding submissions and 'mission statements' ... and what you'll find is that rather than pandering to anyone to try achieve just a big event for the sake of running a big event.....thought about what they are trying to achieve HAS occured...and it IS about folk and about trad music.
In fact, the boards, managers and directors of the festivals (the powers that be) tend to be passionate enthusiastic people who love (and play) all forms of traditional and folk music and have prescribed some aims for the program managers to try achieve with their festivals...which mostly is to try bring more people to appreciate folk and traditional music....rather than let it die by becoming something only appreciated by obscure academics or obsessive hobbiests.
I know you'll find the program managers trying to walk a tightrope in their programming that means they bring in to the festival people who have the potential to become converts to the music.
They try inculcate the good taste all of us on this mustard board obviously have....by bringing in people who might initially find a 9 piece fusion gypsy band they heard on Radio National the main attraction.......and then offering a program with enough heart and soul and the pure stuff still happening at it's core for those people to discover it and explore it and fall in love with it like we all have.
Some people never will, but for others, this music is like good wine, good whiskey etc.....once you've experienced the really good trad and folk stuff....you can't quite go back to listen to another mediocre singer songwriter expressing mundane views on life, the universe, politics and their love life over and over again.
If you get the chance to follow the programmers of the big festivals...... you'll find that they roam from concert to session to workshop...taking the pulse of the festival......and that even more than the super critics here.....they beat themselves up for getting the balance wrong if they find the sessions thin and uninspiring, if they don't find the instrument workshop tents and singing workshops and instrument makers tents buzzing with people suddenly inspired to re-explore making music themselves.
They have to try please everyone that pays good money to go to their festival, and at the same time get those people to go to the music the powers that be DO want to see survive and thrive....and they don't always get it right....BUT the INTENT of the Beatles nights and debates and fusion bands....is to have a starting place where the trails of breadcrumbs can lead the curious, the better informed, and those developing good taste to the really good stuff.
And those trad players who understand that's what the festivals are trying to do, tend to joyously make pumping sessions happen, rather than moan about the balance of the program....and whether enough of their mates in bands got booked or not.
# Posted on December 28th 2007 by TheCurvyFiddle
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
"women in docs is trad???!!!!! they are absolute complete mind numbing sing a song writing drivel!" -- The Curvy Fiddle.
Wow, that's harsh. Whatever happened to the supposed folkie thing of live and let live, let it/him/her/them be?
I don't attend to every act/style/tradition/culture/whatever at every festival, but that's what's so good about festies like WFF is that they're so freaking huge you can go there and have a whole total blues explosion (if you must) or go totally ITM, or absolutely jump into a vat of endless 'sing a song writers' if that's your thing.
Is a song more valid just because it was written in 1895 as opposed to 1985? Would Paul and John have been chased out of the ale house with the threat of a rabid chicken up the date if they'd been 'oooohhing' and 'ahhhhing' and 'nah nah nah nah nah-ing' down at the The Ploughman's Left Testicle in Berkshire in the late 1800s?
(NB. I don't count myself as a Beatles' fan, but strangely I know every freaking lyric at Bernard Carney's singalongs.)
Diddly-diddly isn't everyone's cup of tea either, and of course it comes in all manner of forms and expressions: traditional to its boot straps or slapped down on the back of a bar coaster at The Mean Fiddler on a Sunday afternoon and put out for a niche audience on an EP six months later.
Live and let live, says I. And walk/run/sprint away if WID are playing and it just ain't your glass of tea. I actually quite like their stuff, and the way they engage with audiences intimate and huge.
But that's just me, he says, as an old recorder/whistle player in his youth who's only just getting reaquainted with a very basic FEADOG 'D' whistle. It's the stuff of late afternoons in the middle of very large sportsgrounds or paddocks or rooms lined with egg cartons. The coaster stays over the beer glass less those bum notes send it flat...
# Posted on January 15th 2008 by Overheard
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
"And those trad players who understand that's what the festivals are trying to do, tend to joyously make pumping sessions happen, rather than moan about the balance of the program....and whether enough of their mates in bands got booked or not." - curvey fiddle
Hmmm - late in the evening is one of those musicians that sits there noon to sun up pumping the tunes out all the time.. all the time! I think all he was saying was that there was an obvious move away from trad as in 'Traditional Irish music' at the NFF...which is what this website is about after all.
It is not about bitching cause enough friends didnt get on - its about bitching because there is just no irish trad getting booked. Granted last year Grada was there (but only for one gig and only because they were already on tour here), but what about this year? And before you say 'Trouble in the kitchen' I know exactly how that all went down.
Its not about bitching - its about wanting to see at least one good irish trad act - whether it be from Ireland, Australia or wherever. I really dont see the big deal - 1200 acts booked and there cant even be one decent trad act every year? Come off it!
I don't see the problem with mentioning things that you would like to see....I think people should be able to say the things they want to see without fear that the cheerleaders for the NFF are going to jump down their throats.
# Posted on January 26th 2008 by bb
Re: ITM at Australia's biggest folk festival, is it dead?
"Cheerleaders for the NFF" ???!!!
Can't say as I've ever seen any folkies brandishing pom-poms.
"Give me an 'N', give me an 'A', give me a 'T'..."
Doesn't bear thinking about.
# Posted on February 5th 2008 by Overheard