Wednesday, October 05, 2005
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SPECIAL TOKEN PIC OF THE DAY
My wife Jan (as opposed to my other 300 wives -- phhht)
is getting really good with Photoshop. Here's the pic I took of her at Dragoncon (scroll down or go back to last month or whatever to see it), cut out, flipped, and dropped into another picture from which she removed a TALLER gentleman and rebuilt part of the wall to cover up where the guy was standing.
I don't even know how to FIND Photoshop.
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I'm starting to get spam ads to my blogs. Bad Spam. Go away.
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Our board at Fiddler's Dream lost two members in the last week for different reasons. I don't think we have a quorum anymore. One person left due to differences with another person on the board -- definitely not worth talking about but the OTHER person had an interesting reason for leaving -- problems with the definition of "folk music."
Her argument was that according to the charter of our non-profit coffeehouse, Fiddler's Dream was primarily to be used to perpetuate "folk music," specifically AMERICAN folk music. Fidd's, however, has long billed itself as an "acoustic music showcase," meaning that s long as you didn't plug in, you could play whatever you want. She was concerned that some of the recent acts booked at Fidd's hardly fit into even the broadest spectrum of folk music, except for the fac that the acts played acoustically.
MY problem with all this is that I can't draw a line in my head over what constitutes "folk music." We've never put a limit on what gets played at Fidd's because most of us feel that you have to push boundaries. You can only listen to a guy do "traditional" folk songs so many times before you finally get tired of them. The folk music industry includes everybody from Pete Seeger to Utah Phillips to Townes Van Zandt to Ani Di Franco (when you're tired of reading names I know you've never heard of, let me know) to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to certain Ricky Skaggs recordings to Anton Dvorak, if you really want to get anal about it. (His most famous compositions were written on a farm in Iowa, and based on old folk music.)
And I can't see the place DENYING the right to play folk music from outside the United States; that just seems rather bigoted and narrow-minded to me.
The retiring board member also said that people were complaining to her about the dip in talent displayed by a lot of the people being booked. I have a hard time with this one because I haven't had ANYBODY complain to me about a single act. We expect that some comments about "quality" are more comments about "content" or "style." I've certainly seen people perform at Fiddler's Dream who I didn't like, or who didn't end up being as good as we thought they were going to be, gut that wouldn't necessarily stop me from booking them again, espcecially if they pull a crowd.
I'm just venting here and I know none of you care but it's an interesting topic: what DOES constitute folk songs these days?
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A client of ours with operations in Louisiana sent us these cool Katrina pictures:
Didn't somebody say something once about beauty in the midst of chaos?
TT
SPECIAL TOKEN PIC OF THE DAY
My wife Jan (as opposed to my other 300 wives -- phhht)
is getting really good with Photoshop. Here's the pic I took of her at Dragoncon (scroll down or go back to last month or whatever to see it), cut out, flipped, and dropped into another picture from which she removed a TALLER gentleman and rebuilt part of the wall to cover up where the guy was standing.
I don't even know how to FIND Photoshop.
------
I'm starting to get spam ads to my blogs. Bad Spam. Go away.
------
Our board at Fiddler's Dream lost two members in the last week for different reasons. I don't think we have a quorum anymore. One person left due to differences with another person on the board -- definitely not worth talking about but the OTHER person had an interesting reason for leaving -- problems with the definition of "folk music."
Her argument was that according to the charter of our non-profit coffeehouse, Fiddler's Dream was primarily to be used to perpetuate "folk music," specifically AMERICAN folk music. Fidd's, however, has long billed itself as an "acoustic music showcase," meaning that s long as you didn't plug in, you could play whatever you want. She was concerned that some of the recent acts booked at Fidd's hardly fit into even the broadest spectrum of folk music, except for the fac that the acts played acoustically.
MY problem with all this is that I can't draw a line in my head over what constitutes "folk music." We've never put a limit on what gets played at Fidd's because most of us feel that you have to push boundaries. You can only listen to a guy do "traditional" folk songs so many times before you finally get tired of them. The folk music industry includes everybody from Pete Seeger to Utah Phillips to Townes Van Zandt to Ani Di Franco (when you're tired of reading names I know you've never heard of, let me know) to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to certain Ricky Skaggs recordings to Anton Dvorak, if you really want to get anal about it. (His most famous compositions were written on a farm in Iowa, and based on old folk music.)
And I can't see the place DENYING the right to play folk music from outside the United States; that just seems rather bigoted and narrow-minded to me.
The retiring board member also said that people were complaining to her about the dip in talent displayed by a lot of the people being booked. I have a hard time with this one because I haven't had ANYBODY complain to me about a single act. We expect that some comments about "quality" are more comments about "content" or "style." I've certainly seen people perform at Fiddler's Dream who I didn't like, or who didn't end up being as good as we thought they were going to be, gut that wouldn't necessarily stop me from booking them again, espcecially if they pull a crowd.
I'm just venting here and I know none of you care but it's an interesting topic: what DOES constitute folk songs these days?
------
A client of ours with operations in Louisiana sent us these cool Katrina pictures:
Didn't somebody say something once about beauty in the midst of chaos?
TT
Comments:
The National Folk Festival is in Richmond this weekend. Their take on music covers plenty of global cultures. That board member would not approve. You can check out what they're showcasing at:
http://www.nationalfolkfestival.com/
Debora K. (who loves zydeco!)
http://www.nationalfolkfestival.com/
Debora K. (who loves zydeco!)
# posted by 
: 11:12 AM
: 11:12 AM
Anna Russell, speaking in 1956, said, "The definition of a folk song, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, is 'the uncouth vocal utterance of the People.'"
Works for me.
Works for me.
Strict Definition:
1) The author is anonymous to the best knowledge of most singers of the song
2) The song is found within a cultural/ethnic group as a part of a larger body of indigenous culture.
3) The song has been around long enough to undergo the "folk process," i.e. a mutation or five.
Loose Definition:
If it ain;t sung by a horse, it's folk music.
1) The author is anonymous to the best knowledge of most singers of the song
2) The song is found within a cultural/ethnic group as a part of a larger body of indigenous culture.
3) The song has been around long enough to undergo the "folk process," i.e. a mutation or five.
Loose Definition:
If it ain;t sung by a horse, it's folk music.
# posted by : 2:29 PM
: 2:29 PM
Would The Thought Of Thousands Of Other Web Site's All Displaying Your Content,
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# posted by : 11:22 PM
: 11:22 PM