so what do I do?

Good eve one and all,

so thus starts another space of opinion and information... opinimation if you will (or informapinion). The idea for this was given to me by a friend during one of my rants about traditional/ folk music and how I have found that more and more recently that I have become rather pernickety about the people I will and will not listen to and the reasons, specific and spurious, by which I make those decisions. I assume that she felt strongly that my wise words needed to be heard by a wider audience...

More about me; I have been listening to folk all my life courtesy of keen parents, attending folk gigs since the age of four, singing and playing folk since my early teens and despite enjoying an eclectic array of genres, always find myself drawn back to the folk idiom like the pull of a favourite jumper or the pseudo-nostalgic comfort of a good Fred Astaire musical. I am currently based in Bath where I am playing some gigs, getting involved in the sessions and generally enjoying the scene which is young but it's daily growing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trees_They_Grow_So_High_(folk_song))

In this blog I will not be out to insight mass revolution or start arguments about which version of "seven yellow gypsies" is the best, where it came from, the verses that are historically accurate and who shot first (Han), this is a place for me to have my say about what I hear out there in a world embracing a nu-folk "revival" (a word that I say with dread). There is a lot of good music, passionate people and wonderful interpretations on our aural history out there and I hope that you, dear reader, will discover bands, songs and tunes that you didn't know even existed.

As a vague plan that I am making up right now, I will look at different tunes and songs and some of the versions and history around them, review new releases and specific albums that I really love or have problems with (Show of Hands and Martin Carthy, you will be mentioned).

This blog will not cater particularly to one specific country in terms of music although my background is heavily English with an Irish inflection, it will not be covering country 'n' western (we got both kinds) unless deemed absolutely necessary.

Also, there will be no mention of N****n F***kner

So I hope you enjoy this and I'll see you soon...