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30/08/2004 Folk festival horror - weekend pastoralists at play
If I were to be marooned in the idyllic Devon seaside resort at the time of the annual Sidmouth (folk) Festival, I'd probably lose the will to live. Surrounded by thousands of weekend pastoralists - all desperately trying to recapture a mythical Arcadia, exulting in hokum like Morris dancers and black-faced Cloggies - I'd probably decide to go for a long, long swim. The police would find a neatly arranged pile of clothes on the beach, just above the tide line. BBC4's delightful film of this year's Sidmouth Festival (the fiftieth) didn't avoid the horrors of the contemporary folk scene. And the film showcased some of the big cheeses in the Brit folk world - Kate Rusby, the Yorkie diva; Eliza Carthy, inheritor of the Watersons mantle; and Steeleye Span, the radicals who dared to mix precious folk with that horrid, tawdry (liberal-left code for "American") rock. The artistry of each is obvious, though none floats my boat. But none of this detracted from the musical riches buried deep within the film. Two bands stood out. Danu played a couple of evocative Irish laments. Tiger Moth excelled with their (electric) English country dance tunes from the late 19thC. These two succeeded where most folk fails, in authentically evoking time and place, offering music which transcends the genre. Their music was intrinsically and beautifully interesting, universal in its appeal, independent of its context. (But probably wasted on this audience of bearded, cheesecloth-clad Drabbies.) Folk music can be grown-up. As the Sidmouth film demonstrated, however, it mostly isn't: its grown-up quotient is tiny. The lyrical element of much folk music makes it so unpalatable; most of the music isn't a problem. But, to be fair, most music in most other genres isn't really suitable for grown-ups, either. Gerry Smith
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