Saturday, March 31, 2007

Folk off

I another attempt to drown out the cravings of nicotine withdrawal by drinking I have found myself mildly pissed and rambling.
I have a confession to make (apart from the one about steeling a cigarette from my wife), I like folk music.
It may start from listening to a tape given to me by Scott. It must have been sometime in ‘91(possibly,, I dunno I’m drunk) when he gave me a copy of nevermind by nirvana, I had already started to listen to punk at this point so when he asked me what to put on the other side I told him to stick whatever he liked on the tape.
Now I don’t like Scott, or should I say I didn’t like Scott, he was a prime wanker, an indie tart, to admit he had a major influence on my musical taste is a shame without parallel. This tape introduced me to the likes of the pixies, new model army, the levellers and fields of the nephilim.
It was the new model army and levellers that first opened the gateway to folk, I had always had a thing for Clannad when I was totally wasted but here was an angrier punky dimension, soon I was listening to the Pogues, Billy Bragg, Christy Moore and Kirsty Mccoll, by 1995 I was listening to little else. The Cranberries, Wonderstuff, Jools, bob Dylan and don McLean; I was almost ready to take up country dancing and start drinking real ale.
To this day I still have folky moments, I have drifted away from the Irish folk because I find it to whinny (apart from the Pogues), but the rest rocks. I like protest music, even when I disagree with the protest, it has more passion. When pop artists release something for charity or in support of a good cause you can always tell there is a contrived and marketed angle to the music, take the latest comic relief song walk this way, it sucks.
Rock music and folk music are very close in my opinion, both can be empty, hollow expressions of righteousness and aniseed or emotional barrages that make you sit up and take notice.
Whatever.
Folk rocks
Rock folks.