Episode 1 - Rachel Elliott: The English Folk Dance and Song Society and youth involvement in the folk scene

[This is an edited auto-transcript of the podcast. Although we have tried to make sure it is all accurate be aware that there may be occasional errors in the transcript.]

00:00:06

Welcome to this podcast about participation and access to folk singing in England. My name is Joanie Bones and my name is Oliver Cross. I am primarily a folk musician these days. I play harmonica and Hurdy Gurdy But I also sometimes bring electronic instruments into my practice. I am disabled, and I'm also neurodivergent. And so, increasing access to music, and especially to folk music, not just for disabled people, but for all people is a pretty heavily vested interest of mine. 

I'm Joanie bones, I'm a singer. I sing unaccompanied folk song in the traditional style but I use experimental percussion. I use a loop pedal, and my performances are very performative with a lot of storytelling and people joining in. My mother is from Iran. My father is Jewish and I grew up in London. I recently realised that I too am neurodivergent and I am queer. So again, I'm not exactly your stereotypical folky and have a real deep-seated interest in trying to engage as many people as possible from as many backgrounds in this art form that I truly love. 

We are doing this as part of the Access Folk research project, which investigates ways to increase participation and Diversity in Folk singing in England. The project has just released a first report about the barriers people experience in, getting involved in folk singing, and this podcast will explore this further through interviews with some interesting people in the folk scene. If you want to look at the report yourself, you can download it for free on the project website. The link is in the podcast description.

00:01:52

For this episode. I interviewed Rachel Elliott, the trailblazing education director of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, the national organisation for folk music in England. I asked her about the involvement of young people in folk music in England today.

00:02:17

So the first thing I'm going to ask you is the simplest question of all, who are you? And what do you do?

00:02:24

My name is Rachel Elliot and I am the education director at the English Folk Dance and Song Society,

00:02:31

Wonderful and can you tell me more about sort of what your job entails within that?

00:02:37

Yes, it entails a lot of things essentially, I've got overall responsibility of the English Folk Dance and Song Society's learning program, which includes the National Youth folk Ensemble, it includes lots of activities at Cecil Sharp House, our choir, our adult learning, it includes London youth  folk ensemble. Our Inclusive Folk program for learning disabled young people, the Folk Education Network, which is a national network of folk educators that runs events around the country. Our dance development activities, producing learning resources, working with schools, working with music hubs, running all kinds of creative projects and essentially that is it, and advocating for folk music and dance, in particular within learning and participation

00:03:32

Your current practice and your work connects a lot with young people, and communities of young people. What sort of barriers and challenges frequently come up with the young people you're working with? Is it actually accessing folk music, whether it's song or dance or instrumental?

00:03:54

Yeah, I think the the main barriers are probably with the young people that were not working with. Which is obviously the absolutely vast bulk of the population. So say the barriers for most young people is , they don't know what folk song is they've never been exposed to it; and they don't have good access points for it; or they'll have very, to be honest, negative views of what it might be, you know, "folk, that old stuff that we're not really interested in", so it's attitudinal barriers. I would say. Yeah. So obviously we've done a lot of work with our online Resource Bank and we have an incredible range of really high-quality folk song resources for different ages of young people and sectors of education, including disabled young people and those in SEND school settings. So we're trying to sort of make high-quality inspiring, engaging relevant resources available and then, you know, deliver projects where we can. The biggest project we were able to deliver was the full English back in 2012, 2014, which was quite a large scale project. So, and it's working in partnership. So, we've worked with the Model Music Curriculum, we worked with the ABRSM with their new online classroom 200 resource. So, we really try to work with sort of bigger partners that have a wider reach in terms of reaching educators and young people. So think. Yeah. The way to summarize, it's lack of knowledge, lack of exposure and it's also prejudice.

00:05:33

I suppose this next question is kind of putting you on the spot a bit .

00:05:37

That's fine.

00:05:37

I hope it is not too much, but what would you sort of say, so certainly within the sort of circles you work in, what do you say the current state of progress is in making folk more accessible? And what do you think is the sort of next steps on the path?

00:05:53

I think there's a lot more to be done. I think there's some really good work going on in different places. If we're talking about young people, if we're talking about more broadly, then I think the growth of the community choir movement is fantastic, and it has a really important part to play in all this because there are more and more Community choirs and, you know, some of them are singing more English, let's call it that repertoire. I mean, our own choir is a, we feel ,is really important part of that. So Cecil Sharp House Choir, you know, for example, they're going to be performing in Trafalgar Square at the Feast of Saint George. They have a really Innovative sound. They've got a very highly skilled choir leader. I think this is important. I think the people leading this need to be really good at what they're doing. So, we're fortunate with Rose Martin. She's a brilliant choir leader, she's selecting an interesting repertoire and thinking about that, and how its framed, and how its presented. So, it's quite a big deal for us to be able to do that. And then they'll also be performing at a Young a free outdoor Festival in Kings Cross in the summer. So we're trying very much to sort of Reach people who are not already involved in folk. Much as it's very fun, singing at folk festivals and it's very gratifying and our choir love it, It's basically reaching people who already love folk so it's not really helped move it forward as much. So, we're very keen as much as we can to get as high profile as we can performing in non folk setting. So, we're reaching a wider range of people to try to draw them in

00:07:31

As you have the National Youth folk Ensemble, would you say that there's, for instance, a call for something along the lines of a National Folk Choir?

00:07:40

Possibly. I think, what you need to know is that when we were setting up the National Youth Folk Ensemble, we did a really careful consultation exercise. So we put a lot of energy into asking the sector what they thought and that report is on our website and the whole mapping exercise that we did. I think yeah, we need to think about that but then also equally we were able to start the National Youth Folk Ensemble because there already were instrumental groups in existence like Folkestra and the Fosbrooks  and so on, and we just spoke to them. So we were able to build on an infrastructure or an ecology that was already there. Whereas I don't see that with folk singing. Having said that there are lots of youth choirs and some of it they will sing is folk repertoire.

00:08:29

So, would you say then the sort of call for creating the atmosphere of folk song sessions, but more catered towards young demographic, sort of family groups instead?

00:08:44

Yeah possibly, I mean I personally would like to run some really exciting projects using folk song and with other genres and in partnership with other organizations and really do some Innovative stuff. I just don't have the resources to do it, but that's what I'd like to do. I'd like to, kind of, explore some models of how this could work because I think, yeah, it's sort of R&D [Research and Development] in a way and approach it, very creatively. Obviously, you know, one of the reasons we start the Inclusive Folk project is because we all know there are barriers to Folk for disabled people and particularly learning disabled young people and those with complex needs. Absolutely. So that, you know, We're very glad that we've done that and it's really flourishing and we want to build and we want to do more of that work. That's, that's really important to us and yeah, like I said, I would love to do more creative folk song projects with the Resource Bank and we did a great project in Essex, and that was commissioned by Essex Music Education Hub, and we worked in schools across Essex and it was a really creative and exciting project and, you know, we created great resources for them to now use within their county. So I'd like to do a lot more of that and it is resource dependent. So that's the other, obviously part of my job is contributing to getting the resources to do these things and it has to be said, it's getting harder and harder to achieve funding. Because funders are not particularly interested in any genre, they don't really care, what they care about is the sort of social outcomes or, you know, and particularly focusing on people in need in some way or people in challenging circumstances. So you know, that's an interesting thing for people in folk to think about, you'll be rare to find a funder who's actually particularly cares about what.. well there aren't any that care about folk, particularly they don't necessarily care about any genre of music. It's what that music is going to do for the participants, how it's going to help their lives. That's the way sort of kind of funding has definitely moved. You know, as our society becomes more unequal, then charitable funders are looking to plug those gaps in different ways. And if folk can fit into that and I think it can,  that's a wonderful thing about folk singing. It's about telling people stories, and it can give voice and creative folk [song] writing is a fantastic vehicle for young people to express themselves. So that's the kind of thing. I personally would like to be able to do a lot more of. So yeah, there we go. I think that's it's been a pleasure to talk to you Oliver.

00:11:39

Likewise

00:12:01

That was so interesting.

00:12:03

It was

00:12:04

It sounds as like, she's done so much work across so many platforms to really try and get folk songs to be taken up more widely. And yet to hear of the struggles even within the institutions.

00:12:17

Yeah.

00:12:18

That we think of, that I thought of like "oh they have like big pots of money and they can they like..." no, it's not the case. It's a struggle.

00:12:25

I think the first thing I latched on to, probably because of my work in sort of music education, is the idea of funding and how the shift has gone from a focus on Excellence or the sort of idea of Excellence, to actually the benefit and effect that it has from the social point of view. And for the community point of view, especially when the focus for funding is moving towards inclusion and making Society more equal. I think that's a very interesting thing and I think that ties in quite a bit to some of the other issues that we'll be discussing it later episodes. For instance, the fact that in a lot of folk ensembles. Are you get people from those specific demographics? For instance, you have some folks ensembles which are very much white middle-class already, a family background in folk music. There's not really a lot of diversity in there. From what I can tell. what's, what are your thoughts of this sort of thinking?

00:13:37

I mean, I also was really struck by what she said about funding because I think I had in my mind this idea or belief that the English Folk Dance and Song Society themselves were a funder, now of course they do get out funds but I had  not made, hadn't understood that actually, they have to receive it from somewhere else first, and I was really struck, like, by this understanding that, "oh, there's nobody out there, specifically caring for folk music in England". And that's quite a thing. I think to sit without, like no one's out there is kind of really, kind of, supporting and thinking like, "we have a remit to make sure that this genre of music, which is, you know, traditional in this land is supported". Yeah I  feel quite sad actually about that.

00:14:25

It's definitely an interesting subject to discuss. And I'm not sure entirely how I feel about it myself. It is very interesting what she said about yeah, the very foundation for a lots of this education, a continuation of particularly the traditional folk song being in singing groups, especially how, you know, a few generations ago. It was you know part of the education system to have various folk songs actually sung and taught to Children. The older people the older generations in folk groups, and singing groups will have grown-up singing. A lot of these folk songs because they were part of what they learned as kids, you had some books newspapers, you had the teaching of singing in schools and indeed, there is still a little of that today, but I think I find it very interesting that the responsibility for carrying this tradition is now with these groups rather than you know, education system

00:15:37

Yeah, I mean, my dad talks about the National Song Book, and I remember years ago, I actually managed to find a copy of it on eBay, the Nationals Song Book, which all kids in England had, and I was at folk club last night in London and actually one of the songs, the group sang they introduced the saying, every, it was a Scottish woman. She said, "everyone in this audience who is English , will know this song", I didn't know it. I had to be taught it, "of a certain age" because, you know, we didn't have that in Scotland. So it's a really good point. The National Song Book and the fact that there are all these young people, like she said, I really struck me, she talks about lack of knowledge, lack of exposure and prejudice and it reminded me of two things. One is, about a month or two ago Eliza Carthy was on the radio. She said something, she said, you know, as far as she's concerned access to folk music is all about, just making sure people have exposure and she said in her experience, there's no one once you stick them in front of a folk band, they don't like it. And I had to think to myself. "You know what Eliza I wish that were the case" because I was remembering a couple of years ago, I have three very musical nieces and nephews, they've, grown up and, you know, in the kind of yeah, they're very musical and had access to a lot of music education. And I sang them one of my favourite songs. Do you know the song? The King of Rome

00:17:07

I do know the King of Rome

00:17:09

The one about the pigeon?

00:17:10

I do. I live in Lancashire. I cannot not know something about pigeons.

00:17:17

Oh well, and isn't it a fine song? I'd like to know some other songs about the pigeons, please tell me all of that. But this is the only song about pigeons. I know the King of Rome and about a carrier, a racing pigeon. And I sang it to my niece's thinking, you know, they will be so moved by this extraordinary moving story of the love between a man and his pigeon. And at the end, the eldest knees, she just burst out laughing and, you know, I was a bit mortified but I got over that. And when I sat with myself and I thought, what's going on here? Why is she, why is she laughing at this song? I realised she will have no experience of such a subject matter as being kind of subject matter for a song. You know, the story song that we are so familiar with in the folk tradition for all those young people and older people who aren't familiar with it. It's pretty weird to start with. It's not what then what they used to. So, I think her point about exposure to folk song, different to folk music because she makes an interesting point about, you know, there seems to be a lot of much more uptake of instrumental folk music, but you know we are interested in hearing how we get these songs out there. And yeah, I was just really, you know, it was interesting to realize that folk songs, the way songs are presented and carried the, you know, the ballads without a chorus. I remember singing a song recently to a pal that she was like, "oh, it'd be much better if you stuck a chorus in it".

00:18:47

I think is quite interesting what you said about your nieces, because I think there's that kind of ties in with my experience a little bit because I first heard that song when I was quite young and for me it had a sort of family connection because my, my my granddad actually used to keep pigeons when he was younger, long before I was born, but he used to keep it when keep it just when he was younger and it was very much I think that was more commonly done particularly in the north. So I think it's quite interesting because you've also got this thing about songs and subject matter. You know the majority of almost all of the folk songs that we have you know the the latest that we have for a lot of them are, you know, late 19th century early 20th century and so there's a sort of cultural background to those songs as well, that I think would be lost on younger people.

00:19:52

I'm aware there in terms of young people and folk music. What are we talking about young? Because when I go to a folk club in London, which is a City full of young people, millions of them literally, I'm often the youngest person there and I am 43, but you know going back to Rachel's interview when she's talking about the community choirs, the club I found in London with the youngest attendance, is actually associated to a choir. So there's a choir called the Morris Folk Choir and they run a monthly folk club and it has by far the youngest attendance of people of any folk club I have been to and also, I have noticed that the clubs were the younger attendees seem to be run by younger people as well. And when I say young and I am talking about people kind of in their forties and because I know when I was in my early twenties and I was wanting to get into folk singing and I came to London at that point and I went, I got really excited and I went to these folk clubs and I was quite stunned and saddened by to discover that there were mostly people in their sixties then, they're a lot older now. And, and it is the same now. And at that point, I think, if you haven't been to, you know, some people, they go to college and they said they go to UNI and they do. It felt good degree and so, they're really network there. But if you're actually just someone who wants to do folk singing because you love folk singing and you're younger than let's say, 60, it's very easy and not to mention all the other barriers that you've already mentioned. And that we're going to talk about a lot more in detail in the other episodes.

00:21:37

It's hard to kind of find a place that one feels comfortable. You know.

00:21:41

It is a sad situation in that we are slowly seeing the numbers of people and folk groups decline, of course, because of that sort of aging population. And if if we can manage to remove some of the other barriers on the sort of intersection or level with folk music then hopefully with a wider sort of range of musicians out there and a wider range of groups out of people doing folk music out there. It's my hope that more young people will be able to get in there because folk music, sadly institutionally can be so exclusive. You know, it's hard to get other adults into folk music, let alone young people I suppose.

00:22:31

And I was encouraged by, we were both at this really great Symposium recently in Sheffield as part of this project and there were a fair number of youngish people and they were, they were pretty cool. And then I have to say, you know, folk music, at least in the last few decades hasn't necessarily been associated with being pretty good, like cool and hip in terms of even what people look like. These things do matter, don't they? And it was great to see people like Maddie Morris and George Sansom and people who they just look really cool, you know . It's alright for Eliza Carthy because you know she's got her blue hair and she looks really Punky. But in a way I think you know with her lineage you could probably get away with anything if you're if you're if you're trying to become established in something, I think for a long time the folk scene or the folk singers that make it you know the women all  have... This is my impression as a kind of you know dark-haired low-voiced Londoner, ... like the women all seem to have long hair and these high nice voices, and a bit of me, just goes like "uugh,  where's like, where's the grit? Where's the grooviness?" And so, yeah, I do feel like there is some people coming into it now, who are really darn cool  and I have to say that I'm excited by that.

00:23:47

Yeah, I agree.

00:23:55

This podcast was presented by Oliver Cross and Joanie Bones and produced by Esbjorn Wettermark and Rowan Piggott. It was funded as part of the Access Folk research project at the University of Sheffield with additional funding from the University's Public Engagement Development Fund.

[This is an edited auto-transcript of the podcast. Although we have tried to make sure it is all accurate be aware that there may be occasional errors in the transcript.]

Podcast Episode 3

Transcript • 2023-05-31 15:23:21 +0100

00:00:08

Welcome to this podcast about participation and access to folk singing in England. My name is Joanie bones, and my name is all the cross. And in this episode, I talk to Marie Bashiru. Area is a musician who herself makes music. That's a Melting Pot of Folk, Soul, and indie rock. But she's also an ethnomusicologist and has done research leading to a podcast.

00:00:30

Cast called, where are all the black people about the blackface Minstrel. See, and its enduring influence on British folk music and talk to Marie about representation about her vision, for the future of Folk Music in England and a bunch of other fascinating things to do.

00:00:58

I'd love to start by simply asking you about your musical background and how you got interested in. British folk music. Yeah, thank you for having me. But it's really lovely to sit down and talk to you on this subject matter because as you know, I have talked a lot about it to other people in written form in the podcasts. Yeah. And it's in

00:01:19

Sing because I think my first relationship with folk music was definitely a subconscious relationship through my upbringing in the UK in England and London specifically. Definitely first associations were folk music would be Nigerian folk music? My family of Nigerian Heritage. So I grew up listening to Nigerian folk in my house often on Sunday mornings. And my mom was not working and, you know, be at home doing the housework and, and at parties and just the part of, you know, just the kind of cultural

00:01:49

Fabric of our lives and then growing up. Definitely not not having a relationship with English folk music in terms of tread folk, but I think more so contemporary folk kind of singer-songwriter acoustic sort of iterations of it. And I think, for me, it was probably one of the more helpful vehicles to tell stories versus I think my other love sort of like, you know, I'm being parp and unpopular, you know, is of course, a really great vehicle for storytelling. Right? But

00:02:19

But it not being so much about the performance but more very much about the storytelling, which is what folk music for me was. And then yeah went to UNI studied folk music. I did music at goldsmiths in London and Southeast London did a bit of Folk Music study there and then fast forward. However many years. I remember not being super excited, about studying folk music and uni English folk music because I didn't have any real kind of connection to it you know in terms of the kind of traditional and The Roots Focus

00:02:49

They will give it like lofty reading material like electric. Eden, was actually the first book that we weren't, you know, was on the reading list by Robert Young. And I remember buying that book buying a brand-new, never reading a page of that book and then and then ended up probably giving it away to charity. And irony, was that fast forward have many years. That was the first book that I went to. When I started my research with the English dance and folk song society and I was just like, wow, that's this is such a full circle moment, the very

00:03:19

Thing that I kind of was repelled is a very thing that I'm now being drawn back to without the same reluctance and actually within it a passion in it. And a real curiosity for what I do not know, it was really has a lot to say about my own story and you know the story of the people who come before me. Yeah. On the, on the British, I was particularly within the medium of Folk Music, which is such a cultural foundation. For the way we understand our past present, potentially our future. You're here. Younger kind of

00:03:49

Artists say things like, oh, you know, we need to have equal representation. So for example, as many women as men, all right, like we need to have all the genders represented but at the same time but the same what to say, but we don't want to just be included because we're a tick box, exercise, what are your thoughts about that? Like about the importance of representation of people of different ethnicities. And then there's like, oh, but we want to be there for art, not for what we represent. I think intention behind everything is

00:04:19

Is really what defines primarily like the action. And so if you do have a well-informed, you know, intention and approach to leveling the playing field, then, of course, do what you need to do and do it. Well and of course, is always going to be to some extent a tick box exercise because that's what's needed. We need to be able to tick the boxes. You know figuratively to be able to say we're doing the work. Well, we're doing it as it should be done.

00:04:49

We're doing it to the best of our ability and this is how we're measuring the work, right? It needs to be, if there's a goal and he's been measured measurable. Otherwise, how do we know we're meeting the standards that we're selling for ourselves? I think it's so funny. The conversations about representation that we hear a lot more of now that we're having more of because it really is kind of like, well, duh, of course, people want to see themselves, you know, reflected in what they watch and what they hear. And, you know, in media and entertainment like of

00:05:19

Is because we want to feel like we can relate to the people that we are enjoying, the people who we are connecting with in some sort of way. Whether it's their story, whether it's Talent, we want to be able to fill up when we can connect to that relate to it. And identity plays, a big part in that particularly with folk music, it's like there's a reason why don't see many black practitioners and folk music. There's a reason why you don't see many from about British here because you know it's different different parts of the world. Obviously there's a reason why you don't see British

00:05:49

Indians and British folk music, English folk music. There's a reason why you don't see Pakistani Bengali. There's a reason why it's very strictly white with dominantly white because there's no representation. There hasn't been there hasn't been that diversity of stories within the English folk Hannon that no doubt existed representation is like for me it's a kind of like der but at the same time it's like actually wait hold on like yeah it really does matter because if I don't see people that look like me doing something, I'm also going to think well

00:06:19

Well, you know, I don't belong in that space. What place do I have? They're not necessarily like for me I'm a little bit of an oddball word. Tend to go in spaces when it's like me. Like I've like know why can't I do that thing? Like I think I can do that. You know. I think I can do that thing. I think I would like to change things here because I feel like we should all have access to the joy of music, every form of music, you know, the joy of every type of like Lesley activity and Recreation, like it shouldn't be reserved for a group of

00:06:49

People who have been historically privileged to enjoy it. I think it's free for all but most people, you know, I'm including the nurse to representation, absolutely has a profound impact on us in the way in which we engage, with certain things and certain industries. And yeah, I think it's a very important conversation to have the folk Community is known for how welcoming and you know, it's very community-focused like it's looks community-oriented way, everyone's welcome, you know, if you love folk music, you're in, but

00:07:19

But the reality is when you belong to a group of people who aren't seen very often, there's this kind of experience that we have where we're not treated like relics, but we're treated like artifacts was like, they don't understand us and we're so other did culturally societally? Was that the way that often? Why English, people example, white people who don't have a lot of affiliation with Fina other races or ethnicities, the way that they will interact with you as if

00:07:49

It says if you are not like them and that there's something about you that they're never going to quite grasp and it's almost like you're some sort of vessel of like other nurse that they need to try and learn from. But because you're so other your to be enjoyed like from a distance and observed, I can artifact in a way and I know it sounds really strong and that's not to say that that's something that everyone experiences. But it's this kind of idea that because

00:08:19

Of the way in which you kind of been canonized in the sense that you're always experience from a distance and so it never allows you to fully connect with the people that are literally a right there in your immediate proximity. For example within like English folk music can be a KV for example and you could be the only black person there and can't speak for every Kaylee. I've observed K. There's never really participated in one myself. Yet I'd love to but you know you are going to get especially like you know the older generation I would say

00:08:49

Maybe not so much younger generation like gen Z and maybe like, you know, early Millennials you are going to get this. Oh, we've never experienced you here before. You know, we want to experience you in a sense where you're not really relatable because you've really been quite other dude. You've really been quite distant. They're not seeing you as the human who you are. They're seeing you is a representation of something. Yeah. Yeah you do feel a little bit. Like I love being here like

00:09:19

I see myself having belonging and I thought a sense of home making this music because it makes sense. This is you know, the British Isles has been my home, you know, has been my family's home but at the same time that feeling of home still comes with a bit of a condition. You know, a condition of you're never going to really four hundred percent at home because of the fact that people don't always see you belonging as the same way that they do. Yeah, you know, Angeline Morrison in your podcast because you do it in.

00:09:48

to view various musicians and different ethnic backgrounds in your podcast, various folk musicians and she talks about exactly that that conversation is so important and I realized in conversation with some as you know ethnically British white folk musicians that I had been carrying this assumption that all these white people out there, built feel, this sense of belonging that me with my next racial Heritage and not a drop of British blood in the don't, and it's only in starting these conversations with people of

00:10:18

British ethnic Origins have I started to realize that the, it's not necessarily the case, I was talking to Sam and James Gillespie. Wonderful musicians and the brothers, Gillespie. I don't know if, you know them, they're from northumbria. I like a Heartland of English folk and they sing these songs like rooted in the land and I had an assumption. So they must feel this this it in like this this belonging, you know, just in their bones and was only until he came to them, but they said actually,

00:10:49

Absolutely don't feel like you belong here and they told me about, you know, their fractured letting you know, their history, you know, they would from, you know, the gallic parts of Scotland and other parts of England and I thought. Oh, so I've been assuming something that doesn't necessarily exist and actually this suddenly opened myself up to this realization that identity in Britain is fractured and complex, been actually nearly everybody. And so I realized that in a way, maybe what I needed to do was to decolonize my own.

00:11:18

Own mind. I love that phrase, decolonize your mind decolonize, my own mind, about kind of identity, and ethnicity and race. And I wonder what your affections are about that. I think, I think that it's really, really beautiful and it's necessary, you know, when I think about even just the Black Mountain photo in Appalachian Mountains, America and you know how these are descendants. So, even the ones that originally came that were transported by the transatlantic slave trade and you know, characteristically, you always

00:11:48

Where these slave groups landed music was a very vital method to be able to reconcile them being taken from the physical place of home or belonging to a, you know, a foreign land where they had to create a new relationship where one way or the other, there needs to be a sense of belonging for them to survive and I think belonging is critical to human survival, to be honest. And that's why we create different ways that enable us to be able to

00:12:18

to connect with ourselves with the like immediate surroundings with like, you know identities. I love the idea of that I did this residency with Nest folk Collective a couple of years ago, and we went on this nature immersion Retreat, led by Sam, Lee actually who's a notable figure in the folk scene. Amazing Storyteller musician, educator, and activist and it was incredible, like it was life-changing and the whole point was to bring people who

00:12:48

Haven't really had a relationship, you know, nature with physical surroundings in that sense like the outdoors, you know, and historically, that's people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. People you know from the AME backgrounds and it was just like wow this is how some people live. This is how people move and enjoy like, you know, nature like it was like a whole nother kind of Avenue of expression and self-realization came through that experience and you know we did, right?

00:13:18

You songs and write poems and do like night walks and basically, we were just big kids. Again, I just think for expression, you know, you mentioned that you write songs, you know, through the land, that your songs come through the land, you know, and if you didn't have that, how big of a piece of a puzzle, if not, you know, all of it would be missing if you didn't have that. Conduit, if you didn't have that Foundation, if you didn't have that kind of vehicle to be able to express your identity, your, you know, yourself, your emotions, your feelings, tell your stories, and maybe,

00:13:48

That's what we need to start doing, you know, maybe the way in which we can actually bring and widened the access to folk song is by actually inviting people to be able to connect to their stories, through nature a way in which we haven't been able to access before because I feel like when I don't go out, it's tough with my creativity. And I don't think that's a coincidence. I think being outdoors is like a fundamental ingredient to having that kind of like full expression.

00:14:18

To be able to like really kind of clear that channel of her. This is who I am and these are the stories you know that I have to tell. So so what would your vision of Future Folk for brand? Be English folk, let's say English, we've been kind of using the words English and British. We had a little chat before we hit the record button about this. I said a bit about how they access folk project is about focusing in England, but the you in your podcast had called it British folk and so I've kind of been maybe using the word British where

00:14:48

I normally these English, but, um, yeah. What was your vision for a future of English? Folk music be given? All you just said, I mean, that's a big question, isn't it really free for really, you know, cycling back to what Angeline Morrison said in the podcast about feeling like Gillis the folk Community being welcoming and like, one of the most welcoming places but still not quite feeling that sense of like home that acceptance on a

00:15:18

Kind of like cellular level. I would want black people to feel like they belong to English. Focus on to the point where we are writing folk songs. We are part of a new generation, New Wave, or new time, even a new Revival of English folk song where we're seeing were visible were being heard through these songs as living here you know as having been here and like being here, because it's like a kind of it's an archive. It's a historical Archive of

00:15:48

Lives of people live and the times of which they were written and historically and you know of course there's a lot of like fictitious and you know, like yeah it's not all it's not always biographical, right? But if we're not contributing to the, you know, the English folk Canon as it is today, then it's another cycle of being forgotten. It's another cycle of being invisible of not being recognized and existing only in these kind of predefined spaces. But for me, it's like the vision would be

00:16:18

B-black, Britain's being able to access all spaces, you know, it's like no kind of prohibitions to really what is a really beautiful art form and Community as well that does actually stretch Beyond writing and singing a song on a guitar. It's like going on a nature immersion retrieve, you know, and experiencing the Stillness of a forest you know, at like 11 p.m. without the fear of, you know, like ax murderer or something like, you know, in the Cotswolds somewhere. And

00:16:48

And being able to roll around in the grass and like be a big kid and just not feel any way about it. Like, why am I doing this? It's like, why am I not doing this? It's that I feel like it extends Beyond just singing songs. I think it's an identity thing. It's how we should be allowed to exist, you know, in the world that we have helped to create, and we want to be seen, having created and being created. And I also like the idea of disturbing folk communities, you know, within like black communities because it's just like, why not? And it

00:17:18

Has to look the way that it and so looks with English folk music and when I say that like it's such a heavily cemented because they ideology and reality, it does feel really out there to imagine it being any other way. When I say English folk scene English folk music. It's really hard for me to picture it being any other way and that's why we have to first envisioned and create something that does look another way. Otherwise it's just not going to change.

00:18:04

Very fascinating and very thought-provoking interview with Marie Bashir and their leaves me very interested and I'm guessing it leaves you with a lot to say Journey. It does be, you know what I want first is to ask

00:18:17

You are about as a White English person. I know you do have a little bit of safari do in your lineage way back and you have some Irish in your ancestry but the kind of things where he's talking about as a white bloke. In England, are these things that you thought about at all? Yes, actually, I've looked a lot at the representation of various minority demographics, within a range of media and it's particularly difficult.

00:18:48

Sometimes to find folk music, particularly folk song as inclusive especially when because of the history of Britain. So many songs revolve around things like you know, the British Empire colonialism various acts, that happened with that, you know, not just in terms of slavery and racism. But also in terms of, for instance, the Jacobite rebellions and imperialism on a more local level but there's definitely

00:19:17

Definitely lots to discuss especially when there are folk songs talking about, you know, historical events, various Heroes within the 18th and 19th centuries. Frequently extolled in many songs, particularly if their Naval or military and that could be difficult to reconcile especially with what we know about some of those Heroes today, including, you know, links to the transatlantic slave trade and various

00:19:48

It's like that there are some deeply racist and xenophobic elements and sometimes that can be hard to reconcile With Your Love of Folk Music. You love of tradition. Yeah, so even for you as well as a white person you are. I know you are a very deep thinker and you think about these new things, a lot in fact, throughout sort of the folk Traditions, not just in folks old by things. Like folk dance, you know, we've got stuff like the bay cup. Coconut has pretty much the last Boris done.

00:20:17

Kissing group in the UK to use black face and they refused to stop using it. And so there are still issues within the folk industry that need to be addressed. Yeah, it's great immense. And the blackface minstrelsy because that is what the heart of Murray's research is all about, and I really recommend anyone who hasn't listened to her podcast. Will leave a link. Please have a listen, it's fascinating. I mean when I was talking to Marie, I guess what I was really.

00:20:47

Interested in was the similarities and differences between expose the experiences of black people that she's talking about and my own experience. So, I am my mother is from Iran. And my father is Jewish and and yeah, I think there are so I think the greatest similarity I would say between what she's talking about. She's also quoting Angeline Morrison. Who last year, brought out this stunning album called sorry.

00:21:17

Songs folk songs are black British experience that I think the greatest joint theme is about belonging belonging as experienced you know, both Angela and myself by the sounds of it. We have a real sense of belonging to the song. I mean I literally remember listening to folk song and my experience was this is my home. Like, literally the word home is what I experienced when listening and singing British folk song.

00:21:48

But then there's the belonging to the scene, the institutions to the to the social side of it and I suppose what's obviously different between some of that Angeline on the res experience and mine as someone who could pass for a white person. I don't know what people see me as you know I'm certainly not black is that I realized that my sense of alienation or difference, I think was possibly mostly internal.

00:21:48

But then there's the belonging to the scene, the institutions to the to the social side of it and I suppose what's obviously different between some of that Angeline on the res experience and mine as someone who could pass for a white person. I don't know what people see me as you know I'm certainly not black is that I realized that my sense of alienation or difference, I think was possibly mostly internal.

00:22:21

Was the first person to be born in the south in my family for pretty much over a century. And so I remember coming back up to Lancashire known to my first couple of folk groups and I remember feeling really unsure if I could sing songs about, like, kosher or from a Lancashire perspective because I was from down south. And instead of localized English culture, there is sort of an idea of a north-south divide as well as divisions among the various County.

00:22:51

He's in Britain and I can just remember being in the folk group. I'm wondering if I could see this stuff because I was in Northern and I know it's not entirely the same, but it's definitely feels like part of the conversation around belonging. Absolutely, I'm quite moved to hear. You say that Oliver because historically I mean I think what I realize now more than ever is that this presentation of a national music, English folk song, it is in many ways, a myth know, historically regions.

00:23:21

Are so important before the car before trains regional identities were so important even languages. So in other parts of the British Isles, we have well, even in within England, of course, there was Cornish. You know, we have different languages spoken within this very country, and it's very easy not to pay that any attention. The more you look into what is English folk song? The More You Realize. Wow, there's so much here, there's so much difference within that genre.

00:23:51

Let's talk a little about Marie's naming of instead of using stuff like English folk song British folk song instead what's behind it. Because of course British folk song is actually broken down into more diverse of national Traditions. You know what? Yeah, it's so interesting. You ask that because I asked Merida and what I gathered from her answer was basically it was to do with this deep sense of discomfort.

00:24:20

That I think is so prevalent around at an English. So really her research, this is my understanding that her research was about, English folk music and English folk song. However, there was a sense of unease around this term and there's just so much there. I think about englishness like you. We said in the last episode, with John Kelly about how there has been a link between nationalism in a right-wing politics and folk music in certain contexts.

00:24:50

And englishness is just so problematic. That is true, it's an interesting balance to strike because is problematic term sort of englishness, but I would also say that there would be a problem particularly, for the people of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales to be lumped in as British tradition. Absolutely. Yeah. I agree having lived in Scotland for so many years. What I find really interesting is right to the end Marie says, you know, it's nearly

00:25:21

Impossible to think of English folk song, being taken up by, by black communities, in England. Because there's such an entrenched connection between the kind of white, Colonial, history of, of England, and this music, you know. And she says it's very, very important that we envisage a different future but it is hard. It is hard to think of black people and people from other ethnicities feeling as comfortable and

00:25:50

Of the Saints music. There are some artists at the moment. So you know there's a co-ed Breakaway cure coin, amazing concertina player and singer. He's black. There are some, I guess Role Models out there but still very few Angeline Morrison. Fantastic, fantastic singer. I'm so, so taken by a music, tell me what I found interesting, when I was speaking to friends about this, they didn't get it. And I had this situation when I was talking to some people and some of the institutions in Scotland, his when I was talking,

00:26:20

Talking about people of other ethnicities and races singing folk music. They could only see it through the lens of people of other ethnicities and races bringing their instruments and folk music into British folk song. So we had like the imagined Village project I think was a thing of Billy Bragg and had Tabler and all sorts of different instruments and and to say no no we're talking about black urban kids singing English folk song. I'm Not talkin about black urban kids do.

00:26:50

Doing other kinds of music and like that that they would actually sing English folk song. It seemed like such a strange concept that some people couldn't even get their heads around it. You know, I think I shall ask what I'm gonna bait. I think I'll also point out that the way that colonization of society works is that they create a myth a false narrative or monolithic culture Bell. That's how National identities are often built as the idea of a model hit cop.

00:27:20

You always do variants taba, these sets of things that make somebody definitely part of this group of this culture. But people forget that actually, particularly with Britain with has been quite a diverse place for hundreds of years. Probably more, you know, people have been moving around the world a lot longer than we like to think of our they haven't always been Provident. They have been there and to say that a group of people have no place being part of a culture.

00:27:50

ER, it's just absolutely wrong because if they're a part of our society and that societies culture, inherently shifts and changes. Even if even, if that Society tries to push back for whatever reason, that's still a change in their culture, they just change from being more accepting to more than a phobic. Yeah, and, you know, just to end on this,

00:28:20

Beautiful thing there, he said, which was again not included in the snippet which is and I asked the something like, you know, what do you think, qualifies someone as being able to sing English folk song? Do you know what she said, humanity. And the next episode, we shall be speaking to my key. Kenny a fiddle player

00:28:50

From the Liverpool region, and we will be talking to him about class, disadvantage Regional perspectives and English and Irish folk music.

00:29:01

This podcast was presented by Oliver cross and Joni bones and produced by Esbjorn  Wettermark and Rowan Piggott, it was funded. As part of the access folk research project at the University of Sheffield with additional funding from the University's public engagement Development Fund.

[This is an edited auto-transcript of the podcast. Although we have tried to make sure it is all accurate be aware that there may be occasional errors in the transcript.]

Podcast Episode 5

Transcript • 2023-06-27 15:13:17 +0100

00:00:00

At this episode contains a reference to a suicide attempt. If you want to skip ahead or avoid it, the reference comes about 10 minutes, 15 seconds. That's 15 into the episode and lasts about 20 seconds.

00:00:19

Welcome to this podcast, a podcast about participation and access to focusing in England. My name is all across and I'm Donnie bones. And today we're talking to the lunar tractors who are clear and Carly Claire and Carly are a queer, couple, who just got married, congratulations who created their own, genre of folk broken folk, which they going to talk about their album. This is broken folk was one of modos top 10 folk albums of 2009.

00:00:48

18. And they've both got the experience of a lot of those minority experiences. Claire is non-binary and partially sighted and mentions. They've had various hard to diagnose neurodiverse, stuff in their own words going on. Was Carly has mobility issues and openly discusses their PTSD, as well as the constant presence of misogyny that she like, all women have to navigate and all of this informs, their really visually different. I would say approach to folk what

00:01:18

Thing and how they perform. So when they perform recently, they've had the progress pride flag on stage in the middle of their set Claire often wears. Clothing, that may generally be understood to be female and they both wear some of these kind of what look like crazy, colorful cookie costumes, but actually they're actually modeled on traditional folk costumes. So fascinating couple fascinating amazing. Musicians, let's listen to what they have to say.

00:01:48

Now, the time.

00:02:05

Welcome Charlie and Claire. The lunar tractors. It's great to have you here on the access folk podcast. Yeah, you're on tour at the moment. Yeah we are mini touring? Yeah, I run a big some workshops over the last few days. They were a little bit below energy today. That's fine. Absolutely fine. However, you are as perfect you aware of the report. I know you've had a brief look at the report. I'd love to know where your musical background says like

00:02:35

It's your musical background and how you both got into focusing because we started working together and we trust each other and we don't criticize each other. We just make it for us, you know, that we're less worried about someone telling us that we're not doing it, right, or being made fun of or, you know, being attacked in in either in the verbally or, you know, like confrontational way. We're just in a way, it's kind of punk music in that sense, that it has a kind of built-in. f*** you attitudes that we're just doing.

00:03:05

It for ourselves whilst also being incredibly sensitive and Center. Your tender along your way. Have you interacted with what we might call the folk scene in, anyways? I mean, I guess the short answer is no. I think, with our first album, we encountered the kind of push back of the traditional folk scene somehow that sort of definitely was like the jury's out. We don't know if we trust these lat. You know, they've come in here and they're breaking up our songs.

00:03:35

Singing them in ways that maybe don't read rise or like the using drums. We definitely got told by a couple of places that we drums are not fair play there because it's, but which was like, okay, if you were to look beyond the his guitar and which is, there's a lot of women predominantly that we playing drums in every culture in the world, 2,000 years ago, 2000 years ago, tell us that it's not folk just felt kind of absurdist and because we've finally, I think,

00:04:05

After so long of doubting ourselves in different relationships in different contexts we were suddenly allowed to be like, no, okay we're doing the right thing, let's just do it, let's just keep doing it. So on keeping doing it and allowing for that trust and that's not to say that we're not critical of what we do in critical of each other sometimes of trying to make it better. But that criticism I think that's that distinction, isn't it? You still have to be critical of your work and where it sits and how it's working or not, how responses.

00:04:35

I mean I don't think even the word critical as useful anymore. Hmm. I mean, you know, maybe not Donna haraway and has had some great things to say about that. Basically the idea of we listen and if it sounds right, it's detailed like we try really hard but in terms of criticism it's the critical thing that's not there. This pleasure is what we're looking for with. Yeah. And about the somatic as well because it feels right and it feels has to feel right because that's sometimes it isn't about pleasure. Sometimes it's about a hell of a lot of pain and being able to

00:05:05

Is that all sing into those spaces when we say she, when we enter institutions that are cold and hard. And very, very unfriendly to people for anybody of difference, which is let's be honest. Anybody other than the privileged very well off white male, but I'd love to touch a little bit on a few other things. Because when I first looked at your stuff, the first thing that came to me, was these guys are fun and I was like, oh, folk and fun and not that common beg.

00:05:35

Fellows, right? Like not obvious. You present yourselves, visually so much. Just fun and I wondered. Yeah, I'd love to talk to you about folk and fun, poking fun. Well, I've been a clown probably just a natural clown for my entire life. That's how I dealt actually, with a lot of the PTSD stuff. That's how I was dealing with terrible relationships. And abusive stuff is that my clown just came out and got to hang out with an audience and got some nice responses. And it allows I think other people to feel the

00:06:05

Fun. When you really just diminish in a way older the, or you, you lean into the fear and you lean into the Ridiculousness of yourself, your abs, your own absurdity, and you allow yourself to laugh at yourself and then each other people go. Oh, that's okay. And then, we're often told that isn't it? That people like, oh, but you allow me to feel like I can be myself a bit more as well. And that's also, we've really identified lately. We did a project called beyond the binary, which was looking into queer history.

00:06:35

Of pantomime, a music hall. And we kind of realized II grew up in the world of pantomime actually, so saw a lot of peculiar. You just see a lot of different representations of what gender is as well with my first crush being on Suzi Quatro but that sense of the Absurd. And us actually being we've realized one of the things we do is a kind of modern-day musical act, it's a double act, we do the banter but it's not like we're all this was back. If we found this in this book and this is there's a different kind of

00:07:05

Coach for us, but it's not that it's purposely different. It's just, this is what we're like, where this stupid wear, this silly, you know, that and we've got, I think to the point where we're like, well let's not try and censor ourselves, that's it. Yeah. And I think also there's this great show on at the moment called making Mischief, Compton Vernon Workshop, which is a show of folk costumes and it's been in all the press and stuff and part of that show, like if you really look at folk culture, it's about the carnival. You know, it's about play.

00:07:35

Quite a dangerous kind of place sometimes playing with fire literally but it's about getting dressed up and absurdity and costumes and color and wildness and and that you doesn't really come across with the whole like that. It's another song about a lady who drowned or my acoustic guitar you like that's great but you know that they're lovely. But that's that's not that's not where we get few got you know if you go to like a Folk Festival it's loud and colorful and people are moving around and you know making weird faces and

00:08:05

You know, allowing themselves that sense of License to be absurd and silly and grotesque and over expressive. No. Because we're so used to be filtering. Our own expressions and our own sense of. What do I appear to look like right now? I have no sense of that, really? But I've been told by face is very expressive which always meets for me with a feeling of like, oh yeah, I know it's really expressive, like, how can you make yourself less? And particularly as a woman, the marsh Ryan constantly to make myself less emerged actually.

00:08:35

Lee a clown that everybody fell in love with because I was like, I was trying so hard to be less, I was physically diminishing myself on stage so much that the audience looked at me even more because I would like, why is she hiding what you doing? You know, so that it just, you can't help it. We can't help it. So I think that father, yeah, I think fun fun is it word for it? But in a way it's also as much about horror, you know, it's random and freedom, it's about Freedom basically and it's about that sense of the carnivalesque as opposed to the middle class. Don't be too much.

00:09:05

Make weird faces, don't dress in absurd ways, you know, like play the play, the proper folk music because I mean, obviously, like the folk Revival in the, you know, the 1900s folk Revival was very, very, very middle class. And was very much about nationalism and identity and all this b*******. So, for us, we like to think that Al folk music is a bit more, like medieval folk music rather than a bit more Farrell. Yeah, bit more Harold smellier. Yeah, what I'm hearing is that you guys actually a bringing in so many of these things that the doors have been closed bum bum and and your

00:09:35

Left with most people, not even knowing we just accept, like other folk. Music is x, y and Zed, not realizing the bigger historical picture, and it's like, you're throwing open the doors going no performance. Grotesque Cabaret. This is, this is so in a way you call your genre broken folk. But you're like me, you're not. What's broken, is what I'm getting listening to you. You're kind of in a way, they're healing, the reintegration, the bringing the parts that have been banished back to something much whole ER perhaps. Yeah. And I think

00:10:05

Think it's not even that that's necessarily a choice. It's like, this just has to happen, you know, this is a necessity for us to be able to keep breathing to be able to not, you know, like I have tried I have attempted suicide on a number of occasions every time I've failed but I have attempted like I have tried to end things because it's like, how do you continue with this? And I'm not even dealing with, you know, I'm not dealing with massive issues of difference. Like, my accessibility I appear pretty able-bodied. People don't generally see some of the

00:10:35

Other issues and you know, I'm not a person of color. Although a lot of people are like, oh, where are you from? And all this sort of stuff is, you know, I'm dealing with very few access issues actually, but still just as a woman, you're very aware that you're up against so much which then if we're trying to be our best selves and we're trying to create as you were saying, you know it's so it's so moving to hear you say that you know 20 years it's taken you to find your way back to this and to this feeling of trust and belonging and allowing and accepting of like know this

00:11:05

Is what I really love doing and I'm going to do it anyway. It takes, it takes like lifetimes for us to go. Okay. Yes, we can. And we have to now we have to, if we're, you know, that's why I feel very strongly as a creator that that's just one of my only real good things to do in the world. Apart from trying to be as kind as I can and open and tolerant and is to just do what we do because it helps other people. We hear so many people who say to us, we really identify with what you're doing. We then.

00:11:35

Allowing ourselves to do things a bit differently because it has to be done otherwise. We're going to just go back through the same meal for everyone constantly, we got to move it on. Lots of people's has come up to us and say oh I really want to do singing now and that makes us incredibly happy. That's the whole point that we don't want to be the only people who are making music. You know, we want everyone to feel like whatever sent, you know, just makes sound for the love of sound. It doesn't have to be pretty, or it doesn't have people using the right sound. It doesn't have to be technical. It just make the sound that feels right at that time.

00:12:05

I'm and that's what actually this reminded me when you were talking about the somatic and that's from me. Also, one of these Beauty about what was our Baseline when we made this project and we turned it broken folk because we didn't feel like we fit into the other categories of Folk Music anyway but it's about the body me coming from a point of always being a dancer and a clown and the body percussion kind of element so and Claire singing that those basic elements. We have we carry them around with us all the time. You know, if we're not allowed to just

00:12:35

Ass and use those things. And, I mean, some people in some countries are not even allowed to use their bodies and their voices, you know, they're not even allowed to expand their minds, you know, the limitations that are put on us through the structures and the systems and their so damaging and just a, with his dancing in circles project that we're now just starting to deliver workshops on and is also going to be the third album. So it's, it's kind of this weird coexistent kind of project to discovering, what the songs are while playing them out live. And also teaching people about body percussion,

00:13:05

Voice work and encouraging from the very beginning. This doesn't have to be the sound that you maybe think we want to hear. Just let that ugly sound out. What is the sound of that dissatisfaction and that discontentment and that pain and that distress, you know? Yeah, we're allowing other people need to hear and see those things because they help us feel our own feelings. You know, when someone else's really singing about grief and Trauma, it's a healing thing. I guess the other thing is about expectation and body kind of build the barriers. And I guess, the thing about the Broken Spoke for us is that we explicitly.

00:13:34

Italy needed to be broken. It's always broken. And being broken is a good thing, you know, when things become pure. And that's also the problem in the kind of like holistic, Oneness Purity crowd that, you know, any difference or trauma is seen as a kind of stain, you know, as opposed scape as opposed to something, you know that your scars are an important part of you and have an interest and beauty of their own. And being broken, is the condition of Folk Music is constantly, broken and fragmented and fractured and constantly Crossing

00:14:04

Boundaries and National or linguistic boundaries and in a way that's why broken folk rather than pure Folk which is that's not our scene, okay, that I feel that. I mean, that's a very political act, what you're naming because some people in the folk scene or in the folk, yeah, genre do present themselves as authentic or having Authority and that's by its nature, exclusive to everyone else who doesn't have whatever they may have through their history or where they happened to be born or whatever. So I love that you're pointing out know.

00:14:35

It's not a pure whole I guess is the opposite of unbroken, it's just not true. It's not true kind of pointing out that it's a myth. Yeah, it's a fiction or Purity is a myth and when you stop remembering that, it's a myth. Sometimes a very beautiful myth. It's a historical. And if you stop remembering that it's a myth, you you slide into fascism whether or not you think that you'll socialist or whether you're not that you think that you're accepting or you know ecological or whatever you tell yourself, that's the direction of fascism. But

00:15:04

I think that's also what you just used the word whole that wholeness which is also for me like since realizing that through trauma through PTSD and life experience, then I am a bunch. I am like an assemblage of various fragmented Parts. Like there are different parts of me that come to the table at different points, that counteract each other, that absolutely beat each other up, or whatever. And if we can realize and acknowledge and accept our fragmented selves, then we would probably be much better at relating to each.

00:15:34

There's well because I've got, you've got that critique as well. Oh yeah, there they are. Silly bastard. But yeah, we've got to let them in. We've got allow them to come to the table. See if we've got you something useful to say and maybe slightly repurpose their job role into something really useful for us going forward, you know. But we're so obsessed with this, like old. But I am one pure, I feel like being born in the late 70s growing up in the 80s 90s and going it was got this. All this kind of new age like I've got to be one whole being I'm really not so instantly you feel floor?

00:16:04

Lord and wrong and there. How do you how do you work through that? Yeah, I mean so being born with only one eye and and also being you know, not binary as I now I'm able to describe it. I didn't have that word back then, but I definitely have the sensation of like, oh, I'm not a boy, but I'm not a boy. I seem to be one but I'm not a girl, you know, I'm just like cats and dogs. I'm a fox, you know, I'm not, I'm not one of those things and just being like, I've never been able to claim that sense of wholeness for

00:16:34

self and just doing a lot of thinking and some therapy and also a bunch of studying and just being like that sense of the assemblage and that sense that we're nothing without our microbes, you know, we don't function without we're a community. You know that the body everybody is a community. Everybody is an ecosystem of different parts. And if you have fixed boundaries and one closed kind of pure thing, it's that's death, isn't it? That's not a living system. So I guess I mean, that that rhetoric impurity and is something that we strive

00:17:04

To reject, not only from the right but also from the whoo crowd. So you've talked about how you kind of haven't ever gone down the folk Club, focusing root. So I'm really interested to know where you play and what kind of audience know who are the lunar tractors audience. A big chunk of our audience are people who really enjoyed folk music. The last time, it went all weird, and then re listening to that, they see us and then they're like, wow, I went back and listened to Legion Leaf again or I went back.

00:17:34

And listen to Jethro Tull again. However, you know, I went back and listened to if, you know the incredible String Band or whatever it is that they listen to. And it's just as good, it's just as good as when I was listening to it in the 70s. So a lot of our audience like that it is true. I think that was a kind of that. Always, a starting point. I think that's kind of the first wave of the people that really get obsessed with what we do. I mean, we've called you and tractors because we attract crazy people. So generally crazy people are quite a big amount of the people as well, but also we have the gift of somehow hypnotizing. Toddlers, toddlers.

00:18:04

Alyssa. Like this is drugs. They just like Mainline it. They're like watching you slap your body and they're just like they can't get enough so Toddlers and their grandparents, I like our first demographic. I mean, it's not that we don't want to play folk clubs we really do and actually we've been invited a couple of time. The problem as well with folk clubs is that they tend not to have much money and so for us to pay for the diesel and to travel to go to do a show like this is our livelihood, you know, especially now that my University departments got shut down and we all got fired. You know. This is what

00:18:35

So if someone's like we've got 50 Quid for you, we're like well you know, good but we can't come for that and we have played some folk festivals. We almost got booked for a couple of other folk festivals but then I think some Booker's are worried about Their audience, they're worried that Their audience are going to go. This is too weird. This isn't folk they worried about the people who complain and they shouldn't worry about the people who complain. But what's funny is that then we did last year we did Timber Festival which isn't renowned for its to Folk Festival but apparently they asked all of the customers

00:19:04

and apparently there was a kind of unanimous, lunar tractors but we need them to come back. We really, really enjoyed them. So I think it's also about the people who are programming giving a little bit, a little bit more faith in their viewers in the audience's. That actually the audience is do want weird stuff, they do need stuff that shakes it up a bit. You know, you can watch a lot of beige but then there's also like, there's a whole rainbow out there as well, so I think that's a lot about people who do program work and to how do we talk to them about? It's actually useful to take a risk.

00:19:34

You know, it shows the diversity again of just approach, you know? Why are why are they not doing that? And if you are fearful of what they might think, that's exactly what they're somehow where you get instantly.

00:19:53

my troubles now, Blossom on the tree,

00:20:10

I don't know about you olive oil but for me care and Carly's approach to folk is so inspirational. Yeah. I I think they're really good. I think they can be quite fresh on the folksy and it's good seal that it's good to hear their perspectives. One of the themes that I think every single person we've spoken to in this series Oliver has mentioned is that they had to go on some kind of personal journey to get to a place where

00:20:40

They felt able comfortable confident to play folk. So whether it was Mikey, Kenny just saying that he thought he'd like, get further if he played in other kind of bands, you know, I don't Bluegrass and different kind of music or it's someone like the lunar tractors, basically saying that they had to do a lot of inner work and they said they have each other right because there are a couple they have each other and they don't care anymore, what other people think but it took them a long time to get there. And this is something that I think is this thing to sit with that if you have some kind of minority

00:21:10

Aryans different from the mainstream, your journey to feeling comfortable, and confident is longer. Well if there's a journey for Assad and the for so many people, it means you're just never going to get there. And I suppose this is what this project has to understand that it's not just making spaces, okay? It's like all the psychological barriers along the way to feel acceptance. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think it's also interesting. I'm sure Luna.

00:21:40

We incorporate into their practice. You know, they're not just looking solely at English. Folk, Irish Australian, Eastern, European, and Eastern European Dance. All sorts of types of singing and music and also quite contemporary stuff. It's not entirely. What a lot of people would expect necessarily good smoke, but in my opinion, it is within the Canon of folk and it is within the remit of fight music, doing in some ways, a lot of traditional musical they do do.

00:22:10

Music as well. They just stylize it in a more contemporary fashion and it works and it's good and it fits in. I think something that they are very aware of is both this approach. I mean I guess it's a very psychological approach of a embracing the wholeness of an individual you know all the different parts they talked about but this is also what they say actually results in people coming up to them and saying hey we now

00:22:40

I feel like we want to sing. I mean, there's access vote project that this podcast is part of is all about trying to get people more involved in singing. And what the lunar tractors are telling us is that kind of by being their whole selves on stage and by using the whole voices to express their, the whole breadth of The Human Experience. People feel like there's a place for them and I just think that's really interesting. I think I mentioned in another series that, you know, sometimes I thought that the folks

00:23:10

Scene is very little, use the term vanilla, you know, it's pretty straight the folk scene and I don't just mean sexuality, why straight is pretty straight? And, of course, that excludes so many people because it was John Kelly, wasn't it. Who, when you spoke to John, he said this wonderful thing which I hadn't really thought about. He said that when you really think about all the people who the report focuses on and the consultation group focuses on so people with disability issues people from different genders as sexualities,

00:23:40

People from different races and ethnic backgrounds, people were various political and religious beliefs. We're not talking about minority, we're talking about a lot of people, but it's true, it's a bit ridiculous. How people don't realize that the sort of Social and demographic minorities, even a bit of the loan is actually quite large. I mean, I don't know the exact numbers, but for percentage, disabled people alone in the UK consists of a flea 20% of the population. So it's a

00:24:10

lot more than a lot of people think. Yeah. And certainly in London, I don't know what the current ethnic mix of London is but I can tell you, I'm often the only white person on the tube sometimes you know and I'm not gonna have a drop of British blood in me. So yeah, we're talking about the reality of society's makeup versus this pure myth, that Claire is talking about. So a friend of mine, who's an incredible tradition Bearer up in the northeast of Scotland, a woman called Madge. Bray has a phrase, the woman's visceral and

00:24:40

This is what talking to Claire and Kylie made me think of because when you think about maybe some of the folk song, traditions of Eastern Europe. So I'm thinking of it. Maybe Georgian on Bulgarian song, The Women sing with these incredibly grounded. Voices, they're often quite deep very resonant and so different from the tradition of female singing in Britain, we certainly have some wonderful singers that have certainly provided me with a lot of inspiration. So June, 10,

00:25:10

Normal water said, you know, these wonderfully kind of mature sound in deeper women's voices, but the woman's visceral as something that has been cut out of the history of being English. Basically, we heard clearly talking about this idea, that drums aren't folk and then somewhere else, she talks about standing up and they discover do the, you're the drummer, the woman's the drummer and there's Prejudice around the female drummer but historically in most traditions in the world are many Traditions, drumming was in fact,

00:25:39

Female Pursuit. And over time, it has dropped out of the folk tradition. This is the phase of stuck with me, the woman's visceral, that includes access to grief. The includes, you know, the highest and the lows that include all that personal stuff that traditionally was considered as females and they bring it back in people, love it. In the next episode, we shall be speaking with Fay healed and Espeon better Mark of the

00:26:09

The access vote project and we shall be talking to them about intersectionality and access folk. It will be great to really get to pick their brains about the background behind the access vote project as you can join us, then

00:26:23

This podcast was presented by Oliver cross and Joni bones and produced by Esbjorn Wettermark, and Rowan pigott. It was funded. As part of the access folk research project at the University of Sheffield with additional funding, from the University's public engagement development planned.