Thats all FOLKs…but what if it never existed?

Folk is a genre i have respect for rather than being a direct fan. I grew up with BOB DYLAN and JOAN BAEZ songs and BILLY BRAGG adding an electric twist to a folk tradition. In my thesis for political pop music I included a chapter on CECIL SHARP and his collecting of classic folk tunes to preserve from houses such as mine in Somerset so I have included a little clip of some facts on my tiny part of Somerset, but in line with my first exposure to folk though comedy I have to include via ROUND THE HORNE a classic RAMBLING SYD RUMPO classic which still brings tears of laughter to my eyes in these sanitized days…Of course had folk not happened any more than blues (which I guess is the same thing in a sense), then we would not have had in blues case Jazz (possibly) nor Rock or other seemingly Folk connected genres. It gets complicated looking at musical alternative realities!

I often wonder if current musical reality is just a huge Artificial Intelligence BOT using Algorithms to simply dictate peoples music buying habits…remember you can get targeted anywhere and they know what you like! Data mining of your historical tastes determines so much of what we do and with the possibility of A.I Music, however enticing – is taking us ever further from the organic folk of our real SOUL music…music of the human soul. Are these download choices really yours? If you are being guided or goaded in a particular musical direction through marketing bias and your listening habits influenced? Its quite underhand. In the old days the choice was based on traditional marketing and those around you but the tactics now can be pretty odd with instances of direct marketing in the guise of something else totally. Smoke and mirrors marketing. Your new best friend that recommended a band just ghosted you? They probably were a bot. Much simper in Cecil’s day with a inherited traditional songs/word of mouth or a few years later when a record you went to a store to buy really was through fanzines and word of mouth and pirate radio stations (traditional media was much more cutting edge then) and was your full choice rather than an underhand online or App experiment to target you through your tastes. With more grants available and when musicians were fairly paid times were good. Perhaps now musicians are in the same boat as the penniless musicians Sharp notated for the intelligence of the classical world. But if the marketing is right theres millions to be made. Do excuse my cynicism!

A RARE CECIL SHARP FILM ON FOLK MUSIC IN SOMERSET (LONG BEFORE JOE STRUMMER BECAME A LOCAL)- MY CAPTURE OF THESE EXTRAORDINARY MUSIC FACTS (EXCLUSIVELY ONLY SEEN AT THE MUSEUM). ARE OF PERSONAL INTEREST TO ME (Copyright museum of Somerset/Owned). GUSTAV HOLST AND VAUGHAN WILLIAMS USED MELODIES SHARP DISCOVERED (THOUGHT THE POOR FOLKS WHO MAY HAVE COMPOSED DIED UNKNOWN AS COMPOSERS AS SUCH THEMSELVES. AS I OFTEN WALKED PAST HOLSTS HOUSE IN LONDON IT SEEMS APT. ONE OF THE SINGERS LIVED IN MY NETHER STOWEY HOUSE WHERE SHARP VISITED IN 1908 TO RECORD “OH NO JOHN NO”. I HAVE DISCUSSED THIS WITH THE MUSEUM EXHIBITION CURATOR – THIS IS MADE BY THE MUSEUM -A FASCINATING PIECE OF MUSICAL HISTORY SORRY THE SOUND IS FAINT.

I Uploaded this film which my late friend Author / Historian David Worthy provided photographs and facts for. He was a great old character and writer/Historian/music collector of rare 18th century music and manuscripts and informed me that CECIL SHARP had visited my mothers (Coleridge era) cottage in the early 20th century to notate “OH NO JOHN NO!” which is very famous. HOLST even notated folk tunes from Somerset found by SHARP from often poverty stricken local gypsy people. HOLST directly inspired many alternative SYNTH pioneers from TANGERINE DREAM and KRAFTWERK as well as the STAR WARS theme of course. However I assume THE PLANETS did not include any Somerset songs!

PERHAPS THE BAWDY HIUMOR SO WELL CAPTURED IN CARRY ON FILMS AND WONDERFULLY DONE MUSICALLY HERE TO COMEDIC AND PARODY EFFECT (WITH FOLK IN A TRADITIONAL MANNER) WOULD NOT BE LOST ON THE LIKES OF SHARP… HE MIGHT LAUGH! PARTICULARLY AS YOU CAN HEAR THE 18TH CENTURY GHOST STORY TRAD SONGS OF THOSE TIMES WITH COMEDIC RESULTS. WHILST I NEVER MET HIM I MET DAVID BENSON WHO HAS PLAYED WILLIAMS IN THE WEST END AND WAS CLOSE FRIEND WITH BARRY CRYER – WHILST DOING A GET IN AT BOURNEMOUTH UNI THEATRE AND ON ENTERING THE PERFORMANCE ITSELF LATE HE CHOSE ME OUT FOR IN CHARACTER ABUSE WHICH LED ME TO DIE OF SHAME AND WHENEVER ID PASS THE REAL KW’S BLUE PLAQUE ON HIS OLD FLAT IN LONDON ID BE REMINDED OF HIS SHORT TEMPER WITH FANS! 

What if the songs SHARP found had been lost forever?

What if you or I in a Twilight Zone manner, never existed?  Or my fave artists or genre? What might the landscape or soundscape look like? Would who they influenced have happened in the same way if at all?

WHAT IF SYD HAD WRITTEN THE WALL INSTEAD OF IT BEING ABOUT HIM UNAWARES? IF HE HAD ACTED IN THE FILM…PAINTED THE ART AND EVEN SUNG THE SONGS?

I was watching “Its a wonderful life” at xmas yet again and rather as Scrooge never existed at one point so in the movie the same happens to Jimmy Stewarts, and it got me wondering what a different musical soundscape we might have if certain individuals in music history never existed.  The first that struck me is Syd Barrett.  Whether Pink Floyd’s influence to inspire artists like Julian Cope or the influence on the Bunnymen years later. A rare french interview from 1981 which found a rarely normal Syd got me thinking about the late artist- as once again i recently met someone who often saw Barrett in Cambridge as he got older and stranger. The early post SB work FLOYD LP’S had a missing ingredient and those shelved songs like Vegetable Man and Scream thy Last Scream would have added something. Gilmour produced many great solo tracks like Baby Lemonade for BARRETT which also got me wondering what might have been. What if Collins and Gabriel had remained bandmates or if HOWARD DEVOTO had stayed in the BUZZCOCKS or if MAGAZINE had not happened as a result.? IF Weller had never met Bruce and Rick or if Gary Numan had never auditioned for them…If Mick Talbot had said no…

Who knows as many a SCI FI shows, a little change can have big knock on effects. Who knows if Lynott or Hendrix or Mozart for that matter had lived longer. What would LENNON have made of COVID or Lockdowns or UFO’s over various nuclear stations, or the odd post pandemic technocracy…

AN ODD SOUNDING PIECE THAT MIGHT HAVE INTERESTED HIM…SPOOKY SCI FI GHOSTLY BOWIE…MOMUS – AN OBSURE CULT MUSIC ARTIST MAY WELL HAVE HAD A HAND IN THIS ODD BOWIE TRIBUTE (?) AND IN ITS OWN WAY IS MESMERIC AND LED ME TO DISCOVER QUITE THE STRANGEST LOVE SONG EVER WRITTEN, BY MOMUS POSTED BELOW

ALMOST A NEIL INNES TRIBUTE TO CAT STEVENS…IT SEEMS COMICAL BUT WITH ITS SEEMING NONSENSE LYRICS THIS IS QUITE CHARMING. I ALSO RECOMMEND THE COVID FRIENDLY GENIUS OF “WORKING FROM HOME” AND “SELF ISOLATION”! IF THIS WAS WRITTEN TODAY AND NOT BACK IN THE 90’S YOU WOULD THINK IT WAS WRITTEN ABOUT SELF OBSESSED DATING APPS, REALITY DATING TV OR SWINGERS!

On the other side of the scale what if you always existed? You lived forever? Either as a psychic connection or A.I Artificial Intelligence? I have heard of various composers and music giants as well as artists being channelled by psychics such as MATTHEW MANNING in art or music. However these tend to be hidden and left to fringe groups to enjoy even if a piece of MOZART written might be the real thing from beyond the grave. Well the aforementioned cult BOWIE emulator ZAINE GRIFF was a unique tribute but this A.I piece of technology oddness channels some of the great DAVID BOWIE’s love of technology (he loved the web and had a A.I early spliced lyric program written) means he might approve from beyond the grave. Perhaps he had a hand? Would Punk, at least British Punk, have happened without Bowie? Or rather ZIGGY? One wonders if only an alternative reality existed where a real ZIGGY STARDUST exists. Perhaps thats a future A.I project?

WHAT IF GABRIEL HAD NEVER LEFT GENESIS? WHAT IF COLLINS HAD NEVER JOINED? WHAT IF THE PRESS HAD BEEN FAIRER TO COLLINS? WHAT IF PAUL WELLER HADNTY GUESTED ON THIS IN AS UNLIKELY A MANNER AS GARY NUMAN FAILING AN AUDITION FOR THE JAM OR WELLER’S FIRST AMP BEING GIFTED BY HIS DADS MATES …STATUS QUO WHO WERE LOCALS…WE CAN NEVER KNOW WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN NOT LEAST IF THE LIKES OF JIM MORRISON HAD LIVED! IN THE MEANTIME WHETHER VIA A SPIRITUALIST PSYCHIC OR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR GRAPHICS…AN OBVIOUS A.I VIRTUAL BAND TO IMMORTALIZE EVEN MORE THAN ABBA WOULD BE…KRAFTWERK! I DO HOPE A VIRTUAL KRAFTWERK TOUR FOR ALL ETERNITY…

The good news is in 2022 DAVID BOWIE has returned with some classic unreleased music so here is one version of “BABY LOVES THAT WAYIn this case the new version is way better! Whereas the new version of “CANT HELP THINKING ABOUT ME” cant compare to the obscure original version from before he was famous…

NICE BUT DOES NOT STAY WITH YOU- THE NEW VERSION ADDS NEW DIMENSIONS AND IS MY FAVE REWORK FROM THE UNRELEASED TOY SESSIONS. TOY WAS RECORDED BY BOWIE (THE NEW LP) AROUND THE TIME I SAW HIM LIVE AT GLASTONBURY WITH HIS BAND BACK IN 2000.

IN BIRTH OR DEATH ITS BACK TO THE FUTURE WITH THIS RERECORDING. HIS DEEPER VOICE AND CHANGED BASS DEEPER TONE AND MELODY HAS BEEN ALTERED AND EMPHASIS ON THOSE MELODIES DROWNED OUT IN THE ORIGINAL MIX MAKE THIS MUCH BETTER. THOUGH I LIKE THE NEW VERSION OF THE BELOW SONG THE ORIGINAL STILL IS THE BEST WHICH I DISCOVERED VIA A DETOUR RECORDS MOD RECOMMENDATION MANY YEARS AGO SO I CANT RESIST INCLUDING IT TOO

I DID SEE A COPY IN NOTTING HILLS RECORD AND TAPE EXCHANGE MANY MOONS AGO! NOT LONG AFTER I SAW HIM AT GLASTO IN 2000 I MET HIS PUBLICIST BRIEFLY BUT NEVER THE MAN HIMSELF…WHILST I ONLY SAW HIM LIVE ONCE – I DID SEE THE THE BEST TRIBUTE ACT – DAVID BRIGHTON – IN TH EWORLD IN A SMALL VENUE IN CALIFORNIA..BOWIE EVEN FEATURED HIM IN HIS OWN AD FOR HIS NEW ALBUM BACK IN 04. I ALSO SAW HOLY HOLY BAND WITH TONY VISCONTI AND WOODY FROM THE SPIDERS FROM MARS WHO I CHATTED TO…

HIS 2001 REWORKED LIVE VERSION OF THIS WAS DRAMATICALLY BRILLIANT – IF ONLY HIS LIVE VERSION OF ARNOLD LAYNE (AS DB WAS A FAN OF BARRETT) WITH DAVE GILMOUR HAD BEEN RECORDED IN STUDIO…BOWIE PERFORMED BARRETT’S ARNOLD LAYNE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL AT AROUND THE SAME TIME TOY WAS RECORDED

WHAT IF I NEVER EXISTED I SAID TO MYSELF AS I GAZED AT MY MATES…THE ALTERNATIVE ROCK BAND KNOWN AS THE OTHERS ON BRIGHTON BEACH…BUT WHAT IF WHO INFLUENCED THEM DIDNT EXIST? THE FALL THE STOOGES…