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JUNE BLOG: As Scotland drifts comfortably into the warm months with Knockengorroch kicking off the summer festival season in what sounds like sunny style, New Zealand and the Odyssey bear the brunt of an Antarctic winter. A cold, haily, windy Saturday night raps at the windows of my internet cafe in "downtown" Christchurch, driving the prostitutes from Manchester Street and the kiwis from their BBQs.

It might not have been snowing last weekend in Nelson, the sunniest town in New Zealand, but frosty was the reception the Odyssey and its emissiary received at 2008's "Ceol Aneas Irish Music Festival". Ceol Aneas is described as:

"New Zealand's Irish music festival...one of Australasia's major Irish music gatherings attracting musicians and traditional irish music lovers from around New Zealand and overseas". 2008 , the 9th annual event, was reputedly aiming for a "more open festival model that offers more to the general public".

Feeling quite homesick as I knew the Garden Sessions team would be recovering from Knockengorroch I sourced a bottle of Scappa Whisky, slung my guitar and recording equipment into my much maligned Civic, and drove the 6 or so hours up the coast to sample the festival's programme of "a ceilidh dance, workshops and numerous sessions around Nelson".

Well lubricated on Scotland's finest single malt I went to seek out one of the sessions lauded on the festival's website. I started off at the strangely named "Accents in the Park" pub, neatly sidestepping being drawn into conversation about the finer points of Open C tunings with a hippie harpist in the doorway. Inside I found a tightly knit circle of musicians, facing inwards, backs to the audience, like Emperor Penguins bracing against the rigours of an Antarctic winter, and armed with more Jigs, Reels and Slip Jigs than pints of Guinness the County of Gallway would consume in a month. As the undoubtedly talented musicians moved from tune to tune, with names which all seemed to be some sort of derivative of Jeannie McCarthur's (insert other folkie sounding name as appropriate) Reel/Jig/Slip Jig (delete as appropriate, if you're a clever enough musician to know the difference), I began to wonder quite where the "open festival model" promised in the blurb was, and what the general public or indeed folkies who play a few songs like myself but can't back traditional tunes (I could never really be bothered to learn) might take from this experience.

My suspicians proved to be well founded as my guitar was met with many a dubious stare as I timidly approched the circle, feeling a bit like David Attenborough attempting to remain as inconspicuous as possible to avoid provoking the ire of his subject matter. A guitar? At a folk festival? Not tuned to DADGAD? Anyone might have thought I'd just hooked up a Fender Stratocaster to an amp and started shredding a Black Sabbath riff.

Realising I didn't have a chicken's chance in Taiwan of gracing the tunesters with a few songs from Scotland (or even Ireland, for that matter), I decided to cut my losses and record some of the session for the enjoyment of our listeners. I handed about some Garden Sessions postcards, not wishing to disturb the flow of the session, and asked a few of my neighbours if it would be alright if I recorded. As this suggestion (made over the din of 15 fiddles) did not seem to be met with outright hostility I produced my microphone, only to be confronted by an irate middle aged woman wielding a rather phallic set of pipes who proceeded to explain that because she worked "in the arts" she therefore knew a shed load more than me about copyright and that, under no circumstances, was it fine for me to record. Unabashed, I sought out who I figured to be the session leader and, as he luckily proved to be from the Isle of Islay, wierdly turned out to be sane and realised that promoting the festival (which attracts about 150 visitors) to a much wider folkie audience, would probably make sense. Piping woman pacified, I left the pub with my partly-begruded recordings after suffering the final ignominity of being refused service as the bar only took hard cash.

I left for the more promising sounding "House of Ales" where a rather bemused local crowd, who had come out to watch the Crusaders beat the Warratahs in the Super 14 Rugby Union Final, had found their local boozer playing host to a session run by the Festival's special guests from Ireland: Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and Billy Mag Fhloinn from Irish band Danu. While the standard of playing was undoubtedly very high and a joy to behold I still could not help but feel that folk music should be about more than the us-and-them divide that dedicated tune sessions foster. If it is truly to be the music of the people then surely the people must be included or invited to join in, through the odd song, a bit of dance, or even by the musicians facing the crowd. However, I kept these thoughts to myself as I had the festival website's rather stuffy link to "Wikipaedia's 'Session Etiquette" definition" burnt into my retina, (undoubtedlly written by tunesters,) which states that a session is about musicians playing for themselves and not an audience, and forbids anybody from joining in who does not know the tune. I left thinking that folk music would surely stand to gain from dropping these stuffy definitions of a "session" and welcoming a more fluid mix of tunes and songs, and encouraging rather than discouraging particpation, regardless of technical skill or musical knowledge.

By this stage however I was thoroughly drunk and was lucky enough to run into a friend from the sessions in Christchurch who had been out shooting wild boar and had come into town to join the festivities. I am indebted for him driving me home, or else I would probably still be wandering the dark streets of Nelson musing on the great divide of tunes-songs now!

Catch you later down the folkie trail, Tom

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