Since late July I have been fortunate enough to be involved in the organizing and running of a small session in a pub called Scotts on the West end of Rose Street in Edinburgh.  The session happened on me by chance, as my partner was passing the bar and noticed a sign in the window stating "Traditional Musicians Wanted".  Following the briefest of "interviews" I was promised £30 per session along with a free drink for each of the musicians.
 

This has happened weekly since; although the event has thrown up a number of dilemmas, not least that I have absolutely no desire to lead a session, nor any aptitude for the organization of one.  That said, along with many of my friends, I have a great deal of motivation to play traditional songs, and to have £30 of drinking money guaranteed per week.  My solution to this problem was to proclaim the event a "Socialist Session", the idea being that collective ownership and responsibility would reduce the onus on any one individual to take charge, organize people, handle cash and reject drunken morons from the folkie circle.  Like the demise of the doomed Scottish Socialist Party, this fairly utopian idealism of an open, transparent and collective endeavor has been fraught with frustrations from the traditionalists who have fixed ideas of what a "session" should be, and how the event should be run.  Let me tackle the dilemmas of socialist session etiquette one by one….

1.  LEADERSHIP AND OWNERSHIP

I have already mentioned that I have no desire to "lead" a session.  However, I appreciate the need for a session to have at the very least a "core group" of individuals who will generally always be there and can take responsibility for rejecting drunken requests for "Oasis", put a stop to out of time hand-clapping and request respect for a'capella singers from the punters.  In the absence of other contributors this core group can ensure the flow of the sessions by playing through their repertoire along with establishing a "base-line" of content/genre which will discourage those who want to play Oasis and disregard that the session is built around traditional or original material.  I have sought to establish shared leadership of the session, (supposedly) alternating with friends to reduce the onus on one person alone to send text reminders to valued contributors on a week-by-week basis, and establishing a shared ownership for the generally unvalued but undoubtedly necessary part of bantering with the punters to establish rapport and seeking to involve as many people as possible in the event.  This has been consistently foiled by those traditionalists who insist on viewing the event as somehow "mine", referring to it, despite my protests, as "Tom's Session".  It appears that within our individualistic society it is difficult for people to conceive of any event which is not controlled by one omnipresent individual.

2.  MONEY

In any socialist system resources must be equally shared.  Therefore, after musicians have claimed their free drinks, the £30 is placed in an empty pint glass on the table and used as a shared kitty.  On quiet nights, any monies left after the drinking is finished are shared equally between the contributors.  That is the ideal situation however, and is often foiled by a number of factors.  For one thing, the folk scene, by its very nature, is traditionalist and resistant to different ways of doing things.  I have felt at times like a drug pusher attempting to foist a soiled hand-full of crack onto an Arran-clad 60 year old, when I have been merely seeking to give him his rightful share of the kitty at the end of the night.  While most people are happy to take enough cash for a couple of pints home, some resist this like the plague.  It seems that the human psychology is such that it rejects the sense of obligation and/or charity that money represents.  Even some musicians have to be coerced into claiming their free drink from the bar, symptomatic of the extent to which some have taken the adage that "there's no such thing as a free lunch".

3.  PARTICIPATION; SONG SELECTION; DATE AND TIME

I have always felt the best sessions are those in which the afore-mentioned "leader/core group" do very little, at risk of their repertoire becoming tired for locals, and that the session is supplemented by visitors, tourists and occasional singers/songwriters.  In a socialist session audience participation is encouraged, as surely folk music should be about the "music of the people".  However, where is the line drawn between what is "folk" and when does the session descend into football chants, sectarian bigotry and pop music?  Someone has to police this often blurred boundary.  Attempting to run a socialist session makes this more difficult, as you run the risk of appearing hypocritical and parochial for allowing some contributors yet rejecting others.  I have yet to find a satisfactory resolution to this quandary.

The selection of a day and time to hold the session on is fraught with drama.  Inevitably in a city like Edinburgh, whichever day you select will be regarded as a snub to those who hold a session on the same night, and indeed precludes those who cannot make the session for work commitments the following day.  Thursday night was selected as the night which kept the largest number of core group supporters satisfied.

Finally, the socialist session is controlled by one other major outside and indeterminate influence…Football.  Our start time varies weekly depending upon the vagaries of the ultimately corporate Champion's League.  It is difficult to maintain a socialist session in modern Scotland.