Damian Clarke From Pressgang

Talks About Folk Music In the UK

I think of you and Blythe Power and Whiskey Priests and maybe Oysterband as being in a sort of alternative folk music, not only with more extreme music, though not so much more extreme (I have only seen Oysterband play) but with a different attitude. Are there acoustic musicians that do this as well?

Yes, it is down to attitude as well as style, musical roots and certainly song lyrics. I think, apart from the Oysters, the rest of us have our musical roots in Punk and the Indie music of the 80's. This is maybe why there is a generation gap between those people who were part of the rise of the 60's and 70's bands and those of us who were not into folk music at that time or were too young. The sad thing for me is that that many of that older generation seem to be strangling the Traditional folk scene, when there is so much life blood out there. They shy away from the faster bands, the political lyrics and electric instruments. Many of them have got into folk music because it is acoustic and gentle (and "celtic"). They aren't into the left wing politics, the protest songs, the anger and frustration of everyday people expressed by 'folk" style musicians. Worse, they are guilty of encouraging a whole generation of pseudo classical "folk" instrumentalists who are too perfect and soulless in their performance such as the apalling, elitist, Young Tradition Awards.

Those of us who are more human and I believe more honest to the folk style, are undervalued because we don't emphasise the musical quality. Those of us who perform to young audiences outside the folk scene are ignored. But ultimately it's their problem, The folk club audiences are drying up, getting old and hostile to younger members who who don't know the songs in the style they are used to.

There are people like John Forrester (ex Pressgang) and Wob (ex Blyth Power who sung on Burning Boats) and Robb Johnson with whom Miranda is now playing some concerts, who all play acoustic and folk instruments but with a more extreme style or choice of lyrics, etc. Then there were people like Rev Hammer who played with the Levellers a bit and Atilla the Stockbroker who is a performance poet and has a band called Barnstormer . There are plenty of "alternative" folk musicians here but there is very little cross-over into the other folk scene.

Do you see yourselves as different? Is there actually a folk music establishment that is hard to get through? There seem to be in addition various interesting dance bands that I've gotten, Chipolata 5, La Cucina, Cock n Bull (and Celtarabia as well I suppose) whom you never see for sale here in the US but there are all sorts of Waterson-June Tabor etc releases.

Yes we do seem to be different...which is GREAT! It is hard to get through to the establishment as I explained in the question before. It's a pity that the Cds aren't there in the USA, It's expensive for bands to tour in the USA and even to send out CDs, I suppose, but at least the Internet makes it easier to find and buy CDs. I recommend Celtarabia, a great mix of eastern and western styles plus ancient and modern instruments and arrangements.

You started out in rock, why did you change, how have you changed, are you still doing folk having sort of split up, would you go back to doing rock?

I suppose I was always into polemical songs, I played angsty, punky political fast indie music. George was into blues rock and jazz and everything. Our first drummer Jonathan was a powerful Indie style drummer who now plays Taiko with Anglo-folk influences. Most of the musicians in Pressgang have not been folk musicians before joining which made us quite special, I think. We had no preconceptions, we could go further with the songs. Martin Carthy heard our version of "Hard Times of Old England" with screaming siren guitars and rap lyrics and said , YES! that's how it should be, an angry song. But we couldn't play it to folk audiences here as they just accuse us of being too wild and insensitive or some other put down! But again that's their problem. I'm just sad that we weren't supported more by the trad folkies and supported in our aim to introduce more people to trad folk music.

Do you use the term folk-rock or do you have a better one? What makes good folk-rock fusion? Who would you say is good?

We used to call it "Rogue-Folk" or Indie-Folk. In Germany they called us Punk-Folk or Speed-Folk but we then started to run into the same problems of getting folk concerts, though we did get a lot of alternative, left-wing, anti-facist gigs. We sometimes felt forced into being seen as "alternative" when we just wanted to be honest and expressive with trad songs. I tried to use the term "new Folk-Rock" but folk rock means something lighter and easier on the ears and not necessarily to do with Trad songs and tunes. As Maddy Prior said, the only bad thing you can do to a trad song is NOT to play it. So I like anyone who tries to involve trad material in a forward thinking way. I'm tryng to make the Voxpop web site a link for people who want to find out more about these alternative folk bands (www.voxpop.demon.co.uk/index.htm).

This album I am playing doesnt have the best "recording quality," I had a discussion with an English musician when I recorded a pub session he was in about how much sound should be altered to sound "good" on recordings. I was hypothesizing that a recording should sound as close to how it would actually sound, since I just had a little minidisc player! What is the optimal situation?

Folk music shouldn't be about sound quality. It's about heart and soul quality. I am infuriated that sound quality has started to regulate folk music. The trad songs from the travellers and tinkers were recorded on hissy old tapes and it's the songs stories and tunes I love not the acoustic purity! Sorry, but that's a bug bear of mine! We never had any money to make good quality records apart from the two we did for TWAH! with good producers. But the performance is there on Movers and Shakers. Turn it up and, yep, that's what a Pressgang gig sounded like. Raw and punchy and very unacoustic!!!

You were discussion a relationship of folk music with politics...for instance, what IS the significance of Cutty Wren? What songs have you recorded that seem most significant and which do you actually like the most?

Folk music and politics cannot be separated. They are both words sourced on terms for people. We tried to cover issues that were relevant today as well as hundreds of years ago. various struggles for rights, enfranchisement, equality, work, etc are all there. When Margaret Thatcher was in charge, it was clear that there were still problems, there was a political awareness in young people especially and folk music was an expression of this. Nowadays people are more complacent, certainly in Europe. I don't think we should be, but protest songs are not cool at the moment!

The Cutty Wren was a marching song at the Peasant's Revolution. It is also a ceremonial song about ritual slaughter dating back to ancient times and is a link with our ancient heritage. It is also about people power and action. When the accordion started, you could feel the audiences remembering that they could still stand up for their rights, be "fired up" as the title of one of our CDs. Today there is another march on London and it's establishment. I don't advocate violence but I admire those who still make their presence felt about issues such as globalisation, car pollution, 3rd world debt and governments that try to ignore democracy. They complain that the bicycles are blockading the streets but they don't complain about cars blockading roads everyday of the week!

How did Pressgang change over the years? Did you ever play over here?

Yes, we changed a lot but only outwardly. I always played 9 string electric guitars mostly. In the 1980 we had keyboards, first with Gabriel and then with George. Then George went to accordion and started to really push the sounds from that and we had a more identifiably folky sound, plus fiddle for one album. But we were never very obviously a folky sound. There are loads of "folk" bands who all sound the same, most of them trading on a "traditional" style that isn't traditional at all ! How many acoustic guitar players were there in the 1700's? We had a couple of interesting bass players who stamped their individual styles in the band. In fact that was something I really wanted. I wanted Pressgang to be a Gang, a group musical collaberation even if George and I wrote most of the material. Cliff, Tony, Imogen the only fiddle player, Miranda with her double bass, Mac with his Hammered Dulcimer, John Forester, Jonathan with his heavier drum style, Sprog, Ian and the others, all contributed to the changing sound of a long term project.

Yes we played twice in the USA. Once at South by South West in Austin which was fascinating, we played in the street every night to hundreds of people who couldn't hear us but who knew we were different and a tiny gig where we played at 10,000 miles an hour before three bluegrass bands and their fans! Then we played at Albany International Music festival and a wonderful Taiko collaberation concert with San Jose Taiko who are wonderfully open minded and incredibly hospitable. I'd love to play more in the USA but I think we wouldn't fit into the folk scene though maybe it would work on the rock scene? We never got to Canada though the first record did very well there.

Just wondered what went into that accordion style...

George rigged his Italian made Beltrami accordions through guitar effects pedals and used effects such as echos and distortion on the natural acoustic sounds of the accordion such as the air blowing through the bellows (new South Wales) plus he used to go through a HuGE Lesley revolving speaker for the ultimate swirly sound. Being on stage surrounded by panning, distorting swirling accordion wheeze was extremely inspiring, one was there in the middle of a storm on a transport ship to the other side of the world! At Cropredy, when we did it, you could see the audience looking around for the airplane and when we played it on daytime Irish TV...I don't think they had ever witnessed a folk band with that kind of sound and sense of drama! In the last couple of years George also started to use MIDI accordions which meant he could also tie in choirs, trumpets and even drum sounds with notes. He was always very subtle with it, but it did give a feel of a greater number of instruments and got away from classic accordion sounds. I think he could have turned a lot of younger people onto the instrument if he'd been given the platform and recognition. The way he handles the instrument, throwing it around or expressively moving with the music is always interesting to watch. But not your typical folk accordionist by a long chalk!

Cheerio for now, keep in touch
Damian
by e-mail May 2, 2001