Posted by Jim on December 9, 2007, 12:16 pm
86.21.13.220
The Cajun UK Committee Meeting scheduled for 2nd December had to be cancelled for personal reasons, so we have been unable to discuss the ideas suggested. Below are a few personal preliminary conclusions but I emphasise these are my own thoughts and NOT necessarily those of Cajun UK.
Zydeco
Many people who love Cajun music don’t like Zydeco but begin to warm to it once they can Zydeco dance. It can be very repetitive and very sameish; one hour of double-clutching music played at 175bpm can be quite enough.
Numbers of attendees are noticeably smaller when we book a Zydeco band, even if we book the best. We put on Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco band at an established music venue, with a bar, but relatively few people attended and it was a financial disaster. We also saw the band later in the week at a night club in Birmingham and there were even less people there.
A few years ago we went to see Zydeco Active in an established music venue (with bar) in Sheffield. When we got there I counted 9 attendees which eventually swelled to 15. This was when the band was at the height of its popularity.
Bands/Young People
How many times have we seen glowing messages on this forum about initiatives by Lil’ Jim to form new bands, with fancy websites, to drive Zydeco forward in the UK and in particular to appeal to young people. What has happened since then? – Nothing.
If the younger members of bands want to have mainstream appeal, especially to the young set, they need to either drive C/Z in an innovative direction or else move into a completely different genre of music. They also need to promote themselves more, through for example television exposure such as talent shows.
Dance Workshops
I have many times suggested abandoning dance workshops but always receive howls of protest and, like Carole Lateman, get nagged to provide them. However at these workshops I always stress that it is not important if you don’t do it properly. It is all about having fun, and it is quite OK to do your own thing such as jive, Salsa or even head-banging.
Mainstream Appeal
Many people seem to be living in Cloud Cuckoo Land if they think our sort of music is ever going to have wide appeal. A few years ago Chris Hall ran two excellent series of programmes about C/Z music on mainstream Radio 2 and even this did not raise the popularity of the genre with the general public.
C/Z is folk music and as such will never have mainstream popularity unless a professional promoter grabs the scene by the scruff of the neck and does a ‘Riverdance’ exercise on it. We are in the same field as barn dancing, square dancing and Morris dancing and as such the genre is kept alive in the UK by small groups of amateur enthusiasts. Without these people the scene would have been well and truly dead and buried by now so please don’t accuse us of doing ‘enormous damage’.
Venues
In the past Cajun UK has used a number of established venues that have a bar but these are either more expensive to hire, which we cannot afford, or they depend on high bar takings. Cajun fans do not seem to be heavy drinkers and as a consequence these venues have indicated that we are not welcome there.
Tea Dance
If the atmosphere of Cajun UK gigs is like that of a tea dance, so be it – that’s what our attendees seem to like. They bring their picnic hampers and bottles of wine and beer, meet a lot of nice people, enjoy some great bands and have a leap around the dance floor occasionally. If some UK bands don’t want to play at our so-called tea dances then we won’t book them, but there are plenty of bands out there who do, and give us a great time.
The Future
My original message had nothing to do with finance, bands, young people or numbers of attendees. It was an appeal for pairs of hands to help run Cajun UK next year. There are likely to be fewer people helping out and I was looking for ideas to lighten the workload. The many suggestions that have appeared on this forum would seem to require a much heavier workload.
I hope that ‘Werd’ is currently following up his ideas and is going to put on some great gigs in future. I for one would love to attend an event where this OAP doesn’t have to unlock the venue, welcome the bands, set up tables, run the door, act as compére, do the workshop, pack tables away at the end of the evening, set burglar alarms and then lock up.
Jim
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