Fairport's line on The FLK hardens, a bit

A while back I wrote about some chancers calling themselves The FLK, who appeared at Cecil Sharp House one evening, pursuing some kind of marketing campaign on their own behalf that involved dressing up in cows' heads and not saying who they were.

Later there was a video on the web of them burning some copies of Fairport Convention's Liege and Lief, a reference to a band called The KLF who claim to have burnt a million quid in the early 90s.

It was annoying because of the nature of the marketing: no one likes to feel as if they're being played. Still, it was mildly intriguing as well as irritating.

Simon Nicol, Fairport's front man, said at the time that he'd been thinking about it but the point was lost on him.

Running into him at Cropredy, his position seems to have shifted slightly. I'd been wondering whether burning copies of someone's musical output was similar to burning books? Someone thoughtful on a message board made a good point when they said that the reason the burning of books is totemic is that for so many years - before printing presses - books were hand made so they represented hundreds of hours of labour, whereas records and CDs can be printed in a moment.

"It's not really in me to get too wound up about it," said Nicol. "Partly because that's clearly what they want, but also because I really don't think that whatever they're up to is going to make any difference to us in the long run."

According to someone who went to the Cambridge folk festival there were CDs for sale there by The FLK, but they didn't appear to be flying off the shelves and there doesn't seem to be any trace of it online. Is it  a slow month in the FLK's marketing department (which I imagine as an office full of people wearing badger and pig masks, listening to slightly downbeat techno)?

"I'll look forward to setting fire to that then," said Nicol. "Though in the interests of fairness I might give it a listen. Then set fire to it."

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Who are the mysterious FLK?

OK. Someone calling themselves The FLK, who wear cow-head masks and generally go to some trouble to hide their identities, set fire to a stack of Fairport Convention's finest Leige and Lief LPs in the name of fun, boredom or crypto-fascist intention. One or the other. Then they put the film on YouTube.

So I was asking around and the first thing I heard, in a can't-reveal-my-source type way, was that The FLK are unlikely to be well-known folkies. Someone who knew someone who was on stage at their Cecil Sharp House gig back in May said that they'd met the two guys in the cows' heads through an extremely well-known artist some years ago.

This will come as a relief to Show of Hands who have had the digit of blame cast in their general direction, partly because they've dabbled in spoof YouTube material before (see earlier blog). Thanks to Harry Broad for the interesting information about "Phil Beer's very distinctive fingers", which he thought he'd spotted in the video. However, the bigger picture suggested otherwise. Wrong wrists, you see?

Then there was Simon Emmerson's contribution, which began by suggesting that the video was an 'omage to something done by the music/art outfit The KLF. They once set fire to a million quid apparently and the joke would be that no one on the folk scene would believe that, because there isn't a million quid in the folk scene.

Emmerson knows exactly who the FLK are because they were at Cecil Sharp House supporting him for his Lush gig and because he's clearly enjoying himself. He's also very keen to defend them, saying that setting fire to Liege and Lief was "nothing to do with having a go at the Fairports".

Not that it matters. Despite my best efforts to rouse the Fairports from their Arthurian slumber - I'm imagining a gigantic all-year-round luxury glamping experience in a field somewhere in Oxfordshire, empty bejewelled tankards scattered about the place - the most coherent response I could get was this: "The point is lost on me." That was Simon Nicol btw. Leave him alone. He's getting on a bit...

In the end it was the practical stuff that identified the LP burners, I think. The first thing on The FLK's Twitter feed is something produced by KLF Communications. Similarly there are retweets on The KLF's Twitter feed of The FLK's stuff. Plus the logos are similar - and frankly it's exactly the sort of thing that a former art-school muso of a certain age would do, isn't it? In the same way that DJs who were once prime time Radio One - Simon Mayo, I'm talking about you - have got in touch with their essential folkiness upon entering their middle years, and a musical comedian - Ade Edmonson, that's you - might start a folk band to do punk covers, setting fire to Liege and Lief would only seem funny to someone who knows what it is. A certain level of music industry knowledge is implied.

So I'm going to stick my neck out and say that I think the folk scene has attracted the attention of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty, aka The KLF.  The question is, then, what do they want? It's unlikely to be money, as they nailed their colours to the mast when they set fire to the cash - and, anyway, there isn't any. The Fairports spent it.

However, I'm feeling quite entertained. I've always liked my humour a bit on the dark side and whichever way you look at it setting fire to other people's creative output really is quite dark. Perhaps The FLK will be putting in an appearance at Cropredy? Just a thought...

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Jackie Oates on your skin and musicians as third world countries, part two

"Not only are you going to be very well paid for this but you'll spend the next three years being massaged by beautiful women," entrepreneur Mark Constantine told Simon Emmerson, of The Imagined Village and the Afro Celt Sound System, in an attempt to enthuse him about something that sounded, frankly, a bit implausible (see previous blog for fuller details).

They were discussing a project to record some folk music for a chain of spas that Constantine was opening, using products from his cosmetics and bathtime brand, Lush. "But the therapists weren't all beautiful women," mused Emmerson (pic below). "There was Gavin. He wasn't beautiful..."

There will be a gig on May 5 at Cecil Sharp House showcasing the end result, which is called Fresh Handmade Sound and there are four CDs, each for use during a different spa treatment. But, in addition to increasing the amount of seratonin in the world - Lush's owner, Mark Constantine, loves folk music - the project has had several other curious knock-on effects.

First of all, Jackie Oates, who became involved later on as part of a duo with Belinda O'Hooley, has had a face cream (below) named after her. I'm not joking - although I've already been accused of making this whole tale up by the good people at Folkcast. It's a kind of make-up foundation for English rose complexions and it's for sale in branches of Lush all over the country.

The second is that Simon Emmerson managed to get his good friend Chris Wood - this year's folk singer of the year - to have a massage for possibly the first time in his life. "Do you know him? He's a kind of new puritan," said Emmerson.

"And musicians - particularly folk musicians - don't go in for things like that. We're a pretty ascetic bunch and it's not part of the culture, though I really think it should be. Your English, blokey folk musician doesn't go to spas, he goes to the pub and drinks ale.

"So during the development of all this I dragged Chris along to the spa in Leeds - he was very reluctant - but when he re-emerged an hour later he came out with this huge grin on his face, looking totally blissed out and wearing this sort of loungey dressing gown that had been hanging on the back of the door. He's had lots of problems with his back and neck, as many of us do, and said it helped.

"On a more serious note, though, this whole project was a revelation for me - it couldn't have come at a better time in my life. When Mark phoned I'd been about to give up. I couldn't support myself. The industry had collapsed, The Imagined Village album hadn't recouped and I felt totally defeated. I couldn't continue as a record producer or musician: there just didn't seem to be the money there.

"But it wasn't just the fact that it was paid work. It gave me a chance to sit back and assess what I am and who I am as a musician. The quality of your working environment makes a huge difference: if you're having a good time it's extraordinary how creative you can become. It's a myth that you have to be starving in a garrett to write good music.

"It's really difficult being a musician at the moment, especially on the fringes, where folk is." But Emmerson says that the last couple of years have changed his view of how to exist there financially.

"Chris Wood's business model is the best one. He owns everything: from songs to the label, to his music, to the band. Total ownership of your own creativity is the way forwards. It was Chris who said: 'You need to think about setting up your own label and setting up the band as a partnership.'

"What you need to know about me is that I'd signed to Virgin in 1983 and stayed signed to a major label until four years ago. I'd been in some very successful bands: the Afro Celts sold over a million and a half albums. But for the whole period I was living on £16k to £20k a year. That's how musicians live. They generally have a partner who supports them or a private income, if they're lucky. But Chris Woods and Steve Knightley (of Show of Hands) have found a different way of doing things.

"During this period, Mark Constantine became involved with the band. He went away and looked at the industry and said he couldn't believe how stupid musicians have been for all these years. He said he was only going to support us if we got our act together and cut out all the parasites and the middle men who have been feeding off our backs.

"He invested some money in the label, which we called ECC records. It's short for Emmerson, Corncrake and Constantine." Who's Corncrake, I asked? "Well, Corncrake started out as a bit of a joke. We thought it sounded like one of those slightly pompous prog rock bands from the 1970s: Emmerson, Lake and Palmer. Er. Corncrake's just a bird that lives somewhere a long way away.

"The label's got a book-keeper and an accountant, but no label bosses and the profit is split 50/50 between band and label, so that everyone can get paid as quickly and easily as possible. I think this is the only way you can survive.

"I guess that if you're starting out, the idea of running a label is scary and you don't really want to do that: you want to party and have a  good time. But the principle is really just a fair trade principle. If you look at musicians as third world countries and major labels as exploitative, first world countries, how do you set up a fair trade agreement? You cut out all the middle men and strip away everything unnecessary."

* Walking with Ghosts will be playing From Source to Sea, supported by the slightly mysterious FLK band at Cecil Sharp House on May 5. FLK will be performing something called I Know Where the Time Goes. Tickets £5. 7.30pm

* If you'd like to receive posts from this blog directly into your Facebook newsfeed, you could *like* its Facebook page and then use the drop-down menu to indicate that it's one of your "interests". This will enhance the possibility that you'll get them. You could also follow me on Twitter @emma1hartley