Stetsons and Stilettos

brian_t

Just thought I might leave this here.

The third series of Keeping 'ER Country starts tomorrow Monday 26th on BBC 1 NI at 10:40 pm.

Trucks.
Series about Northern Ireland's country music scene. This edition joins the lorry-loving women who spend hundreds of thousands on their vehicles to keep them in tip-top condition, and the men who combine their weekly workload with pulling up to country music festivals at the weekends, all of whom have Ireland's biggest truck show in their sights.

George White

Same series, redubbed narration

BuilderPlumber

George White wrote: »

Same series, redubbed narration

I heard of this Keeping er Country which is more of the very same drivel. Is it the very same as Stetsons or just similar? It is on at 10.40 tomorrow. There is at least one good programme on at the same time, The Handmaid's Tale.

George White

It's the same. But with a female narrator.
But that said, it's hard to cover the acts themselves. Even in Castleblayney, the local shop owners gave me suspicious looks when I said I was doing an article on country and Irish. People thought I wanted to see a concert. Then again, it did not seem a particularly intelligent town.

AndrewJRenko

Interesting to see Nathan Carter's brother Jake winning the public vote on Dancing With the Stars tonight, even beating the well-connected GAA star Anna Geary - could the 'stetsons mafia' run deeper and broader than some here might suggest?

George White

Carter has a big fanbase. A relative, 30 loves him. And she's a normal, attractive woman who vaguely resembles Phoebe Cates.

BuilderPlumber

George White wrote: »

Carter has a big fanbase. A relative, 30 loves him. And she's a normal, attractive woman who vaguely resembles Phoebe Cates.

It is very clear that Nathan Carter is a lot better than a lot of these others. He can sing older country like Be Nobody's Darling But Mine, songs like Botany Bay and ones like Wagon Wheel and do them all well. He can also do rock 'n' roll and showband style songs so he is bound to get a large following.

These other acts that followed him were and are much more limited. Acts like Lee Matthews, Ritchie Remo, Shane Owens, Eamonn Jackson and Marty Mone are very confined to just one type of style and are pushed at us by the media as well as promoters of festivals and concerts all the time. There is big money with them but they are not genuine stars. Nathan Carter got where he was via hard work and has had genuine hits and has a genuine following.

Bob_Marley

Originally state supported broadcastors such as RTE and BBC were setup and tasked with a threefold mission to educate, inform, and entertain the populace.
Those noble virtues have long since been swept aside.
TV stations now only care about numbers of viewers, not quality - as more viewers means being able to charge more for advertising.
TV stations discovered long ago that drivel always got more viewers than intelligent television.
So they now give the majority of viewers exactly what they want, rather than what they need.

BuilderPlumber

Bob_Marley wrote: »

Originally state supported broadcastors such as RTE and BBC were setup and tasked with a threefold mission to educate, inform, and entertain the populace.
Those noble virtues have long since been swept aside.
TV stations now only care about numbers of viewers, not quality - as more viewers means being able to charge more for advertising.
TV stations discovered long ago that drivel always got more viewers than intelligent television.
So they now give the majority of viewers exactly what they want, rather than what they need.

I agree with most of this. I feel modern TV ignores largely ignores a lot of majority audience though. As long as they get a following for drivel, they can justify showing it over and over. People too may tune into something to see their town or county on TV.

Dakota Dan

That Fossey mountain place looks fairly rough. The man in donegal training his own horses was fairly amateurish at the western riding event, the woman that won left him for dead.

George White

Found an American website - Mykindofcountry, and says that to their ears, Irish country is more like polka music. And watching a bit of Jimmy Sturr, the artist they compare it most to, I can see it. Especially when the only real knowledge of polka I know from John Candy's skits of it.

George White

Jake Carter on Today with Maura and Daithi. For once, he's not one of these who says they are country. He describes himself as a pop singer. The only time country comes up is when he is saying how he's different to his brother. But if this style fails, you just know that his management....

George White

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRpVznBmgRE Was recommended this doc by a US friend. What it seems is that there's genuine passion and love for country music in Japan, it seems to be a devotion while in Ireland, it's always going to have a smell of cabaret clubland, of cash-in. There doesn't seem to be anything that false about Japanese country. It seems a loving recreation and not the tacky cash-in. There's no Casio-driven pseudo-showbands like you find in Blayney. It feels as if it is trying to be authentic as possible.