Help me help a friend? He wants to play in Europe some. Awesome lyricist.

[midwayfair]

My friend Matt Pless wants to do a European tour. Most of his gigs here are house shows, so he's looking for small venues and folk venues, places where lyrics matter to people.

I don't use the term "great lyricist" lightly. Matt's one of the cleverest writers I've ever met. I usually describe him as Billy Joe Armstrong doing Dylan but he's very much become his own thing.

https://mattpless.bandcamp.com/track/the-crayon-song

Any help is appreciated.

[raulduke]

Every year at Whitby there is a folk week festival. It's quite well known among the 'folkies' (my Dad being one). Its been going for 50 years now.

It's great and my Family used to go every year. Whitby is great too (I'm sure I've probably whittled on about Whitby here before... ).

It is about as close to the 'real' folk experience as I could imagine. i.e. people turning up in pubs and just playing, talking, singing etc. together. People doing reels and dances spontaneously. It's pretty cool.

There are also a lot of musical historians etc. that give guest lectures on folk/roots music.

I've see quite a few Americans there so it could be a cool gig for him. The audience there would certainly be receptive.

Typical scene of what you will find in most pubs:


Also, when me and my wife went traveling around Europe (years ago), the country that we found the most live/folk music going on was Spain. There was always a live musician playing somewhere, and they seem to have kept (and cherish) their 'roots' music (Flamenco etc. are all still big over there). The trains are really good too (important if he wants to get around EU easily). Plus its a beautiful country... Seville was our favorite place, and is also quite famous for it's musical heritage


You might recognize the palace from GOT 

[samhay]

In the UK, while there are a lot of folk clubs and venues that will book folk acts, it can be bloody difficult to get a foot in the door.
There are also a number of hard core folkies that don't like American stuff. They are in the minority, but you might get more traction by promoting yourself as a singer-songwriter and/or trying to ride on the coat tails of the success of Mumford et al. (which plenty of others seem to be doing).

These might be worth a read.
http://folkandroots.co.uk/home/venues/
http://britfolk.co.uk/helpgigs.html
http://www.jacey-bedford.com/helpfiles/from-outside.html