BBC4's 'When Rock Goes Acoustic' yesterday evening was mildly interestung with a lovely clip of Sir Keith of Richards waving a guitar about playing a 12bar blues. But for me as someone who plays and has listened to this type of music for over forty years I thought the programme, especially for a BBC4 effort, resembled more of a quite shallow VH1/MTV prog. Clearly the subject matter was aimed at youngsters being reminded of how 'cool' acoustic is as well as stadium/festival rock. I thought it was going to be a more intelligent history than interviews with the likes of Extreme, nice chaps they seemed..

Where was the style and technique of John Fahey, Leo Kottke, John Martyn? Even the Jimmy Page clip was when he was fifteen and playing skiffle. Richard Thompson would have been a ideal voice to explain the acoustic's allure and history. Hardly any mention of country blues, Eddie Lang, Nick Drake, Ry Cooder even. They didn't even manage to point out that one of Nirvana's songs om their 'radical' MTV Unplugged, which was just a commercial trend anyhow, was a Leadbelly song.

Oh well. Hereth end my tuppence worth.