THE EAST VILLAGE PEOPLE
I had no idea until I moved here how touchy the East Villagers were vs. the West Villagers, at least in the songwriting community. I mean, really. People get, like, insulted and stuff. Isn't that weird?

The East Village People see the West (a/k/a Greenwich) Villagers as out-of-touch wackos humping Phil Ochs' ghost and generally being snobbish about any form of music that didn't originate (or at least achieve national prominence) on Bleecker Street in the '60s. Granted, this covers a lot of ground, all things considered, but still.

Places like the Lion's Den, Kenny's Castaways, the Back Fence, the Red Lion and the Baggott Inn are considered musty folk museums dedicated to the past and increasingly out of touch with the hip hot sounds of today. Which is a little bit true.

The westerners, on the other hand, I think, see the eastern folk (the line is drawn at about the Bowery, about where CBGB's is, if you're looking on a map) as self-absorbed chip-shouldered punks who are not only defiling and ignoring all the history that's been created already, but are making fundamental mistakes that will cost them in the long run.

They see holes-in-the-wall like the Raven, the Sidewalk, Brownies, the Pyramid and Manitoba's as cretin-clogged dives with no atmosphere or class. (They too have a point.)

I am generalizing slightly, and it ain't quite Tupac vs. Biggie, but any folkie (or neofolkie or certainly antifolkie or popsmith or acoustic hardcorer or whatever) act who plays, say, both the C-Note and the Bitter End seems to be looked at a little... sideways by both factions.

It's merely at the level of a rivalry (no bloodshed, which is good, oh and territory is merely noted and not enforced or anything silly like that - besides, we songwriters are all too wussy to actually do anything that could actually cause harm), but it turns out this scene isn't so big that this kind of provincialism doesn't happen.

Personally, I think it's cute.