yeah i've been listening to that a ton.
― tylerw, Wednesday, 27 June 2012 17:18 (eleven years ago) link
It's sequenced/recorded as almost one continuous performance, or at least the mix and consistency of the performance makes it seem so. Can picture the guy (who looks super-young in the picture) sitting down and banging them out in one take, which would be pretty astounding. Considering he was renting the mic he recorded with, that just may be the case.
― grandavis, Wednesday, 27 June 2012 17:25 (eleven years ago) link
That Fosson record is incredible! Cosmic Hiccup is transcendent. And to whomever is getting the lessons from Peter Lang: how I envy and am saving up for what you're doing... as a wannabe fingerpicker, you'll have to let me/us know how it goes. I feel like it's something I should jump on once I get the cash, as it doesn't seem like an opportunity to be missed and one that won't be around forever...
― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, 27 June 2012 23:14 (eleven years ago) link
Will keep you guys posted on how it goes....btw I don't think it's super expensive for the lessons, but I guess if you were traveling that could get expensive
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 28 June 2012 00:24 (eleven years ago) link
I live in MPLS, but I live below a poverty wage at the moment so we'll see on that. I never even considered looking him up for lessons until you mentioned it, though, so thanks! Holy shit man.
― global tetrahedron, Thursday, 28 June 2012 00:37 (eleven years ago) link
He teaches through the west bank school of music if you want to inquire, but yeah a friend did it and had a lot of fun and said it really helped
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 28 June 2012 00:48 (eleven years ago) link
hey i just downloaded that Fahey tab book.
ayo...um...did any of you guys, like, read some of the essay stuff he wrote at the beginning of the book o_O
like especially the "Homosexual Guitar" section is over the line in parts.
i guess i don't know that much about fahey as a dude, was he like super crazy?
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 16:08 (eleven years ago) link
he was kinda nuts, had some lame opinions/ideas. he probably just enjoyed pushing people's buttons too.
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 16:49 (eleven years ago) link
i haven't read that essay, though. was he saying that some male guitars like to have sex with other male guitars?
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 16:51 (eleven years ago) link
um...i wish...
can't C&P but here's a sampling:
"Those who fear their guitars are essentially cowardly faggots who have allowed themselves to be conquered by perverse tendencies. They are unable to sit anywhere for six hours under any circumstances. Their span of attention is short, but what is much worse is that they don't care....They have constituted themselves essentially as hatred, opposition - pure negativity. Homosexual guitar playing is an imitative gesture of the non-essential (i.e. temporary) characteristics of women - bitchiness, frivolity, flightiness, and super-sensitivity."
that's just a sampling
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 16:59 (eleven years ago) link
eek! would be interesting to ask Lang about that particular theory. provided he doesn't start your first lesson by calling you a "cowardly faggot."
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 17:03 (eleven years ago) link
i get the sense lang is a little more "normal" than fahey was
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 17:09 (eleven years ago) link
I'd heard quotes about how weird Fahey was in person and read him described as 'practiced at being obnoxious'. I'd say that type of writing up there is kind of a logical extension of his insane ramblings that made up his liner notes and his counter-counter-culture tendencies. Ever wonder where the title "Revolt of the Dyke Brigade" came from? In the Return of the Repressed liner notes he said that it was written 'around the time of women's lib, i was scared and insecure' or something similar. I feel like he reigned it in near the end, In 'How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life' he writes a quite sympathetic chapter about his gay friend that died and who couldn't be visited by his SO. I dunno.
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2012 17:46 (eleven years ago) link
Doesn't hurt/help that you can tell how hammered he was in a lot of his live cuts (and on record! the slurring voice on the song 'Days Have Gone By' is Fahey)
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2012 17:48 (eleven years ago) link
78 Collectors: Why are they so weird?
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 18:01 (eleven years ago) link
whoa holy shit @ that fahey excerpt
― 69, Friday, 29 June 2012 19:04 (eleven years ago) link
Not only is that passage willfully offensive, it doesn't really make any sense at all.
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2012 19:33 (eleven years ago) link
Hmm, not to defend J. Fahey too much, as certainly I haven't read this passage, but I imagine that the "(not) really making any sense at all" part of the equation should be weighed heavily. Guy struggled with a lot, but I don't think he was really a bigot in any way.
― grandavis, Friday, 29 June 2012 19:41 (eleven years ago) link
i shouldn't characterize the whole this like that, like from what i've read some of it is really good....it's just, i dunno, lots of stuff in that era (like lester and nick tosches as skot mentioned in another thread) were a little too free with the f- and n-words in their kinda jive writing
but that particularly line of though is pretty stupid macho bullshit, continued:
"Mastering a guitar is very similar to conquering a woman, and when you fail to master it, like when you fail to master a woman, you have the same feelings of humiliation and violence."
but honestly for there's tons of great stuff too!
"And you can win -- with any guitar. Sit there with it for six hours. No guitar can withstand the creative spirit that is in every human being. Anyone who calls his guitar a "box" does not understand. Anyone who calls his guitar an "axe" cannot play it very well."
<3
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:06 (eleven years ago) link
like you should just download the thing and read it, i feel a bit bad for calling that part out but goddamn some of it IS just offensive no other way around it.
uhm, that suni mcgrath record is great. all his records are great but that's my fave.fahey is a very complicated individual. i would suggest reading his books before judging him as a bigot
― one dis leads to another (ian), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:07 (eleven years ago) link
i wasn't saying he was a bigot! that part just kinda jumped out at me and i didn't really know much about the dude tbh!
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:08 (eleven years ago) link
i mean large font headers called "Homosexual Guitar Playing" and "Guitar Angst" are sort of eye-grabbing
oh oh oh i know you weren't!! just advising anyone against making knee jerk assumptions abt the guy. there is a lot of sexual abuse/trauma in his past that he spent large chunks of his life dealing with.
― one dis leads to another (ian), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:09 (eleven years ago) link
plus his house was his car and it smelled like hamburgers
― manditory fun. day (Ówen P.), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:24 (eleven years ago) link
there's a bootleg from the mid 70s where Fahey suggests that everyone (including himself) commit mass suicide. "We could all go to sleep. Why don't we all go home and - why don't we go out back and have a joint suicide? Let's all go out back and commit suicide. Every one of us. The neat thing would be when the newspapers come they won't know what happened. Nobody will be able to figure it out."
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 20:30 (eleven years ago) link
huh!
Lang's musical career was postponed in the 1980s, to allow him to pursue a career in animation and special effects production.
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 29 June 2012 20:46 (eleven years ago) link
there's a bootleg from the mid 70s where Fahey suggests that everyone (including himself) commit mass suicide."We could all go to sleep. Why don't we all go home and - why don't we go out back and have a joint suicide? Let's all go out back and commit suicide. Every one of us. The neat thing would be when the newspapers come they won't know what happened. Nobody will be able to figure it out."
― tylerw, Friday, June 29, 2012 3:30 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
whoa, which one was this? i've been just getting into some of the bootlegs on delta slider. some heavy stuff in there, musically, that is. most of his banter thus far has been lightly amusing. nothing like this.
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2012 21:21 (eleven years ago) link
delta-slider.blogspot.com/2011/04/john-fahey-as-jim-jones.html
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 21:22 (eleven years ago) link
Wow, that's pretty disturbing stuff, dude must've been more wrecked than I ever thought.
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2012 21:46 (eleven years ago) link
hey we all have our nights, don't we? ok, maybe not.
― tylerw, Friday, 29 June 2012 21:47 (eleven years ago) link
This older lady, a folksinger, was telling me about being backstage at a festival in the late 60s or early 70s, when a limo came cruising through the mud, and people were saying, "Yeah, Fahey's here!" A guy who looked like a Texas Ranger got out, so impressive--followed by "a little ol' snakehead in a t-shirt." The Texas Ranger type was Fahey's bodyguard, the folksinger was told. "Like a cult leader, bad vibes, and lame. He played well, of course." But also, he was known early on for a warped sense of humor, and wouldn't be surprised if this scene fit that description. Later, in his more typical econo-mode, a Creem writer saw him onstage with a 12-pack and a rented guitar (both required in the contract), watching a little portable TV while he played (again, no complaints about the playing). But he also spent a lot of time talking about his favorite shows (re-runs of Green Acres, Adam-12, etc) and the Creem writer liked some of those shows too, but wanted a little more music. Still, it was okay. Glenn Jones had some good recollections in liner notes for Red Cross, which I think was the last album Fahey finished before he died, it was pretty good. But the up close and personal memoir that really gets me is Andy Beta's (Andy used to post around here)http://www.villagevoice.com/2006-01-24/music/looking-for-blind-joe-death/
― dow, Saturday, 30 June 2012 04:21 (eleven years ago) link
thanks for the link, good article
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 3 July 2012 15:31 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that's greatOther times, he would play his mixes: collages of Nazi rallies, Balinese gamelan, and recent Chicago blues licks with their verses and choruses mischievously lopped off, rearranging their 12- bar logic.wonder if any of these still exist?
― tylerw, Tuesday, 3 July 2012 15:38 (eleven years ago) link
The Mark Fosson is great.
― Austin, Tuesday, 3 July 2012 20:28 (eleven years ago) link
another good one is the john jeremiah sullivan essay, which features fahey a bit: http://essayist.tumblr.com/post/8424884997/unknown-bards-the-blues-becomes-transparent-about
― tylerw, Tuesday, 3 July 2012 20:32 (eleven years ago) link
just got a promo of a new (!) harry taussig album!http://www.musicdirect.com/images/product/medium/94959.jpg
― tylerw, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 18:45 (eleven years ago) link
:Dwwant
― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, 17 July 2012 19:01 (eleven years ago) link
Ha, I came here to post that press sheet, so anyway here tos
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tompkins Square Releases American Primitive Guitar Pioneer Harry Taussig's First Album in 47 Years'Fate Is Only Twice' Available on CD/LP/DL August 21, 2012HTReleased as a short-run private press LP in 1965, 'Fate Is Only Once' has long been a coveted collectible among American Primitive guitar enthusiasts. The album presages the broader movement. Acoustic musicians were still largely stuck in a rigid "Folk" mindset in 1965, and there are just not that many other examples of the exploratory guitar sounds found on 'Fate' during this time period. Alternating between haunting originals and jaunty blues-based traditional numbers, this absurdly rare LP was reissued by Tompkins Square in 2006. Taussig's only other recorded works appear on the long out-of-print Takoma compilation 'Contemporary Guitar Spring '67' alongside John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Max Ochs and Bukka White. Taussig spent years as an educator, published instructional guitar books, and traveled extensively to photograph weird museums.
Amazingly, he returns with his first album in 47 years, appropriately titled 'Fate Is Only Twice'. The same stark, smoldering playing is evident, all the humor and inventiveness intact.
Available on LP (TSQ2738), CD (TSQ2745) and DL on August 21, 2012.Tompkins Square is distributed by INgrooves/ Fontana in the US, Cargo UK for Europe, FUSE for Australia/NZ.
― dow, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 19:02 (eleven years ago) link
Here's a track from it, with other Tompkins Square posts linked in the lower right-hand railhttp://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/rondo-in-d-on-southern-themes
― dow, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 19:05 (eleven years ago) link
haw "traveled extensively to photograph weird museums"
― tylerw, Tuesday, 17 July 2012 19:08 (eleven years ago) link
Aaaaaah! Starting my lessons with Peter Lang today!
Sitting here sipping a coffee to "Transfiguration of..." and thinking pretty much everything is going to turn out alright. How could it not, with music like this in the world?
― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:21 (eleven years ago) link
good luck!
― tylerw, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:23 (eleven years ago) link
sweet! i haven't set mine up yet....let me know how it is
― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:24 (eleven years ago) link
here's to the new generation of homosexual guitar players!
― tylerw, Wednesday, 1 August 2012 15:26 (eleven years ago) link
Tyler's link to that John Jeremiah Sullivan excursion re and with Fahey leads to fine fine things, check it out thx tyler
― dow, Saturday, 18 August 2012 23:22 (eleven years ago) link
http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs106/1101382621048/img/116.jpg
― dow, Thursday, 18 October 2012 00:22 (eleven years ago) link
Which is the cover for this:Since 2005, Tompkins Square label's 'Imaginational Anthem' compilations have featured some of the greatest acoustic guitarists in the world, with recordings spanning five decades. More than mere samplers, these albums have served as state-of-the-art dispatches from the front lines of the art form. The first three volumes, available as a low-priced box set, intermingled generations of American Primitive players - lost, forgotten masters next to contemporary players. Volume 4 saw a departure from that formula, featuring only new jack players.
Volume 5, available November 13, also features the current crop of younger players, but with a twist. This is the first volume not compiled by Tompkins Square's Josh Rosenthal. Instead, he recruited guitarist Sam Moss. Josh explains, "I felt I'd exhausted most of the older guys I wanted to dig up, and I wasn't hearing that much new guitar that I really liked. I sensed that Sam knew what was going on."
The result is a gorgeous panoramic view of contemporary guitar, full of agile finger-style, and a few jagged detours.
'Imaginational Anthem vol. 5' will also be available as part of the 6-CD box set, 'Imaginational Anthem vols. 1-5', (TSQ2790) out November 23 (Black Friday). The limited edition box (only 999 units) features all five volumes in their original packaging, plus an exclusive live disc from William Tyler (Lambchop), entitled 'Elvis Was A Capricorn.'
Imaginational Anthem vol. 5 track listing :
1. Temple Walk - Steve Gunn2. I Think We'll Be Happy Here- Jordan Fuller3. Lookout Point- Danny Paul Grody4. There Is A Place In This Old Town- Nick Schillace5. Hemet Pine Singer- Will Stratton6. John Fahey Commemorative Beer Can- Bill Orcutt7. Confederate Rose- Daniel Bachman8. Through A House Of Violet Abandon- Eric Carbonara9. Her Unmediated Eyes- Tom Lecky10. Standing At The Entrance Of A Hidden City- Alexander Turnquist11. Modern Man In Search Of A Song- Cam Deas12. Rivers Gone Badly Wrong- Yair Yona
― dow, Thursday, 18 October 2012 00:24 (eleven years ago) link
this series is always great.seeing bill orcutt on here is making me happy, a step towards the weird & abrasive most artists in this series wld be afraid to touch
― i guess i'd just rather listen to canned heat? (ian), Thursday, 18 October 2012 03:10 (eleven years ago) link
also: steve gunn is the best