Why is John Fahey So Boring?

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I, like many of you, no longer think John Fahey is an interesting musician. He was a bloodless, soulless albino clone of Elizabeth Cotten. And he didn't even play his guitar upside-down!

Where I once was captivated by his hypnotic simplicity, now I am bored to actual tears by his banal repetitiousness.

Where eyebrows were once raised involuntarily at the clever placement of a "modern-sounding" chord, my stomach now heaves in disgust at his obviousness.

And where I was once astounded by his machine-like precision, I am now driven mad by his machine-like precision.

So, why is John Fahey's music so boring?

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 08:25 (7 years ago) Permalink

you're thinking of fay vincent, you want ilb

― j blount (papa la bas), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 08:43 (7 years ago) Permalink

Fahey's music has a lot in common with drone - repetition, repetition, but the small changes in every go-round begin to make all the difference...

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 08:58 (7 years ago) Permalink

He's boring because Sufjan is on his tribute album?

― Stephen C (ihope), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 09:06 (7 years ago) Permalink

"When a man is tired of John Fahey, he is tired of life."

Robert Johnson

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 10:19 (7 years ago) Permalink

Apparently Fahey was a big Die Hard fan. Never woulda figured him fo' a Brucenik.

― Mestema (davidcorp), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 11:18 (7 years ago) Permalink

There is a support group for the emotions you're experiencing. Don't give up hope.

― Edward III (edward iii), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

the sufjan track on the tribute album is actually pretty good! and i couldn't even listen to that sufjan album all the way through. he must be best in small doses.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:38 (7 years ago) Permalink

This is the first time I've ever seen some real dislike for Fahey, he's such a sacred cow. It's refreshing.

― Ogmor Roundtrouser (Ogmor Roundtrouser), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

Yes, next up: that fucking Harry Smith.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:56 (7 years ago) Permalink

Followed by: Duke Ellington, boring bastard.

― Excelsior Syndrum (noodle vague), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 14:59 (7 years ago) Permalink

sandy bull? more like bullshit!

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

Johann Sebastian Bollocks, innit?

― Excelsior Syndrum (noodle vague), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:02 (7 years ago) Permalink

How much can you do with an acoustic guitar, anyway?

― save the robot (save the robot), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:03 (7 years ago) Permalink

Not much at all, really.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:03 (7 years ago) Permalink

Shirley Collins - talentless old bag

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:19 (7 years ago) Permalink

Dadaismus! You're crazy!

― stew!, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:23 (7 years ago) Permalink

Oops, posted before I'd followed the gag back...
I'll get my coat.

― stew!, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:24 (7 years ago) Permalink

Ha ha

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:25 (7 years ago) Permalink

i have like ten or twelve john fahey albums with no intention of stopping anytime soon.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

the only concert where i ever fell asleep...

― my name is john. i reside in chicago. (frankE), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:36 (7 years ago) Permalink

NO FAHEY, NO CREDIBILITY

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:37 (7 years ago) Permalink

im just gonna sit here and shake my head

― bb (bbrz), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:38 (7 years ago) Permalink

I am now driven mad by his machine-like precision.

it is about the "wrong" notes.

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:38 (7 years ago) Permalink

ok not ~~really~~entirely, but still

― cancer prone fat guy (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:39 (7 years ago) Permalink

the only concert where i ever fell asleep...

Count yourself lucky JF didn't fall asleep himself

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:39 (7 years ago) Permalink

He was a bloodless, soulless albino clone of Elizabeth Cotten. And he didn't even play his guitar upside-down!

this sounds like something fahey might have written in his own liner notes.

― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:40 (7 years ago) Permalink

well, I think he's a little not-all-that. but I enjoy him and think he added something to the guitar vocabulary. I'm not a fan of Surfin' Stevens but his cut on "I Am the Resurrection" is nice, as is most of that record (I guess I like the Cul De Sac track "Portland Cement Factory" the best). I guess you could blame Fahey for Leo Kottke (who has his moments) too. just another confused bluesnik who probably should've stayed out of Mississippi (to just reduce it down to the most banal possible criticism!). I dunno, you need to ask Andy Beta about all this, he probably has as good a take on it as anyone I know.

and OK, I know Elizabeth Cotten's name from that Moaners CD that came out last year, but apart from that I know nothing about her.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:44 (7 years ago) Permalink

you need to know more immediately...get thee to the record store and put the dvd on yr netflix list

― bb (bbrz), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 15:47 (7 years ago) Permalink

Elizabeth Cotten is wonderful. Shake Sugaree is well known and much covered. Nothing can touch he original though. The allmusic entry on her has a decent biog. Wasn't she a housekeeper discovered by Alan Lomax or someone like that?

― stew!, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

11/25/98 Dear Ron, Regarding fame, fortune and Oregon I do wish I had more money. As for fame, it can go to your head and you can become full of yourself. This I was always afraid of and so it didn't happen to me. It began to happen to me once, way back around 1969. Fortunately I noticed it before anybody else did and I cut it out. So what I do is this --when I go to the venue, I become the entertainer John Fahey. But when I come off stage, I do not want adulation, I do not want to be worshipped. I just want to be treated like an average guy. So I refer to records by me as "Fahey records", "Fahey music", and so forth. So I don't have to speak of MY, ME, I, etc. and keep talking about myself all the time, which bores me and everybody else. While I recognize in the back of my mind that I am an occasionally brilliant guitar composer and arranger, innovator and player. I also know that I am not a great technician. Perhaps that is why I manage to keep some humility. So when people ask me how good I am, I usually cop to being brilliant, even better than that, but short of genius. But I say these things in an objective dispassionate manner because, you know, and I can't explain why, but being one of the greatest guitarists in the world simply is not very important to me. Oh, but if you took it away somehow I would be very unhappy. But not suicidal. I know many inferior guitarists who are very proud of the fact that they are as good as they are, when in fact they are only moderately good. They parade around in their egotism with their groupies and fans and lord it over their worshippers. I do not even laugh at this like others do because the relationship between entertainers and groupies is pathological. As soon as the groupie finds out that you make errors in everyday life like everybody else does and that you are human, they turn on you and hate you. This has happened to me. It can hurt a lot especially in the case of girls. As you know, I am very fond of these creatures. Once upon a time I fell in love with a groupie, a Chicago girl, not knowing she was a groupie. The usual thing happened and it was very painful to me. From a social perspective, I am looking for friends, not acolytes. Being worshipped is a horrible experience. As for the source of the music, I believe it comes from the unconscious; that there is no such thing as talent. There is simply a lot of hard work and more hard work and after that, more hard work. I believe Thomas Edison said that. The other thing in composition is opening up the unconscious. I am especially good at the latter because, as I told you, I was in psychoanalysis for eight or nine years. Most musicians I know cannot open up. They are too focused on the audience rather than on their own emotions, or they are too focused on technique or perhaps on both. When I play, I very quickly put myself into a light hypnotic trance and compose while playing, drawing directly from the emotions. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing emotions and expressing them in a coherent public language called music. If you don't do that you sound stiff and uninspiring. Your friend, John Fahey

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

his books are anything but boring, also.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:28 (7 years ago) Permalink

trick question!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 16:52 (7 years ago) Permalink

it is about the "wrong" notes.

-- cancer prone fat guy (wt...), January 10th, 2006

what is?

― ,, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:00 (7 years ago) Permalink

john fahey.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:01 (7 years ago) Permalink

(x-post) - Great liner notes!

Elizabeth Cotton was adorable - check out the audience participation on her live CD on Arhoolie.

And I personally know of no remedy for falling out of love with the music of Fahey, or any other musician, for that matter. Sorry. (Why'd you like him in the first place?)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:32 (7 years ago) Permalink

Why'd you like him in the first place?

Because he was hip for a while perhaps?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:32 (7 years ago) Permalink

I had lost my copy of The Yellow Princess...just found it again! yay!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:38 (7 years ago) Permalink

that's a good one! the one i listened to most recently was "i remember blind joe death." the firs cut on the second side is really interesting in its use of dissonance and really jarring rhythms.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:41 (7 years ago) Permalink

Dadaismus: I was *never* hip, you silly old goose.

When I liked him I was a stupid young person who didn't know shit about music, like many of you. Now I am slightly less stupid and know three things about music, one of them being that John Fahey, like Minimalism, is boring. What's so interesting and hip about a guy who plays repetitious music like he's got no soul? He's a defanged, emasculated, sterile copycat of MS John Hurt. John Fahey Is Boring.

Oh, and thanks for posting Fahey's own words. What a bag of hot air. Thank god he's dead!

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:53 (7 years ago) Permalink

I don't like City of Refuge that much though....too much crabwalkin!

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 17:55 (7 years ago) Permalink

You weren't hip. John Fahey was. That's why you listened to him in the first place, see? (xpost)

― Vicious Cop Kills Gentle Fool (Dada), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:01 (7 years ago) Permalink

calling fahey's music soulless is grossly uninformed hyperbole.

― Special Agent Gene Krupa (orion), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:12 (7 years ago) Permalink

Dadaismus: That's right I wasn't hip, I was dumb. John Fahey wasn't hip either, he was boring. He still is boring. Can you give me a reason to think he's either hip or boring or both?

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:13 (7 years ago) Permalink

this is one boring-ass thread.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:14 (7 years ago) Permalink

Calling Fahey's music interesting or soulful is overblown overstatement.

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:15 (7 years ago) Permalink

Ok, more talk about Fahey. It's good that there are people out there who dislike Fahey and the music community isn't all united in some meaningless sort of agreement about his excellence, but I am not in their camp. It's pointless to try and convince anyone to that Fahey is not boring. But I'll try and say a little bit about why I think he's so great.

Fahey produced an impressive variety of stuff and my feelings about it vary. If I'm not in the mood for Hitomi maybe I want to hear his dixieland stuff, or A Raga Called Pat, or The Oregon Capital Inn blah blah - he did a lot of different stuff! Seriously! And yet, maybe this is all my imaginings and projections, but I can sense the same determination behind it, the clear-headed, straight up emotionality and that killer sense of humour. Even (especially) with his writing. More than any one of his styles, or his status as an innovator or whatever, I'm mostly in love with the wonderful personality I feel behind it all. And when I listen to Sun Gonna Shine In My Backdoor Someday Blues I'm not listening to, as he describes it, a bitonal piece played in a John Hurt, ragtime finger-picking pattern style, I'm listening to... I don't know, something much trickier to word. More than any other music I feel this with Fahey. When I first heard him just after I turned 18 I was blown away by how ridiculously intuitive it seemed - it was so obvious, I couldn't believe I ever bothered with other music.

A lot of what's written about Fahey to convince you of his IMPORTANCE talks about how he was the first to do X or an exciting blend of country blues, 20th century classical, indian classical... blah blah. To me at least, it doesn't sound like that and it wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it did. All that seems incidental. The way I hear it (and I appreciate the subjectivity of all this), Fahey is trying to get to SOMETHING and all the technical details are just his way of getting to it. I guess that's it anyway, it's why I feel the same sorts of things listening to such a diverse range of music. It's not the language he's developed, but what he's saying with it.

― Ogmor Roundtrouser (Ogmor Roundtrouser), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

― Excelsior Syndrum (noodle vague), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:20 (7 years ago) Permalink

I just threw a rock into the pond, and it made small waves.. then they ended.

I'm so fucking proud of throwing that rock into the pond.

Those little waves just marched around in their own order, but in no way that anyone could have predicted.

Even though the pond got back to equilibrium in about 10 seconds, I have to say that, for a small while, I was fucking make waves in that pond. I threw the rock, the waves happened, they ended, and it was because of me.

Fuck you, pond. I would never hesitate to throw another rock in you.

― Dom iNut (donut), Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:22 (7 years ago) Permalink

Are we going to debate what soul is again? I hope so. I hope it's also kind of racist and completely uninformed. I want some more of that.

And Leo Kotke rules so watch it, pals.

― !~~~~11@@, Tuesday, 10 January 2006 18:23 (7 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 115 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

what so you can turn around and it put it on your BLOG?

sure ok

― big triffid in my backyard (Edward III), Monday, 1 August 2011 17:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

help me bore the dozen people who read my site.

― tylerw, Monday, 1 August 2011 17:55 (1 year ago) Permalink

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Monday, 1 August 2011 18:17 (1 year ago) Permalink

i wonder if there's any more writing left over, stuff like what's in 'how bluegrass music destroyed my life'

I'm sure there's odds and ends, but they were pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel w/ the letters at the end of vampire vultures. however the stuff on the site is good

― ogmor, Monday, 1 August 2011 21:30 (1 year ago) Permalink

that dust to digital thing looks boss. not as boss as their africa box set though!

― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 12:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

btw weirdest fahey thread title ever. what the hell?

― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 12:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

trollers gonna troll

― time to put it in hi geir (WmC), Tuesday, 2 August 2011 13:23 (1 year ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

boring pics of this fucking amazing box set
http://thewiremagazine.tumblr.com/post/9665885879/the-wire-magazine-john-fahey

― tylerw, Friday, 2 September 2011 20:28 (1 year ago) Permalink

11 months pass...

massive idiots/obvious trolls who think fahey is boring better bypass this kickass bootleg:

http://youtu.be/0cTdPTrihlI

(untouchable, mysterious, ethereal, massive. hold onto yer butts for this shit.)

― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 03:28 (9 months ago) Permalink

wow, thank you, global tetrahedon

is that from the university of washington show?

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 03:53 (9 months ago) Permalink

This is great. I'm sure there's a lot of Fahey I have yet to hear which I would like. One reason I haven't dug as deeply is that there are certain sides of his art I'm not really into. This is definitely from one of the sides I love (so far).

― _Rudipherous_, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 04:23 (9 months ago) Permalink

i checked, and yeah, it is from the 1973 UW show. avail in its entirety here:

http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/18138392878/john-fahey-university-of-washington-1973-01

^ hope it's ok to post that link...

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 04:34 (9 months ago) Permalink

you should really ask that blogger for consent before posting such links, I heard he is a real madman. you better watch out buddy.

― queequeg (peter grasswich), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 05:15 (9 months ago) Permalink

lol

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 05:17 (9 months ago) Permalink

feel like the best fahey like the live versions of dance of the inhabitants should be hid away on a mountaintop monastery somewhere which is a couple of day's hike to get to. i was going to link to a video of another version of it but it's been pulled from youtube, hopefully being interred by the monks as i type.

― ogmor, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 10:29 (9 months ago) Permalink

feel like the best fahey like the live versions of dance of the inhabitants should be hid away on a mountaintop monastery somewhere which is a couple of day's hike to get to.

hahaha this is otm & how the world should work

― , Blogger (schlump), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 10:34 (9 months ago) Permalink

I have lots of Fahey bootlegs, most came from Delta Slider, I'd poke around there if you like the above... the main problem with the site is that the MP3s are tagged like shit (or not at all), hence why I had to upload it to Youtube to share it. Perhaps the difficulty associated with unzipping and properly tagging MP3s is corollary to a long hike to a monastery?

Also, to the dude above, what sides of Fahey don't you like? I could totally imagine what sides you are talking about, but in the interest of further Faheychat perhaps you could elaborate.

― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 13:21 (9 months ago) Permalink

And does anyone see what I'm saying about how this evokes Branca? Just the cacophonous reverberations piling onto one another, adding up to a bigger whole?

― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 13:22 (9 months ago) Permalink

As a shoegaze fan I heard a lot of the same melodic progression sensibilities Kevin Shields as an example would share.

― Evan, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 14:37 (9 months ago) Permalink

tbh, i don't really get the branca comparison

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 14:39 (9 months ago) Permalink

yeah that u of w show is close to a religious experience. the sausalito recording from around the same era is a far better recording with a similar setlist, but the u o w thing is uhhhhmazing.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 14:53 (9 months ago) Permalink

I still like Fahey records but I think he was "an occasionally brilliant guitar composer and arranger, innovator and player" even more rarely than he thought. He relied too much on the same few tricks and effects and fills too much time with adolescent stoned-fascinated noodling.

― bert yansh (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 14:59 (9 months ago) Permalink

you speak poop

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:01 (9 months ago) Permalink

^^^^^

― Mr. Que, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:01 (9 months ago) Permalink

mentioned above from way back
Also in the works is a separate two-CD set called Roots of Fahey, which will showcase the songs and musicians that inspired and influenced John throughout his recording career. Each track comes from the 78rpm record collection of John's lifelong friend, Joe Bussard.
this didn't ever come out did it?

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:04 (9 months ago) Permalink

don't espeeecially hear the branca, but the low notes are cosmically booming, sounds more like some brass/percussion combination than guitar.

― (500) Days of Sodom (Merdeyeux), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:05 (9 months ago) Permalink

What's the most far out stuff? His weirdest shit? Hurting's second sentence up there is my prob with Fahey too, but I haven't heard much.

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:22 (9 months ago) Permalink

his weirdest shit

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:24 (9 months ago) Permalink

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/07/john-faheys-mil.html

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:25 (9 months ago) Permalink

I can definitely hear the Branca comparison. I didn't realize he was doing that sort of thing pre-Womblife.

― Romney's Kitchen Nightmares (WmC), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:26 (9 months ago) Permalink

This is more like it, cheers!! xpost

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:40 (9 months ago) Permalink

haha umm enjoy!

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:44 (9 months ago) Permalink

if someone could just list all the fahey records that aren't americana-ey fingerpickin or the blooze that'd be great thx

― Crackle Box, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:49 (9 months ago) Permalink

well I mean a lot of them are raga-y fingerpickin mixed in with americana fingerpickin and the blooze.

― bert yansh (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 15:59 (9 months ago) Permalink

as far as the studio stuff goes, it sounds like you might be interested in his very late albums: womblife, city of refuge, hitomi, and red cross.

― contenderizer, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 16:00 (9 months ago) Permalink

the mid period where fahey was experimenting with concrete sounds and doing duets with other instrumentalists is my fave -- these records:
-requia
-days have gone by
-vol. 4
-voice of the turtle

prob my faves.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:21 (9 months ago) Permalink

p.s. not boring

― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:28 (9 months ago) Permalink

fahey went pretty far afield at times, but it seems to me that looking for things he did that weren't informed by "americana-ey fingerpickin or the blooze" is like looking for james brown recordings that didn't have anything to do with R&B.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:36 (9 months ago) Permalink

that is OTM. you might just be better off listening to some classical guitar stuff, or robbie basho or someone, if you don't want rural american nostalgia trips.

― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:37 (9 months ago) Permalink

guys i've discovered this great guitarist - really adult and sober - anyone interested?

― ogmor, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:41 (9 months ago) Permalink

― one dis leads to another (ian), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:45 (9 months ago) Permalink

i heard it said once - by a fahey fan, in fact - that julian bream broke a nail on tour, and spent the afternoon getting a synthetic replacement superglued on so that he could play a concert that evening. a few tunes into the performance, the glued nail pings off into the audience and catches a woman in the eye. apparently the woman died & j bream was arrested for murder, playing out the end of his life in gaol. i saw glenn jones play a few months ago and he had also had to have emergency manicure treatment at some korean nail salon in the arndale centre in manchester, but no superglue was involved.

― ogmor, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 17:58 (9 months ago) Permalink

I guess what I meant by the Branca thing is less about the process/instrumentation really but more the music's use of space and how the music bypasses *notes* exactly into more of a microtonal region, especially when he busts the slide out into those long, loping, descending lines accompanied by the furious arpeggiation on the open strings, and the massive overtones conjured up by that, etc.

I think there's stuff simliar on like the first movement of Symphony no. 5? Take a gander at that to see what I'm getting at. Not even saying they are of some lineage or something but they evoke the same atmosphere to me. I dunno. This could all be just stupid.

And thanks for the heads up on the Saualito stuff, checking that out now... and of course the mediafire link is down on Doom and Gloom... some really sketchy looking site called 'Rockin CD' asking 10 bucks to stream... guess I'll pass on that.

― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 18:44 (9 months ago) Permalink

jim o'rourke says something similar in the liner notes to live in tasmania reissue, comparing him to charlemagne palestine - "ice cubes in a blender"

― ogmor, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 18:57 (9 months ago) Permalink

i'll re-up that sausalito set, give me a sec

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 18:58 (9 months ago) Permalink

annnnd here it is: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/21030078332/in-christ-there-is-no-east-or-west-john-fahey

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:35 (9 months ago) Permalink

3 years after that recording, Fleetwood Mac would come in to that studio to record Rumours.

― queequeg (peter grasswich), Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:40 (9 months ago) Permalink

Oh ha, that blog's you, huh? Fuck yeah, dude, thanks! I'll be sure to poke around your posts some more, that's a nice writeup you've got there. I imagine you've got most of the Delta Slider Fahey recordings, but do you have "Live at the Barn?" i don't remember where I found that one (somewhere else, not Delta Slider) but if you don't have it and would be interested I could up that too. There's a track where Fahey exhorts the crowd to commit suicide with him? Kind of some heavy shit.

― global tetrahedron, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:46 (9 months ago) Permalink

i do have live at the barn. kind of a depressing listen! though he plays well for the most part.

― tylerw, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 19:50 (9 months ago) Permalink

for some reason i just don't listen to a lot of solo guitar records. in general. maybe when i'm older. i did like that numero group comp of private press stuff though. i do like selling john fahey records. i kinda like that stuff that bill orcutt has been putting out. that stuff is pretty demented. but mostly its just the problem of being a record seller. basho/fahey/bull stuff is just too easy to sell. i never hold on to any of it.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 14 August 2012 20:01 (9 months ago) Permalink

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