Takoma's one-offs and obscurities

probably... that lang/fahey/kottke must have made it over there?

i'd support such a kickstarter at whatever level was necc to get a nice record in the mail whenever it was ready.

also, tyler, that blog is great! never seen it before, but i'm not much of a blog reader or downloader. but i like records.

yeah, it's a nice one, lots of good stuff.
i'm sure Lang is at least a little bit known in europe -- i mean, probably as much as in the USA.

i just bought a record on ebay cuz of that blog.
will probably buy many more in the weeks to come.

sweet! this thing is pretty excellent actually: http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/2012/04/rc-johnston-fahey-project.html

just got a promo of Digging in the Dust : Home Recordings 1976 by Mark Fosson, out next month on Tomkins Sq. Drag City put out his "Lost Takoma Sessions" a few years back. A little crossover w/ that, but this might actually sound better, despite being home demos. Really a great 12-string player, in the Kottke mode. you can stream it over yonder: http://www.fretboardjournal.com/audio/mark-fosson-digging-dust-exclusive-stream

:D thanks for the tip tyler.

it's pretty beautiful! amazing 12-string tone.

wow! great find!

speaking of which, anything come of that peter lang kickstarter campaign?

nah i keep meaning to call my friend, it was more talk over beers but we should!

those fosson demos sound GREAT, thank you

Listening to the Fosson collection now -- indeed, really spectacular listen and just beautifully recorded for home demos as well. It all sounds very un-1976, somehow.

Thanks Tyler I hadn't heard of this. Hey Ian, has any progress been made on the Homegas reissue you're friends were working on?

I don't think so, Jacob, nothing that I've heard. Keegan has been wrapped up doing the F.J. McMahon reissue. I think he wants to do a Tucker Zimmerman record next; he actually hasn't mentioned the Homegas project in a while.

Really stoked about a F.J. McMahon reissue!

:D it's a good record, and this is gonna sound better than the boot. i have heard the test pressing.

Is the boot you're referring to the UK CD on Revola?

i.e. this: http://www.cherryred.co.uk/shopexd.asp?id=2112

I have not heard the CD.. there was an LP bootleg from maybe 10 years ago or so. Paste-on cover, no label info, mediocre sound.

GUYS!

GUESS WHO'S WIFE GOT HIM 6 GUITAR LESSONS WITH PETER LANG FOR FATHER'S DAY???
XD

wife otm

result!

pretty excited, i just need to call the west bank school of music to schedule

that is cool, i wanted to take lessons with a takoma-style dude who lived around here, but he moved away. keep us posted on how it goes! when is Transfiguration of the Upper Mississippi Shakedown scheduled to be released, anyway?

!!! awesome matt.

haha yeah i don't know when i'm going to schedule them, i almost feel like i'm too shitty to take lessons from him now

but at the end of the day just even being able to geek out and be in the same room, watch him play stuff etc

my friend that took lessons from him had a bunch of handouts from him like tabbed out sheet music for "in christ there is no east or west" by fahey and stuff like that :)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_I2cHuaRju4M/S4S576UqMBI/AAAAAAAAAEs/Q0IOHNNs0JA/s400/p000.jpg
full scans of this book over here: http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/2010/02/best-of-john-fahey-guitar-tab.html

that is really exciting, matt!

not takoma, but this is great. only heard one other track by this dude previously.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jYLDKDXUoNo/T-qbT9WISHI/AAAAAAAAEcM/xD7rSjqwaRo/s1600/conflower+front.jpg
http://ghostcapital.blogspot.com/2012/06/suni-mcgrath-cornflower-suite-1969.html

dl link seems to be down for the moment tho :/

That Mark Fosson record is sounding great today, thanks for posting that. Stream posted upthread still works btw. Pretty amazing sound for a home recorded set of tunes.

yeah i've been listening to that a ton.

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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?

he was kinda nuts, had some lame opinions/ideas. he probably just enjoyed pushing people's buttons too.

i haven't read that essay, though. was he saying that some male guitars like to have sex with other male guitars?

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

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."

i get the sense lang is a little more "normal" than fahey was

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.

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)

78 Collectors: Why are they so weird?

whoa holy shit @ that fahey excerpt

Not only is that passage willfully offensive, it doesn't really make any sense at all.

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.

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