Why is John Fahey So Boring?

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!

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.

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.

And Leo Kotke rules so watch it, pals.

-- Dom iNut (do...), January 10th, 2006.

By the way, that's really beautiful.

I'm no one to define soul, and I'm not defending John Fahey, but isn't repetitious music (chanting, drone, prayers, etc.) used all around the world in order for an individual to get in touch with their soul, subconcious, self, inner state, etc.?

Only if you like it it's good

Does this help?

http://www.furious.com/perfect/fahey/fahey-byron.html
http://www.furious.com/perfect/fahey/fahey-byron2.html

This says 11/94:
http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/f/fahey2_john.shtml

I'm not as keen on Reprise era Fahey as there's a lot of not particularly inspired trad jazz tunes and what not, although Of Rivers And Religion has plenty of admirers and one or two great tracks (the version of Funeral Song For Mississippi John Hurt is so jerky in parts I worry about whiplash). It makes sense that Christgau would disagree though and if you are aligned with his more populist approach (?) you might too. The Yellow Princess and Of Rivers And Religion are well worth getting though, and The Yellow Princess is being reissued soon with 3 bonus never-before-heard demo tapes including some sort of early version of Fare Forward Voyagers, I believe.

no.

there is massive internal struggle in the john fahey catalog, with sometimes gorgeous and sometimes disastrous results.

As for the other two things I learned about music, here they are:

1. Never trust a musician with any sort of beard

2. Stay away from anything Pitchfork says is good.

Props out to Mr. Roundtrouser: your winsome earnestness has warmed my heart and given me pause. Irony is the badge of the defeated!

#define NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ 2112

tValdemarHugglez* pValdemarHugglez = new tValdemarHugglez[NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ];

for (int i = 0; i < NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ; ++i)
{

pValdemarHugglez[i].fBeard = g_BeardDatabase[BEARD_DATABASE_INDEX + i];

pValdemarHugglez[i].fPitchforkReview = g_PitchforkReviewDatabase[POSITIVE_REVIEWS][PFORK_POZ_REVIEW_DATABASE_INDEX + i];

printf("Valdemar loves the %s beard and thinks the %s review is groovy %lt;3\n", pValdemarHugglez[i].fBeard.GetStr(), pValdemarHugglez[i].fPositiveReview.GetStr());

}

for (int i = 0; i < NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ; ++i)
{

printf("I <3 valdemar!!!! lol omg !!!!!1\n");
}

printf("Goodbye, world\n");
g_fucked = 1;
free(NULL);

...

i wonder if there are ILM trolls who just try to bait me sometimes, but i realize that would be impossible.

Then again Tom Lehrer wipes Malmsteen.

Game over, man.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRz5c2qEVZZ/

^ Gwenifer Raymond plays Fahey's restored Recording King

more photos of it here...

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRz83SFkbzF/

Wondering if this holiday season is the time to finally rip off the band aid and do the Fahey Artist Poll. 🤔

Womblife for the album win.

Wondering if this holiday season is the time to finally rip off the band aid and do the Fahey Artist Poll. 🤔

fascinating / weird / never-republished Fahey essay from 1974 — PERFORMANCE AS WAR.

https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/809718226768609280/john-fahey-performance-as-war

wow, amazing find. love the comic art

a coworker recently GAVE my partner a john fahey painting because he knew i was a huge fan. obviously became my christmas present. its insanely cool to have this

https://i.imgur.com/4grlFJP.jpeg

nice, that is great
and yeah, the MAD magazine-style art for the essay is perfect haha.

xp wow

xp Have you framed it? Please don't tell me it lives in a manila folder

absolutely framed! have a semi-temporary setup right now and am looking into UV protected glass because who knows what kind of paint he was using and how/if it holds up. (the paper is a torn-out page from a journal article about mary queen of scots)

Was this posted anywhere?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJPqmYjMC9k