S/D: Tompkins Square Records

the daniel bachman reacord is really nice, yeah!

i think my fave thing on the work hard set that i had not heard before was bill chitwood's 'fourth of july at the county fair.' amazing song.

btw guys i was thinking of making some catch-all thread basically like "New Albums That Would Appeal to ppl that post in the Takoma Obscurities" thread, do you think that's a good idea? would be nice to have one thread to go to

would post in that thread.

cool i'll do it later today cuz i just bought a new record that is great & in this vein but wouldn't fit in the takoma or tompkin's square threadzzzz

at first i thought the daniel bachman record was plain and 'tasteful' musicianship and now it's solid and good.

Daniel Bachman is something like 22 years old. He talked about how much work he still has to do to be "great", but to me it is pretty astounding how good he already is.

yeah i kind of had the same reaction as j. to the bachman record at first -- "oh another dude doing *this*" but it's been a record i've played every other day for the past three months or something. and yeah, nuts that he's just 22.

great FMU set up here: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Daniel_Bachman/Live_at_WFMU_on_Irene_Trudels_Show_on_March_26_2012

at this point i think it's at least that he gives you enough music to be inside of for a while. the arrangements are very thick, the songs shift slowly over time and go places.

but yeah, 22, and dude doesn't even seem that into 'being a (working) musician'.

Yeah, the first song "Untitled" in that WFMU set covers all kinds of cool territory. I am no completist on the solo guitar front, but generally "the more the merrier" if the players can achieve results this good.

I think the dude has a healthy relationship to music, i.e., respects it as a craft and is trying to achieve on a high level, but doesn't imagine that this is going to make him a living. Which it won't really.

here's hoping he doesn't get his hand cut off in an industrial mishap or something.

i'm a zydeco neophyte but nevertheless loved their amede ardoin comp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk82td5cwYQ

Joining in to say I'd post in a Takoma fanboy thread but the Takoma obscurities thread/this one kind of work too so I dunno

just saw this thread for the first time! we were talking about some of these (Fire In My Bonees + People Take Warning) in I think in an Anthology of American Folk Music thread -- i love this stuff so much. i used tons of it when i was teaching american history. (folkways has a lot of great stuff that i think is comparable too)

did anyone else catch james blackshaw's twitter rant on what a shitty label this supposedly is? anyway, he's deleted it all by now so i guess they finally paid him.

hey guys i ended up creating the thread for talking about new stuff in this vein that isn't strictly tied to takoma or tompkin's square, join in!

Revolt of the ILX Brigade: New Post-Fahey Folk For PPL that post in the Takoma & Tompkin's Square Threads

too bad that there's bad blood betw. blackshaw and tompkins! can't imagine anyone is getting insanely rich over this stuff, so hopefully it was just a misunderstanding.

lol @ niche musicians expecting much in the way of monetary rewards

http://i1214.photobucket.com/albums/cc497/WardFowler/ny068_zps896c1432.jpg

idgi, no guitar in this photo.
tbh, you're more likely to hear drummers than guitarists at tompkins sq pk

i like just kind of hanging out near dog parks, watchin the dogs, getting dog envy.

2013 Daniel bachman album is A+, thanks for pointing me to it ILX!

George "Smoke" Dawson played banjo in MacGrundy's Old-Timey Wool Thumpers with Peter Stampfel (later of Holy Modal Rounders) in 1960, lived for years at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY, and roamed around the US as an itinerant bagpipe and fiddle player for decades. His life is laced with small triumphs, and lots of tragedy. But he's still with us. Tompkins Square reissues his only album, a remarkable 1971 private press LP, on August 19th, 2014. LP/CD/DL

Excerpted notes by reissue producer / Tompkins Square label owner Josh Rosenthal :

I was doing some research for a box set of music recorded at Caffe Lena, the hallowed folk music venue located in Saratoga Springs, NY, when I came upon a photograph of a musician I didn't recognize. He looked like a sixth member of The Band - a handsome fiddler with wax moustache, goatee, black Western hat. There was a traditional air to him, a seriousness, but there was also something wild there. I needed to know who he was, and everything about him. The producers told me his name was Smoke Dawson, and they had tape on him. We listened, and his live version of "Devil's Dream" made it onto the box set. Then I started digging. I found a 1996 blog post from someone named Oliver Seeler, who claimed to have recorded a solo album by Dawson in 1971. I called the number on the site, not expecting much from an 18 year old blog post. But he picked up. He gave me background on the record. And, he gave me Smoke Dawson's phone number . . .

SMOKE DAWSON 'FIDDLE' AVAILABLE AUGUST 19TH
CD : TSQ 5036 / LP : TSQ 5043
Distributed BY INgrooves in NA, Cargo UK for Europe

HEAR / POST A TRACK

https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/connaughtmans-rambles-devils-dream-marche-venerie

AMES BLACKSHAW RELEASES 'FANTôMAS : LE FAUX MAGISTRAT' ON TOMPKINS SQUARE, JULY 8th
Live album features Simon Scott (Slowdive), Duane Pitre

In celebration of the centenary of Louis Feuillade's Fantômas silent film series, James Blackshaw was invited by Yann Tiersen to perform a live score to the fifth and final film, Le Faux Magistrat, at the beautiful and prestigious surroundings of the Théâtre de Châtelet, Paris on October 31st 2013.

Fantômas - a master of disguise and symbol of terror - is one of the most popular characters in French crime fiction, as well as a favourite with the avant-garde, particularly the surrealists.

Tim Hecker, Amiina, Yann Tiersen and Loney Dear also performed during the event (which was broadcast live on the European ARTE channel) each bringing their own unique sonic perspective to the other installments in the series.

Written during the course of a few months, Blackshaw drew influences from French impressionist composers, Brazillian guitar music, musique concrete and the works of other film composer such as David Shire and Pino Donaggio, to create a noirish score that is in turns sinister, quietly profound and thrilling.

Personally invited by James Blackshaw, experimental musicians Duane Pitre and Simon Scott (also of Slowdive) contributed drums, electronics, synth, bowed guitar, bass and more to Blackshaw's nylon string guitar and grand piano, with multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Glasson adding violin, vibraphone and several wind instruments to the 75 minute long work.

Available worldwide July 8th
CD : TSQ 5012 / 2LP : TSQ 5029
Digitally Distributed Worldwide by INgrooves
Distributed by INgrooves for North America, Cargo UK for Europe, Rocket for Australia

James Blackshaw on Tompkins Square :
The Cloud Of Unknowing - TSQ 1967
Litany Of Echoes - TSQ 1738
Lost Prayers & Motionless Dances - TSQ 1851
Celeste - TSQ 1837
Sunshrine - TSQ 1844

Better late than never:

ALICE GERRARD'S 'FOLLOW THE MUSIC' OUT SEPT. 30
Produced by M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger). Featuring members of Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun

"Alice Gerrard has one of those voices that harkens back to the likes of Sara and Maybelle. She is the real deal with the right stuff and hasn't forgotten where country music came from."
- Emmylou Harris (June, 2014)

** Alice Gerrard turns 80 tomorrow, July 8 ! **

The trailblazing folksinger famously collaborated with Hazel Dickens. Their classic recordings for Folkways and Rounder in the '60's and 70's "rank among the most influential recordings in folk music history," (All Music Guide), and laid the groundwork for many artists, especially female bluegrass and folk musicians.

'Follow The Music' features traditional tunes and original songs by Alice, produced by Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor, and features members of Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun. Available on LP/CD/DL via Tompkins Square, September 30th, 2014.

Hear / post a track from 'Follow The Music' - "Boll Weevil"
https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/boll-weevil-by-alice-gerrard

smoke dawson LP is sounding pretty wonderful...

Nice vinyl sale & streams:

Smoke Dawson's 1971 private press LP "Fiddle" released today on LP/CD/DL !

George "Smoke" Dawson played banjo in MacGrundy's Old-Timey Wool Thumpers with Peter Stampfel (later of Holy Modal Rounders) in 1960, lived for years at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, NY, and roamed around the US as an itinerant bagpipe and fiddle player for decades. His life is laced with small triumphs, and tragedy. Our reissue of his lone 1971 solo album, 'Fiddle', is out now.

To celebrate this release (and make you feel a little better about the end of summer) we're throwing a 25% OFF all VINYL sale. Now Thru August 31, buy two or more LP's off our site, we'll paypal you back the discount. Every purchase of Smoke Dawson will automatically be entered to win a signed copy (pictured below), of which there are only two in the Universe.

Sample our music via Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare

Loving that Smoke opener and a couple more; will have to adjust to others (used to more of a combo w this kind of instrumental music). This just in:

'Get In Union : Bessie Jones with the Georgia Sea Island Singers and Others' - 2CD set out on Tompkins Square, October 28th

* Produced by Grammy-nominated Curator of the Alan Lomax Archive, Nathan Salsburg
* Features 26 previously unreleased tracks. Unheard collaborations with Rev. Gary Davis, Sweet Papa Stovepipe, Mable Hillery, and others.
* Remastered from Lomax's original tapes

Bessie Jones was one of the most popular performers on the 1960s and '70s folk circuit, appearing-usually at the helm of the Georgia Sea Island Singers-at colleges, festivals, the Poor People's March on Washington, and Jimmy Carter's inauguration. "Get In Union" is a collection of her classic recordings with the Singers, combined with many previously unavailable solo and small-group performances captured by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1966.

Alan Lomax first visited the Georgia Sea Island of St. Simons in June of 1935 with folklorist Mary Elizabeth Barnicle and author Zora Neale Hurston. There they met the remarkable Spiritual Singers Society of Coastal Georgia, as the group was then called, and recorded several hours of their songs and dances for the Library of Congress. Returning 25 years later, Lomax found that the Singers were still active, and had been enriched by the addition of Bessie Jones, a South Georgia native with a massive collection of songs going back to the slavery era. Over the next several years, Lomax and Jones worked together to present, promote, and teach Southern black folk song across the country, from nightclubs to elementary schools. "Get In Union" features freshly remastered audio from 24-bit digital transfers of Lomax's original tapes and notes by the Alan Lomax Archive's Nathan Salsburg and Anna Lomax Wood, who accompanied her father on his 1960 recordings of Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers.

HEAR / SHARE a track: https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/get-in-union

Get In Union : Bessie Jones With The Georgia Sea Island Singers and Others
TSQ 5074 2CD Set Available October 28th on Tompkins Square
Distributed in NA by INgrooves. Cargo UK for Europe. Planet for Australia.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent : Smoke Dawson 'Fiddle' / Alice Gerrard 'Follow The Music' / James Blackshaw 'Fantomas : Le Faux Magistrat

Tompkins Square To Release 'When I Reach That Heavenly Shore : Unearthly Black Gospel, 1926-1936' 3CD/3LP Set, DECEMBER 9th, 2014
Produced by 7-Time Grammy nominee Christopher King

Among the most powerful music to be captured on 78 rpm in America during the 1920s & 1930s are those recordings of black sanctified and gospel singing. Ranging from plaintive mourning to unbridled ecstasy, the sacred music from this time period represents a flowering of diverse and idiosyncratic rural songs styles. At no time was there a wider panorama of religious songs in America.

Selected exclusively from Christopher King's private collection, the 78s included here represent the most unhinged, the most compelling survey of pre-war black gospel. Of the 42 tracks in this 3CD/3LP collection, 34 have never been reissued until now. The complete recorded output of the Primitive Baptist Choir of North Carolina is also included in this collection for the first time. Several rare & previously unissued photographs are also contained within. Lovingly and respectfully designed by Susan Archie and firmly grounded in Scripture by Christopher King.

Tompkins Square has been steadily mining the history of black gospel through previous collections - the Grammy-nominated 'He Is My Story : The Sanctified Soul of Arizona Dranes'; 'Fire In My Bones : Raw, Rare & Otherworldly African-American Gospel, 1944-2007'; 'This May Be My Last Time Singing : Raw African-American Gospel on 45RPM, 1957-1982' ; Bessie Jones - 'Get In Union'; and 'I Heard The Angels Singing : Electrifying Black Gospel from the Nashboro Label, 1951-1983'.
Stream/Post track from Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/let-that-lie-alone-by-edward-w-clayborn

god bless tompkins square.

Oh yeah!

is this another mike mcgonigal joint? i still have a bad taste in my mouth from that guy's poaching other folks' comps.

oh wait, it's chris king.

i probably own 3/4 of this stuff already but what the hell. hard to fault this label. what what.

what was the prob w/ mcgonigal's comps? i hadn't heard anything about it, i don't think? love all of them.

if i'm not mistaken, he simply took the entire tracklist from a famed underground comp of memphis gospel and included it in one of his "own" comps w/o acknowledgment -- may even have taken the "masters" directly from the CDR as well (IIRC i put one of the CDs in my machine and it actually came up as the previous comp)

just kind of tacky is all

oh i missed this part

Of the 42 tracks in this 3CD/3LP collection, 34 have never been reissued until now

nice!

although i have such a surfeit of prewar african-american music that i've gotten kind of jaded about it.... i no longer get a big pang of excitement when i find out about some new collection or even new 78 being discovered.

:(

aww don't be sad. i might not be as immersed in all of this as you, so i'm still finding plenty of exciting old stuff. did you check out that alexis zoumbas thing (also a christopher king project) from earlier this year? amazing.

i'm not so immersed in it these days. mostly listening to japanese pop music from the 1980s.

Not seeing the song listings, but this is a reliable guy, judging by his T. Square track record:

http://www.tompkinssquare.com/images/TSQ2486_SeanSmith_Christmas.mini.jpg

Sean Smith - Christmas

Accomplished Bay Area guitarist Sean Smith has released several albums under his own name, and has produced and contributed to the compilations 'Berkeley Guitar' (TSQ5252, TSQLP5252) and 'Beyond Berkeley Guitar' (TSQ2394).

'Christmas', is a gorgeous contemporary acoustic guitar recording featuring fourteen well-known Christmas classics and two Sean Smith originals. Considering the vast amount of syrupy instrumental music in this genre, "Christmas' is a most welcome holiday album, and one which could well become a classic for many years to come.

Nice, he's great

Tweeted these:
Alice Gerrard, Follow The Music: Strong subtle vox, smokey mountain ballads: most brush by, eerie & beguiling, others hover, waiting 4 train

She ain't no wood nymph tho:

Alice Gerrard, Follow The Music cont: trad & originals, 0 twang or trills needed. Fiddle, acapella, dobro, ragtonk, whatever's right 4 song. Hiss Golden Messenger produces good.

TOMPKINS SQUARE RELEASES THE 7th INSTALLMENT OF 'IMAGINATIONAL ANTHEM', THE ACCLAIMED ACOUSTIC GUITAR SERIES, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

HEAR / POST "Trees Return To Soil" by Slowdive's Simon Scott
https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/trees-return-to-soil-by-simon-scott

Tompkins Square's very first release was 'Imaginational Anthem Vol. One' in 2005, featuring American Primitive guitar pioneers like Sandy Bull, Harry Taussig, Max Ochs, Steve Mann and Suni McGrath paired with new jack players like Jack Rose, Brad Barr (Barr Brothers), and Kaki King. The album received wide praise via Rolling Stone, NPR and MOJO, who called the album "Groundbreaking." The pairing of old and new would continue through vols. 1-3. The first three volumes were collected as a box set. Volumes four and five focused solely on all new players, and gave many folks their first taste of Chris Forsyth, Steve Gunn, William Tyler and Daniel Bachman. The first five volumes were collected in a box set, along with a bonus live disc by William Tyler. 'Imaginational Anthem Volume 6 : Origins of American Primitive Guitar' stretched the timeline all the way back to the first recorded solo acoustic guitar performances of the 20's & 30's. Artists like Sylvester Weaver, Sam McGee, Riley Puckett and Lemeul Turner created the template for John Fahey, and all who followed.

'Imaginational Anthem Vol. 7' is compiled by 20 year old guitarist Hayden Pedigo, from Albuquerque, NM. Hayden has recently been featured in Vogue and The FADER
behind his own recent album release, 'Five Steps'. Hayden's selections represent a mature and balanced cross-section across the modern solo acoustic guitar spectrum. As with previous volumes, this one truly represents the state of the art - an area of evolving musical expression that is very vibrant and healthy indeed.

Tompkins Square's entire catalog, including all six volumes of the Imaginational Anthem series and two IA box sets, on sale thru Dec. 15th

Track Listing :

1.On a Slow Passing Through a Ghost Town-Chuck Johnson
2.Culverts-Sean Proper
3.Enchiridion-Norberto Lobo
4.Trees Return to Soil-Simon Scott
5.Sea Retreat-DBH
6.Araucaria-Jordan Norton
7.The Great North American Wilderness-Kyle Fosburgh
8.Something, or Oil Paintings-Christoph Bruhn
9.USA Self-Michael Vallera
10.Red Bud Valley-Dylan Golden Aycock
11.0/3-M.Mucci
12.Shadow Study at 6 am-Mariano Rodriguez
13.Olympic Peninsula Blues-Andrew Weathers
14.My Grandfather's 12 Gauge-Wes Tirey

TSQ5104 Distributed by INgrooves for NA, Cargo UK for Europe

More News :
* We now have a shopping cart on our website to facilitate multiple holiday purchases. Hallelujah !
* Alice Gerrard has received a Grammy nomination for 'Follow The Music', Best Folk Album. Her first nom, the 7th for Tompkins Square.

The previously mentioned Get In Union, by Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, covers a fair amount of ground (and sea)(and sky, at all times). Work songs, play songs, several kinds of play, and Bible songs: don't know how these last relate to the mainstream of spirituals---pretty sure they go back past what music historians designate as gospel, for the most part. But they are visions, scenes, stories from the Bible, as lived---some levels in there, like maybe if you wanted to add more of the black experience to Divided & United: Songs of the Civil War. Or your own start-from-scratch mixes: there's a lot of lilt, roll, strictness and flexibility. And speaking of living, the title track is one of those with acerbic comments on behavior/attitudes in the congregation (not that some of the play songs aren't uppity; life on islands might get crowded).
Sometimes compelling, rarely less than charming (I'd say "never less," but my attention does wander sometimes, when lyrics and performances get too much like lessons).

"ONCE AGAIN, THE GREATEST THING GOING IN ACOUSTIC GUITAR" - THE FADER

'IMAGINATIONAL ANTHEM VOL. 7' IS HERE !

*** GET CAUGHT UP ! ALL 7 VOLUMES OF IMAGINATIONAL ANTHEM (PLUS A LIVE WILLIAM TYLER BONUS DISC) FOR ONE LOW PRICE, THRU MARCH 1. *** CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE ALBUM VIA
THE FADERhttp://www.thefader.com/2015/01/30/im-never-going-to-stop-listening-to-imaginational-anthem-vol-7
FRETBOARD JOURNALhttp://www.fretboardjournal.com/audio/album-stream-imaginational-anthem-volume-7
or
RELIX http://www.relix.com/media/audio/album_premiere_imaginational_anthem_vol_7

Tompkins Square's very first release was 'Imaginational Anthem Vol. One' in 2005, featuring American Primitive guitar pioneers like Sandy Bull, Harry Taussig, Max Ochs, Steve Mann and Suni McGrath, alongside new jack players like Jack Rose, Brad Barr (Barr Brothers), and Kaki King. The album received wide praise via Rolling Stone, NPR and MOJO, who called the album "Groundbreaking." The pairing of old and new would continue through vols. 1-3. The first three volumes are collected as a box set. Volumes four and five focused solely on all new players, giving many folks their first taste of Chris Forsyth, Steve Gunn, William Tyler and Daniel Bachman. The first five volumes were collected in a box set, along with a bonus live disc by William Tyler. 'Imaginational Anthem Volume 6 : Origins of American Primitive Guitar' stretched the timeline all the way back to the first recorded solo acoustic guitar performances of the 20's & 30's. Artists like Sylvester Weaver, Sam McGee, Riley Puckett and Lemeul Turner created the template for John Fahey, and all who followed.

'Imaginational Anthem Vol. 7' is compiled by 20 year old guitarist Hayden Pedigo, from Amarillo, TX. Hayden has recently been featured in Vogue and The FADER behind his own recent album release, 'Five Steps'. Hayden's curation represents a balanced cross-section across the modern solo acoustic guitar spectrum. Vol. 7 is also the most geographically diverse of all volumes in the series, with players hailing from Lisbon, Malta, South America and the UK as well as the US. As with previous volumes, this one truly represents the state of the art - an area of evolving musical expression that is very vibrant and healthy indeed.

TSQ5104

Dear Friend,

One of our favorite musicians, Harvey Mandel, celebrates his 70th birthday today, but it is not a happy one.

Tompkins Square's Josh Rosenthal wrote an Appreciation for Aquarium Drunkard.

If you are a media person, we hope you will pick up on this story.

Please read and share. Thank you !

Tompkins Square Label Covers Mandel's achievements and present plight with equal care---brace yourself, but it's worth reading, at the very least...http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2015/03/11/harvey-mandel-an-appreciation-on-his-70th-birthday/#more-43771

When I Reach That Heavenly Shore comp on vinyl for record store day!

REMEMBERING MOUNTAINS : UNHEARD SONGS BY KAREN DALTON
RELEASE DATE : MAY 26 ON LP/CD/DIGITAL

Karen Dalton (1937-1993) recorded two studio albums during her lifetime,
neither of which contain any songs she wrote. By the good graces of legendary
guitarist Peter Walker, who oversees Karen's Estate, we are gifted with these
lost lyrics, now given voice by other great women of song.

TRACK LIST :

1) REMEMBERING MOUNTAINS - SHARON VAN ETTEN
2) ALL THAT SHINES IS NOT TRUTH - PATTY GRIFFIN
3) THIS IS OUR LOVE - DIANE CLUCK
4) MY LOVE, MY LOVE - JULIA HOLTER
5) MET AN OLD FRIEND - LUCINDA WILLIAMS
6) SO LONG AGO AND FAR AWAY - MARISSA NADLER
7) BLUE NOTION - LAUREL HALO
8) FOR THE LOVE I'M IN - LARKIN GRIMM
9) DON'T MAKE IT EASY - ISOBEL CAMPBELL
10) AT LAST THE NIGHT HAS ENDED - TARA JANE O'NEIL
11) MET AN OLD FRIEND - JOSEPHINE FOSTER

AVAILABLE ON TOMPKINS SQUARE MAY 26
INgrooves in NA, Cargo UK for EU/UK
CD : TSQ 5173 / LP : TSQ 5180

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0ZlWK-b_KY

That's interesting that Peter Walker oversees her estate

Yeah, I wonder if that helped to get any or all of those singers on there: "Oh wow, the Rainy Day Raga dude has Karen Dalton lyrics for me--?!"

really wish they'd repress that Bobby Lee LP. only way i can get it right now, as far as i know, is to pay crazy shipping from Europe.

Two new releases, starting with one that somebody shoulda done lonnng ago:

'Luke Schneider Presents Imaginational Anthem vol. XI : Chrome Universal - A Survey of Modern Pedal Steel' out on Cassette June 3, 2022 ! (TSQ 5890)

BUY via bandcamp
BUY via Tompkins Square
DEMAND it from yr local indie store !

Curated by in-demand Nashville pedal steel maverick and Third Man recording artist Luke Schneider, the eleventh volume of Tompkins Square’s venerable Imaginational Anthem acoustic guitar series features exclusive tracks by legend BJ Cole, as well as leading exponents on the instrument including Susan Alcorn, Luke himself, and British expat /Nashville hotshot Spencer Cullum among others. Nashville native and Merge recording artist William Tyler has written a beautiful detailed history of the pedal steel for the package (CD & LP versions only).

We will release on other formats later. This is our first-ever cassette.

*** To celebrate the release, ALL Imaginational Anthem series CDs and LPs are now $10 on bandcamp ! ***

We also scared up a few vol 1-5 box sets with live William Tyler CD bonus disc, ltd ed of 1000, long sold out.

Dave Miller's xpost s/t was a Top Ten for me---mostly a band record; this one is all solo acoustic:

Dave Miller - Daughter of Experience
Out today everywhere !
via Your favorite digital platform (choose) https://ingrv.es/daughter-of-experien-ghi-8
via bandcamp
Guitarist and composer, Dave Miller (Algernon, Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade, Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Scientist, Patricia Barber, Joe Policastro Trio, etc), has been a prominent fixture in the Chicago creative music scene for nearly two decades. His last album (Dave Miller, Tompkins Square, 2020) received unanimously positive reception from publications, including Mojo Magazine and Fretboard Journal. It was hailed by Cult MTL as ”The psychedelic record Booker T and the MGs never made” while the widely celebrated guitar trailblazer, Mary Halvorson, gushed “Dave Miller has a penchant for melodies that stick with you, in a good way. His latest album provides the joy and the lift we all need right now-- through his bad ass guitar playing, a myriad of unexpected shifts reveal a brilliant sonic universe.”
Since the album’s release, never one to rest on his laurels, Miller has lead a quartet with legendary drummer, Jeff “Tain” Watts, performed at Chicago’s Symphony Hall with Greg Ward’s Rogue Parade, and held down the guitar chair for Terence Blanchard’s masterful opera, Fire Shut Up In My Bones at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. On the heels of these accomplishments, Miller has taken a musical right turn, positioning his guitar playing front and center on his new release, Daughter of Experience (Tompkins Square, 6/3/22).
In the midst of mixing Dave Miller at his Chicago studio, Whiskey Point Recording, Dave retreated to the Catskill Mountains for two weeks to write a new record. Despite the intent of at least demoing the resulting material in the studio he was renting while there, he ended up primarily playing a lot of acoustic guitar outside, taking in the solitude, fresh air, and beautiful scenery. Given the full-band electric, ecstatic, and celebratory nature of Dave Miller, this trip, predictably, bore a different breed of musical fruit. Fittingly, Miller recorded these performances alone, entirely on an antique acoustic parlor guitar.
Each of Miller’s solo offerings tend to occupy its own individual stylistic and sonic universe, the through lines being Miller’s singular, melody-driven songwriting and his emotionally-fueled, instantly recognizable guitar playing. Daughter follows suit, but is distinct in that it is his first specifically solo guitar album and his first playing acoustic guitar, exclusively. Did we mention it must be one of the most difficult guitars in existence to play and that it began to literally fall apart during the making of the record? [Insert witty comments here about artist suffering for his art and art imitating life].
And as the world shut down, Miller, once again, retreated into solitude, this time back to Whiskey Point, where developing and recording these pieces became a daily meditation. The resulting unedited performances, stark and vulnerable, capture much of the feeling he experienced while in communion with the natural beauty and rich musical history of the Catskill region. Miller’s “And Haze and Vista” recalls the soul-infused Americana of Woodstock luminary, Bobby Charles. His reduction of Brian Wilson’s sprawling “Wonderful” takes the piece out of sunny California and into the mountainous woods of upstate New York.
Miller, here, also tackles Duke Ellington’s “Single Petal of a Rose”, viewing this masterpiece through a roots music lens, falling somewhere between Marc Ribot and Gabor Szabo. His performance of ace composer Matt Ulery’s “Lushing” (commissioned by Miller specifically for this record) plays as if in an alternate reality where Joe Pass arranged the music of the Impressionists. And, perhaps the most traditional of the pieces, Miller’s own “O Envious Age!” recalls the feeling of a Neil Young lamentation.
Throughout the entirety of Daughter of Experience, Miller’s utterly unique voice on the guitar, steeped in the blues and brimming with soul, is on full display, making for an incredibly intimate and emotional listening experience. He takes his time, breathing through the demanding material, squeezing the beauty out of every phrase. In effect, the album feels like front porch music for the concert hall.
As of this writing, the world has mostly opened up again, reverting back to its old ways, for better or worse. Similarly, Miller has emerged out of solitude once more, though not without a certain hard-won wisdom and inspiration. The world, nature, and one’s own life remain mysterious and unpredictable. As is evident in the music on Daughter of Experience, Miller is content to find, embrace, and express the beauty in any and all of it.

Searching In Grenoble: The 1978 Solo Piano Concert is a previously unissued recording of jazz icon Mal Waldron's mesmerizing performance at the "Five Days of Jazz" series in Grenoble, France on March 23, 1978.

Waldron was Billie Holiday’s final accompanist, played on classic sessions with John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy among others, and recorded dozens of solo albums as a leader before his passing in 2002.

Originally produced by the legendary André Francís and transferred from the original Radio France tapes, this is the first official release of this music in cooperation with the Mal Waldron Estate and Ina (The Institut national de l'audiovisuel). The beautifully designed, deluxe 2-CD set includes photos by K. Abe, Brian McMillen and Raymond Ross; an extensive 24-page booklet with a heartfelt statement by Mal's daughter Mala Waldron, plus essays by producer/"Jazz Detective" Zev Feldman, journalist Adam Shatz and Ina's Pascal Rozat; and interviews with modern jazz piano luminaries Ran Blake and Matthew Shipp. Searching In Grenoble features classic Waldron originals such as "Soul Eyes" and "All Alone," and jazz standards "You Don't Know What Love Is," "It Could Happen to You" and "I Thought About You.”

The 2CD set will be available worldwide September 23rd on Tompkins Square (TSQ5906), and was produced for release by Zev Feldman and Josh Rosenthal.

Tompkins Square has released jazz recordings by Sonny Clark, Ran Blake, Calvin Keys, Bola Sete, Giuseppi Logan, Charles Gayle, and Bern Nix among others.

Pre-Order Links :

bandcamp / Amazon / Indie

I know he's not exactly the usual Tompkins Square type, but I was really glad to see there's another Harvey Mandel record coming out. A trio record this time with Andy Hess (former Gov't Mule) on bass and Ryan Jewell on drums.

Yep--

HARVEY MANDEL - WHO'S CALLING
NEW ALBUM OUT DECEMBER 9th, 2022

Harvey Mandel is among the most innovative guitarists to emerge from the Chicago blues scene of the late 1960s. His career began at Twist City and other local hotspots, sharing stages with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy. He came up in that scene alongside Charlie Musselwhite, Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg and Steve Miller, leading to an invitation from Bill Graham to open for Cream at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium in August 1967.

Mandel was a member of Canned Heat, appearing with them at Woodstock. He played on numerous John Mayall albums, and on the Rolling Stones' 1975 LP Black and Blue ("Hot Stuff", "Memory Motel"), having auditioned for Mick Taylor's job, which ultimately went to Ron Wood.

Who’s Calling is the 16th album under Harvey Mandel’s name as a leader, and his second for Tompkins Square following the 2016 acclaimed comeback, Snake Pit. Joined by drummer and co-producer Ryan Jewell (Ryley Walker, Laraaji) and bassist Andy Hess (Gov't Mule, Black Crowes), Who’s Calling finds the 77 year old guitar legend as vibrant and creative as ever. Despite unspeakable health setbacks and of course a Covid shutdown, Harvey has emerged miraculously stronger, proclaiming he’s never played better than on Who’s Calling.

REMEMBERING RICHARD CRANDELL
March 30, 1943 - October 28, 2022

Before we launch into the usual release announcements and sales this new year, we want to take a moment to remember guitarist Richard Crandell.

He died without a mention in the music press, or even among our little circle of guitar fans. It's strange that someone with a body of work as strong and beautiful as Richard's could pass with nary a mention ... but I guess that's our world. Everything moves so fast.

Such is the case with our friend, Richard Crandell. Hopefully this email blast with help rectify this ! If you are a media person, we hope you will share Richard's music with your readership or listening audience, so that he is remembered. If you are a fan of Tompkins Square, we hope you will share some of the links in this email, so that he is remembered.

Richard wasn't exactly ignored in his lifetime. His 1980 debut album, In The Flower of Our Youth, was reissued by Tompkins Square in 2008. We (and other folks) consider it one of the finest solo acoustic guitar records of all time, a quintessential "rainy day" record. "Rebecca" from that LP was covered by Leo Kottke on his album Chewing Pine. When Essential Tremor derailed his guitar playing, Richard turned to the mbira, recording for John Zorn's Tzadik label. NPR's All Things Considered ran a story about his progression in 2009.

Richard recorded about a dozen albums, including two wonderful guitar duet records with Bill Bartels, two with koto player Masumi Timson, appears on Imaginational Anthem vol. 3 and a Numero Group guitar comp, and released a collection of unreleased guitar tunes spanning 25 years in 2016 via Tompkins Square entitled Then and Now ; the set was reviewed in depth by Joseph Neff at Vinyl District, and UNCUT gave it an 8/10 ("gorgeous guitar hypnosis").

On March 3, 2013 Richard played WOW Hall with Daniel Bachman in his hometown of Eugene, OR. Before the show, Richard banged out an improvised tune on an old upright piano in the hallway. Raggy, bluesy, heady and inside out, it was pure Richard - the same clever, surprising phrasing that could be found in his guitar recordings. Just a pure musician.

We hope you will revel in the joy of discovering Richard Crandell. A gentle soul, a dedicated swimmer, and one amazing Obscure Giant of Acoustic Guitar. In the pantheon, forever.

2016 post about Crandell, with his own comments:

Eugene-based guitarist Richard Crandell's 1980 private-press LP
In The Flower of Our Youth is one of our favorite rainy day / road trippin' solo guitar records. Reissued on Tompkins Square in 2008, it captures the aura of the Pacific Northwest in unique and powerful ways.

Crandell's struggle with Essential Tremor moved him toward the mbira (African thumb piano), and he recorded on the instrument for John Zorn's Tzadik label. But Richard has returned to the guitar at times. Then And Now is comprised of material recorded over the past 25 years, some recorded this year, all previously unreleased.
https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/swallowtails-by-richard-crandell

Here is Richard's own take on the new album, Then And Now :

"Most of these recordings were discovered about five years ago. They were recorded on a DAT recorder in the '90s. "Road Trip" was in standard guitar tuning, capo on the 2nd fret, inspired by my 50-state 'American Friends' tour. "Funk Dat" (love the blues), "Haley Suite" (love Bach) and "Route 22" (love Tennessee) were tuned in DADEAD, capo on the 2nd fret. "Over/Under" (love John Fahey) was in dropped D tuning with the capo on the 2nd fret. "V-Blues" (love Scott Joplin) was in DADGAD, capo 2. It was the only tune which I've written that has a modulation by "brute force." "American Friends" was my 12-string rendition of a Bill Bartels' classic, reflecting his Virginia roots. "Swallowtails" was a solo 12-string version of a duet which I wrote in the early '80's. I like my foot-tapping on this one. The duet was originally on Oregon Hill with Bill Bartels. "Unknown Lament" was a 12-string piece from the same album. This solo version has a unique coda. "Down to Earth" was recorded 3 years ago. and was written in CGDGBE, a tuning which Tim Danforth showed me. The last tune, "Cinema Verité", was recorded a couple of weeks ago, on Kyle Lindros' ukulele. It is my only uke composition. Kyle's dad Billy, named it, as well as In The Flower Of Our Youth and many of my other tunes. English is my second language. Music is my first. Especially rhythm. Enjoy!"

Then And Now is now available via every digital service, worldwide.

Dorothy Moskowitz & The United States of Alchemy - Under an Endless Sky - Available via Tompkins Square - March 17, 2023

Under An Endless Sky represents the interchange that took place between electronic composer Francesco Paolo Paladino, composer and writer Luca Chino Ferrari, and the legendary Dorothy Moskowitz, an icon of underground culture who broke all kinds of new ground as a member of The United States of America. Led by the charismatic composer Joseph Byrd, the band released their lone eponymous album on Columbia Records in 1968. It has taken on a mythic status that has grown through the years, sampled by Diplo and Mac Miller and widely acknowledged as a visionary psychedelic classic.
Francesco Paolo Paladino, an avant-garde Italian composer contacted Dorothy, inviting her to sing on some of his compositions. When she heard his 2021 CD release of Barene & Other Works, she recognized that they shared a similarly experimental point of view and she accepted his invitation. Paladino is known for his collaborations with Martyn Bates, Allison O'Donnell, Simon Fisher Turner, and other world-renowned contemporary composers, as well as his own sought-after 1985 debut LP Doublings and Silences Volume 1.

Francesco has long collaborated with Italian writer Luca Chino Ferrari, author of biographies of Nick Drake, Third Ear Band, Captain Beefheart, Tim Buckley and Syd Barrett. He submitted lyrics to Dorothy and together they began a profound and unique collaboration on the adaptation of lyrics to music, delving into words and meanings, phonetic properties and their singability. “Lyrics that have the audacity to deal with complex themes of human existence, real philosophical cutaways that look at reality and question it, often without offering answers,” says Ferrari.

Moskowitz's extraordinary voice and modal melodies float over Paladino's magical musical textures. There are no guitars, bass, drums or other technological devilry, but only virtual sounds (sometimes without even keyboards) upon which are grafted some acoustic interventions: violins and violas, woodwinds and percussion entrusted to excellent musicians such as Italians Riccardo Sinigaglia, Angelo Contini, Stefano Scala, Trio Cavallazzi and Gino Ape, and English folker Sean Breadin.

Recommended If You Like : Late-stage Marianne Faithfull, Mercury Rev, Terry Riley, Flaming Lips, Italian electronic music, The United States of America.

American Primitive OG Harry Taussig releases '80' on his 82nd birthday, March 31st, 2023

Released 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 from this time period. Alternating between haunting originals and jaunty blues-based traditional numbers, the private press LP was reissued by Tompkins Square in 2006. Taussig's only other recorded works appeared 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.

Taussig returned to music in 2012 with his first album in 47 years, Fate Is Only Twice, and followed with Diamond of Lost Alphabets, Too Late To Die Young, a split album and tour with fellow Takoma pioneer Max Ochs, and a remix album by Kid Millions (Oneida).

Harry Taussig on '80' :

"With a perspective of about 60 years, I finally understand what I’ve been trying to do in my musical compositions over these six decades. I grew up with two musical streams – at home it was European classical music, at college it was American folk music. And I bathed in both streams.

Like several of my contemporary guitarists, I wanted to extend the American folk guitar tradition into previously unexplored territories. Each found their direction: blues, psychedelia, etc. Mine was using the theories of classical musical forms, both traditional and contemporary.

One of the delights of classical music is that the composer will constantly play with the listener, allowing him or her to guess where the music is going and then surprise them by not going there at all, but going to another place unexpected but equally logical. This seems to be the throughline in my musical heroes: Bach, Schoenberg, Glass, and many others. I have adopted many of their structural schemes, rhythmic devices, and harmonic stratagems to counter the comfort and predictability of folk (and popular) music. I delight in the response, “You can’t do that … oh, I guess you can.”


01 – Etude in G Major #7 (take 1)
02 – Etude in D Major #2
03 – Lullaby in D Modal
04 – Etude in G Major #9
05 – Recessional for Banjo in D Major
06 – Etude in D♭ Major (take 1)
07 – Etude in D♭ Major (take 2)
08 – Sugar Babe
09 – Etude in G Major #4
10 – Etude in G Minor #3
11 – Etude in G Major #7 (take 2)

SURPRISE LP DROP : SHEFFIELD UK-BASED MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST BOBBY LEE REISSUES ORIGIN MYTHS via TOMPKINS SQUARE !

The 2021 black vinyl LP sold out in a flash.

"Milky Myths" off-white / clear vinyl version available NOW !

North America : Exclusively via bandcamp

x-NA : Shops, online stores, Bobby's bandcamp

(Note : The digital version has 8 songs ; the LP has 12 songs)

“Overdriven drum-machine low slung choogle" - MOJO (4 stars)

“The further Bobby unmoors himself from songs and heads towards long-form abstraction, the more engrossing it becomes” - UNCUT (8/10)

COMING SOON : Endless Skyways
Cassette available now for early adapters !
via Bandcamp:
Endless Skyways is Bobby Lee’s third full album and second release on Tompkins Square. Returning to the full band sound of his debut, the name “Endless Skyways” is borrowed from a line in Woody Guthrie’s This Land Is Your Land, one of the cornerstones of American music. That song’s mix of the terrestrial (“ribbons of highway”) and celestial consciousness encapsulates Lee’s brand of widescreen cosmic americana; a duality also evident in the album’s split between deep-fried rural rock and ambient country. Dusty boots but third eye open.

Opener and lead single “Reds For A Blue Planet” inhabits a geographically different realm to any of Lee’s previous work, equal parts Michael Chapman’s Anglo-Primitivism and Tinariwen’s desert-choogle. Slowdive/Mojave 3’s Ian McCutcheon turns in a muscular drum performance, with just a hint of sleng-teng creeping into Mark Armstrong’s bassline. The title hints at an ecological frustration which radiates through the taut, spiraling, modal grooves.

Origin Myths’ “Impregnated by Drops of Rainbow” is revisited here in full band garb, shifting gear from the 117 seconds of skeletal krautrock into almost 7 minutes of soaring Kosmiche Country, complete with a glistening pedal steel solo from Joe Harvey-Whyte. Neu Riders of The Purple Sage, if you will.

“Thunder Travels To Loftier Mountain Heights” is a gradually evolving waking dream of gently chugging tremolo and delicate interplay between Piano (a rare foray away from the drums from Guy Whittaker) and Fender Rhodes, redolent of Brightblack Morning Light, or Spirit of Eden-era Talk Talk. Picture the scene; a gang of slow movin’ outlaws briefly glimpsing eternity after a rare downpour in the desert. McCutcheon’s drums echo through the canyons and out into space…

The woozy swamp rock of “Acid Grassland” is a return to more familiar territory for Bobby; an ancient drum machine moseys along with a loping groove and riff straight outta Cosmo’s Factory. Joe Harvey-Whyte appears again with the most fuzzed-out pedal steel this side of Sneaky Pete on “Christine’s Tune”.

Oh yeah, xpost Origin Myths is already out, except on the updated, tricked-out vinyl pimped above; here's the Bandcamp pitch (alb is streaming there too):

Digital out worldwide March 5th.
Ltd Ed (600) LP out May 7th with FOUR extra songs

“Overdriven drum-machine low slung choogle" - MOJO

“The further Bobby unmoors himself from songs and heads towards long-form abstraction, the more engrossing it becomes” - UNCUT

Bobby Lee trades in a wide screen brand of cosmic country-folk, full of space and pawn shop guitars. There are touches of JJ Cale's analogue Americana, the swampy groove of Tony Joe White and Richard Thompson's sinewy, modal guitar work. Amps hum in the warm afternoon sun, kids and dogs snooze on the grass and broken drum machines keep time with the universe... Open sky/scorched earth improvisations recorded to four track tape during the rare moments of solitude afforded by lockdown and early fatherhood. Bobby Lee's "worn-denim psych-country" remains, but the ancestral spirits of Ashra, Popol Vuh and Terry Riley are present here too. Time and technological limitations have been embraced. A song dreamt up, tracked and mixed in an afternoon, never to be tampered with again. Imperfections allowed to stand; knowing that nothing is ever truly finished. The Bob Ross school of philosophy.
credits
released March 5, 2021

Bobby Lee: Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, Drum Machine, Organ, Acoustic Guitar, Dulcimer, Lap Steel, recording, mixing and artwork.

Tompkins Square is proud to announce a NEW 5CD BOX SET, OUT JUNE 16th !

Rick Deitrick - The Unguitarist : Complete Works, 1969-2022 (Ltd. ed. of 500)

Pre-order starts today via bandcamp

Listen to "Free and Easy", recorded in 2022, via every digital service, worldwide

The box set contains :

Disc 1: Gentle Wilderness - 1978 album. Tompkins Square LP reissue out of print. First time on CD
Disc 2 : River Sun River Moon - Recorded 1977-78. Tompkins Square LP out of print. First time on CD
Disc 3 : Coyote Canyon - Recorded 1972-75, except one song 1999. Tompkins Square LP almost out of print. First time on CD
Disc 4 : Homegrown : Recordings 1969 - 1979 - First time in a physical format
Disc 5 : Sage & Sand - Recorded 1969-2022 - CD of previously unreleased material

Plus :
- A litho card hand-signed by Rick
- Notes by Rick Deitrick and Acoustic Guitar Editor, Adam Perlmutter
- Transcription of Rick’s “Ballet La Jeunesse"
- Design by D. Norsen

Ohio-born Rick Deitrick took up the guitar at 16 and decided to approach his playing as if he was the only guy on an island and the instrument had just washed ashore one day. According to Rick, "I completely divorced my playing from any formal music knowledge, but it was very important to me to use original tuning. During those years, the ‘60s/70's, there was a lot of acoustic guitar playing, often using open tuning as a base. I wanted to create whole tones without de-tuning and keep access to the complex sounds stock tuning provided."

Rick pressed 500 LPs of his tranquil solo guitar record, Gentle Wilderness, in 1978. He gave copies to libraries and left a few in the middle of the wilderness, next to trails, "so people would find them." Rick sought inspiration in nature and in particular the various rivers scattered around the Western United States, often composing songs while seated beside them.

Now, Tompkins Square is proud to present a 5CD retrospective box set, Rick Deitrick - The Unguitarist : Complete Works, 1969 - 2022 , which makes a strong case for Rick as one of the most individual voices in acoustic guitar music over the past half century.

TSQ 5913
856225005913

Thanks for the heads up on that one!

Welcome---Tompkins' prev Rick releases are streaming on their very generous Bandcamp:
https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/music

maginational Anthem vol. XII : I Thought I Told You - A Yorkshire Tribute to Michael Chapman. Available on Cassette, CD, LP and digital October 20th

Hear Henry Parker's cover of "In the Valley"
https://ingrv.es/in-the-valley-r98-7

Michael Chapman (1941-2021) released his debut album Rainmaker in 1969 on Harvest. He went on to release over fifty albums and influence many with his evocative songwriting and guitar prowess. From heady jams to expressive ballads to experimental noise, Chapman’s work continues to inspire. Tompkins Square recruited Henry Parker to curate a collection of covers by working musicians from Chapman’s home turf in Northern England. With stunning artwork by local artist Bunty Marshall mapping the important places in Michael’s life, and package design by D. Norsen, this 12th volume of Tompkins Square’s Imaginational Anthem series is the ultimate tribute to a very dearly missed artist.

What's going on ? ? ?

Everything and nothing it seems here in gorgeous San Francisco. Enjoying summer. Working on some big projects to be announced in the coming weeks and months.

Meanwhile . . .

> 17 year old guitar phenom Muireann Bradley is playing throughout the EU and UK in 2024. Her debut album, I Kept These Old Blues, is sold out at source on black vinyl, and a second pressing on green vinyl is also gone except for a few copies on our bandcamp page. Even ol' Rolling Stone Bill Wyman just gave her a nod in MOJO, and Iggy Pop played 3 songs from the album on his BBC radio show. "She's got it..."

> Polk Miller & His Old South Quartette, among the first examples of blacks and whites recording music together, hailed by none other than Mark Twain ... our 2008 Grammy-nominated historical set is newly available via bandcamp. The CD is sold out at source except for a few on the bandcamp page. Download comes with an extensive booklet with notes and images.

> We also finally put our 2013 Michael Hurley 78rpm 10" up on bandcamp too !

> Folks continue to discover British composer and sonic disruptor Elsa Hewitt. Her gorgeous LP Chaos Emeralds is available via every digital platform, and there is literally ONE signed vinyl LP copy (ltd ed of 10) left on bandcamp as of this writing. RIYL : Kaitlin Aurelia-Smith, Kate Bush, Kelly Lee Owens

> Our recent Bruce Cockburn salute just got an amazing review in Acoustic Guitar Magazine. Bruce's manager Bernie Finkelstein just turned 80, and Bruce will be 80 in May. Kinda makes us feel old too considering how long we've known these guys (30+ years) ! Do not miss this gorgeous tribute on LP/CD/digital. Bill Callahan, Wooden Wand's James Toth, Rolin Powers Duo, Wet Tuna and more.

Amazon / Amazon Canada

> We've been sneaking some Test Pressings up onto bandcamp in the dead of night, like Russell Potter's 1981 epic Neither Here Nor There.

> We made a bunch of generic Spotify playlists for different things like Studying, Driving, Sipping, Meditation, etc. We hope they are useful in some way or another.

> If you've read this far, you deserve a treat. Like 75% off our entire bandcamp digital discography, good through Sept 1. (Any of our album pages will take you there - click on one and scroll down). Thank you !!!

tompkinssquare.com

https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/

ROBBIE BASHO - Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan : The Lost Live Recordings (TSQ4111) Ltd Ed of 1000

A 5CD Box Set - All Live - Out December 6th

Today, we're pleased to share a song* from the forthcoming Robbie Basho box set. "Himalayan Highlands" was recorded May 13th, 1967 at Cowell College, Santa Cruz CA. It can be heard via every digital service, worldwide.

Our 2020 Basho box set, Song of the Avatars : The Lost Master Tapes, sold out in a flash.

Pre-orders begin today for the new box set via various online retail sites, including bandcamp.

"I think anybody, any young guitar player that hears his music today, would be influenced by him. It's beautiful and eloquent and profound, and full of love and devotion and melancholy."

- Pete Townshend

"It has been said that Robbie Basho's art was strongest in concert. To what extent the experience can be reconstituted is uncertain. Whatever the case, Snow Beneath the Belly of a White Swan is the mother lode of Basho live recordings. On these five discs we are treated to some remarkable pieces that have never been published, as well as surprising renditions of old favourites.

Compiled from Basho’s sprawling personal collection of master tapes (discovered during the production of Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho), and potentially encompassing his entire career, this edition represents a live companion to the studio set Song of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes (Tompkins Square, 2020)."

- Liam Barker, producer

Liner notes by Robbie Dawson. Tom Weller show poster insert. Original show flyers and unseen photographs. Package design by Barbara Bersche.

*https://tompkinssquare.bandcamp.com/track/himalayan-highlands-2

A NEW RELEASE ... & A SALE !!!

Robbie Basho - Snow Beneath the Belly of A White Swan : The Lost Live Recordings out December 6th. A 5CD set - all live, mostly unheard. Pre-Orders are shipping now ! You can add $45.98 to your order for sale items below if you'd like to buy the box direct from us, OR you can pre-order via bandcamp.

We're also happy to present a sale ahead of the holidays. DEEP and recent catalog, some titles that have never been discounted. Good thru December 1st.

Buying is EASY. Total up the items you want below, and send that amount to us directly via this Paypal link. Be sure to include your address and list of items in your Paypal notes. NOTE : There is a two item minimum purchase for this sale. If you want to make the Basho box one of your items, that works.

Shipping is FREE in the USA ! x-US, email us for a shipping quote before you buy. Prefer to pay by check in the US ? No problem, email us.

$10 LPs :

Bobby Lee - Origin Myths (opaque white vinyl)

Imaginational Anthem vol. XII - A Yorkshire Tribute to Michael Chapman

Imaginational Anthem vol. XI - Luke Schneider Presents Chrome Universal - A Survey of Modern Pedal Steel

Turn Me Loose : Outsiders of Old-Time Music

Meredith Monk - Key

Harmony Rockets (aka Mercury Rev) - Lachesis * Clotho * Atropos

Philip Lewin - Am I Really Here All Alone ?

Imaginational Anthem vol. IX - Ryley Walker Presents ...

Rick Deitrick - Coyote Canyon

Imaginational Anthem vol. XIII - Songs of Bruce Cockburn

William Tyler - Behold the Spirit

Tom Armstrong - The Sky Is An Empty Eye

$15 Multi-disc CD sets

Imaginational Anthem vols. 1-3

Entourage - Ceremony of Dreams : Studio Sessions and Outtakes, 1972-1977

Bola Sete - Samba in Seattle : Live at the Penthouse 1966-1968

Red Fox Chasers - Complete Recordings, 1928-1931

$7 CDs

Various Artists - No Other Love : Midwest Gospel, 1965-1978

Gwenifer Raymond - Strange Lights Over Garth Mountain

Muireann Bradley - I Kept These Old Blues

Imaginational Anthem vols. 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and XI

Charlie Poole & The Highlanders : The Complete Paramount and Brunswick Recordings, 1929

Harvey Mandel - Who's Calling

Sam Burton - I Can Go With You

Various Artists - Oh Michael Look What You've Done : Friends Play Michael Chapman

Special items

Rick Deitrick - The Unguitarist : Complete Works 1969-2022 - 5CD set + signed litho card - $25

Josh Rosenthal (Tompkins Square founder) - The Record Store of the Mind (book) - "A unique work" - Robert Plant - $10

Gwenifer Raymond - Deep Sea Diver / Bleeding Finger Blues 7" - $5

Michael Hurley - Water Train / Black and Yellow Bee - 10" - $7

Obscure Giants of Acoustic Guitar Trading Cards - The best stocking stuffer ever ? - $6

Imaginational Anthem Vol. XII - A Yorkshire Tribute to Michael Chapman - cassette - $5

Imaginational Anthem vols. 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and XI CD Bundle - $30

** And don't forget to order the new Robbie Basho box set ! Limited edition of 1000 5CD sets. Our last Basho box sold out in a flash, and this one will too.

Thanks as always for your patronage.

Saw Max Ochs last night in tiny little Rhizome in DC that holds 40-50 people. I enjoyed his finger-picking, his Mississippi blues covers, his story telling, his raga influenced tracks, and I was ok with his rough edged vocals that sometimes didn’t hit the notes. He also did a Skip James cover and another blues song together with the other acts on the bill guitarist & slide guitarist Ryan Lee Crosby, Crosby’s calabash percussionist whose name I didn’t catch, and jazzy guitarist Jake Hertzog.

Awww <3

What were the stories he told?

He used a piece of a metal car jack as a slide for his playing of his lap steel and he talked about how he got it in in the '60s in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he also bought the lap steel for $35 from a pawnshop. He talked about his blues fave acts (Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, & some others) and how one wasn't necessarily better than the other but all of his faves had a certain degree of greatness. He mentioned a poem by Proest he liked. He briefly mentioned his interest in ragas. Och's 85 now I think

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2023/12/25/max-ochs-folk-blues-guitarist-profile/

Back in 2023 Max Ochs earlier mention the car jack item to then Washington Post critic Chris Richards. In case it's paywalled , here are some excerpts-

“It’s my most precious possession,” Max Ochs says as he retrieves a piece of broken metal from a guitar case — a scrap of trash he found on a dirt road in New Mexico in 1967 that he’s been toting around as a guitar slide for more than half a century. “The old cars were heavy, and they needed a really substantial car jack, and this piece had just broken off so beautifully,” he says, half smiling, fully aware that he’s holding his life’s essence in his palm.

...He once rubbed elbows with Bob Dylan and Richie Havens in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the 1960s, but as a recording artist, Ochs is better known for learning his instrument alongside John Fahey and Robbie Basho, fingerstyle guitarists who established their respective cults with clanging strings and twinkling melodies, creating their own rough starlight...

the only time Ochs mentions anything resembling ambition is when he describes the sacred teenage moment when he heard Elizabeth Cotten playing “Freight Train” on WETA. “It was that particular kind of Piedmont, double-thumb picking, and I just thought, ‘Man, if I could do that, I would never ask for anything more,’” Ochs says. “I couldn’t imagine anything better than being able to play ‘Freight Train.’”

...Ochs says he found one of his earliest guitar teachers, Harry Banks, hitchhiking on Ritchie Highway near Severna Park: “I said, ‘Where are you going?’ And he said, ‘Anna-no-place,’” Ochs recalls. “He lived in a trailer with a bulldog named Buttercup, so I brought him to my mom’s house in Annapolis and said, ‘Mom, this is Mr. Banks, and he’s going to play my guitar.’ Banks was like, ‘Do you have a knife?’ ‘Hey, Mom, can you give Mr. Banks a knife?’” Banks retuned Ochs’s Stella Harmony acoustic guitar, began to run the dull side of the utensil up and down the strings, and there, on his mother’s back porch, Ochs learned how to play the blues.“The slide is like a floating bridge,” Ochs says. “It holds the note in this liquid way. If you wiggle it a little, you get this rich, beautiful vibrato. And Harry Banks did it like second nature. … I was delighted. And I wanted it.”

He didn’t find much of it during his two years at Carleton College in Minnesota, but when Ochs transferred to the University of Maryland in 1960, he quickly fell in with a discerning crew of guitar enthusiasts that spectators dubbed “the blues mafia”: Fahey and his Takoma Records co-founder Ed Denson, folk scholar Dick Spottswood, legendary record collector Joe Bussard, and the guitarists Basho, Michael “Backwards Sam Firk” Stewart and Tom “Fang” Hoskins, among others. “I never could get a good blues name,” Ochs laments. “I called myself ‘Blind Lemon Pledge.’”

“I learned by watching,” he says. “It was something so primal. Primeval? It went deeper into my ears” — especially whenever Fahey was on the stage. “We already recognized that he was great,” Ochs says. “His foundation was Mississippi John Hurt, but then he was also like Erik Satie. He recognized some kind of pure beauty or simplicity in what he was doing by scraping away all the unnecessary stuff.”

Basho was more of a peer, or maybe even a rival. “He was Robbie Robinson back then,” Ochs says. “He was my roommate, and we were both desperately trying to learn how to double-thumb. He sweated a lot. He had beautiful golden-red hair in ringlets. … He had a deep hunger and was full of desires, but I didn’t realize what a genius he had in him. He took it to transcendental heights.” (Fahey, Basho and Ochs would reconvene on vinyl in 1967 with the release of “Contemporary Guitar — Spring ’67,” a compilation album on Takoma Records that secured Ochs’s spot in the American primitive canon.)

Ochs decided to change the scenery after a New York gig at the Bitter End where he played Sin-Killer Griffin’s “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm.” He spotted Pete Seeger in the audience, singing along through a smile. At another show, at Gerdes Folk City, Bob Dylan bumped into Ochs at the bar and praised his rendition of Furry Lewis’s “I Will Turn Your Money Green.” Max Ochs says he first met the protest singer Phil Ochs at that same venue — and at a family funeral a few weeks later, he learned that they were cousins. (“Second cousins to the second power,” Max explains. “His grandfather and my grandfather were brothers. His grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. They were set up by a matchmaker and had a double wedding.”)

Settling into New York life, Ochs played in a psychedelic band called the Seventh Sons, jammed with David Crosby, even spent a night in jail with Ed Sanders of the Fugs after being arrested at a war protest. But the most important musical relationship he formed while living in New York was with Mississippi John Hurt, the touring blues legend who crashed at Ochs’s apartment so frequently that Hurt wrote a song about it: “Welcome Address,” later recorded as “Boys, You’re Welcome.” Ochs felt more like a student than a host: “He was so patient with me. I really wanted to learn ‘Frankie and Albert.’ ‘Could you just slow down and show me again?’ And it was like the transmission of the dharma!”

In 1966, Ochs hitchhiked to New Mexico and bopped around the West on spiritual quests and peyote trips, but by 1970, he was back in the Annapolis area, still playing music, but not as interested in recording it. “Realistically, I thought I was mediocre, not excellent,” Ochs says. “And in capitalism, everything becomes a competition, whether you like it or not. I wanted music to be a community, not a competition.”

I knew he and Phil were related but didn’t know the full story!

His foundation was Mississippi John Hurt, but then he was also like Erik Satie. He recognized some kind of pure beauty or simplicity in what he was doing by scraping away all the unnecessary stuff.”

about as good a description of John Fahey as I've ever read

But the most important musical relationship he formed while living in New York was with Mississippi John Hurt, the touring blues legend who crashed at Ochs’s apartment so frequently that Hurt wrote a song about it: “Welcome Address,” later recorded as “Boys, You’re Welcome.”But the most important musical relationship he formed while living in New York was with Mississippi John Hurt, the touring blues legend who crashed at Ochs’s apartment so frequently that Hurt wrote a song about it: “Welcome Address,” later recorded as “Boys, You’re Welcome.”

Gosh, this is one of my favorite songs ever, transcendentally beautiful -- I can't believe I never heard this story! awesome

Lovely, thanks. Max and Robbie are freely streaming on TS's v. generous Bandcamp, ditto recently posted:

Dead Stock Alert !

We are thrilled to offer one of our favorite private press guitar records ever - Scott Witte’s 'Sailors Dream.’

A rare and coveted 1980 LP, we have sealed copies and signed copies for sale. Limited !

Hardly strictly solo guitar, this album has cello, ethereal chorus, 12 string fantasias, funky breaks - it was even sampled by DJ Shadow !

From our 'Obscure Giants of Acoustic Guitar' card set :

Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1958, Scott Witte began studying guitar at age eight. After playing electric guitar for several years, Scott fell under the spell of the Takoma Records stable of guitarists

Dick Spottswood & Tompkins Square Present ... 1925 Songs' - TSQ 4142 - Available June 19th
A New archival project !

Dick Spottswood is a legendary musicologist with deep knowledge of early jazz, blues, international, and vernacular American music from the first half of the 20th Century. He has contributed notes and transfers of records from his collection to hundreds of influential reissue albums on many labels over the decades. Spottswood teams up with Tompkins Square to offer a selective view ofour favorite 78 rpm sides from 1925, a pivotal year in the development of jazz, blues and early country music. Extensive notes by Grand Ole Opry archivist, guitarist and writer of books, Cameron Knowler. Digital restoration by Grammy-nominated mastering engineer Jessica Thompson. Design by Clay Conder.

June 18 record release event for the 1925 project @ Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn with specials guests Terry Waldo, Cameron Knowler, Maisy Owen, Mason Lindahl, Eli Smith, Ryley Walker, Wall Matthews, Kinloch Nelson, Devon Flaherty & more!

89-years-old Spottswood used to have a public radio show in DC playing all kinds of old obscure stuff, so it makes sense he'd be doing this.

Looks like he still has an online radio show

https://bluegrasscountry.org/shows/the-dick-spottswood-show/

I miss the old WAMU

https://marisaanderson.bandcamp.com/album/the-anthology-of-unamerican-folk-music

Marissa Anderson's latest album The Anthology of UnAmerican Folk Music is getting lots of acclaim. It draws from per the Bandcamp page - the private record collection of the late Harry Smith. Assembled by Anderson after a chance encounter led to an opportunity to study and explore this treasure trove of music, the Anthology focuses on music from places that the United States has been in conflict with since 1970: Southeast Asia, the USSR and the Arabic and Islamic regions of the world

On first listen this is pleasant enough, but some cuts lose some of their connection to the music of the country of origin. Maybe I need to listen more.