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

Graham was heavy into jazz too not sure if fahey was but don't get much of a jazz vibe from his stuff

yeah the jazz thing is heavy with graham and his followers -- don't think fahey cared for much jazz past dixieland (or at least didn't incorporate anything past that into his playing). graham/jansch/renbourn etc. were huge mingus fans.
but yeah i have been sort of interested in the UK strain of this stuff, too -- there's a dude c joynes who is kind of bridging the gap between the takoma thing and the more English/Scottish/Irish folk sound. http://www.boweavilrecordings.com/joynes.html

yeah the jazziness of Graham (especially rhythmically, I think) seems one of the clearer divisions, I suppose the bit I struggle to unravel precisely is where Graham's lean towards British folk and Fahey's lean towards American folk becomes clearest, especially since Graham doesn't shy away from blues either.

https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/guitar-rag-by-sylester-weaver this track from Imaginational Anthem 6 is great, definitely have to check out the full thing.

the american fiddle repertoire is deep rooted in scottish, irish & english fiddle traditions; likewise, the melodies of these tunes incorporated themselves into the body of american folk song. in turn you get guy's like fahey who will straight up play an arrangement of an irish folk melody like "lord of all hopefulness" on 'yes jesus loves me.' similarly you get "st. patrick's hymn" at the end of 'transfiguration.'

i thought there was a website that listed the varying names for tunes based on geography, but i cannot find it now.

Is that Imaginational Anthem Vol 6 a record-store day only thing? Rats.

it'll be out for real next month -- i think the limited double LP gatefold thing is the "record store day" part of it. but i think you should be able to get it on vinyl/CD/whatever next month in some form.

and yeah it is totally great from start to finish.

sylvester weaver is awesome, love his duos w/ walter beasley too. had no idea there had been so many imaginational anthems, I only have the first one - what's best?

This imaginational anthems reminds me a bit of when college fugazi fan me heard gang of four for the first time

Think on the Andy Beta memoir I posted upthread, he mentions Fahey discoursing on electric Miles (he approved, apparently)? Seems like there's a similar vibe--intimate voice in space--at times: somewhat Milesian, if not precisely jazzy--but electric Miles emphasized in some interviews that he also was then using jazz as *one* component--maybe the basic one--but still, it was in there w blues, rock, Eastern, etc. I've also read that Fahey said he had no use for the blues very early on; maybe his initial explorations of UK-by-way-of-Appalachia might share some qualities with early 60s Brit folk guitarisms--?

of course it wouldn't really be Uk-by-way-of-Appalachia, but American mountain music w strong resemblance to UK antecedents--did he record anything before he got into the blues?

a lot of fahey's earliest recordings, as issued on the fonotone box, are straight blues pastiches.

fahey was in his mid-teens when he had his damascene experience sobbing down the phone to dick spottswood after he made him replay blind willie johnson's praise god i'm satisfied. the story is mb a bit cute, w/ this "& that's when the scales fell from my eyes & i realized racism was wrong" subtext, but it was definitely a pivotal moment.

also fahey & graham were popularizers, taking solo guitar seriously, but they both drew on traditions that had loads of primarily instrumental guitar already, & saying they invented it is ridiculous

Um wow this spoken word intro on one of the new imaginational anthem

of course, ogmor, i didn't mean to suggest otherwise, my curiosity was mostly around the fact that there's the simultaneous birth of these kind of multicultural hybrid genres of solo guitar, playing but despite that musical pluralism there didn't really seem to be, as far as i'm aware, a great deal of crossover between the scenes.

I'm not to up on 78s & stuff I guess casual racism is probably pretty common

well, that's true, but they were both pretty small scenes really & it took them a while to make it across the atlantic. i am not a fan of the british stuff really, & there are plenty of other acoustic traditions going on in parallel - can ali farka toure be leibniz?

Fahey was big on bola sete

bola sete, gliere, barbecue bob, paul tillich... all the greats

I don't know bbq bob but with a name like that I'm sold already

bbq bob ain't bad, but he's far from my favorite georgia bluesman. that would have to be willie mctell, i think. blind blake was a georgian too, and sylvester weaver.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgmM9CxwgNo

I was going to link to the famous vrootz compilation of fahey's influences as some of you guys don't seem familiar w/ some of that stuff, but all links are dead. so, w/ nothing better to do w/ my sunday, I put together a spotify playlist. there are a few omissions but spotify has nearly everything. it's a really beguiling mix of bluegrass, big band jazz, country blues, high romantic russian symphonies, ragtime, fahey's beloved christmas music, mountain banjo, hawaiian guitar, gamelan, hillbilly music, samba &c. have a listen! http://open.spotify.com/user/ogmor/playlist/0RiAX0TJbinxXYOtai81wk

wow thanks ogmor! weirdly as obsessed as i've been w/fahey for the last year i don't know that much abt him. i should read his book.

interesting that prokofiev is on there, i'm reading a history of Folkways records (moses asch) and apparently woody guthrie was a huge fan as well.

definitely read "bluegrass music destroyed my life" it's a great read, both for the weird semi-autobiographical/therapeutic writings as well as his recollections of musicians. good stuff.

yeah that fahey roots mix is great, i've had it for a while, but i'm still absorbing it. i've only read bits and pieces of fahey's books, but i should just buy 'em...

The Fahey books are great, "How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life" especially. Some real gold in there, whether you even like his music or not.

i leant fahey books out and i doubt i'll ever get them back :\

Bummer man, I hate when that happens. Shitty.

agree w/ everyone else re: "how bluegrass music destroyed my life", also enjoy this: http://johnfahey.com/reality.htm

These look like Fahey tweets or something.

have you guys heard of Peter Walker? I found an album on Spotify called Long Lost Tapes 1970, pretty cool, def has a big raga/indian thing going on alongside american primitive stuff, anyway worth checking out and if anyone knows about him do tell

i saw william tyler get compared to him in some writeup online, first time i'd heard the name.

also local mpls label putting out a new Paul Metzger album:

Paul Metzger – Tombaux

Tombeaux attains a new high-water mark in the career of Paul Metzger, one of North America’s greatest instrumentalists. Recorded in the dead of Minnesota winter, at home and alone, it’s the eighth Metzger release to feature his self-modified, 23-string banjo. The album marks our alchemist’s third appearance on NN, following critically acclaimed contributions to labels like Locust, Roaratorio and Honest Jon’s.

Tombeaux consists of three compositions. “Sepulchre” is a radical reworking of an original piece dating from 1984. “Of the Passing” is another Metzger original (showcasing some beautiful bowing), while “Beau Soir” features a wonderfully curious arrangement of Claude Debussy’s 1883 art song.

Metzger summons the spirits of his musical Appalachian forefathers, guitarist Django Reinhardt and classical sitarist Nikhil Banerjee, among others, weaving a peerless, highly individualistic style that sounds unlike anyone but himself. Metzger’s playing doesn’t imitate raga structures so much as use those modal figures as his starting point. He employs dazzling, breviloquent string plucks on the main banjo strings, whilst producing rhythmic, droning textures on the cross strings of an added bridge. Some have suggested similarities to the works of John Fahey or Sandy Bull, but Metzger’s modus operandi doesn’t constitute a mirroring of those styles; rather, he composes and operates apart from their music, in an insular and altogether separate universe. In the process, Metzger transcends and expands the lexicon in a wholly organic manner.

Release date: April, 2013
Label: Nero’s Neptune
Catalog #: NN026
Artist: Paul Metzger
Title: Tombeaux
Formats: 180g LP & CD
ⓒ & ⓟ 2013 metzger

don't really know metzger, but digging this sesh on the free music archive: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Paul_Metzger/Live_at_WFMU_on_Bethanys_Show_on_1022005/

the whole 23-string banjo thing is nuts. it's basically so he can play the banjo like a sitar? kind of?

Aw man, I want to see a picture of that.

http://images.publicradio.org/content/2008/04/25/20080425_sitar0_25.jpg

speaking of mpls outsider dudes w/weird homemade instrument's here's dave krejci and the Cleophone (one of a kind instrument he made)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMW7VOKOWQ

wild. that would be an interesting thing to hear wafting out of your neighbor's garage.

i just noticed in the youtube description he's running it through TWO leslies!

Metzger is kick ass. Playing a release show at the Turf! I think May 22? I've heard his latest is superb.

peter walker released two albums on vanguard back in the day -- 'rainy day raga' and 'second poem to karmella' (or something like that.) they are 'okay' in my book, rainy day particularly has some nice moments, but they are not the amazing listening experiences that the best of this stuff is, imo.

i like rainy day raga, though, yeah, i think sandy bull did that thing better. the lost tapes peter walker thing that came out a little while back might be better than rainy day raga.

got my ticket for William Tyler on Thursday nite, excited!

man i really want to see him. i actually bought that imaginational anthem box set to get the william tyler live disc on there and it mayyyyy be better than the impossible truth. dude has got his guitar sound dialed in.

I'm interested in that, too. Know anything about the openers? They both sound a bit dreary, might pass on 'em.

don't really know them at all, i think of of them is from duluth?

My buddy just saw William Tyler in NYC and said it was fantastic, for what it's worth. He loves the record too, so he is a big fan, but I could see this stuff breathing a bit differently live in a good way. Plus, watching guys like this play enhances the whole thing quite a bit for me, it can be really hypnotic.

just saw on FB that aquarius records has some of the imaginational anthem RSD thangs up for list price if anyone wants em - email mailor✧✧✧@aquariusreco✧✧✧.o✧✧