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

cool! i was actually working out an electric version of sligo river blues to play w/ my band over the weekend. hopefully it'll be kind of cool and psychedelic but -- to sell myself short -- it'll probably sound like a lame indie rock band playing john fahey. get excited!

no way, that sounds awesome! hope we get to hear it. i gave that song a spin the other day, it's difficult to play it exactly like the recording, but where's the fun in that? found it much more entertaining to work out my own arrangement.

yeah i have no idea how to actually play it, i'm just kinda futzing around with it.

also think I might rip off the "crossfade from a crisp studio mic to a mic in an echoey corridor outside" trick if I can pull it off. good stuffs, that

I totally support bastardized versions and personl arrangements of songs, really rich territory there. Good luck with the recording/rehearsal both of you.

did another open mic last night.

felt like i played well. it's good to play in front of people even if they aren't paying attention.

however, the whole open mic thing is such a drag i don't know how much longer i can do these.

Oh, they're awful. I enjoy playing for people too but the whole "go to a bar and sit around and wait and buy drinks and stay up too late and endure several weak Tallest Man on Earth covers and have awkward people trying to 'network' with you and then try and cram in three songs in ten minutes" routine gets pretty damn rote. pfffff

i've only ever done one "open stage" kind of thing and it was with a band. can't imagine doing it solo! though i suppose it's good enough practice for just performing in a public setting.

oh and hey, many of you may have already heard these, but if not: Jack Rose - Peel Sessions, 2004 http://ow.ly/kBGbC

listening to disc 4 of the fahey fonotone box. i hope whoever gave fahey this motherfucking pan pipe or flute or whatever is in hell now.

lol @ the 'fall-se' start on those jack rose peel sessions

haha, yeah, pretty classic...
more from the bachman factory -- dude is prolific
http://24.media.tumblr.com/2c1ac751f428d93e0cf7dcbe8115e160/tumblr_mkvdi0qGQM1r8xa7zo1_500.jpg
http://broadcastsfrom.poorfarmeditionspress.com/#47377163306

though it looks like this is a big departure -
Really wild improv here from the duo of Daniel Bachman and Ian McColm. If you are familiar with Daniel’s solo work, you’d never be able to expect what’s to come on this tape here. This is some of my favorite recordings associated with his prolific output and surely shows the wide tonal range that is possible with just an acoustic guitar. Free jazz, experimentation, an avant garde ‘mess’ in the best possible way.

Ian is such a great performer that there’s plenty of times where there is no discernible difference between the drums and guitar, it’s hard to tell which sounds are coming from which instrument.

“Taman Shud”, meaning ‘ended’ or ‘finished’ in Farsi, is the name of an unsolved murder case of Australia circa 1948. The tracklisting seems to come from undecipherable ‘code’ associated with the case.

Ian is such a great performer that there’s plenty of times where there is no discernible difference between the drums and guitar, it’s hard to tell which sounds are coming from which instrument.

hmm this should be something

????

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/05/180821229/first-listen-glenn-jones-my-garden-state?sc=tw&cc=twmp

Thank you! I've been very excited about this record.

got this nice guitar solo 78rpm last night -- riley puckett. weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulALiHO9VPc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21WP8dsr68U

the quality on that second one is incredible, resonance like a glass armonica. his playing is pretty strange, but I dig that second track a lot

the guy who sold me the record says it was his only bottleneck piece; i'm inclined to believe him. i've never heard another puckett guitar record like that; a lot of his stuff, especially early on, was mostly country in the loosest sense -- a lot of pop records. i wonder if there;s a full scale puckett bio available; i'd read it. i dunno who else would. i'd like to learn more about the skillet lickers days and their demise (mcmichen and stokes apparently hated riley puckett??).

That bottleneck piece does sound amazing, what a wild sound. I could listen to that shit all day, though would have trouble telling someone that I was listening to a song called "The Darky's Wail" perhaps.

yeah, that's one of the weird things abt collecting 78s; i've become accustomed to hearing and readings things that are totally NOT OKAY TO SAY OUT LOUD.

Yeah, I can imagine! A lot of art/music would be off limits if that was a barrier though, just gotta take the "sifting through history" approach. I mean, it is completely fascinating, as you well know. As stated, keep sharing this stuff, it's great.

yeah those puckett tunes are pretty cool. it *is* a weird sound he's getting on the second one -- wonder if (at least part of) its strangeness is a circumstance of the recording technology/condition of the 78 (rather than actual technique from puckett)?

listening to that youtube video now, i think there might be a bit of overzealous noise reduction going on. the 78 has a much sharper tone.

http://adhoc.fm/post/chuck-johnson-slow-passing-ghost-town/

Really pretty new song by Daniel Bachman and Ryley Walker (with a buddy on steel):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFNKcdSM-Ho&list=UUZOexysDEmbM7VU1Ux1FChw&index=1

More laid back than a lot of Daniel's stuff, more nuance and less steamrolling (though I like his steamrolling action as well). Guess Daniel and Ryley are working stuff up prior to going on tour in Europe.

That Chuck Johnson vid is pretty great. I like that Chuck does a lot with his fretting hand, a lot of cool little slides and pull-offs/hammer-ons.

nice, i would take a whole album of songs like that new bachman track.
and yeah the chuck johnson record is highly recommended, kind of darker/more intense than some of the other things of its ilk we've been discussing on this thread.

Yeah, Chuck taps into a different vibe for sure, baroque maybe isn't quite the word, but what I have heard does not seem as steeped in country blues/trad American Primitive styles for sure.

I imagine that Daniel is gonna mix things up over the years, judging by this and the other recent collab with Ian McColm, and yeah, I would love more of that kind of thing from him.

My Garden State will be a cherished record in my collection as soon as I can get it. Just sayin.

Psyched that Glenn is coming back to Charlottesville on his next tour. He seemed a little bummed by the turnout last time (which was probably 20 people or so) but hopefully we can get more in this time to see him. This town is lousy with bluegrass/Americana fans, but guys like Glenn and D. Bachman have zero presence with any of those folks, which is too bad in a way. Not enough shredding/hokey vocals I guess.

Hmm to be realistic I'm surprised he would expect more? Should he? I mean in a perfect world, but...

I dunno, seems like he should expect more than 20 people! it is weird though, same deal -- out here in colorado, people go nuts for the lamest bluegrass/folk stuff, but I can't imagine many of the dudes on this thread having a lot of draw.

Yeah, I don't get it in regards to the lame bluegrass/folk shit, this town is lousy with it. Not sure what Glenn really expects, and maybe there were less than 20 folks, can't really remember, but it would have been more than 10 (and probably 20 in and out for the night at the very least), but he is not a young guy and I am sure that he would be thrilled if each tour brought a few more folks out than the last.

Hopefully this time it'll get a little more folks out, but it is a fickle town. If there is one local band playing that is somewhat "cool", ALL of the crossover folks that go to interesting shows at all will go to that show over an out of towner a little on the margins (like Glenn), no matter how good. The urge to see people and have a night out tends to trump other factors for folks that aren't a) old b) over any idea of being part of a scene c) really into the particular musician. Sure most towns are like this, I just hate when a great musician comes to town and I can just tell that no one is gonna go see them.

I guess I have no idea what the fan demographic or whatever there is for this kind of stuff. Wondering if there is an older following of folk/bluegrass fans too?

almost feel like these guys would do better just bypassing the rock club circuit altogether and playing house shows or guitar shops -- there's a guitar shop in my town that has regular folk-type shows and they get 40-50 people usually for local-ish people no one has heard of. they're "free" shows, but generally everyone puts money in a hat as a donation kind of thing.

i was actually surprised at the size of the place william tyler's playing out here this summer -- not huge, but the same place I saw Lambchop play last year.

I don't know, depending on the band there are plenty of young folks going to folky/bluegrassy/Americana shows here in Charlottesville, it is definitely not just old folks. I think the venues do a decent job here, but the couple that really catered to the "real" country blues/folk/string music fans shut down, and the solid turnout of folks for those venues seem to have stopped coming to shows at all as far as I can tell, though I am historically more a rock/psych/weird improv guy, so do not have a real understanding of how to cater to the potential crossover fans for this stuff.

William Tyler seems to be getting some crossover/wider interest, which is great. Maybe all the work with Lambchop/Silver Jews has him on people's radar?

over on twitter, upper mississippi sh@kedown referred to Impossible Truth as the Nevermind of the Takoma scene lol

Hah, maybe so. Hope it brings some sales and fans to all the other folks doing this stuff too. I have had a bunch of people mention that W. Tyler record that do not bring up any of these other folks though. Trying to push Steve Gunn and Chris Forsyth on them as more gateway fodder, will see if it works.

Haha. I think it helps that it's on Merge?

Xpost

Probably.

yeah for sure -- merge puts it more into the indie rock category (and that is tyler's background anyway)... still, jones is on thrill jockey which isn't a niche label either.

Yeah, Thrill Jockey doing some good work on releasing some of this stuff. Interesting that the Hiss Golden Messenger album has gotten so much press, not that it is too similar to most stuff on this thread (though Nathan Bowles is on the record and Steve Gunn just put out a Record Store Day album with him). It is on a pretty low-profile label and yet it has been reviewed glowingly all over the place, which is cool.

yeah paradise of bachelors seems to be making some waves -- they're doing that upcoming steve gunn record and a chris forsyth thing this fall. haven't actually been nuts about the hiss golden messenger LP (it's good, just hasn't knocked me out).

Yeah, I think you have to want to love the lyrics to appreciate the Hiss album, and I just don't care that much about them these days. They help in the balance with a band/musician, but the music is what I am after and while the record is fine it isn't pulling me away from the dozens of other things I wanna listen to on any given day.
Sure is getting a ton of press, which again I hope spills over for all these other folks like Nathan Bowles and Gunn and Forsyth, we'll see. It is interesting that Gunn and Forsyth are both putting stuff out on POB.

Ordered the Glenn jones record, says it comes with replicas of the fun antique post cards (while supplies last) that he uses for all of his album art.

hey just in case i haven't posted about it in this thread, I love Fiddlin' Arthur Smith and his Dixieliners. This is one of the ones that hooked me --

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDahJf0ki98