Why is John Fahey So Boring?

did we talk about this already? the talking heads don't look great but there's some new (to me) interview footage, so i'm excited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=&v=3NoXyb9AjJw

i didn't know about that...did you see the basho doc got kickstarted?

knew about the fahey doc, think that might be a new-ish trailer?

xp yeah! i'm excited about that, basho is more mysterious to me. there is currently one known video of him playing though, so it's going to depend entirely on who they get involved. jack rose would have been so good for both of these

yeah i'm more excited for basho too, seems less documented.

i like that pete townsend is in both. cool someone of that stature would make time for both. i enjoy listening to pete talk about things. stephan grossman in the fahey - he's like the cat daddy of 80s fingerpicking instructional video tapes.

who's the guy who says "John Fahey was punk rock"? I hate that shit, not everything that is good or interesting or individual or challenging is "punk rock". Oh man "There's a Riot Goin' On" is PUNK ROCK. Bitches Brew is PUNK ROCK. Rite of Spring was PUNK ROCK.

copy of the handbook for 13 bucks if anyone needs one:

http://www.amazon.com/The-John-Fahey-Handbook-Vol/dp/0985302801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377804503&sr=8-1&keywords=john+fahey+handbook

xp punk rockists! haha, yeah, you can almost see in that dude's face that he's like "oh shit why did i say that!?"

i think the people in this thread account for roughly 43% of the sales on that fahey handbook.

i think the guy who says he's punk rock is a member of ilx favourites the decemberists.

i like that pete townsend is in both. cool someone of that stature would make time for both. i enjoy listening to pete talk about things.

Me too. As a huge Fahey and Townshend fan, I'm pretty excited to see this doc.

i don't have it!

if i was making a fahey doc i would try to get ppl like joe bussard, dick spottswood, anthony lee, pat sullivan, ED denson, terry robb, barry hansen, his various wives & gfs, peter lang, david grubbs, jim o'rourke, glenn jones, keith from nnck, steffen basho junghans, byron coley..... all way before pete townshend or whoever. but it is cool he is doing it. laurie spiegel said some interesting stuff about fahey, she'd be in there too. might go and see stefan grossman when he tours in a couple of months.

This one was disappointing:

http://www.amazon.com/Lake-Chelan-Greatest-World/dp/193617846X/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377807743&sr=1-7&keywords=john+fahey

He divides his time between Lake Chelan, where he and his wife own and operate a vacation rental business, and Restlawn Memory Gardens in West Salem, Oregon.

The legend:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/e1/80/d79086cff4280a7f02359d.L._V146557155_SY470_.jpg

Revelation on the Banks of Lake Chelan

it's weird if they didn't reach out to peter lang and leo kottke

guess it was shown in NYC w/ screenings in seattle coming up
USA Theatrical Release:
August 16-22 New York City, NY. Cinema Village, Manhattan.
September 6-12 Seattle, WA. Grand Illusion Cinema.
http://www.johnfaheyfilm.com

they should have talked to my pal doug decker. he worked at takoma for years and engineered/produced a bunch of fahey stuff. he's a wealth of info. then again maybe they did. i haven't seen the thing.

screened in portland last october, was serviceable

way more psyched about the book

xp can you resolve the hot issue of who they had as talking heads?

chris funk of the decemberists explains punk rock

xp not entirely, no. nnck dude definitely, decembrists guy gets a lot of time. b coley maybe? not too broad a cast. had heard that the filmmaker ran into some issues getting people on board for one reason or another. def works as a sort of primer for folks and is a net positive for that, but maybe not a lot for heads or whatever.

is there any particular reason the decembrists guy is even in there? does he make cool solo records we should know about? (not picking on him, i'm sure he is a good dude, just curious, seems like a random guy to interview).

hmm, jack cole review http://spectrumculture.com/2013/08/in-search-of-blind-joe-death-the-saga-of-john-fahey.html twitter https://twitter.com/JohnFaheyFilm director's twitter https://twitter.com/JamesCullingham

q&a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdUAmzmHAr4

Chris used to live in Eugene and is a good guy based on my experience and friends in common, fwiw but I dunno why he would be in this - Fahey played in Eugene a fair amount near the end and released a record on a local label so there are some connections.

(I am really busy and have not watched the video)

sufjan stevens was on a fahey tribute album i reviewed for the Voice once. does HE make cool solo albums that we should know about?

who will chip in for my basho doc kickstarter if i get sufjan stevens to talk about how he was influenced by zarthus when making illinoise

sufjan stevens was on a fahey tribute album i reviewed for the Voice once. does HE make cool solo albums that we should know about?
not entirely sure what your point is, but i guess you're trying to be a dick? bravo!

And where I was once astounded by his machine-like precision, I am now driven mad by his machine-like precision.

So, why is John Fahey's music so boring?

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, January 10, 2006 2:25 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this is kinda weird, from the original post....machine-like precision is not something i would use to describe fahey at all!

No definitely not.

if anything he's on the sloppier side compared to like kottke or lang or lots of players really, and he really goes in and out of tempos (in a cool way IMO but still it's not conventionally "correct")

If he's "boring" at all it's usually because he gets either droney or meandery, sounding like a stoned dude fucking around in his bedroom. But even his more boring moments have a certain charm to them.

I hate this fucking thread title.

I received a DVD of the Fahey documentary a few months back in return for supporting the project via Kickstarter. I was very much looking forward to it but found it disappointing. Somehow fails to get beyond uninspiring talking heads telling us what a pioneer Fahey was (I can't remember an example, but I cringed on a couple of occasions).

^ ^ I realise many music docs are like that, but I'd hoped for something more.

"not entirely sure what your point is, but i guess you're trying to be a dick? bravo!"

people were wondering why the decemberists guy was in the doc. when i got that tribute album i kinda wondered why sufjan stevens was on it. that's all there is too it.

which i didn't think would be that hard to understand. cuz as far as i knew back then sufjan made twee indie rock albums.

ok sorry

i think fahey is both mechanical & meandering. as the exemplar of extreme repetitive finger-picking patterns & alternating basslines, he has a mechanical quality, his right hand an unstoppable piston looping endlessly w/ minimal left hand work. cf. night train of valhalla, on the beach at waikiki, sun gonna shine in my backdoor someday blues, america... ppl like harris newman & leo kottke have extended this, but it's all from him.

he is also the consummate meanderer imo, a flaneur in his mental archive, recycling himself & others, inventing 12 minute intros to 4 minute songs &c. all that meandering is context tho, it ebbs, builds, & allows him to do things like slam down a rendition of camptown races as a triumphant, glistening, unstoppable finishing move.

always meant to hear Harris Newman. Ogmor, how do you rate him? I'm skeptical of the Constellation crowd and always confuse him with Frankie Sparo for some reason, but I hear he's done some worthwhile stuff.

harris newman plays standing up! i think he's underrated, he did some cool stuff. perhaps constellation association, and mb things like having star wars references for track names put some ppl off. he could play very fast, w/ very neat, clean timing, giving it a kind of hard swing. maybe it's just me but i think he is also audibly from the North, you can hear the cold steel in those strings, there are lots of tssty harmonies/dissonances in there, as well as more of yr standard constellation ghost-in-a-rusting-junkyard vibe on some of his slide stuff&duets. he has some really nice bass lines which he tends to deploy under fast droning notes, sort of like a dead-eyed viking maybelle carter.

his first album is mb a bit rougher, but i like his second record, accidents with nature and each other, after that he seems to have started to recycle himself.

...he is also audibly from the North, you can hear the cold steel in those strings, there are lots of tssty harmonies/dissonances in there, as well as more of yr standard constellation ghost-in-a-rusting-junkyard vibe on some of his slide stuff&duets. he has some really nice bass lines which he tends to deploy under fast droning notes, sort of like a dead-eyed viking maybelle carter.

Sold! Thanks. You oughta write press releases!

all jobs considered.

can't find it on youtube but my single track recommendation wld be "cloud city" from accidents

On it. There's a used coy of that album at my local shop, going there for labor day sale tomorrow, will pick it up. Thanks again.

if i knew dude wrote songs with star wars referencing titles i would have been buying his records like, years ago!

Have you heard his rendition of the Cantina Theme? Twelve minutes if meandering introduction followed by a machine-like rendition of the main theme. Jaw dropping.

lol, i feel like this is almost worth writing

just trying to fit my head back together after reading that Cantina Theme thing thinking it was about Fahey.

if you listen to in a persian market & do whatever the aural equivalent of squinting is, you won't be too far off