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

<3 currituck co. kevin barker has been busy with his filmmaking!
he and his wife made this awesome movie --
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1745740/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

imdb reviews are mixed but i really liked it. our roomie contributed some of the music.

(it's on netflix btw)

I'm not sure Richard Dawson belongs on here, but he might do and you should listen to Richard Dawson. I like Richard Dawson.

Richard Dawson,

dig the papa m stuff a lot

btw solar motel is on spotify now, great so far

ha i had a papa m cd in my alarm clock as wakeup music for years and to this day my husband can't stand it and refers to it by making this plunnnnnnng plunnnnnnnnnnng noise
i think the track was "arundel"?

I've been messing around with acoustic resonance, feedback, high pitches, low pitches, metal scrapes, and any object that adds a harder curtain to coleuses with straight finger picking.

I bought a cheap rabab here in Cairo, which is a 1 string fiddle, just to use the bow, the fiber is much looser than a well made fiddle bow. Ever since figuring out how to do Jack Rose's "Sun Dogs" technique, I love wasting my time listening to that glorious high pitches, low pitches, and metal screeches.

Wife isn't to found of loud drone exploration on the acoustic but I gotta do what is flouting around in my head. Here is a first take of combining the "Sun Dogs" technique while bowing the guitar, a multitude of pitches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3wuEETGpQ8

you're good at the sun dogs thing! is there a particular trick to it?

Matt this is rad! thanks for showing!

And some list: http://totalvibration.tumblr.com/post/66103908941/slide-into-sligo-creek-36-american-primitive-records
with the usual suspects and more...

Can we now maybe start a new thread for our own experiments in this style and keep this one for talking about people who are touring, releasing records, etc?

speaking of, i am SUPER EXCITED for this just announced show in Mpls:

http://www.thecedar.org/events/2014/01/22/califone-william-tyler

Jimmywine Dyspeptic: Can we now maybe start a new thread for our own experiments in this style and keep this one for talking about people who are touring, releasing records, etc?

I mean no harm nor to ruffle any feathers here, but I am a guy recording, touring, and releasing/designing records. Even though I am doing those things I still like to share a crude new idea or two via audio or video. That leads me to my idea being that, most (if not all) contemporary 'american primitive' players who are currently touring, recording, collaborating - built themselves from the ground up and I can think of half a dozen fairly easily who did this with determination. Bedroom experiments and crude recordings: it can lead to a record deal fairly fast if you've got something worthwhile to give.

My point is, separating "experiments" or the progression of one's ideas in gitfiddle picking, with "real(?)" musicians who are touring, and releasing records seems kind of counter intuitive. It's not hard to sift through touring dates and someone's personal recordings. In fact, it's really nice to see these two subjects at hand together in one thread. And as I said, there is a very fine line between being a bedroom rat and releasing records: example, Guanaco ±, Bronze Horse, Danial Bachman, Hayden Pedigo, Wes Tirey, etc etc etc.

When you separate that linkage between Fahey's own definition of 'american primtive'... that being "someone who is self taught." It kind of breaks down the point of the whole thing. There aren't many places you can freely post/send your recordings to and actually be easily heard. There's a few, to which I highly recommend anyone to sign up for, like the "Fahey Players Group" over on yahoo. Where people talk daily about the old and new of all this, and by daily I mean by the likes of Glenn Jones, Gene Rosenthal, Peter Lang, and random label Heads. Deep conversations you don't hear anywhere else. Just sign up for yahoo, and forward that inbox to your normal email addy. Group like these highly welcome personal accounts of vintage stories, home recordings, touring dates, and record release press/congrats/and the progression of that entire process.

I've loved ILX since I found it because of how contemporary it is, and not just veterans reminiscing. Everyone here is kind and real encouraging when it comes to one's own progression in this type of unconventional guitar playing. Separating the 'experimenting' from the official record releasing could just lead to further confusion and much less exposure of people who wouldn't ever get it otherwise.

Sorry for the ramble, ramble, ramble... but I am Neal Cassady no doubt.

Good perspective, and I definitely did not mean to be discouraging in any way - I mean, I click on most of (all?) of you links. I was just suggesting that we streamline the thread a little. There's an I Make Music board, for instance, and a Takoma / Fahey / Basho, hell, even Haino / Bailey / Orcutt type thread there would be really cool. My minority opinion is that 'separating a linkage' is often necessary, lest we have Oneohtrix and Ty Segall threads becoming the equivalent of Bandcamp or something. Again, minority opinion; from the looks of it, most of the people in this thread are happy to be sharing ideas about guitar technique. Just remember that for some of us who are merely appreciators--not practitioners--of the idiom, such discussions threaten to make this very long thread a lot less compelling to read.

I guess I'm guilty of posting stuff. I guess I don't have a problem with it. I like hearing stuff ppl are doing.

Also I guess I don't really get it. I think if what Neal posted was someone else, not him, I think ppl would have listened to it and appreciated it.

I don't post every little thing I record into my phone, I try to at least feel that it's worthwhile... this thread has a pretty small group and has been pretty casual & friendly and I don't really think a handful of links you can easily skip is a big deal.

I appreciated Neal's post/video, I just haven't been able to keep up with posting much lately. To be honest I came close to turning it off as it took two minutes to get to the music (no big deal, but maybe put rosin on the bow before hitting record?). I found the music to be compelling/cool though, it is something I would go see live any time. I have liked most of the stuff people have posted, including UMS's stuff (new one is definitely cool, dig the harmonics), but maybe I am biased cause I post a thing now and again as well. Just to add a little bit in re Neal, he is a good player and has stuff available to listen to that is in league with a lot of the stuff getting press via tours and records coming out, so where is the line?

Generally I think this thread has ridden the line pretty well, some digressions into technique/personal territory, but a lot more of it is taken up with current records/shows/tours/musicians that are higher profile (and getting plenty of press outside of this thread, at least currently). I think this thread has been way ahead of the curve on a lot of the stuff, and has perhaps helped some of these musicians get their name out there a little faster (Forsyth definitely started getting some run here before most other places, etc.) Really I hope a lot of people feel engaged here, and am happy with it going in waves between the two poles (folks posting stuff vs. talk of more established musicians and lineages of players etc.), though I can see how tedious it could get if you just want to pop in and see what records/established musicians folks here are getting into. For me at least it is a much more interesting thread because of how involved a lot of the folks are with it. It could easily devolve though, if everyone posted everything they or their friends were working on, so hopefully everyone keeps that in mind, but I am still digging the approach personally.

And let me follow briefly (sheesh I need an editor) that Jimmywine, I like your contributions to the thread and hope that enough of a balance can be achieved so folks like you stick around, I really don't want the pool of posters to shrink, cause the main thing that keeps the thread interesting is folks coming from different angles on this stuff.

i have no angle to come from but i like the peaceful feeling here and have enjoyed both lines of discussion, albeit casually

i'm trying to chill on posting my own stuff anyway....

also basically i agree w/grandavis it's more a matter of everyone using good judgment i think

Has anyone mentioned the 12" 45rpm LP MIA records put out of Steve Gunn, Cian Nugent, and John Truscinski? The group is called Desert Heat and the vinyl is titled “Cat Mask at Huggie Temple".

It's much like the Gunn/Truscinski Duo LPs but I did it so much. It carries the same subtle build that those Three Lobed releases revealed, but adding Cian to the mix is pretty incredible. I defiantly recommend it to any Gunn fans. I don't know how many of those are here, but he's defiantly one of my favorites when he delves into his Sandy Bull/long-form improvisations. Those Gunn/Truscinski Duo records are some of the best ever, always a go-to alteast once a week.

http://mie.limitedrun.com/products/516728-desert-heat-cat-mask-at-huggie-temple
https://soundcloud.com/miemusic/sets/desert-heat-cat-mask-at-huggie
https://soundcloud.com/miemusic/desert-heat-chimay-blues

Hey Neal, some good points, and I think most of us on here agree that sharing is cool and getting at it/making your own records/labels/songs is cool too. There are plenty of smaller profile tapes/streams/players etc shared all over this thread. We post numerous videos/streams of heavy hitters because generally we all dig it. When this thread started, this stuff was not getting nearly as much attention from major sites and media outlets as it is now, and I can honestly say that I have discovered a ton of stuff from this thread to the point that I don't need to read other sites to know what's happening, and appreciate that. Basically that is the exact nature of the thread, sharing shit that people think is good, plain and simple, with a smattering of stuff people are working on personally that is relevant to the thread (and I am sure we all hope is considered "good" as well). So basically carry on, but keep the balance in mind. Hopefully we can then just hang and not worry about what this thread should be too much.

And yeah, that Desert Heat action has been getting some run here (basically all things Gunn/Nugent have been bubbling up for a while). I really like the interplay between Gunn/Nugent, hope there will be more at some point. When you have the time you should dig back through this thread, a lot of that stuff is covered pretty heavily (though it is a really long thread at this point, don't undertake that task unless you are looking for a rabbit hole to fall down). Those Gunn/Truscinski duo records were my first introduction to Gunn, I like them a lot. Gunn's recent record focussing on concision/songs is really good, but I lean towards the long-form stuff for the most part.

here's my review of the new nugent/cosmos record. so good. i don't know, it has pretty much everything i want out of a record these days: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/11/08/cian-nugent-the-cosmos-born-with-the-caul/

Just read that man, it's great. I will definitely be buying this record, everything I have heard off of it is great.

listening to this today - http://thekey.xpn.org/2013/11/10/folkadelphia-session-chris-forsyth-mary-lattimore-jeff-zeigler-aka-the-ultimate-session/
pretty nice stuff -- actually makes me think a little bit of the music grandavis has been posting, at least in terms of vibe.

Just listened to it, thanks for posting. Really like the beginning of it/first 20 minutes or so, and it is generally cool. I didn't love Forsyth's straightforward guitar moves as much as I usually do, liked his more abstract parts better in this context (especially in the first half), but the harp and synths were great throughout. I do love hearing people do stuff like this though, but I am decidedly wired for spacious improv.

I can definitely see a similarity in vibe too, thanks for listening to some of those links I posted.

yeah, i like your music a lot!
here's a lengthy investigation into what exactly "american primitive" means in 2013 - http://adhoc.fm/post/american-primitive/

Thanks again man, I appreciate it. Just played a show with the Nathan Bowles & Scott Verrastro duo, who were awesome! Really cool dual percussion action, from gamelan-ish and heavy (and very competently played) banging to lots of bowed and rubbed and pretty quiet parts. Definitely recommend seeing them if you get a chance, but it all got recorded by a buddy of mine, so I can share if anyone is interested.

Have seen that piece tossed around quite a bit today, by a couple of the players mentioned as well. It is definitely interesting to see who bristles at and who embraces the "American Primitive" tag. I haven't listened to No Neck in forever, maybe I need to dip back into those waters a bit.

Still don't know what I think of that piece generally. As someone who gave up writing about music a long time ago, I just have very little at stake in hashing out a term like "American Primitive". For some reason I really like this admission: "Anyhow, the other guy and I both left our mini-debate sour, not wholly agreeing with the other, nor with what we’d each just said ourselves."

haha, yeah, it's a lot of hand wringing over something that's not particularly important. i did drop a fahey-bomb in that cian nugent review, but it was mainly because the tune in question reminds me of a particular fahey tune ("beverley").

There are plenty of tasteful ways to reference Fahey, and I definitely don't go very knee-jerk in either direction, I just am glad I don't have to take part in those kinds of conversations too often. Glad the Gangloff record got a mention.

yeah that article is kind of frustrating in that i think the writing is good, and obviously a lot of thought went into trying to define a term in exact terms that's really hard to pin down....and also i'm not really sure that it's that important that it be strictly defined in the first place

or put it this way, it would be really really hard for me to sit down and write 1,000 words explicitly defining what American Primtive is in 2013, but i can very easily sense intuitively when i hear a piece of music or a new artist whether or not i will post it in this thread....and of the hundreds of posts there are, there's very rarely something posted by someone that i think shouldn't be here.

Yeah, well said. Again, glad I do not write about music other than in places like this, just going to take that time to dig through the listening pile some more.

Interview with Glenn Jones - November 1st, 2013

Glenn Jones: "I never learned anything from pleasant, comfortable or inoffensive music."

The G-Man: "It seems essential that every one of your interviews you feature in these days reference 'American Primitivism'. How would you define the term?"

Glenn Jones: "The term American Primitive has come to refer to guitar music that assumes John Fahey and/or Robbie Basho as mentors/exemplars, whether as players of a specific style of music, or as musicians who simply eschewed technique that wasn't, first and foremost, in the service of expression. Robbie Basho put it this way: "Soul first, technique later." Fahey's music often offers clues as to how he feels, and his titles often name-check the people, places and things that were important to him. Basho seeks to create new worlds with his music; his guitar compositions - he also sang and played piano - are daring and imaginative, often ethereal."

Whoops, I forgot to paste the rest of that quote.

Glenn Jones: '(cont.)... Unlike Fahey, Basho rarely referenced other musical forms, though he was, like Fahey, very fond of what we today call "world music" as well as western classical music. What they had in common was that they used the guitar as a means of expressing emotion, not as a vehicle by which to show off their chops. American Primitive is as good a term as any to describe my music. I feel like I'm walking similar paths as these musicians and I'm happy to acknowledge the powerful influence they've had on me, ever since I discovered their records as a teenager.

John Fahey and Robbie Basho – two more different people and two more different musicians would be hard to imagine. It's interesting to me that their music has come to be defined by the same term, American Primitive. Both musicians started out recording for the same label, Takoma Records, which Fahey started in 1959. But then, the term is now used to define the music of a quite a number of players of quite a variety of approaches. The music is often very sophisticated – hardly primitive - and its players are not all American-born or based."

Referenced from Interview with Glenn Jones - November 1st, 2013

On another note, I have this dream that Marcia Bassett, Pete Nolan, and Steve Gunn come together for any kind of recorded improv show, or even a short EP that delves back into those amazing GHQ zones that got me, (for a lack of a better phrase), so turned on to this experimental bent of guitar with drone with endless cyclical motions... seemingly going no where sometimes. Not a bad thing in my book though.

GHQ's "Seven Sisters", "Everywhere At Once", or that Sloow Tape they did "Square Growth Sessions" are still albums that I go back to time and time again. Not to forget Pelt too, and very comparable to some of the stuff GHQ did Jack was here. "Effigy" was a whole 'nother amazing beast.

It hates me to say it like this, but back when there were "free folk/naturalismo" albums came out but injected itself into this very deep and dark vein, that shit was the best. I mean this type of stuff still happens, with say Natural Snow Buildings and their solo projects, or duos like Love Cult, but not on the level like GHQ did. Maybe I'm not keep up with current free form acoustic/electric drone bands in the vein of GHQ, so if anyone has any suggestions that be awesome.

And of course MV & EE, who are still going strong, and just released a new LP on their microprint C.O.M, which I can't wait to hear. Link is here if there are any MV&EE/COM Heads (such as myself) out there:
ME & EE - Shade Grown (COM 39)

Glenn is such a good spokesman generally, those quotes are so easy-going about the whole thing and explain it well enough. He is also one of the only people who seems to easily and gracefully embrace the "American Primitive" mantle.

There is some GHQ talk earlier in this thread, and I can hang with some of it but need to listen to more to see how well it all holds up for me. I like what those three have done in other bands/incarnations as well Gunn being the most obvious tie-in for this thread), so I am sure plenty of GHQ stuff is up my alley, but I just never got around to their releases at the time they were coming out. MV&EE I am pretty hot and cold on. Some songs hit me hard enough and I think are great, others I find either annoying, too aimless/stoned to grab me, or a little hokey. There is a lot to dig into though, so someday I may go down the well a bit more. I have enjoyed them live though, where it all comes across as a bit more charming for me.

Your Victorian Breasts - v/a comp

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/chocolate-grinder/listen-various-artists-your-victorian-breasts

all over the place stylistically but has william tyler song, bunch of cool ppl like corsano, also a supreme dicks song that is surprisingly american primitive

also Chuck Johnson posted this on soundcloud, cover (with a singer) of a will oldham song...from a new duo project i guess

https://soundcloud.com/chuck_johnson/the-way

neato. just had the chuck johnson album on last night -- might be the best of 2013 batch!

i swear man he need to legally change his name to Nicholas Arthur Rhys-Davies or something! can't get enough pub as Chuck Johnson the guy your dad says is the best insurance agent in town

lol yeah
Chuck Johnson & Glenn Jones, a double bill of real estate agents

this ultimate thing like that ever is Nyack, NY All State Agent Don Dietrich:

http://agents.allstate.com/donald-p-dietrich-nyack-ny.html

is Don Dietrich of hellish free jazz/noise vets Borbetomagus

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

that is awesome

"Oh Don you have a band? That's neat! Do you guys do covers or originals?"

That is awesome! One of my favorite quotes from a band of all time:

"Sometimes people will say, 'Oh, you’re a musician, what do you play?' and I’ll say 'I play saxophone.' Their immediate response is 'I love the saxophone!'" Dietrich explains. "And Jim’s line for that is, 'Well, I bet I could change your mind!'"

Hah hah UMS I bet he has had that question asked to him so many times, I wonder how many similarly funny answers he has given (like the one above).

http://thekey.xpn.org/2013/11/14/folkadelphia-bonus-session-chris-forsyth/
even tho solar motel is pretty far away from a lot of stuff on this thread, this solo version shows that forsyth can do the takoma thing as well as anyone

Really enjoying this acoustic Forsyth. "Downs and Ups" is really pretty, main "riff" reminds me of N. Young's playing more than a lot of these players do.