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

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.

yeah totally. neil is probably a secret influence on a lot of this stuff, really -- at least he is probably the first acoustic guitarist I really paid attention to in terms of a really distinctive style.

Sure, for me as well. But since a lot of these folks fingerpick, the voicings just sound different. Forsyth plays with a pick, and also may be playing in standard tuning on most of his stuff (not that Neil is always playing in standard). Just not as many overt nods to Neil's acoustic playing in underground/out/guitar soli land, though his electric playing is of course a whole different story. Singer-songwriter guitar playing is of course lousy with Neil picking patterns and stylings.

so is there a new Daniel Bachman record out? Al Leong posted something on the vinyl score thread.

yeah -- Jesus I'm A Sinner came out a couple weeks back!

grandavis: Sure, for me as well. But since a lot of these folks fingerpick, the voicings just sound different. Forsyth plays with a pick, and also may be playing in standard tuning on most of his stuff (not that Neil is always playing in standard). Just not as many overt nods to Neil's acoustic playing in underground/out/guitar soli land, though his electric playing is of course a whole different story. Singer-songwriter guitar playing is of course lousy with Neil picking patterns and stylings.

I defiantly with the (a bit more than) subtle influence Neil has on everyone in the underground guitar, outsider, and soli what-have-you. Right off the bat you can see Matt Valentine putting out these incredible COM CDR's in the early 00's and seeing that transform into a very distinct Neil Young playing and voicing style with full bands, it seems like an path that made sense, atleast for him. But with Matt Valentine getting back into experimental work and leaving the road, I'm eager to see how these transformations all come together.

Interview With Matthew Valentine

This old, old interview with MV has always intrigue me quite a bit, influence wise, and just how interesting it is because of the time period in which it was done. I believe (been a while since I read it) that it was done almost post-Tower Recordings, but pre-MV solo and the MV & EE Medicine Show (the first MV & EE moniker).

He talks about being highly influenced by Fahey's Fonotone recordings.. mind you, this was way before they were publicly available, and early internet too, so maybe some tape trading was going on? Like Fahey's mythical "Gas Station" tape that exists somewhere out there. But just in general it's a good read about his early intentions, ie. pre-Bummer/Golden Road vibes, and where they wanted to take their Child of Microtones imprint. Taking influence from pre-war Bo Carter 78's, Sun Ra, Canned Heat, Basho, Homegas. If anyone else is obsessed with the COM catalog chime in please, because there is a lot of Takoma-based guitar work brought to psych levels not seen since.

neil influenced like....just my life in general...like i love fahey but i dunno man neil those songs are like actual friends to me.

Yeah man, definitely. Neil is like ground zero for music I turn to when I need it to serve a purpose, if that makes any sense.

Also, Matt Valentine is definitely the most Neil-like figure from that scene, and his playing on both acoustic and electric is heavily indebted. I need someone to make me a good mix or something, because I just do not have the patience to dig through the Child Of Microtones/MV catalogue to find the gems. Gonna read that interview at some point though, as I know MV influenced a lot of folks early on in that New York scene of the late 90s.

yeah totally, i've enjoyed the MVEE stuff I've heard (wfmu played a kind of amazing "fire on the mountain" by them this week, haha) but always feel a little bit intimidated by the catalog. A greatest hits would be good, if it's possible.
and yeah, didn't reallllly mean that a lot of these players *sound* like Neil Young necessarily, just that he might loom in the background for people of a certain age playing acoustic guitar. maybe more of a vibe thing.

of course, neil might just loom in the background for all types of "folk-country-rock" music at this point

Oh, I'm on it if you need a mix, not in any arrogant way but I went through I period of being a Child of Microtones completionist. So I have everything they've put out, and can def dig through the pile to pick out the gems of the more grounded, spacey, fingerpicking vibes, both slow and fast, and believe me there's plenty in there of all those varieties >> I'm calling these grounded because the numerous COMs that are just straight up hallucinatory: sine waves, wacked out theramin manipulation, completly non-blues floating in space fo chaos feeling. But there is the inevitable "Environments" that kind of blends this together in a perfect combination of free form banjo and eletric lapsteel. Every Environments is different and it's interesting to see where they take it. Kinda like "Space" was for the Dead.

Lots of 12string Basho type with alien drones and in there, some really laid back Miss. John Hurt picking with calm chirping birds in the background, straight slide numbers that have this backyard party feel (intros of pigs snorting and so forth), lots of talking blues that use the Takoma approach, and so forth. It's all over the place. I'll help you out there and sort a nice list :)

tylerw: yeah totally, i've enjoyed the MVEE stuff I've heard (wfmu played a kind of amazing "fire on the mountain" by them this week, haha) but always feel a little bit intimidated by the catalog. A greatest hits would be good, if it's possible."

I don't mean to change the subject from Neil too much, but the Child of Microtones catalog is where it's at. Sure the Bummer and Golden Road are some damn good full band outsider country rock, but damn if some of those COM CDr's are revolutionary because of the time period they were coming out in. It's folk/rock/takoma influenced psych to it's fullest and I'm glad guys like Gunn and Nugent are doing long improv (a la Sandy Bull) as seen recently.

I dunno, there was a period where the american primitive stuff was getting too perfected, and I'm not saying guys still aren't out there pouring their soul into a fine piece of music, and that's a bad thing. But it's nice to see the free-form side of things come back into play. Next I wish for some more Manhand CDrs from Sunburned Hand Of The Man :)

I am definitely into the free side of this thing Neal, look forward to getting pointed at some COM stuff that fits the bill.

Also Tyler, yeah I didn't think you were suggesting many folks in this realm sound like Neil, and I agree with the background influence of Neil, which I am sure is there for almost anyone who loves this kinda stuff.

otm
neal has sold me on the COM stuff with his descriptions, haha. bring it on.

Yeah, me too. Those descriptions sound way better than a lot of the country-rock jams and staighter MV & EE songs I have heard.

Defiantly a whole nother ballpark. Some tunes go so far out that I wouldn't be able to describe it. Purists might not like it and find it too avant garde, but I love that stuff. MV also invented "spectrasound" for COM, no idea what that is but it sounds so different compared to studio setups... Willie Lanes "Recliner Ragas" COM stands out by a huge amount, and he's still in that zone doing LPs now (anyone else heard those records?). It's like there are up and coming outsider country, precise raga picking a la Blackshaw, some Bert Jansch stuff, Fahey of course, Sandy Bull types etc, but COM era MV and Willie Lane style exist somewhere far far away.

I return to the states in a couple days and am gonna try to put together a good mix (and provide links to every COM ever released too) before we leave. I doubt I can squeeze it in but none the less it'll get done when I'm home next week.

MV is p much the most underrated / overlooked architect of the 'freak folk' scene (and its myriad branches including 2nd and 3rd wave American Primitive as discussed here). I'm on board with everything he does, even when I don't totally 'get' it at first (ditto Neils Young and Hagerty). Also, been catching him live since the mid nineties and he and EE have really hit a stride lately - something to behold. If you get a chance, go see 'em.

Neal, I'm intrigued by your forthcoming primer! I'll weigh in, too - I don't have everything MV has done (I'd like to shake the hand of anyone that does), but I have tons, including the most recent box sets like Zebulon Residency and April Flower (which are great).

Prevailing theory among those 'in the know' is that those Ecstatic Peace! LPs - which were outliers, in some ways, and not very representative - hurt him some because people's first exposure to his music was his Crazy Horse fixation. I dig those LPs a lot, but they don't represent at all what dude is capable of in his best work.

ha, I saw glenn jones last night (sounding great) & he was making fun of neil young & the "american primitive" label in his charming, gentle way. will see mv ee in a few weeks too...

i kinda got off the MV boat because I was just overwhelmed by the amount of material. i did really like some of those Lps, though; and the Lunar Blues series of CDrs was fantastic.
I have mixed feelings abt the bloke, as I've heard various stories abt his personal weirdness from around the time Tower broke up -- burning bridges, being a weirdo.. idk. not that that changes the quality of someone's music.

the real secret weapon of Tower, imo, was PG6. love that dude more than anything.

i thought mv & ee would be real awesome, and the idea of it seemed nice in practice, but i didn't have the patience for the singing : /

i saw mv & ee last year and thought they got the balance of cosmic drone and frazzled neil young stuff down nicely. as did their support that night, who i believe were... whole voyald infinite light? they also had their own custom speaker system with them which sounded amaaaaaaazing. also v good memory of the vibes of seeing tower recordings about eight years ago but little memory of any details, which with my more knowledgeable mind of today that would be able to contextualise and such is a bummer.

i too saw glenn jones last week, v nice in the way you'd expect it to be. also with included gentle mockery of neil young, bruce springsteen and others. in the spirit of not being grimly serious about a person who himself wasn't very serious, he told a little rambling story about jack rose and ben chasny - jack was going on tour with ben and and glenn told jack to ask ben why he hadn't made any more instrumental guitar albums. jack asked him and ben's response was that he didn't really want to be pigeonholed in the whole john fahey robbie basho etc thing. glenn says to jack that he understands that response, to which jack replies "not me, that's exactly where i want to be pigeonholed!"

ha, I loved that jack story so much. were you at the cafe oto show? I guess he was telling the same stories all week