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

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

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 : /

― j.

That's what I mean by digging back and making a good mix of their homemade CDR label Child of Microtones. They rarely if only two times use actual vocal singing (ie lyrics, not count vocals as an instrument) I believe a lot of American primitive lovers missed out on some of the most creative steel string work in the mid-00s because of how fast and vast their catalog was growing. Their Child of Microtones style to mix of finger picking and free form experimental instrumentalist is unmatched til today. Willie Lane is also in that very unique niche too. Rafi Bookstaber does carry a bit of MV style here and there too, but that's besides the point.

The Golden Road country rock is wayyy different than the insanely psychedelic electric band Bummer Road material, which all these are vastly different than the multi instrumental Child of Microtones world they created way ahead of its time. And the fact that they are still home making COM, one was released last week, shows how exploratory they are. Don't judge on the Golden Road stuff :) - I just wish more people knew how chock full of gems the Child of Microtones discography is - and def how that material significantly changed the 'American primitive'/DIY style that we know of at this point in time.

might just be the stuff on spotify but MV & EE ain't doing a whole lot for me. feel like there's a ton of kinda shambly neil young ppl out there that do this better and the singing isn't the best and not even in an interesting will oldham way

finally checking out the rag lore stuff - totally great. nicely done, dude.

dope jams for today:

Voice of the Seven Woods - UK witchy folk stuff!

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

Matthew Young - Traveler's Advisory (Yogi/Drag City reissue of odd mid 80s private press album, dude looks like a social studies teacher, record is weird mix of amazing hammered dulcimer, Casio, drum machine, and tape loops....parts are stunning), here's his cover of michael hurley...can't find the instrumentals on youtube which is a shame they are really striking, super complex dark sounding stuff almost like appalaichan koto music

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

interesting, don't know either of those things. will check 'em out.
on the reissue tip, this "new" Peter Walker album comes out this week I think (originally recorded in the early 70s)
http://lightintheattic.net/releases/994-has-anybody-seen-our-freedoms
it has vocals, but the guitar playing will probably please people on this thread. walker's rainy day raga is a constant fave of mine.

voice of the 7 woods/thunders/rick tomlinson stuff is all good as much as i've heard
i like the more wacked out/plugged in songs best
as usual

yeah should say that clip is way more straight up acoustic than a lot of it which is more psychey and full band stuff...but it's all great imo

Man that Matthew Young album sounds right up my alley, thanks for posting that. Have been meaning to check out Rick Tomlinson in more detail as well, have not heard much at all but see him repped in lots of cool places. Definitely the feeling wacked out/plugged in side of this equation.

Tyler posted this before I think, and in some other channels recently, but these Zachary Cale covers are pretty damn cool. I especially like the Eno and country-shuffled/acoustic leaning take on the Stooges "1970". Sounds right in a lot of ways that covering the Stooges typically does not, i.e., he owns it in a cool way without it sounding that forced. Peter Laughner cover is great too, and probably suits Cale's voice best.

http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/11/04/the-lagniappe-sessions-zachary-cale-brian-eno-the-stooges/

found an interview with Matthew Young...interesting guy! came from more of an electronic music background which kinda makes sense...disses Ween and Klaus Schultz!

http://www.longhousepoetry.com/young.html

Hah hah will check that out.

might just be the stuff on spotify but MV & EE ain't doing a whole lot for me. feel like there's a ton of kinda shambly neil young ppl out there that do this better and the singing isn't the best and not even in an interesting will oldham way

― lorde willin' (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, November 18, 2013

it's not just you, I saw MV/EE live and hated them. never wanted to give the records a chance. just lazy, tuneless hippie wanking. feel free to point me to a Spotify link or whatever that can change my mind.

shout out to spottie who doesn't really post on the thread much anymore :( but just did a huge update of the spotify playlist :)

Glad to do it. A lot of the artists aren't available on Spotify but lemme know if I'm missing anything. You guys go at such a quick pace! So much info and quality links on a near daily basis. I've made so many discoveries here I don't even know where to begin to thank people.

I often just put that playlist on shuffle and let it ride for days at a time.

I play Solar Motel quite a bit.