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

hey guys - i guess when i started this thread i didn't know if it would even get that many posts at all but since it sorta turned out to be a rolling type thread, should i make a new one?

the thread is pretty dang long at this point...what y'all think?

& also it sounds corny to say but this thread has made me very happy and exposed me to so much music in the past year i really appreciate y'all

this thread altered the course of my record collection, thanks guys. My wife also ls when I bring something home that I explain is "like fahey" bc I've done that 50 times in the past calendar year.

yeah definitely the most fun and consistently interesting thread around!
a 2014 one would be aight, I suppose....

yeah I support a new thread since we like our youtube links around here

UMS, I am fine with whatever you wanna do. Hard to let this thread go because I have spent so much damn time here, but a new one makes sense at this point. Can always revisit this one if there is something I want to dig back into.

By the way, just saw that Daniel Bachman has the masters for his next record, due April 2014. That is like an album every 6 months kind of territory.

yeah i guess i'll let it be for awhile unless ppl feel like it's getting way out of hand or something. i'm pretty good about bookmarking usually.

Speaking of Peter Walker, just got this news, incl shows coming up (some of yall may have seen this on Rolling Reissues 2014, but suspect not everybody goes there)
CELEBRATED 60'S RAGA/PSYCHEDELIC/FOLK ACOUSTIC GUITARIST, PETER WALKER, ANNOUNCES FIRST TOUR IN SIX YEARS, PERFORMING SHOWS IN SELECT MARKETS IN FEBRUARY TO SUPPORT THE RELEASE OF LONG LOST 1970 STUDIO SESSION AND FIRST SOLO GUITAR/VOCALS RECORD,
"HAS ANYBODY SEEN OUR FREEDOMS?"

Peter Walker is an American original, as eclectic and enigmatic as the songs he writes.
The legendary seventy-five year old raga/psychedelic/folk acoustic guitarist, and Woodstock resident, who was schooled by masters such as Ravi Shankar, and Ali Akbar Khan, has been described by Larry Coryell as, "One of the most original practitioners of contemporary music" and proclaimed by the Beatles' press agent Derek Taylor as "Perhaps the greatest guitarist in the world."His music, celebrated by the late Jack Rose, James Blackshaw, Steffen Basho-Junghans, Thurston Moore, and Greg Davis, all contributed original compositions to the 2006 tribute album, "A Raga For Peter Walker".In the mid-'60s, while musical director to Timothy Leary's LSD explorations, Walker released the classic "Rainy Day Raga" LP in 1966, and 1968's influential "Second Poem to Karmela or Gypsies Are Important", both on Vanguard Records. Following that, he disappeared from recording for almost forty years, but never stopped practicing, learning, reaching. Now, to celebrate the recent release of Walker's lost studio session from 1970, and his first solo guitar record with vocals, "Has Anybody Seen Our Freedoms?", on Delmore Recording Society, he is proud to announce that he will be embarking on his first tour dates in six years in select markets in February.

You can catch Peter here:

FEBRUARY 4 - MONTREAL, QC - CASA DEL POPOLO

FEBRUARY 6 - BROOKLYN, NY - BABY'S ALL RIGHT

FEBRUARY 7 - HARRISBURG, PA - TBC

FEBRUARY 8 - BALTIMORE, MD - THE WINDUP SPACE

FEBRUARY 9 - CHAPEL HILL, NC - NIGHTLIGHT

FEBRUARY 10 - ASHEVILLE, NC - MOTHLIGHT

FEBRUARY 11 - KNOXVILLE, TN - THE PILOT LIGHT

FEBRUARY 13 - LEXINGTON, KY - NATASHA'S

FEBRUARY 14 - LOUISVILLE, KY - KENTUCKY MUSEUM OF ART AND CRAFT

FEBRUARY 15 - COLUMBUS, OH - WILD GOOSE CREATIVE

Recorded at Mercury Studios in NYC, "Has Anybody Seen Our Freedoms?", which was described by the "New York Times" as "...rough, passionate and often raga-like..." and "All Music Guide" raved that the record "...adds immeasurably to his musical and cultural legacy, and is a must for any fan of American guitar music", and was included on their list of "Favorite Folk Albums of 2013", is Walker's manifesto. It could have been Peter's classic third album had it been released at the time (Peter had been storing the reels in a converted bread truck for decades). While his previous two records are incredible collaborative efforts - the playing of Bruce Langhorne, Jeremy Steig, and John Blair as important to the final product as Peter's - this album solely Walker. A requiem to the 1960s, chronicling lovers on the run, anti-war movement adventures, and living off the grid in Mexico, California, Detroit, and NYC.

The record begins gently, with love and war songs, (and a version of the traditional "Pretty Bird," that is unlike any other), before going on the rough and urgent ride of "Fifty Miles," (on two flat tires, a story detailed in the liner notes), and culminating with "Wonder," a song where Peter summons all the elements into one long journey, bringing us back down at the end as if we were at one of Timothy Leary's "celebrations." Peter's wondrous guitar playing and intimate, otherworldly vocals create the effect of a record encoded with some deeper wisdom being channeled directly to your ears.

You can stream the new album track, "Early In The Morning" from "Has Anybody Seen Our Freedoms?" here:

Streaming link:

http://delmorerecordings.bandcamp.com/track/early-in-the-morning

At the time of the session, Peter was living in the infamous Garwood Mansion near Detroit, working as incumbent opening act for their weekly, all night concerts / parties (as he had been at the Café Au Go Go throughout the '60s, and the Joyous Lake in the 70s). William Kunstler stopped by to speak about the John Sinclair trial, and the two had an immediate rapport. Kunstler was a major influence on Peter's anti-war movement involvement and leadership, and on his later decision to get a para-legal degree and represent immigrant taxi drivers in NYC in the 1970s. The two of them are pictured together on the album cover.

The beautifully crafted packaging for the CD and the limited edition vinyl version of "Has Anybody Seen Our Freedoms?" features a twenty-page booklet with exclusive images as well as a 4300 word essay by Peter, which was condensed from forty pages he sent to Delmore founder, and Executive Producer of the record, Mark Linn. While it's not exactly clear how every wild adventure discussed in the essay relates to each song on the record, knowing that these adventures occurred helps us imagine their evolution. The notes reveal a man of mystery. A man who rubbed elbows with Karen Dalton, Sandy Bull, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and John Barrymore. A man who possesses endless energy, drive and passion for the instrument he holds and the fearlessness to explore and reach for new sounds with a childlike curiosity.
The previously mentioned limited edition vinyl version also includes a full album DL code, plus bonus track, tip-on jacket, and an exclusive 8 1/2" x 11" Matrix handbill reproduction. The CD / DL bonus track is Peter doing his best Lord Buckley, from the same studio session.

Walker's colorful past reveals a man equally at home in legal discourse with Kuntsler, as he is sitting at the feet of Ravi Shankar, soaking up the Sitar. He disappears for months to Peru and comes back sunbathed and dappled by the waves, his head full of new sounds and ideas. He makes regular pilgrimages to the caves of Grenada and Spain, the only gringo allowed into the dangerous and exciting world of the gypsy masters of Spanish guitar, where he is now considered a peer.

As previously mentioned, Peter was reinstated to public consciousness with the critically-acclaimed 2006 tribute album, "A Raga For Peter Walker". The ensuing years have included two beautiful new albums of mostly Spanish guitar music, and a previously unissued collaboration with Maruga Booker, Badal Roy, and Perry Robinson, which was recorded at Levon Helm's barn in 1970.

An artist in the truest sense of the word, Walker uses the world as his canvas, distilling his experiences into the neck and body of his guitar, where they are transformed into a cacophony of sounds...dark, brooding, complex, atypical in rhythm and form, an experimental expression captivating the listener's ear, piece after piece.

Also, there's more of his stuff online than I'd thought likely.

Put me in the 'pro new thread' camp - the Youtube links make this one slow-loading page

Hadn't heard much from this record, but I am liking this long Mike Gangloff/Steve Gunn tune "Topeka AM" from their recent record (via tinymixtapes). No banjo or fiddle from Gangloff, just a range of percussive instruments and a sruti box used variously over the tune. Some cool 12-string from Gunn, kinda thing I can listen to all day:

https://soundcloud.com/#tiny-mix-tapes/steve-gunn-mike-gangloff

this is a fun interview with forsyth;

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/chris-forsyth-the-anti-shredder-on-guitars-made-from-fuckin-old-wood-shitty-pedals-and-loud-as-fuck-amps

Yeah, that is a fun interview. Damn excited that he and his full band are coming to Charlottesville. Wanna see them in a smallish room with some time to (hopefully) stretch out.

my biggest complaint with all the artists on this thread is that they sure don't tour the upper midwest as much...though I'm going to see William Tyler and Califone next week

barely any of 'em come to colorado.

cool that forsyth may have a new record out in 2014...

Yeah, full band record, with live-style interplay, sure sounds good to me. I imagine I'll hear some of these songs live when they come in February.

I can't believe how many good shows have come to Charlottesville in the last 2 years, considering how small of a town it is. Good listening audiences, though typically small numbers, but we have managed to get on the circuit for a lot of folks, which I feel very lucky for. The main venue these folks play is 5 minutes from my house, just insanely easy to finagle my way there. Small driving time on the East Coast really works for most folks I guess, you get a lot of shows in without many 5+ hour drives.

Sorry, didn't mean to lay it on, just legitimately surprised. Obviously it is the East Coast leg that makes it happen, as everyone hits North Carolina these days, so we are a good stop on the way.

are the shows you're seeing pretty well-attended? i get all grumpy when all of these dudes skip colorado, but the two shows last year that came through these parts (william tyler and daniel bachman) were ridiculously under-attended, probably like 25 paying customers combined.

there is going to be an alvarius b/sir richard bishop split coming out on three lobed for record store day this year, which I imagine will be of interest to readers of this thread....

oooooh I am so there

grandavis are you talking about the Tea House on the mall? I will be in Charlottesville from around March 17-22, we should hang out!

haven't heard any of it yet, but Don Bikoff has a new record available for order now...
http://www.donbikoff.com/hagr20al.html

oh that's cool....man i wish he coulda worked with someone on that cover art tho

heh heh, yeahhhh, pretty generic. the cover of celestial explosion was so cool.

oh and hey i missed this post
Oh, btw Tyler, can get you a copy of the Bowles/Verrastro duo set from here in Charlottesville if you want it. Let me know how to get it to you (can put it up on soundcloud for a day or two or something ....)
but yeah, would like to hear! email is tywilc AT gmail.com

i liked the Fate is Only Twice cover by Harry Taussig (which i guess i'm throwing in the same camp as a long return of a cult player) because it had a nice simple old school vibe to it

Whoa, got some responses to lay out here.

Tyler: in re turnouts in Charlottesville, it is case by case. 20 folks is common, and usually these folks (Glenn Jones, D. Bachman) get between 15-50 depending on the night, hopefully closer to 50 but it is really erratic. You and I have gone back and forth on this before, in that Charlottesville (and Denver) should be places where the general enthusiasm for rootsy/acoustic/old-time/etc. stuff you would think would cross over more to these folks, but it hasn't seemed to so far. Also strange that there aren't more folks just into the weirdo/improv/psych scenes that these folks generally draw their fans from, but there is at least a small and committed crew that thends to ensure that someone is there for every show. D. Bachman seems to have a few more folks at each show though, he may just break through to some relatively larger audience, but I don't know that that would mean much more than consistently getting 40-50 people there (he is from Virginia as well, so some of these folks may be coming because he grew up not too far from Charlottesville). I opened for him last time he came through and managed to bum several folks out, which was a little weird/too bad, as I didn't mean to, but I am used to only "heads" showing up who are generally up for anything, but there were some acoustic enthusiasts there who did not want to experience guitar feedback of any kind. Daniel got pissed at them though, which was nice of him.

P.S. I will hit you up with that Bowles/Verrastro set, think I will load it into my soundcloud page so you can download it there if that's cool, will email you.

Sleeve: Yeah, Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar tends to have all of these kinds of shows for the most part, but there is a house that has been putting on some really good shows lately as well. The Bowles/Verrastro show was there and sounded amazing, it's an old house that for some reason has great acoustics/sound in the room the bands play in.

Also, I should be in Charlottesville for those dates unless something comes up, so yeah I would be happy to meet up and get a beer or something. There may even be a decent show during that stretch though nothing seems to be booked yet. I imagine a lot of shows will be getting set up/booked in the next couple of weeks. You can email me at davis.salisbury AT gmail and we can set something up.

cool I will hit you up, would love to see a show there - I just missed Michael Hurley last time.

I opened for him last time he came through and managed to bum several folks out, which was a little weird/too bad, as I didn't mean to, but I am used to only "heads" showing up who are generally up for anything, but there were some acoustic enthusiasts there who did not want to experience guitar feedback of any kind. Daniel got pissed at them though, which was nice of him.

this is hilarious and speaks well of Bachman imo, any dude who wears a Feeding Tube Records t-shirt is OK by me.

haha, yeah, i mean, obviously a guy like Bachman has to court the folkie/kottke-heads to some extent, but it's clear his tastes kinda lean in a more experimental direction.

these guys never come to the west coast unfortunately. which is why i'm psyched to see cian nugent in a couple months, even though the venue isn't the best. one of the good things about potentially moving east is seeing shows like this more often.

what's up with people still getting bent out of shape because every "folk" act isn't exactly like they expect it to be? geez. not in the spirit of folk music imo.

It wasn't hilarious at the time, an older guy asked for his money back, which I actually felt badly for! But yeah Daniel wasn't fazed or worried that he was alienating the base so to speak, which is again very cool of him. He seems to have a pretty healthy outlook on the career thing, i.e., I don't think he is trying to get as big as he possibly can, I think he just wants to see how far he can take his playing before burning out on the touring thing, which is about the only sane approach to take.

Sleeve, I saw Michael Hurley at the old Prism Coffee House space, but that would have been 1999/2000 or something. Are you going back that far or did I miss him coming back to town somehow?

yeah honestly i'm trying to do shows now and if you could almost design a type of music to be difficult to book, it's like i'm not really cool or "experimental" (whatever that means in 2014) to play the art spaces/house venues but it's too "weird" or at least not objectively fun enough or have really majorly meaninful lyrics about the hard tymes of life for the nu-folk dudes around down that have cool pompadours and wear motorcycle boots with cuffed jeans :/

all my friends play in punk/postpunk/underground bands or w/e

never understood asking for money back at a show or a movie tbh, seems rude. you're paying for an experience and if you don't like it...well it happens. that's a more general complaint extending into areas beyond post-fahey folk though.

it is totally rude! i think the problem is with them, not you. i mean obviously right?

you are all betrayers of true folk imo

i've never asked for money back at a movie, even 'wing commander' starring matthew lillard.

which is not folky at all but still, it was cool

i dealt

Sleeve, I saw Michael Hurley at the old Prism Coffee House space, but that would have been 1999/2000 or something. Are you going back that far or did I miss him coming back to town somehow?

hmmm I thought there was a more recent one! I could be wrong but I am pretty sure it was at the downtown teahouse, not Prism. when you say "old", do you mean "defunct"?

xp it is crazy, i mean, how much did the bachman show cost -- $5?

Let's be clear here, I was not playing folk, which I think is what the problem was. I am very squarely in minimal electric psych/improv territory, mixed in with some playing that is a little folky here and there, so if you showed up to a show expecting acoustic guitars/banjos and then had to watch some dude bow a lapsteel and coax feedback from an amp then you maybe would have a case for "not signing up for this shit" syndrome. Still, if they had walked outside for 15 minutes and then come back they would have enjoyed two absolutely great and painless acoustic sets and could have just chalked it up to the opener being shitty/not their thing.

Cost was $7 I think.

Sleeve, I lived in NYC for a while, so he may have played here during that stretch and I would have had no idea. The Prism closed a while ago, but apparently some folks are trying to revive it at a downtown location.

1) honestly dealt w/it

2) "I want my money back because I did not enjoy the music of an opening act who 1 hour ago I had no idea even who it even was and I still got to see Daniel Bachman for $7 and now I'm mad" GTFO

UMS, I hope setting up shows gets easier for you. In my town, which is small, you just make do. You would fit in with plenty of stuff coming through, but that middle-ground is hard in some towns. Honestly there were a ton of years where I played with either spazzy/superloud/aggro/weird rock bands or noise folks, and neither was exactly perfect (though I am into all of those things), but there just weren't many people coming through town that ever made perfect sense. Right now just seems to be a relatively good time in regards to a pretty broad range of stuff being in the wheelhouse. If you ever want to come to Charlottesville I can set up a show for you!

::puffs on pipe:: ironic how pre-fahey the notions of 'folk music' being bandied around on this thread are ::rocks on chair::

Hah I don't like using the word generally, but I think I was attempting to channel the audience somewhat. Really "acoustic enthusiasts" was a catchall I am more comfortable with. In regards to my own playing I hate to this day telling people what the hell I do, but "folk" would not be a word I would associate with it generally.

Ogmor, I like this "puffs on pipe/rocks on chair" commentary!