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

Hey Global, congrats on the record as well! I look forward to hearing it. I told you I thought your stuff was good enough to release, glad someone else thought so as well.

Really enjoying that version of "Dance ...." as well, thanks for posting that.

Thanks man! I remember when you said that, it meant a lot and made me think I might have something going on. Ya, I love that version of Dance. At 4:20 when he gets into the really prolonged exploratory droney bits it just gets so ethereal, it honestly gives me chills every time I listen to it. Still haven't heard anything that quite approaches it. I love how rapturous the audience sounds at the end, too... like, a big theater full of hundreds of people just totally on board with and eating up this freakshow instrumental drone thing? Fine by me!

I met William Tyler last week and recorded 3 lo-fi videos of his set.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHChzgn6ET4&index=2&list=PLk4j0PHOV1BOm_G9HEaQI0_apV9iMjg7q
It was nice and I forgot how great he is in creating beautiful ambient soundscapes with his guitar.
There is also some shredding and light head banging :)
I also uploaded a song from his debut as solo guitarist under the name The Paper Hats, from 2008. The album Deseret Canyon will be re-released under his own name, so people hopefully won't refer to Behold the Spirit as his first album anymore. It was just not first released in the US.
But it's a great mixture of ambient music and hist great guitar work
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZhQXUGE5us

And not to forget "Come and See" his first 4-track collage work http://www.apparent-extent.com/index.php?id=151 but that goes too far ...

Jerry Hionis released a new thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQtVtXE1Xw

http://jerryhionis.bandcamp.com/album/arrakian-circle-dances

that sounds p lush, i would love to get that rose-ian tone. hionis seems like a v interesting character (to the point of almost seeming like a literary creation), his stuff always has nifty artwork, & he's quite possibly the best guitarist amongst the current crop of islamic economic theorists

I like that Hionis track, cool low-end slide action. Hadn't resonated that much with the past stuff here, despite it being very accomplished in obvious ways, maybe felt a bit stiff to me (or just didn't have new enough angles to it to catch my ears at the time). I'll try to dig in more, but really listening to it made me immediately want to hear that Swarthmore "Dance ...." from Fahey posted above. That is some straight-up gold. His tone sounds almost electric on some of the low-end slide parts (which Global notes starts around 4:20 and gets real heavy/weird at the 6:20 mark), it is just such an active/full tone man. Makes me want to play an acoustic guitar, which rarely happens.

ogmor:

the best guitarist amongst the current crop of islamic economic theorists

oh lord, haha, thank you.

i'm jealous he is number one in that group though, i thought i was hip to that first

There can be only one Neal. Seems like you and Jerry Hionis are going to have to cut heads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYW177hXFE8

oh damn! after a bit of reading, i had no idea about jerry's background, thanks for leading me to that ogmor

haha thanks sir davis

Hah "sir davis", I like that as long as I don't have to go up against Rick Bishop to keep it!

That Blind Blake tune on Hionis' Arrakian Circle Dances is really great. I love when that stuff isn't played with fragile dancing fingers, but rather taken under consideration with a heavy hand.

His approach from the world's perspective is the best though, I love all the things he is implying with these records. It may seem superficial to some, but all the storytelling that goes along with this stuff is a huge thing to me as a listener. The music might over lap in ideas, but completely injecting a listener with your family background or personal perspectives (a la Bachman) is at least half of the deal for me.

I'd love to learn more about what all these ideas mean that Hionis is bringing to the table.

Also, with 'Our Beloved' reaching into 'Now That I'm A Man Full Grown' territory, that is worthy more ears.

completely injecting a listener with your family background or personal perspectives (a la Bachman) is at least half of the deal for me.

totally agree w/this

re: 'Tall Topi Two Step' from Arrakian Circle Dances, oh god I could survive on this stuff alone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXhuKGxLNt8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf6OjxYPzoo

speaking about Bachman's family (or somesing) dat hip online 7" mag Singles.FM just released this interview/feature in yellowish vintage tinted colours:
http://journal.singlesclub.fm/journal/daniel-bachman/

Feeding Tube records ( http://www.feedingtuberecords.com/ )is also releasing Bachman's Black-Green-Gray on vinyl and a record by Gangsta-Folk-Freak-Frank Hurricane/Hurricanes of Love

https://vimeo.com/40676616

ha, there's empiricism behind all my apparent whimsy, mb. jack rose had that thing about the alternating bass (wrt fahey) being 'as exaggerated/macho as anything in led zep' & the way he plays it so hard on flirtin w/ the undertaker &c. is indeed ridiculous, but i could never get on board w/ it, tho i imagine it would be fun to play like that.

i think blind blake kind of ruined this for everyone else, as far as i can tell he kind of invented this (ridiculously virtuosic) way of playing & immediately took it to a level way beyond what anyone else could get to, making wry asides the whole time. fahey had a bash at west coast blues in his heyday & it's probably the best effort from any of these guys in checked shirts we like to extol but he was still otm not being satisfied enough to issue it.

it does seem really sad what happened to blind blake, not even able to find paying work as a musician in his last few years & dead before he made it to 40. he's one of these guys i just hope he knew how good he was, and would find it funny rather than depressing that there's a whole load of guys making money trying to play half as well. the stefan grossman guitar workshop has some quality stuff on this end for anyone that's not aware of it. it's expensive but it's kind of a treasure trove, ppl breaking down the technique of e.g. joseph spence, rev gary davis, lessons from big jf himself, it's good.

Hey Chinaksi - would love to read that Tuma piece if it's archived anywhere! I saw him play once at the Empty Bottle in Chicago - was great.

Finally decided to start archiving some stuff - cheers for the kick up the arse! http://mountain7.co.uk/2014/03/04/an-interview-with-scott-tuma/

- Blind Blake is kinda new to me. Those recordings are incredible.

- Just having first listen to the Ryley Walker album. The Jansch thing is so apparent, I have to sort of forcibly ignore it, but he's really got something going on.

also may as well stick this here too if anyone fancies a spotify guitar playlist...

Volk Guitar - http://open.spotify.com/user/ogmor/playlist/6YJVAWIuy5Xk2wBtbI4zj3

updated this, will probably do so again. (predominantly) instrumental (mostly) solo guitar music from around the world, featuring plenty of pre-fahey, unamerican sophisticates. as of right now, contains:

Joe Keawe & His Harmony Hawaiians - Hookipa Paka
Geeshie Wiley - Last Kind Words
Otto Virgial - Little Girl In Rome
La Fonegara / Santiago de Murcia - Zarambecques o Muecas
Bola Sete - Samba De Orfeu
Steffen Basho-Junghans - One No.1: Part III
Grup Bamba Puang - Kemayoran
Ghédalia Tazartès - Le Crabe Ne Joue Jamais à La Poupée
Joseph Spence - We Shall Be Happy
Sam McGee - Buck Dancer's Choice
Sabicas - La Gran Jota
Tetuzi Akiyama - Close The Door
Blind Blake - Guitar Chimes
Baden Powell - Canto de Ossanha
Krysztof Piotrowicz - The Gypsies Were Travelling
T.O. Jazz - Sore Saol
Jesse Fuller - Hark From The Tomb
Harris Newman - Cloud City
Christina Carter - Dream Mother
Ali Farka Touré - Lalayche
Blind Willie Johnson - God Moves On The Water
Sahilin & Siti Rohmah - Nasib Muara Kuang
Jean Bosco Mwenda - Masanga
Weaver & Beasley - St. Louis Blues
Aldo Rodriguez / Leo Brouwer - El Decameron Negro: III. Balada de la Doncella Enamorada
Jim McAuley - The Eyelids of Buddha
Eric Schoenberg - Dill Pickle Rag
John Schneider / Lou Harrison - Scenes from Nek Chand: I. The Leaning Lady
Julian Bream / Heitor Villa-Lobos - Prelude No. 2 In E Major
Rev. Gary Davis - The Boy Was Kissing The Girl

Cor, that looks ace. Cheers.

Yeah, that looks like a great list Ogmor, thanks for that. Going to try to listen to it today.

fire up Spotify, praise Ogmar

yeah blind blake kinda knocks your socks off just because while i love tons of stuff from that era he's definitely more technically adept and polished than you typically expect from that era

Charlie Parr has a new instrumental album out with Alan Sparhawk from Low, sounds pretty cool, a little looser and weirder than his usual stuff but very rooted in blues and folk

https://soundcloud.com/chaperonerecords/charlie-parr-w-alan-sparhawk

"jack rose had that thing about the alternating bass (wrt fahey) being 'as exaggerated/macho as anything in led zep' & the way he plays it so hard on flirtin w/ the undertaker &c. is indeed ridiculous, but i could never get on board w/ it, tho i imagine it would be fun to play like that."

that's kinda hilarious. do you have a link to that interview? that style is fun to play, or try to play anyway.

alternating bass is kind of a weird thing to perceive as necessarily being macho or not macho...i mean....it's a technique and a style but i mean i don't really see it as "macho" per se

xxp blind blake is incredible but there are quite a few other ppl from that era you cld put in that bracket too, what's amazing about like 26-34 is that there was a crazy concentration of virtuosic fingerstyle guitarists, more than any other period (who knows before then, but it feels like that initial recording boom only raised ppl's game), not to mention lots of oddballs. it's not w/out reason that joe bussard deems it the apex of civilization, there was an unparalleled amount of innovation & y'know, ~scenius~. there are good copyists around now but it's not the same thing.

rose was talking about fare forward voyagers-style longform stuff where fahey was trying all this grand structure but still sticking w/ this droning/bludgeoning bass. i think the interview was from the wire but i'm not sure. i actually brought it up w/ him & he kind of lamented that it had been misinterpreted & ppl had thought he was comparing JF to led zep in some musical sense, but played in that way it is definitely a kind of ridiculous affectation that fahey did, of course, pretty much ditch in the end.

I'm guessing it's a 'yes' but are Bussard's WREK shows worth checking out? I'll try track down that documentary, too - looks like it's been aired on the BBC in the past.

loving the revamped volk guitar playlist

It is an apex of civilization :)

I loved that question Byron asks Glenn and Jack in 'The Things That We Used To Do' - "..which came first, for you: Fahey or country blues?"

I've kept up a running mytube playlist over the years of everything I deem as country blues gold, yes it is bias, but I don't have that pre-1934 or death attitude. It defiantly is all fingerpicked players that tend to fill the space with sound rather than that later 1940+ technique of Chicago single-note-plucking, blue note bending playing, BB King full band blues. None of that please, I like to keep it as grounded as possible.

Rural Rags, Country Blues & Gospel Gold

I do have a huge bias for VA/TN/NC/GA regions though, especially Georgia, guys like Frank Stokes.

It always surprises me that more solo guitar fans don't eventually switch over, fall into that R. Crumb kind of rabbit hole mindset and become completely obsessed.

Grossman is funny to watch and it's good to see him have his head in the right place, I mean he's been there alongside Fahey the entire time, back to the Fonotone days, but people look at him in a different, frilly/lighter way. It makes sense to see him like that, but he does bring in a good crop of guys like John Miller into his teaching studios.

The dynamics of the country blues crowd is interesting as well, it seems like at times the older generations have nothing at all in common with people who come at it from other music genres like solo guitar. The arguments, ethos, and secrecy between the fans is silly but also interesting. I suggest anyone who is interested to start lurking on the Weenie Campbell forum, probably one of the top/highly updated/full of people with industry 'names'/country blues forum. And their radio is the greatest thing in all of existence.

xp i was originally slightly bemused by the rose quote, cos I thought "it's just a bit of technique, it's neutral!" (& i really hated led zep), but now i agree w/ him. there are a bunch of fahey tracks where you find yrself Waiting For The Bass, which is v fun, but definitely exaggerated macho nonsense.

glad to see the playlist going down well, v curious what ppl pick out or hear any similar playlists

neal there's lots of quality stuff on that youtube list, will have a mooch later. don't know the weenie campbell forum but i am definitely going to have a look! the hardcore old time crowd is quite fierce, the original generation of faheyite guitar fans are by&large so lovely though.

still not sure i'm quite getting the macho thing, is it alternating bass as in using different root notes (occurs more in standard tuning), or that big continual octave-playing thing that lends itself better to an open tuning? i'm super curious to hear what you mean. care to give an example of a moment where you're 'waiting for the bass'?

what a great thread

that Ghédalia Tazartès track stopped me in my tracks, damn

Finally decided to start archiving some stuff - cheers for the kick up the arse! http://mountain7.co.uk/2014/03/04/an-interview-with-scott-tuma/

Really enjoyed this - thank you! You seem to have won him over with your lead-off about the weather. His anti-careerist stance (if you can even call it that; seems too strong a word!) is equally refreshing and frustrating. Frustrating mainly because I think he's great and deserves much wider recognition--but then again, I feel that way about a lotta the people mentioned in this thread!

Yeah, read that interview a bit ago as well, it was refreshing to me as well, seems like a cool guy. Had no idea he was in The Boxhead Ensemble, really dig some of those records they made (though maybe he was just more in the live group it seems). Still, good stuff. Gonna have to find more, really like the solo stuff of his posted in that interview.

Tazartèz is also a cool guy, was psyched to see him pop up in that playlist! Still haven't had a chance to listen ....

hehe - that weather stuff makes me cringe (as do a whole bunch of the 'leading' questions) but hey, it reads pretty well. Cheers all. The Boxhead Ensemble stuff I've heard is great - gloomy, fragile post-rock. Quartets is the best of the ones I've heard.

That Tazartès track had much the same affect on me. Immense. I've for Repas Froid somewhere - will have to dig it out. Really liked the Grup Bamba Puang track, too. It's only tangentially related, but this album is fabulous and well worth tracking down: http://www.discogs.com/Various-Guitar-Paradise-Of-East-Africa/release/4026309

RE: macho-isms in the alt. bass

I hope I can tell this story correctly, but I had Ryley and Daniel play at my house in Richmond, VA back on their first tour in 2011. Dan kept joking about Ryley's road habits and girls. If you've ever hung out with Ryley, it really only takes 10min to realize how hilarious and off-kilter his sense of humor is, love him to death. I don't know how it happened, but a girl who was probably in high school ended up inviting lots of her friends to the show, I have no idea if they were their for the music or the idea that our house had a party that night.

Either way, on that tour specifically, Dan and Ryley ended most of their shows with electric guitars and an intense improv. Long story short, a couple of the girls were talking pretty damn loud and Ryley couldn't concentrate on the environs. I've never seen anyone do this before, but he used the alternating bass as crowd control > he literally stood up, guitar strap on, and walked within inches of the group talking and started heavily slamming down on the low tuned alt. bass, with this stare of death in his eyes. Hhaha good lord it was hilarious and very awkward, but it worked. I've never seen another unaccompanied guitar show like that.

I guess that's more along the lines of alternating bass used as crowd control and gaining instant hierarchy... rather than macho-isms. I like that idea more.

There defiantly is an instant 'presence' exuded when you use heavy alternating bass. One thing I've always loved about most of Rose's work is that he never dampens the strings with the palm of his right hand, if you watch a lot of Grossman videos or other country blues instructionals, you will see how most everyone suggests you dampen the bass notes so it doesn't over power your technique. I say to hell with that and let it over power everything.

I'm confused abt why we are talking about Tazartes but I must have missed something above the fold (Youtube link?), he is amazing and unique. Diasporas and Transports are both just unbelievably good.

Sleeve, check Ogmor's spotify playlist posted above, lots of good stuff, Tazartèz being one of the things included. Need to hear more to be frank.

i think the bass ties into fahey's idea of the guitar as an orchestra, the way he played w/ v distinct parts, he made much more of a feature of the alt bass than someone like, say, chet atkins. it has a dramatic role, which is what i would guess jack rose was saying was macho & exaggerated. he used it to add mass - where it could get to sort of overwhelming, ridiculous levels like on the fahey/kottke/lang version of sunflower river blues which sounds enormous, almost terrifying - as well as momentum. the way he deployed it later during his ridiculous intros phase, he ratchets-up tension, prepares the ground w/ bare, often minor key melodic stop-start stuff, & then when the bass arrives it's pure release, like adding drums or a big distorted chorus, an instant hit propulsion & volume, making everything swing. on some of the longer tracks like dalhart texas, mark 1:15, ffv, it's definitely a huge build-up to the bass. but he never relied on it & he varied things enough that he was never predictable, which is not true of a lot of his disciples, imo

i have lately been finding palm muted stuff really refreshing, but i think a variety is best re: dynamics

if you watch a lot of Grossman videos or other country blues instructionals, you will see how most everyone suggests you dampen the bass notes so it doesn't over power your technique. I say to hell with that and let it over power everything.
― Neal Cassady, Wednesday, March 5, 2014 3:18 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

When I took lessons with Peter Lang he encouraged me to palm mute the bass notes, said it sounds less muddled

^^peter lang? that's great dude - what year was this?

Last year. He's an amazing guy. Gives lessons through a music school here. I think global tetrahedron took lessons from him too.

I had to quit cuz my wife was out of work. How to start again.

He's a great, patient teacher but honestly is expect I would have paid just for the stories alone

I bought glenn jones' the wanting and chris forsyth's paranoid cat yesterday. both incredible LPs and my 2 1/2 yr old is a huge paranoid cat fan already, he told me "make it louder".

Sounds like your son knows what's up... I'm taking lessons with Forsyth! Start tomorrow via Skype. Hope my wretched Comcast connection holds up.

oh shit yeah i saw that on facebook...how much?