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

I am unaware of any alt-country as intensely focused on a playfully self-aware & ironic presentation as Fahey. alt-country always seemed v sincere & straight w/ stirring strings & v clearly telegraphed emotions.

With the exception of Oldham who was kind of limited in w that at the time yr mostly right

Aside from Fahey nabbing stuff from blues and folk and Bartók or whatever, I think his 'authenticity' comes from elsewhere, some hard to pin down 'otherness' or transferable mental state. There's thousands of similar guitarists around, but no one sounds quite like Fahey - and none that are quite such a tough listen. Whether it finally comes down to some sort of 'outside' status, I dunno, but Fahey's out there on his own for me.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of when I referred to him as the Dylan figurehead of his approach: he's not just *any* arty suburban kid etc. News from Tompkins Square:

ALICE GERRARD'S 'FOLLOW THE MUSIC' OUT SEPT. 30
Produced by M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger). Featuring members of Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun

"Alice Gerrard has one of those voices that harkens back to the likes of Sara and Maybelle. She is the real deal with the right stuff and hasn't forgotten where country music came from."
- Emmylou Harris (June, 2014)

** Alice Gerrard turns 80 tomorrow, July 8 ! **

The trailblazing folksinger famously collaborated with Hazel Dickens. Their classic recordings for Folkways and Rounder in the '60's and 70's "rank among the most influential recordings in folk music history," (All Music Guide), and laid the groundwork for many artists, especially female bluegrass and folk musicians.

'Follow The Music' features traditional tunes and original songs by Alice, produced by Hiss Golden Messenger's M.C. Taylor, and features members of Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun. Available on LP/CD/DL via Tompkins Square, September 30th, 2014.

Hear / post a track from 'Follow The Music' - "Boll Weevil":
https://soundcloud.com/tompkinssquare/boll-weevil-by-alice-gerrard

"original songs" too; cool.

https://i1.sndcdn.com/artworks-000084355141-g3ec7u-t500x500.jpg?e76cf77

<3

wrote up a couple of those VDSQ LPs for Delta Slider over here: http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/2014/07/vin-du-selecte-qualitite-2014-trio-of.html
all good -- the orcutt one might be the one I like the most though!

i got a copy of Acoustic Guitar magazine a while back and it's kind of hard to tell sometimes with their reviews what's cool and what's kinda "guitar mag" type post-Hedges slappin n harmonic type shit but anyway their main review was for the album Rattlesnake Cage by a guy named Steve Dawson

been digging the hell out of it...

http://www.stevedawson.ca/

sounds like he must be some kind of producer/sideman dude in Canada (7 Juno awards, bro)....but anyway it's very polished and pro sounding but not overly slick.....very much on the more approachable side of American Primitive (early Lang and Kottke)...quality of the songwriting and playing is top notch...seems like he's not from the "hip" world as much but I think it's a fantastic record...(record cover art ain't so good either haha)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jfwd0QkP2k

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ALVARIUS B and SAM SHALABI schedule East Coast tour dates for August 2014

From Cairo, Alvarius B and opener Sam Shalabi play shows this summer in NY, RI, MA, ME, and Montreal.

The first 75 people at the door each night will receive a free Poon Village Records screenprinted, not-for-sale, tour-only 7" pressed at Gotta Groove Record Pressing, featuring two unreleased recordings by Alvarius B, and artwork by Byron Coley. Please purchase tickets in advance.

Alvarius B.

Photo by Frank Schmitt

Thurs. 08/14 – Brooklyn, NY, Union Pool (w/ Byron Coley)

Fri. 08/15 – Brooklyn, NY, Union Pool (w/ Byron Coley)

http://union-pool.com/

Sat. 08/16 – Pawtucket, RI, Machines With Magnets

http://machineswithmagnets.com/

Sun. 08/17 – Somerville, MA, Johnny D’s

http://johnnyds.com/

Mon. 08/18 – Portland, ME, Portland Empire

http://www.portlandempire.com/

Wed. 08/20 – Northampton, MA, Feeding Tube

https://www.facebook.com/FeedingtubeRecords

Fri. 08/22 – Montreal, PQ, CA, La Vitrola

http://lavitrola.ca/

Sat. 08/23 – Montreal, PQ, CA, La Plante

“I think it’s fair to say that in AB we have the most inspiring and wholesome, cussing, violent and truthful musical interpenetrator of the psychic Realities that has probably ever graced this fair and fucked land.”

Trey Spruance (Mr. Bungle/Mimicry Records/ Secret Chiefs 3)

“Sun City Girls were the Sun Ra of the 80s punk hardcore scene and the 90s indie scene, and remained the craziest, most interesting, and most inspired group into the millennium.”

Tom Lax (Siltbreeze Records)

“His ability to dart back and forth between patient notes and unruly chords fuses those elements to the point where you don’t know whether he’s improvising or reverently recreating an ancient tune—and, more importantly, you don’t care.”

Marc Masters (Pitchfork)

Purchase link for ALVARIUS B. titles:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/ALVARIUS.B.html

Purchase link for SAM SHALABI titles:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/SearchResult.html?SearchType=Basic&Type=artist&Key=shalabi

Alvarius B. biography:

Alan Bishop (AKA Alvarius B.) is a founding member of Seattle’s avant-garde and genre-defying Sun City Girls, whose career spans 27 years and over fifty releases. His work in Sun City Girls, with Richard Bishop and Charles Gocher, alone stands as a testament to his fearless exploration of the outer reaches of improvisation and composition. From their free jazz/post rock psychedelic trio roots, to sprawling radio broadcasts incorporating noise, Italian pop, and sound collage, to gorgeous outernational Arabic and Asian inspired folk music, the group maintained their singular and uncompromising path from inception. Their musical restlessness continues to resonate in the wake of the passing of Charles Gocher and their subsequent disbanding.

As founder of the Sublime Frequencies record label, Bishop has released over 90 records, introducing previously ignored musical genres from Syria, Burma, Indonesia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Niger, Thailand, India, Morocco, Egypt, Western Sahara, Cambodia, Algeria, and Turkey.

And as Alvarius B., Bishop has penned hundreds of his own original folk songs in a primitive “out” style that is unlike anything that anyone else is doing now. This body of work is informed by an obsessive love of psychedelic rock & folk music, Italian film soundtracks, and an extraordinary sense of humor. Over much of the past four years, Bishop has been living in Cairo, composing & recording new Alvarius B. material while simultaneously establishing his own Egyptian-based band, The Invisible Hands.

Sam Shalabi short biography:

Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer and improviser living between Montreal, Quebec and Cairo, Egypt. Beginning in punk rock in the late ‘70s, his work has evolved into a fusion of experimental modern Arabic music that incorporates traditional Arabic, chaabi, noise, classical, text, free improvisation and jazz. He has released five solo albums (including On Hashish - a musical mediation on German writer Walter Benjamin, Osama, an audio collage on Arabophobia in the wake of 9/11, and his most recent Music for Arabs), five albums with Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges Western psychedelic music and Arabic Maquam (scales) and three albums with Land Of Kush (an experimental 30-member orchestra, for which he composes).

Tour webpage:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/Alvariusbeastcoasttour2014.html

Just played an open mic. Guy came up to me afterword and said my playing reminded him off Stephen Stills. I'm choosing to take that as a compliment.

Hah that is pretty awesome. Whatever else S. Stills may be, he is definitely a good guitar player.

yeah he's pretty good! i hope he didn't mean personality-wise.

did you go on an unintelligible rant about watergate during your set?
i kinda love that sort of thing -- getting feedback from people whose musical background is pretty different from your own. last show i played a guy thought we sounded "kinda tom petty-ish." which is not what we're going for, but whatever! who doesn't love tom petty.

The same show in which an older guy asked for his money back and a bunch of teenagers laughed because they thought the feedback I was making was an accident, an older guy came up to me after the show and told me it reminded him of Popol Vuh/Cluster and early Floyd, which I'll definitely take.

You guys may have seen this already, I am sure it is bumping out to all the folks right about now, but a new Steve Gunn track just went up via NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/07/09/327768713/song-premiere-steve-gunn-millys-garden?ft=1&f

Haven't checked it yet though.

older guy came up to me after the show and told me it reminded him of Popol Vuh/Cluster and early Floyd, which I'll definitely take.

i'd say!! that's as high praise as you could get!

Well yeah, I thanked him for sure and was psyched to imagine I had taken him "there", don't get me wrong. Just don't really imagine I am hitting as hard as any of that stuff, but I am certainly giving it a go. Maybe it is time for me to find my local Pompeii and set up a show.

!!!

http://www.tinymixtapes.com/news/chris-forsyth-the-solar-motel-band-releasing-intensity-ghost-in-october

Guess you are gonna hear a lot of this album on the 14th Global (and UMS?), enjoy! Look forward to a report.

Yep! I'm actually opening the show! I'm quite excited and terrified. It's at my favorite venue in MPLS. I might post a live recording of my show, if it goes well.

nice!

Oh man, very cool! I got to open for them here (but with a duo, much less nerve-wracking than playing solo) in February and it was great, they are really nice folks. That should be a really good show. Do you go acoustic or electric live generally?

Tyler, that Orcutt song you included in that piece is great, you definitely nailed it as a great entry to the Orcutt "thing". Good piece too.

I play electric, I like using some FX- it's a good way to work up some of the multi-track arrangements I've got on the upcoming release as well as reinterpret some of my old stuff

Cool, hope you do get a recording of it, would like to hear what a set sounds like (and maybe we would get to hear a preview of some of the upcoming record?).

Sorry to be bombing this thread so much today, but just listening to this William Tyler release on Lightning Records, nice mix of the "many moods of William Tyler", plus a long duo track with percussionist Tim Barnes. Pretty cool stuff:

http://lightningrecords.bandcamp.com/album/blue-ash-montgomery

bomb away! glad to see that, thought it might be tape-only. will have to grab the digital.

yeah, thanks for posting!

Not sure how the whole Lightning thing works. They did a big Kickstarter launch where you subscribe and get all of the tapes along with a magazine and a bunch of other stuff I believe (I did not subscribe because no $$$ at the time) but I am not sure if you can buy the tapes outright or not. They are streaming each of the tapes on that site though. Some other good folks there, Wooden Wand and People of the North (Bobby and Kid from Oneida) both in the first batch of tapes.

The Barnes/Tyler track really gets smoking at the end, definitely worth a listen. Pretty "free" but great playing for sure.

been listening to Gillian Welch a lot lately and her longtime guitarist/collaborator David Rawlings is really a fantastic guitar player across the board from fingerpicking to electric lead stuff...in a way reminds me of Richard Thompson not for style necessarily but just his facility as a player and overall great quality....

anyway, here's a great clip of The David Rawlings Machine doing Led Zep's Going to California w/Gillian and John Paul Jones...I usually hate Zep covers but this is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYeq6XoOg8s

yeah dude, i think rawlings doing an instrumental record would be fantastic.

yeah i was hoping i would find one but doesn't seem to be

in other news, man gillian welch is a really great songwriter, feel bad for not getting into her sooner

I love J. Paul Jones, what a versatile dude. Nice version of the tune too.

This one was REALLY hard to play with reduced cringestakes so here's the best I could do before going mad:

https://soundcloud.com/factual-1/click

I appreciate feedback if you have thoughts!

DGDGbBE

I might re-upload after mixing it a little differently... could definitely sound cleaner (like the way "Kozy" sounded, but not panned to one side. I need to get better at recording!).

That's really pretty Evan. Reminds me of some of the Sea and Cake stuff a bit in tone, but some nice turnarounds. Maybe even some of that early Tortoise (Pajo) guitar sound too, not sure why but apparently I am getting full on mid-90s vibes from it, hope that is OK.

hey evan - i really like it and echo grandavis, it's kinda giving me thrill jockey vibes in a good way....nicely composed and very calming to listen to

i actually like the diffuse sound

chuck johnson posted this on soundcloud

"a chef's life vol 2" (three songs, don't know why it's called that)

https://soundcloud.com/chuck_johnson/sets/a-chefs-life-season-2

yeah sounds really good, evan!
got to hear the new bachman LP and the guy just seems to be getting better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9cT8Qp_RMQ

Thank you all! Funny you say mid 90s since early to mid 90s music makes up most of my all-time favorites

...though I wasn't expecting that to come through at all with this piece!

I played it a bit robotically in my opinion due to it being the 50th take or so and it really is a knotty composition so it's tough to get both the bass and melody on point per chord.

Let's all remember that Bachman is like 23 years old. Assuming he doesn't get bored of this guitar thing who knows where he'll take it. Feel like his feel for nuance and songwriting is definitely ratcheting up though.

haha totally. boy, when I think of all the stuff I had accomplished by the age of 23 ... actually I can't think of anything.
chuck johnson thing is for the PBS series "a chef's life"! http://www.pbs.org/food/shows/a-chefs-life/

what kind of guitar is that? has a neck like a lapsteel but it's acoustic

he's great

fahey was born in 39 so he would have been in his early 20s when he did his first stuff too
man i suck & am old :/

i was a total mess when i was 23
this kid has got it together!

Hah I was a mess through like age 30. Sure wish while I was a mess I practiced guitar a lot more though. Bonus is that you can "age gracefully" playing solo guitar and doing improv stuff as opposed to being in a band that has to appeal to an actual demographic beyond the 5-20 people in any given town that care about this stuff.

I think what Bachman is playing is still a lapsteel, just not an electric one, but not positive.

i want to take up the guitar, i haven't played it since i was 12. i plan on being an epic faheyite when i'm 80, maybe put out a little something on tompkins square

Good plan. You can still gig at 80 if all you gotta do is show up with an acoustic guitar.