ILX Gonna Shine in My Backdoor Someday (new post-Fahey folk for ppl posting in Takoma/Tompkins Square threads Pt II)

Cool, thanks Neal! Actually already listened to your "Blue For al-Watawit of Yashkur" tracks (Mr. Avant Ghetto threw them up on twitter yesterday), really enjoyed them. First track sucked me right in, so yeah make a recording you are happy with and I am on board!

neal - or others - what microphones/mic pres do you guys use? this coming year i need to get serious about recording an album

like your new stuff neal

the only Tashi Dorji song on Spotify is a cool little curio, electronic remix featuring his guitar of a song by some psychey dude name Al Lover

http://open.spotify.com/track/2HxzI5VuTvgdbTGolZ7x7G

Thanks dudes, I have always just been using a portable digital Tascam recorder from B&H Photo that I bought a while back. It fits in your pocket so I've used it while out and walking around, but it's not a good choice for recording guitar at this point, I loved it at first bc of how much of an improvement it was over using the internal MacBook mic. I sold my two amps (+all other musical electronics) years ago during collage, which I regret now. As I would like to record traditionally with a mic and amp set up. Either using the sound hole or install a pick up. How about USB mics? Been talked about here before I think. Decent clarity from the models available now?

I think the solution is to just meet someone in town with a set up :) - that way I can avoid all of this.

I've posted things upthread recorded with the Blue Yeti (120 new but you can def find a ton of these used on ebay, got mine for 80 on craigslist)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=857749&gclid=Cj0KEQiA8MSkBRCP5LaRlcOAusMBEiQAiqldkgFeoLzZuCr_Hg1GQ03TBk1qSggFdqEqo5fQpNn1jLgaAgF98P8HAQ&is=REG&Q=&A=details

you can hear the stuff i've done, which is minimally processed, a bit EQd and maybe compressed slighty with some audicity plugin reverb on it, but overall I'd say USB mics have come a long way

of course, I'm just plotting about how I want to get a USB DAC/Mic pre unit and a better XLR mic so I suppose one is always unsatisfied.

gonna check out yr new thing neal! i've dug the rag lore things i've heard so far.
just got hipped to this thing via soft abuse's twitter -- maybe it was mentioned on the old thread? https://moonbros.bandcamp.com/album/frijolillo - kind of low-key/dreamy/fieldrecording-y/acoustic action. i like it!

Neal there is also a USB model of the Blue Spark which is supposed to be great on acoustics

Nice yeah, I remember reading a while back about you UMS using the Blue Yeti for your material. If you search a phrase like 'USB mic acoustic guitar' on youtube the Blue Yeti seems to comes up the most, also something called the Snowball. Though, I think based on the sound samples the Yeti comes out on top. I'll look into that Blue Spark too.

No other time than now to get a project down. Should defiantly put together something. Stick it on a tape and send it to people, flinging around links is nerve racking sometimes though.

I used to work at the main public library of Virginia and was hired at the perfect moment where they were getting rid of all the old analog stereo equipment and vinyl records. It was a dream to hoard of that kind of stuff. I got a working reel to reel, but haven't yet grabbed any tape to use it. Would love to have it up and running.

Reel to reel would sound great

Grandavis did you end up heading to the hometown Daniel Bachman gig in Fredericksburg? A full video of it was posted a few days ago - includes some of the new material that should be coming up on the Three Lobed Record.

vimeo.com/114599709

Nah, I had to skip it as it was early in the day and I had too much to do. Watched the video already though! Wanna reiterate that I really like the new tunes that'll be on the next record. Bachman is chugging along into some sweet territory. The lap stuff is a real joy live too.

listening to that new Bachman right now, loving it, getting some sweet "Paris, Texas" vibes off of "Coming Home"

btw global is gonna be opening for bachman in mpls in the new year!

Very good shows happening in mpls these days, would love to catch that Metzger one (w/ Global and UMS) as well. Have fun with that.

Pretty nice playlist here from John Mulvey (his Uncut series). Lots of stuff hit up in this thread, but throwing more kudos towards Neal's Rag Lore "Blue For al-Watawit of Yashkur" tracks. Cool to see folks from here getting out there and bringing it. Hope you get that record made this year UMS!

my goal is to upgrade to a small basement studio, been scoping out gear and i think i get get a good setup going for less than $500

so easy to get obsessed w/researching gear/recording stuff but you also gotta remember that you won't ever make anything 1/2 as a good as a blind blake record that was recorded at less fidelity than the microphone on your iphone

i use my phone to record and i think it sounds pretty good!

for a basement recording with a device not built intentionally to record music

i am usually amazed by how good those iphone recordings come out. i mean, obviously not pro quality or anything... but good!

fwiw I once again voice my preference for separate threads for making this music / listening to this music. I'd frequent both, but these threads get p unwieldy as it is without microphone reviews and stuff.

merry christmas guys

"hello there, uh John Fahey here.."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrJQystmyl8

I thought "https" was supposed to block video embeds?

Oh well :/ still wishing well to everyone here anyway!

Alright, ventured into test threads.

Both "http" and "https" will embed viewable youtubes for me in Safari and Chrome.
If I use "www" as well as no URL prefix at all, the video won't embed.

Though, if I head back to the old thread, "https" links are still the way they were: not embedded.
That's all I've got, maybe this isn't the case for everyone else, but I'll leave out all http(s) going forward.

Always nice to spin the New Possibility during Xmas

this track here sounding awesome. wish records from these folks weren't so expensive to get shipped to the states... they're all so great!!

http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/12/10/black-dirt-oak-wayawanda-patent/

http://www.thefader.com/2014/05/01/another-country-folk-newcomer-myriam-gendron-sings-the-heartbroken-poetry-of-dorothy-parker

hey my wife came across this LP bc she's a massive dorothy parker fan and we mail-ordered it, it's music set to lyrics taken from parker's poetry. i think it would appeal to a lot of you guys.

heh, i just sold that to somebody. i liked it, but found i wasn't returning to it very often.

was listening to "the new possibility" last night and realized i don't really like it all that much. it seems very staid and unexciting compared to other fahey albums of the era. not the same heady mix of influences except in a few isolated passages. how to fahey fans rate those xmas albums anyway?

i think it sounds like a good idea on paper but it's a bit flat overall. especially as he kept on doing more and more of them. i think definitely an attempt to get some crossover money from the windham hill/leo kottke 'hot tub music' crowd.

don't really need to listen to it when i've got the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack

the crossover money must have worked for him, pretty sure every single fahey section in used record stores around town is stocked with multiple copies of those. i'm always hopeful when i start to rifle through and then i see a dozen xmas lps and one battered to shit copy of 'after the ball'...

The second Fahey christmas album is way better than the first because it sounds less like a christmas album and more like a proper Fahey album.

yeah, i do like that one better... ironically (?) that one is harder to find, i think it's OOP.

Speaking as a fan of Fahey and a fan of Christmas music, I don't listen to them much either - they sound too dry, austere to bring me much joy.

i th ink of them as being more conventionally pretty but less engaging than other fahey albums.

it's also sort of jarring to hear a lot of fahey's 'tricks' and picking techniques applied to something so straightforward as a christmas song you've heard a million times

"christ's saints of god fantasy" is a legit great piece, I like the slightly ridiculous russian christmas overture on the second album a lot too. all the best fahey duets are on old fashioned love imo but the ruskin ones aren't bad. I like some of the standards esp silent night on slide guitar, that's so gorgeous. the last piece on the second album is a bizarre mix of fahey in brooding bola sete mode and festive cheer that's my kind of christmas tune

^Agreed about "Christ's Saints of God Fantasy". From what I can recall, there were more than a couple moments that I do dig on the New Possibility. Maybe it's that all those moments came from this tune + "Silent Night".

The New Possibility (1968)
Christmas With John Fahey Volume II (1975)
Christmas Guitar - Volume One (1982)
Popular Songs of Christmas & New Years - with Terry Robb (1983)

I've always confusingly stared at inclusion of "Volume One" on the 1980 release, maybe it's because Varrick envisioned an entire series of "Christmas Guitar" on their label? Come to think of it, I've never listened to the 1983 release with Terry Robb. Not exactly a Christmas album, but "Yes, Jesus Loves Me - Guitar Hymns" (1980), could be included in this vein as well, and I'd say it's a pretty good one. Fahey is probably the only Christian music I've loved this much, hah! Imagine if his only recorded output was the Christmas albums and albums of hymns. What would our contemporary look like?

**I've always confusingly stared at inclusion of "Volume One" on the 1982 release

IIRC the playing can get a little sloppy (or "goopy" IMO) on yes, jesus loves me, but it's still somehow one of the better fahey albums, just because he draws a lot of inspiration from those old hymns.

i wonder why the 2nd christmas LP hasn't been properly reissued/remastered.

I was taking a look at discogs for that post and noticed Takoma & Rhino combined both Christmas volume 1 and 2 for a CD and cassette reissue in 1993. Then in 2012 Burnside Records cropped melodies and combined material from what looks like all the Christmas albums for a compilation generically titled "The John Fahey Christmas Album"... and in the process used a variation on the "Yes, Jesus Loves Me" album art for the cover of their comp. Man, if his catalog isn't one confusing thing after another.

Another bit of odd info is that Fahey used one of Ragtime Ralph's (credited as Ralph Johnston) compositions on the "Christmas Guitar - Volume One" album. I've always been bummed that Ralph's work still remain's officially unreleased at this point in time. Thankfully he used the resources of the internet though and has shared all his stuff with us that way. He says he's got a new album "Delta Slider Blues" ready for next year on his self-release label Empty Square.

I guess I'll be the one to stump for the New Possibility, where I can understand why people don't like it as a great Fahey record, and it is very autere and fairly unadventerous for him but I guess I sort of grew up going to a Lutheran church so I kind of find some kind of odd power in those fusty white key hymnal melodies and I think something in them resonates w.Fahey as well, whether it was greed driven or not it certainly wouldn't be the first or last time someone created art while trying to make a buck

but yeah it's very stately and sort of mournful to me, which i guess could be gloopy or overly staid to another's ears but something about it resonates w/me

it's definitely one of the most "uncool" Fahey records, maybe aside from the corny parts of Old Fashioned Love (which I kinda like too actually)

but yeah xmas hymns sort of resonate in some way back part of my mind being a little kid and going to "candlelight" xmas eve services w/my grandma or mom, where they turn the lights down and everyone gets to hold a candle which seemed really eerie to me in a way that stuff can only seem when you are very little

but yeah xmas hymns sort of resonate in some way back part of my mind being a little kid and going to "candlelight" xmas eve services w/my grandma or mom, where they turn the lights down and everyone gets to hold a candle which seemed really eerie to me in a way that stuff can only seem when you are very little

I have the same exact resonance with tunes like "Silent Night" and childhood church experiences. Can remember some seriously extended versions (that would be primarily instrumental) that would go as long as it would take for the candle-lighting to make its way to the back of the room. I got lost in that moment for sure, both eerie and beautiful and heavy all at once. Still love that tune (as evidenced by the cover I posted last year).

I will also rep for New Possibility, my mom would play that during the holidays when I was young and I've always loved it, it is certainly a different beast though

i dig the new possibility, austere is a very good word for it though

http://www.discogs.com/artist/1846960-Ralph-Johnston

Over the past day or so I went all in and submitted all of Ralph Johnston's Ragtime Ralph/Blind Brand X projects to the Discogs database. Good lord is that a tedious process. But I wanted to make sure his solo guitar discography is noted alongside his past efforts as a member of various surf (!) and experimental bands. Then, when I visited the profile page for the surf band he founded in 1989, I came across this gem:

Vancouver’s The Surfdusters were founded in 1989 by lead guitarist Ralph Johnston and rhythm guitarist Rich Hagensen. The played their last live appearance in November 2001.
Eleven of their instrumentals, all from the ‘Save The Waves’ CD, have been featured in various episodes of SpongeBob Square Pants.

haha wow! good work too. had no idea he was into surf guitar too, glenn jones too of course, anyone else?

degrees of separation between spongebob and skip james just shrunk considerably

Sorry to break topic here, but what is the opinion on Alexander Turnquist? I just picked up Flying Fantasy. It's very orchestrated Leo Kottke-ish on acid, kind of. Does he fit in with this crowd?

yes! one of the best of the year

this Itasca record is beautiful, thanks for the recommendation

from Frag City News--adjust your shades accordingly:

Lee Underwood’s syncretic blend of jazz, folk, and blues was a tremendous force behind Tim Buckley’s genre-stretching late 60s/early 70s music — but his 1988 acoustic guitar opus, California Sigh, has remained a unsung footnote to his story. Until now! On June 28, Drag City is excited to present California Sigh, fully remastered for vinyl and digital platforms. With today’s announcement is the title track, “California Sigh”.
Lee Underwood is usually mentioned first as Tim Buckley’s stalwart and lead guitarist — inspiring, accompanying and being inspired by Buckley through the late 60s and early 70s — as well as the author of Blue Melody: Tim Buckley Remembered. If, like us, you ever wondered what became of that trippy picker from those Buckley records, then you too missed California Sigh when it first appeared in 1988: a self-released meditative cassette and a tranquil acoustic journey that was almost too ahead of its time. In the late 80s, Lee found himself increasingly interested in the psycho-spiritual, reading the works of Osho and Alan Watts and listening to New Age greats like Paul Winter, Steve Roach, and Brian Eno. California Sigh reflects these curiosities, along with the musical joys Underwood found surrounded in nature with the love of his life, Sonia Crespi. The two took frequent trips to the Southern Colorado mountains, enveloped in a soundscape of trickling streams, coyotes howling in the night, and the silence of stars — inspiring the serene pool of field recordings sprawling across California Sigh.

The lead single and title track, “California Sigh”, blows straight from those Southern Rockies. Strumming a cleansing spiritual path through a swirling gust of wind, Lee deploys crystalline figuration in a synth-swept landscape, ebbing and flowing with bold flourishes and picked harmonics as the song stirs. “California Sigh” reveals Lee’s free-floating acoustic moods, with synths from ambient avatar Steve Roach, as a soulful work of tranquility and transcendence.

California Sigh was co-produced by Lee Underwood and the aforementioned Steve Roach, a trailblazer in the New Age realm. The playing of Chas Smith and Kevin Braheny Fortune, on pedal steel and soprano sax respectively, lend additional colors to Lee’s music on several songs, but it is largely the soulful depth of Lee’s guitar figures, limned by Steve’s synthesizers, that elevate Lee’s lovely cycle of songs. California Sigh is “dedicated with love and respect” by Lee to his late wife, Sonia, whose warmth and inspiration shines through all the material.

Now, 35 years later, the air around the instruments and the full sonic impact of California Sigh — alternately gentle and mighty, like the natural world that inspired it — is magnified incomparably. Train your ears on the meditations of California Sigh come June 28, 2024!
Listen to title Track "California Sigh" https://lnk.to/californiasigh
Lee Underwood

Drag City: https://www.dragcity.com/artists/lee-underwood

Bandcamp: https://leeunderwood.bandcamp.com/album/california-sigh

Pre-order / Pre-save California Sigh: lnk.to/californiasigh
For more information and interview requests, please contact:

bailey at dragcity dot com

Sorry, *Drag* City News, not "Frag," since this ain't the Vietnam War.

this sounds really promising! thanks for posting

reminds me a bit of george cromarty

tangentially related to the thread but pedal steel player Chas Smith
who is on that California Sigh record, just passed away a couple days ago.
this is a good interview with him:
https://www.fretboardjournal.com/features/steel-legend-chas-smith-remembered/

yeah he has a lovely 10" record I was listening to yesterday

https://coldbluemusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-complete-10-inch-series-from-cold-blue-cold-blue-music-daniel-lentz-peter-garland-chas-smith-michael-jon-fink-rick-cox-barney-childs-read-miller

Thanks! Pedal steel is still such a minority niche, but at least we've got Dave Easley, Susan Alcorn, Greg Liesz, and records like this.
More upcoming from Drag City

:SHACKLETON & SIX ORGANS ALIGN

What might appear to be the most unlikely collaboration of 2024 proves also to be one of the most invigorating listens of the year! Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance are in full aural/metaphysical alignment on Jinxed by Being: a no-brainer fusion of Shackleton’s bass heavy cosmic dread and Six Organs’ ritual folksong, out June 28.

Longtime listeners know that both Shackleton and Six Organs of Admittance have been unafraid to pursue their muse into any and all encroaching depth of darkness or outer boundary of potential dissonance. They also share that ol’ maverick psychedelic ritual transcendental music vibe, don’t they? And a fascination with repetition and cycles. And a mutual inspiration drawn from alternative tunings and literature… all this considered, it’s been basically inevitable that Ben Chasny and Sam Shackleton would work together. Jinxed by Being finds Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance delighting in this synthesis, reveling in unique sonic textures, esoteric deliveries, and new reinventions. Sam’s vocals — a rare occurrence — find melody with Ben’s on several tracks; elsewhere on the record, drum samples by Chasny (recorded in Six Organs’ embryonic stage) are re-sequenced anew by Shackleton.

The first single, “Stages of Capitulation”, captures Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance’s timely meeting in a marvelously organic playground of world beats, with acid guitar and deep bass oozing throughout. As they chant an arcane ritual, a widescreen stereo image of their exotic environs expands into a mix alive with details, flashing from left to right and back again. Chasny’s music video provides a potent incense to burn through the track’s seven-minute runtime

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ERSbUwGWT4

Against the categorization of perceived genre rather than intention, encounters like Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance may never have found themselves sitting next to each other, beyond alphabets and other institutional organizing principles. Rearrange your libraries (vinyl and streaming, that is) on June 28, 2024 — or you might miss getting Jinxed by Being!