Search and Destroy: John Fahey

"Georgia Stomps..." of course

I don't think Georgia Stomps is particularly well thought of - a few ppl love Juana & I remember Fahey regretted releasing it at some later point - but who cares. Prefer the tone on hitomi & other similar live sets that are floating about, some amazing stuff, a little Heavy though.

Hmm ok...for me Hitomi was a less interesting album from that era.

was listening to The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick just the other day, wld make a really gd intro disc for Fahey newcomers, imho - really strong playing, great sound and some v. funny patter between songs. had avoided it before cuz fahey was always meant to be an inconsistent, even willful live performer, but he was totally ON that evening.

love the live in tasmania set and after the ball too (listened to after the ball a hell of a lot more though). never noticed that the "live" set borrowed a track from the latter. lol.

listening to both to check, and yeah. they sound quite a bit different for me, cuz i've only got after the ball on CD and live in tasmania only on LP, but it seems to be exactly the same performance. so, is the rest of tasmania, uh, "externally sourced" or what?

...for me Hitomi was a less interesting album from that era.

certainly not one of my favorites. much prefer red cross and that "hard time empty bottle" thing.

at the moment after the ball might be not just my favorite john fahey record, but one of my very favorite records period. i notice that whenever a track from it comes up on shuffle, i immediately want to hear the rest of it, the whole thing, from beginning to end, and usually more than once. so good.

^ not highly regarded by fahey fans, i know. too close to arlo guthrie territory, maybe. but i love it to death.

I think Tasmania is just two reels, the 14 minutes of Introduction by Stefan Markvitch/On the Sunny Side of the Ocean/Tasmanian Two-Step and then on side B, the 9 or so minutes of Fahey Establishes Rapport with the Tasmanians/A dissertation on "Obscurity" (spoken)/The Return of the Tasmanian Tiger/Funeral Song for Mississippi John Hurt. I have it on CD but I haven't listened in ages; "Beverly" is definitely the same recording, I suspect the rest of the stuff is studio catchall as well, filler to pad running time.

That said the performances on this slay me, the aggression and tension in volume, plucking, the tempo fluctuations, it's stunning expression. "On the Sunny Side of the Ocean"...[∞ hyperbole].

after the ball is awesome -- I think it's handicapped because it has some of the lamest album artwork of Fahey's oeuvre
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41GPVJVM1BL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
"Beverly" is top five Fahey for me ... and I dig the dixieland stuff on there, too.

Yeah "Beverly" is way up there, his last-best in my view. "Sligo", "Sunny Side", "Princess" and "Catfish" would round me out on a Top 5 I think.

last two tracks on Live In Tasmania sposed to be studio efforts w/ dubbed applause. love the Approaching Of The Disco Void & jim o'rourke's description of it as 'ice cubes in a blender', and waltzing matilda is fantastic too.

the first two dixieland albums have really grown on me I love the enormous disco ball moon on after the ball&the gloss of hawaiian two step & om shanti norris, but of rivers & religion is my favourite, first true emergence of big drunk fahey playing big reverberating medleys w/ glacial syncopation & supreme relish, love Visits Washington DC, God,Time & Causality and Railroad for when the same thing shows up. maybe this was what old fahey was talking about more when he felt his earlier music was dishonest, idk, but it has Heft.

http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/2011/03/glenn-jones-on-john-fahey-fonotone.html
wow, lots of info about the upcoming box set from glenn jones here. can't wait. crazy stuff about losing everything via hard drive failures. also, anyone know about the legal trouble that the ayler box set caused revenant, which jones refers to? terrible that it caused the label to cease functioning!

just sent these guys an outlook calendar notice reminding them to back up their files

lol, yeah. can you imagine?

have never heard the ayler story either. amazing box and it really comes off like a labor of love from those involved. to have it kill your label as a result... well, that just sucks!

btw, backing up my files tonight. have been ignoring my google calendar reminders for about a month. :-o

The soundtrack to the game Diablo is pretty good (not really) and sounds kind of like Fahey. What I've heard of his stuff is dull, especially the record with Cul De Sac.

― adam, Saturday, July 20, 2002 12:00 AM (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i have no idea what john fahey i had heard 8 1/2 years ago (besides the boring cul de sac one) that would have led me to write this. diablo sndtrk is totally faheyed out tho.

can't wait for the next deepening in yr fahey/diablo thought in 2019

what is the diablo sdtk?

a little more info
DTD-21 : Late September / Early October 2011
Edited by Glenn Jones
88 page book with 5 CDs
115 tracks, most available on CD for the first time
A co-production between Dust-to-Digital and Revenant
http://www.dust-digital.com/fahey

Apologies if this is mentioned elsewhere, but don't recall seeing it here, & they've got a lot of money still to raise in the next few days:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/963556219/in-search-of-blind-joe-death-the-saga-of-john-fahe

(I'm nothing to do with the movie, just interested in seeing it get made)

Hmmmm, just over 9 grand needed with 28 hours to go.

I have probably heard it a hundred times but "Sun Gonna Shine In My Back Door Someday Blues" is probably my favorite thing by Fahey ever -- the perfect balance of blues, dissonance and rhythmic hypnosis.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m1kvbphaBmw/TngYVLEY71I/AAAAAAAABiM/7gJlrIEzK2w/s1600/tumblr_lqr1p665z41qg4e4uo5_1280.jpg

As I've always found Fahey to be particularly enjoyable when listened to on a record-by-record basis (as opposed to comps), I've now spent the last month buying every record of his used on Amazon that I didn't own already.
I think the most exciting thing about it is listening to all the different renditions of songs at different points. Like, "Wine and Roses" on Dance of Death is revisited, raga-style as "The Approaching of the Disco Void" (from Live at Tasmania) and again, post rocked out as "The New Red Pony" (from The Epiphany of Glen Jones.

Or "When the Springtime Comes Again," which returns as part of the epic "Mark: IV" on America.
And those are just his own pieces. Part of what's so interesting is that you really hear Fahey the Musicologist come out in Fahey the Composer -- see www.faheyfiles.com for a complete listing, but reading thru his career and seeing the connections and how all the strands, riffs, melodies and patterns become mutated and regurgitated is pretty remarkable. Given how zonked out Fahey was for so much of the 70s and 80s, I actually wonder how much of it was subconscious.

rip

http://www.wowwee.com/static/images/PaulyD.jpg

i think this is out now?, is up on the honest jon's site.

Just got this. Looks amazing.

that kickstarter funded doc upthread is a go, apparently

yeah the box set is out. kind of pricey but i'm going to go for it.

so what the hell is THIS box? Volumes 1-6 reissued?

"John Fahey - The Transcendental Waterfall: Guitar Excursions 1963-1967 6xLP box set $124.99 (4 Men With Beards)"

he Transcendental Waterfall - Guitar Excursions 1963-1967 is a 6-LP box set drawing from John Fahey's best, and most influential, period. Included in the set are Blind Joe Death, Death Chants, Breakdowns And Military Waltzes, The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites, The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party, The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death, and Days Have Gone By, all reissued on 180 gram vinyl with deluxe tip-on jackets. Also included are a t-shirt, poster, and a postcard, all of which are housed in a deluxe box with stunning graphic design. An amazing package featuring some of the most important guitar solo recordings of the 20th century. Limited to 2000 numbered copies!

expensive times to be a fahey fan. hoping to get the dust to digital box for xmas. will shell out for it if i don't.

mmmmmm those are all great records. worth owning. cheaper and easier than trying to get originals.

also a postcard

i think i might feel weird wearing a t-shirt with john fahey's face on it.. any pics?!?!

important records do a cool fahey t-shirt (all their shirts are next to nothing, also, so)

http://importantrecords.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/product_node/apparel/fahey_tee.jpg

originals of those recs are really $20+ these days? jeez.

http://www.popsike.com/php/quicksearch.php?pagenum=1&searchtext=john+fahey&incldescr=&sortord=ddate&thumbs=&currsel=

fonotone box saving my life

Picked it up the other day as a birthday gift to myself!

happy birrrrrthday indeed.
box was mentioned ... on some other thread, can't remember now. but it is fantastic, really a beautiful thing. there are some recordings on there that are just curiosities (mostly anything where john sings), but also tons of magical sounds that can rank with his best stuff. it's funny, having dug pretty deep into the post-fahey acoustic guitar landscape, he still sounds the best, even if some of his followers are technically "better" players. not sure what it is -- fahey's compositions are often these monumental, impeccably constructed creations. hearing some of the early versions of some well-known tunes on the new box only drives this home.

I really wanted this before. Now want it even more.

some of the tunes w/ fahey's singing as blind thomas are A+

HERE COMES BIG JEAN PAUL SARTRE, HE'S GOT THE BLUES TOO

so what the hell is THIS box? Volumes 1-6 reissued?

"John Fahey - The Transcendental Waterfall: Guitar Excursions 1963-1967 6xLP box set $124.99 (4 Men With Beards)"

― sleeve, Friday, October 28, 2011 10:20 AM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ugh. fuck a format fetishist. you can get all those records on CD for like half that much.

still want the fonotone thing though, goddam it's pricey.

not only can you get them on those Fantasy CDs, they all have a shit-down of bonus material

grr shit-TON, i mean (how did that happen)