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

should have been parenthesis on (bog dance)

I love the acoustic stuff on Mood; the other stuff not as much. he's obviously a great player, though

How is Time Flies?

Loved that track UpperMississippi - nice one.

And it's probably terribly pretentious but this quote from Eliot (Four Quartets) is a thing I always return to:

And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate—but there is no competition—
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

You guys put me on a dbh binge today. What a terrific player, and great songs, too. Again, I sorta wish he wasn't so darn ambitious / eclectic, because I much prefer his solo acoustic pieces to his post-rock or electric blues pieces. I respect the reach, and I appreciate that he acknowledges shit like Slint and Tortoise as formative influences, but find that these detours occasionally spoil the mood (no pun intended).

I think, after two listens, that I slightly prefer Time Flies to Mood; the first song, alone, is just magnificent, and the stylistic detours I mention are especially good detours. I mean, listen to this one:

http://dbhmusic.bandcamp.com/track/climb-and-descend

xpost thanks chinaski & thanks for sharing that's a nice quote & well said

i think i tend to agree w/you on DBH, the little more experimental pieces are fine, but i would say that there are very many people who do things in that vein just as well but his guitar playing, guitar tone and general compositional voice is very singular and special

that said maybe all these guys feel like they have to shake things up to avoid the pitfalls of becoming too trad or just elevator music

yeah i kinda like the eclectic approach

I think the variety of Mood makes the stronger tracks/melodies stand out more, honestly. Distinct moments become more eventful and the album has a more identifiable flow to it overall. He isn't exactly mid period Bibio either, I feel like despite the variety there isn't any "mood" ruining or overly jarring shifts in sound or genre.

Bibio is an interesting mention. I wonder how he fits into this? A lot of discussion about him centers on his production (which would be the common thread from his lo-fi start to his more electronic albums) but I think there are some great acoustic numbers on a lot of his albums:

(tried to find youtube of 'bewley in white' to put here but could only find a cover version so you'll just have to imagine it/sing it in your head)

xp I definitely don't want it to appear I'm slagging him off or anything. I'm actually a pretty tough crowd when it comes to the glut of solo guitar players these days, and I've been listening to nothing but dbh for the past three hours; I think he's terrific. He's a really unique and distinctive player, and that's a quality that comes across most in his solo guitar tunes (no mean feat; I certainly wouldn't want to submit to a guitar soli blindfold test). I just don't think the banjo, piano, or electric songs are quite as distinctive. That's fine. There's plenty of solo guitar pieces on these two records to keep me interested.

somehow i've never seen this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEhpk7i_1w4

AND, from the uploader:

happycyclings 3 years ago
I contacted the guy who originally uploaded these and he told me there were plans to release the whole thing. So the whole show still exists somwehere in the universe.

it comes to the glut of solo guitar players these days

i think it's hard to say if there's more or just getting more attention, also like i dunno is there a glut of rock bands? rappers? jazz saxophonists?

Well, there's a glut of everything, I guess, or seems to be, but it certainly seems like guitar soli is a "thing" at the moment, and the fact that a lot of these guys and gals are in their early twenties leads me to believe this is a newer phenomenon rather than something that was happening all along when suddenly NPR discovered it or whatever

The cynic in me feels like any halfway talented indie rocker can tune an acoustic to DADGAD and spend a few months on the sofa studying Fare Forward Voyagers and come out with a reasonable facsimile, which is why I think you hear a lot of people aping Fahey and not a ton aping Kottke. As long as I'm being cynical, I feel the same way about contemporary doom metal: much easier to turn it up to 11 and let the guitars drone in C through expensive Orange amplification than try to figure out what the hell Death or Atheist were doing. I'm not suggesting that doom metal (or American Primitive) provides the easiest entry point for the charlatan, but...well, maybe that's what I am saying, but I certainly don't want to generalize, or shortchange any of the great players in these subgenres. It just gets difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff sometimes.

I get what you're saying in the sense that, like say the Color Field Painting movement of abstract expressionism, the "anyone can do it" criticism becomes more of a thing where its up to the listener to determine what subtle details suggest the artist has an original approach/vision/intention. And those details are definitely more subtle than they might be when you're looking at genres that aren't as niche or restricted in their ingredients/recipes.

my girl and I have been loving mood today; thanks for that

i think there are plenty of dudes aping kottke, they're just like, old guitar magazine dads and no 'cool' publication would write about anything they do. honestly some of them are probably repped on this IA8 comp

In the spirit of the aforementioned blurring of lines in regards to legitimacy there is also the blurring of lines in regards to coolness. Plenty of old guitar magazine dad music could probably make it's way onto the next James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg or William Tyler record without us knowing the difference. Cass McCombs was flirting with some elevator muzak not too long ago. I feel like you can rebrand something dorky as long as you are an interesting cool looking character. Also on the flip I feel like some avant garde music would not be taken seriously if it were produced by some guy who lives in a mcmansion and works as an accountant. But I guess we have to resort to those outside attributes in order to read into the intentions the artist has. Boring seeming people who make avant garde music are more likely doing it because they're mangling a Clapton tune but bearded dudes from BK making very similar sounding music are probably doing it because they're "pushing the boundaries of the typical conventions of song structure" or something.

Plenty of old guitar magazine dad music could probably make it's way onto the next James Elkington & Nathan Salsburg

probably why i don't really feel grabbed by these guys at all

Wimmels might like them, it's pretty melodically driven stuff. I love it.

i love their records, but it is (intentionally i think) pretty far away from the fahey scene

We're just talking solo guitar scene broadly though, right?

ha, i'm not sure what we're talking about. that there are too many guitarists?

it does seem like some of these cats should be on fiddle or harmonica or accordion or something

Reread last Wimmel post and realized the premise was more that Fahey is easier to fake. So yeah, I think I just went off on my own tangent.

It took me like 2 years of pretty hard practice to get even decent at fingerpicks so I guess I really don't understand the "easy" thing, I feel like getting good technique is actually really hard

in my jack rose piece a few weeks back, chris forsyth talks about how rose brought chops back into the underground -- he definitely made a lot of the folkier players up their games, anyway. i can barely figure out fingerpicking too. i suck, of course, but it does seem like it takes dedication.

Doing syncopated stuff over the straight alternating bass on the thumb kinda requires retaining your brain...I will agree that certain tunings like dadgad or open c have a pretty district sound and generally are pretty friendly to sounding good while doing improv

All of Evan's posts here otm. I think we are arguing some of the same things, only he writes more eloquently!

FWIW I like the new Imaginational Anthem comp a lot more than any previous volume (except maybe 6) for exactly the reasons global mentions (that many of these guys are more 'guitar dads' than guys who used to share bills with Black Dice or something, and it sounds it). I also regularly pull out the ol' Windham Hill Guitar Sampler on grim winter mornings, if that tells you anything about my tastes!

also otm about me really liking Salsburg / Elkington, and part of the reason is how removed they are from the Fahey sound / tradition / whatever. I think Salsburg, in particular, is coming from almost completely the other side. It might also have something to do with American vs the UK and European school of playing (I know Salsburg is American btw, just saying he plays more like Davy Graham than Fahey).

It took me like 2 years of pretty hard practice to get even decent at fingerpicks so I guess I really don't understand the "easy" thing, I feel like getting good technique is actually really hard

― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, September 28, 2016 3:48 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Like probably half of the people here, I also play a little, and I cannot for the life of me make any sense of fingerpicks! You have my eternal respect for even trying to use those damn things.

Doing syncopated stuff over the straight alternating bass on the thumb kinda requires retaining your brain...I will agree that certain tunings like dadgad or open c have a pretty district sound and generally are pretty friendly to sounding good while doing improv

― Pull your head on out your hippy haze (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, September 28, 2016 3:55 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It wasn't until I started playing fingerstyle guitar that I understood that Fahey quote about how "fingerpicking is a disease." I think what he meant is once you get that alternating bass down, it's almost automatic that whenever you pick up a guitar, you're going to start doing that. I remember learning "Sunflower River Blues" and a few other Fahey tunes from one of those old Stefan Grossman tapes and for months after that, whenever I picked up a guitar, it was all I could do: dum-DUM-dum-DUM-dum-DUM-dum.... Training yourself to not do it once you learn how is damn near impossible! It sure is fun, though.

old guitar dads is a diverse field, one which many posters may one day find themselves in. but yes I think faheyish fingerpicking is v satisfying to play, so ppl gravitate to it, even though ofc most of them have no compositional sense or sensitivity

i know you're a jack rose fan ogmor- what do you think of him as a 'composer'? i honestly feel he's a masterful interpreter player and he's among my favorites but composition-wise i don't think he has anything on the level of 'yellow princess', 'stomping tonight', 'lion', etc esp. since a lot of his longer pieces are more improvisatory (all his raga stuff, 'red horse' etc)

interpreter *and* player, that should say

i think it's because to me jack rose kind of excised a lot of the european classical knowledge which fahey was obviously well-versed in

feel like we need to get the #GuitarDads hashtag trending
http://content.everydayhealth.com/wte3.0/gcms/guitar-playing-dad.jpg

always gotta be a Taylor or an Ovation

this is the cover of my debut fingerpicking album FYI
http://jp6.r0tt.com/l_fe8ca400-f21a-11e1-96ed-fb6370100006.jpg

global - you got a pro axe for your show friday? gotta step up in the club with one of these, show 'em you mean business

http://www.sweetwater.com/images/guitars/CE444/CCV1411610/CCV1411610-body-large.jpg

You guys are joking but I'd give my right arm for one of those Froggy Bottom guitars Ackerman plays. Sounds like it was designed to just naturally emit the Lexicon 224 reverb sound from the dang soundhole. Swoooooon

but yeah it's a total rich dad guitar

the ceo of our company is into guitar so we talk shop some, he has a rainsong guitar it's made of carbon fiber and graphite he says you can stand on it or leave it outside in the rain and nothing would happen it's indestructible

i don't know why you would do those things but i guess it's nice to know you can

http://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/marketing/PG-Giveaways/Perspectives/RainSong-Survey-TOp.jpg

http://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/marketing/PG-Giveaways/Perspectives/RainSong-Survey-TOp.jpg

oh my goodness

i know you're a jack rose fan ogmor- what do you think of him as a 'composer'? i honestly feel he's a masterful interpreter player and he's among my favorites but composition-wise i don't think he has anything on the level of 'yellow princess', 'stomping tonight', 'lion', etc esp. since a lot of his longer pieces are more improvisatory (all his raga stuff, 'red horse' etc)

i think it's because to me jack rose kind of excised a lot of the european classical knowledge which fahey was obviously well-versed in

― global tetrahedron, Wednesday, September 28, 2016 8:13 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think their differences are more revealing than what they had in common.

I remember an interview where Jack Rose had said that when he first heard Fare Forward Voyagers he'd thought it was improvised, and that had completely blown his mind. He came at the same territory from a different direction, hearing it, initially at least, as an improviser would: as something much freer and spontaneous than a Great/bloated composition with an introduction so reverential that it goes on 3/4 of the length of the piece.

To use a Faheyism I think Jack Rose was drawn into Fahey on the vibrational level, and the appeal of the possibilities of the technique & the loose forms used by Fahey and Basho. The time and scene Jack Rose was playing in shaped him hugely, just as Fahey & Basho's shared goal of turning the steel string guitar into a concert instrument affected the manner of their playing. But the raw sound, the command of the right hand - Jack Rose totally understood it and knew what he could do with it. Rose's thumb is very similar to Fahey's, the strength and control, & he was closest to early 70s Fahey - High Fahey- except Rose reversed Fahey's route downriver from the delta to the Ganges.

It was technique again that drew him further back in time to e.g. Blind Blake (although the structure of the ragtime stuff is comparatively formalist, he excelled though, the limits suited him - like my dad always says 'it's the bottle that makes the genie so strong') and his playing was just always getting better. He was a hugely enthusiastic disciple and the way he covered, quoted, copied etc. felt celebratory. He was hugely versatile, played a very wide array of styles, but rather than the more reflective, aware & ironic sensibility of Fahey, it was a huge sense of vitality, presence & immanence in his playing which pulled everything together. He had an ear for pitch and texture that Fahey didn't, and his slide playing was operating on a completely different level to anything Fahey or anyone vaguely in that ballpark attempted. He didn't have Fahey's compositional sense, that same reservoir of tunes, his laconic lyrical sensibility, all those hours listening to Russian composers etc. They always had separate methods, aims and energies, and only a small portion of what they did really has enough in common to compare, and yeah, those classic 60s Fahey pieces are a way off what JR was up to.

I'd love to know what Fahey would have made of Rose's playing. It was so close in time, but I suspect it was only possible for Rose's relationship with Fahey's playing to unfold as it did without the old man around, I think his absence gave Jack more freedom. The big tree has to fall...

It's as simplistic a belief as they come but I think the guitar is always a force for good in the world. Even the most aesthetically crippled of guitar dads is still enriched by his encounters with the collective guitar subconscious.

great post, ogmor

agreed, also amused by "guitar dad"

A thought I forgot to include: Obviously it's a duo and it doesn't have the same compositional virtues but Linden Avenue Stomp has got the same exultant hard-driving swing as the Yellow Princess and it’s the only thing I can think of from the last 50 years (!) of guitarists deploying Faheyisms that actually gets to that level. The raw sound, the massive impact of the clean syncopation, Glenn Jones’ bass line is the punchiest & bluesiest thing I’ve ever heard him do (a good look for him), and the way Jack Rose lingers on the slide, teases you with it, relishes it with you, shows how complete his control. It sets out JR’s stall so well, lodges him firmly in a certain lineage and I think there’s no way Fahey could have failed to appreciate it. It always sounded so pure to me, and hit me so hard when I heard it, even just thinking about it now makes my heart ache with gratitude for its existence. It showed in a Faheyless world that those heights could still be scaled. If I had to save one piece of guitar playing from the last 30 years it would be that.

from a Buenos Aires folk scene report on Bandcamp today, p cool stuff

https://dientedemadera.bandcamp.com/releases

Jonah Schwartz quickly made his mark on the folk music scene after moving to Buenos Aires from New Jersey over a decade ago, playing mandolin in Los Alamos and acting as one half of the folk duo Springlizard. He lists minimalist composter La Monte Young, Hindustani classical singer Pandit Pran Nath, and Appalachian-influenced drone banjoist Nathan Bowles as the main influences for this most recent project.