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

Bummed nobody else wanted to be excited with me about the new Michael Chapman! It's basically Steve Gunn + band backing him.

Oh you know what the link I posted didn't actually have his name in it. I could have been more descriptive then.

Oh, sorry Evan. That does look cool, will definitely check it out!

No worries- it really is intriguing to hear about a new Chapman with a band after how many years

Totally ooks promising, as Gunn+Elkington+Chapman can't really be a bad thing I am imagining.

"looks" that is

+Bowles!

yeah, looks cool. that Natch session from a little while back has a lot of the same dudes (no Bridget St. John, though!)
http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Michael_Chapman__The_Woodpiles/

Oh, I wasn't aware of that!

Hah hah, indeed (forgot Bridget was supposed to be a part of this too, which is cool). Meagher's recordings always sound great too, so it should be a winner all around.

that whole series is one of the better Free Things On The Internet http://freemusicarchive.org/label/NATCH/

oh and hey I recommend this record to this thread! http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2016/10/26/dylan-golden-aycock-church-of-level-track/

speaking of wimmel's (i think?) post about people who can really *play*, i thought this should have gotten more traction. just great, melodic playing

https://samuelgrayedmondson.bandcamp.com/album/two-ravens-volume-one

have no use for the vocal tracks. in any case, it's pretty good

First Glenn Jones record reissued:

https://thrilljockey.com/products/this-is-the-wind-that-blows-it-out

From Glenn Jones on FB. Curious to check out

In the history of so-called American Primitive guitar, Boston plays a key role. Some of the very first record reviews of John Fahey’s career were in the The Broadside of Boston, (including one by a young Al Wilson, whom John would later take to California and introduce to the guys who formed Canned Heat).

John released his second album, Death Chants, Breakdowns, & Military Waltzes, in 1964. He sold a few copies to Norm’s Record
Mart, a record-store-cum-distributor in Berkeley, California. Soon Norm was ordering ever-increasing numbers of copies, and when an astonished John asked where they were going, he learned that most of them were being shipped to Briggs & Briggs and The Harvard Coop, both located in the heart of Cambridge’s Harvard Square.

Boston sales of Death Chants were so good that John had to press a second batch. Soon thereafter, he was offered his first-ever paying gig, at one of Cambridge’s several folk-music clubs.

The first album John made not for his own Takoma Records imprint was The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death. Recorded for Cambridge’s Riverboat Records (half its tracks were recorded here), it was John’s fifth album, but the first to be licensed to a label in the UK. It was thus many people’s introduction to Fahey’s music, including John Peel’s.

John played Boston regularly for most of the rest of his life. I attended every show he played here after I moved to Boston in
1977; all of them were sold out.

That was then. I’ve been to shows in recent years that left me scratching my head: Peter Walker, with a full-page career spanning
article in the The Phoenix to promote his show, drew 11 people. Sir Richard Bishop , darling of the indie rock scene and something of a guitarist’s guitarist, played to seven people at P.A.’s Lounge in Somerville, including the members of the opening band, me, and the sound person. (His show there just a few months later was packed – what had changed?!)

Jack Rose and Michael Chapman performed to a nearly empty café in some basement at Tufts University. (Michael took one quick look around the place as he entered and muttered, “Smells like no money.”)

I’ve been playing here for decades and though I’m pleasantly surprised if a few friends come out, I’ve had my heart broken too
many times to assume anything.

OK, so much for my attempt to lay out the local context. I first became aware of Rob Noyes a couple years ago when we shared a bill; since then, I’ve seen him a half a dozen times and always with great delight. Rob, more often than not, is the most energized and energizing performer on whatever stage he graces. He’s exciting and one of the few guitarists playing today whose fast pieces I love as much as the slow ones. (I find myself sometimes holding my breath for fear that Rob is running so swiftly that he’s going to trip over his own feet, but he never does.)

Being inside this music for as long as I have, I find myself cocking an ear to the right hand – for me, that’s where the action is. Rob has an original approach for sure. There is something of Robbie Basho in the hyperkinetic gallop of “Paydirt” – often Rob’s set-opener – but what do you make of the right-hand chop of “Blather”? And while he’s certainly conversant with the doublethumbing technique of Fahey and company (as evident on “Further Off”), he doesn’t rely on it.

Suffice to say, his chops are more than up to the job of allowing him to say what he wants to say. His compositions are compelling – some are even slightly unfathomable – and they suck me right in.

Rob has a sure sense of dynamics and his pieces are very much his own. (I’m especially fond of “Stultification” and “Soft As Lights,” pieces that any guitarist worth his or her salt would be proud to claim.)

Having bugged Rob for a year or more as to when he was going to get his damn album out, I’m delighted that it’s finally here, and that it’s everything I’d hoped for. If there’s any justice in this vale of tears, it’s the first of many.

Don’t let your hometown grind you down or bum you out too much, Rob. I’ve lived in Boston nearly 40 years and I’m still perplexed at what passes for a music scene here.

You got the goods, my brother; now go!

Glenn Jones
Cambridge, MA
August 2016

nice, i think if Jones is repping for him it's worth checking out. pettibone cover art is a plus too!
and yeah, as maybe we've noted before, it is still a little amazing how tiny the audience is for this stuff ...

Sorry, I'm having trouble figuring out what Rob Noyes release is being referred to...

The 2014 demo sounds good though

ha yeah, they don't seem to be doing a great job of getting the word out just yet:
https://scontent.fsnc1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/t31.0-8/14856035_10210675908033862_2966994881215923339_o.jpg

Thanks! I'm interested.

I do wonder if there is another corner of the internet with other people that are nerdy about this genre.

aquarium drunkard

is that album art by raymond pettibon? #americanprimitiveside2ofmywar

(Michael took one quick look around the place as he entered and muttered, “Smells like no money.”)

i've had 2 decent convos w/chapman and this sounds 100% like something he would say haha

yeah it's pettibon.

"poon village"?

lol

they've been putting out records for years (at least since the 90s), and, fwiw, I'm pretty sure it's run by a woman, if that makes you feel any better!

i'm not really OFFENDED per se, but it seemed worth pointing out to see what the story was there. had never heard of em!

all labels should have names that are embarrassing to say in front of your parents.

Rimjob Records announces Brownie and the Butt-Eaters new 12": 'Ol' Rusty'/'Who Gave Grandma Corn Again'

lol

New Daniel Bachman lp now up for streaming. Haven't checked it out yet, but I dug that first track a bunch:

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/03/500057218/first-listen-daniel-bachman-daniel-bachman

this didn't grab me as much as i wanted BUT i really hate listening to albums on 'first listen' kind of streams. somehow the life is always sucked out of things on those

ha yeah i know what you mean -- i'll check out a song or two, but find it hard to listen to those NPR streams.
I'd say stick with the new Bachman, might be his subtlest record? Like that "Watermelon Slices" slide piece at the end is kind of perfect in a quiet way.

it sounded promising, just nothing as immediately stand-out as 'cross that other shore' from 'river'

Fwiw, the blues at the end of the album right before that cover of 'Farther Along' really gets me going. 'Watermelon Slices on a Blue Bordered Plate', there's the title... it's the type of playing I've wanted to see more of, and I'm psyched that Dan is doing it. There's actually a lot of heavy slide playing on this one, and it's great. The droning slide harmonics + slide improv is also something that needed a proper doing -- and here it is! Thumbs up I say...

There you go, tyler beat me to it. 'Watermelon Slices on a Blue Bordered Plate' is the new ILX track of the moment. I'm into it.

I'm into it. Need to a) grab it and listen to it properly and b) give it another listen or two, but yeah I am into the drone/harmonics pieces (the octatone!) and the lighter-hearted short numbers.

so ready for this

Bachman is my favorite of this loosely defined crew for some reason I can't really articulate, but it might have to do with seeing him live and feeling like we share some scene overlap with noize weirdos (as well as his sound and chops)

overlap with noize weirdos

tbf this is like 70% of these guys

Bachman's tape with Ian McColm from a ways back is a more ecstatic drone/improv/noise side of his playing, which gets trotted out in miniature on some of the new stuff. Very cool if you can track one down in my opinion, but I am a sucker for that kind of thing. I need to hear the new Tashi Dorji/Tyler Damon record too, all reports are that it is a burner.

I gotta say, in my little corner of the world way more people seem to be getting into Bachman with this record than the last couple. Lots of folks hopping on board with "this is incredible" kind of remarks, which is cool. Maybe there is even more of a level for this stuff to get to in re the general populace, but I had imagined we had hit peak "person with a guitar" albums getting much attention. We'll see ....

in other Tashi Dorji news, there's also an upcoming Dorji/Eyvind Kang split LP coming out on Unrock, Kang is a goddamn genius so I am gonna be a sucker and preorder.

saw kang with bill frisell earlier this year and though it was them doing movie theme songs primarily, he played some pretty astonishing things. beautiful sound.

Listening to Fahey today, haven't much in recent months.
But his is a deep well of American sadness that fits my mood too well.

i haven't been able to bring myself to listen to anything. today, i feel like he would make me cry (he already does, sometimes)

Here's one that reaches way down there for me,
Jack Rose - The World Has Let Me Down

hxxps://youtu.be/QXqAinxf0Rg

Went on another Jack Rose listening spree myself yesterday. Certainly hit the right tone for me.

Other right tone was side two of "On The Beach" and some Sade. Warm blanket time.

Finally shelled out for the Sarah Louise VDSQ thing. I'm looking forward to this. The two tracks that have been streaming on Bandcamp sound great.

Does Tashi Dorji fit into this whole thing? I thought of him as more of a free improv guy but I like him a lot. Saw him with Mette Rasmussen in the summer, which was fantastic.

definitely, i believe there's some discussion of him from way back at the reboot of the thread.

finally able to devote full attention to new daniel bachman- the addition of more space suits him well