Why is John Fahey So Boring?

Then again Tom Lehrer wipes Malmsteen.

Game over, man.

I recorded him playing that in my 2-inch analog tape studio in Hawaii... we did lots of coke. It was rock.

(done spray-bottling Fahey fans' picnic yet? You've gotten the towels all moist now. For shame. I'm hardly even a huge Fahey fan here, so I found this all kinda funny.)

A friend of mine's mother told me the same thing while giving me a ride home from 9th grade.

And so I say to Big Loud Mountain Ape: If you don't like readin' my whingein', don't be readin' it!

Do you still listen to npr in your volvo? To this day, the pairing of the words volvo and npr makes me pleasantly drowsy.

That said, Fahey has a big messy catalog. Some of it is inspiring, and some of it is turgid. There's a lot of context that has to be in mind when you listen to the likes of Fahey and Kottke. They are both pre-New Age, but when listening to either of them with 2006 ears, there is a great deal of bleed/crossover. There's a lot of Fahey that sounds like the stuff your elderly Aunt would listen to on a Winter Sunday afternoon. And that taints our appreciation of their form.

I like the quote Dan Bunnybrain pulled out. That he saw himself as brilliant, but not a genius, lacking in composition skills, an emotive player who played in the moment. It all rings true. And obviously the man resonates with a number of players these days: Jim O'Rourke, Harris Newman, Jack Rose, OCS (plenty of others).

There's something enchanting about tuning your guitar to an open tuning and exploring disonance amongst the drone notes. That "Bartok meets the Delta Blues" thing is fun to explore.

this guy's got a cool 5-disc "Roots of Fahey" comp up for download here: http://grapewrath.blogspot.com/2008/04/roots-of-john-fahey.html
BUT IT IS PROBABLY TOTALLY BORING.

Wasn't there supposed to be a Revenant Fahey boxed set? Did that ever happen?

I love that link for this alone:

http://bp0.blogger.com/_Gun5Xkdl7TY/SBfs1Kbj-iI/AAAAAAAAApo/TmL0GQAqWQ4/s1600-h/fahey_house1.jpg

oh piss:

http://bp0.blogger.com/_Gun5Xkdl7TY/SBfstKbj-hI/AAAAAAAAApg/XoVP3j118zM/s1600-h/Fahey+and+Son+House.jpg

wtf

thx for the link tylerw

yeah i think there was supposed to be a revenant fahey box ... but is revenant still going? seems like they haven't put anything out in a long while -- the american primitive II thing in 04 or 05 was the last thing right? Or was it the Ayler box ... anyway, yeah, i'd heard about that fahey box but haven't ever heard anything concrete about it.

that roots of fahey stuff looks cool. i'm a big fan of the old time mountain guitar comp on county. for similar comps, check out "mr. charlie's blues" on Yazoo and "Mountain Blues" also on County.

Dust To Digital has a Fahey box scheduled for next year:

John Fahey: The Fonotone Years (1958-1962)

John Fahey
Release Date: 2009
Description: A 3 CD set to commemorate the 50th anniversary of John Fahey's first recordings for Joe Bussard's Fonotone Records. Remastered from the original reels of tape, this will mark the first time this music is available on CD.
Genre: Blues guitar.

http://dust-digital.com/forthcoming.htm

ooh that sounds cool ... the Fonotone things have never been on CD, right?

Never.
Four 12" acetates compiling (most of?) the Fonotone recordings were just sold on ebay. I think the cheapest one went for $300-something, the others were all $500+

oh i guess it says that right up there, duh: "the first time this music is available on CD." anyhoo, cool!

anyone hear the blind thomas stuff on the fonotone box? where he plays with a paint brush? never could bring myself to summon the money for it.

the vrootz style set above looks superb, full marks to all concerned. i'm going to have a listen right now.

not I. the fonotone box is oop, right? been looking around for it lately. no dice.

Darn, I didn't realise that. Sure enough Dust-to-Digital don't have it for sale themselves.

wonder where nubbin is today? that was some B+ trolling there.

I better jump on that Fonotone box, thankx for the tip.

Do you know somewhere that has it in stock?

I listened to the "Deathchants, Breakdowns, and Military Waltzes vol .2" LP the other day while eating lunch. The one with "America" and "Episcopal Hymn" on it. He's still and will always be great, I think.

I have a bunch of random mp3s and the Red Cross, one of my favourite albums of all time, where should I start, Fahey is a little daunting even though I love everything I've ever heard, which is a lot, but there's so much meta in the titles of things that its easy to get lost.

The Rhino comp, Return of the Repressed is a good starting point ... Also that live record, the Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick is killer. Don't know if there's really a "bad" Fahey album up until the 80s when it starts getting a little sketchy ...

fare forward voyagers is a real standout for me. if the idea of fahey sprawling out over three long songs sounds interesting, definitely check it out.

'America' the tune from volume 2 is sublime Fahey groove.

Recommendations for depend on how keen you are/how much you'd like to hear.

Either: The first seven Takoma records (Blind Joe Death-Voice Of The Turtle) are all first rate cosmic sentimentalism, with the only caution being that VOTT is pure Faheylogic, eclectic and sort of ridiculous, the most characterful album as the John Fahey legend built up to a sort of Dionysian ecstacy before he took the torpor/Christmas/dixieland left turns and calmed down. The Yellow Princess&Requia are great also, Fahey sobre and in the studio but at the top of his game. America and Fare Forward Voyagers are almost the greatest stuff he recorded but I think Fahey collapsed under his own weight a little, so they're really epic and ambitious but he doesn't manage to build up the momentum I'm anticipating. It's like a set of enormous intros to the greatest Fahey ever. First two Christmas albums fulfill all yr hopes of what a Fahey Christmas album could be, pretty sure I don't want to hear the later ones.

The dixieland trio (Of Rivers&Religion, After The Ball, Old Fashioned Love) are uneven but try one at least. A lot of the stuff from the 70s/80s is great too, patchier, and getting increasingly less great, but new things like the Bola Sete influence and the awesome "Sandy On Earth" from God,Time&Causality. If you like Ananaias from Red Cross you should check out its younger, heavier ancestor, Melody McBad on Visits Washington DC. I'm fairly even in my semi keen approval of the 90s stuff I've heard. The solo electric guitar stuff is often really slow, heavy-going and sometimes impossibly sad, but I really like Hitomi, disembodied ghost Fahey, and Red Cross feels a bit odd but mostly good. Depending on yr appetite for Fahey's slow drawl monologues you might dig the Cul de Sac record and his trio stuff. The former is probably my favourite late Fahey record, the sound collages are refreshingly beautiful.

Or: Days Have Gone By/Yellow Princess/Santa Barbara Oil Slick

Thanks for the post ogmor.

On the Fonotone Records box set front, I just ordered it from Cargo: http://www.cargorecords.co.uk/release/2022
Credit crunch be damned (with the special offer it's a well justified purchase) (guilt, guilt, guilt).
We'll have to see if they actually come up with the goods.

the Fonotone box is out of stock but will be repressed for early next year.
Keep an eye out on the website for it. I will refund you now.

Ah well.

Dust-to-Digital just tweeted about listening to the Fahey-Fonotone CD'Rs, and said this a few days ago, also on twitter...

Fahey-Fonotone set: split release b/t DTD and Revenant. 5 CDs & book w/ 100+ unpublished photos of John.

So it's increased from 3 to 5 discs. With both Dust-to-Digital and Revenant involved, this is going to be some serious fetish object. I can't wait.

urghhh. when is it coming out? it is going to be expen$ive isn't it ... also nice to hear that Revenant isn't totally dead ....

speaking of fahey http://grown-so-ugly.blogspot.com/2006/12/contemporary-guitar-spring-67-this.html

No mention of when, but I've embraced new media and gave them an @dusttodigital tweet to ask.

Aye, I expect it will be pretty pricey.

ah well, at least we know it'll be well done -- Revenant and DtD know how to do box sets!

Amen to that.

just to plug a local mpls dude that is brilliant, fahey fans should check out paul metzger (of mpls cult art punx TVBC in the early 80s)

http://www.myspace.com/paulmetzger

that contemporary guitar comp is grrrreeeat! it shouldn't be that there tbh.. there were several different cover variations. mine was a later pressing than the one pictured there.

speaking of fahey http://grown-so-ugly.blogspot.com/2006/12/contemporary-guitar-spring-67-this.html

― tylerw, Tuesday, September 8, 2009 5:37 PM (1 hour ago)

noise board lurker

lol i did see that on the noize board -- all credit where credit is due, noise dudes ...

Missed this from Dust-to-Digital's last newsletter, which says the Fahey box should be out by the end of the year:

We are very excited to announce that John Fahey's Fonotone Years is in production, and we are doing everything we possibly can to have the title out by year's end. As we wrote in a previous newsletter, the set will be a co-release between Dust-to-Digital and Revenant Records. As for the music the set will feature, we are including every recording John made for Joe Bussard's Fonotone record label. The result will be a five-CD box set of music that was only available in the 1950s and '60s in limited pressings on 78rpm acetate records. We will be mastering the audio from the original, pristine reel-to-reel tapes.

Also in the works is a separate two-CD set called Roots of Fahey, which will showcase the songs and musicians that inspired and influenced John throughout his recording career. Each track comes from the 78rpm record collection of John's lifelong friend, Joe Bussard.

whoa.

wannnnnt