Why is John Fahey So Boring?

Robert Johnson

it is about the "wrong" notes.

Count yourself lucky JF didn't fall asleep himself

this sounds like something fahey might have written in his own liner notes.

and OK, I know Elizabeth Cotten's name from that Moaners CD that came out last year, but apart from that I know nothing about her.

-- cancer prone fat guy (wt...), January 10th, 2006

what is?

Elizabeth Cotton was adorable - check out the audience participation on her live CD on Arhoolie.

And I personally know of no remedy for falling out of love with the music of Fahey, or any other musician, for that matter. Sorry. (Why'd you like him in the first place?)

Because he was hip for a while perhaps?

When I liked him I was a stupid young person who didn't know shit about music, like many of you. Now I am slightly less stupid and know three things about music, one of them being that John Fahey, like Minimalism, is boring. What's so interesting and hip about a guy who plays repetitious music like he's got no soul? He's a defanged, emasculated, sterile copycat of MS John Hurt. John Fahey Is Boring.

Oh, and thanks for posting Fahey's own words. What a bag of hot air. Thank god he's dead!

Fahey produced an impressive variety of stuff and my feelings about it vary. If I'm not in the mood for Hitomi maybe I want to hear his dixieland stuff, or A Raga Called Pat, or The Oregon Capital Inn blah blah - he did a lot of different stuff! Seriously! And yet, maybe this is all my imaginings and projections, but I can sense the same determination behind it, the clear-headed, straight up emotionality and that killer sense of humour. Even (especially) with his writing. More than any one of his styles, or his status as an innovator or whatever, I'm mostly in love with the wonderful personality I feel behind it all. And when I listen to Sun Gonna Shine In My Backdoor Someday Blues I'm not listening to, as he describes it, a bitonal piece played in a John Hurt, ragtime finger-picking pattern style, I'm listening to... I don't know, something much trickier to word. More than any other music I feel this with Fahey. When I first heard him just after I turned 18 I was blown away by how ridiculously intuitive it seemed - it was so obvious, I couldn't believe I ever bothered with other music.

A lot of what's written about Fahey to convince you of his IMPORTANCE talks about how he was the first to do X or an exciting blend of country blues, 20th century classical, indian classical... blah blah. To me at least, it doesn't sound like that and it wouldn't be nearly as interesting if it did. All that seems incidental. The way I hear it (and I appreciate the subjectivity of all this), Fahey is trying to get to SOMETHING and all the technical details are just his way of getting to it. I guess that's it anyway, it's why I feel the same sorts of things listening to such a diverse range of music. It's not the language he's developed, but what he's saying with it.

I'm so fucking proud of throwing that rock into the pond.

Those little waves just marched around in their own order, but in no way that anyone could have predicted.

Even though the pond got back to equilibrium in about 10 seconds, I have to say that, for a small while, I was fucking make waves in that pond. I threw the rock, the waves happened, they ended, and it was because of me.

Fuck you, pond. I would never hesitate to throw another rock in you.

And Leo Kotke rules so watch it, pals.

-- Dom iNut (do...), January 10th, 2006.

By the way, that's really beautiful.

I'm no one to define soul, and I'm not defending John Fahey, but isn't repetitious music (chanting, drone, prayers, etc.) used all around the world in order for an individual to get in touch with their soul, subconcious, self, inner state, etc.?

Only if you like it it's good

Does this help?

http://www.furious.com/perfect/fahey/fahey-byron.html
http://www.furious.com/perfect/fahey/fahey-byron2.html

This says 11/94:
http://www.folklib.net/index/discog/f/fahey2_john.shtml

I'm not as keen on Reprise era Fahey as there's a lot of not particularly inspired trad jazz tunes and what not, although Of Rivers And Religion has plenty of admirers and one or two great tracks (the version of Funeral Song For Mississippi John Hurt is so jerky in parts I worry about whiplash). It makes sense that Christgau would disagree though and if you are aligned with his more populist approach (?) you might too. The Yellow Princess and Of Rivers And Religion are well worth getting though, and The Yellow Princess is being reissued soon with 3 bonus never-before-heard demo tapes including some sort of early version of Fare Forward Voyagers, I believe.

no.

there is massive internal struggle in the john fahey catalog, with sometimes gorgeous and sometimes disastrous results.

As for the other two things I learned about music, here they are:

1. Never trust a musician with any sort of beard

2. Stay away from anything Pitchfork says is good.

Props out to Mr. Roundtrouser: your winsome earnestness has warmed my heart and given me pause. Irony is the badge of the defeated!

#define NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ 2112

tValdemarHugglez* pValdemarHugglez = new tValdemarHugglez[NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ];

for (int i = 0; i < NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ; ++i)
{

pValdemarHugglez[i].fBeard = g_BeardDatabase[BEARD_DATABASE_INDEX + i];

pValdemarHugglez[i].fPitchforkReview = g_PitchforkReviewDatabase[POSITIVE_REVIEWS][PFORK_POZ_REVIEW_DATABASE_INDEX + i];

printf("Valdemar loves the %s beard and thinks the %s review is groovy %lt;3\n", pValdemarHugglez[i].fBeard.GetStr(), pValdemarHugglez[i].fPositiveReview.GetStr());

}

for (int i = 0; i < NUM_VALDEMAR_HUGGLEZ; ++i)
{

printf("I <3 valdemar!!!! lol omg !!!!!1\n");
}

printf("Goodbye, world\n");
g_fucked = 1;
free(NULL);

...

i wonder if there are ILM trolls who just try to bait me sometimes, but i realize that would be impossible.

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

Looks great. And there was me thinking I'd bought enough Fahey for a lifetime..

Just been inspired to put on the "On Air" live set.

I never realised that Bussard recorded so much Fahey, i.e. enough for 3 whole CDs.

Did you ever get the Fonotone set, krakow? It is a lovely, joyous artifact. I don't play it that often, but when I do, I can listen to it all night.

And there was me thinking I'd bought enough Fahey for a lifetime..
ha, yeah, i think this all the time -- "well, that's enough of that!" and then I hear something I haven't heard and I'm back into it all over again. Happened most recently with the Sea Changes Coelacanths set ...

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)

paul metzger's serious. dude is amazing

I've heard about Paul Metzger a few times. He plays a 16 (or more?)-string banjo (see here: http://www.paulmetzger.net/art/metzgerRM.jpg ) . I've never investigated further.

the metzger cd that archive put out a few months back is real nice. banjo ragas.

I never realised that Bussard recorded so much Fahey, i.e. enough for 3 whole CDs.

looks like it's actually FIVE cds! and yeah, pretty crazy.

That large Fahey quote by Dan Bunnybrains near the beginning of this thread reminds me of Gertrude Stein's "What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them" in content (and a bit less in tone, but that too, funnily).

looks like it's actually FIVE cds! and yeah, pretty crazy.
― picture me lolin' (Alan N), Thursday, 10 September 2009 20:05 (1 hour ago)

Ah, I thought 3 of them were Fonotone and the other 2 from Revenant vaults, or something. Even more astonished...

glad some ppl are digging metzger, yeah he plays a bunch of weirdly modified instruments...

my friend has a great label that has put out two great metzger records you can order them here:

http://www.roaratorio.com/

(he's got awesome stuff overall a great joe mcphee record and lots of cool shit)

Did you ever get the Fonotone set, krakow? It is a lovely, joyous artifact. I don't play it that often, but when I do, I can listen to it all night.

― Duke, Thursday, 10 September 2009 19:47 (Yesterday)

No, unfortunately not. I tried, but that one's out of print. This thread made me think about it again and I've contacted Dust-To-Digital to see if it's going to be repressed, before I start my exhaustive hunting.

Some cool looking OOP Fahey over here: http://grapewrath.blogspot.com/ Haven't heard either of these. Dude has a lot of albums!

<3 this cover
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Gun5Xkdl7TY/SqnPYQSzJmI/AAAAAAAACFE/fykYIElVbAw/s1600-h/bffa9330dca0c4ef07d06010.L.jpg

hmm that didn't work ... oh well, check the Fahey Railroad cover
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Gun5Xkdl7TY/SqnPYQSzJmI/AAAAAAAACFE/fykYIElVbAw/s1600-h/bffa9330dca0c4ef07d06010.L.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot5mHAy6zjs

Awesome, never knew he appeared on any Rockpalast broadcasts. Lovely tune too.

BTW, dunno if this got posted anywhere:

2011-06-07: John Fahey: Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You // The Dust-to-Digitrial box set

Announcement:

The John Fahey 5-CD box set for Dust-to-Digital was completed today, as of a few hours ago! It goes into production almost immediately. It's street date is October 25th, this year.

As many of you know, I've been working on this project for 11 years. The last time I hung out with John, in the summer of 2000, was, ostensibly, to discuss the Fonotone recordings and this project. He died the following February.

I think the set honors John and the significance of his work with such thoroughness and in such detail, in a way that has never been achieved before. It is, I feel certain, a critical piece of the puzzle that is John Fahey, and it will be a significant resource for future scholars / fans.

There is, first of all, six+ hours of music here, virtually all of it unknown.

The set comes with a 90-page, 12" X 12" hardback book filled with the photos Melissa Stephenson (moderator of this site) and I got from Jane Hayes (Fahey's mom) in Louisiana in 2003, almost none of which have ever been published.

The book also includes extensive liner notes: there's a song-by-song analysis by our own Malcolm Kirton; essays by / contributions from some of the most knowledgeable Fahey scholars in the world (from Germany, the UK, Australia and the U.S., including a number of people on this chat group: Paul Bryant, Chris Downes, Claudio Guerierri, Charlie Schmidt and several others); reminiscences by childhood friends; a never-before-published interview with John from 1967, and much, much more.

Layout and design is by Susan Archie, who's overseen such sterling productions as the Charley Patton box for Revenant, among others.

Lance Ledbetter at Dust-to-Digital has discussed the possibility of doing record release events in various cities around the country following its release. If and when they happen, you'll be among the first to know.

I, for one, couldn't be happier!

Glenn Jones Cambridge, MA

More on what the box actually is here:
http://www.clashmusic.com/news/john-fahey-box-set-approaching

jf candyman otm

valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)vvaldemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)valdemar (nubbin)

Now available for pre-order from http://dust-digital.com/

http://www.dust-digital.com/fahey

Track list

$80 -- actually a little better deal than I thought it would be. looking forward to this!

yawn

I feel exhausted already. There are some real quality items on here though, Dream of the Origin of the French Broad River is amazing. The titles are irresistible too, obviously.

^^^ insightful ^^^

xpost

c'mon man, that's an extremely on topic post

so bored by how awesome this is going to be

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r154/MarksDailyApple/nubbin.jpg

i wonder if there's any more writing left over, stuff like what's in 'how bluegrass music destroyed my life'

I've got a DVD of that rockpalast broadcast, it was so boring I ripped it to CD

great performance

any chance of uploading that rip? pretty please.

what so you can turn around and it put it on your BLOG?

sure ok

help me bore the dozen people who read my site.

!

i wonder if there's any more writing left over, stuff like what's in 'how bluegrass music destroyed my life'

I'm sure there's odds and ends, but they were pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel w/ the letters at the end of vampire vultures. however the stuff on the site is good

that dust to digital thing looks boss. not as boss as their africa box set though!

btw weirdest fahey thread title ever. what the hell?

trollers gonna troll

boring pics of this fucking amazing box set
http://thewiremagazine.tumblr.com/post/9665885879/the-wire-magazine-john-fahey

massive idiots/obvious trolls who think fahey is boring better bypass this kickass bootleg:

http://youtu.be/0cTdPTrihlI

(untouchable, mysterious, ethereal, massive. hold onto yer butts for this shit.)

wow, thank you, global tetrahedon

is that from the university of washington show?

This is great. I'm sure there's a lot of Fahey I have yet to hear which I would like. One reason I haven't dug as deeply is that there are certain sides of his art I'm not really into. This is definitely from one of the sides I love (so far).

i checked, and yeah, it is from the 1973 UW show. avail in its entirety here:

http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/18138392878/john-fahey-university-of-washington-1973-01

^ hope it's ok to post that link...

you should really ask that blogger for consent before posting such links, I heard he is a real madman. you better watch out buddy.

lol

feel like the best fahey like the live versions of dance of the inhabitants should be hid away on a mountaintop monastery somewhere which is a couple of day's hike to get to. i was going to link to a video of another version of it but it's been pulled from youtube, hopefully being interred by the monks as i type.

feel like the best fahey like the live versions of dance of the inhabitants should be hid away on a mountaintop monastery somewhere which is a couple of day's hike to get to.

hahaha this is otm & how the world should work

I have lots of Fahey bootlegs, most came from Delta Slider, I'd poke around there if you like the above... the main problem with the site is that the MP3s are tagged like shit (or not at all), hence why I had to upload it to Youtube to share it. Perhaps the difficulty associated with unzipping and properly tagging MP3s is corollary to a long hike to a monastery?

Also, to the dude above, what sides of Fahey don't you like? I could totally imagine what sides you are talking about, but in the interest of further Faheychat perhaps you could elaborate.

And does anyone see what I'm saying about how this evokes Branca? Just the cacophonous reverberations piling onto one another, adding up to a bigger whole?

As a shoegaze fan I heard a lot of the same melodic progression sensibilities Kevin Shields as an example would share.

tbh, i don't really get the branca comparison

yeah that u of w show is close to a religious experience. the sausalito recording from around the same era is a far better recording with a similar setlist, but the u o w thing is uhhhhmazing.

I still like Fahey records but I think he was "an occasionally brilliant guitar composer and arranger, innovator and player" even more rarely than he thought. He relied too much on the same few tricks and effects and fills too much time with adolescent stoned-fascinated noodling.

you speak poop

^^^^^

mentioned above from way back
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.
this didn't ever come out did it?

don't espeeecially hear the branca, but the low notes are cosmically booming, sounds more like some brass/percussion combination than guitar.

What's the most far out stuff? His weirdest shit? Hurting's second sentence up there is my prob with Fahey too, but I haven't heard much.

his weirdest shit
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/25/The_Mill_Pond_John_Fahey.jpg

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/07/john-faheys-mil.html

I can definitely hear the Branca comparison. I didn't realize he was doing that sort of thing pre-Womblife.

This is more like it, cheers!! xpost

haha umm enjoy!

if someone could just list all the fahey records that aren't americana-ey fingerpickin or the blooze that'd be great thx

well I mean a lot of them are raga-y fingerpickin mixed in with americana fingerpickin and the blooze.

as far as the studio stuff goes, it sounds like you might be interested in his very late albums: womblife, city of refuge, hitomi, and red cross.

the mid period where fahey was experimenting with concrete sounds and doing duets with other instrumentalists is my fave -- these records:
-requia
-days have gone by
-vol. 4
-voice of the turtle

prob my faves.

p.s. not boring

fahey went pretty far afield at times, but it seems to me that looking for things he did that weren't informed by "americana-ey fingerpickin or the blooze" is like looking for james brown recordings that didn't have anything to do with R&B.

that is OTM. you might just be better off listening to some classical guitar stuff, or robbie basho or someone, if you don't want rural american nostalgia trips.

guys i've discovered this great guitarist - really adult and sober - anyone interested?

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ik25cEsfHFw/R91qflx6X9I/AAAAAAAAAnM/y93pVT6Kan8/s320/julian_bream.jpg

i heard it said once - by a fahey fan, in fact - that julian bream broke a nail on tour, and spent the afternoon getting a synthetic replacement superglued on so that he could play a concert that evening. a few tunes into the performance, the glued nail pings off into the audience and catches a woman in the eye. apparently the woman died & j bream was arrested for murder, playing out the end of his life in gaol. i saw glenn jones play a few months ago and he had also had to have emergency manicure treatment at some korean nail salon in the arndale centre in manchester, but no superglue was involved.

I guess what I meant by the Branca thing is less about the process/instrumentation really but more the music's use of space and how the music bypasses *notes* exactly into more of a microtonal region, especially when he busts the slide out into those long, loping, descending lines accompanied by the furious arpeggiation on the open strings, and the massive overtones conjured up by that, etc.

I think there's stuff simliar on like the first movement of Symphony no. 5? Take a gander at that to see what I'm getting at. Not even saying they are of some lineage or something but they evoke the same atmosphere to me. I dunno. This could all be just stupid.

And thanks for the heads up on the Saualito stuff, checking that out now... and of course the mediafire link is down on Doom and Gloom... some really sketchy looking site called 'Rockin CD' asking 10 bucks to stream... guess I'll pass on that.

jim o'rourke says something similar in the liner notes to live in tasmania reissue, comparing him to charlemagne palestine - "ice cubes in a blender"

i'll re-up that sausalito set, give me a sec

annnnd here it is: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/21030078332/in-christ-there-is-no-east-or-west-john-fahey

3 years after that recording, Fleetwood Mac would come in to that studio to record Rumours.

Oh ha, that blog's you, huh? Fuck yeah, dude, thanks! I'll be sure to poke around your posts some more, that's a nice writeup you've got there. I imagine you've got most of the Delta Slider Fahey recordings, but do you have "Live at the Barn?" i don't remember where I found that one (somewhere else, not Delta Slider) but if you don't have it and would be interested I could up that too. There's a track where Fahey exhorts the crowd to commit suicide with him? Kind of some heavy shit.

i do have live at the barn. kind of a depressing listen! though he plays well for the most part.

for some reason i just don't listen to a lot of solo guitar records. in general. maybe when i'm older. i did like that numero group comp of private press stuff though. i do like selling john fahey records. i kinda like that stuff that bill orcutt has been putting out. that stuff is pretty demented. but mostly its just the problem of being a record seller. basho/fahey/bull stuff is just too easy to sell. i never hold on to any of it.

wanna buy some rekkids?
http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/clt/3892820791.html

also for those in MD:
A COMMUNITY CELEBRATION OF JOHN FAHEY
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=150824&messages=1

Fahey was a christian? And also a wife beater?

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/features/online/letters-john-fahey

yeesh, john fahey, what a kook! there's some interview where he says "I'm establishing contradictory mythologies all the time" (or something along those lines).

the john fahey handbook is fun btw -- kind of like vicariously being a total obsessive. it's certainly made me look at voice of the turtle in a new light. talk about contradictory mythologies. that said, it made me hope for a really great bio/analysis of the music -- did someone say byron coley was actually doing this?

he did a lot of xmas records so i guess i'm not surprised & obv in christ there is no east or west

haha, well, as those letters show he had his own orthodoxy

ha i fully accept fahey as completely nuts. some of the album art in voice of the turtle confirmed this for me years ago, along with reading some of his other writings.

also what kind of shape was he in in 1975 when those letters were written? pretty rough iirc? feel like he was in rough shape for most of the 70s, 80s, and 90s

There is a bio that's almost finished that is not by Byron Coley but I've promised not to say any more (not because it's some big secret, but because the book is still being edited and it's not my place to make such announcements). I got a chance to look at some early chapter drafts, though (author is a friend), and I think it'll be worth buying.

I like the Handbook, too. I was looking for info about Volume 2, but there's no indication it'll be along anytime soon. I'm really looking forward to that one, though, as the second half of his career (Of Rivers and Religion and Railroad 1 all the way up to Womblife and Red Cross) is more interesting to me these days, musically, than the first (which I also love).

Just bought the Handbook on Amazon -- sounds like my kind of book.

It's pretty intense scholarship. I mean, there's a section that analyzes the thickness - in fractions of an inch! - of the line on the center label that underlines the word "Takoma" on specific pressings. Seriously. But, I mean, read this book if you never again want to lose an argument on John Fahey minutiae.

Worth it for the photos of the actual handwritten Fonotone labels alone; also the story of the unique way (and frequency with which) Fahey changed his guitar strings. I've read a lot on the man, and this was new to me. I won't spoil it for you but it's consistent with everything else you know about the dude. Anyway, well worth buying. I've really been enjoying it.

Well consider me stoked. Fahey's music has never intimidated me -- tho I confess there is a world of music that motivates him that I do not know the slightest thing about. I wonder if the book will start to fill in some of the blanks. Or perhaps other blanks.

As for his condition in 1975...others will know if I'm venturing too far afield but I've always been under the assumption that Fahey was a somewhat well put together scholarly type through the first batch of records and then had some kind of mental break sometime in the early 70s -- perhaps motivated by his latent discovery of sexual abuse as a child (which puts that back sleeve of America in quite a different light).

As a result, most of the videos I've seen of him in the mid-1970s almost don't resemble the humorous, well-spoken musicologist we see in the 60s.

some of the album art in voice of the turtle confirmed this for me years ago

i was wrong, it was the america album art that made think of this! i thought it was voice of the turtle.

http://paperandvinyl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/back-cover-to-America-1024x1016.jpg

haha, that one is awesomely terrifying. all of fahey's mythmaking strikes me as pretty conscious though (even if there is clearly a tortured soul beneath it all) -- he even says in that past comes back to haunt you interview that it helps sell records.

as fun as the fahey handbook is, i'm still shocked and awed by how badly designed the cover is! with the wealth of cool takoma labels and that amazing photo of fahey's wife holding the umbrella over him as he performs, surely they could've come up with something better. oh well.

Yeah, that photo is so great. I wish I had a framed version in my house. I agree the cover is abysmal.

Anyone know anything about Volume 2?

don't know about vol 2, but the author's email is in the book, iirc? he should come on this thread and tell us why john fahey is so boring! vol 2 will be where things get really interesting, I think...

something about his music itself sometimes feels a little been mentally "off" to me, the way he sort of gets lost in it sometimes

more like john failhey

also the story of the unique way (and frequency with which) Fahey changed his guitar strings. I've read a lot on the man, and this was new to me. I won't spoil it for you but it's consistent with everything else you know about the dude.

I probably won't read the book but I'm intrigued by the string thing. Can you spoil it for me?

Or is it just that when one breaks somebody else changes it for him?

i got an original pressing of America last year on vinyl...it's amazing, it's a gatefold and has this really weird ass full size 12x12 comic book of sorts in the middle....a bunch of like druggie turtles and vietnam type stuff

wk - ok, SPOILER ALERT! - he just took wire cutters and snipped the strings across the soundhole, without slackening or loosening them whatsoever! Maybe this isn't so fascinating if you don't play guitar, but this is wreaks absolute havoc on your neck and fucks up the tension something awful. From the quotes about this practice, it seems he enjoyed the sound - POP! Also, he changed strings constantly, even between sets. Said he liked the brightness. If I recall correctly, he favored GHS strings, which, to my mind, are already kinda bright. Anyway, I thought this was interesting because he didn't seem very discriminating about most things - food, guitars, places to live, etc - and so this constantly changing strings thing seemed a bit quirky.

I agree with tyler about the second half of his career being more interesting. I'll email the author and if I hear back I'll post here!

Also (and I realize there is probably a better place to discuss the man's music than on a thread with this title), I was listening to Live In Tasmania last night, and liked it less than I remembered. I recall it being one of my favorites from that era, but yesterday I noticed how rushed everything sounded, like Fahey was just running through stuff like Kottke would have done it, not wistfully or especially passionate. I also didn't remember the sound being so muddy. Maybe I should buy the reissue? I want to read Jim O's notes, anyway. I would also expect that the 'remastered' version or whatever is better at making these live tracks more seamless (the quick fades certainly shatter any illusions of a 'live' recording, especially considering the rumors that some of this is studio work with applause dubbed in. Maybe Volume 2 will address this, at last!).

Sorry, too much coffee today.

tyler could point you to a couple great fahey live boots that would probably be better

this one is my fave http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/21030078332/in-christ-there-is-no-east-or-west-john-fahey - looks like the link is still good.
digging around on delta slider is worth it too http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/

yeah that radio one is great just because the sound quality isn't that far off a studio album

was reminded by the handbook that fahey makes an appearance in clockwork orange
http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/897/10000000000001d30000011.jpg
alas, haven't found the 1968 playboy spread where his record is displayed.

!

there is a ridiculously nerdy but fun blog post about the record store in that movie here: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2006/04/13/alex-in-the-chelsea-drug-store/

including this kinda mind boggling observation:
"Might there be a reason for placing Fahey’s not-at-all futuristic blues record next to the 2001 soundtrack? How about this: one of the songs on Fahey’s album is Bicycle Made For Two (aka Daisy Bell), the very thing that the HAL 9000 computer famously recites when it’s being shut down."

what the fuck is up with the robot voice at the end of the FFV track on that boot tyler posted? is that a watermark for some encoding program or is that Fahey indulging in some electronic voice manipulation? kinda freaked me out

haha, i think it's just a super groovy KSAN station ID?

constantly changing his strings does surprise me. cutting them all off at once is no big deal though.

Without slacking the strings? Seems like that's a great way to warp your neck! That said, given the way he played, maybe I should start doing it that way. :)

yeah, doing that seems kind of nuts to me. he should've done it onstage, that would've been a hit, i think.

maybe if there's no truss rod it might cause a problem but I don't think the wood would warp that quickly. and how else are you going to clean the fingerboard?

fahey did cut his strings on stage, i've heard accounts!

Just got this in the mail today -- and holy shit, the section on the label types.

Ha! I know, it's absolutely the final word on Fahey album pressings. Period.

Fwiw, based on Glen Jones' foreword and the way the biographical section extends through his whole life, it seems like Vol. 2 is at least well underway if not in the editing stage.

I agree that it should be an interesting read -- between the Vanguard era, the orchestra albums, the Tasmania controversy, the Epstein-Barr syndrome, and, of course, his comeback in the 90s, there's a lot of rich material to mine musically and otherwise.

Agreed. I wrote to the author last night, I'll post here if he replies.

My favorite Fahey records are Of Rivers and Religion, Railroad I, and Red Cross, so, yeah, I am eagerly anticipating the second book. By Tasmania controversy do you mean the tales of it being made up of at least a third 'fake' live recordings?

Somewhere I have a cassette I recorded of his set at the Hint House in the nineties. I should digitize that, especially since I've never seen any 'bootlegs' of it floating around.

Sorry for the abysmal sentences, my left hand is in a splint and I'm not quite awake yet, just can't resist the Fahey bumps

Yes -- it will be interesting to find out what was what in Tasmania. He definitely played "Disco Void" live with some regularity.

Ha! I know, it's absolutely the final word on Fahey album pressings. Period.

Also, Fahey would make for an awesome artist poll, jimmywine.

<hinthint>

http://danbachblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/john-fahey-live-at-mr-browns.html

I started this poll:

The Resurrection(s) of Blind Joe Death: The John Fahey Comeback Albums Poll

Not a lotta response though. Pretty sure we also did a thorough poll of the entire discography once, no?

LOL:

15th(!) pressing of Blind Joe Death in 1978 being pressed with Alan Parsons Project's I Robot because they shared a catalog number. That must've been a bit if a shock to the listener.

Also, while I'm still kind of blown away/put off a bit by the intensity of the label stuff in this book, it does demonstrate how Fahey's myth (and that of other artists) evolved in the music business. How his label images went from plain font to dragons (emulating classic 78s) to (briefly) a Hindu god (during his Fare Forward Voyager/Swami period), etc. Interesting stuff.

the fahey catalogue is v difficult to sensibly divide because there are myriad genealogies running through, multiple labels &c. the late period one has the clearest cut-off points & worked well despite the lack of interest. the giant poll of everything - In Christ There Is No East or West: The John Fahey Albums Poll - was too overwhelming & had a hideous victor.

there could be many viable or semi-viable possible fahey polls. the ones i'd be most interested in wld be a 'classic' 60s poll, poss just takoma & a 'wilderness' period poll of 80s/early 90s stuff. the end of the 60s & 70s gets to be such a mess, there are loads of sub categories: the vanguard records, the "& orchestra" records, america & FFV, the christmas albums & yes! jesus loves me, the beginning of the slightly manic elephantine-medley period (which runs into the 80s & has roots in the dixieland records)

Let's do them all!

Also, what do you have against The Transfiguration...? It isn't my favorite by a longshot but surely it's not a 'hideous' choice.

yeah transfiguration is great

of the classic period i might vote for the great san bernadino birthday party and other excursions just because the title track is so mindblowing to me

love the yellow princess so much

Of the classic period I am partial to Days Have Gone By just a notch above The Yellow Princess (which, on certain days, seems weirdly dense and impenetrable to me).

I just recently heard Let Go, one of the last remaining Fahey albums I hadn't heard - title track is fucking great! A revelation, that one. Gotta find it on vinyl.

i don't think i've ever head Let Go. I was just listening to the Cul de Sac collab over the weekend for the first time in forever (though it may have been the first Fahey I ever heard?). Pretty solid album, don't think I was ready for it way back when.

Somedays Transfiguration is my favorite of the early ones -- I feel in some ways it's the best example of what Peter Stampfel said about Death Chants when he wrote Fahey "used a traditional guitar style to play modern-based compositions in an extended way."

Other days it's San Bernadino -- I adore "Knotts Berry Farm Molly," the melodies, the backwards tapes, the way he recorded the guitar. And for all the sturm und drang over his final period, "Guitar Excursions Into the Unknown" sounds awfully similar.

Really, we need to do an artist poll. All his periods deserve reexamination.

possible artist poll title - Why Is Polling John Fahey So Boring?

Can we break it up into several micro-polls, as ogmor suggests upthread? I think that's a great idea.

I would be game for this as well. Possible micro-polls:

'classic'- all Takoma releases, Yellow Princess, Requia (even though they were on Vanguard they still seem to be of that era, to me)
middle period- FFV, orchestra, etc
wilderness years- (I would talk up Railroad for that one)
comeback years

I dunno. Whatever works for me! Let's do some Faheychat.

Can we break it up into several micro-polls, as ogmor suggests upthread? I think that's a great idea.

I'm trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on used copies of all the 80s albums I don't have on Amazon.

there is, of course, nowt wrong w/ transfiguration, &, comparing it to records by anyone else it is clearly excellent, but I always thought it was the weakest of the first six takomas, & mb voice of the turtle too - just not enough meat there, all wistful drifting downstream stuff. i admit that I love it, & there are some hot oddities on there, but the idea that someone cld survey the entire JF catalogue and think, "Truly, this collection of short vignettes of winking country is the best he had to offer" is disturbing.

anyway, I cld do a poll but I'm happy to chat about the records here. I also think fahey is well-suited to a POX type thread, although again I feel this wld be better divided by period. I'd find it more interesting of ppl enthused in detail about different tracks, created their own fahey sub-genres, traced their genealogies&c.

what's yr fav nancy mclean duet? (downfall of the adelphi rolling grist mill obv)
yr fav perverse fahey cover? (California dreaming)
&c. &c.

I'm trying to decide whether to pull the trigger on used copies of all the 80s albums I don't have on Amazon.

Hmmm...7 CDs for $35 is not too bad. You've also just reminded me that I also know nothing of Visits Washington DC. That's one of the last ones I haven't heard (along with all the xmas albums that aren't The New Possibility). Has anyone ever seen GT&C on vinyl? I'd totally drop $20 for that one alone. It never seems to turn up.

Ogmor's argument to not poll the specific eras is persuasive. In fact, the only reason I'm leaning toward the polls as opposed to keeping the discussion flourishing here is this completely annoying thread title.

it took me forever to find a copy of god, time and causality, strangely. but i did. and it wasn't expensive. $10 in a store i think. i think all the fahey albums are worth buying, certainly for the $35 pricetag. GT&C, I Remember BJD, City of Refuge, and Visits Washington DC are all, in my opinion, really good records. i also have rainforests & let go, but i never listen to this really.. i should revisit for the poll. or micro polls. or w/e.

Ian, give Let Go another try - in places, I think it's as good as GT&C (and the similarly underrated Railroad I). Worst cover art of the entire discography though.

Don't think I'm too proud to show up at the next record fair with my copy of the Handbook in tow. I will be "that guy."

"errr, errrm, actually, according to the Handbook, this is the fourth pressing - see, look at the thickness of this underline on the label."

ohhh i love the LET GO cover art

I think it's very amusing that all of this discussion is taking place on this thread Reclaim it!

City Of Refuge is really really good. It might be the only one of those I've heard. I may have Let Go, need to check & listen if I do.

i'll def listen to let go again at some point! railroad is a huge fave of mine as i have mentioned somewhere on ilx before

Ok Amazon didn't calculate shipping. Now it's $65 which isn't as appealing.

This just in: the easy melodicism of After the Ball goes down like honey.

Oh yeah, After The Ball is great.

After the Ball tho is why I don't subscribe to the idea that a record of "short vignettes of winking country" is somehow a lesser offering from Fahey -- just as a record of electric noise or concréte wouldn't be.

This is precisely why I'd prefer to poll all his work together -- you really need to consider how all these sides of Fahey--Woody Allen Big Band, Thurston Moore, Pierre Schaeffer, Charley Patton--all came from the fingers of one man.

Also, with stuff like "Beverly," "Hawaiian Two-Step," it seems After the Ball is a pretty clearly a better record than Of Rivers and Religion. -- not entirely sure why the former is always left out. Perhaps because people don't admire sequels as much. Old Fashioned Love is pretty great too.

"beverly" is definitely the first fahey song that split my mind in two. that one goes deep.

After the Ball is a pretty clearly a better record than Of Rivers and Religion

whoa whoa whoa

shit just got real

BTW just heard back from Mr. Guerrieri, author of the handbook:

Thank you for your compliments. I hope that volume 2 will be ready early next year, but as you can see with the first volume, the amount of details can accumulate and easily push back the publishing date.

I think I agree with you -- as excited as I was to get the first volume of the handbook, I'm even more jazzed about vol. 2. There are just so many crosscurrents at play.

I found a relatively cheap copy of that Transcendental Waterfall box and am very tempted to buy myself an early birthday present. Those of you who have it, what do you think of it? I heard bad things about the 4 Men With Beards pressing of America (namely that they edited "Mark 1:15"), but their Voice Of The Turtle reissue sounded swell to me. I have an early (I used to say original, but the Handbook has corrected me on that) copy of DHGB and a recent reissue of BJD, but no other Fahey vinyl from this era.

i find the thread question pretty uninteresting. ore interesting would be the question why people find him so great. i never really got the appeal, i preferred kottke. except in christ there is no east and west which i love but is it really by him?

i have it and i've been pleased....though i do not have the originals to compare to

xxp:

not a single pop or click on 6 LPs worth of material, amazing packaging, I love it. I have pretty good copies of all six OG records, but the box set blows them all away.

Wow! OK, I'm convinced. Pulling the trigger. Thanks. This will have to be one of those 'hidden in plain sight' items when it arrives because my wife will almost certainly raise an eyebrow at this expensive looking thing suddenly appearing in the midst of a financially brutal summer. "Oh, that? I've had that for YEARS. You've never seen it before? Huh."

also you get the sort odd experience of owning a John Fahey t-shirt

also also, I failed to mention that the inclusion of all the original inserts, some of which are quite large/long/detailed, is yet another bonus.

yeah, once i get set up with a halfway decent turntable that is first on my list, I think...
totally need a fahey shirt. was thinking that some of those takoma labels would make for a good shirt.

T-shirt may be harder to explain to the wife however.

http://img0.etsystatic.com/009/0/5628580/il_570xN.420320240_egbc.jpg

i guess this is an actual takoma shirt from the 70s... wonder if the next volume of the handbook will have an in-depth discussion of cotton fibers used ...

T-shirt may be harder to explain to the wife however.

― Naive Teen Idol, Wednesday, July 31, 2013 5:49 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, can't see myself wearing a large lime green John Fahey shirt anyway. No danger of outing myself there. Ha ha ha

i guess this is an actual takoma shirt from the 70s... wonder if the next volume of the handbook will have an in-depth discussion of cotton fibers used ...

haha, man this 1978 fahey bootleg (linked to above) is something else.

http://bluesshow.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/withguitarssm.jpg

look at this john fahey guitar holder

!!!

kinda terrifying

omfg

I guess if your goal is never to pick up a guitar again ....

good grief that model. i have some sort of diy takoma tshirt bequeathed to me by g jones, it's a kind of garish orange&purple, incredibly faded & hideously oversized on me but it is ofc a most prized item of lounge/bedwear.

NTI i am not sure how you are linking after the ball & transfiguration but i am curious. i think the three orchestra albums all have decent stuff on, not so fussed about the actual dixieland, but i love that drunken euphoric righteousness you get on in a persian market, hawaiian two step, jaya shiva shankara, om shanthi norris & almost all of of rivers&religion. rivers&religion is so fantastically slow as well - the ending of each line becomes so inevitable it feels absolutely massive. the bit in the old man river medley from about 4:10-4:40 where fahey drags time out to deliver that delicious dissonance w/ the hottest syncopation is so potent it has a kind of physiological, brain-melting effect on me like a superbly bitter or spicy taste that feels like a neural overload. i get high off those harmonies, basically.

i was just listening to old fashioned love and i kinda like the corny dixieland

or at least i think it's good and they sound like they are having fun and i feel like it's contextually interesting in the scope of his career, for someone who seemed to steel himself against genre cliches with a certain intensity embracing something like that

yeah not sure if i would want a whole album full of fahey dixieland jams, but i like them in the context of the album.
think this is my fave from rivers & religion, something about the pacing of it is just deeply heavy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1inB79hSZHw

and dry bones in the valley slays, so old fashioned love is good b/c its got that one on it

dry bones is the ultimate fahey slow-motion jam

I dig the Gastr del Sol cover of that one a lot, too.

interesting would be the question why people find him so great.

Specific feelings evoked, like most music. Trying to talk about it ultimately doesn't get anywhere. Not that it can't be fun to nibble around the edges.

I could say something like "Americana reverse domesticated for Americans people more comfortable with oud solos."

But why, why do you like a nose shaped like that?

Maybe it is answerable in concrete terms but as with music it's going to be disappointingly mathematical and the qualia is going to slip right through your fingers.

Sorry, I'm kind of sudafed damaged.

re: dry bones, i prefer the fahey version, i think it's neater. the gastr one w/ conrad creaking along starts to feel like it's about to collapse under its own weight, but i love that album and it's a good closer.

i think i cld come up w/ a lot of perhaps hyperbolic-sounding reasons why i like fahey but idk. i was more tempted a while ago when i think hurting said something about fahey "not having enough tricks" or something, which struck me as so absolutely wrong that i was tempted to post a list of selected JF tricks. i don't care if ppl don't like him though, that's fine

Post away

Yeah ogmor, I really dug your post on after the ball & transfiguration above, feel free to get as hyperbolic as you like from my perspective.

dry bones is the ultimate fahey slow-motion jam

To that end, I can completely understand why by the 90s he may have found these records to be personally uncomfortable and maybe a little embarrassing.

otm. Some great writing on this thread!

I'm playing the Fahey and Gastr del Sol versions of Dry Bones simultaneously and it's freaking me out.

hopefully this bio will answer this thread title's question:
An early heads up on a biography of John Fahey by Vin Du Select Qualitite label head Steve Lowenthal, slated for publication next year. Dance Of Death: The Life Of John Fahey – American Guitarist will be published by Chicago Review Press im June 2014. It includes interviews with all three of Fahey's wives, plus Michael Chapman, Leo Kottke, Byron Coley, Glenn Jones, Jim O'Rourke, The No Neck Blues Band, Dean Blackwell and many others. More details to be announced at chicagoreviewpress.com
http://thewire.co.uk/news/26412/john-fahey-biography-on-the-way-in-2014

Now that looks like a good read, gonna go ahead and pencil that in for 2014 birthday/Christmas.

did we talk about this already? the talking heads don't look great but there's some new (to me) interview footage, so i'm excited!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=&v=3NoXyb9AjJw

i didn't know about that...did you see the basho doc got kickstarted?

knew about the fahey doc, think that might be a new-ish trailer?

xp yeah! i'm excited about that, basho is more mysterious to me. there is currently one known video of him playing though, so it's going to depend entirely on who they get involved. jack rose would have been so good for both of these

yeah i'm more excited for basho too, seems less documented.

i like that pete townsend is in both. cool someone of that stature would make time for both. i enjoy listening to pete talk about things. stephan grossman in the fahey - he's like the cat daddy of 80s fingerpicking instructional video tapes.

who's the guy who says "John Fahey was punk rock"? I hate that shit, not everything that is good or interesting or individual or challenging is "punk rock". Oh man "There's a Riot Goin' On" is PUNK ROCK. Bitches Brew is PUNK ROCK. Rite of Spring was PUNK ROCK.

copy of the handbook for 13 bucks if anyone needs one:

http://www.amazon.com/The-John-Fahey-Handbook-Vol/dp/0985302801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1377804503&sr=8-1&keywords=john+fahey+handbook

xp punk rockists! haha, yeah, you can almost see in that dude's face that he's like "oh shit why did i say that!?"

i think the people in this thread account for roughly 43% of the sales on that fahey handbook.

i think the guy who says he's punk rock is a member of ilx favourites the decemberists.

i like that pete townsend is in both. cool someone of that stature would make time for both. i enjoy listening to pete talk about things.

Me too. As a huge Fahey and Townshend fan, I'm pretty excited to see this doc.

i don't have it!

if i was making a fahey doc i would try to get ppl like joe bussard, dick spottswood, anthony lee, pat sullivan, ED denson, terry robb, barry hansen, his various wives & gfs, peter lang, david grubbs, jim o'rourke, glenn jones, keith from nnck, steffen basho junghans, byron coley..... all way before pete townshend or whoever. but it is cool he is doing it. laurie spiegel said some interesting stuff about fahey, she'd be in there too. might go and see stefan grossman when he tours in a couple of months.

This one was disappointing:

http://www.amazon.com/Lake-Chelan-Greatest-World/dp/193617846X/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1377807743&sr=1-7&keywords=john+fahey

He divides his time between Lake Chelan, where he and his wife own and operate a vacation rental business, and Restlawn Memory Gardens in West Salem, Oregon.

The legend:
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/e1/80/d79086cff4280a7f02359d.L._V146557155_SY470_.jpg

Revelation on the Banks of Lake Chelan

it's weird if they didn't reach out to peter lang and leo kottke

guess it was shown in NYC w/ screenings in seattle coming up
USA Theatrical Release:
August 16-22 New York City, NY. Cinema Village, Manhattan.
September 6-12 Seattle, WA. Grand Illusion Cinema.
http://www.johnfaheyfilm.com

they should have talked to my pal doug decker. he worked at takoma for years and engineered/produced a bunch of fahey stuff. he's a wealth of info. then again maybe they did. i haven't seen the thing.

screened in portland last october, was serviceable

way more psyched about the book

xp can you resolve the hot issue of who they had as talking heads?

chris funk of the decemberists explains punk rock

xp not entirely, no. nnck dude definitely, decembrists guy gets a lot of time. b coley maybe? not too broad a cast. had heard that the filmmaker ran into some issues getting people on board for one reason or another. def works as a sort of primer for folks and is a net positive for that, but maybe not a lot for heads or whatever.

is there any particular reason the decembrists guy is even in there? does he make cool solo records we should know about? (not picking on him, i'm sure he is a good dude, just curious, seems like a random guy to interview).

hmm, jack cole review http://spectrumculture.com/2013/08/in-search-of-blind-joe-death-the-saga-of-john-fahey.html twitter https://twitter.com/JohnFaheyFilm director's twitter https://twitter.com/JamesCullingham

q&a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdUAmzmHAr4

Chris used to live in Eugene and is a good guy based on my experience and friends in common, fwiw but I dunno why he would be in this - Fahey played in Eugene a fair amount near the end and released a record on a local label so there are some connections.

(I am really busy and have not watched the video)

sufjan stevens was on a fahey tribute album i reviewed for the Voice once. does HE make cool solo albums that we should know about?

who will chip in for my basho doc kickstarter if i get sufjan stevens to talk about how he was influenced by zarthus when making illinoise

sufjan stevens was on a fahey tribute album i reviewed for the Voice once. does HE make cool solo albums that we should know about?
not entirely sure what your point is, but i guess you're trying to be a dick? bravo!

And where I was once astounded by his machine-like precision, I am now driven mad by his machine-like precision.

So, why is John Fahey's music so boring?

― valdemar (nubbin), Tuesday, January 10, 2006 2:25 AM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this is kinda weird, from the original post....machine-like precision is not something i would use to describe fahey at all!

No definitely not.

if anything he's on the sloppier side compared to like kottke or lang or lots of players really, and he really goes in and out of tempos (in a cool way IMO but still it's not conventionally "correct")

If he's "boring" at all it's usually because he gets either droney or meandery, sounding like a stoned dude fucking around in his bedroom. But even his more boring moments have a certain charm to them.

I hate this fucking thread title.

I received a DVD of the Fahey documentary a few months back in return for supporting the project via Kickstarter. I was very much looking forward to it but found it disappointing. Somehow fails to get beyond uninspiring talking heads telling us what a pioneer Fahey was (I can't remember an example, but I cringed on a couple of occasions).

^ ^ I realise many music docs are like that, but I'd hoped for something more.

"not entirely sure what your point is, but i guess you're trying to be a dick? bravo!"

people were wondering why the decemberists guy was in the doc. when i got that tribute album i kinda wondered why sufjan stevens was on it. that's all there is too it.

which i didn't think would be that hard to understand. cuz as far as i knew back then sufjan made twee indie rock albums.

ok sorry

i think fahey is both mechanical & meandering. as the exemplar of extreme repetitive finger-picking patterns & alternating basslines, he has a mechanical quality, his right hand an unstoppable piston looping endlessly w/ minimal left hand work. cf. night train of valhalla, on the beach at waikiki, sun gonna shine in my backdoor someday blues, america... ppl like harris newman & leo kottke have extended this, but it's all from him.

he is also the consummate meanderer imo, a flaneur in his mental archive, recycling himself & others, inventing 12 minute intros to 4 minute songs &c. all that meandering is context tho, it ebbs, builds, & allows him to do things like slam down a rendition of camptown races as a triumphant, glistening, unstoppable finishing move.

always meant to hear Harris Newman. Ogmor, how do you rate him? I'm skeptical of the Constellation crowd and always confuse him with Frankie Sparo for some reason, but I hear he's done some worthwhile stuff.

harris newman plays standing up! i think he's underrated, he did some cool stuff. perhaps constellation association, and mb things like having star wars references for track names put some ppl off. he could play very fast, w/ very neat, clean timing, giving it a kind of hard swing. maybe it's just me but i think he is also audibly from the North, you can hear the cold steel in those strings, there are lots of tssty harmonies/dissonances in there, as well as more of yr standard constellation ghost-in-a-rusting-junkyard vibe on some of his slide stuff&duets. he has some really nice bass lines which he tends to deploy under fast droning notes, sort of like a dead-eyed viking maybelle carter.

his first album is mb a bit rougher, but i like his second record, accidents with nature and each other, after that he seems to have started to recycle himself.

...he is also audibly from the North, you can hear the cold steel in those strings, there are lots of tssty harmonies/dissonances in there, as well as more of yr standard constellation ghost-in-a-rusting-junkyard vibe on some of his slide stuff&duets. he has some really nice bass lines which he tends to deploy under fast droning notes, sort of like a dead-eyed viking maybelle carter.

Sold! Thanks. You oughta write press releases!

all jobs considered.

can't find it on youtube but my single track recommendation wld be "cloud city" from accidents

On it. There's a used coy of that album at my local shop, going there for labor day sale tomorrow, will pick it up. Thanks again.

if i knew dude wrote songs with star wars referencing titles i would have been buying his records like, years ago!

Have you heard his rendition of the Cantina Theme? Twelve minutes if meandering introduction followed by a machine-like rendition of the main theme. Jaw dropping.

lol, i feel like this is almost worth writing

just trying to fit my head back together after reading that Cantina Theme thing thinking it was about Fahey.

if you listen to in a persian market & do whatever the aural equivalent of squinting is, you won't be too far off

a fairly big fahey piece in the guardian in advance of a bbc screening of the documentary:

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/nov/26/john-fahey-blues-folk-guitar-pioneer

Fahey's so much better than any Brautigan I've ever read that fuck me like fried potatoes I don't like seeing the two linked.

half expect "fuck me liked fried potatoes" to be some reference to a song in the pop charts right now

agree about the brautigan thing, but that's not as terrible as i was expecting

uk tv alert: just remembered the fahey doc is on tonight @ 11.00 bbc4

R. Crumb didn't think he was boring: "John Fahey – he was a crazy asshole. A psycho."

i know i am the biggest fahey fanboy but i am really enjoying this. having a hot friday night in naming all the tracks as they show up.

omg this footage of him making fun of stefan grossman! aaah i need to record this.

glad i saw that but shit it's left me feeling sad about fahey now

i have felt v sad about fahey in the past, but now watching this, and especially seeing new footage of fahey, is just really exciting.

this was much better than the trailer led me expect! i thought it was balanced, didn't leave anything really major out or get anything really wrong, and handled his personal struggles really well. there got some great talking heads too: very cool to see terry robb interviewed, as well as barry hansen, melody fahey, keith from nnck, even pete townshend's bit was sweet. if it was half an hour longer there could have been more stuff about takoma records, bola sete, kottke, basho, some stuff about his writing, something on the records themselves, the liner notes & all the mythology, and if there'd been some more musical analysis, at least a bit about open tunings, finger-picking &c., that would have been cool. but, as someone who never met him but has consumed pretty much all the widely available material on him, i thought it gave a really good sense of him and i had an awesome time watching it.

Watched this half-asleep (its been a tough week). Like how there were a few readings from his books...possibly enjoy that more than the music. I felt like listening to Charley Patton a lot more than Fahey by the end.

The mocking attitude towards blues/collectors could've made the Blues doc that was on earlier in the eve a much more enjoyable experience, unlike the usual bore-fest that it was.

Didn't know Fahey was even that much of a name so that Townsend knew about him - thought he got him 'wrong' when he was describing the sensibility. Seems as if Indian Raga is a big component of what he does, not much 'rock n' roll' there at all, and by drawing on ancient court music it is THAT where the association to 'primitive' actually makes sense to me.

When is the Loren Connors doc being shown then?

I guess I'll see this when it comes out on DVD.

what i didn't quite get was why did robbie basho give fahey a copy of tommy, and why did fahey then feel compelled to send townsend a postcard about it, even though he didn't like it much? i guess they'd been corresponding prior to that or something

some of my favourite bits were just the music set to nature footage - sligo river blues and a burbling woodland stream. i could watch that stuff all day, very film national film board of canada

just remembered him using the soundhole on his guitar as an ashtray during that tv interview

ha yeah i loved that. and when he talked about the death of the clayton peacock and then the interviewer was like 'and so you wrote a song about it' and he said 'well, no, but it makes a good story'

went back & watched the first 10 minutes I missed which addresses some of what I was saying re:mythology, writing, records. the interview witb nancy mclean was interesting. I wonder if they approached other ppl like pat sullivan, dick spottswood. I don't know if there'll be abother opportunity to get those ppl on record

another

Did they talk to Leo Kottke or Peter Lang?

just remembered him using the soundhole on his guitar as an ashtray during that tv interview

Where was that interview from? And when? Mid-to-late 60s? Mind somewhat blown by the idea that John Fahey got invited on a television show in the 60s at all, the film was Canadian so maybe it was a Canadian TV show? Also the footage from Rockpalast, where he didn't look anything like himself!

Oh man, not sure when I will get to watch this, but sounds overall pretty damn cool. Thanks for the run-downs.

no kottke or lang. the fahey interview with laura weber is from "guitar, guitar", which you can get on dvd from stefan grossmans site. She's a slightly obnoxious presence but fahey's in his absolute prime & his playing is great.

Didn't know Fahey was even that much of a name so that Townsend knew about him -

I might have the chronology wrong here, but Townshend's art school roommate was an American with a huge record collection which, in addition to records by Ray Charles, Jimmy Reed, John Coltrane, and Charles Mingus, included a copy of Blind Joe Death.

ah, that would make sense.

i guess between us we could come up with a pretty big list of who and what was missing but i guess that no mention of the christmas stuff is a surprise. i don't know how much fahey fans rate those albums, but i was always led to believe that they're his biggest selling records by a long shot. is that right?

btw there's a youtube playlist with the whole of his rockpalast performance right here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReW9uUYm-DA&list=PL0FB3153C659FD414

oh, that didn't work did it? go here instead

My first exposure to Fahey, back in the 80s, was to his Christmas albums and Live in Tasmania, and I think that was it. At this point I find his Christmas music genuinely boring (unlike most of his other output). But it makes sense that his Christmas albums would sell well, because I think Christmas albums sell well in general. (See all the well past their prime salseros who put out Christmas albums practically every year!)

If I heard him on the radio at that time (not impossible given the expansive playlist available on University of Pennsylvania's radio station back then), it didn't register with me. These were albums a friend owned.

But it makes sense that his Christmas albums would sell well, because I think Christmas albums sell well in general.

Yeah, pretty sure Low's biggest seller is their Christmas one too!

not much 'rock n' roll' there at all,

I don't think Townshend literally meant that Fahey was a rock 'n' roll guitarist (whatever that is), but that Fahey shared much of that music's techniques and, to a degree, sensibilities.

I think "the new possibility" sold upwards of 100,000 copies. takoma didn't keep records, fahey speculated that it cld have sold a million but really no one knows

That's kinda weak that they didn't bother to talk to Lang or Kottke, not like they would be hard to reach. Peter has tons of amazing tour stories, personal stuff

(Why I continue visiting ILM: I can toggle back and forth between a disco poll and a John Fahey thread.)

Anyone else think it odd that Jim O'Rourke wasn't interviewed for this? Maybe he was asked and turned it down, but I always assumed Jim played a significant role in Fahey's late-90s re-emergence.

no thurston moore, byron coley or glenn jones either, though the last was thanked in the credits

I'm ok with at least one music doc a year that doesn't have Thurston and rollins

there's loads of ppl they could have had for this. i thought having keith from nnck as a representative of that era was pretty good. a lot of the guys we're talking about are in the public eye a lot and have gone on record about fahey a few times, if they could have gotten more interviews i would have loved to have seen pat sullivan or dick spottswood or ed denson.. esp as pat sullivan seems to have helped fahey write a bit of his early output.

So I see this is out on DVD already. Anyone know if there are extras? Is this a 'one and done' kinda thing I should get from Netflix or something I'm gonna wanna own? On the Fahey freak scale I'm probably a 9 and a half, but I never watch DVDs more than once...

quoth some guy on amazon:

The DVD comes with a LOT of bonuses, making this package even more of a “must own”. For starters there are the extra interviews. We hear from Chris Funk (the Decemberists) (6 minutes), Dean Blackwood (co-founder of Revenant Records) (14 minutes) and Pete Townshend (The Who, as if you didn’t know) whose interview runs 31 minutes! Next comes about 45 minutes of performances by Funk, George Winston (on piano and harmonica) Stefan Grossman, Fahey himself and four others. The bonuses finish with a four part interview with Fahey from 1999 (12 minutes).
The package even go so far as to include a Fahey Discography (just album title and year, though) and a two-item Bibliography.

that's probably every thought pete townshend has ever had about john fahey. i suspect the '99 interview is the full version of one they show a clip or two from in the film, which is in the middle here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZl5DaXl-VI

which is from the stefan grossman dvd i mentioned upthread. i think this may now have been repackaged - http://www.guitarvideos.com/products/vestapol-dvds/guitar-artistry-of-john-fahey-on-dvd - but used to look like this - http://www.amazon.com/John-Fahey-In-Concert/dp/B00016XN0M

fahey's right hand in the 69 footage is mesmerising, it seems kind of muscular, not especially elegant, but he's very controlled, wrist kind of locked down, not really moving that much. later clips he seems a bit looser

Watched the documentary last night and enjoyed it. I had no idea he was friends and classmates with Dr. Demento so it was really fun to see him interviewed. I was also tickled to hear that Fahey liked to listen to Rod Stewart. As I had spent my morning putting up a Christmas tree while listening to his Christmas records, I would have been curious to hear more about his somewhat odd Christianity and how serious it actually was.

Got this for xmas. Haven't watched yet but lordy if this isn't the crappiest DVD packaging I've ever seen. Looks like a promo or one of those cheapo things you get at the dollar store. Lame. Will report back after viewing

got the handbook for christmas & been so psyched finding treat after treat - sam charters' letter! all the original reviews! info & photos of pat sullivan! a whole section on exactly which train you hear in raga called pat pt 1! details on all these mysterious 60s recording sessions! I'm not a collector so a lot of the book isn't relevant, but I love it

Yeah, I felt the same way about it. For a book that's not exactly meant to be read per se, it was such a pleasure to read! Hope Vol 2 is along soon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613745192/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

!!!

excited

can't wait to read this.

So, according to Amazon, there's to be a 'revised and updated' version of the first volume of the handbook coming this month. All fine and good, but...where's Volume 2?

ha, i bought that handbook for $13 and flipped it for $50. it was an impressive volume, but was advertised more as a genuine "booky book" than what it is, a glorified, insanely detailed discography.

+1

yeah my ideal "john fahey handbook" would have all that ridic dicography info, interviews with fahey and his associates and essays/analysis about all the albums.

I really want volume 2 of the handbook, but I keep waiting for the list price to drop. I can't justify $53 for this, even though I thoroughly enjoyed the first volume, and this second volume covers the period I most want to read about. Anyone know where this can be had for under fifty bucks? I tried to get my library to carry it but no dice.

i know, same boat -- i check to see if the price has gone down, but no dice. I'd pay $30 for it! also a little annoying that there's already a revised/expanded 1st volume (that costs even more!).

that first volume oddly went down to $13 at one point. i bought it, read it, then noticed it had gone back up to $50, so i sold it. maybe that'll happen again.

My awesome wife got sick of hearing me complain about how much Volume 2 cost and bought it for me (mostly to shut me up, I think). Arrived today. Down the rabbit hole I go!

Very eager to read about this period; it covers the period of Fahey albums I listen to the most these days (and I'm pretty sure Of Rivers and Religion is my all-time favorite Fahey, haters be damned).

do people hate of rivers and religion? i love it.

I remember Lowenthal hating on it (he hates Railroad too, the swine!) in his book, and it's generally regarded as a misstep: made when all eyes were on Fahey after signing to Reprise, he goes and makes his Dixieland album. But this one - and to a lesser extent, its follow-up After The Ball - are pretty special records taken on their own terms. Also underrated imo: God, Time and Causality and Old Fashioned Love. But On Rivers and Religion is all-time for me - I own three copies on vinyl (two original copies--one sealed--and the reissue), and I'm not the sort of person usually prone to such nerdness!

I like Old Fashioned Love, In A Persian Market is one of my favs

yeah i like the dixieland stuff! and things like "beverley" and "song" and the rivers version of "steamboat" ... that's some of my very favorite Fahey.

Yep, that's truly the best version of "Steamboat!" I love how Fahey once described it as "just a string of cliches" or something equally deprecating.

haha, yeah, like the greatest string of musical cliches of all time.

Fahey was such an amazing and harsh self-critic. Keen to get volume two when the price is less absurd, anyone know what non-discography type content there is i.e. information on mysterious figures etc.?

In A Persian Market is totally glorious and such an incredibly Faheyish thing to cover

I'm a little over two-thirds through Volume 2 and, at the risk of sounding like an ingrate, given the exhaustive and unmatched scholarship here, I wish Guerrieri had expanded this to three volumes. It's clear that Guerrieri, like most people, favors Fahey's early work. As a result, he tends to gloss over many key (imo) albums from this latter period and neglects some details while overemphasizing others. For example, there is very little about collaborators. While America cover artist Patrick Finnerty (deservedly) gets an entire two pages, there is nothing about Chris Darrow, Terry Robb, Denny Bruce, or Woody Mann, aside from their credits on specific albums. How did he meet these people? What was their relationship with Fahey like? The Darrow connection, in particular, seems like a crucial one. Similarly, Ragtime Ralph gets an entire page but Jim O'Rourke is barely mentioned.

There are also many, many pages detailing the myriad grey market 'digital only' best-of releases online, most of which just seem arbitrary (for instance, "Essential" compilations that collect the second side of one album, the first side of another, and then a track or two from Live In Tasmania). I'm not sure what the point of listing these is, especially given how little attention is paid to things like John's production work (shockingly, not even a single mention of Homegas in the index!). These digital releases all look unauthorized and cheap, with a bootlegger's attention to correct titles, etc. Who cares?

There are also far fewer album reviews from the respective periods this time, which doesn't make sense, assuming that Fahey was getting far more reviews for the albums covered in this second volume than in the first. I still have no idea what critics made of Let Go upon its release, for example. I realize Guerrieri doesn't opine much, which I appreciate, but this volume is far more reference-oriented than anything you'll want to, say, read before bedtime or something.

I know I sound like King of the Nerds here, but if ever there was a book for nerds, this is it. Anyway, my takeaway so far is that I vastly prefer the first volume; there is nothing in Volume 2 anywhere near the level of detail paid to albums like Voice Of The Turtle (which I will concede was a web that desperately needed untangling). As ever, I applaud and admire Guerrieri's tireless research and ambition here, and I'm really happy to finally have this, but I do wish, perhaps selfishly, that there was more to it.

my impression of the first volume was that it wasn't really a work of prose analysis but just a very exhaustive annotated discography. in other words unless something has really changed with volume two, i can't imagine this would be the place to turn for a deep understanding of fahey's music and the changes it went through.

i mean it seems like guerrieri has translated his intense fandom into an intense (and likely OCD) desire to compile every bit of trivia about each fahey album, but it's not like (again, based on volume one) he had much to say that would really deepen an appreciation of fahey's artistry.,

honestly it seems like precisely the sort of thing that would work 1000x better as a website than a book.

Maybe so. But I think if you consider Volume 1 a "just the facts" sort of tome, Volume 2 is even more so.

I guess I won't hold my breath for a 33 1/3 about Red Cross. HA!

yeah, the "readable" parts of vol. 1 were what I was most interested in -- while I guess I'm glad someone is doing ridiculous OCD work on labels and vinyl thickness, it's not quite my cup of tea. what i'd love is a "listener's guide" to fahey, album-by-album, with those interesting discographical details included alongside some thoughtful commentary, hostory, background, context etc.

Exactly! I'd love that, too.

Of course, now, with Steve's book, the two volumes of the Handbook, the (admittedly kinda shitty) documentary, and the internet, such a thing is totally possible; it wouldn't have been ten years ago. I mean, shit, most of the people involved in these records (or who know everything about them--Glenn Jones, O'Rourke, ED Denson, etc) are still alive. You should do it, Tyler!

of rivers and religion and old fashioned love have 'song' and 'dry bones in the valley', some of his best. i love how 'song' just gets more glacial as it goes on

I definitely put both of those in my Fahey top ten. And I put the Gastr del Sol cover of "Dry Bones...," with Tony Conrad, in my all-time top ten by anybody! I think that's my platonic ideal of a perfect piece of acoustic music.

i think a 33 1/3 book about fahey could be great!

and if you chose which LP wisely, you could easily talk about fahey's music in general since there are so many influences/motifs/etc. that carry across albums. you could trace out the lineage and permutations of a particular melodic theme or whatever.

i don't know which fahey album would have the most marquee value though

maybe "blind joe death" but that's far from his best album

Days Have Gone By would allow for a broad survey of Fahey- has studio stuff but some old Fonotone tracks on it, sound collages (with licks he'd later use in FFF), the national anthem of Finland, etc etc- all the weirdness that makes Fahey great

No wait, should be one about Voice of the Turtle!

i feel like the liner notes for that one can hardly be topped.

thanks for the mini review wimmels, your preferences seem close to my own so it's a little disappointing that guerrieri hasn't turned his formidable researching powers onto some of the curious figures around the margins of fahey's output. not having much on terry robb is absurd, he basically kept fahey going for years.

if there was a market for it producing a sort of fahey listener's guide would be my dream project. fahey resists being defined by a single album, but you could do a great 33 1/3 on any of the first six takomas, my pick would probably be days have gone by too. voice of the turtle is fahey ad absurdum which might make it seem like a meaty candidate but I suppose I just don't think it's one of his best records

in terms of the overall package, voice of the turtle is pretty rich as a mytho-personal fantasia (as shown by guerreri's analysis), but yeah, i wouldn't say it's the best one musically.

actually pretty surprising there hasn't been a 33 1/3 for him...

You should do it, Tyler!
nothing i'd like better than to spend the next few years listening to fahey records and writing about them, but i've got bills to pay!

So into Old Fashioned Love right now

finally
http://i59.tinypic.com/2j5m90w.jpg

isn't that an unofficial release?

I mean, all the copies of that record, not just this edition

DISGRACEFUL

?

Claiming it is from "Newbury Comics and Takoma". Who would Takoma be at this point?

Concord Music Group?

In 1979, Fahey sold Takoma to Chrysalis Records, owned by Terry Ellis and Chris Wright, which had artists such as Blondie, Pat Benatar, and Huey Lewis.[3] Jon Monday continued as General Manager of the label for Chrysalis until 1982 when Chrysalis sold the Takoma catalog. During the Chrysalis years, Takoma released albums by The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Maria Muldaur, Canned Heat, Mike Bloomfield, and T-Bone Burnett. The catalog was purchased in 1995 by Fantasy Records,[1] which in 2004 was taken over by the Concord Music Group. Fantasy has a handful of the Takoma recordings on the market as CDs as of this writing in 2007.

Howdy ILM, what record has Fahey at his most "slack key"?

Alternatively, his most "slack key" tracks in your opinion would be nice.

Note: I don't necessarily consider "Hawaiian Two Step" to be particularly slack key, would you dis/agree?

although he loved his tunings fahey was not of a v slack key disposition imo. hawaiian two step is a cover of Spanish fandango (i think fahey knew the john dilleshaw recording) which is probably originally euro-african. closest fahey gets to slack key in vibe might be on the sunny side of the ocean, which iirc he wrote on piano aged 14 & quite possibly totally oblivious to slack key

https://images.eil.com/large_image/JOHN_FAHEY_THE+BEST+OF+JOHN+FAHEY+1959-1977-416332b.jpg

underrated photo imo

TS: Sandy Bull w/ Squirrel vs. John Fahey with Stuffed Wolverine

some (I believe) never before seen footage cropping up around FB. seems there might be more of this to come. late 70s, filmed in his house. hopefully will make it to youtube...

yeah i was just watching that, i haven't seen it before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dDs7UMy7Mo

very nice. late 70s/early 80s?

guess early 80s -- this is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tV5bBvQfE1Y

also of the utmost importance

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hJWc2AwO_iE/WEwSSedkzZI/AAAAAAAAFZo/qBJ3gJOAZrAVzKeRT-_eBBkWQYm62JJegCLcB/s1600/gd1969-01-17.caption-el_gaucho-19690117p01.jgmf.jpg

check the caption -- that would be a tough choice.

oh! they are on youtube! i couldn't find them. awesome stuff. hadn't watched the steam engine train one yet.

i'd go check out fahey first, nothing to say you wouldn't be able to catch both in the same night especially given the predilections of both artists

Christmas has truly arrived.

first four a half minutes are great especially

what is that first four and a half minutes? just a typically big prelude/intro from that era? i recognize the last portion

full video is up- it's a joy. could honestly just watch him tune and bullshit with the crew for the whole video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vObBlcBn7UQ&t=2s

Is it down?

Lol "The Santana Blues Band"

hmmm not sure what happened with the embed, maybe they disabled. try adding this to end of youtube url

watch?v=vObBlcBn7UQ&t=2s

severely underrated/slept-on fahey is 'old fashioned love'

Yep. Phased production on some of those duets is pretty sweet too.

yep, tons of compression and phaser going on. and 'dry bones in the valley' is top tier fahey

air getting crisp, it's fahey weather

https://archives.library.illinois.edu/archon/index.php?p=digitallibrary/getfile&id=13212

https://i.imgur.com/Bbc0U3n.jpg

well played ogmor

fahey looking pretty healthy in that picture

nothing to add here, but yeah: fahey fucking owns.🤘

Worth noting that almost all of Fahey’s Spotify catalogue has fucked up audio that sounds like it’s partly underwater.

There's an excellent essay on Fahey by Ian Penman in Fitzcarraldo Editions' It Gets Me Home This Curving Track.

I slept on Days Have Gone By Vol. 6. This is so good.

Finally watched the doc in Prime last night – it left me wanting more. So I’m digging back into the first volume of the handbook and cursing the fact that Vol. 2 is $57(?!?!).

I think I heard there is a new edition of volume 2 coming out soon

Worth noting that almost all of Fahey’s Spotify catalogue has fucked up audio that sounds like it’s partly underwater.
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, September 14, 2019 12:56 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

these are weird comps with like corel 1998 clip art for covers. they applied some strange panning and reverb also, and some of them aren't even albums. one has studio outtakes i haven't heard anywhere else. not sure what bizarre publishing/licensing shenanigans went into those ending up there

if fahey had a 33 1/3rd book i think it should be about days have gone by

I think I heard there is a new edition of volume 2 coming out soon

Some days I wonder if “Funeral Song for Mississippi John Hurt” is the best thing he ever did. The transition to the B-section at 1’04” is just glorious.

On others, I feel like the man may have said it all with Blind Joe Death. I mean, those dissonances on “Sun Gonna Shine on My Back Door” ... or the melodic and rhythmic variation on “Sligo River Blues” ... in 1959? At twenty years old?

Fuck.

has there ever been a fahey albums poll? i have like, idk, fifteen albums and still kind of feel like i don't know THE DEFINITIVE one.

ahh, yes there has!

so, i see i have three of the top ten.

(sigh)

those results are demented. NTI are you thinking of running the big Fahey poll that you've had in the queue for years?

I'd probably vote Red Cross if this was tomorrow (and I had to pick *one*). Or America.

of the ones i know, i'm partial to the yellow princess. the version of america i have is the two disc vinyl reissue that is still somehow abridged i guess?? but yeah: it's pretty solid.

gonna have a relisten of transfiguration of blind joe death right now!

those results are demented. NTI are you thinking of running the big Fahey poll that you've had in the queue for years?

unpopular opinion: all fahey songs are the same song.

that song just so happens to be awesome is all.

but yeah, a fahey poll would be a gargantuan task.