Why is John Fahey So Boring?

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.