Why is John Fahey So Boring?

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.