Why is John Fahey So Boring?

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.