ILX Gonna Shine in My Backdoor Someday (new post-Fahey folk for ppl posting in Takoma/Tompkins Square threads Pt II)

for me, the more trad stuff in the bowles/black twig/pelt universe really works because of the overall context of what these musicians do -- even if they're playing "john hardy" or something pretty straight one minute, you know there's a deep drone around the next corner. it's a nice blend they've got going.

Yeah, that blend is definitely nice. As far as era-styling goes, to me it is helpful to look at some of these songs/approaches similarly to hymns: I mean, you can take "Silent Night" out for a spin in various guises, but generally it doesn't work if you play it too far from "solemn/dignified".

lol now I am imagining a really upbeat, scat-style version of that, perhaps done by Cab Calloway or Bing Crosby

Hah me too! Well, for me it is a disco version ....

La Lechera, have you checked the Nathan Bowles and Scott Verrastro duo record on MIE? I think you would really like it. Nathan is definitely tackling a lot of approaches successfully, great musician.

― grandavis, Monday, March 30, 2015 8:09 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark

no but i will! i loved the drumming but also i thought his presence was amazing.

That Bowles/Verrastro record is a percussion duo record, but very very musical. I have a good live set too, but I don't have it posted anywhere right now I don't think.

I just realized in the same week:

April 21 - Sir Richard Bishop
April 25 - Marc Maron

Gonna be great, never seen Bishop, plus really interested in seeing Robert Millis opening - Sublime Frequencies and Dust-to-Digital compiler and cover designer.

Seeing Bishop tonight will report back!

Enjoy!

.....and i guess the show starts at 7, not 9 like most bar shows and i work until 9 so i can't go ;_;

bummer man! on the one hand i do like earlier start times because most bar shows go too late for my blood, but sucks that you have to miss it. i'll try and report back and maybe take a video or two.

yeah please do! no normally i would LOVE an early show, this just happens to be the one night i have to work late and i can't get out of it

Saw the Youtube interview of Bishop talking about the hundred plus year old acoustic he ended buying in Geneva and using in Tangiers to record his latest release. Tangiers Sessions has a few really straight-forward pretty songs and the rest are trad and nice too. That guitar sounds like an oud on one track.

He's coming to my location on the 11th with Mills and Kahoutek.

global report back!

i gotta get some stuff by kaki king, this is great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lfWhaxaHVkA

some of her stuff gets a bit guitar mag and/or gimmicky but her good shit is really good

yeah, i think i had that idea, just never really checked it out.
wasting time this morning looking around for info on this guitar soli holy grail...
http://cdn.discogs.com/6TtVh-jXKIj1JLTligpKh0aSy1s=/fit-in/320x240/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-3366719-1327563722.jpeg.jpg
http://www.discogs.com/George-Cromarty-George-Keller-Garden-Street-More-Grassroots-Guitar-A-Thistle-Sampler/release/3366719

wait what is that??

some lost cromarty album? with some other guy on there too.

cromarty is one of those names that always makes me lol for some reason
marty cromarty

heh heh.
just saw someone left this comment on the little thing i wrote about him a while back - http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/11/15/george-cromarty-grassroots-guitar/
Thanks for this site. I first met George in 1972. Mrs. Larsen, the French teacher at Morro Bay High School, asked him to come in and sing French folk songs to one of her classes. I had a class in the same room the following period. By chance I arrived at class early to find a guy in overalls playing beautifully on a sweet little Washburn. He was done singing and just playing instrumentals. The first song I heard from start to finish was Harpsichord. When he was done, I approached him to see if he would give me lessons. He said “yes” and handed me a business card with a contact number. The card was yellow, hand drawn and had a picture of a smiling sun on it. It was for a group that he was part of called Pacific Buffalo Hawk. I kept that card among my keepsakes for many years.
The week I was to start lessons with him, I suddenly went out of state for an extended stay and had to postpone. When I came back to California, George said his life had taken turns that wouldn’t allow him to teach. Too bad!
In many ways that fall day in 11th grade was a defining moment in my life. I had a passion for solo acoustic guitar that had started with exposure to John Fahey and Sandy Bull. I had been playing guitar for about a year and immediately gravitated to fingerstyle. George’s tone on that vintage Washburn parlor (vintage in 1972) and his compositions clarified my dreams in ways that have shaped my life ever since.
Some people have compared him to Fahey but I think that’s really misleading. I’m a fan of Fahey’s brooding improvisations but George was an altogether different guitarist. Instrumental guitarists have been criticized for composing by building on a riff that often starts with finger technique and not melody. George was a composer who wrote solid, well-harmonized melodies that happened to be played on the guitar. Of all of the solo guitarists I’ve enjoyed over the years, I think George was truly the best composer of them all.
To Nannette and the rest of the family, be assured that you are not alone in your loss.
To George, rest in peace! I hope to hear you again one day in another place.

aw

that's really nice

cromarty's stuff really should be more widely available, hope kyle gets that project done

yeah guess he's hitting some hurdles?

yeah got that sense, i think it's just hard to track down the legal info probably

more info on that cromarty/keller from numero site
https://numerogroup.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/george-cromarty-new-discoveries/

also i logged in to discogs and sent a message to the owner, just to see if he had any info, i doubt he's selling but still any insight would be cool

yeah someone on waxidermy (maybe the same dude on discogs) has the "more grassroots guitar" LP, a test pressing... would (obviously) love to hear it!

hell if he gets back to me i might even feel him out to see how attached he is to it, try to see if i could broker a deal w/him and kyle or something

needle drops aren't ideal & test pressing tend to wear worse than regular records but you can do a decent amount of cleanup digitally now

awesome photo
https://numerogroup.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/george-george-2.jpg?w=840&h=828

That's peak hippie

Okay, I've done my best keeping up with this thread for a spotify list but y'all are healthy chroniclers and are running circles around me. Sure have heard a lot of good music though, so thanks!

That said, I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to keep on keeping on with this and nobody asked me to anyway, so I'm going to make the Spotify playlist for this thread collaborative and am encouraging folks to post items of interest from this thread on that playlist for group listening... I know there are other playlists in progress so if this ends up being a vestigial limb so be it.

But if not, here's the list to share and add to. Keep em coming!

Rolling Post Fahey Folk Thread II 2015

saw SRB last night, his playing on that tiny guitar was O_O amazing and he also sang a stupid song about a porno shop that combined old mcdonald and ding dong the witch is dead melodies. then i had a dream that he played a show in my basement and i was nervous about it because i hadn't taken a shower.

"he also sang a stupid song about a porno shop that combined old mcdonald and ding dong the witch is dead melodies"

I'm finding this more ridiculous than your dream.

that is an old Sun City Girls song fwiw

"Edwin Meese, Edwin Meese
him and his flock of Canadian geese
they're coming to take my store
because they can't get it up anymore"

that's what i figured
he played it after he said he was going to play "the hit" and "needed to fill up some time"
the song was pretty funny

coincidentally, when i saw him a few years ago bill orcutt also commented about filling up time. that felt like a bit of a bummer to me, as an appreciative audience member. i'd recommend keeping that to yourselves, guys!

global report back!
― kurt kobaïan (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 3, 2015 10:34 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

haha! just finally checking in. show was awesome- his mastery of different modes and styles is pretty astounding and as fluid and clean as his playing is it's still raw in some way. got sorta engrossed and forgot to take a video tho. show made me wanna listen to tangier sessions which just didn't sound interesting to me for some reason before. sorta chatty crowd and short-ish set tho if that's any consloation

Okay, I've done my best keeping up with this thread for a spotify list but y'all are healthy chroniclers and are running circles around me. Sure have heard a lot of good music though, so thanks!

That said, I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to keep on keeping on with this and nobody asked me to anyway, so I'm going to make the Spotify playlist for this thread collaborative and am encouraging folks to post items of interest from this thread on that playlist for group listening... I know there are other playlists in progress so if this ends up being a vestigial limb so be it.

But if not, here's the list to share and add to. Keep em coming!

Rolling Post Fahey Folk Thread II 2015

― Maybe in 100 years someone will say damn Dawn was dope. (forksclovetofu), Saturday, April 4, 2015 12:46 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Definitely not intending to start a whole thing here but it seems to me that the artists on this thread are probably some of the most (negatively) affected by things like Spotify. I understand it's just a playlist and that most of the people posting here are most likely the types to go out and buy vinyl / see touring bands / etc, but is there really no better way to give exposure to these artists and share this music? Maybe via links to live performances or to the artist's own websites / label websites / Bandcamp pages / etc? Or, if you wanna make a real 'mix,' maybe make one and post it to Soundcloud or something?

I don't disagree on any of those points; the purpose of a playlist is (among other things) intended to allow dilettantes to listen along with the thread and learn a bit about a genre that may be outside of their purview.

I got into some detail about why i got this bee in my bonnet and why i'm using spotify instead of another service here:
Listening to ILX Listen - 2015 Spotify Genre Playlists

SRB being very polite on NPR station this morning!

global - couple other ppl have mentioned the chatty crowd at SRB as being annoying...Icehouse is a pretty noisy room, chatter really carries there :/\

ooh, one other tidbit, bishop mentioned at the beginning that a 'friend in the audience' (i.e. paul metzger) had made him a special pick made out of yak horn to play for the show

Ha yeah remember Metzger talking about his bone picks and how plastic "bums him out" st the show we played with him?

Well now, I just heard an alluring behind-the-waterfall dispatch from the following album (KMUW's Global Village, weeknights at 7 Central---shows are posted 'round about midnight usually)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71JazoULEHL._SL1500_.jpg

cool not familiar

also want to defend the Ryley Walker album a bit from the pitchfork hataz! I mean listen yeah he's a bit much vocally, but you know in the wild and wolly world of folk weirdos I'm pretty used to the vocalisms of Incredible String Band or Robbie Basho or Pearls Before Swine, and god believe me Bert Jansch was a god on Earth IMO but he wasn't exactly Van Morrison or Joni Mitchell when it came to singing either (we'll not discuss Mr. Kottke forays into singing)

and yeah on a certain level Walker plays "dress up" a little bit, but the playing on the album, the production, and especially the band he assembled is really just beautiful playing....even compared to Gunn or Cian Nugent there's a really great Pentangle jazz element to the album that I love and when they jam out, really fluid and dynamic group ensemble playing.

I know 2 folky music liking people who are not folk weirdos fans or Pitchfork readers and who like Walker now because he has vocals and they are good enough for them.

I registered for ILX primarily because this thread is so great! Keep it up!

I blindly bought the Ryley Walker LP because there's been such a fuss about it. I don't see what the big deal is. It's a very enjoyable record. Tim Buckley's voice is much more "odd." I thought it seemed tame, actually. Maybe some of this growls are "affected," but it's never deterring (to me, at least). Maybe any affectations are a reference point rather than blatant plagiarism...? How's that? It's definitely better than Pitchfork's Carly Rae Jepsen BNM nod. Pitchfork's always wrong.

The record isn't a game changer or earth shattering, just very nice to listen to on a sunny afternoon. Vinyl sounds great.

welcome!

welcome!

The record isn't a game changer or earth shattering, just very nice to listen to on a sunny afternoon.
^yeah i would say that sums it up

i mean also i would encourage people who say "oh all he's doing is ripping off pentangle" to get a group of your best band buddiees together and give it a shot

I don't think Grayson's review is really that harsh. He is actually being specifically critical (to me), and I think states his aim as trying to hold Ryley to a high standard based on what he thinks he is capable of in the future (cause yeah dude is really young still), which I guess is refreshing in a way. I mean, vocals are super-specific hang-ups for any listener too (I cannot listen to Hiss Golden Messenger cause basically I don't like the guys voice, unfair but there you go). I do think it is funny to accuse Ryley of lugging around his influences as a "sign of good taste". If you follow him on Twitter, I am not sure that convincing people he has good taste is high on his list of things to accomplish.