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

we'll all be "Crafties" soon enough

lol UMS, just get the "League Of Crafty Guitarists Live" LP and be done with it, that's all you need imo

I have some funny stories abt a friend of mine who did that program, I'll try to write them up

Slippery slope UMS, slippery slope .... go with Sleeve here.

Yes Sleeve, please do!

don't you have to literally like lock your guitar in a closet for 6 months to get some distance from all your sub-Frippian poor playing mechanics? then you can start down the path of enlightenment

ok ok...

this was way back when I was in my 20's, but Fripp was already doing the LCOG stuff and there is like a camp in West Virgina where people can go for like a 2-week program. my old high school friend went to one, he was already a pretty good guitar player.

first of all, everything had to be tuned in that Fripp tuning, I think it's equal temperament? there were a bunch of kinda mindfuck zen exercises that they were subjected to. one day, Fripp came in and said to the class "oh hey I booked you guys for a gig at a local bar tonight, you better work up a set." so they practiced all day long and kinda got something together. the class all goes over to the bar and sets up for their gig. it turns out that the entire audience, more or less, was composed of guitar school alumni who proceeded to loudly heckle and harass the class throughout their entire performance. I remember my friend saying "and Fripp himself threw a piece of ice at me! it hit my guitar!" basically it was a lesson in how to keep your composure onstage under pressure.

he drove all my friends crazy when he came back from the camp because he insisted on playing in the Fripp tuning at any casual jam session...

I know there was at least one other funny story but I can't remember it right now...

hahah omg that is so much better than i could have hoped for, please write your friend for more!!!!!

now i'm going to pretend like i'm not opening up a window to google "equal temperament tuning"

lol that is great. the first lesson of the League is ... public humiliation at the hands of King Fripp!

I think Fripp's tuning drops the low E to C or something and then tunes every subsequent string to the 5th (so the B string is not a fourth). Some shit like that.

Oh well, couldn't resist googling, and holy shit the Wikipedia page calls it the "New standard tuning". C2-G2-D3-A3-E4-G4

Did Fripp write that page himself, or is this part of the duties of joining the League?

I think Vice interviewed some past members that were able to escape.

http://www.guyguitars.com/eng/handbook/Tuning/tuning.html

fucking NATURE really fucked up, should have thought about how that was gonna affect this guitar tuning when you created the universe God!

This is not the fault of the guitar. It is not designed to play perfect intervals (except for octaves and unisons) in any position, or any key. It is designed to play the equal-tempered scale, and it is perfectly possible to adjust and intonate almost any well-made guitar so that it plays this scale pretty accurately. The problem with equal temperament, though, is that it is artificial, a mathematical construct, and it conflicts with the physical properties of real-world strings.

Real-world strings produce harmonics which are pure fractions of the speaking length of the string. The ancient Greeks and Chinese knew about the pure intervals, and constructed their musical scales around them. But Nature throws a spanner in the works by making the natural tone row irregular, so instruments tuned in this way cannot modulate to different key signatures without adding more intervals to the octave.

I think Robert Fripp throwing ice at me might be a top 10 life accomplishment tbh

hahahaha -- Fripp camp! His "From Good to Great" is one of the best motivational speeches (granted also one of the only) I have ever heard. So simple and funny and useful. I'm on step 3 now. I'd love for him to throw ice at me.

Nice to see someone rep for a Crandell album that isn't that first one that Tompkins Square reissued (which is great, of course). Oregon Hill is even better than In The Flower of our Youth imo, and way underrated. I'd say it's long overdue for a ressiue, but it can still be found super cheap. I snagged an autographed copy on Discogs for only $20.

Never really got into Crandell's comeback albums with the mbira though.

was talking to a friend who saw crandell in the not so distant past (00s, I think) and he said he was a bit of space cadet and couldn't really play anymore ... which is a bummer! But yeah, Flower and Oregon Hill are pretty amazing.

iirc he had some debilitating disease (or injury?) that rendered his fingers almost useless (which is why he switched to thumb piano). And space cadet I definitely believe

holy shit at elkington and salsburg's cover of reel around the fountain

(by the way, thanks guys! just listening to this album now and it sounds nice)

kinda connected - came across this a few weeks back
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GUCqMEeaRY

for sure. marr has never shied away from speaking about his folk influences. it's not immediately apparent to those not really into the smiths, for obvious reasons

i'm on track 10 of elkington and salsburg's album, so i'll listen to that after this

elkington and salsburg's ambsace definitely sounds like just tasteful guitar superficially as ums said, but the real treat is listening to the beautiful singular notes ring on a nice pair of headphones. i strongly believe music like this needs to be heard on a nice pair of cans because the guitar production sounds so pristine. clean guitars that are mic'd really close are so nice to hear on headphones because it allows me to hear all the colours. the intertwining guitars are also a huge part for me. while there is no strong sense of melodies like you guys have said, there are almost contrapuntal melodies running through it which, again, sounds really nice when listening up close on headphones.

it's a beautiful album.

incidentally, i stopped playing piano and guitar six years ago but someone gifted me a keyboard this month. this album makes me want to play guitar again, though i always preferred the soft attack of a plucked nylon-string note, to the punchy ones on this album. i bought a nice condenser mic so, who knows, maybe i'll get back into writing and recording tunes again.

sorry to share my pain but 2 things #Jorma is probably the most underrated electric and acoustic classic guitar player ever and 2) this combo of a "classic" Ovation and a chorus pedal (or I suspect a Roland Chorus amp?) is just HORRID tone yikes

like just to contrast it with the elkington/salsburg album which is so gorgeous without verging into crap like that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLyPH4fLt-w

wow that is pretty awful

Ovations are the most evil guitars

my friend in elementary school had an ovation, seemed insanely cool to 10-year-old me.

that sound totally hasn't "aged" well.

it boggles my mind how people can be quite good at the guitar but allow themselves to have the worst tin-canny tone. it sounds like he is playing a plastic guitar.

i feel like the whole 80s acoustic guitar was mostly this sound though, with this being an extreme example

I have a soft spot for the 80s Windham Hill guitar sounds. So digital and pristine, but they still sound like guitars. It's like ECM-level clarity, unfortunately usually played by the kind of guys who don't really play with what I would consider a lot of character or style (Ackerman is one exception, I think). In 2015, I'll take sterile-sounding-with-minor-chorusy-effects over conspicuous and phony "field recording" fidelity any day!

Yeah but that Jorma tone isn't even really Hi Fi, it just sounds like an Ovation and a cheap pedal

This thread is still one of the finest places on the web. Cheers for the Oregon Hill heads up - lovely stuff. And I finally got my copy of the Joan Shelley record. It's probably my album of the year.

More Jon Collin. Really into this dude's playing style, moody as hell but abstract and weird too. Good stuff though not for everyone:

https://fortevilfruit.bandcamp.com/album/non-accidents-2014

sorry for being so spammy lately but anyway getting used to this loop pedal

https://soundcloud.com/matthew-lee-helgeson/loop-2

the good folks at grasstops have put up a comp of early basho - "portrait of basho as a young dragoon" up for free -- also there is an ebook you can download that i haven't gotten yet

but anyway, really cool stuff, and the sound quality is pretty solid

http://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/sets/portrait-of-basho-as-a-young-dragoon

Dragoon? Isn't that a form of currency?

ha i only knew it from video games had to look it up

dra·goon
drəˈɡo͞on/
noun
1.
a member of any of several cavalry regiments in the British army.
synonyms: cavalryman, mounted soldier; More

I am confused, isn't that what they just had to withdraw from release due to the tape-holder asserting the rights?

(see upthread a bit)

also, WAV downloads! woop woop!

Maybe they can't directly profit from it? Shrug

it's complicated but yeah i think basically they aren't going to do any sort of commercial release just this

either way i would probably grab this sooner than later

yow, yeah, grab it, that comp is incredible.

Shame, it looks like they put a lot of energy and effort into the prospective package around those 6 tracks.

Grass-Tops is reconciling the situation regarding the copyright claim made on the audio material for 'Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragoon' by offering the complete compilation for free download.
Our primary objective remains to make Robbie's work available to the public. The decision to offer these recordings for free is a happy medium between producing a physical edition for sale and shelving the tracks all together. This music needs to be heard!
While we recognize the potential for other entities to make future ownership claims, we do not believe that any entity controls the Intellectual Property Rights to these recordings. Therefore, it is in the best interest of Grass-Tops and the public to simply make this material available for free. In the event that a legitimate copyright claim is brought forth, no revenue will have been procured from this release.
The limited supply of CD copies that we have on-hand (originally intended to be paired with the physical book) will now be given away for FREE at Grass-Tops events / concerts.
Enjoy this historic music and have a Happy New Year!
Download the e-book (of the same title) that goes with this release, along with all photos and documents from Northwestern University's Special Collections Library archive : https://www.dropbox.com/sh/47s0035pqggdmr4/AABHhdE50wh8KyYbEWD3XiXHa?dl=0
Produced by Kyle Fosburgh
Transferred to digital by Radiance Recordings
Restored and mastered by Joe Churchich
Sound Engineering by Radiance Recordings and Kyle Fosburgh
Cover photo by Barry Olivier (circa. 1967)

Hey all, thanks for helping to make 2015 a better year than it would have been without this thread. Lots of good records coming down the pike in 2016, so onwards ....

that Basho set is a very nice EOY gift and yeah thanks thread

Just got notified that my Marisa Anderson/Tashi Dorji split on Footfalls (new label) is on the way too! Will grab these Basho tracks too, very cool of them to make sure they get out there.

Hey all, thanks for helping to make 2015 a better year than it would have been without this thread. Lots of good records coming down the pike in 2016, so onwards ....

― grandavis, Thursday, December 31, 2015 10:20 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i concur, i love this thread & all of you.

On behalf of the lurkers that post relatively rarely like myself thank you as well. I've been following along and am grateful for all the great recommendations, but being behind on listening in general makes me shy to contribute.

Man you contributed plenty Evan, and congratulations again on getting married! The Glenn Jones wedding action was one of the nicer things I heard about this year, so glad that it worked out for you. Can't wait for that Glenn Jones album next year!