Sonic Youth Gossip - John Fahey

Sonic Youth Gossip (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/index.php)

- Non-Sonic Sounds (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/forumdisplay.php?f=4)

- - John Fahey (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=12246)

Awesome, thanks for writing. It sounds like it's well worth the price with some good unheard stuff and nice packaging.

Hopefully it'll drop to $60 or $70...might be something good to have Santa bring.

Bootleg of a great Fahey show in 1973
http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/201...ashington.html
and a 176 page book of Fahey tabs
http://delta-slider.blogspot.com/201...uitar-tab.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by hirsute_biped

Yeah, since I have everything else he put out, I kinda had to get it. A lot of $, but glad I did it. Not every track is one you will want to hear over and over again. He does vocal imitations of elderly country blues singers, which are difficult to listen to. He does some pranks by incorporating lyrics about existential philosophers into country blues song. He does several flute duets, which are not my favorite. He does some vocal duets with someone who sounds like an amatuer church singer. Intermingled with all these are solo guitar instrumentals of increasing solidity, ingenuity, and grace. He started these recordings before he was 20 years old, they are chronological, and end in the mid sixties. You hear his style and influences develop over those years. There are many tracks on here that are early, alternate versions of tracks which would later end up on his classic Takoma LPs. In several instances a song will evolve over several recording sessions, adding and losing parts; such as Night Train to Valhalla, Portland Cement Factory at Monolith, CA, & The Trancendental Waterfall. If you know his catalog, these songs are highly distinctive, and their development is sure to fascinate. By discs 4 & 5 he has generally dropped the singing and pranks, is really streching out and defining his style, and getting experimental. These discs contain previosly unreleased compositions worthy of inclusion on his classic Takoma LPs. Much of it was originally slated for inclusion in the ledgendary, labyrinthine, apocryphal Voice of the Turtle album(s), which was/were at one point planned to be a double LP. There are a few tracks that incorporate backwards vina, which are awesome. The book contains exhaustive information on the sessions, breaks down and analyses each track, lots of new photos, essays, a previously unpublished interview, and a nice poem by Byron Coley. I love this kind of set. However, I could see myself making a playlist of the songs I wanted to hear repeatedly, and not revisit the others very often. Such a playlist would still be pretty long.

My set, ordered from Dust to Digital, included a Fonotone Records bottle opener.

This set would not be a good introduction to Fahey, there are several best-of collections that would be infinitely better for that. This is for the hardcore Fahey fans, and for those fans this set is a long time coming and is essential. I was expecting it to cost more, and would have bought it anyway.

I bought it too. At first I just downloaded it but the packaging looked way too enticing to pass up so I bought it. I just had to! Definitely one of my favorite reissues of the year 2011 and worth every penny.

Just had a long talk with my audio editor who is apparently a big Fahey nut. Now I'll admit, I've never heard a single thing the man's done (or at least i think I haven't) and only know of him through the existence of this thread.

I'm totally in the mood to check him out now. Any solid recommendations for a first-timer - or somethingt that might appeal to a musical dunce lik eme?

downloaded the same show from the same site recently too, fugazifan...

its a great show. i should listen to it again one of these days.

and i agree, transfiguration of blind joe death is a great introduction and a beautiful album. i would also recommend days have gone by since it has both his beautiful songs as well as some experimental ones.

https://soundcloud.com/nbraddo/sets/...ey-mix-tapes-1

2 mixtapes made by John for a record store employee during the 90's.

Awesome, sounds like Sun City Girls to lead off the set, and quite a bit of what I think might be Tony Conrad...

''In the 1990's my future wife was a record store clerk in Portland, Oregon. American guitar legend John Fahey was living in a nearby town and would visit the shop. Here are two mix cassettes that he made for her during that time.''
https://soundcloud.com/nbraddo/sets/...ey-mix-tapes-1

great stuff. thanks for sharing.

Threads like these certainly give a reminder of how much of an asset atsonicpark was to this place. There aren't many people who'd go through all of John Fahey's albums in just three weeks. And you just know he wasn't listening to those albums once and that's it. The guy was on another level when it came to obsessively absorbing music.

The only reason I brought this back up was because Fahey came up randomly on my Spotify and I was just blown away even from the one song I heard. I went on to go and check the 'dance of death and...' and it didn't disappoint. This is coming from someone who generally finds solo guitar music a bore. There are some exceptions, and Fahey stands out as one of them. Incredible stuff. Least I know where I should go after this.

Speaking of past members, what happened to Atari?

No clue about, Atari? I often wonder about viewtiful_alan, Florya and Glice???

It’s threads like this why SYG still has so many lurkers. I sure miss Atsonicpark’s contributions and opinions......so well said, h8kurdt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

My favourite John Fahey record is Hitomi

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bytor Peltor

glice doesn't go to this place anymore, however he's pretty active on Facebook. He's doing well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by _slavo_

glice doesn't go to this place anymore, however he's pretty active on Facebook. He's doing well.

I'm seeing him next week.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Genteel Death

I'm seeing him next week.

say hello from me to him and to yourself too, please

Quote:

Originally Posted by _slavo_

say hello from me to him and to yourself too, please

Will do, treacle. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Not to sound like an arsehole, but as lovely as atsonicpark used to be, this sort of music was discussed by people on this forum anyway. When they liked it and it came up. That you came across John Fahey's music because of his posts I think it's sweet and I hope it rewards your day. Bytor Peltor, on the other hand, is a partial and dodgy person who still believes Death in June lyrics are his wake up call.

I think his death is truly sad and my heart goes out to all the people who lost a friend but I always found atsonicpark to be an idiotic and annoying loudmouth, who a lot of the time didn't really know what he was talking about (and that is giving him the benefit of the doubt).

I mean, he was an uneducated guy from bumfuck Indiana who had a horrible life most of the time. That he was able to just go on the internet and spend all his time absorbing films and music and wanting to share it with people is awesome and it's nice that he was able to bond with me and many others through it. He never tried to act like an academic with any of this stuff, it was always just gushing fandom to me and I needed that enthusiasm when I was an awkward teenager who liked things other people my age didn't.

It also felt like he was able to start expressing himself better in the last few years he was alive but not posting here, as horribly depressing as the things he was going through at the time was. The unfinished last film he was making was full of genuinely interesting worked out ideas and got away from the "I'm a weeeeeeird underground filmmaker dude" stuff he would fall back on a lot. I would have liked to have seen what he would have made had he reached a comfortable state of adulthood.

I get that if you take everything he said here at face value, the "my girlfriend put her finger up my butt" stuff, the "I've heard 500 Merzbow albums and seen 99 Godard films and here is all of them ranked" stuff, you would find him quite obnoxious. A lot of that stuff was obviously exaggerated, but it was a fun persona to a lot of people and made them want to be as excited as he tried to come across. Also, you're English and the English always think Americans are loudmouths hahaha.