• About the Artist
  • Music Industry Publications – Late 1970s to Early 1980s
  • Punk and New Music Fanzines – Late 1970s to Early 1980s

garystormsongs

garystormsongs

Tag Archives: acoustic guitar

John Fahey

09 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by garystormsongs in Music I Love

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

acoustic guitar, Folk Music, Great San Bernardino Birthday Party, John Fahey, Sprite

John Fahey - Vol. 4

I’m listening to “The Great San Bernardino Birthday Party” which runs into “Knott’s Berry Farm Molly,” a long guitar solo with many different movements, including segments in which the tape is played backwards.

The first time I saw John Fahey, the opening act was a lighthearted bluegrass band, whose name now escapes me.

And then there was a long pause.

And then John Fahey came out with his guitar.  And he sat with his legs akimbo, and he set the guitar on the stage, and opened a can of Sprite.  And he looked at no one in particular at the audience.  And he drank from the can.  And he looked with no particular interest at us again.  And he drank more from the can.  And he looked with indifference at the crowd.  And he drank from the can.  And the audience laughed.  And he kept looking and drinking.  And the audience laughed nervously.  And he looked and gulped.  And the audience tittered.  And he looked and took a swig.  And the audience didn’t know what to do.

And when he finished the can of Sprite, he set the empty can down, and kind of clumsily and kind of slowly picked up his guitar, and we noticed, for the first time, it was a really big guitar, like bigger than you have ever seen, and dark, strangely dark.  And he looked at us.

And he struck a string, and a bottomless yawning cavern opened beneath our feet and below us streams of lava bubbled and stars flickered and the kind of radiance you cannot see erupted through us and the auditorium ceiling floated up and dispersed and swinging galaxies ululated overhead and deities above allowed themselves to be seen, and we were never again the same persons who bought tickets and sauntered down the sloping walkway into that concert hall.

The second time I saw John Fahey, he was bombed out of his nut long before he ever hit the stage.

And he stood up, and I swear to god, when he stood up, if he didn’t hold up those jeans below his bulging beer belly they would have fallen down.  And, I don’t even remember why, but for some reason he thought the sound guy was messing with him.  He stood up, his round belly puffing, and shouted, Common up here!  You mother fucker!  Get up from that mixing board.  Common Sound Man.  You wanna take me on!  Common!  Get up here!

Oh god John, shut up sit down and play, you filthy drunk moronic fat slob.

And then he did.

And nothing else, nowhere else, only here, only this, only everything, only everywhere, only nowhere, only nothing, only now.

John Fahey, John Fahey Vol. 4, Takoma Records, C 1008 (1966).  Album design:  David Goines.

Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine

15 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by garystormsongs in Music I Love

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

acoustic guitar, Jazz, Larry Coryell, Philip Catherine, Twin House

Incredible jamming with twelve string guitar and six string classical guitar, machine gun arpeggios, surprising changes of key, a pastiche of rhythms and time signatures, beautiful slightly out-of-key melodies, jangling noisy chords, adroit counterpoint, seamless shifts from the bluesy to the jazzy to the out-a-here, lubricious leaps up and down the neck, each musician doing the work of four, the first cut on the album, “Ms. Julie,” a triumphant welcome to everything you would expect from unparalleled virtuosity.

Larry Coryell and Philip Catherine, Twin House, Electra Records, 6E-123 ((1977).  Album design – not credited.

Leo Kottke

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by garystormsongs in Music I Love

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

acoustic guitar, Dreams and All That Stuff, Kottke, Mona Ray

Is there a greater acoustic guitar miraculist anywhere? How do the five fingers of the human lump and wires on a box of wood become at once so insouciant and inscrutable and incandescent? “This is the most beautiful name I ever heard,” he says of “Mona Ray” in the liner notes. Jeeze, I don’t think it’s such a great name. But, by god, this is one of the most beautiful guitar pieces I ever heard. Monstrous twelve string finger picking in beautiful duet with Mike Johnsen on a six string (at least that’s my guess at the instrumentation). Here we have an almost Elizabethan appoggiatos, and then a delicate descending folk melody, and now there a resplendent strumming air. And it returns again and again to the melody, and each turn is more unspeakably – well, beautiful – than the preceding. And then suddenly it ends, and we are. . . just here, in the silence.

Leo Kottke, Dreams and All That Stuff, Capitol Records, St-11335 (1974).  Album Design – John Van Hamersveld.

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 51 other subscribers

Gary Storm on Facebook

Gary Storm on Facebook

About the Artist

  • About the Artist

Learn about my album of Songs for Children

Read about Oil of Dog – My life as an all-night progressive disc jockey

Archives

  • September 2013
  • May 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • garystormsongs
    • Join 51 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • garystormsongs
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...