Robbie Basho was one of the pioneers of American Primitive Guitar along with John Fahey. He was born Daniel Robinson, but at the age of 19 he, like many young college students, became immersed in Asian culture and changed his name to Basho to honor the 17th century Japanese poet Matsuo Basho. His aim for much of his career was to elevate the steel sting guitar of he and people like Fahey, Leo Kottke, and others were exploring in the early ’60s into a concert level instrument in the style of the Indian Raga system. As part of this goal he developed an esoteric chord system that was published in the liner notes of his first album The Seal of the Blue Lotus.

It makes for fascinating reading. He not only charts each chord that he uses but also the color, mood, and “concomitant properties” of that chord. A D chord, for example, was green in a quiet pastoral mood with the concomitant property of “Runnymede, Irish meadowlands.” His interest in Eastern philosophy infused much of his work and as a result his recordings are often filed with New Age or Folk material. Fahey’s Takoma label or the New Age/Folk label Windham Hill were responsible for releasing much of his material.

This particular version of Moving Up A Ways comes off Rainbow Thunder: Songs of the American West. He also released a version on The Voice of the Eagle a few years earlier. Both albums signal a shifting focus from Eastern influences towards the indigenous cultures of the American West. The text of the track is based on a Navajo ritual signalling the upward movement from lower forms of life to higher. It was Basho’s focus while recording both albums to tap into the intimate relationship with nature that indigenous American peoples had in order to bolster the American songbook with a sort of musical landscape painting. He touches on this idea somewhat in this live performance recorded in 1978 at Coe College in Cedar Rapids.

Similar to my post on John Cale’s Summer Heat, I’ve just scratched the surface of a really fascinating period in American music. The Robbie Basho Archive is a great resource for those who want to learn more. Considering how much I love this kind of music I’ll probably be sharing it more in future tracks of the day. Enjoy!

Sacred Harp was the performing name for finger-style phenom Daniel Bachman before he began releasing music under his own name around 2011. “Rappahannock (JR)” comes off his debut LP, Apparitions at the Kenmore Plantation put out by the French Label Hands in the Dark. Though he primarily performs and records as a solo artists, he released Taman Shud with jazz/experimental percussionist Ian McColm, who releases his own material under the name I.G.M. As a teenager, Bachman befriended fellow guitarist Jack Rose, who died at only 38 years old. Soon after, his final record, Luck in the Valley was released by Thrill Jockey with cover art by Daniel Bachman. Check out a great live performance he gave for NPR in the family estate of Robert E. Lee. His most recent release, River, was released in May on Three Lobed Records and can be streamed on Bandcamp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76SCHW6k1Jg

Infinity Window represents a sustained collaboration between Oneohtrix Point Never’s Daniel Lopatin and Taylor Richardson, aka Prehistoric Blackout. Both Lopatin and Richardson have collaborated often with other drone/ambient/experimental acts including Emeralds’ Mark McGuire, Boredoms, and Keith Fullerton Whitman, who also produced this Infinity Window release. Taylor Richardson performed with Boredoms as part of their 77 Boa Drum concert (later released on CD and DVD by Thrill Jockey) in which the group organized a concert where 77 drummers performed simultaneously in Brooklyn’s Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Y1lloS5m8

This Britpop gem comes from the first full length record of The Alan Bown Set (or simply The Alan Bown). Alan Bown himself was an accomplished trumpet player by the time he started the group, having joined the successful instrumental group The John Barry Seven around 1963. He would oversee the group as they toured and co-wrote songs with John Barry including “Seven Faces.” John Barry is perhaps best known for composing the “James Bond Theme” which debuted in 1962’s Dr. No. Although John Barry and Marty Norman both claimed to have written the song, it was released by John Barry as a single to tremendous commercial success.

The group could never replicate the success of the Bond theme and eventually disbanded, leaving Bown to start his own group with a few John Barry alums. The group originally continued in the blues/R&B-influenced style of John Barry before moving towards more psychedelic material in the late 60s. This track encapsulates this transition and the group would continue in this vein into the 1970s. In 1969, the group brought in Robert Palmer to record vocals for their album The Alan Bown!, though his tenure with the group was short. The group released a few more albums and disbanded in the early 70s.

Though they were not successful in their time, many musicians who got their start in the Alan Bown Set would achieve great success as solo artists or as part of groups. Robert Palmer scored a nauseatingly successful hit with “Addicted to Love” and “Simply Irresistible” among many other better (imo) songs. Saxaphonist Mel Collins would record with prog giants King Crimson and the Alan Parsons Project and Dougie Thompson would later join Supertramp.

“Unknown to the I” was first released as a cassette single before appearing on Drab Majesty’s full length debut, CARELESS, both released by Dais Records in 2015. Their first cassette, Unarian Dances, was self-released in 2012. The driving force behind the project is the 6’4″ androgynous Deb Demure who stars in the above video and was created by Marriages drummer Andrew Clinco. Along with the synth sounds of the 80s and analog video manipulation, a major influence on the creation of Deb Demure was the iconic industrial group Throbbing Gristle, specifically Genesis P. Orridge. From a recent interview at Noisey:

There’s very much a Genesis P. Orridge influence. She’s an extremely big hero for me. All of her projects are things I’ve really gotten into and strike me as some of the highest art out there. Her pandrogyne project is something that I wish I could actually have the balls to do—or not [laughs]—but I do love Genesis in that she’s had lots of looks over time. At one point, after the whole Lady Jaye merging, I really thought that was interesting—the crazy polarity or tension she creates between the masculine abrasiveness of some of the music she makes combined with the feminine touch of the reciting of lyrics and poetry. I love that. I’m not evaluating Genesis as a man or a woman. I’m seeing this genderless vessel delivering the sounds and the message. It’s really powerful.

CARELESS also has appearance by fellow Marriages member Emma Ruth Rundle, who has released a few solo records over the last few years. Andrew Clinco can also be heard with Black Mare, the solo project of Sera Timms. Drab Majesty is playing shows along the west coast currently and if this video is any indication, it should be quite the show!

 

With a lineup that fluctuates pretty regularly, including album credits that include slide guitar by Milk N’ Cookies, and a name that should probably not be Googled, it’s hard to pin down a group like the Master Musicians of Bukkake. This comes off their The Visible Sign of the Invisible Order release, which was co-produced by Randall Dunn and former Earth member John Schuller, who have both performed and recorded with the group. The name is a variation on The Master Musicians of Jajouka, a Moroccan group that is less band and more musical tradition that stretches back almost a thousand years. In an interview at The Quietus, Dunn explains the thinking behind the name:

Definitely one of the intentions is never to take ourselves too seriously. For me that’s part of foiling the aspect of a psychedelic rock band that can happen, where they can start creating a sort of pseudo-spirituality with their audience, and then start believing that it’s actually happening. Then it’s not long before a cult-like aspect can emerge. For us, you can’t have intense seriousness without intense humour, and you can’t deal with some of these things we’re talking about without having a gentleness or sleight of hand. And also, for me, it’s always been a commentary on ‘world music’ in general, this thing that’s been presented to us as ‘world music’ – like, what is that?

Dunn is also a prolific producer, working with drone/doom metal groups like Wolves in the Throne Room and Sunn O))). While many of the groups subsequent releases have been put out by Important Records, this record (their debut) was released by Abduction, best known for being the primary label for Sun City Girls. Master Musicians of Bukkake’s latest release, Far West completed a trilogy of albums known as the Totems. From the same interview:

So the whole Totem trilogy is about, obliquely in a way, the rise of this synthetic religion, and the failure of everyone to see that what really mattered was being replaced with this synthetic version – and everyone sort of being ok with that happening.

Not to be confused with the UK doom metal band of the same name, Solstice formed in 1980 and has had a rotating list of members centered around guitarist Andy Glass, who is the sole founding member still touring with the group. This track comes off their 1984 debut Silent Dance, which was recorded at Cornwall’s Isle of Light studios. Despite some fairly heavy coverage around the bands debut, they went on their first hiatus towards the end of the 1980s. Bassist Craig Sunderland worked as a session musician in the UK and other members produced a few records off and on. The group reformed in the early 1990s after a CD reissue of Silent Dance and released two albums, New Life on Progressive International and Circles on A New Day. For Circles, they were joined by former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker, who also performs on their 2007 live album The Cropredy Set, which features their full set at the Cropredy Festival. Festival Music reissued their previous records on CD in expanded editions including remasters, live performances, and original demos.  The group still tours and performs today, with their latest release, 2013’s Prophecy, produced by Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson.

This track was the B side on a split 7″ with late garage icon Jay Reatard in 2007 put out by Germany’s P. Trash Records. Molded from the same pop punk Memphis clay, Boston Chinks had only one more release, Coltrane, before the group split. The image in the above clip is actually the cover to Coltrane. Drummer Billy Hayes also played with Jay Reatard’s band from 2005 – 2009. He and fellow Reatard alum Stephen Pope joined Nathan Williams’ Wavves before the release of 2010’s King of the Beach. Ex-Boston Chink Alex Gates joined soon after and still tours and records with Williams’ project. Hayes left Wavves soon after King of the Beach’s release and, along with Gates, formed Cretin Stompers. The group released their first LP, Looking Forward to Being Attacked, on Hozac Records in 2014.

These experimental tapes from one of Velvet Underground’s founding members were thought to be lost to history until they were discovered in the possession of Tony Conrad, who performed and recorded with Cale as part of the Theatre of Eternal Music. In 2004 it was released by Table of the Elements as the massive 5 LP box set New York in the 1960s. “Summer Heat” comes off the first disc of that release, often referred to as Sun Blindness Music. Cale originally recorded this track in 1965, three years before Velvet Underground was formed, and the heavy distortion and use of repetition are characteristic of the Theatre of Eternal Music, although its members utilized a variety of instruments and recording methods. Angus MacLise, another member of the Theatre of Eternal Music, was living with Cale when he was recruited to join Velvet Underground. Maclise, Cale, and other members of both Velvet Underground and the Theatre of Eternal Music were heavily influenced by La Monte Young, who founded the Theatre of Eternal Music and ushered in a wave of minimalism in American music that still holds influence today.  Below are some links if you are interested in learning more about this fascinating period in American music history.

Selected Writings of La Monte Young & Marian Zazeela

Features an interview with La Monte Young where he describes his upbringing, musical training, and composition process as well as a lecture given in 1965 to the Halprin Dancer’s Workshop.

Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend

Unofficial John Cale fan site with lots of links & Cale-related resources.

Almost two decades before he would roll up his suit sleeves and help define the sound of the 1980s, Kenny Loggins was a California teenager caught up in the psych-pop sound of the late 1960s. He formed a band called The Second Helping and penned four singles for the group, including the above track, before moving on to write four songs for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1970 release Uncle Charlie and His Dog Teddy, including “Prodigal’s Return.” After that record was released, he met Jim Messina, who was producing for Columbia at the time, and the two recorded a few of Loggins’ songs in Messina’s living room. Loggins signed a six-album deal with Columbia with Messina set to produce his debut, which also apparently involved encouraging Loggins to buy his first electric guitar. Music, and electricity, would never be the same. During the recording, Messina became so involved that it became 1971’s Kenny Loggins with Jim Messina Sittin’ In, which features gems like “Same Old Wine.” The two found success touring college campuses and would release seven more albums throughout the 1970s before Loggins would go solo and, in between recording and touring, do cocaine on speedboats or something probably. His output while a part of The Second Helping has been released on numerous psych compilations. He continues to be an integral part of my father’s least favorite song of all time, “Your Momma Don’t Dance.”