Twang for twang's sake:
I'm kinda catchin bits and pieces of this, and some of its been said by
some of the same parties before, I think around the time of the
Camofleur release. I've also been less than diligent with my
digest reading of late so bear with me if I seem like, I'm in left
field here...again.
With Grubbs/O'Roarke, I think Carl has a point about
alt.americana, but I think the roots are deeper than just Fahey. Yes,
the
guitar influences are very pronounced in both players. i had an
opportunity
to present the acoustic Gastr Del Sol with Tony Conrad in Buffalo
in June of 1996 and the Fahey influences were beyond obvious before
Tony came on. But then... Tony came on. Now, for those of you
who don't know, Tony Conrad is an original(pre Glass/Reich) minimalist,
having
been instrumental in LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music,
and being the one to suggest the use of integers to help describe
the intervals the droning music they were playing. This was a group
which included John Cale in his pre-Velvet days. For more on
Tony, check http://www.tonyconrad.com and the book "From the Velvets
to the Voidoids". This performance was a restaging of Tony's
"10 years Alive on the Infinite Plane" Grubbs & O'Roarke played
homemade drone instruments with Tony on vio, another drone and
Alex gelescer in violin. Basicallly, its a soundwash of drones in an
interval while four alternately flickering movie screens slowly
coalesce into one behind them. Not a lot of Fahey there, but then...
so there's this magazine with Cd called Halana and there's a John Fahey
piece on it which is him playing a detuned steel string acoustic. The
whole piece
is him playing with overtones and resonances...is this americana?
Uh...I think so. Or at least a part of the greater American tradition
of iconoclasm and folk idioms. Hell, I'm going top go so far as
to say I think I hear Charles Ives in this stuff, or at least an
aesthetic
which blurs the line between americana and classical forms. between
dissonance and reason. Of course, Ives' Holidays Symphony
to me is a roots of roots music, or at least a sign of the desire to
frame roots music, or beter to fuse "pop' and 'classical' or like
Morton Feldman or John Cage, reexamine all the contexts.
No, its not the Hag, but it is an americana of a different kind,
and I think, more tightly related to the discussion as a whole
than might first meet the ear.
American music OF ALL KINDS has always been about building up
as well as breaking down identities. Whether its "Turkey in the Straw"
appearing in an orchestral piece, whether its microtonal music on
a steel guitar, or even the delightful mixtures of pop punk and country
we all love, the effort of the music, or really the best music, is the
ability
to blur the artificial lines we draw between genres and by this effort,
create new and unexpected genres which will themselves break down
and reform as time goes on. Jim and David remind me of this constantly.
Then again, so does Uncle Tupelo.
Dan Rigney
http://www.moths.com
