THE GREAT KOONAKLASTER SPEAKS

“[Blind Joe] Death had his day—or so it seemed. He returned or rather it is reported that he returns periodically to Takoma Park. That he is alive, that he is dead, that he was seen here or there and other things are also reported from time to time. But we, the editors have been able to confirm none of these reports. Fahey himself refuses to give us any information regarding Death except specific data regarding such things as recording sessions, dates, places, etc., all in the past.”

This statement comes from the notes to one the last John Fahey releases (of his lifetime), 1968’s The Voice of The Turtle. As we all know from the history books, the names of Blind Joe Death and John Fahey shall forever be entwined—Death was Fahey’s friend and mentor, with the two men recording together as early as 1929, their obscure 78s later collected on several albums on the Takoma label. But Death’s mentoring may have extended far beyond music, as I believe this quote provides an insight into Fahey’s own mysterious demise. In the 1963 liner notes to the 2nd edition of the Blind Joe Death/John Fahey LP, Fahey is reported as having disappeared in 1964, only to be rediscovered by Ed Denson in Boise Idaho shortly thereafter, and as having gone insane and dying in that same year. Such confusion and camouflage surely shows the influence of Death on Fahey’s master plan for his own corporeal existence.

Fahey is believed to have died in the explosion of a house during the filming of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point in 1969. Fahey had been contracted to do music for the film; Antonioni rejected the results. As vexed as Fahey was by this turn of events, he still could not resist stealing into the abode in hopes of “liberating” some rare classical discs that a location scout had tipped him off to, unaware that the building was about to be obliterated for the sake of the film’s climactic scene. (Stanley Kubrick alludes to the ill-starred caper in A Clockwork Orange by sticking Fahey’s album Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death in among some classical releases in a scene where Malcolm McDowell is shopping at a record store.)

Yet Fahey’s remains were never found. Recordings continued to be issued by the Takoma label, culled from a trove of unreleased recordings licensed from Fahey’s estate. Like Death, Fahey sightings were occasionally reported from time to time, and in the early 90s a transient in Salem, Oregon claimed to be Fahey, despite the fact that the Fahey who recorded with Death in the 20’s would have been an octogenarian and the man was obviously in his mid-50s at the time. But the question remained: did Fahey purposely stage his own death for his own occlusive purposes?

Fahey’s collusion of folk, blues, ethnic and modern classical methods, which suggests both the trickster and the shaman, has attracted a cult of musician followers over the years, ranging from the ridiculous (Will Ackerman) to the sublime (Sonic Youth). But his unsolved disappearance inspired another cult: a splinter sect of the I Am Movement, which worships Count Saint Germain, a Rosicrucian adept who is said to have never died and has assumed various identities over the centuries, ranging from Francis Bacon (16th century) to the man depicted in Rembrandt’s painting The Polish Rider. Saint Germain is claimed by his followers to be a master herbalist who was able to rejuvenate continuously, which is why he could be spotted at European courts in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, as well as on a mountain at the dawn of the 20th century by Guy Ballard, who founded the I Am Movement immediately afterwards. Disciples of this sect, heard on the record you now possess, believe Fahey—“The Great Koonaklaster”– to be the most recent incarnation of Saint Germain, that the Salem, Oregon man was indeed Fahey, and that he did create “music itself” and “all the musicians on the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music and many others” (as stated in his essay “The Nature of Reality”). They view Fahey’s music as a synthesis of Saint Germain’s abilities as a classical composer (he was a master violinist and his works were found amongst Tchaikovsky’s papers) and skills as an alchemist (obviously applied to create his trans-idiomatic guitar soli), and have absorbed his guitar style in order to pay homage to him. Ben Vida’s “Exorcise/Intone” for instance, shows a formidable grasp of Fahey’s cross-pollinated syncopation and vindictive use of dissonance against open string drones. Along with Jack Rose’s “Since I’ve Been a Man Full Grown” (which sounds more like Takoma/Symposium-era Leo Kottke kayaking down the Ganges than it does Fahey, truth be told), it’s a rambling excursion that recalls the lengthy meditations found on Fare Forward Voyagers and America, which were equally indebted to the extended durations of Indian ragas and the soundtrack to the silent film The Thief of Baghdad.

To hear one ritual service of the Koonaklaster Movement, listen to “Overcome”, performed by the No Neck Blues Band, who function as a parallel to the Ya Ho Wa band of the Father Yod cult. As heard on this remarkable recording, No Neck’s high-echelon adepts are able to channel Fahey’s voice from the ether as their fellow band members hack away at their instruments. Fahey’s anti-careerist teachings are not lost on No Neck and other reformed indie rockers on this album, such as Badgerlore or Pumice, who saw the light and decided to redirect their own brands of American primitivism towards “higher key” aims, rather than a quick profile in Pitchfork Media or a slot in Mac MacCaughan’s iPod.

Many Koonaklasterians have brought the overtones inherent in Fahey’s droning open strings to the forefront, taking the logical and necessary next step in Fahey’s own reconfiguration of the guitar from an accompaniment to folk or blues shouting to the foreground as a solo concertizing vehicle. The high priest Frater Hoobalaboobala [known to the laity as “Jim O’Rourke”] created what has become a template for this approach with his exquisite 1997 releases Bad Timing and Happy Days, and here we find several initiates taking his lead and submitting new additions to the liturgy. In “Spanish Flang Dang” New Zealand’s Greg Malcolm acknowledges Fahey’s ambiguous penchant for musical chestnuts by crafting a melody that recalls both “Music Box Dancer” and “Bicycle Built for Two” (covered by Fahey on the aforementioned Transfiguration), pitting it against a grinding electric guitar drone. Lichens begins “Escapisms in a Comedic Forum” with a Fahey-style acoustic ditty which is soon overridden by a drone tone rising from its bass line, hulking two octaves below like a Golem in full stride, with the guitar darting in and out to avoid being crushed under its heel. Saving the best for last, the apotheosis of the post- O’Rourke “walkabouts” can be found in David Daniell’s epic “Crossing the Susquehanna River Bridge.” After the obligatory fingerstyle fanfare, it lolls for several minutes in the nexus between feedback and the overtones of strings, electronics and traffic sounds, its all-embracing industrial drone rivaled only by that of the Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill itself, ultimately dissolving into a languid Southern march complete with pedal steel overdubs (a nod to Daniell’s pedal steel teacher, Ken Champion, who also played on Bad Timing).

Also on board: Sir Richard Bishop, who takes his name from an Elizabethan-period knight who was an associate of Francis Bacon. With “Hood River Lap Dance” he nods to Fahey’s various river titles, and invites dark visions of Indian slide guitarist Brij Bhushan Kabra and Keith Levene c. “Radio Four” duking it out on the main deck of the SS Minnow during the fateful storm that was to leave Gilligan and his charges high and dry. And Michael Hurley, an inveterate para-psychedelic folkie who should be categorized here as fellow maverick rather than Kloonaklasterian per se, clocks in with an aberrant keyboard tune.

Whether or not you choose to accept this “Immortal Motherfucker of the 20th century” as Saint Germain matters little, as there is still much to be gleaned from these Kloonaklasterians’ offerings. I’ll leave you with the words that card-carrying Kloonaklasterians use to bid each other adieu, adopted from “The Nature of Reality”:

“See you, fatso!”

Notes by Rabbi Sky

Galilee, January 2007

JOHN FAHEY

“John Fahey has created a universe of complexity, emotion and exquisite otherness for acoustic steel-string guitar. His musical inventions match those of John Coltrane and Harry Partch for sheer transcendental American power … He is as monumental and singular a musical talent as any this country has produced."

Byron Coley, Spin

"Fahey explored the mystique as well as the manner of roots music, evoking a mythic America.”

Rolling Stone

JOHN FAHEY

HARD TIME EMPTY BOTTLE BLUES

LANTHANIDES SERIES

2003

Table of the Elements

[Neodymium] SWC-LP-60

Phono LP, silkscreen

JOHN FAHEY

SEA CHANGES AND COELACANTHS:

A YOUNG PERSON’S GUIDE TO JOHN FAHEY

2005

Table of the Elements

[Astatine] TOE-CD/LP-85

2x compact discs, 64-page book, enclosure; 4x phono LPs, 12-page libretto, box

In the 43 years between his first recordings and his death in 2001, John Fahey stomped across the American soundscape, leaving behind footprints of influence so breathtakingly vast that entire genres now huddle within them. His mesmeric guitar compositions fused the blues’ syncopated rhythms with contemporary dissonance; eastern influences with musique-concrète. He was the first to demonstrate that traditional steel-string finger-picking techniques could be used to express a universe of non-traditional ideas. Playing with versatility and a fierce imagination, Fahey expanded the boundaries of the guitar, and his contribution to American music is immense.

In the early 1960s, a young John Fahey searched out the missing bluesmen Skip James and Bukka White, thereby igniting the acoustic blues revival. By the early 1990s, it was Fahey’s turn to be rescued from oblivion by young enthusiasts — and reawakened from his hibernation, he had no intention of pandering to traditionalists. Invigorated by the contemporary music underground, the man was ready to set minds ablaze. Through his partnership with Table of the Elements, Fahey released a series of extraordinary records, now compiled for the first time as Sea Changes & Coelacanths: A Young Person’s Guide to John Fahey.

Here is Fahey’s trademark American Primitive sound at its most harrowing and resolute. Featuring Skip James-influenced vignettes, deep-sea string-bendings, sonic collages, oaken reverberations and lengthy, impressionistic suites, these recordings — made between 1996 and 1998 — comprise a major portion of Fahey’s canon, and are the logical next-step in his life-long journey of exploration. Sea Changes & Coelacanths embodies an artistic essence, with sounds that are undiluted, uncompromised, starkly honest, pure of vision and in every way innovative — just like the man himself.

“Now that John Fahey, the Great Koonaklaster no longer walks among us, it may be possible to review this final period of his amazing trajectory with the requisite objectivity. There is no more New John anymore; no more Old John. There is only John Fahey — Immortal Motherf*cker of the 20th Century.

"And it’s time for you to eat his dust.”

Byron Coley, from the liner notes

“John Fahey has created a universe of complexity, emotion and exquisite otherness for acoustic steel-string guitar. His musical inventions match those of John Coltrane and Harry Partch for sheer transcendental American power … He is as monumental and singular a musical talent as any this country has produced."

Spin

"Fahey explored the mystique as well as the manner of roots music, evoking a mythic America.”

Rolling Stone

LOREN CONNORS

SAILS

2005

Table of the Elements

[Actinium] TOE-CD-89

2x compact discs, custom enclosure

“Ultimately, Loren Connors’ path, while not for the timid, is one of unspeakable treasure: a journey to the heart of brightness; a quest to penetrate a Terra Incognita of the soul.