John Fahey and Derek Bailey

02/05/08 14:44
pedalboard_wcolor I'm recording these new tunes right now that are my first serious attempts at instrumental music. Is that an oxymoron? - no more than is calling songs 'music' - I think music that exists on it's own without words set to melody probably needs the qualification of 'instrumental' now. Anyway, (or anyways as we say in Canada) I felt sufficiently lacking in confidence about my ability to do this well that I went back through iTunes and my 'instrumental' music playlists and listened to everything again with a different, critical, ear and rediscovered John Fahey and Derek Bailey. Both singular players and quite different but both an inspiration. I think Fahey released some of DB's work on the second label that he founded and ran after Tacoma was bought by Chrysalis.

Derek Bailey, strangely because I wasn't that precocious a child, I remember watching on BBC in B&W sitting on his chair with his national health glasses, crouched over his Gibson 175, manipulating the sounds he was making with two volume pedals (or Vol and a Wha). It was very odd but I found it really engaging. These days I find the gentle dissonances and space in his playing just beautiful. Fahey I didn't pick up on until more recently. I downloaded one of his Best of...compilations (the '64-83 one) and have subsequently been an avid viewer of any YouTube posting of him playing. He was a great guitarist but also a great student of the musics he was interested in. The way his compositions encompass American folk and Blues but also Charles Ives and Bartok in an effortless way is remarkable. Also, in common with Derek Bailey, there's that sense of space, or what's not being played. 'Course it's not Kylie.