Back in 1996, things were pretty good. John Fahey was still kicking it on the mortal coil and Thurston Moore was still in a band called Sonic Youth who released an album called Washing Machine that year. All good things, right?
After years in obscurity, Fahey was plucked from his doldrums and started hitting the road with new vigor and an experimental bent, which completely freaked out his old school American Primitive fans. Kind of like Dylan going electric, but, if you ask me, way more radical.
To add to the mayhem, Fahey invited Thurston Moore and Phil X. Milstein to open at his shows in Northampton, MA. Here’s how Byron Coley described it:
Musical saw… . tape jabber … guitar circularity… . The audience was primed for transcendental waterfalls, and didn’t seem too delighted by Phil & Thurston’s opening set, but fuck ‘em. Fahey was enthralled. And when we pulled the tapes out to listen to for the first
time in many a year, we were all pretty chuffed about how nuts and timeless the music sounded.
On February 10, Feeding Tube Records will be releasing the live recording of this show, called Songs We Taught The Lord Vol. 1, to the public for the first time. Accordingly, they’ll also be re-releasing the otherwise-out-of-print performance from the second night (Vol. 2), which came out on Chris Corsano’s Hot Cars Warp Records back in 1997.
Pre-order your very own copy Vol. 1 and Vol 2 now. But hurry; there are limited numbers of these bad boys.
Also, in case you forgot how cool he is, 21 years on from 1996, here’s some footage of Thurston Moore being cool:
More about: John Fahey, Phil Milstein, Thurston Moore
