What is spinning?

[Davey]

iirc the story about the Cul de Sac guys finally getting to work with John Fahey was pretty heartbreaking. Maybe that's already been discussed here. I can't remember the details offhand but I guess he was not just an asshole but really managed to get inside their heads and totally dismantle them, just a crushing experience.

I'd kinda forgotten about them but I think I need to revisit their catalog. I got the chance to see them once with Damo Suzuki from Can in a real small room, that was a special experience. I wonder if they ever recorded any of the stuff that they were doing with him?

~Rae

They do have a live album with Damo, and I do actually have it on my computer (2 CD set from 2004) - think I have all their stuff now but haven't become familiar with some of the later ones yet. The liner notes has the tour schedule and lists the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis on 5/11/2002. Listening now for the first time and this is a pretty amazing... but kinda crazy recording. Must've been quite a night!

But if you want to sample some Cul de Sac, I'd probably recommend going all the way back to their debut, ECIM. It does have one reworking of a Fahey tune (which is linked on my SotD page), and has some occasional vocals, overall very nice record, and I think it was available on UK vinyl way back then in 1991. Just a little indie here in the US, and you know how quickly some of them came and went in the 90s, sometimes folded after one release, so it spent a long time oop until their current label reissued/remastered it a few years ago. Couple 3 extra songs, and a bit louder of course, but sounds pretty good. I only have a mp3 of the original, but am still looking for a good physical copy. Like I said above, just something more honest about those earlier masters, almost always are the ones to have.

The Epiphany of Glenn Jones has a lot of very cool music, really spacey, more electronics that I expected is what I was referring to in my other post (not the friction), almost like Kraftwerk at times. Glenn does go into all the details in the liner notes, and it did go really badly ... up to a point, but it turned out OK in the end. He just had to make some big adjustments, and the rest of the band as well, but mostly Glenn cause it was he who idolized Fahey, and it was his plan that Fahey refused to follow.

I remember reading some interview with Fahey, can't remember when or where now, but Jim O'Rourke and David Grubbs, aka Gastr del Sol, had covered Fahey's "Dry Bones in the Valley" on Upgrade & Afterlife, and very well too with some future nods to O'Rourke's later Bad Timing and Eureka records, and maybe they'd done some shows together, and O'Rourke might've been scheduled to work with him or produce him or something, and he'd probably done the Cul de Sac record then, but he was really candid in his feelings about Jim and David, and some of his newfound indie rock idolatry. I think he was a little confused about who was who, but said one of them was pretty lacking in talent. Funny guy. Not sure he was really as bad as you make him out, and that experience didn't kill Cul de Sac. But it was probably worse than what Glenn lets on in the notes, and he still makes it sound pretty bad. Edit: And if you click on the link at the bottom of the page below, there's some more nasty stuff that didn't make the liner notes

The Fahey Files - John Fahey - Liner Notes - The Epiphany of Glenn Jones