WOEBOT: Folkways

I was going through my collection on Sunday night, piecing together some info for my latest FACT article, and I kept coming across Folkways records, you know the way something suddenly catches your eye. And once again, what a very bloody strange label it was.

Progressive Bluesgrass! This is hot actually.

The Ituri Pygmies! Well it follows as naturally as A does from B.

Poets read their contemporary Poetry! (confesses - I only know Amiri Baraka of this lot...)

Religious Music of India!

(straining belief) A composition of Agitprop Music for Electromagnetic tape by Ilhan Mimaroglu!

Haitian Voodoo Rites! Verna Gillis is the man incidentally. Classic behind the scenes world music dude.

Harry Smith recording Indians singing under the influence of Peyote, a three-disc box set this one. You knew about the Anthology, but this?

Anyway it came to mind as well that the blissblogger sent me this really cute thing for Christmas, the scan doesn't do it justice because it's a record label which some artist has cropped out of the centre of the record itself. Like a coaster, except it sits on my mantelpiece. Simon also sent me a copy of this great document, a Vanguard sleeve insert which he'd scrawled hilariously and polemically on top of "the world that bastard Dylan destroyed- FOREVER the fake neurotic!" Which reminded me of this comment I made on this thread.

Comments

some of these covers are lovely - is that lovely smeared worn-copyness of the 'religious music of india' elpee, the proto-basquiat doodlings of the 'haitian voodoo rites' cover.

great stuff as ever wb!

Posted by: nebbesh | January 24, 2006 10:27 AM

sorry, is that lovely smeared worn-copyness of the 'religious music of india' elpee intended or just from your own over-use?

Posted by: nebbesh | January 24, 2006 10:29 AM

hi nebbesh, it's just a bit mashup. i think i bought it like that. isnt the folkways colour palatte unique! i suppose the distinctive "suffused" look comes from these colours being printed on coloured paper.....

Posted by: WOEBOT | January 25, 2006 04:40 PM

Ituri Forest is one of my all-time faves. what i would give to hear the Kiowa Peyote meeting tho...

Posted by: beta | January 25, 2006 08:15 PM

hi beta,

the kiowa peyote meeting....lets just say that its better on paper.

here's a really funny thing from partch's liner notes:

"I would like to make it clear that of the people I later worked with, none were met in the jail: the unfortunate vcitems of that place only provided the contacts. Also it would be fair to say that while I was in Anadarko I was drinking heavily and it was natural that some of the people I worked with also drank."

;-)

Posted by: WOEBOT | January 29, 2006 05:55 PM

for the record it ought to be noted that the entire folkways ctalogue is available these days as burnt on request cd-rs.

so here is the kiowa peyote meeting:
http://www.folkways.si.edu/search/AlbumDetails.aspx?ID=925

i recently got a copy of the stone classic Music of The New Guinea Wape on one of these cd-rs:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/search/AlbumDetails.aspx?ID=742

Posted by: WOEBOT | January 29, 2006 05:58 PM

http://www.woebot.com/junkyard.jpg

this lester bangs favourite from here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/SOUNDS-OF-THE-JUNKYARD-strange-incredible-folkways-LP_W0QQitemZ4827705233QQcategoryZ306QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Posted by: WOEBOT | January 29, 2006 06:07 PM

(confesses - I only know Amiri Baraka of this lot...)

Well ... Jayne Cortez might (coyly) be described as the mother of Denardo Coleman, who plays along with some of his bandmates on her 70s-80s LPs ... David Meltzer, in addition to being a fine poet, also led the Berkeley psych band The Serpent Power in the late 60s and wrote some hellish agitprop-porn (google his name + "Agency Trilogy" for the dope on his CIA-as-bisexual-S/M-cult routine) ...

Posted by: Jim Flannery | January 30, 2006 10:13 AM

thanks for the science jim

Posted by: WOEBOT | January 30, 2006 10:54 PM

howdy woe-

the Wape sounds fascinating, so maybe one day I'll plunk for it along with that Lyrebird record. since I'm way into the Ituri Pygmies, wondering if that Ocura Pygmy disc on your list is the one available on cd now.

Posted by: beta | February 1, 2006 12:10 AM

>ocora pygmy

almost definitely available. the three crucial ocora african ones are: centrafrique/burundi/aka

the aka pygymy one is the one that rocked jon hassel's world

Posted by: WOEBOT | February 1, 2006 07:44 PM