C or D: Robbie Basho, "Basho Sings"

reference points / descriptors ? hmm.. maybe like Tim Buckley at his most yodelriffic except with a much thinner / weedier voice..

"Waiting, in the Warm Golden Rain
The Sweet Silent Reign of the Sun
To come again
Are you ready, My Son
For to ride the Rainbow of His Light?
I am ready, My Father
For to ride this Rainbow of Your Light"

Plus several sections written in Sioux! Actually I love this stuff, but like I say it's for comedy reasons as much as for his amazing playing.

which record of his do you have, ian?

On iTunes there's a Vanguard Digital Vaults release of an unissued album, "Indian II"

Never seen or heard talk of this, but it seems it surfaced 2006. Downloaded and it's pretty solid Basho, though no highlight. I like that the opening track is a piano number. Still, would be worth Vanguard doing at least an actual, physical, limited release.

I've been thinking without listening to this album for a while now. Very beautiful, strange music.

I love how the melodies follow their own tails up surprising directions.

unreleased live album?

http://static.boomkat.com/images/130055/333.jpg

Live at the Kulturforum, Bonn, Germany, November 24, 1980

i remember someone or other on fmu talking about the situation regarding all the live tapes that exist - that they ended up with the, uhh, religious faction that he was involved with towards the end of his life, and that no-one knew where they were, how to get in touch, what was recorded, etc.

haha what religious faction was that? i gave this a listen and it's great. possibly the best album i've heard of his.

listened to basho all day yesterday, it's been a long time since i just played the same records over and over. mostly 'Art of the Acoustic Steel String Guitar 6 & 12' but also some 'Rainbow Thunder'. i like his singing but i do prefer the instrumentals, i feel like his voice overshadows the guitar a bit too much when it comes in

i have all these mislabeled basho mp3s but I've been listening to them over and over that one that's all "on my waaay, Colinda, lord, I'll catch the, westbound train" is slaying me lately.

who is this colinda chick anyway?

i once used a song from 'basho sings' in a skate video and most people really dug it in that context. i suspect most of them really would not have cared for it on its own. maybe basho's ready for the big screen. he'd sure add some intensity to a sequence.

these make a great soundtrack to forrest bess paintings btw

i've grown to like his vocal albums now except for voice of the eagle which is too cheesy

crazy this is the only basho thread! anyone heard this "new" thing?
http://dustedmagazine.com/reviews/7065
sample sounds gorgeous.

anyone see this? only know video footage of basho posted here:
http://robbiebasho.com/Home_Page.html
cool site overall too.

Holy smoke, those videos! They seem to confirm what I thought I heard in the music -- there is very little random in his playing -- when improvising, he might surprise the audience, but he seems to know precisely what he's doing at all times. Also his right hand tonal and dynamic control are phenomenal.

amazing! i knew his right hand wld be crazy but it looks so strange: floppy wrist, hand really far away playing loosely at the bridge. incredible to see.

yeah, the right hand was what was most interesting to me, don't know if i've seen anyone playing like that. hope there's more!

Fuck, this rules! I too like how his right hand kinda curls around the guitar and the way he's almost bent over double so that his ear is right near the sound hole.

Love Basho so much but I've never explored his ouvre much beyond Bashovia and Guitar Soli. Guess I really should buy some more albums! He inspired me to play open tuned exclusively like 10 years ago when I was just starting out on guitar and I'm forever in his debt.

Anyway, I am surprised that no one in this thread about Basho's singing mentioned Antony Hegarty.

Well, if people mostly know his singing from the 60s, it's not that much of a surprise, but he got really good through the 70s, and his best vocal tune -- man, wow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaGChm8RWw&feature=related

holy cats

afterwards, it ask me if i want to listen to 15 minutes of pharoah sanders "the creator has a master plan"

um, yeah

I can't see youtubes at work but I really hope that's "Orphan's Lament".

Nah, it was "Blue Crystal Fire" from one year earlier -- but I do dig Orphan's Lament as well, so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFjkdjb7WNs

Actually, that's from the same record. Best thing Windham Hill ever put out, and it's not Windham Hilly at all.

Excellent! Love "Blue Crystal Fire" too...Visions of the Country just kills me; I think it's probably his best record.

xp liam there have been a few great releases since the comps & Seal of the Blue Lotus reissue. Venus in Cancer has been reissued by tompkins square & is first-class basho imo, features both the tracks in the video footage, a surprisingly amazing piece w/ french horn & some great vocal stuff. bo'weavil also issued a nice live concert from 1980, Bonn ist Supreme, which has lots of good stuff which is otherwise OOP.

i've bitten the bullet and forked out for the reissue of Twilight Peaks which came out earlier this year - http://en.smalltownromanceblog.com/new-robbie-basho-reissue-twilight-peaks/ - some live&unreleased stuff, really good sound & quite a bit slower than versions floating around online, although idk what has gone on w/ the cover art, which imo should have been:

http://www.musikzimmer.ch/pics/covers/albums/20124.jpg

but yeah it's amazing, his technique has improved so much compared to the early recordings & it's an incredibly tender, gentle & calm record, mb my fav basho.

obv all his stuff should be reissued but Basho Sings!, Voice of the Eagle, Visions of the Country, & Rainbow Thunder especially. mb Zarthus too but it seems like his fruitiest record.

something i doubt will be reissued any time soon, at the other end of his career, is this lone track from a takoma comp, The Thousand Incarnations Of The Rose, which is an awesome instance of ambition carrying him through even if the technique is not 100% there & incredibly dramatic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFshZQYmLBY

*listens to robbie basho instrumental song*

"OMG this guy is the greatest of all time"

*robbie basho singing song comes up*

"....oh dear god"

^ hahahah otm

the worst is when it's like a sublime 9 minute track that you think is instrumental but then his vocals kick in around the five minute mark

his singing rules fuiud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJKhHY2OhEQ

i'm afraid i will be fu'd in this case

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYaGChm8RWw

not loving this does not compute imo

oh, haha. already upthread oops.

basho sings is not one of my favorite bashos, but song of the stallion and visions of the country are two of my vary favorite vocal records.

very

someone upthread compared his voice to antony hegarty, which was quite apt, as I cannot stand hegarty's voice either. i dunno, just something about it. basho is a pretty unstoppable guitarist, though. people always say jack rose was a fahey acolyte but i'd say he was more the reincarnation of basho. big arpeggiated 12 string epics. i've never been able to get into basho because his stuff is hard to find around the internet and physical copies of his stuff are also hard to find! it's almost like his work didn't get any momentum out of the takoma revival, i wonder if it's becuz of his singing/that some of his stuff was released as 'easy listening' near the end of his career?

yeah, when he wasn't wearing his dr ragtime hat, jack rose played a lot on the 2nd & 4th beats, loose & expansive ala basho. he cribbed p evenly from both tho imo

So can someone recommend me some more players doing stuff similar to Basho on tracks like "The Falconer's Arm" and "Lost Lagoon Suite"? I am pretty firmly entrenched in Takoma worship, and am already quite enamored of Jack Rose, who I feel comes closest to evoking that feel imo (Catedral et Chartres <3 omg). However, James Blackshaw puts me to sleep for whatever reason, so don't tell me to check him out, unless I'm really missing something. So enlighten me. Who am I missing?

Hey global, check out William Tyler - Behold the Spirit...

Also did you ever get lessons with peter lang?

new album by daniel bachman is very jack rose-y. not super basho-y

Yeah dude, 8-9 of em! It was fun. We'd do a lot of b.s'ing about music in general. He'd get a bit rambly at moments but I didn't mind- he's kind of like an endearing kooky uncle. He said I was one of the more advanced/quick learners he'd taught at the school in terms of the American Primitive style, so he taught me a lot of tunes he doesn't generally teach? Got to learn Thoth Song, which is a fun one, in fact we did all four of his off that Lang/Fahey/Kottke one. Also learned some basic blues/folk standards. Probably 15 songs in total.

Overall, it's fun to learn straight from the mind of the guy who wrote the songs, and hear stories about hanging out with Fahey/touring, the 60s, etc. I don't think I got a ton better technique wise, since I was already fairly decent. But I definitely broadened my overall sense of the fretboard and songwriting, which is probably more of a fundamental thing in American Primitive since it's less about chops and more about spirit? At the same time, he seemed like he could really get you going if you've never fingerpicked in your life, too, he's got like 3-4 more basic tunes he teaches to newer players as well. He's a good teacher in that he can teach to all levels. It was funny listening to him talk about teaching Turnpike Terror to a group of 10 year olds!

The WBSM is a fantastic thing for the community, too, so there's that too.

I'm surprised at the number of people here do dislike Basho's singing, A North American Raga is one of my favorites of his, and all of Song of the Stallion. I especially love the songs where his voice comes in after 5 minutes of beautiful guitar. What I dig about Basho is how serious he was, his mysticism and all.

cool global, currently playing phone tag w.him can't wait to start...

it's less about chops and more about spirit?

man i've just now started playing closer attention technique in listening to fahey and that guy's tempo is BONKERS...like he's constantly speeding up and slowing down, maybe on purpose?

yeah, i think it's mainly on purpose, there was some quote where he talked about his sense of time, but i can't remember where. there are definitely tempo things that fahey does that i've found to be mindsplitting, sort of other dimension playing that i don't think you could ever "learn."

i need to read more about fahey, but yeah it's striking, where, god, i bet he's swinging 20 bpms either way in the course of one song

or the same larger phrase!

been a while since i read it, but fahey wrote his thesis on charley patton, and patton is the king of irregular tempos/bizarro rhythms. as well as being the king of the delta blues.

yeah duh, of course, tons of those delta dudes had way fucked up phrasing and meter, so i guess that's only natural

My God, how was anyone able to enjoy music before drum machines were invented? (What's amatta with you people?)

i wasn't saying it was bad, just notable.

I'm surprised at the number of people here do dislike Basho's singing, A North American Raga is one of my favorites of his, and all of Song of the Stallion. I especially love the songs where his voice comes in after 5 minutes of beautiful guitar. What I dig about Basho is how serious he was, his mysticism and all.

― JacobSanders, Monday, October 29, 2012 3:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

EXACTLY

The phrasing/timing variations are definitely intentional, warping time/space to get into your subconscious.

fahey version of waltzing matilda makes a good case study imo

just got into him for the first time because myspace, of all places, suggested him after i listened to the only HQ version of Gene Estribou's "Eeee Minor" on the internet.

it's been a day, and all i've done all day is listen to him, and holy fuck.

sooooo have we all checked this out yet? http://archive.org/details/RobbieBashoLiveAtTheDeliNaturalRestaurantCedarRapidsIowa

actually a bunch of live basho on the archive (and the same stuff here: http://www.bluemomentarts.de/bma/rbasho_archives/en/special.html)

:D thx

listening to this early 80s interview/performance now - pretty sweet: http://archive.org/details/1.RobbieBashoLiveFromStudioOneKuni

all of this stuff is amazing fyi

When Robbie says at the beginning of the California Raga, "well he knows where the vibes are" it was because a large dog had climbed on stage and laid his head on Robbie's foot, where he remained staring up at him throughout the rest of the song

:D

Thanks for this! Gonna enliven a dull day at work

Also that Basho doc doesn't seem like it's gonna hit its Kickstarter goal. Dunno why but I find that a bit sad :(

lol:

Basho lashes out at Americans for their " degenerate moral standards and lack of manners " which he says are evident in comtemporary music. " Punk rock is demonic, degenerate ". He advocates a " back to basic melodies "

I agree and disagree with that.

haha, well he was signed to windham hill...can't imagine any of those dudes would be like oh yeah i love the dead boys.

the syntax on that is pretty fucked but if i'm reading it right, he's advocating going back to basics? and yet, as awesome as his music is, it is pretentious and obtuse and overstuffed in so many myriad ways, and punk would fulfill a 'back to basics' to a much greater extent imo?

it's fun hearing his chatter on these boots, he seems ever more like a big weirdo, i love it

And he never lost the Baltimore accent, which I find awesome.

i couldn't really imagine any of those guys loving punk rock really

Blue Crystal Fire... Oh man... I don't know much by this guy but that song is incredible...

new visions of the country reish sounds great. the vinyl rip i had was not doing the album justice.

just picked up bashovia and guitar soli comps after learning about him. really excited to dig into it.

fahey's liner notes to bashovia are fucking excellent. i love that he came back to basho and got into it. didn't know there was a visions of the country reissue, that's great! the twilight peaks reissue a year or two ago was great, highly recommend it.

yeah here's the info - http://www.gnomeliferecords.com/robbie_basho.html

everyone I've ever played 'Blue Crystal Fire' to has loved it, it's a massive hit in some parallel universe.

btw the documentary Kickstarter that looked like it was gonna fail managed to creep over the finishing line at the last second - http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/326705872/voice-of-the-eagle-the-enigma-of-robbie-basho. Could be v interesting.

think i've pretty much come around on basho's vocals. this dude is magic.

fahey's liner notes to bashovia are fucking excellent.
― ogmor, Wednesday, August 21, 2013 1:37 PM

are those online anywhere

i don't think so. fahey says there is a tiny robbie basho shrine in tokyo somewhere. he draws a map!

listening to pavan hindustan, it is an awe-inspiring bit of music imo, glistening, regal & so expansive, like galloping across the steppes towards the altai mountains

soooo visions of the country is pretty much the best album ever

did it get reissued on CD?

sure did - http://grasstopsrecording.bandcamp.com/album/visions-of-the-country

i had a great moment with a friend of mine recently where i discovered she's a huge robbie basho fan. she didn't know about VotC but now loves it.

Alright, I'll buy the reish lp that is at the local shop.

Do it!!! And listen to it at a spot with a dramatic view of the countryside.

this is so great

Yeah I played it on a hill we were on while camping this summer and it was just one of those moments where music and environment go hand in hand.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCnPiMM0tIU

gorgeous song from Rainbow Thunder.

this show is the perfect companion to Visions of the Country, so beautiful - https://archive.org/details/RobbieBashoSinclairAuditoriumCedarRapids1stSet7221978.mp3

Reissue of the year. Is it eligible for eoy?

not really. i may have voted for the twilight peaks reissue last year tho.

I just got the Voice of the Eagle reissue cd - really crazy and joyous and funny stuff! There is just the right amount of madness in his method. Sounds great. Some of it is very Ennio Morricone. Hopefully they will reissue Zarthus, too!

met a fellow in MPLS (Kyle Fosburgh, a great guitarist in his own right!) who is reissuing a bunch of Basho stuff via his company Grass Tops records- he's a nice dude and the remasters sound amazing (he said 8 reissues are in the pipeline) this CD version of Visions of the Country is the first CD version of the album, actually. This song absolutely floored me, made me cry in my car on the way to work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lFzu74gtQo

oh, well, i need to read the thread, you were all talking about the VotC reissue like 7 months ago. Oh well, got to bump a Basho thread.

You can never say enough good things about Visions of the Country though. That record is not of this earth.

yeah it is pretty amazing.

Don't know if I mentioned this already but one of my all time favourite memories from last year was camping in the Peak District and sitting on a hill playing VotC.

When corn is ripe
I light my pipe
And smoke the peace of the world

didn't know those guys were from minneapolis!

i think i'm coming around to his voice, it's just so singular. i like it better when he's in the higher registers but overall don't find it as abhorrent as i once did. and damn, he's a hell of a whistler

visions is definitely what brought me around to his vocals, he sounds so good there

if anyone in this thread is interested, kyle fosburgh at grasstop records is bringing out a reissue of robbie basho's "rainbow thunder" sometime the middle of next year; also, he will also be issuing an lp of totally new, never before released songs by robbie basho that kyle recently acquired.

! what era is the new stuff from?

it spans his career,i believe--

hmm, will this be released through the usual channels (whatever those are)

count me, sadly, among those who can't really handle basho's singing :(

well, actually i can handle it some times. visions of the country is nice.

On that record particularly his singing matches the vibe so perfectly.

the lps will be released by grasstops recordings, kyle's record label. here is the link https://grasstopsrecording.com/

the new material is from takoma era to '85, '86

visions of the country brought me around on his singing

i saw the posts from people admiring "blue crystal fire", here is a link to the recording of the violin/guitar duo that opened for robbie at sinclair auditorium in 1978---tacked on the end is the duo's version of 'blue crystal fire" played at Chuck Sherer's Deli Natural restaurant in cedar rapids, iowa, where basho also performed.

The link's missing!

that's so zen

cedar rapids, iowa is a pretty happening place, even if the art museum is at the opposite end of a block with a strip club IIRC

which has better nudes

^ the voice of the oogle

sorry here's the link---didn't intend to be so zen https://archive.org/details/SamWeisAndCarlisFaruot

btw the violinist playing on the "blue crystal fire" recording on the link works at the cedar rapids art museum---so i sent him the part of the thread dealing with nudes, the c.r. art museum and strip clubs...

that cover is cool! i learned "blue crystal fire" a little while ago because it is probably the only basho song I'll ever be able to play.

the strip might be a full block away? my memory is a little rusty. i went to a show there (as in, an art show, not a rock show) and it was neat. the museum that is.

AVAILABLE TODAY : Robbie Basho's 'Art of the Acoustic Steel String Guitar 6 & 12', remastered from the original studio tapes — This marks the first ever reissue of this 1979 Windham Hill album from the legendary guitarist/composer ...

This release is available in both CD and LP formats and each purchase of either format comes with a free digital download of the complete album. To order the LP, please visit GnomeLifeRecords.com. To purchase our CD edition, simply click the link below.

The CD edition comes with exclusive and extensive liner notes written by Anil Prasad of the Innerviews publication, and include thoughts from Windham Hill founder and original album producer Will Ackerman, legendary guitarists Peter Lang and Henry Kaiser, and reissue producer Kyle Fosburgh.

Housed in a beautiful six panel digipak design, this historic and beautiful work of art is once again made widely available to the world. The music shall never die!

Store - Grass-Tops Recording


image

Store - Grass-Tops Recording
Digipak design with liner notes by Kyle Fosburgh – The CD version contains an exclusive track titled “Something, Or Oil Paintings”.
View on grasstopsrecording.com
Preview by Yahoo

Ahhh awesome I will probably buy this today or tomorrow.

for those who haven't already heard. a post from the yahoo robbie basho group

Hey Richard, Kyle & Basho fans,

First let me say congrats to Kyle on the CD reissue of Art of the Acoustic 6 & 12! It's always welcome news when an important and long out-of-print album is brought back to life (first time ever on CD!) and I'm especially pleased that there are in-depth liner notes for this one; I'm always grateful when someone goes to the effort to put a reissue into historical context. Very good job!

Everyone: This reissue, whether you buy it on CD or LP, deserves your support. To keep the gates open to future high quality, legit reissues of Robbie's recorded legacy, so much of which is unavailable, we need to support the efforts of people like Kyle. Do it!

* * *

OK -- Basho's 12-string -- there's much I don't know; what little I do know is thanks to Liam Barker, who, as I think everyone here knows, is working on a documentary about Robbie Basho.

This is a roughly the story as I got it.

After learning about his documentary, someone contacted Liam claiming to have Robbie's original 12-string. Liam visited this person in order to ascertain that it really was Robbie's guitar, as the assumption has always been -- among those of us who care about such things -- that all of Robbie's possessions, including his guitars, went to Sufi Reoriented when Robbie died.

As soon as Liam saw it he recognized that it was, indeed, the legendary 12-string that Robbie used on all of his recordings.

The seller said that after Robbie’s death, he had been entrusted with the job of finding a buyer for Basho's 12-string guitar, which he did. He sold it to someone who was a big fan of Robbie’s, "an undisclosed Bay Area guitarist." (I have no idea who.) That guitarist has had the guitar for all the years between shortly after Robbie's death and a year or so ago. (BTW, I also have no idea if the original seller was a friend of Basho's or someone from the Sufi Reoreinted group to whom Robbie had willed his possessions -- many questions!)

Perhaps (I'm speculating here) the person who first got the guitar after Robbie died figured that Robbie's guitar might be of interest after realizing a documentary was in the works, but whatever his reason, he contacted the guitarist he'd sold it to and learned, to his dismay, that the guitar had not been well-taken care of and was now damaged. This was about a year ago.

Apparently the news of the guitar's condition upset him enough that he bought the guitar back with the intention to find someone who would give it a better home.

Before Liam could announce the discovery of the guitar, the owner did an online search, discovered Steffen Basho-Junghans' Robbie Basho web pages and wrote Steffen offering him the guitar.

I assume Steffen jumped at the opportunity -- who wouldn't!?

IMO, it's great that it ended up with Steffen who certainly appreciates its iconic value. Whether Steffen will invest in having it made playable again is up to him -- in the state it's in now, it's not much more than a keepsake.

(Because of the severe warping between the end of the fingerboard and the soundhole, the guitar will likely have to have a whole new top made for it in order for it to be playable again, which will mean removing the neck and the old top. Robbie replaced the top once, between the time he got it and the time he recorded Art of Acoustic, so it's safe to assume that Robbie's motivation was keeping the guitar playable, not keeping it original.)

As with John Fahey's Recording King -- which, for a couple decades, was merely shards of wood and splinters in a box till Fred Sheppard rebuilt it -- I'm sure it's possible to make it sing again. In the hands of the right luthier, possible, but probably not cheap.

BTW, Fred documented the restoration of the Recording King here: http://www.parachodelnorte.com/FallenAngel.htm

Glenn//.

Yikes that really bothers me! Why don't people take care of objects with that kind of significance?

thanks for the info! cool stuff.

Steffen deserves it, hope he gets it up&running again

Somebody send Steffen here in a couple weeks; he will find the right restorer: http://holygrailguitarshow.com/

is the documentary going to be finished?

good news---grasstops records re-release of basho's "rainbow thunder" album should be available this summer https://grasstopsrecording.com/

liam barkers has also told kyle the documentary will be out "in 2015."

good news on both counts!
i don't think i've ever heard rainbow thunder...

i don't think i'd even heard /of/ it, but i'll buy it!

kyle fosburgh has put together the entire nightflight interview with robbie basho https://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/sets/bfbs-nightflight-interview

robbie basho's american indian album, "Rainbow Thunder" (songs of the american west) Release date is 9/8/15 ! by grasstops records

Wanted to post this here for those interested, but wanted to make sure I secured my own copy first - ha! Original, sealed copies of Rainbow Thunder going for the relatively inexpensive price of $36.

www.grasstopsrecording.bandcamp.com/album/rainbow-thunder-songs-of-the-american-west?mc_cid=a5e92b6448&mc_eid=db424a4d62

Never heard this album, but if it's anything like Visions Of The Country, I'm excited. Does anyone know if this is an all-vocal album, or are there instrumentals mixed in?

It's vocal bar the opener (Redwood Ramble), one track is just vocals and drums, but it has some really lovely guitar playing on it too

Rainbow Thunder is a collection of songs expressing the feelings and textures of the West in its Prime, and of the Native American Peoples who lived there. I hope it does them some small degree of justice — they who looked so hard into Nature – Robbie Basho

- Track listing -

1. Redwood Ramble
2. Crashing Thunder
3. Moving Up A'Ways
4. Legend of Mount Tamalpias
5. Rainbow Thunder (hear a rare live version)
6. The Pathfinder
7. The White Buffalo
8. Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
9. Home Again
10. The Long Lullaby
11. Black Hills Soliloquy

CD reissue Produced by Kyle Fosburgh
Originally Produced by Silver Label Recording
Originally recorded by Dennis Reed
CD remastered by Joe Churchich

p.s. i'm not sure that track 5 is a live version on the reissue---i believe it's studio, but i ould be wrong.

think they were just linking to this: https://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/rainbow-thunder-by-robbie
excited to hear the reissue! they've done a great job with the others...

this looks nicely done too https://smeraldina-rima.bandcamp.com/album/twilight-peaks

Highly recommend that Twilight Peaks LP to anyone who doesn't have it. Unlike anything else in Basho's catalog and "Nice Enough For Love" is one of his most haunting and beautiful tunes. LP reissue sounds superb too, with great liner notes.

In other news, 2014 was the year I finally stopped disliking Basho's vocals; 2015 is the year I began to actually prefer them.

definitely agree that anyone who likes basho should get twilight peaks, it's absolutely gorgeous, so pleasing that he ended on such a high. no idea why they keep changing the cover, mutilated duck or whatever the latest is doesn't fit the vibe at all, the ganesh (or just an elephant?) was my favourite but I don't know where it originally came from

the basho documentary is finished; the maker is looking at which festivals to premiere it at.

RobbieBasho.com
September 9 at 12:16pm · Edited ·
The Basho Renaissance begins! Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho will be screening at the 23rd Raindance Film Festival in London ...
raindancefestival.org

tempted to try to go to this, anyone else considering it?

world premiere will take place on Saturday the 3rd of October at Vue Piccadilly in London.

shoulda gotten this already, bummer

Our release of Portrait of Basho as a Young Dragoon has been suspended indefinitely due to the discovery of the original reel-to-reel tapes and the entity claiming ownership of this material. For those who were looking forward to this release, we sincerely apologize.

mysterious entity wants its money

Saw that -- total bummer! The music is incredible.

better get this one now as well:

https://bandcamp.com/download?id=3702802609&ts=1456258426.1017183570&tsig=f999ff72bebfd3c37b70dc312979be91&type=album

weirdness! at least they're getting the music out there... kyle and those grasstops guys are super nice, and i'm sure they haven't been doing anything shady with this music. someone must think they're sitting on a Basho goldmine or something.

I imagine it has something to do with why those Takoma records haven't been reissued. madness.

Thanks for the heads up! I love his singing, btw

awesome

right now a woman is talking about the rainbow king while robbie "aaaahs" in the background. so good to visit a new bit of bashovia

lol at THE "PERFECT" CHRISTMAS GIFT!
https://40.media.tumblr.com/f826f2f6e864e10e2e959f7947951b53/tumblr_nxzhxkYfUl1rl3uofo1_500.jpg

love badly used quotation marks

this record is sounding pretty solid! had never heard it before.

weirdness! at least they're getting the music out there... kyle and those grasstops guys are super nice, and i'm sure they haven't been doing anything shady with this music. someone must think they're sitting on a Basho goldmine or something.

― tylerw, Tuesday, February 23, 2016 2:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah the whole thing is really dumb, grass tops just wants it available

i would say they are making an extremely modest amount if they are making anything doing these projects, they have a put a ton of work into them

yeah, i mean, they're actually putting the work into it all -- getting the best sounding versions they can get, creating nice packages ... i mean, if someone else actually holds the rights to the recordings, they should work something out -- i agree that Basho would probably just want his music heard.

Is "The Entity" the Meher Baba Trust?

i don't think so

Why not?

ha well i *know* it's not -- kyle at grass-tops told me who was behind it all, but I don't think it's my place to put it out there in a public forum.

Fair enough. (I figured you had insider knowledge and understand if you can't spill.)

yeah don't mean to be mysterious, just don't want to potentially make things worse!

Someone shared this on Facebook and for some reason if put me in mind of Basho, something about the voice/guitar combo, only beamed in from a whole other world/tradition. Anyway, ver nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7ICTX4MwRY

more previously unreleased basho up via grass-tops: https://soundcloud.com/grasstopsrecording/robbie-basho-interview-performance-the-coffeehouse-program-wers-boston-ma-71383

that bonfa is exquisite, much tidier than basho could ever manage but the romance is there

http://www.robbiebasho.com/ the new robbiebasho.com

Anyone know if the documentary will get a DVD release? I'm very eager to see it, but it isn't playing anywhere near here I live.

i bet it'll get on youtube. the fahey one was off-and-on on there for awhile. probably not legal, but could give it a look

Hope so! But would gladly buy a DVD if one became available. I bought the Fahey DVD, and it'd almost have to be better than that.

Anyone see this btw?

Thanks to this wonderful forum, I have discovered the music of Robbie Basho - one of my favourite discoveries of the past few years. I took Visions of the Country to record club the other night.

https://devonrecordclub.com/2016/09/02/robbie-basho-visions-of-the-country-round-94-toms-selection/

Which album(s) should I get next?

Visions Of The Country is a great one. Basho albums are pretty much divided (somewhat superficially) between vocal albums and instrumental albums. For years the prevailing logic was that the vocal ones were bad and the instrumental ones were good, but I think that consensus has changed a bit in recent years. I was a person who initially couldn't deal with the vocals, but at some point I realized how much a part of Basho's music / imagination / gift his vocals were, and that to truly appreciate him, you had to reckon with the singing (which I now find quite beautiful, though like I said, it took me years to come around). He held nothing back.

If you like Visions of the Country, you'll probably like any other of his vocal albums. Rainbow Thunder is a somewhat obscure one that was recently reissued and iirc this was from the same general period as VFTC.

Not sure you can go wrong with any Basho album though (some here may disagree). Good luck and enjoy the search!

Oh, also, read this! www.elephantjournal.com/2011/07/robbie-basho-was-an-angel-i-dont-believe-he-was-terrestrial-jerome-burdi/

that's a good article, though I think basho was playing steel string before he met fahey (fahey says they were introduced on the basis that they both had 12 strings) and it's worth noting that both his guitar and footage of him playing have turned up since it was published.

you'll probably want to stick to his guitar albums at first (there are some with piano and drumming and so on). the earliest are a bit rough technically but fiery and a lot of fun. I recommend going for his early-mid period where he's marking out his territory and is very much in full bloom, maybe the falconers arm I, venus in cancer or voice of the eagle

Thanks for the info. I'll try to find one of those three on vinyl. The other album that seems to be particularly rated is Zanthus...have you heard this one?

My mistake...Zarthus.

zarthus is very much basho at his celestial fruitiest, lots of piano etc, will revisit it at some point

Shame the Grass-tops label that did the Bouquet reissue seems to have vanished.

Apparently closed up earlier in the year. Glad they put out what they did at least.

Don't have any inside info, but really seemed from afar that this labor of love was cock-blocked at every turn

How would one track done that reissue at this point?

There will be a showing of the movie "Voice of the Eagle: The Enigma of Robbie Basho" at Coe College, Cedar Rapids Iowa, at Sinclair Auditorium where Robbie performed in 1978. Admission is free, and it is open to the general public.

Time and date of the above movie showing:7:30 Sunday March 19th 2017

https://obsoleterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/robbie-basho-live-in-forl-italy-1982

The samples sound great on this one. They're funding a short run vinyl.

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0098279777_16.jpg

great cover

is he throwing up?

enjoying some fresh rocky mountain creek water

better to drink fresh rocky mountain creek water from your hands than...

Hey everyone--

Just to let you all know, tessaract3 from this thread passed this morning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He was 67 years old.

As it happens, he was my wife's birth father. He had a rough go of it for many years, but it was neat to see him connect with people over music he loved over the past several years.

(As for me, I'm a San Francisco-based mostly-lurker who's been here for the fifteen years or so.)

I'm sorry to hear that. I really love the community that built up around Fahey, Basho & Takoma, always seems to be really good, interesting people

anyone heard this new rarities compilation?

i didn't know there was one!

Land of our fathers, released on a swiss label called 'holographic ontological networks'. You think you've seen all the rad basho pics and then they dig this one out:

https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/606201/large/R-12025590-1526807186-3343.png.jpg

1000 incarnations of the rose and then a bunch of stuff I don't know.

Oh, I ordered that one in 2018! So not quite brand new. Definitely great though.

huh looks like boomkat have the wrong date! what's it like?

To be honest, I got it right before I moved so it quickly went out of sight and out of mind. Since finding it I've only spun it once so far.

I can't confirm any time soon (traveling), but the youtube list on the discogs page might be accurate?

https://www.discogs.com/Robbie-Basho-Land-Of-Our-Fathers-Rarities-1967-1983/release/12025590

ah, so a lot of the bouquet stuff!

Basho died unexpectedly at the age of 45 due to an accident during a visit to his chiropractor, where an "intentional whiplash" experiment caused blood vessels in his neck to rupture, leading to a fatal stroke.

Yup. Super freaky!

Phew -- new 5 CD set of unreleased Basho due out in December:

http://www.tompkinssquare.com/bashoboxset.html

It's out, and it's spectacular - depending on your tolerance for his voice, which is all over these tracks. (My personal tolerance is sky-high.) Other than some random string-tunings and asides to studio personnel, the tracks are pretty realized, not odds-n'-endsy at all.