henry kaiser

i first knew his name because he produced a bunch of fahey albums. then i read derek bailey 'improvisation' and he's in there. then i read somewhere about how he's a big deadhead and recorded covers of dark star or something. THEN i saw herzog's 'encounters at the end of the world and there was this weirdo guitar guy scuba diving who later was jamming a homemeade guitar on the roof of a shack and it turned out to be him! he seems like something i'd like. where do i start? any particular eras to look up?

I really only know him for "Devil in the Drain," which I was introduced to by my stoner friend Earl (bassist #2 of Drive-By Truckers) not long after I started college. I don't know anything of his besides that album, but it's worth owning.

He co-led a group called Yo Miles! with Wadada Leo Smith which reinterpreted Miles Davis's electric music; they've got a few albums. I've never heard much else he's done.

Search the two French Frith Kaiser Thompson albums. Classics!

Yes! I really like Live Love Larf Loaf though I have a feeling my favorite stuff on it is more Thompson than Kaiser.

search Wireforks w/Derek Bailey, also the record with John Oswald, Weasel Walter Septet album "Invasion", also the FFKT records as noted

He didn’t produce Fahey records. That was Jim O’Rourke.

Kaiser’s solo stuff is fun – It’s a Wonderful Life, Outside Pleasure, Aloha are good places to start. He has a ton of good collabs – in addition to the FFKT stuff (the first record is better), his World Out of Time records with David Lindley are what world music collaborations should be: respectful but not afraid to include a backwards guitar solo. His Henry Kaiser Band stuff is mixed – eclectic to a a fault, the live record I have has Dark Star, a Stockhausen piano piece and then theme to Andy Griffith. He also appears in, scores and provides underwater photography(!) for a documentary or two on Antarctica by Werner Herzog.

Also: I wanted to study guitar w Kaiser while I was in college so I wrote his label. Imagine my surprise when he called me dorm room one morning a month or so later from California to tell me personally he didn’t teach students.

Cool dude.

The first Crazy Backwards Alphabet (Kaiser, John French, Andy West from the Dixie Dregs, Michael Maksymenko) album is also terrific. I haven't heard CBA 2 so I can't vouch for that one.

then i read derek bailey 'improvisation' and he's in there.

There's a funny anecdote a mutual friend told me about Henry and a memorial concert for Bailey involving John Zorn. I wouldn't do it justice.

HK has a twisted sense of humor -- in a good way -- it also leads to some interesting projects. Like the Healing Force - Albert Ayler covers record, where they did covers of Ayler's less canonical material. He also did a couple trio albums with a bassist and drummer called "Plane Crash" that were presented as posthumous releases.

I was a fan of Tomorrow Knows Where You Live with O'Rourke. I should pull it out again some time.

He also was on the soundtrack to Grizzly Man.

I think I came across reviews in Forcedexposure years and years ago. As in before i left londoin i think. THink I got hold of a live lp with a long version of dark Star on it and Tom Constanten in the band from Rhythm records in camden but could be getting details confused since I probably lost the record in '96.
Is there a long interview with kaiser in a Forcedexposure? Certainly remember seeing on e somewhere.
& this morning I was looking up Diamanada galas after seeing a performance by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQDfCFg4wxk&feature=share which reminded me of her among other people. & found out taht the first lp that Galas put out in '79 was a collaboration with then husband John French and Henry Kaiser.

Not sure what happened there, video I was trying to link to was by a french artist called fabienne audeoud who has been taking part in a locla arts festival. & flew in to give a sustained vocal performance yesterday. Quite amazing. maybe worth investigating further but main relevance here being that she had me looking into Diamanda galas.

good call, worth looking at the Metalanguage label output for another window into Kaiser's world

https://www.discogs.com/label/46995-Metalanguage

According to Wikipedia, he's also a member of the Kaiser family which founded Kaiser Permanente, the giant US health care payer/provider.

He’s the grandson of the famous industrialist!

oooh Mike Watt of Minutemen fame is on new Kaiser album

Henry Kaiser A Love Supreme Electric is guitarist Henry Kaiser’s 9 th recording for Cuneiform Records; other outings include the solo album Lemon Fish Tweezer, two Yo Miles! sessions with trumpet master Wadada Leo Smith ( Sky Garden and Upriver), and 2014’s The Celestial Squid, with pioneering jazz-rock guitarist Ray Russell.

Wayne Peet A relatively unsung member of the Los Angeles improvising scene, and a long-time playing partner of both Henry Kaiser and Vinny Golia, Wayne Peet is responsible for much of the textural diversity found on A Love Supreme Electric—not only with his expressive solos on both piano and organ, but with ears well-trained by his parallel career as a recording engineer and studio owner.

Mike Watt A bona fide Rock God for his work with the Minutemen, Firehose, and more recently Iggy Pop and the Stooges, bassist Mike Watt is primarily known for his relentless rhythmic drive. As the title of his 1995 solo album Ball-Hog or Tugboat? suggests, he’s more inclined to keep things moving than indulge in sonic grandstanding, and on A Love Supreme Electric he does just that while also displaying keen sensitivity to the needs of the music in the moment.

Just came across this extremely in-depth interview: https://www.innerviews.org/inner/kaiser-2
One amazing bit: he didn't start playing until he was 20. And then there was this:

Provide some insight into your childhood and how it contributed to your ability to trance out as you improvise for lengthy periods.

When I was a little kid, I didn’t have any traditional family situation after second grade. I was institutionalized grades two through four. My dad was dying and my mom was in a psychiatric hospital because she threw boiling water on me, threw me down the stairs, broke my leg, and gave me boric acid in an attempt to poison me. Much physical harm was caused to me over several years, prior to second grade. My dad was mostly dying in the hospital, so he couldn’t have noticed. The odd thing about what she did to me is that it wasn’t personal. It had nothing to do with me. I was just punching bag that happened to be on the gym floor that day.

I was stuck in a military boarding school in Palo Alto, California during those years. I had no home or relatives to go to. When it came time for school vacation periods, they would just leave me locked in a dorm room and bring in food twice a day. There would be no adults or kids. I was completely alone. It’s amazing to think they would just leave a little kid in there day after day, night after night, but that’s what they did. I wasn’t allowed to have books or go to the library. It was a small room with knotty pine on the walls. They wouldn’t let me go outside to play or do anything. I would do this for two weeks through Christmas, a week at Thanksgiving, and for months during the summer. I once had to sit in that room for an entire month during the summer of second grade.

So, when you’re forced into a situation like that, you either go crazy or you find a way to space out or meditate. I would just go away into these big clouds of colored light and drift through them all day. This gave me access to all kinds of different mental states that people might find through tantric meditation.

Wow, that's wild and sad.

jesus, i had no idea

Same. Wow. I’m kind of speechless.

Isn't he from an insanely (literally it seems) wealthy family?

Kaiser shipyards wealth I thought

Xp: yes, but he inherited very little of it… he did have a cousin that got kicked out of Bohemian Grove.

"The precise moment at which I decided I needed to buy a guitar the next day is at 47:22 in that YouTube link."

Amazing on interview. Thanks.

Way upthread response— HK was way into The Dead. He made a valiant effort to try and convince Weasel Walter of their greatness. Weasel tried, but determined they were not for him.

Seriously though, the Healing Force album is really good.

I told the story upthread how in college I wrote Kaiser’s label to ask if he would teach me guitar lessons and he replied by calling me in my dorm room to let me know that he didn’t teach. At the time I was blown away that he would be so generous with his time. But knowing the kind of childhood he had to endure, it’s also incredibly sad. I’m always amazed how anyone can keep going after something like that much less accomplish what he has both creatively and professionally.

Another interesting bit in the linked interview is that he had to take a 3-year hiatus from his usual prolificity...to take care of his dying mother, the same one who caused him so much physical harm. That couldn't have been easy, and even if he doesn't have Kaiser family multimillions, it's hard to imagine that he couldn't afford fulltime care. So karma points for him, I guess. I sure couldn't have done that.

fascinating (and sad) interview

he name dropped a bunch of stuff I can't wait to check out- already enjoyed random Malagasy music I've heard online and recs of his own music are appreciated as his discography is obv massive

I was wondering the same thing re: his mother WmC

I don't know a lot of his discography but I really like Invite the Spirit with Sang Won Park and Charles K Noyes.

somehow it really annoys me that he is some species of audiophile