Henry Flynt: RFI, CoD, S&D.

Related question: Is the new 30th TOE anniv ed of 'Outside the Dream Syndicate' worth getting, if you already own the previous CD reish?

Brend to thread

Flynt discs to peep:

You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power (Recorded, no number) 2CD
Graduation and Other New Country and Blues Music (Ampersand, ampere8) CD
C Tune (Locust, no. 3) CD
Raga Electric CD

Need to hear those BHB ones.

Peep this: www.henryflynt.org

And this:

"The first was the dismantling of the whole edifice of ‘high’ culture. Also around this time, I picketed the New York museums and high-culture performance spaces with Henry Flynt, in opposition to the imperialist influences of European high culture. More than that, I had strong sympathies with the aims of Flynt’s program, which amounted to the dismantling and dispersion of any and all organized cultural forms. At the time I was also a part of the ‘Underground Movie’ scene, which (as I saw it) reconstructed the movies as a documentary form -- a merging of life-aims with movie production. Other counter-cultural components of the Dream Music picture were our anti-bourgeois lifestyles, our use of drugs, and the joy which John Cale and I took in common pop music. Down this pathway there were other fellow travelers, like Andy Warhol and Lou Reed; it led straight to the Velvet Underground, and the melting of art music into rock and roll." - Tony Conrad

"As just a single interesting example of this particular European bias, one of the reasons which certain members of the Fluxus group such as George Maciunas and Henry Flynt, along with Tony Conrad and Jack Smith, picketed Karlheinz Stockhausen’s performance of Originale in New York City on September 8, 19648 was their extreme displeasure at disparaging remarks Stockhausen had made about Jazz, a “low” or “popular” musical form played predominantly by African-Americans, in a 1958 lecture at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where Flynt and Conrad were enrolled as undergraduates)9 and elsewhere." -hstencil

"As one considers Cage’s career, one has to conclude that Cage loved being the renegade of music. Without that charismatic role, he would not have known what to do with himself. He persisted in a professional life which could not be reconciled with his own pronouncements. . . [His music written for a dance company, for instance,] involved upholding a specifically European art-form; it also involved upholding the cooperative distinctness of the European art trades."

"The commentators who enthuse over this piece overlook that modern music is still a going concern and that today’s modern music does not in the least consist in an assortment of little silent pieces. Nor did 4’33” typify Cage’s body of work . . Cage’s ‘slight’ pieces were not the substance of his career; they were postures at the boundaries of his oeuvre." -Flynt on John Cage

"There was a piece in this concert that has gone almost unnoticed: Young’s An invisible poem sent to Terry Jennings for him to perform. Young remembers having sent a letter to Jennings telling him that the piece accompanied the letter in the envelope. After Jenning’s concert, Young asked him, ‘Why didn’t you perform the invisible poem?’ Jennings replied, ‘I did: didn’t you hear it?’ It was a composition whose only tangible record was its mention on the program." -Flynt on Terry Jennings

"Fluxus was not an art movement, it was a music composer’s movement, by and large. Or was conceived, or you might say sustained an imaginary that had that character. What that had to do with galleries and forth wasn’t clear other than through the institutional inertia of the different forms. . . Henry Flynt, and his veramusement or brend; he invented neologisms to cover his thinking, and the idea was that basically personal aesthetic experience could be decoupled from institutionalized cultural forms at all levels. And that left institutionalized cultural forms without any real justification or raison d’être other than political, so that the importation of European cultural forms, for example, had to be seen as a kind of neo-imperialistic venture. And should be received within a political framework. The tools for response should not be aesthetic but political. So we went out and picketed. I thought it was a great idea because it made sense. The fact is it’s true. And it was a terrific innovation to express this relationship to these cultural forms through picketing rather than through art-making. And there was a healthy dose of that imprecated into Fluxus." - More Conrad on Flynt

As the history of Fluxus has been rewritten, a number of these picketings have been proposed by the historians as akin to or as street theater, but reading Flynt and Conrad it is clear that they were more committed to eliciting social change than providing social shock (or schlock). Regardless, it is not clear when the first demonstration they held occurred, but they began as early as February 27-28, 1963, when Tony Conrad, Henry Flynt, and the filmmaker Jack Smith (who was Conrad’s first roommate at 56 Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan) “performed” at 49 Bond Street. Their program was ambitious: Flynt writes, “And I convinced Tony Conrad and Jack Smith to join me in demonstrating for the demolition of museums and symphony halls at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, and Philharmonic Hall, on February 27, 1963.” -hstencil (not sure who I'm quotin')

the distinction between theatre and social change maybe isn't one *flynt* wd have made: like the sits, he had moved by the mid-60s into a phase where the only valid art wz stuff that actually "created situations" (ie active interventions in history blah blah, the assumption being that these alone changed things) (following marx's theses on feuerbach, only reading "art" where it says "philosophy" blah blah)*

(i think flynt wz a leninist at that time, whereas technically the sits repudiated lenin...)

by throwing music open to the whole of possible noise — inc.in particular sounds not made or intended by the composers/performers, ie trucks driving past the building, rain on the roof — cage had declared that the entire world was the stage => the logical inference, that every single member of the audience is a contributing artist/composer/performer (and that the "audience" includes everyone in the entire world)

what links everyone mentioned so far is that, insofar as they realised this wz the logical conclusion of cage's work (if you took this aspect of it seriously), they found SOME way to resist its political implications (cage himself waved around a kind of vacuous pseudo-maoism) => flynt's (in part) wz to reach for the language of expression of his admired political forebears, a formal self-enchainment which effectively transformed his every action back into (the pre-cage idea of) theatre, in that it turned all reportage of it into reviews of performances

i don't think anyone in the entire "orthodox" happenings/creating situations/political theatre/agitprop/performance art/conceptual art arena really escaped this dilemma, tho a nice angle on its is (kaprow-student) richard meltzer's argt that yoko's trip to london to pick her up a beatle was a fluxus-prank (and therefore that EVERYTHING that followed — including May 1968 etc — was part of the piece, punk and the tumultuous 70s as rain on yoko's performance-space roof)

(stencil some time soon i may start peppering you with email questions abt this stuff, if that's ok by you)

I almost bought a Henry Flynt CD last week - I bought a Gregory Isaacs one instead. I get more and more wary of "undiscovered geniuses".

(BTW yr letter to the wire was shit)

My letter in Wire was a bit shit but only because I couldn't do the subject justice - the subject of a bunch of pretentious twats sitting about in a room pretending to like another pretentious twat needs greater talents than mine I admit.

I don't 'cream my pants' over anybody. and I have a friend (or two). and don't just pretend you were drunk when you wrote that crap.

sorry the above was a bit harsh etc etc.

Mark, can you remember where Meltzer wrote/said that stuff abt Yoko?
And is there any kind of crossover between Flynt and Alan Lomax, another leftist w/ an interest in hillbilly music as a 'language of expression'?

and I agreed with Keith's letter.

I know plenty about pretentious twats because I am one myself and have spent many an hour in dingy room with fellow pretentious twats listening intently to other pretentious twats make a infernal (and pretentious) racket - usually I enjoy the experience. Actually, I didn't NOT enjoy Derek Bailey - i just felt it raised some issues which had to be dealt with. Also I loathe the reverence with which fans treat some musicians - nothing to do with the musicians themselves, who are generally extremely down-to-earth when you talk to them.

OK but the way you put it gave me the sort of message: ''I wouldn't have written anything if i was drunk''. you apparently like him even though you've been slagging him off in other threads etc (the time he came up on the beefheart thread was really amusing).

''Actually, I didn't NOT enjoy Derek Bailey - i just felt it raised some issues which had to be dealt with''

fine but here:

''I know plenty about pretentious twats because I am one myself and have spent many an hour in dingy room with fellow pretentious twats listening intently to other pretentious twats make a infernal (and pretentious) racket - usually I enjoy the experience''

and here:

''the subject of a bunch of pretentious twats sitting about in a room pretending to like another pretentious twat needs greater talents than mine I admit.''

I am NOT a ''pretentious twat'' and I don't think what derek does is make ''pretentious racket'' (whatherver that means). I object to ppl just assuming that there is 'pretend to like' aspect to this.

I don't think that's dealing with any issue (in my derek bailey milo fine gig thread it seemed to come down to ''I don't like what he plays'' which was a bit 'meh': just say that and leave it at that instead of using the word 'pretentious': you sound like an NME reader for fuck's sake!).

i have a sense of humour but you'd find it too 'pretentious'.

I can't post it but its in the latest issue (231) of the wire.

Henry Flynt: I only have Graduation and C Tune. As your null fame pointed out, they're pretty different. C Tune is one long piece, immersive and probing in a classical indian stylee. Graduation is much more lively, lots of distinct pieces with different rhythms; a couple pieces come off like 70's jazz fusion. The first cut even has narration, kind of a loping blues with Flynt on guitar (no fiddle at all). I like the whole record quite a bit - parts of it are quite funny (funny=playful, it amuuuuses me). It winds up with a lengthy cosmic drone version of "Celestial Power" built on pinging fiddle stabs and stereo panning.

So no, to answer Andrew's question I wouldn't think you need "just one" of his cds at all. I'm really looking forward to picking up the rest.

and its alright not to like it but if you think its good its good you know. I just got mad at some of the conclusions that he made abt derek. I think he missed the point.

anyway must go to sleep.

Anyway, back to Henry Flynt, I wish I'd bought his friggin's CD now!

His first essay in that La Monte Young book is pretty good reading, though sometimes a little self-congratulatory ("look at us, we were so cool!)

I don't know Hillbilly Tape Music, but Back Porch Hillbilly Blues Volume 2 is great stuff. Definitely better than 1 but I have not heard the 3rd installment.

ian, what la monte young book??

I just got Back Porch Hillbilly Blues 2LP set of vols. 1 & 2 and it's some great zone out musics.

I think there may have been a link to the Head Heritage review of the Insurrections album elsewhere on here, but it's also fantastic. Wlter De Maria on drums! It's got an instrumental track on side 1 that's just a straight-up (stereotypical even) blues progression, but it still maintains that great rickety 'Hillbilly Blues' sound and really drives on. Awesome!

which one did you get, dadaismus?

Listening to this Nova Billy thing right now, don't know much about Flynt and nothing about this recording (released last year it seems) but I definitely like parts of it. A lot of it is pretty 'rock' and there's lots of singing on it too, perhaps not a representative record of his sound?

I feel I got to check out more of him anyway

The Novabilly record is more rock than most of his work--the exception being "I Don't Wanna" which is a set of fucked up & pissed off protest rock with crazy vocals. If you want to check out some of his less rock work, the places to look first are "You Are My Everlovin" and "Back Porch Hillbilly Blues."

^^^ this was me, my bad.

Blue Sky, Highway & Tyme from Backporch Hillbilly Blues, vol 1.... must have listened to this fifty times over. Madly hypnotic.

hooray

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-782162-1196657658.jpeg

what is a "spindizzy"?

is it a real songform?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spindizzy

rly?

Floristree, Baltimore, Maryland
June, 21 2008
The Flynts (HENRY FLYNT!!!!!!!!) + More!!!!!!

Is this guy still around/acive? (sorry, I only skimmed the thread)

see the post preceding yours?

OH!! Jezus, sorry, I'm drunk.

AWESOME

i saw him speak last year. he was... rambling.

i guess this is what the music will be like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhBwIWLhEJg

lol shocked glasses guy

This is surprisingly together from what I've remember hearing of him.

ian did he talk on philosophy? the interview on ubuweb is pretty good listening

yeah, he talked on "dignity."

I'd been familiar with a few of his releases before (mostly the beautiful Purified by Fire and Nova'Billy with other odds & ends), but recently I've gotten very into this man's work. It seems every note he ever recorded was completely inspired. And that "rock" stuff, man, it's like if the Fugs were heavier than the Fugs.

xpost "dignity" ew -- glad he stopped making music when he did!

i mean he does ramble like a mofo in the interview but still has interesting things to say

yeah he's definitely interesting to listen to, it's just that the puzzle pieces don't all quite fit together for me, some of the time.

http://img30.picoodle.com/img/img30/4/5/27/f_FlyntFlyer2m_56cc71d.jpg

catastrophically bad tonight. sort of hard to process. the badness, i mean, not the music

how did i manage to miss the show with blues control?

haha this is a funny old thread

listened to you are my everlovin' for the first time in ages, i had forgotten/underestimated the sheer surging POWer of flynt's playing, so estatic and inspired and abandoned - really one of the greatest things - so i'm sorry to hear stormy say that his recent live perf was bad :-((

What was so bad about it? Live report please! He's playing in London soon, so I was wondering like.

Interested in hearing about the show too. He's playing here soon but it's a late show that's tricky for me to get to, so I'm already in 2 minds about going

Show I saw (Glasslands) was he and the lady trading solos over a horrendous Garageband sounding two chord guitar heavy backing track. Hers seemed improvised and skronky enough while Henry's were notated and a little stuffy and stiff. Went on for an hour or so and I heard that the levels were a little better down below (we were in balcony), but it definitely felt like it failed to take off or transcend. I'd almost have preferred to've just see him speak but I coulda just been in a pissy mood.

FLYNT & CC HENNIX, HENRY: Dharma Warriors CD (LOCUST 114CD) 14.00
"The Dharma Warriors was the elemental guitar/drum rock concoction of Henry Flynt & C.C. Hennix. In 1983, the pair hooked up in Woodstock at Hennix's rented house and let freedom ring with two lengthy boombox recordings. 'Warriors of the Dharma' and 'Mount Fuji on My Mind' are classics of unrefined blues boogie and unhemmed stoner rock."

"C tune" was just repressed by locust, as well.

C Tune is amazing. I'm thinking of buying Graduation and Other New Country and Blues Music, which, along with Nova'billy (which I've heard) is the only one I don't have. Worth the plunge?

definitely! a lot of people rag on those two, but they are my favourites. rough around the edges stoned C&W jam band w/ cheap instruments, while henry works the indo hillbilly fusion magic over the top. from what i remember there's a bit of overlap tracks-wise between "graduation" & "nova billy" but i'm not sure they're the same recordings & both are well worth having, anyway.

thanks!

I love "Jamboree" so much. (No YouTube.)

But there is for this from the companion album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC6VjHYjXEM

I played this in the car a few years ago as I drove some 12-year-olds to a school-related event. A few minutes in, a couple of them started singing/humming along in hysterics.

Just saw something on Facebook about done sort of new reissue of something from Superior Viaduct.

Graduation is coming out on double LP early March on SV.

Wow, that's kind of outside their brief... but cool. I need that piece.

Graduation is amazing. Hadn't heard it til last week, but holy smokes! So radical.

ubuweb now has a lot of HF's stuff available to stream/dl, plus some audio interviews and texts by Eugene Chadbourne and Keith Fullerton Whitman - http://ubu.com/sound/flynt.html

Listening to Henry Flynt and the Insurrections "I don't Wanna" - pretty astonishing. Will try to find Graduation now.

NOBODY MAKES WAR
LIKE UNCLE SAM DO

After reading this thread a month ago, and listening to all the stuff on Ubuweb, I bought Graduation and Dharma Warriors. They're both pretty awesome although DW has extremely loose drumming which is mostly endearing but occasionally derails the songs. The guitar however is excellent throughout.

Graduation is super cool. The liner notes say it was supposed to be his debut release but it never saw the light of day at the time. Excellent stuff, he clearly intended to come out swinging! I definitely like Flynt the guitarist more than Flynt the violinist.

Confused by the Derek Bailey crankiness at the start of this thread. Always thought that Dadaismus was Tom D, but Julio is calling him Keith so uh, I dunno?

Oh let's not go into all that again

does everybody have things in their past that they'd rather forget? [Started by surm in May 2013, last updated 55 minutes ago by caek on I Love Everything] 9 new answers

Forgotten it already, sorry Tom :(

graduation is a summer jam

I definitely like Flynt the guitarist more than Flynt the violinist.

― liam fennell, Saturday, May 11, 2013 10:43 AM (8 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Funny, I feel exactly the opposite! And "Celestial Power" aside, I think this Graduation thing is one of the least interesting HF releases. Then again, I hate when he sings, so, grain of salt. Still, to me, it's all about the stuff that sounds like what Andrew L very accurately described upthread as "hillbilly Tony Conrad." Has anyone heard Glissando No. 1?

yeah i definitely prefer the instrumental stuff, though some of his lyrics are pretty funny.
you can actually get a bunch of flynt on amazon mp3 for very cheap: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004WC4ABM/ref=dm_att_alb4

love "graduation," it's so strange. like hillbilly velvet underground

Lou Reed punched him out for that once