5th October 2011: Glenn Jones / Playlist

Featured: Glenn Jones - The Wanting (Thrill Jockey) 

'The Wanting', Glenn Jones’ first album for Thrill Jockey, was recorded in a fourth floor apartment on Commonwealth Avenue, Allston, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, overlooking the commuter train line. If you listen carefully to the record, you can occasionally hear trains going by in the background. Reuben Son recorded the album between December 12, 2010, and April 20, 2011. 'The Wanting' was mixed and mastered by long time collaborator Matthew Azevedo. Simply put, 'The Wanting' is a collection of original compositions for solo acoustic steel string guitar, six-string, 10-string and bottleneck, and 5-string open-back banjo. A little background and context may help. So in his own words:

“The ‘60s, as has been drummed into our heads to the point of tediousness, was a period of musical growth and exploration. And while there does seem to have been something in the water back then that everyone of a certain age was sipping, I came of age late in that decade. In 1967, my head was blown off by Jimi Hendrix’s second album. After hearing it, I bugged my old man till he bought me my first guitar. I was 14. Today, I consider myself to be part of a tribe of acoustic finger-style guitar players whose main inspirations are the “American Primitive” or “Takoma school” guitarists, those centered around John Fahey.

The model par excellance, and the fountainhead, John virtually single-handedly created a style of solo guitar playing, as well as an audience to support it. He was also, for people like me, the inspiration to try making some kind of coherent music utilizing the acoustic guitar myself. Playing like the people who influence you, however, only gets you so far. No matter how much one loves a particular player, or how long one studies their work, it’s all but impossible to beat them at their own game. You’re always at a disadvantage. Better, therefore, to make up your own game, devise your own strategies, invent your own rules. This is what Fahey and Robbie Basho did, as well as such lesser-known players of the early-to-mid ‘60s as Max Ochs, Harry Taussig, Fred Gerlach, Dick Rosmini and others.

As I got more into the instrument and began listening to the music of guitarists of all kinds, I found that the “Takoma school” players were decidedly different from other guitarists. Despite the fact that many guitarists were technically more adept, polished or sophisticated than the American Primitives, what I like about the latter was the fact that their music was not about virtuosity for its own sake, but, rather, was a way to express some kind of feeling. Though every record I make is a ready acknowledgement of my debt to the guitarists I learned from, I strive to create music that is my own. “Strive” is perhaps not the right word. It sounds like I’m trying to do something, whereas, from where I sit now, this many years down the knife-edge, what I do is what I do: there is no trying, there is only the need to play everyday, and to create something that validates me to myself.”

Glenn Jones

Radio Playlist 5th October 2011 

Ed Cooke - Burning The Rice Field (Spirit House)
Causa Sui - May Sun (Pewt'r Sessions 1)
Oresund Space Collective - Who Tripped On The C(h)ord (Dead Man In Space)
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Glenn Jones - The Wanting (The Wanting)
Sister Jane - Indigo Shire (Live on Sideways Through Sound 08-06-2011)
Mugstar - Sunburnt Impedance Machine (Lime)
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Glenn Jones - The Orca Grande Cement Factory At Victorville (The Wanting)
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John Fahey - The Portland Cement Factory At Monolith, California (Days Have Gone By Vol.6)
Stillheten - While The Sky Is Quietly Changing (S/T)
Hella Vader - Mammothopolis (XVIII)

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Glenn Jones - Anchor Chain Blues (The Wanting)

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Sideways Through Sound Archive

20th October 2010: 2ser Subscriber Drive Week 2
13th October 2010: 2ser Subscriber Drive Week 1
6th October 2010: Charlie Parr & Interview
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28th October 2009: Old Lost John
21st October 2009: Radiothon Week 2
14th October 2009: Radiothon Week 1
7th October 2009: Starless & Bible Black
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27th October 2008: Jeff Lang
20th October 2008: Heavy Water Experiments
13th October 2008: Preservation Records
6th October 2008: Cian Nugent / v/a We Are All Circling The Stars
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25th October 2007: v/a John Barleycorn Reborn
18th October 2007: v/a John Barleycorn: Dark Britannica
11th October 2007: Voice Of The Seven Woods
4th October 2007: Hotplate