Review

It figures John Fahey's first live album would be from a gig he set up in Tasmania. Hell, why not? Fahey was all about good times, especially when the libations were flowing. And, purportedly, mucho guzzo was supped during the brainstorm of calling up some connections in a Tasmanian record store and booking the gig. This was 1980 and what were you doing in 1980? Bummed that Sid Vicious croaked and feeling guilty about actually liking some of that new poop that Jane Hamburger was oozing on FM ? What was that station, WPLJ? Some NYC thing — all the kids younger'n you thought it was radical hearing the Pretenders, Joe Jackson, gawd kinda makes you feel a little upset stomachy — the Shoes? Hardcore was beginning to look interesting, the industrial whatsis was maybe getting kinda maybe exciting. No one listened to acoustic folk dudes like Fahey, some critics from the old days probably but us street rat CBGB pubes were NOT ABOUT TO. It would be quite awhile before we'd find our touring minds responding to the curious draw of battered Fahey LPs in the used bins. Like late-'80s, even. And we'd work our way through the heavy hitters: Voice of the Turtle, America, The Yellow Princess — all killing all the time. But this Live in Tasmania thing looked fuhrooty and we had to exhaust ourselves on the sublime (sometimes) eloquence of the aforementioned. But shornuff some slightly hepper cat like Coley or Farrell (or O'Rourke!) would nod towards this slab and say "y'know it's pretty fukkin' good..." So go for it, what's $2.99 at Sounds (on St. Mark's place between 2nd and 3rd — when they had only vinyl... (sigh...)) anyways? A pack of cigs, slice of Stromboli's pizza. Hard decision but damn it was worth it. This record has an odd floating sweetness to it that belies the tumble belly drunk skunkery of its instigation. Like the fleeting animal thing on the front (oh yeh — a kangaroo — duh) you get the sense of an innocent bliss mind playing with the stacked cards of life and all its dark mistress boxing events. Fahey in '81? Was he into punk? I know he got into NOISE (at least Neubauten et al) in the '90s — was into pure NOISE (trains!) all the while and used it as compositional matter but he was probably not too aware of Johnny Rotten and Siouxsie Sioux and Darby Crash. Hell, he probably didn't even consider Iggy and/or even Bowie — maybe Beefheart, I wonder — shoulda asked him when he was in the back of my Volvo 850 Sportswagon dropping massive Wendy's french fry crumbs all over the place. John's been dead and gone to heaven for a while now — a few years — and I'm still picking Wendy's skuzz from betwixt the leather back there. John was a sweet yet infuriating dude — we loved him immensely and this is one of the best records to throw on to hear his utter Aliveness.