[Jandek] John Fahey

[Alex Koenig]

I've been listening to many of the early John Fahey albums recently, and despite 
the very different sounds the two men produce and their different approaches to 
guitar I couldn't help but notice some similarities between some of his work and 
the work of Corwood.

Fahey's approach to releasing the music, often using bare bones packaging, no 
real record covers, just titles, on his first three albums struck me as similar 
at first. There's also the fact that the record only reveals his name, the album 
title, the label name, and song titles. 

But there's also his approach to recording, the albums themselves often contain 
only one instrument and are recorded in a pretty lo-fi manner. In fact, it 
sometimes sounds as if they were recorded in the same room as the Corwood 
albums.

Now I suppose these are pretty superficial similarities, they have very little 
bearing on the actual music the two men produced. But when I wonder what may 
have been some of the early influences on the Jandek albums, I suppose in terms 
of pure presentation, I can't help but wonder if Fahey and the early Takoma 
catalog had a bit of a hand in shaping the Corwood aesthetic. 

Which I suppose could bring us to the broader topic of just what in the hell was 
the rep listening to when he crafted this method of making and releasing music? 

And for those unfamiliar with the music of John Fahey, you can never go wrong 
with wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fahey_(musician)
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