Saturday, February 19, 2022

Saturday, February 19, 2022

Flower-Corsano Duo, The Halcyon
  • Jim O’Rourke, Happy Days
  • Iannis Xenakis, Electroacoustic Works (disc 2)
  • Fred Van Hove, Die Letzte
  • Charles Gayle, Time Zones
  • Jemeel Moondoc, The Zookeeper’s House
  • Boards of Canada, Geogaddi
  • To Live and Shave in L.A., Noon and Eternity (feat. Tom Smith)
  • Flower-Corsano Duo, The Halcyon
  • Reagan Youth, Youth Anthems for the New Order
  • Jason Henn, Jazz Pigs in High School
  • Sparks, Hippopotamus
  • Sparks, Hello Young Lovers
  • Suzanne Vega, Suzanne Vega

Jim O'Rourke, Happy Days

According to my concert log, I attended the following:

19961108 Empty Bottle
- Loren Mazzacane Connors
- Jim O’Rourke
- John Fahey

Pretty good lineup that night, eh? Yeah, not bad.

I can’t always trust what seem to be my memories of gigs that happened over 20 years ago, but I think Jim’s set consisted of him performing Happy Days — probably for the only time, live? He stayed on his chair and kept playing his acoustic guitar throughout the entire piece, even long after the guitar was rendered completely inaudible by the massed wall of hurdy-gurdy drone.

I do remember walking into the Empty Bottle that night and seeing Fahey sitting by himself on the low sofa by the pool table, wearing sunglasses, motionless, and I wondered if he was awake. From everything I’ve read about Fahey late in his life, it’s entirely plausible he was asleep.

I also saw John Fahey at Unity Temple in 1998, and I remember very nearly colliding with Jim, on a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed stairway, as Jim was rushing to bring Fahey some iced tea. John Fahey wants iced tea? You definitely bring it to him as quickly as you can. It’s not a question.

According to the same concert log I saw Fahey play a third time, at Schuba’s in 1999, but I have no memory of this, none, zero. He died in 2001.

All Revenant releases are long out-of-print, but Happy Days is available again on Jim’s Bandcamp, but with helicopter, not duck.

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