Maryland
Wye Oak
All-Time Best Band: The Orioles
All-Time Best Solo Artist: John Fahey
Best New Band: Wye Oak
If you or your band mates have ever issued a doo-wop or any variant thereof (be it a shoo-wop, bah-bop, or, God forbid, mmm-bop), you owe props to the ORIOLES. Sonny Til’s trill was part warble, part croon and, well, all Sonny. | The grizzled, weathered, barely there gentility of guitarist JOHN FAHEY on stage in his later years didn’t conjure the standard image of a legend — he runs a close second to his music in his own delicacy. Or not: often his steel-string ruminations plowed uncertain turf, flung themselves willfully toward abstraction, or summoned ghostly tensions. You could go your whole life without knowing one of his songs, but his enduring advocacy for “raw musics” (both as a writer and founder of Takoma and Revenant Records) taught decades of artists that the heart of America (and Americana) has naught to do with excess. | We’re at a place at the moment with Baltimore where we’ve just woken up from our two-year throw-down with their clicking, cutting DJs and their software. That was super fun, but right now our heads hurt, so we’ll convalesce with some tea, a bag of Milanos, and that soothing, endlessly layered new WYE OAK album. Going back to bed now, ok thx B-more . . .
Video: John Fahey
Download: Wye Oak, "Warning" (mp3)
Listen: The Orioles, "It's Too Soon to Know"
Listen: John Fahey, "Sunflower River Blues"
