Loren (Mazzacane) Connors
 

I was going to put a post on the "bands you want to hear" thread recommending Loren Connors to the world at large, but he really deserves a thread of his own.

He has recently released a 3 x CD retrospective on Family Vineyard, called Night Through: Singles and Collected Works 1976-2004, and it is utterly fantastic.

If you like the idea of acoustic avant-blues, or if you like John Fahey, then you really should give Loren Connors a try.

See HERE for info, including an excellent discography.

I'll try and put some links up later.

I liked what i've heard but it's not enough for me to say that i know his music too well.He's on my permanent list of people whose music i need to listen to more.

i have two of his records and i really am left scratching my head about him

Which two?

the daggett years and rooms w/suzanne langille

I can understand you scratching your head over Daggett Years, that is a bit of an impenetrable collection. The other one I haven't heard.

The stuff I'm most familiar with is post-1995.

I have had trouble getting into him as well.
His track on the Harmony Of The Spheres box set was the most impenetrable side for me.

I just bought Keiji Haino & Loren Mazzacane Connors vol 2, this will be like the second time I have heard him.

i have mmmr and a possible dawn, a possible dawn is beautiful and very relaxing drony and goodness

I'm necrophiling this thread, because I'm deep into the 'Night Through' collection that sonicl mentioned, for the first time in a while, and god it is so fucking beautiful. He's not talked about nearly enough here.

Deserves the title of the most harrowingly mournful music I own, but in a way that is ultimately just not at all whiny, but rather just so moving and exiting and fundamentally HUMAN. Pure deconstructed emotion flowing out of the guitar, in ways that never cease to surprise me in its originality and scope. He plays guitar the way Miles Davis played trumpet at his best, and that is to me pretty much the greatest compliment I can give a musician.

I really need more of his stuff than I have now. Any especial recommendations people?

yeah, that too

Me too.

Head on over to the rare and deleted thread then.

Seriously, start with Night Through. It's a collection of singles and other 7", and some other unreleased stuff, and is just a killer introduction to him. It's how I got there. Very accessible compared to some of his stuff.

sonicl uploaded a few things for me, all of which were awesome, and all of which have now gone to the mp3 graveyard. I keep meaning to buy some actual records of his, but not doing so.

More importantly, has anyone spoken to Mr L ever? If you do so, please send him my regards.

Not me. I would like to know how he is. I had his number but lost it when my mobile bought the farm.

i only have mmmr and the harmony of the spheres compilation, but i'm not that keen on the lmc stuff that's on there.

Not my thing.

i completely agree w/ yr assessment. i've been a big fan ever since Road Cone started putting out some stuff in the early 90s.

i can wholeheartedly recommend these:

hells kitchen park
crucible
9th avenue

they are utterly beautiful and heart rending.

i talked w/ him a bit two Januarys ago. i was in NYC seeing Neurosis and as luck would have it, he was playing the next night. i'd not seen him since '93 or so, and his Parkinson's has certainly advanced. he's adapted his playing style accordingly. it was a great show.

at Suzanne's request, i put a few shots from that show on his Myspace page.

In case it wasn't clear, I was asking about sonicl rather than Herr Conners.

I got a ton of stuff by this guy. A lot of it is really good, but it doesn't really stay with me after I turn it off.

Conners work requires a lot of time - both in terms of the work unwinding and for the listener to pay attention.

What really turned me around was his "rock" band, Haunted House (I think I saw them open for Lee and William Hooker once), man this is some tasty stuff - deep and wrenching - for a new listener things tend to happen faster and of course there is a full band. I highly recommend the Haunted House CD. Wish I could tell you anything it sounds like...really damaged heavy electric blues guitar

is there any footage on youtube that would be good for the unconverted?

mmmr is another one i have that i didn't get anything out of

It's only a tiny sample, but I'd say listen to the audio clip from the Night Through collection for a little taste, here: http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/a...+langille.html

Then buy it.

I think Haunted House is by far his best stuff..

the guy has a billion L(M)C releases, and three Haunted House releases, two of which are ultra-limited (ed. of 30 and 100). and that's 'by far his best stuff.'

love it.

I always liked calling him Mazola Conners, but then, that's just me....

The ed of 30 was included in Night Through: Singles and Collected Works 1976-2004. This discography also includes a listing for a Haunted House VHS tape!

http://www.fvrec.com/lorenconnors/discography.php

Haunted House – Blue Ghost Blues



Artist: Haunted House
Title: Blue Ghost Blues
Catalog Number: NS 012
Format: CD, LP, MP3, FLAC
Street Date: September 13th, 2011

The blues has grown up a lot in the last ten years, since guitarist Andrew Burnes left New York for Georgia, bringing a de facto end to the powerful abstract blues of Haunted House. In the time since, a new generation — sometimes referred to as Freak Folk or New Weird America and spearheaded by Tom Carter*, Jack Rose and Ben Chasny — has followed in the footsteps of Loren Connors, John Fahey and a handful of others who have long maintained that the blues is something more than 12 bars and a backbeat.
After the demise of Haunted House, Connors continued preaching the gospel, often with his wife — the enigmatic singer Suzanne Langille — to anyone who would listen, playing a slow, distorted, reverb-drenched blues as slowly the world began to come around. Then, in the summer of 2010, the stars aligned just so: Burnes was in town for a few days, percussionist Neel Murgai was available, and the Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room was booking matinee concerts in their courtyard. The band had only existed for a brief two years and had been absent for a decade, but they picked up right where they left off with only a brief soundcheck as rehearsal. Another matter of months, and they were in the studio, recording at long last the follow-up to their 1999 Erstwhile release Up in Flames.

Looking back, maybe it isn’t that the blues has grown up. Maybe it has reverted to its youth. After all, John Lee Hooker, Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell weren’t beholden to any 12-bar fixity. Nor was Lonnie Johnson, whose song “Haunted House” gave the band its name. They all played it how they felt it. It wasn’t until the 1960s and the British blues revival (its champion, ironically perhaps, being Connors’ beloved Eric Clapton) that the blues was codified into its current formula.

Haunted House is an unusual band. With Indian hand percussion and no bass, they don’t look like a blues band — and maybe they’re not. But they play it how they feel it. What more could you ask for?

Featured Artists:
Loren Connors: guitar
Andrew Burnes: guitar
Suzanne Langille: vocals
Neel Murgai: daf

This is a good one, and made me dig out my live tapes of them...maybe I should have bought the CD so I don't have to flip it