Michael Hurley makes a once in a blue moon visit to Berlin as part of the Counterflow Festival taking place at Ausland in Prenzlauer Berg. Yes, just when you thought poor P’Berg had been stripped of all it’s decent venues since NBI was forced to call it a day, Ausland pops up its head and announces this excellent line-up over three days giving us all a reason to rejoice and look forward to drinking cheap beers on Helmholz Platz on a lovely spring evening listening out for the crazies to start up their usual racket…ah, memories.
Anyway, back to Snock, as Mr. Hurley is known. A singular talent, Hurley was recording back when our Dad’s weren’t even able to have a twinkle in their eye let alone to have even met your mother yet. A free spirit who has never wavered from his own chosen path as an artist, variously making a living painting houses, farming, selling his own paintings and possibly now even from his music. I count myself among those who have the pleasure of discovering his records thanks to the Gnomonsong label who released his great Ida Con Snock album in 2009. The reissues have been piling into the record shops over the past couple of years, each as good as the next and too many to mention here.
Here’s Tea Song from his First Songs record, his first ever recording:
Tracing the lineage and citing the fore-bearers of the New Weird America, one can’t help but mention the music of bizarre folk singer/guitarist/artist Michael Hurley. If you haven’t been following his career since the 1970’s (when he was collaborating with the likes of the Holy Modal Rounders and Jesse Colin Young) then you probably discovered him in the past couple of years via Devendra Banhart’s & Andy Cabic’s label Gnomonsong, who have released Hurley’s recent recordings.
Hurley’s debut album, First Songs, was recorded for Folkways Records in 1965 on the same reel-to-reel machine that taped Lead Belly’s Last Sessions. He was discovered by blues and jazz historian Frederick Ramsey III, and subsequently championed by boyhood friend Jesse Colin Young, who released Hurley’s next two album on The Youngbloods’ Warner Brother’s imprint, Raccoon. How’s that for cred?Counterflows is a new series of festivals exploring international networks of underground music. This first festival takes place across London, Berlin and Glasgow from 6th-15th April. Produced by OTOProjects in Berlin and London and AC Projects in Glasgow the festival was made possible with support from Sound and Music, The British Council, Creative Scotland, The PRS for Music Foundation and The Goethe Institut.
Here’s a couple more of Michael Hurley’s songs for you to keep you going:
Josephine Foster may be no stranger to some of you here in Berlin and definitely won’t be after this show, unforgettable stuff:
