Tompkins Square Rec. 
Max Ochs : Hooray (US,2008)***°'
Unbelievable how Max Ochs (cousin of the pre-Dylan protest songwriter Phil Ochs) seemed almost to be forgotten after his two guitar pieces on the Takoma LP, ‘Contemporary Guitar Spring '67’, alongside tracks by John Fahey, Bukka White, Robbie Basho and Harry Taussig, tracks which fitted in between Basho and Fahey, and which expanded together with Robbie Basho John Fahey’s own reach, approach and development. And even more unbelievable is that he seemed not to have left the same trail of inspiration. This wonderful collection of tracks which I think was all recorded especially for this album also resumes back to a period, commitment, interests and memories. Many of the tracks bring in more often bluesy tunes (Blind Willie Johnson occasionally) almost like picked out of the air, when still hanging in the mind and being assembled in the right moment, or which develop out of a raga-feeling and fundament (with slide guitar, occasionally with Laura Cerulli on tabla and temple bells), then suddenly turn to other directions, while always having some recognitions of ideas making the continuations and conclusions. There’s also a few fantasies on some John Fahey pieces, like this African American church song turned into an almost classical guitar tune, and one song by his friend Mike Tucker. In between the tracks and really making it documentary-like music, poems and some prose are read, one of them about Phil Ochs, very confronting about the need to express and drug abuse, while his own musings reveal farm work and not too forward interests in people’s religious belief. The album is expressed like a classic document for the future.
From the liner notes I also realised that Max Ochs had been part of The Seventh Sons, one of the first bands to improvise with raga-structures from the early sixties, long before almost any body else.
