Paul Foryan’s a mechanic who’s been playing guitar “casually for 60 years,” according to Curly Cassettes’ Bandcamp page, and “[e]very Saturday night he plays a few songs at ‘The Range’ - a generator powered stage located in Slab City.” On the recordings for his cassette Paradise, you can hear those 60 years. His twelve-string (which only has six strings, because OF COURSE it would only have six strings) continually frets out, those six strings are slightly out of tune and more than likely coated in a heavy thickness of gunk and grime, and he sings and speaks with a tall-tale-teller’s confidence, mixed with an equal dose of humility — and it’s all beautiful.
Paradise is currently still available, in an edition of 15. Spoiler alert: at one point Paul Foryan ruins the ending to Duel in the Sun.
• Curly Cassettes: https://curlycassettes.bandcamp.com
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