ISSUE Project Room is proud to present legendary folk artist Dave Bixby in his first ever New York concert. Absent from the scene following the Michigan recording of two haunting private-press LPs in 1969, Bixby was rediscovered in 2006 near the Grand Canyon, now working as a Civil War re-enactor. Tonight at ISSUE he gives a rare performance of his timeless, now-iconic records “Ode to Quetzalcoatl” and “Second Coming” in their entirety— lost gems of soul-searching psychedelic folk.
Since its discovery in the late '90s, Dave Bixby's legendary album “Ode to Quetzalcoatl” (1969) is considered by all serious record collectors as the king in the loner/downer-folk genre. After being involved in '60s Michigan folk and garage-rock bands such as the Shillelaghs and Peter & the Prophets, Bixby started playing acoustic guitar and experimenting with LSD. After a year of drug abuse he felt broken. Starting a spiritual journey, he wrote “Ode to Quetzalcoatl” and most of the material for his second album, Harbinger's “Second Coming” in just a month and a half.
Assisted by fellow musician Brian MacInness (guitar), Bixby recorded "Quetzalcoatl" using an echo-laden four track machine in his living room. The sound is lo-fi and sparse: just acoustic guitars and some occasional harmonica & flute, added to Bixby's haunting, emotional vocals, spiritual lyrics and solid songwriting. The opening cut, the eerie and painful "Drug Song" sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the album which contains more tormented titles like "666" , "Lonely faces", Open Doors", "Secret forest"... Never has an acoustic folk album sounded so intense as this.