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Post by Rit on Jan 15, 2006 22:17:51 GMT -5
yeah.. it seems like Jandek fandom was tailormade for me.
only about a week ago his name registered for some reason.. then i vaguely kept my eyes open online, not actually seeking anything out.
and then, BAM. the whole myth of him hit me at once today.
i feel like a jerk having downloaded his albums (i can see that i've got about 7 full ones, plus a live concert)... and i think i'll listen to them soon enough and actually buy a bunch of his albums as soon as possible.
I heard Ready For The House and selected songs from Chair Beside A Window, and i'm so psyched, i can't explain it. I feel like i'm about to take a leap into something good.
I've done the research for the past hour, and it looks like his most universally acclaimed work was You Walk Alone.. which i also obtained.
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Post by Rit on Jan 15, 2006 22:19:58 GMT -5
tell me whatever else you know, Rocky.
i only posted the link to the wikipedia article because it was a fairly pithy and short intro... i've read far more intensive articles today, but i thought they might be too much for the other posters here.
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Post by rockysigman on Jan 15, 2006 22:22:46 GMT -5
yeah.. it seems like Jandek fandom was tailormade for me. only about a week ago his name registered for some reason.. then i vaguely kept my eyes open online, not actually seeking anything out. and then, BAM. the whole myth of him hit me at once today. i feel like a jerk having downloaded his albums (i can see that i've got about 7 full ones, plus a live concert)... and i think i'll listen to them soon enough and actually buy a bunch of his albums as soon as possible. I heard Ready For The House and selected songs from Chair Beside A Window, and i'm so psyched, i can't explain it. I feel like i'm about to take a leap into something good. I've done the research for the past hour, and it looks like his most universally acclaimed work was You Walk Alone.. which i also obtained. A live show, eh? Wow, that must be relatively new. He didn't do a single live show until last year I believe, after 25 years or so of making albums. Still hasn't done too many. The two Jandek CDs I have are Ready for the House and Interstellar Discussion. I like the latter a bit more, although I think with Jandek, choosing one album over another is probably pretty arbitrary. Interstellar Discussion has a few more musicians on it (well, drums anyway), so it's a bit fuller of a sound than Ready for the House, but otherwise it's pretty similar. I think most people would probably hate both of them equally.  |
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Post by rockysigman on Jan 15, 2006 22:26:25 GMT -5
Honestly, I don't know a whole lot more than you do, if anything at all. I don't even really remember where I first heard the name, but I first really got interested in Jandek through a review of a tribute album that was released a couple years back. Ended up buying those two CDs from his website without hearing a note. Honestly, I think I find the mystique about him to be more interesting than the music itself, although I do throw one of those CDs on for a spin from time to time.
Have you read the interview with him? I'm pretty sure that there was ever only one interview done with him, so if you've read any at all, then it's the one I'm thinking of. A writer for some magazine just showed up at the address listed as the office for Corwood Industries and kind of snuck up on him. Ended up going to the bar with him and having some drinks. Talked about Jandek's music, but he never actually admitted to being Jandek throughout the whole interview, and then despite being cordial throughout the whole thing, at the end told the interviewer to please never contact him again.
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Post by Rit on Jan 15, 2006 22:27:24 GMT -5
yeah, i'll list what i got as intro listening material:
Ready For The House
Six And Six
Chair Beside The Window
Interstellar Discussion
You Walk Alone
Blue Corpse
and the live show is from Gateshead, UK. i think from 2004. yeah, i read that he didn't do a single live show until about 2002 or something.
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Post by rockysigman on Jan 15, 2006 22:29:24 GMT -5
yeah, i'll list what i got as intro listening material: Ready For The House Six And Six Chair Beside The Window Interstellar Discussion You Walk Alone Blue Corpse and the live show is from Gateshead, UK. i think from 2004. yeah, i read that he didn't do a single live show until about 2002 or something. I think he's still only done maybe 3 or 4 shows. One in Scotland, one in England (I think, not sure about that), and then I think he finally did one show in the U.S. last year. Interesting thing about those live shows...he doesn't perform any songs from his albums, and he doesn't use musicians he's ever played with before. At all of those shows, he used local musicians that he first rehearsed with earlier that same day. Also, even in the live setting he stays mysterious--he isn't billed as Jandek, just as "a representative from Corwood Industries", even though he's the only recording artist on that label. |
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Post by Rit on Jan 15, 2006 22:30:30 GMT -5
i read about that interview, but not the actual interview itself.
as for the music itself, Ready For The House was heavy going, but i've been preped for it by listening to Captain Beefheart for the past week at any rate. It wasn't all that difficult.
and it only gets easier from then on, apparantly. Ready For The House came out in 1978, and he got more electrified at points afterwards.. Stuff from Chair Beside The Window sounded positively Velvet Undergroundian to my ears (umm, more White Light White Heat, and without the motown influence AT ALL).... but thumping alien thwack all the same.
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Post by Rit on Jan 15, 2006 22:33:06 GMT -5
i've read that people ultimately swear by his lyrics in the end. They're his most enduring feature.
It's all fired up my neurons, that's for sure.
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Post by rockysigman on Jan 15, 2006 22:38:22 GMT -5
Took more digging than I thought, but here it is. Not really a proper interview (my memory deceived me), but really just a recounting of her experience hanging out with him. web.archive.org/web/20041105103137/http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/1999/aug/jandek.htmlWhat a weird dude. Also, apparently Jandek did a few shows last fall, so he's actually up to 11 total shows now, the first of them being October 2004 in Glasgow, and the most recent in November 2005 in Helsinki. Still only 3 U.S. shows though (Brooklyn, Manhattan and Austin) despite being Austin-based. |
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Post by rockysigman on Jan 15, 2006 22:38:54 GMT -5
I guess you'll have to c/p the link. Can proboards only handle a link of a limited number of characters?
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Post by Galactus on Jan 15, 2006 22:41:20 GMT -5
I totally want to order boxes of that guy's albums...I have no idea why.
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Post by Rit on Jan 16, 2006 6:19:09 GMT -5
you being sarcastic?
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Post by Rit on Jan 16, 2006 6:24:14 GMT -5
the interview article was interesting. it's almost an ideal intro to him.
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Post by Rit on Jan 16, 2006 6:46:04 GMT -5
considering that the whole purpose of the fellow is record sales thanks to the ingenious appeal he's worked up for himself, i'll listen to the downloads and then delete them, and hunt up the ones i liked. my own sense of guilt is acting up. stupid guilt.
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Post by Galactus on Jan 16, 2006 9:38:43 GMT -5
No, I'm serious. I've never even heard the guy and I'm thinking about buying 20 of his albums. |
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