Jandek Catch-All

[Antero]

I found another song from the same show that sounds more like a regular Jandek song, but it's still interesting to see him playing that kind of show for that kind of crowd. Also, with the funky bass player, it can't get but so strange. Here's the other video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5DCNJQ5r7s&feature=related

This is really weird.  It's like David Byrne on quaaludes.

[Maaik]

I laughed when I saw his Line 6 amp.  I remember Danen talking about him requesting that amp specifically because it's what he uses and it's what he's comfortable with.

Seeing this footage just makes the entire Jandek ovure get a little weirder for me.  I would have loved to have been at this show, especially in contrast with the hushed, almost reverent affair of the Atlanta show.  Were they serving BBQ at this one?

[Andrew_TSKS]

I know, right? I actually love that the most about the videos from this show. It's like Jandek has finally been performing live for long enough that everyone's used to it and people are starting to be able to enjoy it like a regular show instead of feeling like they have to behave as if they're at some classical recital. I never thought his music lended itself to that kind of reaction; when I saw him a few years ago, I thought it fucking rocked, but almost no one moved while he was playing--I felt like the most demonstrative person in the room because I was bobbing my head.

Course, that kind of reception for Jandek fronting a funk band would have been even weirder. At least when I saw him, he sounded like the Swans or something, so it made a little bit of sense.

[sashwap]

i think i'm going to order jandek's first 20 or so albums for my friend's birthday. best birthday gift ever! are there any other noteworthy albums that i should try to include?

[Maaik]

Any of the live albums.

[lastclearchance]

i think i'm going to order jandek's first 20 or so albums for my friend's birthday. best birthday gift ever!

Or worst, depending on the friend.

Not that you'd do that, but how funny would that be?

[davy]

first 20 or so albums

[ellaguru]

Any of the live albums.

Wait for the funk one!

[Maaik]

Any of the live albums.

Wait for the funk one!

I'm STILL waiting on the Atlanta one, so I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

[sashwap]

first 20 or so albums

when you order from corwood, you get a 50% discount on 20 or more items. so it'd be $4 a CD. i've been sorta wanting to do this for years now, but i can't justify buying that many jandek CDs for myself. it just works as a gift, and i'd like to think i'd reap some benefit too. also, i like the idea of making my friend have to shift his alphabetized CD collection a massive amount. heh heh heh

[ellaguru]

Any of the live albums.

Wait for the funk one!

I'm STILL waiting on the Atlanta one, so I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

I know, I'm waiting for the Toronto one, and that show was nearly three years ago now.

[Killdozersnakeboy]

I saw a Jandek vinyl resissue the other day on an online distro. How does this work as I thought he did everything himself? (it was on another label). Is all the early stuff to be reissued?

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

I could be wrong, but I think Ready for the House is the only record that's been reissued on vinyl, with Corwood's blessing I imagine.

For those interested, you can get it here.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Yup, that's correct. I saw something about that on Seth Tisue's website. It's authorized.

I wonder if this will lead to Jandek eventually getting a real record deal. I was thinking about that when I was watching "Jandek On Corwood"--I mean, he's gotta be in his 60s by now, so what happens to his output if he dies in 12 years or something? Who would run Corwood then?

[narlus]

Yup, that's correct. I saw something about that on Seth Tisue's website. It's authorized.

I wonder if this will lead to Jandek eventually getting a real record deal. I was thinking about that when I was watching "Jandek On Corwood"--I mean, he's gotta be in his 60s by now, so what happens to his output if he dies in 12 years or something? Who would run Corwood then?

the representative, of course.


i'm driving down to the throbbing gristle show w/ Seth (i've never met him), so i'll see if he possibly knows of any other LP reissues in the works.

[Maaik]

i'm driving down to the throbbing gristle show w/ Seth (i've never met him), so i'll see if he possibly knows of any other LP reissues in the works.

oh awesome!  pass along my thanks for his website.

[alistarr*]

sashwap, i never actually went through with it, but when i was planning to buy 20 jandek albums this is what i decided on (posted earlier in this thread). i half wanted to get the first 20, but i figured that i was never going to buy more than 20 and so i should go with a selection covering his whole output:

Alistarr: If you took the recs that a bunch of us put up on these pages, you're in for some real treats. PLEASE post on what you thought!

i have ready for the house already, and have been listening to it on and off for about five years. i just brought it to work with me the other day so it's been getting some spins. and yes, i've been paying attention to people's recs - if you're interested, the list i'm going with at the moment:

0740 six and six
0742 chair beside a window
0743 living in a moon so blue
0747 interstellar discussion
0749 foreign keys
0751 follow your footsteps
0753 blue corpse
0754 your walk alone
0756 the living end
0757 somebody in the snow
0759 lost cause
0761 graven image
0762 glad to get away
0766 the beginning
0770 i threw you away
0779 glasgow sunday
0780 raining down diamonds
0783 newcastle sunday *
0785 glasgow monday *
0790 the myth of blue icicles

about half are things people have recommended here, and about half are things that i just thought sounded awesome. a couple just have nice covers. $95 is like £50 which is y'know, five full priced albums bought in the UK. or 1.25 copies of the radiohead discbox.

that said, i can't in any way afford to send the money until i get paid, so by that time i may have just folded on this plan and bought a bunch of melvins records instead. if that happens i guess i'll order one or two of the above through amazon marketplace instead (they work out about £4.50 delivered).

in i actually did exactly what i said at the bottom - i bought three albums for £4.50 each from amazon, and they were awesome. as i'm still working my way through those, i think it was the right decision for me.

[WhereTheSlimeLive]

hahaha those videos are amazing!

[Trousers and Pat]

Gonna go see him at NYU tonight. Performing with a dancer.
I only just found out about the show, but it sounds good. I hope it's for real.
Tickets in  my price range. Will ride bike.

THursday 23 april
JANDEK- with dance accompaniment by Biba Bella

FREE. All Ages. Open to the public.
Performance 9 - 11pm, Doors at 8
Kimmel Center’s E&L Auditorium
60 Washington Square South, 4th floor

[Maaik]

Tuesday night, I ran into the guy who booked Jandek in Atlanta a couple years ago.  He asked if I'd seen the videos--apparently he was there and talked to him before the show.  The bassist and drummer are apparently big around Houston's hip hop/R&B scene and The Representative's plan was basically to ride on whatever they played.  Said they played for an hour straight and it was the craziest thing he'd seen in a while with all the people dancing.  After the set, a bunch of people mobbed him and made him play more, which he seemed really happy about.

[auto-da-fey]

I just saw Danen posting elsewhere, which reminded me of this thread. A little while ago, I was in a record store because I thought the new Gaslight Anthem album was out. It either wasn't or I was too tipsy to find it, so I wound up buying the 2009 Jandek album Not Hunting for Meaning on a whim.

It's only three tracks; the first is one of his more conventional sounding songs I've heard, the hard-strummed "Front Porch Shimmy." The final song is a half-hour oblique-narrative dirge, "Silent Wander." I played it in the car for my ladyfriend, and she didn't know what to think--wasn't dismissive, but couldn't quite wrap her head around it. Me, I liked it a lot (as I am wont to do with the J-man). We played it three times through, including one memorable spin for the person who was just hired to replace me at my job, who was really befuddled but I think too polite to voice much of an opinion.

Anyway, it made me wonder what else he's been up to lately--any hardcore people (coughDanencough) willing to give a brief assessment of, say, his post-2007 stuff?

[Maaik]

I just know I need more of it.

Ran into Mike, the guy who booked his Atlanta show a few years ago.  Apparently, the recording from that is finally going to come out later this year.  Mike had just gotten back from...somewhere, I don't remember, where Janky had played an instrumental show with Thurston Fucking Moore.  Just them playing guitars.  Sounded like it was amazing.

[Danen]

I mean to post more around here, I really do, but life is busy. On the other hand, people go and bring up Jandek and Destroyer and somehow or another I feel a magnetic pull to these boards. So here goes:

To respond to Maaik (who I met at said Atlanta show - how you doing?) I sure HOPE it's out this year! He's been alternating between VERY surrealistic solo studio recordings and more band oriented live recordings (of which more in a moment) and is finally about to release the Toronto show from 2006. After that comes Chicago (GREAT fiery set with John McEntire on drums. Jandek was mad at the sound system and the venue so he really let them have it) and then Seattle and THEN Indianapolis (probably his most underrated show - it was a jazzy thing, real neat) and FINALLY Atlanta. So I would look for it...more like next year. But meanwhile he keeps doing more shows. He did two in Russia recently that I don't know a damn thing about, but I do know he also did some instrumental stuff in Portugal (I love that he's played Portugal twice but never L.A., not even once. Why not? No idea). And my brother got to see the Portland show and said it was mesmerizing, with Janky playing that rhythm thing he does while Thurston layered sound and solos on top. Wish I could've been there. That show should be out around, um, well let's just say not the next Presidential election but perhaps by the one after that...

On the other hand, what's been coming out has been wild and I'd recommend "Not Hunting for Meaning" HEARTILY. This is part of a sequence of studio albums that began with 2008's "The Myth of Blue Icicles". I call these his "dream albums" because the songs take an ordinary setup or thoughts on an ordinary relationship and slowly wind them around some of the strangest roads this artist has taken. The songs can be upwards of twenty-five minutes but are done in such a fashion that they become hypnotic. There is a connectiveness between the albums (which start with Icicles and continue with: "Skirting the Edge", "Not Hunting for Meaning", "What was Out There Disappeared" and his most recent release "Canticle of Castaway") and I like them all, though will mention that auto-da-fey bought the one most people recommend highest (along with Icicles, which is easily the late-period favorite). Between these releases come the live ones, and most of these are searing guitar trio freakouts, best of which might be "Portland Thursday" but which also includes "Camber Sands" and "Bristol" albums that will blow your speakers. In other words, he's putting out at least six albums a year about half live and half solo acoustic. I know that some of what's coming will be among his best shows (see above) and I do know that he's recorded more solo albums but know of no more details than that.

Those who've gone over to Seth Tisue's lovingly sculpted Jandek site might've noticed that Seth's been largely AWOL since Xmas, but those of us on the Jandek list continue to talk about this stuff. I'll try to remind myself to post something now and then around here since I believe that the music continues to be of a high calibre. Newbies to the newer stuff could do worse than picking up "Icicles" or "Hunting" or "Portland Thursday", all of which I'd mark amongst my favorite records of the past year and a half. Whew! Any more questions I'll try to answer.

[Maaik]

Awesome!  Glad to hear from you Danen.  I'm doing fine, thanks.  I'll have to resume my mail order habit.

[Johnp]

I love that he's played Portugal twice but never L.A., not even once. Why not? No idea.

And a four-date tour of Northern Ireland last summer, ffs.