Jandek

[.:.impossible]

Dave,

No. I don't own any of his recordings. I think the only thing that would make Jandek cooler is if he had never recorded anything. Or if all of his recordings were destroyed, like a Buddy Bolden story.

[dave9199]

Impossible, have you heard any of his stuff? If so, what do you think?

Chaney, they don't say where Corwood came from but they do tell where the name Jandek came from. The DVD will be out in November and might have this info in its extras (and there are extras).

[Guest Chaney]

Thanks Dave. (I had a feeling it was Jandek and not Corwood.)

I believe the DVD is to also feature the entire 1985 (?) 40 minute taped interview of Jandek.

[.:.impossible]

Dave,

I have heard a minute amount of his work. As you've read, the sound will vary drastically from one release to the next. I haven't heard The Units, never even heard of them until this thread actually! I liked what I heard in a Beck One Foot In The Grave sort of way. I know not all of his music sounds like that though.

BTW, One Foot In The Grave once sounded very rough to me. After learning more about untempered music, it actually comes across as almost pretty. I like Jandek's stigma more probably than I would ever like his music, and I think his music is almost a necessary bi-product of his art. He is like beneath underground.

I feel like Lightning Bolt is attempting to work within that anonymous world as well. Do you know about them? They are mythed to live in Rhode Island.

[dave9199]

Impossible - Nope, I ain'ts never heard no Lightning Bolt.

Chaney - Yeah, that whole phone interview is on the DVD

Edited September 16, 2004 by dave9199

[John B]

Impossible - Nope, I ain'ts never heard no Lightning Bolt.

Chaney - Yeah, that whole phone interview is on the DVD

I have heard one Lightning Bolt album - Beautiful Rainbow - and, while it is an amazing album, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with Jandek musically.

[mjzee]

I've skimmed the posts to this thread. It seems very few of you have heard Jandek. I've heard his first album (by "The Units," although it's obviously just him), and one later one. It's very sad. Everyone (and I mean everyone) laughs when they hear it, but it's really from a combination of horror and pity. He's obviously incoherent and doesn't realize it. He obviously can't play guitar. He obviously can't write songs. The two albums I've heard sound alike, even though he gives his "songs" differing titles. I suppose he's worth hearing once, especially after the build-up Irwin Chusid and others have given to him, but I wouldn't pay for it. Really, life's too short to spend more than a few minutes devoted to Jandek.

Or, to put it another way, the idea of Jandek is a lot better than actually listening to him.

[dave9199]

We appreciate your opinion, but also feel differently about him. We (well Chaney & I anyway), like him in part for those reasons. Confusing, eh?

I feel that listening to jazz worked me up to stuff like this. It really helped break down my view of music to essentials and abstracts. I think that can be said of Jandek also.

Edited September 17, 2004 by dave9199

[Guest Chaney]

Agree with Dave.

I've been attempting to separate the image from the music - a task I find to be easily accomplished. Knowing basically nothing about Jandek allows me to simply experience the performance. (Reminds me of seeing Robert DeNiro for the first time back in the 70s in Taxi Driver. With DeNiro being (to me) an unknown commodity at the time, all I saw was Travis Bickel.)

I'm ALSO wondering how valid my opinion might be to others as I have so little experience with this type of music. (Can't wait to hear John's opinion as I'm familiar with his eclectic Funny Rat-and-then-some tastes. HIS opinion should carry much more weight than mine. Also looking forward to Dave's views. DAVE: Odd suggestion: Start with Jandek's second album, Six and Six, and then listen to his first. Ready for the House comes across as very special but I can't tell if that's because it's really that good or because it was my first exposure to Jandek. Just a suggestion...) (Truth to told, if I received that suggestion, I'd still start with Ready for the House.)

I'm also attempting to figure out if I'd be as enthused over the two CDs I've thus far heard IF they had cost me, let's say, $14.99, rather than $4. Still working on that one.

Really, life's too short to spend more than a few minutes devoted to Jandek.

That maxim could be applied to a great many potential interests.

My feeling is that life's too short NOT to listen to Jandek.

It's all good.

[Guest Chaney]

Maybe I'm just goofy, but I find this fascinating. (Add the Jandek voice and primitive guitar playing and...)

First album, track two:

First You Think Your Fortune’s Lovely

Everything’s so restless

The wind has come again

Blowing me so far

I think I see a star

First you think your fortune’s lovely

And you fly out through the door

Grandmama I feel so lonely

My rapture’s painted on the floor

The roads lead all to Jacob’s kitchen

I’m sitting moon eyed at the table

Sitting blank-eyed by the door

Oh Lord, do you really think I’m able

Well I chose this love completely

When you took away the charm

Set your mind on breaking burdens

Said you done no one no harm

I feel a bit like floating water

Headed for the rocks at bay

Crash upon some ocean liner

Comes upon my lonesome way

Thought I see your eyes a-flashing

Thunder in your hair

I burnt a match for your complexion

The lights went out and you weren’t there

Seated by the ranch I’m owning

Staring at the cellophane

Somebody came in for a question

I poured a glass out in the rain

The reason I have been accepted

Is that I failed to come on strong

Found a chair beside a window

Found a place where I belong

Inside myself there is no question

Just the jangle of our brain

Three times four is twenty-seven

Only fragments still remain

I curse the day I found my freedom

You took the mirror from the wall

Placed it in a single suitcase

Pointed down a hollow hall

You said you see your true direction

I’ll be there behind the sun

And I’ll go with you in the springtime

When all your travels have been done

[.:.impossible]

John, I didn't mean to imply that Jandek and Lightning Bolt were similar musically. I meant that they are similar in that they prefer to remain anonymous as musicians. The Residents come to mind as well.

No, I think Lightning Bolt has a much more "together" sound than Jandek... all I've ever heard are dubbed cassettes of Jandek's music. I sort of agree with the above. Twenty discs seems like a lot to me. As collector's items, though, I can understand why you guys are interested.

[dave9199]

Awww Chaney, I'm itching to get my cds. The check was cashed today. Maybe Saturday? Hope so.

[Guest Chaney]

Awww Chaney, I'm itching to get my cds. The check was cashed today. Maybe Saturday? Hope so.

Hell, Dave. You've got the man's ear. Why not just give him a call and check the status of your order?

"Jandy? Yea, it's me, Dave. How's the order comin' along? On the way? Thanks bud. You're a peach."

Listening to Six and Six right now.

Did I mention Ready for the House is excellent?

(I'm helping whet your appetite. :rsmile: You're welcome.)

PS:

[dave9199]

DON'T PAINT YOUR TEETH CHANEY!!!

One think that's cool about the documentary is it opens with shots of Point Judith in Rhode Island & I believe that song is on Six & Six. What's cool is my wife & I lived in Providence (Hi impossible!) & drove to Point Judith a few times. We recognized the scenery & the lighthouse that I believe is mentioned in the song. Cool, no?

You seem to be enjoying the first 2 cds. Have you made it to #3; Later On?

Edited September 18, 2004 by dave9199

[John B]

John, I didn't mean to imply that Jandek and Lightning Bolt were similar musically. I meant that they are similar in that they prefer to remain anonymous as musicians. The Residents come to mind as well.

No, I think Lightning Bolt has a much more "together" sound than Jandek... all I've ever heard are dubbed cassettes of Jandek's music. I sort of agree with the above. Twenty discs seems like a lot to me. As collector's items, though, I can understand why you guys are interested.

I didn't mean to imply that at all. I was trying to give some context for Lightning bolt to dave and Chaney. I picked up their album after you told me about them., It is amazing! I can't even begin to imagine how they must be live.

20 cds will most definitely be more than I need to hear at first but, at $4 a pop, it's hard not to go for the whole shebang.

[dave9199]

Since your post was intriguing Clementine, here's a review from a reader on Amazon of The Cockfighter:

You can't really relate to another man's (or woman's) obsession, but "Cockfighter" does a impressive job of drawing the reader into the psyche of Frank Mansfield, the single-minded hero of this pretty intense novel. Frank's goal in life is to win the Cockfighter of the Year award, and he's taken a vow not to speak another word until he does so. In relating silent Frank's journey, the author takes us on a memorable trip through the cockfighting pits of the Southern U.S. and allows us a close-up look at the rugged, obsessive, fiercely individualistic types who haunt them. You will learn from this novel virtually everything you could conceivably wish to know about cockfighting; the details feel absolutely authentic. Above all, though, it's a convincing portrait of a man driven half-mad by his private demons.

[Guest Chaney]

Hmmm.... Now I'm curious.

My local library has a copy of the Willeford title. Think I'll pick it up.

They also list Chusid's Songs in the Key of Z as available.

After I finish my morning cup of coffee and paint my teeth ( ), I'm off to the library.

Thank you Professor Clem.

[dave9199]

I just finished Songs In The Key Of Z. Very interesting, the whole thing, not just the Jandek chapter. There's a guy who wrote for the Stan Kenton orchestra that has a chapter, I forget the name, long last name, The Shaggs, Daniel Johnston, Tiny Tim, Wild Man Fischer.

[John B]

I've added both of those books to my reading list. Thanks for the recommendations!

[dave9199]

Unknown Legends of Rock & Roll looks interesting also.

God Jandek Chaney! It didn't come today either. Now I have to wait until Monday. Did yours come via post office or UPS?

Edited September 18, 2004 by dave9199

[Guest Chaney]

Unknown Legends of Rock & Roll looks interesting also.

God Jandek Chaney! It didn't come today either. Now I have to wait until Monday. Did yours come via post office or UPS?

Mine arrived via the US Postal Service - Media Mail - Insured. (As we're getting these things postage paid, media mail is to be expected.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just read Chusid's Jandek piece from Songs in the Key of Z and I am so fucking pissed!

I can't manage to say any more at this time.

[dave9199]

Yeah, though he does tend to throw a sarcastic barb or discription into most chapters, it's nothing like the Jandek chapter. He does admit he just doesn't get it though, but it doesn't make the subject matter look any less idiotic sounding. I would think that if the right person read that first, they would STILL be intrigued enough to check out something of his. (I've never typed the word intrigued as much as I have in this thread).

[Guest Chaney]

[...]

In short, you gotta be ready for it.  Not everybody is ready.  Some folks never will be.

Pace Mr. Chusid.

Here's the entire Songs in the Key of Z Jandek article. (I've tried to keep it as true to the original as I could -- board software shortcomings being what they are.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jandek

THE GREAT DISCONNECT

“Back when college radio was fun, there were two main camps: those that thought that Jandek was a true genius on the level of Monk or [Hasil] Adkins, and those that thought we were just looking for something so totally obscure, so unlistenable, that we would just out-hip everybody.

“[Years later]... Jandek is still here... And his detractors, well, they all work for Sony now, don’t they?”

– C. KOON, YET ANOTHER FANZINE

How to describe the music of Jandek? Like most amateur rock critics, start by comparing him to the Beatles. Then strip away melody, catchy hooks, rhythm, and harmony. Next toss out vocal and instrumental ability, along with any trace of human felling other than dull, lingering pain.

Aside from these deficiencies, he’s exactly like the Fab Four. Or maybe the Velvet Underground after taxes.

Jandek, along with a guitar and microphone, sounds like a muttering sleepwalker, aimlessly plucking amplified bicycle spokes. His music is dark and gloomy, but it won’t make you sad – it will make you tense and uncomfortable. Here is the Ultimate Disconnect. You’ll love it or hate it – and for every one of the former, there are one million of the latter.

He accompanies himself on acoustic or electric guitar. But for the incoherence of his zombielike strumming, Jandek’s hands might as well be brushing accidently against the strings. His occasional wheezing harmonica approximates early Dylan having an asthma attack. Sometimes Jandek is backed by a drummer who seems unfamiliar with the kit, and who pounds away relentlessly with no ground beat. It’s purgative.

OK – let’s shuck the understatement. The above is a too-roseate portrait of Jandek’s cave-dweller primitivism. Imagine a microphone cabled down to a month-old tomb capturing the subterranean munch of maggots nibbling a decaying corpse, counterpointed by the agonizing howls of a departed soul desperate to escape tortuous decomposition and eternal boredom.

That’s Burt Bacharach compared to Jandek. What Garth did for country, Jandek could do for suicide hotlines.

Jandek is a recluse named Sterling R. Smith, and he’s holed up somewhere near Houston, Texas. (Please don’t call the one in the Houston phone book – wrong guy.) Since 1978 Smith has issued 28 full-length albums, mostly on 12-inch vinyl. No 7- or 12-inch singles, no remixes, cassettes, MP3s, or videos. A few of his cryptic album titles: Staring at the Cellophane, Telegraph Melts, Blue Corpse, Chair Beside a Window. He didn’t begin issuing CDs until the early 1990s.

A sampling of his song titles: “Painted My Teeth”, "Twelve Minutes Since February 32'nd” [sic], and “Janitor’s Dead.”

His album covers reflect visual entropy: the front usually sports an out-of-focus, black-and-white snapshot of Jandek’s expressionless face, or maybe a guitar or a piece of furniture; the text-only back covers list song titles, timings, and the label mailing address, but are otherwise devoid of liner notes, personnel, lyrics, or useful clues. Jandek has never issued a press kit and has never performed in public. He rejects all requests for interviews. They found the Unabomber, but Jandek remains at large.

Seth Tisue, curator of a Jandek Web site, noted, “His consistency in this regard far surpasses that of other legendary reclusives such as Thomas Pynchon and J. D. Salinger.” Jandek’s records rarely turn up in stores – even second-hand shops. Smith is pouring a lot of money into a deep dark hole. (If you’d like to pour in some of yours, write Corwood Industries, PO Box 15375, Houston, TX, 77220. Surprise! – he doesn’t have a distributor.)

In 1978, Smith released his debut album, an LP entitled Ready for the House, recorded under the name “The Units”. He adopted the “Jandek” moniker on his second album after discovering a band called the Units with whom he did not wish to be associated.

Richie Unterberger, in Unknown Legends of Rock ‘n’ Roll, quoted a paragraph of mine about Jandek. Let me return the favor. Unterberger wrote:

When it comes to idiot savants with mystique, no one can beat Jandek... who has self-released over two dozen albums featuring spooky, slightly demented stream-of-consciousness rambling and guitar playing which rarely strays from set notes and chords, none of which pick out anything close to a melody. His voice can range from a hushed whisper to a Janovian primal scream; unsettlingly, he hardly ever mines the wide territory between those extremes. Sometimes the guitar is acoustic, like a deathbed Neil Young; sometimes he sounds like the 13-year-old who’s just gotten his first electric for his Bar Mitzvah.... The albums are issued in plain sleeves with no liner notes, and enigmatic cover photos with all the attention to framing and focus of the do-it-yourself stalls at Woolworth’s.

On the positive side, Jandek is not pretentious. But he’s not unpretentious. Neither adjective applies, although Kurt Cobain told Spin in 1993 that “only pretentious people like his music.”

Jandek is an authentic human satellite orbiting in a chilly weightless dimension millions of miles from earth. And let’s concede this: Jandek’s music in not derivative. He seems to be a recording artist with no discernable influences.

Some would call this “genius”. And have. Forced Exposure’s on-line catalog refers to this musical question mark’s “fractured, internalized song genius.”

But such acclaim is rare. Most common are assessments such as the following post from a Guided by Voices Internet chat list. A correspondent we’ll call “Glenn” (“I’d prefer that you not use my real name. I don’t want him trying to get ahold of me!”) wrote, “Jandek’s music isn’t the cool kind of lo-fi typical of GbV, the ‘we-could-do-better-but-we-like-it-sloppy’ school. It’s just bad musicianship and bad recording. In my opinion, there’s nothing cool about it. It’s just pathetic.”

The man understated the sheer horror of a Jandek record. 99.999997 percent of all sentient life on the planet could not listen to three Jandek tunes from start to finish.

Did someone say “rock and roll”? Jandek’s neither “rock” nor “roll.”

He’s not even “and.”

* * *

In 1980, while working for a syndicated radio production studio called Thirsty Ear, I was given a copy of Ready for the House by coworker Keith Altomare. Knowing my predilection for odd sonics, Altomare winked, “I think you’ll find this very unusual.”

At home I dropped the needle on the first track, “Naked in the Afternoon.” It was frightening. Accompanied by what sounded like stiff fingers strumming an out-of-tune tennis racket, a creepy, monotonous voice croaked:

I got a vision, a teenage daughter

Who’s growin’ up naked in the afternoon

I know a brother close to his mother

Who stays up late in the evening time

I keep repeating, it takes a beating

To grow up naked in the afternoon

The melody went nowhere. There was no rhythm or chord structure. No dynamics, no particular focus. The “song” – if that’s what it was – just kinda meandered in low gear like a beat-up Ford without a driver.

I advanced to the second track, “First You Think Your Fortune’s Lovely.” Same non-story. Not just the same characteristics – except for the lyrics, it was the same, uh... song. Ditto track three. Ditto all the way to the end of the album, where quasi-relief arrived on the final track. “European Jewel (Incomplete)” featured electric guitar instead of acoustic, and a semblance of chordal tuning. Not much, granted, and the song still didn’t make much sense or develop into an identifiable framework. Standout line: “There’s bugs in my brain / I can’t feel pain.” The parenthetical “Incomplete” refers to the track cutting off in mid-verse, as if the deck ran out of tape.

Ready for the House sounded like an album-length, real-time chronicle of a listless, beer-numbed, trailer-park teen picking scabs, mumbling to himself and accidentally stumbling over his guitar.

Who wouldn’t be intrigued?

The LP wasn’t just unlistenable – it was unashamedly repellent. And yet, unlike of much of what passes for anti-music in some precincts of downtown New York, Ready for the House lacked attitude. It was devoid of artistic ambition; its repugnance was organic, naturalistic. The record jacket carried no liner notes, photos, or personnel; it disclosed nothing but song titles, track duration, and an address: Corwood Industries at a Houston post office box.

My antennae were atwitter. Who would release such a catastrophe? And why? What was “Corwood Industries”? A multinational run by a CEO with a retarded son who made home recordings? Did doting papa press this album without commercial intent as a simple gesture of paternal devotion?

I wrote Corwood:

Oct 20, 1980

To Whom:

A friend passed along a copy of Ready for the House. I’ve listened to it three times [i lied], and I’ve concluded it is one of the most frightening albums I’ve ever heard. It is horribly grotesque. I’ve run out of adjectives to describe the shock of this record.

Can you give me any information? Who’s on it? It could be the worst record ever released, but somebody went to a lot of trouble putting it together and I want to know why. I am mystified.

It could also be the greatest record ever released. I can’t figure it out, but every time I place it on the turntable, it’s like stepping into the Twilight Zone. Can you help?

I gave my address and phone number.

Two weeks later, Sterling Smith called. He rambled in a halting monotone, his speech punctuated by aposiopesis (the sudden breaking off in mid-sentence as if the speaker is unwilling or unable to continue). I asked questions; he gave oblique answers. He wouldn’t explain what he did for a living. He’d pressed one thousand copies of Ready for the House – and sold two. He’d recorded enough material for ten albums and hoped to release them all. He’d written seven novels, but after they’d been rejected by New York publishers, he’d burned the manuscripts. He had no friends, but didn’t seemed concerned.

Great. A deranged loner had my telephone number and home address.

I stressed how “unique” I found his music. “There’s nothing like it – anywhere,” I offered, truthfully.

“Do you know stores that will carry my records?” he inquired. “I need to move them.” We chatted for about 15 minutes, and I chose my words carefully, mindful that New Jersey was a four-hour flight from Houston. The conversation was disjointed. Smith had an Etch-A-Sketch mind: one jostling distraction and his thoughts were wiped clean, the next sentence a non sequitur.

He was grateful for my interest and shipped me 25 copies of Ready for the House, which I distributed to my WFMU colleagues as Christmas gifts. One staffer, Jim Pansulla, used two sealed copies as a rump rest over the torn driver’s seat in his VW Beatle for five years. (They eventually warped, but Jim never fell through.)

Smith and I exchanged a few letters, and he called occasionally. His confidence was bolstered by my “encouragement” and he promised more releases, which began to arrive in 25-count boxes. He once referred to me as his “mentor” for suggesting that he persevere despite public indifference.

One lengthy handwritten missive from December 1982 reveals more about Smith’s modus operandi than perhaps any existing document. I had enquired about his switch on subsequent albums from acoustic guitar to electric, the occasional use of drums, and the mysterious emergence on several tracks of a mournful girl singer, presumably named Nancy (judging from such titles as “Nancy Sings”). A few excerpts:

I was glad to receive your letter. I had been thinking of you just that morning and why I hadn’t heard from you. You’re my mainstay from the beginning.

Nancy was Nancy [last name withheld], a southern Ohio cosmopolitan hillbilly type who ran across my path one day and I asked her to sing what I had written as I played the guitar. There were no notes or anything and she just picked up the paper with words and sang and I played guitar as simple as that!... She’s featured in many future cuts, mostly electric. The cut “No Break” on side 2 features her sister Pat [last name withheld] on vocals, myself on elec guitar and Nancy in a very unaggressive drum stint.

[Other tracks feature] myself on 6 string elec guitar + vocals, John [name withheld] on base [sic] and John “Poe” on drums. They were around the house “Poe” lived next door. I asked them to sit in. I don’t believe “Poe” ever played drums before. I was so impressed. I couldn’t think of another drummer so absolute except maybe Ginger Baker from Cream....

There is a multitude of further electric composition. With a myriad (maybe 12) other performers. Also cuts on entire sides of myself overdubbing base, 6 string, vocals and drums all performed by myself. Thanks to your urgency prompting, you will be receiving them perhaps as early as february [sic] ....

In follow-up correspondence, Smith’s ingenuous marketing campaign persisted: “Send me some addresses of record stores... that deal in my music,” one of his notes implored, “and I’ll ship them free boxes of my recordings. I need to move them.” I received cartons of each new release up to the sixth or seventh.

Eventually we lost contact. I figured the mothership had returned to fetch the expedition.

New releases, however, arrived with admirable regularity at the radio station. In 1986, WFMU, WKCR, WFDU, and WSIA coordinated a late-night “Jandek Across America” conspiracy. From 1:15 A.M. to 2:00 A.M. the man’s desolate murmuring seeped across the New York City noncommercial spectrum, programmed independently on each station.

Not playing with a full Jandek --- typical LP covers:  Your Turn to Fall (left) and Staring at the Cellophane (right).  Sorry, no additional information available -- ever.

He’s been covered at least twice: by Charalambides, who recorded “Variant” (from the Corwood album Blue Corpse) on the compilation Drilling the Curve (Fleece Records); and by Dump, a one-man studio project of Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew, who released a 7-inch single of “License to Kill” (from The Living End) on 18 Wheeler Records. (On another CD, McNew covered the Shaggs.) At this writing, Jandek junkie Eric Schlitter of Pennsylvania is soliciting submissions for a tribute album.

By the early 1990s Jandek’s recorded output rivaled Keith Jarrett’s and John Zorn’s in terms of petroleum-derivative disc manufacture. But only in those terms. The man has continued to release about an album a year, all of which escape critical notice. Each, to quote journalist and fan Byron Coley, “blows around the country like an old dead leaf painted purple.”

Jandek’s art has evolved. He’s begun to display greater dynamics in the songs – although nothing yet approaches accessible pop music. His cadaverous crooning intones monotonously over guitar notes spattered Jackson Pollock-like on the musical canvas. Occasionally something approximating a chord miraculously resonates. The works seem meaningless in and of themselves, but like any form of expression can accommodate a sympathetic listener’s own perceived significance.

Jandek uses no studio gimmickry – unless you consider occasionally bumping the mic stand and inspired technical gesture. He pops his “P’s” and his “S’s” sibilate. The voice-guitar mix often obscures the lyrics, even when he’s playing softly.

The man has one undeniable quality: identity. If record stores would carry Jandek product, they could assign him his own bin-card: “Musica Incognita.” But record stores don’t carry his albums, so he offers ridiculous quantity discounts – $25 for a box of 25 LPs, or $80 for a carton of 20 CDs. He needs to move them.

Glenn (the GbV chat room correspondent) recounted: “My friend Max sent him a letter, and what does he get in return but a box of 50 Jandek albums. Max continued the correspondence and started getting more and more records shipped to him, Smith insisting that he not sell them but give them away. After a while, songs started to appear on the records about Max ("So Fly, Max”) and his family members (the name of Max’s sisters appeared in songs). We finally decided this guy was too weird, and Max wrote to tell him to please stop sending albums.

“I really don’t know why anybody would want to listen to these,” Glenn remarked. “They just make me feel unhappy and kind of creeped-out.”

“One time,” recalled McNew, “I bought three or four used CDs at a store in Boulder, and the clerk flipped through the titles I selected. When he saw the used copy of Jandek’s Glad to Get Away, he shuddered, as though I’d slipped an autopsy photo in there.” But McNew feels Jandek must be considered in relative terms. “If Jandek is horrible, miserable noise,” he posits, “then what are Jewel or Dave Matthews?”

As evidenced by the ambitious nature of his Web site, Seth Tisue obviously registers deep devotion to Jandek. I requested comment from Tisue in February 1999. And in March. Again in April. And once more in late June. Seth Finally replied.

Hi... many apologies for not responding to your E-mails.

I have no good excuse.

His next paragraph provided one:

I’m sure I’ve listened to every [Jandek] LP at least a dozen times, and I’ve probably listened to my favorite, Blue Corpse, 100+ times easy.

At least I knew what Tisue had been doing for the past four-and-a-half months. In reply to my contention that I found Jandek’s minimalist driftage “unlistenable,” Tisue wrote:

I don’t find Jandek unlistenable at all! I’m as susceptible to the non-musical aspects of the Jandek Mystique as anybody, but honestly, if I didn’t really love the records themselves and not just the concept, I wouldn’t do the site. I find Jandek especially suited for nighttime highway driving and for Walkman accompaniment to long walks through city or country.

When Richie Unterberger wrote Jandek in 1986 to request an interview, our mystery alien replied, “Questions etc. can’t be arranged. Also, we think your article will be better without them. At least we hope so. Anything else, just ask.”

Banking on my history with the guy, I requested an interview for this book via mail in 1998. A month later a package arrived from the familiar Houston POB. It contained two CDs – 1994's Glad to Get Away, and his then-latest, New Town. No surprises in the packaging – artless, inelegant, uninformative. However, Glad to Get Away was... uh... wet. A brownish muck oozed within the shrink-wrap – not a drop escaped – as if the fluid had been injected at the manufacturing stage. I had to disassemble the jewel case and run the whole mess under the faucet. The parts felt slimy. The bubble-pack shipper included an envelope with a handwritten letter from Jandek – or rather, from the collective self:

You’ll not be forgotten – ever...

The story must be crafted from what you have and know from the music. We cannot provide interviews or other exchanges of information outside of the releases at present. It’s probable that your crafted story would be more interesting than any other. Intrigue goes a long way sometimes.

Please stay in touch.

Your friends at Corwood.

The man continues to live with the curtains drawn and the phone off the hook. I gave the albums a spin. Same untethered spookiness. One song on Glad to Get Away began with the line: “Hey mister, can you tell me, is that a knife stuck in your face?”

Good night. At least he doesn’t have my new home address.

Listeners aren’t the only ones confounded by the Houston outsider. Jandek himself seems a bit unsure of his niche in the grander scheme of things, as evidenced by the lyrics of “Don’t Know If I Care” (from Later On, 1981):

Oh Lord, help me to understand

What’s going on in this world

I’ll be (unintelligible) go different way

(unintelligible)

I don’t know if I care

I don’t know what’s happening

Oh Lord help me to understand.

(N.B. Indecipherability is common with Jandek lyrics.)

Seventeen years later, enlightenment remained every bit as elusive. From “Look at It” (New Town, 1998):

I just want to be real

And if this life ends soon

I’m done

Crush crush crush crush

Despite Jandek’s reclusiveness and determination to avoid the press, he was stalked by journalist Katy Vine of Texas Monthly, who recounted her prowls around Houston in the August 1999 issue. Following various leads, Vine eventually found – and shared beers with – a gentleman who, she wrote, “looked like a late-thirties version of the youth on the record covers.” She discovered him living “in one of the city’s nicer neighborhoods,” and described him as “neatly dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt with beautiful cufflinks, black pants, a black tie, and black shoes.” But this fellow, who was obviously familiar with Jandek and Corwood, never outright admitted to being Jandek. He seemed extremely uncomfortable with Vine’s inquiries, and spoke about the shadowy singer only in the third person. He insisted that Texas Monthly not publish his real name, occupation, or whereabouts; prohibited picture-taking and tape-recording; and extracted a promise, said Vine, that there wouldn’t be “any physical evidence of our meeting.” Over brews at an “upscale bar”, they mostly talked about snap beans, milk allergies, and a North Texas town where all the residents have no cavities. His comments about the recordings were... Jandekian. When Vine asked if he wanted people to “get” his music, he replied, “There’s nothing to get.”

After finishing their second round, he picked up the tab, and walked Vine to her car. She said he “stress[ed] that even though he had a nice time, he didn’t want to be contacted in person by a fan or a journalist or anybody about Jandek ever again.”

I received one more handwritten note from Corwood, explaining the seven incinerated novels [ellipses in original]:

Regarding the book burnings... our experience living in Lower Manhattan was... necessary. Of course, we took the printed matter to the countryside for an unfettered, proper cremation. Stirred into ashes into the ground.

As for Random House... they called me in... twice... I got tired of waiting two weeks and demanded the manuscripts. The countryside dirt was hungry.

You have to admire the man’s determination and his sincere intent. He’s loyal to his muse. You don’t release over two dozen full-length albums – for almost no audience – without a strong artistic commitment. Jandek is the musical equivalent of a tree that’s fallen in the forest – 28 times.

Beyond any musical impact, his ultimate mission could be to test the mortal limits of patience, tolerance, and understanding. Perhaps he’s the Messiah, dispatched to Earth as an outsider musician, giving the human race one last chance to accept the unacceptable, to embrace that which is infinitely difficult to embrace.

If so, by failing to fully grasp his aesthetic, I may have forsaken salvation. Come Armageddon, while Jandek ascends with his disciples to a place where harps strum gently all day, I will descend to a region where mighty loudspeakers pipe in nothing but Jandek records for eternity.

Until then, maybe I can get a job at Sony.

Edited September 19, 2004 by Chaney

[Guest Chaney]

Dave? Box arrive?

[dave9199]

Not yet. It'll be 2 weeks on Thursday. I've stopped anticipating it every day as I get pissed when it doesn't show. JANDEK, WHERE ARE YOU?????