« Dirty Projectors and Mariah Ca... | Ecstatic Sunshine of the Blown... »
Jandek at On the Boards
It was both haunting and boring—long, melancholy songs with a ghost of a folk-blues structure languishing at the bottom of an ocean of weird: unsettling open-chord tunings, plucked slowly, almost incidentally, and warbling vocals. (Boring, I should add, isn’t necessarily bad: If it’s used as a tactic so tenderize audiences for greater shocks later on—and isn’t simply the by-product of a lazy imagination—boredom can be a useful tool in an artist’s kit.) There was a fairly straight-ahead bassist. There was a drummer who played like he was backing a jazz trio. There were two women sitting far upstage. And then there was the spooky man himself, Jandek-who-isn’t-Jandek. From an explanatory web site:
Officially, Jandek is not a person. The man from the album covers and live appearances is “a representative of Corwood Industries,” and “Jandek” is a musical project which he directs. The trinity of Jandek, Corwood, and “the representative” is both three and one… Everybody knows one thing about Jandek, that no one knows anything about Jandek. There is nothing but the music. Some find it crude or inept on first hearing, but upon exploration it reveals incredible depth, intelligence, feeling, and rewards for the listener.
He was tall, thin, pale, with a black hat, a shadowed face, black shirt and pants, playing his guitar by picking up and down the neck of the instrument, never using the frets that I could see. (He spent a lot of time not-facing the audience.) Unfortunately, about an hour into the performance, I began to feel ill and had to leave. Which is too bad. I didn’t walk in the door as a fan and I didn’t walk out the door converted, but I’m curious to hear what the rest of the set was like.
Comments
i wanted to go to that, but the thought of being surrounded by hardcore Jandek fans seemed a bit daunting. after seeing the Jandek movie, i'm guessing his fans are the dorkiest people on earth (for example, the dude who files all his Jandek records under U because Jandek released his first record under the name, the Units).
btw, on my own dorky note, did Andy Beta combine Richard Youngs' name up with Matthew Bower or something?
I thought the Jandek show was amazing. My only complaint was that I thought Same Coomes' playing didn't really gel with the drummer and Jandek...doesn't seem to be a very strong improviser, and playing was kinda irratating. The drummer on the other hand really seemed to be tuned into Jandek's guitar playing. I've heard that by the end of the show, half the audience left. I think there were maybe quite a few curiosity seekers there and just found it boring, which is unfortunate. I thought the droning, off key vocals and instruments to be pleasantly disorienting.
I loved the documentary, but I think Jandek broke character by performing live, thus destroying the epic myth he worked so hard to create.
Plus, his music is hard enough to listen to recorded I can't imagine what frame of mind you'd have to be in to sit through 2 hours of it.
hey! i was there and i don't think i'm among the dorkiest people on earth.. or at least i hope not.
the show was kickass, and not like the recorded albums. the songs were either (as said on his playlist that a friend picked up) "brutal", "ballad", or "blues". they rocked out a lot, and it was massively entertaining. ok, once in awhile during the slower repetitive songs i wanted to sleep. but overall i was very surprised at how much i enjoyed the show- i had gone out of 90% curiosity, and came out having enjoyed a quality musical experience. very haunting, and some of his lyrics really resonated. could have done with a few less of the songs led by the girls (i dont care what you say, i am convinced they are his creepy teenage wives)
did Andy Beta combine Richard Youngs' name up with Matthew Bower or something?
Yes, he did.
Stoic is too flamboyant an adjective to describe Jandek. His hollow cheeks symbolize/embody his aesthetics, a gaunt version of rock, rock as void, music to shake your phantom limbs to. Even when Jandek and his band "rocked out," you could sense they sensed the futility of their endeavor, and for some reason this enervated nullity resonated to your core. Never have I been so numb yet so riveted at a show.
Most of Jandek’s Seattle set was a flatline, grayscale trawl that had no particular place to go, not in this lifetime, and many of the songs sounded like defeated/deflated cover versions of Syd Barrett's "Maisie" or Low at their most lethargic and drained of whatever belief system (Mormonism, I think) they misguidedly cling to.
Bassist Sam Coomes (Quasi) and drummer Emil Amos (Grails) provided a semblance of ballast for Jandek’s vestigial fretboard glintings and awkward spasms of spidery notes. Devoid of spectacle and glamour, the band studiously avoided anything resembling familiar musical gestures, although if you pricked up your ears hard enough, you could detect the blues’ Thanatoptic thud and baleful grimace in the sonic twilight. Jandek’s female vocalists (Liz Harris and Jessica Dennison) sang with the same blank delivery as their leader, forming a chorus of autistic cheerlessness that gradually became quite moving in its anomic pathos. These young women moved as if they were already embalmed.
Jandek is the antithesis of emo, and therefore is the most unbearably poignant singer-songwriter ever. He has the charisma of a black hole. He has scrawled the blues' epitaph in illegible calligraphy.
With Johnny Cash dead, Jandek is the man in black. At the set’s conclusion, he walked off the stage without acknowledging the crowd's desultorily rapturous applause and grabbed what looked like an old-fashioned doctor's bag before vanishing.
i wanted to go to that, but the thought of being surrounded by hardcore Jandek fans seemed a bit daunting.
It was about as daunting as riding in an elevator at a hotel hosting a convention of undertakers. You missed a potentially once-in-a-lifetime show for no good reason.
Segal, you are missed. Thanks for that. Wish I could've been there.
RE: Segal
i'm trying to rationalize my lameness.
anyhow, i'm going to see Andrew Hill tonight so it's all good.
Honcho: Yeah, Hill should be amazing. Enjoy yourself.
Thanks, Levislade.
Honcho-
1412 has great stuff! I'm sure you know that. Last week, the incredibly personable (LOTS of anecdotes) and resonantly talented Erik Rymes performed solo violin that riveted the 25 people in attendance. It was beyond any post-modern review that attempts to impress with words like 'antithesis' and 'unbearable'. He even invited whoever wanted to join him afterwards for beers and snacks at the Elysian. Of the ten contemporary pieces, I think mostly European, I enjoyed the Lachenmann, Loevendie and Suzuki ones best. Then again they wouldn't have shone as bright if it weren't for the solid repotoire that butressed the entire event. Sort of like being in a hotel elevator with a few of the charaters from Neil Young's Hawks and Doves.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 45 days old).
Sorry I missed it; I'm intrigued by the whole Jandek mystique.
I'm pretty sure that was Sam Coomes on bass and Emil Amos (Holy Sons, Grails, etc.) on drums.