NOT HUNTING FOR MEANING: a Jandek listening thread

here we listen together weekly to every Corwood 'studio' release (excluding live recordings and ridiculous nine disc boxsets)

0739 – READY FOR THE HOUSE
0740 – SIX AND SIX
0741 – LATER ON
0742 – CHAIR BESIDE A WINDOW
0743 – LIVING IN A MOON SO BLUE
0744 – STARING AT THE CELLOPHANE
0745 – YOUR TURN TO FALL
0746 – THE ROCKS CRUMBLE
0747 – INTERSTELLAR DISCUSSION
0748 – NINE THIRTY
0749 – FOREIGN KEYS
0750 – TELEGRAPH MELTS
0751 – FOLLOW YOUR FOOTSTEPS
0752 – MODERN DANCES
0753 – BLUE CORPSE
0754 – YOU WALK ALONE
0755 – ON THE WAY
0756 – THE LIVING END
0757 – SOMEBODY IN THE SNOW
0758 – ONE FOOT IN THE NORTH
0759 – LOST CAUSE
0760 – TWELFTH APOSTLE
0761 – GRAVEN IMAGE
0762 – GLAD TO GET AWAY
0763 – WHITE BOX REQUIEM
0764 – I WOKE UP
0765 – NEW TOWN
0766 – THE BEGINNING
0767 – PUT MY DREAM ON THIS PLANET
0768 – THIS NARROW ROAD
0769 – WORTHLESS RECLUSE
0770 – I THREW YOU AWAY
0771 – THE HUMILITY OF PAIN
0772 – THE PLACE
0773 – THE GONE WAIT
0774 – SHADOW OF LEAVES
0775 – THE END OF IT ALL
0776 – THE DOOR BEHIND
0777 – A KINGDOM HE LIKES
0778 – WHEN I TOOK THAT TRAIN
0781 – KHARTOUM
0782 – KHARTOUM VARIATIONS
0784 – WHAT ELSE DOES THE TIME MEAN
0787 – THE RUINS OF ADVENTURE
0790 – THE MYTH OF BLUE ICICLES
0794 – SKIRTING THE EDGE
0797 – NOT HUNTING FOR MEANING
0799 – WHAT WAS OUT THERE DISAPPEARED
0802 – CANTICLE OF CASTAWAY
0805 – WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE
0808 – MAZE OF THE PHANTOM
0832 - THE RAY

beginning this week:

0739: 'Ready For The House' (1978)

https://corwoodindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/0739-e1491239853555.jpg

Originally credited to The Units. The book in the window has been identified as a Penguin edition of the complete plays of Christopher Marlowe. "You think you're cool, a European Jewel."

see seth tisue guide for notes/lyrics (https://tisue.net/jandek) and chime in later this week with some thoughts...

are these available on streaming anywhere?

not to my knowledge. some early issues are on youtube. i will be placing a mail order with corwood at some point soon.

fifty two records. this should take a year...!

This is absolutely the sort of thing I'd be interested in doing but I failed so badly keeping up with the Xenakis listening thread. Too easily distracted by other things.

i had a huge jandek phase in college and basically haven't listened to anything except glasgow sunday since. gonna try to keep up with this thread

*listens to "naked in the afternoon"*

amazing that i 1) almost never smoked weed in college 2) still enjoyed this music

I for one am gonna listen to (and enjoy) all 9 discs of The Song Of Morgan, fuiud

and i kinda think we should listen to the live records but i'm not too bothered one way or the other

like there's a reason glasgow sunday is my go-to jandek record

the original LP mixes are *very* different from the CD reissues, by the way

^that has been a disappointment ime. There are ten or so LPs in my community radio station library.

is the LP mix on youtube or anything? I have it on CD

this should be it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV5Fa9LKxBU

listening now, it's amazing to me how "normal" this music sounds to me at this point

xxp are you talking about the noise reduction applied to a lot of material...? is there further edits? this is news to me

wow i've never heard ready for the house without reverb before, thanks for the link sleeve

i'm game for the live albums too, i just didn't think anyone would care. maybe we can adjust schedule.

xxp heavy noise reduction and added reverb, yes. also some very slight changes and edits that Seth Tisue goes into great detail on iirc

damn, the CD remaster is ear splitting compared to that original LP mix... shame the rest are unobtanium.

I figure this thread will be sparsely populated enough for me to give Dropbox MP3 links of any original LPs that aren't on Youtube

just let me know if that's wanted - I have them all ripped

bless up, sleeve

siiiick

or as it sounds on the LP, "sick"

hi sleeve, it's wanted

at what number did corwood stop issuing releases on LP...?

0760, it started at 0739 and there were 22

lmk if this works, zip file with MP3

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4uopfhhwvebomjz/JNDK%20RFTH.zip?dl=0

it worked!!!

"european jewel" always a shocker bc it contains chord changes

well ok it's mostly one chord but jandek does some traveling up and down the neck and plays a solo

BUGS IN MY BRAIN

so in general I subscribe to the theory that these first 6 LPs represent "fully mature" Jandek, probably recorded in the 76-78 era if I had to guess. and I believe the louder, more raucous multi-person stuff on the later LPs was recorded earlier in the 70's. Then of course by the time we get to Twelfth Apostle he is back to releasing things seemingly more or less contemporaneously with the recording date.

who the fuck knows when those spoken word discs were recorded, although I'm sure the noisegated dictaphone gives some clue as to its vintage

wow this vinyl rip is way less crackly than the youtube, thanks again sleeve, my life is enriched

lol now that I think about it, it was the single most expensive record I ever bought, yes it's in good shape!

once I realized how different the sound was I was helpless to resist, that stuff is like catnip to me

getting this on LP back in 2018 marked the return of my Jandek obsession in full force, and I was pretty much always a fan since college and even saw him in 2006 (Portland Thursday). But after I got this I ruthlessly tracked down the rest of the 22 original LPs over the next couple years.

thanks to ex-ILXor Stormy Davis for selling me a few of them!

other thoughts on this record...

I would like to see the Cease & Desist order from The Units (the band), how did they even learn about this LP existing?

soooo many of these early ones were sent to radio stations, a very canny move in retrospect

(college stations, specifically)

that is def where I first saw/heard one of the LPs in like 1987, after reading about them in either Option or Sound Choice

very interesting take on temporality of the releases... though i guess the cover art isn't chronological, either. i think i'll probably end up remarking on the photos and words more than the music.

I'm going to partner this with my once a week Heidegger, Gadamer and Hermeneutics research paper day. The permission these writers give to live in the most bizarre of world I think will partner nicely.

As a guitar tutor, Jandek truly feels likes the destruction of my industry and I am all here for it. I feel like I have heard these tunings and songs in the creation of some 6yo students in their first few lessons. Maybe I should start getting lessons from them.

Genuinely lovely lyrics on this album. "I poured a glass out in the rain".
Sounds like he is going to laugh in some of his lines though, which breaks the spell he's casting.

there's a LOT of incidental laughter in his catalog now that you mention it! good post, thanks! I love his lyrics as well.

True, very keen to run through these. Only listened to one Jandek album before this years and years ago so not familiar with what carries throughout the albums. Speaking of guitar, I am loving the complete irreverance he seems to have for it. Seems like a lot of your "let's get bizaro with the guitar" gang have these underlying heroistic ideas of completely redefining what guitar music might be. That vision seems to be communicated from the diversity with which "bizaro guitar" people interact with their personal bizaro guitar aesthetic. Jandek feels like he just doesn't care. Same tuning for every song. Same "low,high,low,differenthigh" note structure or "strum the same way the whole time". It feels like he really just wanted to get some poetry out there but realised that radio airwaves are a better way to get poetry out there than through trying to self-publish a book. I just get no hint of "I am trying to do something with this guitar playing", and guitar playing is the only other element than his voice in this album which really does feel like its trying to do something. Definitely respect the lack of revolutionary ambition in this completely novel album.

record really nicely married the bleak grey rainy weather outside. i listened to it three times in a row and now regular music feels like it's too much

bless you for this rip, sleeve

H.P, any chance we can get you to post apposite (or randomly selected) heidegger / gadamer quotes as companion texts?

Inside myself there is no question
Just the jangle of our brain
Three times four is twenty-seven
Only fragments still remain

it is actually an amazing experience listening to these songs while reading the lyrics lol

It feels like he really just wanted to get some poetry out there but realised that radio airwaves are a better way to get poetry out there than through trying to self-publish a book

otm

bless you for this rip, sleeve

otm x 2

yes I think "really just wanted to get some poetry out there" is a super good call

I like this Eddie Flowers thing:

Eddie Flowers. Quoted at The History of Rock Music, Vol. 4 (website). “The stark, painfully exposed, untuned-acoustic blues/folk that once made for such a richly uncomfortable listening experience now sounds focused and brilliant. it’s not that the music is any less dark, or the technique any more refined than it was 22 years ago; it’s just that the world has moved closer to Jandek’s reality. The anxious beauty of isolation and doubt.”

That "three times four is twenty-seven" line is the first time I could hear one of Jandek's interior giggle's become audible. Definitely reading the lyric sheet for the next album, or if might listen to ready for the house again with it.

quote for the week:

"if we tell what it is for, we are not simply designating something; but that which is designated is understood as that as which we are to take the thing in question". - B&T 149

And yeah, thank you Sleeve for the link.

Also maybe a pointless suggestion given that live releases are 30 albums and thus 30 weeks away, but assuming we get that far it has to be a committed bunch? Might be worth doing two a week from then-on and including the live albums?? Something that can be addressed when we get there, if this thread keeps enough steam to get to that point.

excellent! will be following & listening this. I agree with HP that 2 per week seems do-able.

Thanks Sleeve!

thread reminded me that 1) i saw jandek live in 2012!!!!! 2) it was great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgqwYfePMd4

wow jandek looks great

I should do this, I have everything up through I Threw You Away and spottily after that, I'll wait for the sun to go down and jam Ready for The House tonight

I listened to ready for the house 2 weeks ago so I'm up to date on the thread.

European jewel is Jandek's pop hit

https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/28169

that's a dissertation called

THEMATIC INTERCONNECTIVITY
AS AN INNATE MUSICAL QUALITY:
AN INVESTIGATION OF JANDEK’S “EUROPEAN JEWEL” GUITAR RIFFS

I can’t do both this and the Xenakis listening thread, I’m afraid, but cool initiative nonetheless.

i'm in. love those first two LPs

I too am in. I know the first four or five pretty well, after that just some here and there.

I lovehow RFTH’s first couple of songs almost have no discernable beginning or end. Like a 20 min song chopped up into random song-lengths, he just drones on. Needless to say I love it, it stops me in my tracks and demands attention. And i dont even know the lyrics that well!

i guess you
like it
that way cuz huh
you're a FLOP

so what do we think the classic Jandek "mic drop" sound is? you can hear one of the first (of many) occurrences here at the end of "What Can I Say, What Can I Sing" - it sounds like him kicking something, or a microphone dropping to the floor or being hit, or some kind of primitive reverb pedal, or hitting "stop" on an old clunky tape recorder... or??

I'm too lazy to sort through the Jandek Google group for this stuff and am mostly just sticking with Seth's website and the excellent Perfect Sound Forever writeup for background on these (https://www.furious.com/perfect/jandek/jandekreviews.html)

(this sound always happens at the end of a song, btw)

so in general I subscribe to the theory that these first 6 LPs represent "fully mature" Jandek, probably recorded in the 76-78 era if I had to guess.

also I'm gonna revise this date range to 1977-1981, when the 2nd LP was released. I do still think some of the later LP material was recorded earlier in the 70's.

btw if u are bored, the search results on ILX posts for "jandek" are hilarious

Sleeve, you are extremely kind sharing that link. I’ve made use of it but have only listened to the first couple of tracks because Jandek is not my typical Friday night music.

I would love him to do a live concert of poetry over Underworld style jams (which would be my Friday night music). It’s not unthinkable since we have already seen him overpowered by funk.

jandecks

<3 Brad

Ready for the House
I always like how 'definitive' Naked in the Afternoon is. He knew *knows* what he is doing. It proves Jandek is a great lyricist, even haters should admire his skills in that department. It contains the sitar-like microtuning bizarro guitar sound which attracts the afficiniados (including me). If you hate that sound, you better Get Out. Rest of the album is more of the same of course, the noise reduction makes it even more eerie (on the cd version). Early phase Jandek, I imagine it went something like this. Jandek wrote lyrics during the dayjob(s), picked out one boozin' night, detuned his guitar, hit record and started singing his map of lyrics. It's basically one jam divided in multiple songs.

the wild thing, though, iirc, is that the guitar *is* actually tuned very specifically through the first six records. I think a different tuning doesn't show up until "Interstellar Discussion" so it's not so much "detuned his guitar" as "properly detuned his guitar"

Sure but does the tuning change between songs or only between albums?

iirc it stays exactly the same for at least the first six, I'd need to do some digging there but iirc it is mentioned in those Perfect Sound Forever reviews

sleeve, can you find the jandek guitar tab archive for me pls?

lol idk, gimme a while

via Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/LetsTalkMusic/comments/743lxv/does_jandek_know_how_to_play_the_guitar/
From the wikipedia page:

Jandek unknowingly gave two unauthorized phone interviews in his entire career, the first conducted by fellow outsider artist John Trubee, for the aforementioned Spin article in 1985. In it, he admitted to having had musical training earlier in life, and refuted an OP magazine reviewer praising "May he never tune his guitar!" by stating that he did indeed tune his guitar, albeit usually to open tunings of his own devising.

tab for 'I'm Ready' here:
https://tisue.net/jandek/mail/mylist/2008-August/005019.html

that's all that comes up in a cursory Google search, though

<3<3<3

my Six And Six LP rip for discussion, keeping to the "two a week" concept

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yhsb05hzfv5nur6/JNDK%200740.zip?dl=0

apparently my copy was Irwin Chusid's first, he later upgraded.

again, the mastering etc is very different than the CD version or the later Jackpot LP reissue.

PFS sez

MASTERPIECE un-remastered, (minor) MASTERPIECE remastered. (NOTE: You can only purchase the new 'remastered' version these days, bugger).

this thing is obviously a masterpiece within the Jandek aesthetic, some of his best lyrics and a "lithium-soaked" (my fave review quote) delivery. Somewhere buried in either ILX, Tisue's website, or the Google Group is a story from someone whose aunt (mom?) dated Jandek in Rhode Island in the early 70s, placing "Point Judith" in the overall Jandek context geographically.

I assume everyone knows about the Robert Johnson cover tribute/connection?

https://www.furious.com/perfect/jandek/graphics/jandek005.jpg

https://www.furious.com/perfect/jandek/graphics/jandek007.jpg

The tuning is different on "European jewel". The rest of rfth is all open strings in the same tuning

ah thank you! yes, anyone who can parse the tunings going forward, I'd love to hear more. is this one the same as RFTH?

Tuning is covered extensively here

https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/28169

― Politically homely (jim in vancouver), Thursday, November 12, 2020 11:05 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh shit I thought that was just abt the different European Jewel versions, thank you

Continued use of the “European Jewel” riff material lasts until the album One Foot in the North (1991).

this is totally fascinating, and sounds about right

big block of text about tuning in the first albums from that link:

Ready for the House introduces two of Smith’s main tuning inclinations. The first is characterized by what are considered conventionally dissonant intervallic relationships between pitches of the open strings. Guitar tuning for Ready for the House—rather than keeping only the outer strings tuned to Es, for example—features 4 Es, each detuned somewhat from the other but still recognizable as E variants.130 The first and second strings (both are likely first string E strings) are tuned approximately a quarter-tone apart. The remaining two Es (see Appendix A) are likewise tuned in an unconventional manner. The non-E strings are tuned to A2+ and B-flat 3-. A tritone-like relationship occurs between the sharpened A and the Es, which sound flat. The remaining B-flat makes for another tritone-like dissonance between it and the E variants. Further dissonance still is formed by the A/B-flat combination, which in effect creates a detuned, narrow minor ninth interval.

In the case of Ready for the House, all tracks but the last, “European Jewel,” are played on the guitar’s open strings. In most instances, dissonances that would result from the detuning are not as strongly perceived—or nor as jarring—as they would be if pitches were to be played harmonically (simultaneously) and at a stronger volume.131 Dissonance is, in some ways, mitigated by Smith’s mode of playing. Often notes are plucked or brushed lightly. They are also frequently played in near temporal isolation from one another. Overlapping between pitches often only occurs during the decay portion of the first pitch’s sonic envelope in the case of notes played individually. Regarding the second stream of tunings employed by Jandek, this begins with the debut’s concluding track, “European Jewel.” In this case, a tuning whereby the open strings form what is close to the notes of a major quality triad is used. Open strings major tuning is commonly implemented in blues music. Jandek’s tunings are, however, not standard in terms of the intervallic relationships which occur at the microtonal level (see Chapter Four). That said, when compared to the rest of the album, the tuning deviations heard on “European Jewel” seem minimal (see Appendix A), thereby providing contrast between the last track of the albums and all other tracks.

Smith likely uses two first string Es on the first three releases. One is positioned where it would be found ordinarily, as the highest sounding of the strings, the first string. The other is strung in the usual place of the second string. Chair Beside a Window (1982) takes this alteration a step further. On the recording the high Es are tripled. According to Corwood, processes involved for string choice were both practical and intuitive: whatever strings were available were
those that were used. This process of string selection differed from later releases where “matched” strings were used. Presumably, what Corwood meant by “matched” strings (this was not explained in full) were those which were intended to be strung according to their conventional placement (high E in the first string position, etc.) While on the first several albums the guitar is detuned in a similar manner, more conventional tuning—and indeed stringing of the instrument—is made with the fifth release, Living in a Moon So Blue (1982). Though “matched” strings became the norm for later releases, Smith continued to not adhere to conventional tuning systems for the vast majority of his solo studio releases.

<3

thanks for your duty and charity sleeve. im lagging a bit. will keep this up to two/week now...

how is it they know me well at the wine store

also the names of several future jandek records appear in the six and six lyrics

fwiw i'm totally fine with, might even prefer, just one record / week, per OP

xps

cool w/me too fwiw

it's also cool with me but i also wanted to add that i didn't notice "i knew you would leave" was 10 minutes long until i looked at the tracklisting just now. flies by

see also this weird note on the CD remaster via Seth Tisue:

...the new version is missing a few seconds of guitar playing after Jandek sings “Sometimes I know it not” but before he sings “As the air, no air is still”. (I’m not certain there aren’t other alterations.)

(re: "I Knew You Would Leave")

Put Six and Six on as I was going to bed last night, think I made it through the first three songs. Some cursory thoughts:
Jandek = Swans-like lyrics + song structure (one chord droning over singing of "the universe is everything" nonsense) with Bob Dylan vocals. There's the added element of the disonant guitar tunings, but I don't have the encylopedic knowledge to know what big artist characterises that to add to the Dylan+Swans formula.
Potential Taking Sides: Jandek Vocals vs. Bob Dylan Vocals.

His vocal style seems more subdued in this album compared to ready for the house. None of the swing that you find both rhymically and melodically on a song like "Naked in the Afternoon" on this album, at least the first three songs I listened to. In essence, it makes the album even less musical than the last. Ready in the afternoon really sounds like a boogie woogie in comparison to the hushed vocals over Takoma guitar pulses on Six and Six.

Liking this thread. Happier to go two a week but still happy to do one a week. leave it to Maelin's discretion?
;s

can't say how i know this for sure but six and six feels more focused than ready for the house; the songs are less like weird creeping plants invading every surface and each other and are more... song-like. h.p. you're sorta otm in your description but i find it *more* musical

the "take you to the sky" part in "forgive me" is devastating

Six and Six has the best album cover of the entire oeuvre, and it made people on the mailing list speculate for years how Our Man went to jail. (instead he probably just had a job as a CLEEERK. going to wooork)

just looks like an old photo booth picture to me.

Im not sure I could answer "best album cover" for jandek. just a fantastic collection of covers

If included in what you mean BradNelson by "song-like" is "sonically-more-pleasurable" or "less obtuse" then I definitely agree with you haha. Ambient and harsh-noise are sometimes of the same essence, just on opposite ends of a sliding scale. Six and six and ready for the house seem to be of the safe stuff, but one leans more to ambient and one more to noise.

All that said, I think the crackling pops from the link Sleave posted contribute heavily to my opinion and I might discard everything I just said if I had a different rip of six and six hah.

i've been a bit unwell, but i'll continue to update this thread each week with whatever record we're on. sticking to one/week for maximum mood...

thanks, man. I'll post links after you bump it until we're done with the 22 vinyl releases. looking forward to spending another week or so with Six And Six.

Lurking at the moment... Chair Beside A Window was the first album of his I heard and is still the first one I think of when I consider all of this.

I’ve been slowly trying to work my way through all of the DVDs in order... which has been tough, cuz so many of them really do sound the same. The good ones, though, wow! Might stop the chronology and skip straight to Rudyard’s

?

*taps foot*

*strums detuned guitar*

the other day my son was randomly strumming a detuned classical guitar and I found myself thinking "hm I know that song" before realising what my fucked-up brain was trying to do

i hope maelin is ok

in these scary times, was just thinking the same

bump for maelin cuz I saw them post on the Joanna Newsom thread :)

here's a link to a rip of my Later On LP

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3khr94aer5qbsc/Jandek%20-%20Later%20On%20LP.zip?dl=0

wow, thank you kind friends. i've just been snowed under working on a record of my own, dealing with physical health stuff too (not virus). i want to embark on this so bad, though i think i underestimated the psychological intensity of prolonged jandek listening. i really do believe it's heavy, existential stuff likely born of solitude and alienation.

perhaps we can keep this up at a rate that's not so rigorous - maybe check in now and then for record after record. i mostly wanted to celebrate corwood and seek more depth in the catalogue. i'll be happy to listen and follow along if sleeve would like to continue posting an LP rip each week or so. thanks ilx for being a cool decentralized community ive been able to retreat to - for a decade now!

thanks for the update! glad you are doing OK. I'll probably post one every 2-3 weeks, when I remember

with Later On, the real star of this show for me is "Jessica" which I find hushed, beautiful, and eerie - a clear precursor to "Nancy Sings"

been going through a jandek thing lately, kinda cherrypicking from around the catalog, kinda wistfully wishing we could pick this up again, if only so i could download the rest of sleeve's vinyl rips

btw i'm currently listening to rudyard's and it is the fucking greatest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSdYBCg48A8

join me

hi ivy, gimme a minute!

ps love that insane Rudyard's thing

so Chair Beside A Window has "Nancy Sings" on it, which I am sure threw all 100 or so Jandek fans of the era for a loop (the first of many curveballs, in retrospect)

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/x7ketukeaa7jtqmq8p67l/h?rlkey=syk4a0r55zfbwhdja886a5djz&dl=0

I can't actually remember anything else specific from this one, so I should relisten!

first one with drums too ("european jewel")

ooh good call

this one, Six And Six, and Ready For The House were reissued on vinyl by the Jackpot label, but they used the CD mixes

I always think "John Plays Drums" is the first drum track but once again Mr. Smith has misled me

been thinking about Jandek a lot lately, actually, very little listening tho lol… contemplating a cordwood industries order but am I really up for this

lol my artist tags on those files above say "Jandel", deepest apologies, fixing now

fixed

man this thing starts off strong, as always an invaluable resource to this early period is here: https://tisue.net/jandek/lyrics.html

We can’t deny there are spirits in this house
You shut the door, the wind closes two more
I laugh a dark laugh, you smile and think about it
You’ll come again I’m sure you can’t refuse

^ my fave jandek song

this is one of my favorites, actually. "down in a mirror" is a classic, "the times" and "love, love" verge on gorgeous, if only in jandek's particularly shadowed way. feels a lot lighter than either ready for the house or six & six and way more focused than later on (which i never commented on, and kind of plays like a b-side collection to the first few records, not necessarily in a bad way)

also the complete version of "european jewel" reveals that it is a velvet underground song that someone left on the stove for too long

I think "Poor Boy" is the most explicit blues nod yet, I believe I commented upthread on the cover connection between Six And Six and a Robert Johnson photo

and then followed up directly with harmonica on the next track, this has always been ghost blues but it took me a while to catch on

You’re livin’ free and livin’ high
You’re like some angel in the sky
You’re like some angel in the sky
You’re like some angel in the sky high high high

I was thinking bout this thread last week too! Think we only did two albums? Let's get back into it!

this is the 4th but the older dropbox links expired, will happily re-up for anyone, just holla at me here

Ready For The House, Six And Six and Chair Beside A Window are my favourite Jandek albums that I've heard (have heard about 15) so I think I am a pretty basic Jandek fan

after those I quite like the mid-late 80s stuff like Telegraph Melts, Follow Your Footsteps, Blue Corpse etc

I've got about 40 albums and saw him 3 times but still feel pretty basic at times.

I think in addition to those the psych/melodic phase that follows the Nancy breakup albums are pretty good (You Walk Alone through to Lost Cause, maybe) and the Noughties phase definitely has its moments (I Threw You Away, The Humility Of Pain, The Gone Wait).

The very latest (Vision of Jewels, Dec 23) has an astonishingly high RYM score so I should probably check it out.

wasn’t my intention but i’ve been listening to a lot of chamber jandek (where do you go from here, maze of the phantom, atlanta saturday/outcast of civilization) and it is some of the most beautiful music ever made

chamber jandek

!!!

i so want to believe this is chamber groups playing in jandek tuning, but i'm sure that's not what it is

no it's better, truly gorgeous orchestral pieces

I don't see how anything could be better, but ok, it's on my to-do list for the day

chamber groups playing in jandek tuning

the mountain step comes close to this

I have actually only heard "where do you go from here" (the gorgeous one) and the NINE DISC Songs Of Morgan which is nine hour-long nocturnes for solo piano. My 84-year-old mom loved the box set when I put it on during a visit, she bought her own copy directly from Corwood!

the recent corwood release i'm eager to hear that's in my cart right now is the wizards hour, which is a set he did for WNYU in 2012 and i'm assuming it features the same ensemble i saw at vaudeville park (posted clips from that sadly still-unreleased show upthread)

i'm also hella ordering the rudyard's dvd

a couple of folks in that vaudeville park ensemble were pals of mine, Valerie led an ensemble called Dream Zoo at that time who were totally crushworthy surrealist chamber theater thing, pure innovation. the only thing remotely similar is Monster Walks the Winter Lake

anyway i listened to the excerpts i could find of where do you go from here & maze of the phantom YT

the former is < 5 mins just drums, piano and guitar, guessing this doesn't give me a sense of the thing

maze is a more substantial excerpt and it is very, very nice, something like temperate zone exotica

A review of The Wizards Hour here...

the mountain step comes close to this

well that one instantly put a big, stoopid grin on my face

oh shit whoops wizards hour was 2009... why did i misread it as 2012 lol

well i guess i have to continue hoping he'll one day release that vaudeville park show so i can relive that memory

Great story about your mom sleeve. Songs of Morgan is going to be my study playlist for today

I keep repeating, it takes a beating
To grow up naked in the afternoon

Ivy, they put that group together just to do the Vaudeville Park shows, but it was filmed for an episode of ESP TV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_inwDsmNo

And yeah awesome story sleeve :)

Maze Of The Phantom was an outlier at first, even for Jandek, but I've grown to like it a lot. I'll always stan for the electric bass albums - The Gone Wait, Shadow Of Leaves.

Super-stoked to have tickets see the Rep & co. next week!

omg thank you for that video deflatormouse

You're welcome. I've collaborated with ESP TV on a couple of events, they are super nice & meticulous archivists of analog media. i'm sure they have a recording of the whole show(s), less sure it's been digitized. i could ask.

Living In A Moon So Blue (1982)

I love the cover of this one, returning to the debut's baffling real-world images after three self-portraits. The album is a collection of 16 miniatures that I recall nothing about off the top of my head. Kinda goes along with the cover I guess. Gonna give it a spin when this Tom Petty album is over.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/rkyp209zbzmqomx2wmwb7/h?rlkey=jw4p0elunppgb7n1locfwtosb&dl=0

Bludgeon (1/8)
Please do not push any buttons
On this machine
On what machine
Wet paint
Keep Out

no comments on this one? it does seem like a bit of a retread of earlier ideas...