NOT HUNTING FOR MEANING: a Jandek listening thread

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?

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...