NOT HUNTING FOR MEANING: a Jandek listening thread

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"