the of mirror eye

* Jandek: Naked In The Afternoon (7.5 mb) | First You Think Your Fortune’s Lonely (12.0 mb) | What Can I Say, What Can I Sing (7.5 mb)
From Ready For The House : Corwood Industries : Corwood 0739

I’m still reeling (slightly) from the cancellation of the Jandek show this past Thursday. I was even going to call off from work and everything. But then another hurricane came along and Jandek had to cancel. There is however, some solace in the fact that the show will be rescheduled. I just hope that it’ll be on a day that I can go.

So, I’m sure you’re wondering just who this Jandek fellow is. Well, unfortunately I don’t really know either. Here’s what I do know. He’s from Houston, TX and may or may not be a Mr. Sterling R. Smith. He has quietly released 42 albums so far, over a span of thirty years through the record label that he also runs, Corwood Industries. Until 2004, he never gave live performances and previous to that, only one person had managed to possibly track him down and interview him. Jandek (or a “representative from Corwood Industries”) finally gave his first live performance in Glasgow on Oct 17th, 2004 and has since performed a half dozen times.

But what does his music sound like? That’s a difficult question to answer. Jandek has his own, immediately recognizable sound, that is very hard to describe. It’s maybe like some sort of atonal blues using either acoustic or electric guitar and vocals. Everyone once in awhile there’re some other collaborators who help sing or play the drums, but this is pretty much a solo project.

And what does his music sound like? Like pure desolation. Jandek is not just solo but profoundly alone on most of his recordings, picking distractedly at a guitar tuned to no particular notes, moaning in no particular key about thinking and love and wandering around and staying in the same place and God. Beyond that, there’s just emptiness — each off-key ping floats out separately into black space. Sometimes Jandek sounds as if he’d internalized the grimmest death-letter blues of the ’20s and is pulling them back out of himself, thoroughly dismembered, hair by hair. His songs have no choruses, no hooks, no melodies, no rhythms, no internal progression, nothing but the inexorable Chinese-water-torture plod of Samuel Beckett’s The Unnameable: “I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

(from Mystery Man)

These tracks are from his debut album. Released in 1978, it’s interesting to note that even at this point in time, his incredibly singular musical vision is large and in charge. Well, if you’re interested in learning more about this fellow, definitely check out the definitive A Guide To Jandek by Seth Tisue. Also quite essential is the documentary, Jandek On Corwood.

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So, I woke up this morning to find a bird in my bedroom. Well, actually, the bird woke me up because it kept flying into the window trying to get out of my room (which, now that I think about it, is actually what Jandek kind of sounds like). What makes this so strange is that I can’t figure out how the bird got in. My door was closed, my windows were closed and there’s no holes in the walls/ceilings/floors that I can see. It’s just totally bizarre.