Jandek

Home alone nursing allergies and thinking through a Benadryl buzz I’m listening to music by Jandek. Jandek has been putting albums out since 1978 and has released 28. They are put out by “Corwood Industries” and consist mainly of two to four minute songs. You acquire them by sending a letter to a PO Box in Houston. In my case, Chrissy gave me one of her duplicates.

A primer of sorts called Mystery Man: Jandek is available online. Here’s a clip:

All his albums have a fuzzy photograph on the front cover, of a man or part of a house or some curtains. The back covers have his name, the album title, the track titles and times, and Corwood’s address, all typeset in the same nondescript font – except for 1991’s One Foot in the North, which uses a sort of Chinese-restaurant font. That’s it: that’s all anyone knows.

The CD I have, “Glad to Get Away”, is filled with his off key but expressive singing and out of tune guitar playing. I find the mystery is more compelling than the music to be honest. It’s not bad music, just really weird. Especially when you are aware of the context (or lack thereof) surrounding it. How someone finds the energy to do this for 24 years fascinates me. Despite a reclusiveness that rivals Greta Garbo or JD Salinger folks like Kurt Cobain name-dropped Jandek and Spin magazine named him one of the ten most interesting musicians of the late eighties.