____twoism

I don't know about weird but very unique and absolutely beautifully produced

jcnporter wrote:

WeHadNormality wrote:

jcnporter wrote:Can't believe I forgot about Jandek.

Me too! He's a REALLY intriguing character. Have you seen the Jandek On Corwood doc? So fascinating. My friend named his book "Ghost Town Music" after a description of Jandek's music.

I haven't seen it yet, must check it out.
For me, the thing about Jandek isn't the music, but as you say, the intrigue.
A bloke releases 40-odd albums of essentially unlistenable music over 25 or so years to practically zero audience, no attempt at publicity, the only clue to who he is being a post office box....it's a great story isn't it? It fascinates me on all sorts of levels - his dedication, motivation, I love his aesthetic, the album covers.... I guess it's all worked in some strange way as he's now a cult hero of sorts.

Yeah, the myth of Jandek is a huge part of it but personally I wouldn't say his music is unlistenable. I listen to Jandek quite a lot tbh. It's not the easiest of listens but a lot of good music isn't. I think the atmosphere of his recordings coupled with the aesthetic/the myth is a really fucking powerful and rare thing. I'd love to catch him live but only find out about gigs after they've happened. Kinda frustrating but it only adds to the intrigue for me.

The Jandek On Corwood doc was up on Vimeo for a while but it looks like it's been taken down now. If you have trouble finding it PM me and i'll see what I can do.

Amo Bishop Roden wrote:Les Rallizes Denudes! Japanese political noise-psych band from the sixties. The bassist left the band to hijack an airplane!

Good call. Heavier Than A Death In The Family is immense. I've got to thank Julian Cope for turning me onto these guys in his Japrocksampler book. Turning up at schools with 30ft high speaker stacks blasting wig out noise and handing out communist propaganda leaflets is pretty amazing.

WeHadNormality wrote:

Amo Bishop Roden wrote:Les Rallizes Denudes! Japanese political noise-psych band from the sixties. The bassist left the band to hijack an airplane!

Good call. Heavier Than A Death In The Family is immense. I've got to thank Julian Cope for turning me onto these guys in his Japrocksampler book. Turning up at schools with 30ft high speaker stacks blasting wig out noise and handing out communist propaganda leaflets is pretty amazing.

Exactly! They are seriously 100% undiluted rock and roll. And people think "Kiss" deserves that title...

WeHadNormality wrote:

jcnporter wrote:

WeHadNormality wrote: Me too! He's a REALLY intriguing character. Have you seen the Jandek On Corwood doc? So fascinating. My friend named his book "Ghost Town Music" after a description of Jandek's music.

I haven't seen it yet, must check it out.
For me, the thing about Jandek isn't the music, but as you say, the intrigue.
A bloke releases 40-odd albums of essentially unlistenable music over 25 or so years to practically zero audience, no attempt at publicity, the only clue to who he is being a post office box....it's a great story isn't it? It fascinates me on all sorts of levels - his dedication, motivation, I love his aesthetic, the album covers.... I guess it's all worked in some strange way as he's now a cult hero of sorts.

Yeah, the myth of Jandek is a huge part of it but personally I wouldn't say his music is unlistenable. I listen to Jandek quite a lot tbh. It's not the easiest of listens but a lot of good music isn't. I think the atmosphere of his recordings coupled with the aesthetic/the myth is a really fucking powerful and rare thing. I'd love to catch him live but only find out about gigs after they've happened. Kinda frustrating but it only adds to the intrigue for me.

The Jandek On Corwood doc was up on Vimeo for a while but it looks like it's been taken down now. If you have trouble finding it PM me and i'll see what I can do.

I suppose I wouldn't say totally unlistenable, although I haven't been able to sit through an entire listen of either of the Jandek albums I have - I tend to listen in small doses when I do.
Unbelievably Jandek did his first ever 'tour' in Northern Ireland (where I live) in 2009. To be honest it was such an unlikely event that it completely passed me by - pretty gutted when I found out later.
The fact that he opened the tour in the Olderfleet in Larne, a bizarre choice of bar in a complete backwater town (you probably need to be from here to appreciate just how strange this choice of venue was) and played to 14 people, most of which were probably just in for a quiet pint, just adds to his appeal.

There's even a couple of videos on youtube -

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 11.youtube.

I actually went and ordered the documentary as soon as you reminded me of it!...should be with me by the weekend.

Amo Bishop Roden wrote:

WeHadNormality wrote:

Amo Bishop Roden wrote:Les Rallizes Denudes! Japanese political noise-psych band from the sixties. The bassist left the band to hijack an airplane!

Good call. Heavier Than A Death In The Family is immense. I've got to thank Julian Cope for turning me onto these guys in his Japrocksampler book. Turning up at schools with 30ft high speaker stacks blasting wig out noise and handing out communist propaganda leaflets is pretty amazing.

Exactly! They are seriously 100% undiluted rock and roll. And people think "Kiss" deserves that title...

Reminds me of a magazine article I read years ago about Japanese noise rock, I'm guessing these guys must be one of their spiritual heirs -

Holy crap, I just remembered this one even though I used to listen to it all the time back in the day:

Q.R. Ghazala. He's an avant garde electronic composer who specializes in circuit bending, the art of taking consumer electronics (particularly children's toys) and messing about with the wiring until he can develop extremely strange new textures. He's got a website at http://www.anti-theory.com/ that sort of summarizes his work.

Right now I'm re-listening to his work "Threnody To The New Victims Of Hiroshima", which he claims to be inspired the strange harmonies to he found in the humming of large quantities of insects. It's essentially a Penderecki tribute consisting of elaborate cascades of modular synth drones. Came out in 1995.

If you liked Coil's Time Machines project, you'd probably like this stuff.

Real head fuck.

Just discovered that there was a two part interview (first and only) with Jandek in the February and March issues of The Wire.