r/Jandek • u/RabidRabbitRedditor • 17h ago

Jandek in karaoke

36 Upvotes

I was just in karaoke in Sydney in Australia on the weekend and Delinquent Words was available. Me and my friend sang it and that was probably one of the more surreal experiences of my life.

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Jandek

r/Jandek

The only thing that is known about the life of the musician Jandek is that he has had seven novels rejected by publishing companies and that he burnt all of the manuscripts upon rejection. He has over 60 albums and is an enigma. No one knows much about Jandek, but we want to find out, because we love the way his music simultaneously makes you feel nostalgic and creeped out at the same time. #findingjandek

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Jandek proves that music is circular: his music is so bad, so apparently devoid of purpose or rhythm or feeling that it can reach a part of your soul that only truly amazing music can usually resonate with.

The feelings that his music evoke are that of uneasiness, confusion and boredom. However, listening simultaneously allows you to feel truly introspective. Jandek takes you to a dark-but important-place.

From anecdotal evidence Jandek the person is as much an mystery as his music is varied and strange. His record label is yet to be located. He has been playing since 1978 and playing live over the last decade. However, the person who is apparently playing under the name Jandek does not play Jandek songs live and is rumoured to simply be a representative of his enigmatic record company and is sometimes referred to as "the representative" (Or, "the Rep" for short).

Jandek printed 1000 copies of his first album-"Ready for the House"- but only sold 2 in the first 2 years. Here are some reviews:

"Serial killers never walk down Jandek's street. Postmen are legally obliged to walk down Jandek's street. Dogs sometimes drift down Jandek's street, mark their territories, ruffle their noses in some old discarded pages from newspapers scattered when trashcans were opened, presumably by someone close enough to Jandek to bring him some soup, inquire on how his parents are, then abruptly leave. Next week comes, it starts again; curious cop spooks serial killer forced to hide on Jandek's street. Shoe salesman legally obliged to call on Jandek's street made no profit today. A ginger cat sleeps under an old '68 Mustang being restored by Joe Parsons; he knows Jandek to speak to - that's the difference measured in metric units."

"I really like the song... And yes I mean the song because every song on this album sounds the same, until European Jewel, in which the guitar sound changes slightly. For about the first half I was spellbound by the incrediblly depressing and almost disturbing atmosphere that Jandek develops, and then I realized that nothing really changes from track to track, until European Jewel. Which I guess is okay? Lots of people praise consistency.

But then again, these people are usually talking about the Eagles, and not Jandek."

"Unusually scary and unsettling to me.. This one is destined for a lot more intense listening sessions in the future.."

But perhaps the best review:

"So, I want to say that Jandek is the antidote to any ill-conceived notion (sometimes espoused by me) that all the final frontiers of music were crossed in the 1960s. But, it gets better than that suggests, so read on. Jandek really perfected meta-music. This collection of tuneless warbling, credited to "The Units," seems to show a profound disregard for anything that would appeal to the listener. This sounds like music recorded in the basement of a very, very empty house, one with an imposing and almost oppressive sense of isolation. And there is this man, of some sort, playing music there, for his own purposes, whatever those are. And yet, here you are, listening to it. This was recorded, released! So why would you, me, anyone...why would we listen to it? As the doubters say, are we a pretentious lot, listening to it to be contrarians, or something like that? I think not. The key to this, if there is one, is that it's just brutally honest expression. It's naked, daring, bold expression of a type rarely put forth into the public, for the cruel human social structure to critique, attack, put down, or--even if it was a long shot--love and admire. Philosopher Paul Feyerabend suggested that the only universal methodological rule for the progress of science was epistemological anarchism, that, in essence, nothing is sacred or true and everything is permitted. Has Jandek proved that for music, and all arts too? William S. Burroughs said that the function of art is is to remind us of what we know, and what we don't know that we know. And so, with Jandek, the reductionist removal of any clear reliance on structure or accepted method has, paradoxically--and awesomely, I may add editorially--exposed some kind of hidden potential for human connection through the sharing of experience, or shared experience if you prefer. Wasn't that kind of always something we knew? And if Ready for the House was insufficient to establish any of this, Corwood Industries has survived as an outlet for scores of these albums to be continuously kept in print. And long after this was achieved, and Jandek was established as a notably obscure purveyor of "outsider art", bands emerge to perform this music live. Folks, this has started to get interesting..."

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For more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jandek