Shred Room LI: Senpai Claus is Coming to Town - Progressive Rock Music Forum

smartpatrol wrote:

guys, I want to get into Jandek. List some your favorites and tell me about them k

My absolute favorite album of his is not streaming online anywhere, and it's a 4 CD live concert set so it takes some investment but it's just incredible. It's an electric power trio format, improvisational songs performed with two incredibly versatile and talented avant musicians on bass and drums. It's called "Brooklyn Wednesday" and I posted a review of it last year in the "Non Prog Album Reviews" thread in the General Music Discussion forum.

As for stuff you can readily hear online, here's a good cross section:

Blue Corpse (full album, early 80s) : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5ymNKvTpA4

One of his highly regarded acoustic blues albums. Relatively accessible and highly emotional, kind of his "break up album" if there is such a thing.

Chair Beside a Window (full album, early 80s): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2hVL4J1p0

Another fairly typical early album, this one's mostly acoustic but has a few electric tunes too. "Nancy Sings" has a girl named Nancy singing lead, and it's a haunting performance. Nancy might actually be the one he's all sore about breaking up with on the above album. No one knows. He's an enigma k.

Also, if you can find it, try to listen to "Ready for the House" (late 70s). It's his very first album and it sets the template and so as a "first" it's important to hear.

"You Painted Your Teeth" (song, mid 80s) -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZJs0gnOFgU after several years of mostly acoustic albums, he suddenly released a string of electric garage albums with a drummer (who doesn't really keep time or anything). This is one of the coolest and funniest songs by Jandek, a favorite of mine from the Telegraph Melts album.

Starting in 2005 he surprised what few fans he had by suddenly appearing performing (unannounced) at a concert festival in Scotland. Since then he tours around, usually playing electric (e.g. Brooklyn Wednesday, above) with local musicians in improvisational sets. There's a lot of clips on Youtube -- most of his concerts have been released on CD and/or DVD as well, through his Corwood label.

And lastly, here is the only definitive guide to Jandek's music I know -- it certainly has been my main reference material: http://tisue.net/jandek/

Edited by HolyMoly - July 31 2013 at 20:51

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