Crazy Jandek Sundays (a promise...)

September is ROCK !!!


I heard this some time ago. I thought it was 2 weeks ago or something... This stuck in my head like a small cancer in me that scratches me and want to eat me alive as long as i can't see it or feel it.
So today is monday, a not so HAPPY MONDAY indeed... If i felt more suicidal than i usually do i could post an ABBA record, or even BETTER something from U2 so you can kiss goodbuy to this blog for good...


One thing is certain, that September is not ROCK, September is still hot and September is just shit by the facts...If i have to make one month rock this will be.... October for no reason just the fact that October is the most Anti-September month... Even more than November or any other month. In other words so close but so far away (and that's a laugh... not a good one)


I will not rest 'till the gray and naughty weather comes again so i can feel properly depressed and continue my Crazy Jandek Sundays at Brother Ray Says (tm) Loads of Laughs now please!


Finally if you are like me and you only read the last pages of a newspaper (the horoscope) you can see for your self (whatever is your zodiac sign) that September is NOT rock at all...

Jandek - You Walk Alone (1988)

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A celebratory exorcism... His most hard-rockin’, conventional record... The progression of the guitar playing is astounding... It recalls the savage beauty of Mr. Howling Wolf... A masterpiece.

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Jandek - Blue Corpse (1987)

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This newer album contains more folk sounds and less of the dissonance Jandek is so well known for... Jandek’s angst-ridden vocals... filled with trials and tribulations...

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Jandek - Modern Dances (1987)

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This album showcases two sides to Jandek — the comedically emphatic avant-blues from the “Jandek band” (with vocal appearances from the woman known as Nancy and the intrusion of percussive splutter which may be indicative of a third party) and the solitary arrangements for Jandek and his guitar. The former is a deliberate slop of off-kilter blues progressions, the aforementioned arrhythmic drums, and oblique duets between Jandek and Nancy... If Pussy Galore took themselves seriously instead of jokingly posturing through ill-tempered blues, it might have sounded something like this side of Jandek. The latter is what most people think of Jandek — open chords aimlessly plucked and strummed while his fragile voice cracks in the construction of a painfully sad mood.

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Jandek - Follow Your Footsteps (1986)

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The most song-oriented Jandek yet, with genuine rhythms & strums, percussion so minimal as to be near nonexistent, a rare second guitar or vocals. Sorta like Phil Spector’s worst nightmare.

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Jandek - Telegraph Melts (1986)

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i'm pretty sure it's sunday.

Jandek lives next door to someone far away, someplace where ‘music’ is an expression of emotion and not a packaged entertainment; made for self, rather than for an audience... There’s some sorta feeling trapped in the sound that I like to bask in.

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Jandek - Foreign Keys (1985)

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More singing from Nancy and beautiful atmosphere permeates all over the place...

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Jandek - Nine - Thirty (1985)

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After the raucous squalor of Interstellar Discussion, [this] is certainly his come-down record. It’s always difficult to tell how much of the Jandek oeuvre is the result of a psychological problem and how much is consciously constructed aesthetics. So in saying that this is a come-down record could be the result of either or both. Jandek’s voice is hushed, his guitar plucks quieter, and the drums untouched.

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Jandek - Interstellar Discussion (1984)

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Jandek sounds like he’s locked in a cellar with some musical instruments and he’s pissed off about it... There’s ‘drums’ of a sort, though a bit like Mo Tucker, they don’t so much keep the beat as corral it into a corner and whack it over the head with a lead pipe; it’s a bored three year old with a wooden spoon and a tumble dryer. His [guitar] playing — even over all these years — stubbornly refuses to improve... every so often, you need to be reminded of the depths of the human psyche, and listening to this racket affirms that.

how to buy

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Jandek - Living in a Moon So Blue (1982)

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This is where Jandek's stuff gets really ‘difficult’ and damaged... Lots of pissed-off down strokes, tracks that build into blister-inducing dirges and just some seriously fucked up mess all around.

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Jandek - Chair Beside a Window (1982)

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The album kicks off with another classic haunted track... in which you can hear some weird almost freeform electronic tape hiss (?!) and Jandek's foot stomp, that also seems to have been accidentally fractalized into something greater than its parts by shitty technology. Then everything fucking EXPLODES and IMPLODES in Dylan-Live-1966-bootleg-proportions on "European Jewel", featuring the funniest Rick Danko-meets-Mingus bass impersonation ever put onto tape! Jandek's guitar playing is getting choppier and more manic on this record until the freak-folk classic "Nancy Sings" comes out of fucking nowhere for no reason causing time to momentarily stop — amazing what a woman's touch can do! The rest of the album noodles around aimlessly for a bit, but is no less ‘exploratory’, with some nice, frustrated steel-string buzz/drone on trax like "Blue Blister" (speaks for itself really). It's interesting to note that despite the record being the most 'fractured' of his albums so far, Jandek's tapping foot is heard on nearly all tracks, proving there is some method to the meshigarse!

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Jandek - Six and Six (1981)

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It is a sweltering afternoon in Texas. In a tiny bedroom, all windows curtained against the sun, sits a man, or a boy. He is plain, blond-haired, looks like an extra from a B Sci-Fi thriller. He holds a Sears guitar he was given as a child. The guitar has never been tuned — it may only have five strings. It is connected to a cheap amp. He plucks the strings, sometimes together, sometimes singly, and sings into an old cheap microphone. With a Dylan-like inflection, he pours the lyrics from his soul while plucking the guitar... The recording is made on an old Wollensak reel-to-reel with broken meters and no volume knob. He records 12 songs and presses them into a record... it is so deeply personal as to be profound.

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Jandek - Ready for the House (1978)

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Jandek is one of the most interesting and mysterious acts in the history of outsider music. his musical activity spans over 30 years, during which he released over 50 albums, covering a vast amount of genres and styles, but still maintaining a very recognizable "blues" attitude. this unofficial jandek site has a long and interesting biography about "the man from corwood", which i suggest you to check out even if you're not interested in his music. (there's also a good documentary film, called jandek from corwood, which you can find on dvd on amazon i think).

"How to describe the Jandek experience? Well, first of all, it doesn't exactly fill you with 'joi de vivre'. In fact, Kurt Cobain was a fan, and I would not be surprised if Jandek was the thing that pushed him over the edge. But that's fine, really, sometimes you really do need to hear something depressing. And I like to play Ready for the House just as the light is fading on the day: as it creepily gets darker, Jandek is the perfect accompaniment for making you feel that, yep, life really isn't worth living. It's not necessarily what he says, it's the way he says it."

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