Hey Mister Can You Tell Me

Is that a knife stuck in your face?

As promised, the following series of posts will be installments of a rather long essay I wrote in 2006 about the fans of ‘outsider’ folk-myth-hero Jandek, the pseudonym for a Houston-based gentleman who has been pumping out the jams via Corwood Industries since 1978. For a much better description of Jandek than I myself can proffer, refer to the following sites:

Seth Tisue's definitive, ‘Corwood-endorsed’ Jandek site
Ever-ready Wikipedia

I first came across Jandek through my then (and still current) obsession of 2005, Wilco. On ViaChicago, a gentleman posted a track that Jeff Tweedy recorded for the Jandek tribute album. I was so eager to hear a new track from Jeff that I didn’t think twice about who Jandek was. The recording, “Crack a Smile” – featuring Jeff’s then-nine year-old son on drums – was haunting, touching, and absolutely what I needed to hear at that moment. And anyone who knows anything about musical obsessions knows that hearing a song for the first time when it is exactly what you need to hear that moment is a sure way to never shake yourself of that song.

Months of listening to that track and I still hadn’t looked into who Jandek was. When he came up again on the Wilco boards, someone mentioned his music as totally inaccessible. I listened to “Crack a Smile” again, and could not understand how Jandek's original version of that recording could possibly be inaccessible. At that moment, it hit me – I needed Jandek, I needed all of it, and I needed all of it five minutes ago.

After scouring the internet and swallowing everything Jandek for weeks on end – but still not having heard one not of his own music, I received four albums for Christmas that year. After being utterly mystified by Ready for the House, specifically the first, track, “Naked in the Afternoon,” I wrote to Corwood and said I was interested in the music, would love to know more, and an contact would be appreciated but not necessary. I suppose I was kind of baiting the man, as I had heard all sorts of creepy, ‘eerie’ responses to correspondence. Sure enough, a few weeks later, a large bubble-packer arrived full of CDs with broken cases and the infamous brown muck. You can only imagine what this did for my budding obsession.

I ordered the remainder of the albums – at that point, 38 I believe – and wouldn’t you know? The day they arrived I was suffering from the first flu I’d had in years. I signed for the package with a major fever, went back to my room and fell into a deep sleep riddled with the kind of bizarre nightmares you can only have with a box of Jandek and a fever. I then endeavored to listen to all of the albums – and nothing else – until I had worked my way from the beginning to the end of the catalog (referred to in the industry as a ‘Jandekathalon’). Boy howdy, if that won’t change your disposition!

But I loved it. I had never thought that way before – never thought to think that way before. Everything I knew about music – what was ‘popular’ and what was ‘music,’ for that matter – had completely disintegrated. Jandek sounded like Helen Keller on guitar, wailing suicide notes, producing ghost-town music from a humidifier. Jandek was cooking up all kinds of crazy, but yet he was so normal about it.

And there you have it. I still write Corwood fairly regularly, mostly responding to new albums, live shows and the like. I flew to Chicago the fall after my Jandek fan ‘ethnography’ (undergraduate ethnographies require the quotations as qualifiers), recently saw him in Grinnell, Iowa, and will be heading out to Denver this spring for another show. I’ve adapted the essay to update it (a lot happens in his world, you see) and make it more blog-friendly, and I hope you enjoy the read.