According to Pitchfork, Jackpot Records is gearing up for a series of reissues, among them Jandek's debut LP, Ready for the House.
In contrast with their compact-disc cousins - expanded, polished and remastered in such a way as to make every album seem like the defining moment of an artist's career - vinyl reissues are simply a repressing of a record that has gone out of print. All that really changes with the vinyl reissue is the label - but isn't that everything? Reissues (not to be confused with repressings, another run on the same label), then, are nothing more than a reproduction of an original work.
The CD reissue, so long it bears the steroidal infusion of bonus materials, is an entirely separate product from the original. You can have both - heck, you can even have the album on vinyl - and possess distinctly separate products. Likewise, a vinyl reissue of a vinyl record is a distinctly separate product from the original pressing.
I'd like to think I'm not a Jandek elitist - for starters, I don't even know how I would define being a Jandek elitist. Nonetheless, there is definitely an aire of inauthenticity about Corwood reissued via Jackpot Records. Undoubtedly, one of the most definitive characterists of Jandek is the idea that Jandek is tied to Corwood, and Corwood to Jandek.
A reissue of a record this rare (often going for more than $300 on eBay, if you're lucky to find one), is like a poster of a painting. Pardon my hyperbole, but though it will look the same and sound the same, it still won't be the 'real' thing.
That being said, Corwood has made it very clear over the years that nothing happens without their stamp of approval, and I don't doubt any deviation from this policy for Corwood reissues via Jackpot. Part of me wants to think that the Corwood approval makes the reissue authentic, but the fact that it wouldn't be distributed via Corwood (purely speculation here, but probably accurate) just doesn't seem right to me.
Will I buy it? You bet. I'm eager to see whether it will contain the original recording from the LP or one of the 'remastered' versions Corwood has crafted over the years.
Will I still try for an original on eBay? You bet. And maybe I am a Jandek elitist after all.
Also, The Myth of The Blue Icicles was 'released' this Saturday. Check it out!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
According to Jackpot, the reissues are made from Corwood's original pressings of the material, and not from remastered versions. Supposedly, the Rep himself supervised the repressings, and, as I'm sure you've seen by now, the new vinyl still carries the Corwood stamp one would expect.
I bought the reissue of Six and Six recently, and it sounds perfect. However, I retain two concerns about these repressings:
1. You can't order them directly from Corwood, as you can any of the CD versions of his albums, which seems like a marketing misstep to me. Sure, sell them with Jackpot's usual distribution vigor, but at least make them available through the same channels Jandek fans have always used. Right?
2. So far, Jackpot has only reissued the first two records. Are they really going to invest the time and money to reissue the rest of the catalogue? What about the albums that only came out on compact disc? What about all the awful spoken-word albums that are sure to sell three copies each? It's always going to seem, to me, a little half-hearted, and I wonder if Corwood's licensing out its name to a separate distributor will be worth the punch in the reputation.
Post a Comment