(TV) (OT) Attn. All You Jandek Fans (esp. Maurice)

["Leo Casey" <LeoCasey@comcast.net>]

I can't post an operable weblink because its from the Boston Globe.  

Below is a review, written by our own Ty Burr, of a new Documentary on
Jandek. 

 


 


JANDEK DOCUMENTARY BUILDS ON A MYSTERY


Author    Ty Burr, Globe Staff Date: September 10, 2004 Section: Living 

 

Like an old vinyl record, there's a hole at the center of "Jandek on
Corwood," and it's the subject 

f the movie himself. The spooky fringe musician who calls himself Jandek is
an outsider, even by 

the forgiving standards of outsider art. His name and whereabouts are
unknown. The only photos 

of him are blurry and dated. He avoids press inquiries. All we have is his
music: since 1978, 37 

albums of atonal, whispery death blues, described by one listener as
sounding like "something 

frightening left on your answering machine" and distributed by a mysterious
entity called Corwood 

Industries, based in Houston. 

 

"Questions, etc., can't be arranged. Anything else, just ask," Jandek wrote
to a journalist who 

attempted to contact him. Chad Freidrichs's documentary takes that
accidental koan and runs 

with it: The film's a puckish, if overlong, essay on the hipness of enigma.
Since the singer remains 

unreachable, Freidrichs rounded up a jury of critics, used-record-store
owners, and knowledgeable 

ans. Rarely have so many pale guys with glasses and black T-shirts been in
one film. The consensus 

is that Jandek - whoever he may be - is a borderline freak show whose
consistency and tenacity entitles 

him to respect. "There's a man in a room," says DJ Brooks Martin by way of
describing the Jandek sound. 

"He's got a guitar and he knows a few chords. He's a melancholy sort, and he
picks up the guitar, sort of 

ree associates for a couple of minutes, then he stops. And then he does it
again. And then he does it over 

20 or so albums." 

 

The appearance in 1982 of a song called "Nancy Sings," featuring the voice
of a woman named - oh, let's 

say, Nancy - was welcomed as a sign that Jandek actually knew someone.
Backup musicians soon 

followed, but the most recent albums have returned to basics: vaguely
strummed guitar in private tunings, 

song titles like "I Threw You Away" and "Worthless Recluse," the sound of a
man facing a wall at 3 in the 

morning. There has been one confirmed sighting. In 1999, journalist Katy
Vine tracked down and spent an 

evening drinking beer with a solemn, nattily dressed man in his late 30s who
avoided talking about music. 

Writer John Trubee recorded a phone interview in 1985, and Freidrichs lets
this tape roll at the end of the film. 

The pleasant baritone voice gives nothing away; the yawning silences before
Jandek answers questions speak 

much louder. The director dances around the emptiness at the middle of his
movie as best he can, filming

desolate nature footage and found objects while the songs flutter and groan
on the soundtrack. "Jandek on 

Corwood" is terribly padded nevertheless, and eventually even the fans have
to admit they might like Jandek 

less if they knew any more about him - that his mystique is as important as
his defiantly uneasy music. 

"You may not get all the answers you want," wrote the artist, rebuffing yet
another journalist. "It's better that way." 

Whatever you think of Jandek's art, he's clearly a marketing genius.
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