[Jandek] Brooklyn shows

[Seth Tisue]

The performance space was old silo next to a 19th century bridge over
a sluggish canal. The silo had been remodeled to have two floors and
the performances were upstairs. All 100 or so of us sat huddled
together on the wooden floor inside the round concrete wall. Only a
line of white tape on the floor separated us from the area where the
instruments were set up, so the front row of people were sitting right
at the musicians' feet.

The audience entered from an exterior stairway. I thought that's how the
band would enter also, but instead the helpers at the venue cleared a
space in the audience and pulled a rug aside, revealing a trap door
which they lifted and the musicians emerged like vampires from a crypt.

Each show lasted about 75 minutes.

For the first show, Jandek sang and played a black solid body electric
guitar, backed by Matt Heyner on electric bass and Chris Corsano on
drumkit.

For the second show, Heyner switched to double bass.  Jandek switched
to an unusual guitar of a kind I haven't seen before, a hollow body
fretless acoustic/electric guitar with a blond wood face. I think it was
a Godin Multiac Nylon Fretless SA; can anyone confirm?

Before each show, Barry Esson announced that the additional shows had
been scheduled because of the cancellation in New Orleans. In
reference to the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, he said that "some of the
material tonight is in tribute to that" (first show) and "the emotion
behind this event is in tribute to New Orleans" (second show).

Both sets of lyrics were varied collections, not a tightly linked suite
(like "The Cell" in Glasgow) or a loosely linked suite (like the
previous night in Manhattan). One song explicitly mentioned New Orleans,
and some others were about it as well -- how many exactly depends on the
listener's interpretation. One song paired some of the most storming
music of the night with the nearly shouted refrain "He doesn't care at
all" -- I hope this was a reference to our current president.

I'm off to the airport now; I'll post more later including some lyrics.

-- 
Seth Tisue - seth at tisue.net - http://tisue.net