[Jandek] Malachi & Gerard

[Seth Tisue]

I'd like to note the passing of two friends, both of whom killed
themselves in the last month.

One is Malachi Ritscher, who recorded the recent Jandek show in Chicago.
He also took over my long-running Chicago experimental/improvised music
concert calendar from me when I set it down in 2002.  His death has
received some publicity on the net (and here and there in the
newspapers).  The best piece I've seen is this one:

  http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/39663/Malachi_Ritscher_19542006

His obituary and mission statement are worth reading in full.  They are
linked from:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malachi_Ritscher

Something to think about for us loners and obsessive music fans, whether
you knew him or not.

The other is Gerard Klauder, who I met when we were both volunteering at
WHPK.  I always considered him one of my closest friends even though we
never lived in the same city so we never got to spend as much time
together as I would have liked.  His feedback and enthusiasm was very
important to me early on when I was doing the initial work on the Jandek
site, before it was even a web site and I was just assembling info.
Several of the first transcriptions of the lyrics to the early albums
were his.  Tom Smith of To Live and Shave in LA has posted some photos
and remembrances of Gerard at:

  http://toliveandshaveinla.blogspot.com/2006/10/blog-post.html
  http://toliveandshaveinla.blogspot.com/2006/10/gks-demented-art-part-one.html
  http://toliveandshaveinla.blogspot.com/2006/10/ugh.html

Another bandmate, Rat Bastard, is creating an archive of Gerard's music at:

  http://squelchers.net/GK/GK.htm

Near the top are Gerard's notorious Jandek dance remixes.  (The guy had
a deliciously sick sense of humor...)

Releases on Gerard's label, The Smack Shire, are still available from
distributors.  This one in particular, by the Reverend Lester Knox,
should be much better known to fans of "outsider" music:

  http://smackshire.com/sale/1002.htm

Track 4, "This World Is Not My Home", is one of the most beautifully
cracked things I've ever heard.  This world is not my home, I'm only
passing by...

-- 
Seth Tisue | http://tisue.net