[Jandek] LP era

[Danen D. Jobe]

> I don't know about that thing with "Pat"- couldn't it also be a 
> totally different woman?

That seems to make sense - after all, the songs with the second female voice are recorded at a session that appears to come much later. But Seth has an interesting theory.

> 
> Seth Tisue <seth at tisue.net> wrote:  
> * Female singers:
> 
> In his review of Somebody on the Snow (Corwood 0757, 1990) Aaron
> Goldberg wrote, "I reckon it's Nancy recorded at a later period in
> time." I think there's also been some skepticism on-list about there
> being two different woman singers, so I listened to that record again
> today (along with some Nancy stuff), and I'm still convinced it's not
> Nancy. Listen to the first three songs. Compared to Nancy, the singer
> has trouble sustaining notes very long or holding a steady pitch, and
> her voice is thinner. Nancy's brassy and self-assured; this 
> singer's a
> bit hesitant. By way of comparison, play "Some of Your Peace" (from
> Foreign Keys, Corwood 0749, 1985). At 2:14 Nancy sustains the word
> "glad" for 18 seconds (!) and stays on-pitch too.
> 
> Admittedly the two singers sound similar, but there's a simple
> explanation for that: they're sisters. It's Nancy's sister Pat. While
> there's no song called "Pat Sings", Irwin Chusid's book quotes a 
> letterfrom Corwood:
> 
> The cut "No Break" on side 2 features her sister Pat [last name
> withheld] on vocals, myself on elec guitar and Nancy in a very
> unaggressive drum stint.
> 
> "No Break" is on Chair Beside a Window (Corwood 0742, 1982) -- it's 
> thenext cut after "Nancy Sings", so we were introduced to both 
> sisters at
> the same time. The letter doesn't actually confirm that it's Pat again
> on Somebody in the Snow, but my ears say it is.
> 
> * Overdubbing:
> 
> The letter also says:
> 
> Also cuts on entire sides of myself overdubbing base, 6 string, vocals
> and drums all performed by myself...
> 
> So there are at least some overdubbed one-man-band performances.
> Perhaps on The Rocks Crumble (Corwood 0783, 1983)? Maybe he's 
> referringinstead, or referring also, to side 2 of Somebody in the 
> Snow. Listen
> to "Remind You". It has the rep doing two separate vocals, one in the
> left channel, one in the right! They even overlap in one place. So
> there's no question that's overdubbed. The whole album side sounds 
> likeone session and it sounds overdubbed.
> 
> * Drums:
> 
> We've talked a lot about vocalists and guitarists, but haven't talked
> much about trying to distinguish the different drummers. If side 2 of
> Somebody in the Snow is all the rep overdubbed, then he's probably the
> drummer, and some close listening (that I haven't done yet) might help
> us learn to distinguish John-plays-drums from Sterling-plays-drums.
> 
> I think we tend to forget that there are different drummers on the 
> LP'sand the rep is one of them, as the Chusid letter confirms, and 
> as the
> rep's Instal 2005 appearance at the drumkit reminded us. Also, if you
> listen to some of the later electric records, on some songs Eddie is
> both singing and doing all the guitar playing, for example on "I'll 
> SitAlone and Think a Lot About You" (from On the Way, Corwood 0755, 
> 1988).If the rep is playing anything on those tracks, he's playing 
> drums.
> * Electric guitar:
> 
> Watching the representative on stage and listening to the live albums,
> it's sometimes a little hard to imagine, to really feel, that it's the
> same man who recorded Ready for the House. I got that uncanny feeling
> at the hatless Glasgow Monday piano show, but at the others, not as
> much. But over the past few days, I've been listening to the early
> electric records, most of them for the first time since 2003 or so, 
> andI found it thrilling to listen to the electric guitar playing on
> Interstellar Discussion (Corwood 0747, 1984), for example, and hear 
> justhow close it is, how palpably the same musician, as the one 
> we've heard
> live recently. You don't feel it as vividly on Glasgow Sunday and
> Newcastle Sunday because of all the effects on the guitar on those 
> earlyshows, and because the playing was a bit restrained. But 
> listen to some
> of the instrumental sections of some later cuts on Austin Sunday where
> the rep cuts loose on guitar... or better yet, listen to Brooklyn
> Wednesday when it comes out, or the recording from Manhattan this 
> Marchwhen that comes out, and the sense of connection across the 
> decades is
> really vivid. (If the Brooklyn recording comes out anything like I
> remember the concert, it's going to be a knockout.)
> 
> *
> 
> Anyway, I think we've been over some of this before, but I hadn't
> updated the site to include it, so unless you've been on the mailing
> list for years, you might have missed it. I've added much of the above
> to the site now.
> 
> -- 
> Seth Tisue | http://tisue.net
> 
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