[Jandek] Grinnell Saturday

[meddle]

Not a word about Grinnell Saturday yet ...?

My friend Ray and I travelled from Kansas for the show.  The
recital hall quickly filled up to near capacity with lots of kids,
presumably students.  Judging from the conversations around
us that we overheard, many were music students and many
were new to Jandek.  We feared a less than reverent crowd
but were pleasantly surprised by an audience as reverent as
any of the other Jandek shows we've been to.  The show was
recorded with 4 hand held cameras ...

The Rep played a grand piano and 3 women played double
bass, violin and oboe respectfully.  Two were quite young so
we suspect that they were students, if not all three.  The set
was instrumental and comprised of 5 pieces, 15-20 minutes
apiece, from 7:45 to 9:30.  The first two and final two pieces
were rather subdued with the Rep playing somewhat random
(without sounding entirely random) notes, "scales" and little
patterns.  The ladies improvised throughout in the spirit of a
Jandek band, constantly changing up what they were playing,
mixing classically minded flourishes with avantgarde ones.
The middle piece was the lengthiest and very active with The
Rep rapidly playing scales, sliding his finger up and down and
occasionally rolling the back of his right hand over the keys.
This was our first instrumental show and it left us with a slight
"something's missing" feeling but contented nonetheless ...

The next day Ray and I were in the East Village area of
downtown Des Moines (45 miles west of Grinnell).  We were
in a coffee shop when The Rep strolled in, ordered a cup of
something, removed his hat and sunglasses and sat down a
few feet from us.  He drank, flipped through a freebie local
newspaper and people watched for 20 minutes or so, often
tapping his hand or foot to some rhythm in his head.  Then
he donned the hat and glasses and walked out the door and
disappeared into the mass of people partaking in the World
Food Festival that day ...


Mark