[Jandek] Response to a journalist re: Jandek

[Seth Tisue]

this preview of yesterday's show:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/Desolation+deception/3616235/story.html

has a few fresh bits, including this: "Rumour has it after the Ottawa
performance and another in California, Jandek may go on hiatus, [Jesse
Stewart] says."

I'm quoted.  The writer asked:

1. What is there about Jandek that is so compelling?
2. Is it the music or the persona, or are the two inseparable?

my full response was:

Before there were Jandek concerts, there was no "persona".  There was
only the music and a few old photos on the album covers.  But even well
before the first concert in 2004, the early Jandek records had attracted
a wide international following.  Those records are loved by their
listeners with an intensity that's foreign to the way music is usually
produced and consumed.  And we know the music was the attraction,
because there wasn't anything else.

In the audience, our situation with respect to Jandek isn't that
unusual.  It's true we don't know very much about the Corwood rep, but
usually we don't know very much about the people who make the records we
listen to and write the books we read.  In Jandek's case we know only a
little less.  It's not important.

People have their own reasons for finding Jandek's music compelling.
The records are a lot different from the concerts, and the concerts are
a lot different from each other.

I think what's most compelling about the concerts is that each one is a
unique event.  He might not sing, but if he does, he brings new lyrics
that he'll never use again.  Nobody else does that.  He sometimes uses a
standard guitar-bass-drums lineup, but often the combination of
instruments at a concert is unique, like in Ottawa.  And the music is
almost wholly improvised, though it doesn't sound like "improvised
music".  Musically, lyrically, personally, each concert is a fresh leap
into the unknown.  There's no performer currently working that's so true
of.  The bravest man in music works for Corwood Industries.

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