Ahhh, there’s no other morning music like Jandek. Beats the desolation of Nick Drake’s Pink Moon, if played at 11 am, anytime anywhere. Why? Because it’s only Tuesday and I’m having one of those ‘everything falls apart’ weeks already. At least nothing personal is unraveling, but the job is going all wrong (as it will), I’ve got neighbors who decided to smash their furniture late last night, and yesterday some poor adolescent soul was screaming worldlessly, for 20 minutes, in front of the NY State Family Court building. Stuff like that can make you see&feel them modern ghosts.
On a minor scale, MTV pissed me off last night by even trying to seem informed about SXSW, with some dummy citing two completely unheard-of bands, obvious major-label paper tigers, as the hotness to watch. I can’t even remember their names. No mention of even the zeitgeist-huggers I love to hate right now (The Knife, Tapes N Tapes, etc).
Not that I’m really complaining. Life is good if you don’t see your living room the way Jandek does. Short background: Until he played a handful of live dates recently, Jandek, aka Sterling Richard Smith, was considered a possible hoax, with very few photos known to exist despite his release of 30+ records since the late seventies.
This stuff means self murder if you listen to it for too long. But Sonic Youth admittedly steals their career from Jandek, as far as purposely unconventional tunings and dead-voiced singing. This track is from his 1978 ‘debut,’ entitled Ready for the House.
Stop Loving Everything 