Living In A Moon So Blue
Jandek album #5, Living In A Moon So Blue. Released in 1982.
The second of three albums released in one year, all vocals and acoustic guitar, with a little bit of harmonica. Sixteen short songs, with relatively short lyrics, except for "One Step Ahead", the first Jandek instrumental. Sounds like he started a song with full intention to start singing some lyrics he wrote, and then go so into banging on the strings near the bridge that he just fixated on that and kept going for two minutes. A lot of the lyrics are silly, nonsensical, and then he does something serious like "All In An Apple Orchard". Yet you can't deny the humor of a song with the lyrics "Please do not push any buttons/On this machine/On what machine/Wet paint /Keep Out". All done in a complete deadpan.
The more he gets into doing these, it sounds like he's got a feel for actually creating a cohesive album where the songs are actually distinguishable from each other, unlike the first couple albums. How this continues for 33 more albums is unbelievable, but I'm committed to listening to them all. This is music that defies description (yet I'm doing it right here, DUH - what does that say about me?). But once you get past the fact that the musical tones are nowhere near music as we are used to listening to it, these records are glimpses into Jandek's imagination, and how he perceives music. Putting on any other music allows you to accept the commonly familiar universe of the 12 tones in all of it's mathematical permutations and rhythmic predict-abilities, this music tears completely away from that in a universe so simple and distant, that upon first hearing it you can only perceive it as wrong and poorly done. Then once you get past that, you see something so completely different. No wonder there are so many records by this one guy. Who else is going to do this?
Monkey Call practice was Friday night. We're playing at the Creekside Tavern at 37040 Detroit Road in Avon Lake Saturday, November 20th. This is our last show of 2004, the year of the Monkey, so show up, dammit! Yes, we will be recording. For more info or directions call the Creekside at 440-934-4476.
The second of three albums released in one year, all vocals and acoustic guitar, with a little bit of harmonica. Sixteen short songs, with relatively short lyrics, except for "One Step Ahead", the first Jandek instrumental. Sounds like he started a song with full intention to start singing some lyrics he wrote, and then go so into banging on the strings near the bridge that he just fixated on that and kept going for two minutes. A lot of the lyrics are silly, nonsensical, and then he does something serious like "All In An Apple Orchard". Yet you can't deny the humor of a song with the lyrics "Please do not push any buttons/On this machine/On what machine/Wet paint /Keep Out". All done in a complete deadpan.
The more he gets into doing these, it sounds like he's got a feel for actually creating a cohesive album where the songs are actually distinguishable from each other, unlike the first couple albums. How this continues for 33 more albums is unbelievable, but I'm committed to listening to them all. This is music that defies description (yet I'm doing it right here, DUH - what does that say about me?). But once you get past the fact that the musical tones are nowhere near music as we are used to listening to it, these records are glimpses into Jandek's imagination, and how he perceives music. Putting on any other music allows you to accept the commonly familiar universe of the 12 tones in all of it's mathematical permutations and rhythmic predict-abilities, this music tears completely away from that in a universe so simple and distant, that upon first hearing it you can only perceive it as wrong and poorly done. Then once you get past that, you see something so completely different. No wonder there are so many records by this one guy. Who else is going to do this?
Monkey Call practice was Friday night. We're playing at the Creekside Tavern at 37040 Detroit Road in Avon Lake Saturday, November 20th. This is our last show of 2004, the year of the Monkey, so show up, dammit! Yes, we will be recording. For more info or directions call the Creekside at 440-934-4476.
posted by Bill @ 10:11 AM
1 Comments:
At 9:12 AM,
Joe Clifford Faust said…
I think you've hit on something here. After my son and I saw "Jandek on Corwood" in Cleveland, he asked why I liked listening to the man so much. My explanation was that it didn't sound like anything else out there, especially the homogenous mass that modern radio has become. It still didn't quite feel like a satisfactory explanation to me, but when you take Jandek out of the twelve tone universe like you proposed, it makes perfect sense. It's unique stuff. It has to be, because he's working outside all of the conventions that we've become used to.
Looking forward to your reports on the remaining albums.
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