Wednesday 5 April 2023

Jandek – "Manhattan Thursday" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0855) 2022


Another recording from 2009? Sterling and downtown scratch band sound like no-one knows how to play any instrument, and they're playing four different tunes at the same time but in different time signatures......That's Jandek in Manhattan,a place where nobody is allowed to say that Jandek is Shit. It's a challenge for the Downtown NYC muso's to improvise with someone who has not the slightest clue or interest in conventional tunings,musical notes, or technique.The downtown elite would give their eye-teeth to be this close to the year zero of music without their muse,the Corwood representative.
There are some awful moments when the Saxophonist begins to sound like a Blue Note session player from 1959,but thankfully this is brief. If you wanna listen to some self-identifying sophisticate's standard Jazz boredom, then go and worship the Bird in your own privacy.
We do get treated to more of Jandek's improv sixth form poetry,which makes up for the crowd pleasing moody be-bop somewhat.....I can almost see audience members nodding their heads,eyes closed digging the poetry like a beatnik coming out of a vegetative state. Coooool.
It also appears that Jandek don't do encores, even to persistent trendies applauding post-ironically to tempt the ghostly face of the representative back into the limelight.Even the sarcastic screams of a very misguided lower Manhattan hipsterette could not,and correctly Not, move the Rep to cede to the audience's fake demands.....coooooler.
 
Tracklist:

1-1 Taken Out The Numbers 11:01
1-2 Where I Find You 14:47
1-3 Crossroads Of Life 15:11
1-4 Your Little Sister 12:11
2-1 What Really Matters 9:36
2-2 Outside The Way 12:08
2-3 Mystic In The Nothingness 24:10

5 comments:

  1. Again, thank you very much. Of course, I haven't listened to it yet. So much Jandek, so little time.

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  2. Not so much Jandek after all... are we all Jandek?

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  3. No I'm Jandek....I'm Jandek.....I'M JANDEK!!!!....a redubbed scene from Spartacus for the new Jandek movie,Kevin Bacon as the representative.

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  4. I was at this show! There was also a woman doing modern dance onstage.

    At one point, someone from the audience hopped up on stage and laid down front and center. We thought it might be part of the dance performance until security led him off.

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  5. LOL...would love to see Jandek doing some modern dance.
    At jandek concerts Security needs to be well briefed as to who should be escorted off the stage,as there would be a very real danger of the boys leading the Representative himself off.

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