Screening - Jandek on Corwood - outsider music doc

January 31, 2010
7:30 pm
MOBS at The Guild, 2828 35th St, Sacramento (corner of 35th & Broadway)
Admission: $5.00

Jandek on Corwood

Even by the standards of underground and avant-garde music, Jandek is a man who has pushed the notion of deliberate obscurity to the outer limits. Yet Jandek has recorded 62 albums since 1978, self-released on his label, Corwood Industries. Prior to 2004, he did not reveal himself, then suddenly started to do a series of live performances, billed simply as "a representative of Corwood." He sold records via ads in music magazines, yet even the ads were mysterious: a white box with black text stating simply "Jandek on Corwood" with the PO Box. His music borders on being indescribable, but terms like "spooky" and "haunting" and "out-of-tune" frequently show up in reviews. The film's press kit refers to it as "cacophonous rock and suicide-note blues." This film, from 2003, provides an enthralling look at this extremely outsider artist who only ever granted a couple of interviews via phone (one of which is presented in the film), unraveling some of the mystery around him, yet not once featuring Jandek on camera. Features a plethora of music journalists and critics including Douglas Wolk along with Dr. Demento, and plenty of strange Jandek music and album covers.

About Jandek's music: "How to describe the music of Jandek? Like most amateur rock critics, start by comparing him to the Beatles. Then strip away melody, catchy hooks, rhythm, and harmony. Next toss out vocal and instrumental ability, along with any trace of human feeling other than dull, lingering pain. Aside from these deficiencies, he's exactly like the Fab Four." - Irwin Chusid, "Songs in the Key of Z: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music"

About the film:

"A huge success, proof that even this far into the game there are certain semi-desolate corners of the underground that remain impregnable to colonisation by the ever-encroaching monoculture and its accompanying pressures and payoffs." - Wire

"[has] a surrealistic aesthetic that would make David Lynch proud." - Magnet

"Shrewd, moody direction. A canny look at both sides of a musical experiment. Jandek plucks out his atonal efforts, and the record-store obsessives speculate about every subtlety. Theories abound about his love life, his mental stability, his reasons for reclusiveness. Is he friendless? Is he on the lam? Is he bipolar?" - New York Times

"A smart cohesive film" - LA Weekly