Jandek in Houston yesterday
 

Posted by a friend on a Houston message board


Holy crap. Where to start?! First off, I am not a Jandek “fan”. I admit I totally went to this show out of curiosity. Heck, what else is there to do at 4:00 on a Sunday afternoon? I’m familiar with his music, his legendary super-duper extraordinary underground status, blah blah blah. Yeah, I get it. I was half expecting to arrive, subject myself to some noise-torture for about 30 minutes, and leave. However, what happened was so bat-crap crazy it blew my mind.

So, the sound guys comes over and talks to our table and says Jandek just met the drummer and bassist he’s playing with. Never played with them, just met them. Sweet, let’s see what happens. About 10 minutes after 4:00 they take the stage. The bassist is straight out of Parliament Funkadelic. Seriously. He had mad bass skills. The drummer was more subdued, but held a great funk beat. Funk?!!! What the HELL is going on?! None of the Jandek records I’ve heard sound like funk at all. I’m expecting some dark, somber, gut-wrenching songs. Not today folks. Jandek finally joins in after a few minutes with his avant-garde guitar playing, but strangely funk-infused noise. Scraping chords, playing over the neck with this thumb, just going CRAZY. It was effing MAD. Insane. All the while, the other two musicians are just in their own world, pretty much playing an hour long version of “Give Up The Funk”. About 2 or 3 time, Jandek chimes in with some pretty cool, very upbeat disjointed spoken word pieces. “I am drunk”, “I can’t stop”, “Pretty girls”,….”sitting”……”falling out of the chair”….. stuff like that. The crazy thing is, it all actually worked. It was P-Funk meets Talking Heads meets William Burroughs, all rolled into one glorious strange hour and twenty minutes of non-stop music. Not to mention a good 20+ people were dancing their asses off in front of the stage and throwing confetti Easter eggs at Jandek and the stage, covering them with confetti. Jandek had a huge smile on his face the whole time. Jandek danced. He owned that show. It was nothing like I expected, and I am so glad I went. This one will do down in the history books for sure. It was the strangest Sunday afternoon I have ever experienced. Freaking Jandek.

Listen and watch Jandek go off on the guitar witha freaky fusion vibe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLwiYpSTFE

best thing i've ever heard.

The guy has lived here in Houston for 30+ years, releasing record after record, and never played a actual show. he once stepped up onstage at a friend's show and did a song or two, but this was his first actual show.

at 2:30 PM on a sunday.

I absolutely love this. The weird funk/noise guitar stuff reminds me of one of my favorite bands, Zazen Boys.

man thanks again rob hahahaha.

Can't wait for the cd release of this!

I can't wait for his next album (should be out any hour now)... Featuring the song "Funky Houston".

"I play funk in Houston
What else could I do?
....I tried to impress the la-dies...
buuuuut...
it ... didn't ... hap-PEN to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
...
I just danced and you threw...
Some sort of colored egg-like ob-jects...
Almost in a taunting manner, were you taunting me, why would you do that to .... meeeeeeeeee?
Some black guy played bass in a "funky" way
Some drummer... kept... the tempo... up beeeeeeeeeeat
We were 'funk-y'
Was that funny to you?
It wasn't...
funny..
to meeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEE."

it's like he scribed that through your brain, like you are a seer or a mystic!

Haha. No, I'm just overly familiar with Jandek.

This still blows my mind, though! This ranks up there with his 3 spoken word albums as a true "what the fuck" moment in his career. And that's saying something.

fucking awesome

crazy

insane!

oh my gawd. why?

why what?

just



why?????

Jandek don't have to answer to you!!!!

Motherfuck is like 70 years old! and he is a stock broker~!


:P

this shit is plain laughable.
as much as i really totally respect the old man's aesthetics and concept, this is
T
E
R
R
I
B
L
E

I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the hell out of that. Funkajandek!

reppppppped.

(The extra p's are for power. That's right, it was a power rep.)

like in spinal tap, a 75 minute "free form jazz exploration..."

hahahha!

It's like music's version of if JD Salinger came out of hiding and did a poetry reading