Jandek on Corwood

G.P.: What drew you to Jandek first, was it the music or the legend?
P.F.: The legend, for sure. I'd probably read a half a dozen articles and reviews before I heard Jandek play a note. The first generation of Jandek fans usually had someone hand them an LP with a wry smile. the latest generation of Jandek fans got an email, or clicked on a link. It seems exactly upside down sometimes.
G.P.: How have your feelings regarding Jandek and his work changed as this project has evolved?
P.F.: Wow, they've changed quite a bit. The most notable change came during the process of trying to digest the albums. Thirty-three albums of anything is immense. After listening to everything, I think it's natural to become awed at the output. Then you try to figure out the motivation, and that's a trap. You twist yourself into knots trying to find out what it would mean if YOU would've done this, and this is very different than "why it was done."
G.P.: Interacting with you, I noted a lot of respect and care for your subject, what is it about Jandek that inspires such regard?
P.F.: There are so many parts of Jandek's approach that I deeply admire. I do care about Jandek. There are people who write Jandek off as a kook, or as a novelty, and I don't mind that all that much, if it's an honest opinion. But there are also people who have more selfish or potentially destructive intent. It's no different than the way I'd care about a friend in a similar situation. What Jandek has created is robust, but it's fragile as well. There's a balance that he has with his fan base. This film might extend his fan base by a factor of a hundred or so, how is this going to change things? It's clear that we have a responsibility to maintain this fragile balance.
G.P.: Though this process you have both probably become among the most knowledgeable Jandek experts in the world, are there any secrets you know that you won't share publicly?
P.F.: Yes.
G.P.: Do you feel friendly towards Jandek?
P.F.: I have friendly feelings for Jandek. I don't know how friendly our relationship is. Not that it's unfriendly, at all. We've not gotten particularly close with the man at Corwood, and it's probably better for the project that we haven't. I would like to talk with the man sometime after the movie is done. Not that I'd know what we'd talk about. Just to illustrate; our first letter to Jandek started with "Dear Sir." One year, and a couple dozen letters later, I just sent something to him last week, started with "Dear Sir."
G.P.: Do you have any favorite Jandek albums?
P.F.: I'm a singles kind of guy, really. but I make an exception for Jandek. Jandek albums have a variety of "feels"; they really take on some very different feelings. There's the absolutely morose and despondent and hurting Jandek of Six and Six, and much later, The Humility of Pain, and then there's a sort of indifferent, free-associating Jandek in the late mid period. My favorite albums are mid period. There are three consecutive albums--Modern Dances, Blue Corpse, You Walk Alone--released consecutively in 1987 and 1988. I think these albums are probably the best three-album span for any musician I've heard. Lost Cause, from 1992, is also a favorite.
G.P.: How would you describe the music of Jandek to someone who had never heard it before?
P.F.: We've asked that question to fifty people in the last year, and unfortunately, it's now impossible for me to formulate my own answer. Apologies to the people I rip off. Jandek's music doesn't usually use a conventional tuning. Though there are some exceptions. His delivery is affected. but not strange. His lyrical style evokes several blues and folk idioms. The subjects he's tackling are usually those of loss, or of missed opportunity. The feelings generated run the gamut from "bleak" to "manic". which is quite interesting. I've often talked about You Painted Your Teeth as a song that is quite funny (intentionally so, I'm sure) and also terrifying. How incredibly rare is that; to be laughing honestly and earnestly, and be scared at the same time. It's one of those songs that make me uneasy if I were to listen to them on headphones alone in the house.
G.P.: Is there any Jandek mystery left for you at this point?
P.F.: If I read this interview, and came to this question, and the person being interviewed said "Oh! More now than when we started!". I'd snort derisively. But it's completely true. You don't ever get any closer to solving the mystery. We joked about billing this movie as "The Definitive 90-Minute Primer in Existentialism." That sounds pretentious as fuck, and we won't do it; but it's true. You get farther and farther, and it only makes you more frustrated that you've spent so much time, and you're no closer to the truth. Then, hopefully, you have an epiphany and take a huge step back and laugh at the entire situation and become enlightened. I'm expecting my epiphany in the next 2-3 years.

Paul mentioned to me a Jandek dream, and later sent it along, it appears in the Letters section of issue #5.

George,

Thanks so much for another issue of “Dream.” Great stuff, really. It’s funny; the central themes of the magazine are so foreign to me... I have a gut level negative reaction to ‘psychedelic culture’ (perhaps my own ignorance or prejudice), I haven’t looked into comics for years, and nine times out of ten, any dream I remember is going to be of the “annoy you awake” bean-counting variety, or one in which I end up getting shot.

Why, then, do I compulsively read every single word of every issue? I love the feel of the magazine... I suppose I’d even read a magazine about model railroad building if it could capture some of the same spirit.

Anyway... on to the Jandek dream I promised you a while ago; with footnotes for explanation/analysis... so as not to disrupt the flow.

=====

I’m in a supermarket that appears to have been temporarily repurposed as a convention center. Produce is on the shelves, but professional looking people are in small groups chatting, and there are display booths.

I see Jandek talking with a few men. I consider going to introduce myself, and think better of it. I call Chad [Freidricks] from a payphone in the atrium. He shows up almost instantly. After chatting we decide that the best course of action is to listen and observe at an unobtrusive distance.

Jandek is effortlessly charming quite a few people around him, a small crowd of perhaps 6 people are hanging on his words. Then (in the style of the Richard Roma character from Glengarry Glen Ross) he effortlessly turns this social conversation into what appears to be a sales demonstration. Without breaking stride he sets his briefcase on a table and takes out a medium-sized rattlesnake (1).

No one is alarmed, and Jandek rather lovingly holds the snake and starts talking about physiological specifics while pointing at the snake’s body. He’s using a herpetological jargon I can’t understand. People nod in agreement as he talks and I’m left with the feeling that he is truly deeply interested in not only this snake, but the study of snakes as a species. We are simply beside ourselves with the imporatnce of this new discovery (2). I am unable to remember any details of the dream past this one.

(1) Chad and I made several trips to a snake handling church in West Virginia between 1997 and 2001. At one time we were interested in shooting a documentary film. Our interest faded, but we kept going back for some reason.

In the dream I combined the features of Jandek with the features of the snake handlers. In the strange dream-logic, Jandek was not a musician, he was a snake handler.

(2) At this point in the dream I felt closer to “solving” (in the sense of “satisfying my personal curiosity”) the Jandek mystery than I ever have (asleep or awake).

It’s rather hard to explain, but there’s an interesting crutch that most people (including myself) use when thinking about the motivations of the snake handlers or Jandek. They seem to create an arbitrary binary decision.

EITHER the snake handlers are gripped in this religious fervor OR it’s a put-on, and their actions are simply thrill seeking, and they've chosen this particular outlet for thrill seeking because it’s the one acceptable to community/family.

EITHER Jandek is darkly tormented, troubled and utterly earnest in his approach OR this is a ruse/prank/tax dodge.

The epiphany that this dream brought was that (in the case of the snake handlers) there could be a “third way.” They could simply just love the snakes! In the dream this seemed almost childishly simple and sublime. But how much easier would this make my interactions with the snake handlers if this would be true?! Being a secular Midwestern Lutheran, I had been passing judgement on the snake handlers for BOTH religious fervor AND thrill seeking... but I would feel incapable of passing judgement on liking snakes.

I haven’t found what the “third way” is for Jandek, and truthfully, I haven’t been looking that hard. The comforting thing is that it’s there...

Warmest regards and best wishes to you, George.

Your Friend,
Paul Fehler

Back in the early 1980s I spoke to a guy from Texas on the telephone a couple times, he had put out an album or two, and I'd reviewed one of them for Op or Option magazine, I think (I can't remember), and he had also allowed me to use a song of his on a cassette compilation I was involved in editing and publishing at the time. Over 20 years later the same fellow has produced over 40 albums of some of the most distinctive and uncompromised music ever recorded. He performed live for the first time unannounced at a gig in Glasgow on October 17th 2004, he's only done two interviews in his entire career, and yet he has generated a singularly mysterious profile; that very nearly rivals J.D. Salinger as reclusive, and by comparison makes The Residents look like pop stars. When the time came to do a documentary on Jandek and his music, Corwood Industries (Jandek's label) were happy to participate as long as they didn't speak, or appear on camera; what they did do was provide the filmmakers with a list of all of their public contacts over the course of Jandek's career, and I was on that list.

On saturday February 15th 2003 at 10:AM, Chad Freidricks, Paul Fehler; the guys making Jandek on Corwood and Chad's wife Jaime and their friend Samora, showed up at my front door. Chad (director) cherub faced blonde, and Paul (producer) angular and dark haired. They balance each other well on an energetic level, Jaime sorta reminded me of Rene Zellweger a bit. We drive up to local area known as Malakoff Diggings, site of hydraulic mining leaving a landscape like Mars, or the Moon in the mountains near here, after 120 years it still looks desolate and destroyed but very beautiful too, it was a place lots of folks went to trip on acid a few decades ago and maybe once and awhile still do. They were all very nice folks, and after chatting awhile it became abundantly clear their hearts were in the right place to cover the subject respectfully. Due to my flawless directions we drove into some lost regions of the woods, until we found a nice place to stop, along the way Samora asks what my sign is, and Paul threatens to leave her by the side of the road; she reminds him that they are staying at her place in SF, so it's a draw. Leaping about on the chopped up terrain I pull a tendon in my right leg, and have to sort of hop/limp to get about. The interview is fairly effortless, though I don't know why my mind goes blank as soon as the camera starts rolling, and I can't remember a word I said afterwards. I found a great stone, black with white ripples running through it, rounded, with a slice taken off of it like a knife had cut it, giving it a flawlessly flat side. Having seen the finished film; I'm pleased with how well it all came together, I enjoyed the whole experience (except for the hurt leg), and I think it gives a good indication of what Jandek's music is like, and maybe a hint of why so many find it fascinating. The DVd has been released and is available through many fine distributors and directly as well http://www.jandekoncorwood.com/ .
Paul Fehler consented to answer a few questions by email.

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