Category Archive

By Max Conroy

The other day I sent a letter to Jandek.  Well, I sent it to Corwood Industries; to the same post office box that’s been used by Corwood Industries/Jandek for the last thirty years.  I felt kind of lame for doing this because I thought of how many geeks like me have done it over the years.  I was also thinking about stories that I’ve heard and read about where Jandek will send radio stations and journalists interested in his music crates of records for years on end, and if at all possible I want crates of Jandek records.  I’m not sure if a shit-ton of Jandek records could possibly be healthy in any way, but I’d certainly listen to them and be obliged to review them.  Naturally, we focus on vinyl here and Corwood only makes CDs now, so I also wanted to find out if Corwood has any records lying around the apartment.  I had also seen in Jandek on Corwood that Corwood Industries would send letters in response to people searching for information about Jandek, presumably from Jandek, that have polite and firmly cryptic refusals to provide any information beyond the records: 

The story must be crafted from what you have and know from the music.  We cannot provide interviews or other exchanges of information outside of the releases at present.  It’s probable that your crafted story would be more interesting than any other.  Intrigue goes a long way sometimes.

The examples that I’ve seen of these response letters are typically written in slightly sloppy block lettering and are signed by ‘Corwood’ or ‘Your friends at Corwood’.  I wrote the letter and asked for recommended records, since there are 53 of them, any promotional material to review, and asked if they had any vinyl left.  In the letter I addressed Corwood as to whom I was writing, referring to Jandek only in the third person.  I didn’t really expect any response beyond an order form for CDs, but would love records or even a letter written in the same format that I’d seen.

This was two weeks ago approximately that I sent the letter.  I went to my mailbox today, opened it, and there was a single letter in the narrow box.  It was a letter from Corwood Industries, the address stamped in the top left corner of the envelope.  It seemed eerily appropriate that the letter seemed lonely in my mailbox, as it’s a rare day that it doesn’t get filled with a bunch of bullshit, wasted paper.  I took care in opening it, not wanting to destroy the envelope or the letter and noticed that it was written in slightly sloppy, mostly block lettering, the paper looked like it had a rough time of it at Corwood or on the way from Houston:

We literally have no vinyl to offer.  We sold all vinyl and moved to CD.  Vinyl is in production at:

Jackpot Records, 203 SW 9th Ave, Portland, OR 97205

We suggest you inquire therein.

(No Signature)

I checked out Jackpot Records online and they only offer Jandek CDs.  Perhaps I will see if they are going to manufacture Jandek vinyl.  The letter seems typical, but there was no salutation or signature.  If you’re out there, Jandek, Cousins would love to review some records or hear from you.

Click below to view the actual letter and to hear a jam off one of Jandek’s most recent platters The Myth of Blue Icicles.

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By Max Conroy 

On Saturday, May 17th Jandek played a free concert at the University of Michigan’s Lydia Mendelssohn Theater.  The show was sponsored by WCBN-FM (88.3 on your FM dial), the student-run station of the University, booked by Brendt Rioux, and featured James Cornish on trumpet, Christian Matjias on harpsichord, and Biba Bell on vocals and improv dance.  Apparently this was the first Jandek performance to feature live improv dancing.  Jandek played hollow body bass and sang.  This is what’s known.

This is what’s unknown:  the identity of Jandek, the aim of his endeavors, and virtually everything about the production and meaning behind his music.  Jandek has put out fifty-three albums in thirty years.  The records range from atonal bluesy folk to thirty minute vocal-only tracks and some feature other musicians most likely (even though he does overdub tracks).  The lyrical content of his songs are most definitely poetic in nature, possibly autobiographical, and definitely surreal, causing people to speculate as to whether or not this is a sort of diary of a person suffering from mental illness or records to be enjoyed as such, art for art’s sake. 

There are only a handful of people who have ever spoken to or communicated with Jandek; and in these instances, the person is known only as a “representative of Corwood Industries.”  Corwood Industries is Jandek’s record label and in his only recorded interview, by John Trubee for Spin in 1985, featured on YouTube and as an extra on the Jandek on Corwood DVD, he discloses that he is the “sole proprietor” of Corwood, which has maintained the same PO Box in Houston since 1978.  All of his records and DVDs are purchased directly from Corwood/Jandek, cheaply, and none are sold to record stores or libraries. Jandek also mentions in that interview that at the time he was working as a machinist and living in Houston, Texas.  The name on the copyright information for Jandek’s records in the Library of Congress is Sterling Richard Smith, born in Rhode Island in 1945 (he mentions Rhode Island in several songs).  He originally recorded one record under the name The Units and sent his record to radio stations and record stores, and was forced to change the name when a guy whom he sent the record to in San Francisco threatened to sue him as that was the name of his band.  As a result he wanted to find a name that no one could possibly have, so he ended up speaking to a fellow named Dekker in January and came up with Jandek. 

The more that I research Jandek, the more his history or what he’s illuminated for us seems to be the creation of a highly intelligent, very sane person, very similar to the way a novelist comes up with material culled from his past, subconscious, and ability to tell a convincing story.  Before his days as Jandek, he allegedly wrote seven novels, which he burned after being rejected by publishers.  He tells Trubee that, “I put out a product, and that’s it.  I don’t want to get too involved.”  This smells like bullshit to me, but very good bullshit.

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by Cousin Geoff

This record was an early, early find for me in my record hunting hobby that has now grown into our mighty Cousins empire.  I can remember it like it was yesterday.  I was out garage sailing, and it was getting late, almost 11:00 AM.  I had been at it since early in the morning, driving around, newspaper close by, digging and scouting and hunting.  In those days, going garage sailing was our main way of finding records.  This was before Cousin Justin and I were even partners. We would just sell under the same name and then get the money for our records. 

So I was out driving, way south of Ypsi, almost to Milan, about to go home and call it quits, but I decided to stop by one last sale and check it out, a total country bumpkin sale and I found this record somehow.  I almost sold it, because it goes for good money, but I liked it so much I had to keep it.  Turns out, it’s still one of my favorite records, especially because of the song I’ve Never Found a Girl.

There’s not much other vocals on the album besides this song, but it’s Marvin and his Uptights blowing feel-good 1969 San Francisco psych-funk until your toes curl.  It’s loud Saturday music, it’s getting ready to have a party at your house music, it’s happy Dragon-Monster Soul music.

Check out the liner notes from the back of the album:

I always said if I ever had the chance to write liner notes for an artist-I would have a ball doing it-I have read a lot of album backs and it seems there is always something interesting to say and use the most in descriptive words from?-funk-and I’d say yeah!  Well now it’s my turn and I do have someone I can testify for-Marv & The Uptights, able to raise a suave, sophisticated, mellow gathering to a high fever pitch-rocking with much Boss Soul-not being sacrilegious, but for those who missed church, this album will take you-giving you that head nodding, toe tappin’, hip shakin’, finger poppin’, soulful feeling-just let yourself go-Marv & The Uptights is mighty funky and how do you really decribe that.  It’s like when you, well you how it is when-uhhhhh-coming up on the-let’s see-I know what it is but I just can’t uhhh, how about funky as barrels of hot asphalt-I think you get the picture-check ‘em out-Marv & The Uptights-and you’ll dig much Infinity.

-Bob White KDIA Oakland, Calif.

Yeah, Bob!  Were you high by any chance when you wrote those notes? 

Check out the song, I’ve Never Found a Girl.  If you like it as much as I do, note that AL Green also does a great version on his Let’s Stay Together album.

 By Max Conroy

Hong Kong Blues by Hoagy (ne Hoagland) Carmichael was recorded for Decca in 1942; he penned it and recorded it in ‘39 originally.   It’s a unique side recorded by one of the most highly regarded song writers of the first part of the last century.  Two of his biggest hits were Georgia on My Mind and the A side of this single Stardust. 

The song is a cautionary drug tale about “a very unfortunate colored man who got arrested down in old Hong Kong…for kicking Buddha’s gong.”  Kicking Buddha’s gong is a dated term for smoking opium. It took me a second to realize what he was singing about when I first heard the song.  It’s fairly subtle till the end of it where he actually mentions opium.  He doesn’t mention any specifics about the drug or his habit, only that he cannot leave Hong Kong for his home, which he tells everyone is in San Francisco, but is actually in Tennessee.  The geographic centering of the song is kind of strange in that he’s not from San Francisco but later in the song where Carmichael switches from the narrator’s third person to the first person testimonial, he keeps mentioning San Fran as his home.  Also, how would an unfortunate brother end up in Hong Kong in the 1930s? 

All of this gives one the impression that Hong Kong is opium addiction itself.  The only specific moment where you can really put yourself in his shoes is where he sings:

“Won’t someone believe me/I have a yen to see that bay again/But when I try and leave/Sweet opium won’t let me fly away.“ 

He’s asking his fellow opium enthusiasts in the den to take his desire to quit drugs seriously, but he’s obviously ignored. Also, the use of the word ‘yen’ is a pun here as it comes from the Chinese words for ‘addiction’ and ’smoke’.  Carmichael once described his voice “…as the way a shaggy dog looks…I have Wabash fog and sycamore twigs in my throat.”  His inflection and the first person voice in the middle of the song made me assume that Carmichael was black, so I was surprised to see a picture of him, white as can be.  Another strange thing about this song is that it’s difficult to discern exactly when he’s singing this in relation to his incarceration.  He doesn’t lament getting arrested and still has hope that he’ll make it home, so I’m inclined to think that he’s speaking before he got arrested. 

In the chorus he sings that he needs someone to love him.  When I first heard this, I thought that it was such a 1930s view of drug addiction that finding a good woman could save you from yourself and drugs, but if you listen to the rest of it, he’s asking to find someone that loves him so they can take his body back home.  Pretty grim stuff.  There’s also a part where he begs for fifty dollars to get home with, but one is left with the impression that he’d blow it on dope.

This music is great for the depressant glow of a burgeoning alcohol buzz, alone.  The white jazz comes out a bit more on Stardust, but it’s still worth a listen eighty-one years after it was written.

Hong Kong Blues:

Stardust:

Wolfman Mac is bringing back the horror AND the funk with a classic 50s and 60s horror film program called Nightmare SINema airing on Channel 20 in Detroit at 1:00 AM Friday nights (really Saturday morning).

From the article in the freep:

“Wolfman Mac’s Nightmare Sinema” premieres on TV 20 Friday night at 1 a.m. (technically Saturday morning), with a furry, wisecracking host presenting the best of the worst black-and-white horror movies, as well as demented skits. It’s a return to the kind of local programming that used to be a staple of the TV dial in the early days of the medium in the 1950s and into the ’60s, but was largely dumped by local stations for syndicated fare in the ’80s….

It helps the show’s bottom line that most of the films Wolfman Mac shows are in the public domain, and thus don’t cost anything to air.

But Kelly says he might soon have access to the Universal Pictures vault, so he could be presenting some classic Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff movies by Halloween. Still, he delights in the awfulness of the public domain, Ed Wood/Roger Corman/William Castle films.

“In ‘Plan 9 From Outer Space,’ the flying saucers are held up by string,” Kelly says. “It’s so campy, so bad, that it really is like happening upon a car accident. You don’t really want to stay and watch because you know it’s wrong, but you just can’t walk away.”

Yes!  The host, Wolfman Mac, seems like he’ll add a lot to the program, which is entirely his creation and idea, he also works as a wedding DJ, and I guess that “horror hosts” used to be a more common thing back in the 60s.  Check the same freep article for a cool list of some other famous horror hosts.  Also, check out out the Nightmare SINema website here.

Apparently, advertising space is super cheap and they’ll act out the commercial for you - the guy gives an example of an ad for a dentist done by a vampire, ’cause he’s got a toothache from so much blood sucking.  Maybe Cousins Vinyl should air a spot - what do you think a good idea would be?  How about Wolfman Mac and Howlin’ Wolf fighting over a box of records?