Can you imagine a world where press agents
and publicists never tread? Where artists
don't sell out for the corporate dollar? Where
artistic freedom and control are a given?
Where it really is about the music? Well,
Jandek does! Since 1978, enigmatic Houston
musician Jandek has been releasing strange
bluesy, atonal albums. Some might even say
they're beautiful. One thing everyone does
agree on ' outside of the records, no one
knows a thing about him.
Twenty-five albums down the line and no one's
the wiser. Apart from the records the only
other link to him is the equally mysterious
Corwood Industries record label - for which
he is the sole artist. Jandek on Corwood sets
out, not so much to find the man behind the
myth but to investigate how one person, about
whom so little is known, can generate so much
opinion. Simpsons creator, Matt Groening,
is reputed to be a huge fan (what do you mean,
you didn't get the intertextual references?),
as are a host of left-field recording artists
but perhaps Kurt Cobain put it best when he
famously remarked, 'He's not pretentious,
but only pretentious people like his music'.
You may not get all the answers you want
It's better that way - Corwood