NIGHT LIFE FILM

Home > NIGHT LIFE > FILM > Screening: Jandek on Corwood- Outsider Music Doc

• Tweet
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Email
• Feedback

• RSS

• Official Website
• Buy Tickets
• Add to My Favorites

Screening: Jandek on Corwood- Outsider Music Doc

Presented by Movies on a Big Screen at Guild Theater

January 31, 2010

Add Review/Comment
Comment on Facebook

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. 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 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. It also 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 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

"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