'In 1978, a musician released his first album, Ready For The House. It featured a lonely voice accompanied by acoustic guitar. His subsequent recordings made him one of the most prolific artists in contemporary music. Almost nobody has noticed.' -preface to Jandek on Corwood
Picture yourself making a documentary about a musical entity that refuses to be interviewed or photographed. By anyone. Sound daunting? Two young filmmakers, director Chad Friedrichs and producer Paul Fehler, traveled 22,000 miles, shot 50 hours of footage and interviewed 24 people to do just that.
'Little waves spill over the rocks, you can peel mica from the rocks, as it shines like smooth silver '
The first images of the new documentary Jandek on Corwood illustrate this seemingly abstract prose perfectly. Ocean waves roll over a beach of small stones under cold gray skies. 'And there's a lighthouse in the distance ' Indeed the lighthouse is there, and suddenly the early Jandek song 'Point Judith' (from 1981's Six and Six) takes on a very literal meaning. Point Judith is an actual ocean town in Rhode Island, and the waves, rocks, and lighthouse that Jandek sang about all those years ago really do exist.
This revelation and several others concerning Jandek are thanks to the efforts of Chad Friedrichs and Paul Fehler, who worked for a year and a half to produce Jandek on Corwood, a self-financed documentary about the reclusive Texas musician who has somehow produced an enormous and cathartic body of work (34 albums and counting) without hardly anyone even noticing.
rest of review at http://www.ibrecords.com/journal/entry.php?idB4
Picture yourself making a documentary about a musical entity that refuses to be interviewed or photographed. By anyone. Sound daunting? Two young filmmakers, director Chad Friedrichs and producer Paul Fehler, traveled 22,000 miles, shot 50 hours of footage and interviewed 24 people to do just that.
'Little waves spill over the rocks, you can peel mica from the rocks, as it shines like smooth silver '
The first images of the new documentary Jandek on Corwood illustrate this seemingly abstract prose perfectly. Ocean waves roll over a beach of small stones under cold gray skies. 'And there's a lighthouse in the distance ' Indeed the lighthouse is there, and suddenly the early Jandek song 'Point Judith' (from 1981's Six and Six) takes on a very literal meaning. Point Judith is an actual ocean town in Rhode Island, and the waves, rocks, and lighthouse that Jandek sang about all those years ago really do exist.
This revelation and several others concerning Jandek are thanks to the efforts of Chad Friedrichs and Paul Fehler, who worked for a year and a half to produce Jandek on Corwood, a self-financed documentary about the reclusive Texas musician who has somehow produced an enormous and cathartic body of work (34 albums and counting) without hardly anyone even noticing.
rest of review at http://www.ibrecords.com/journal/entry.php?idB4