So, am I overreacting when I call this guy the tooliest tool who's ever been compared to a socket wrench?

Not hardly. He needs a healthy whack of the get-over-yourself stick.

I don't think I have anything truly obscure. I doubt I own anything anyone else who went to shows in D.C. in the mid-90's doesn't have, and most of my peers have much better collections of Dischordania and related.

There's many ways to get to the obscure stuff.

I have (ok, compilation) CDs by both the Classics and the Classics IV.

The problem with me and obscure is that it's quickly not obscure. I bought the first Be Good Tanyas album in March 2001 (in Vancouver), because I saw a throwaway bit about them on CBC. About a year later, the NPR set discovered them.

The best I can offer is some CDs by South Carolina bands a friend of mine sent me in exchange for an OOP Pierce Pettis album.

My problem with obscure is that all of my obscure stuff is apparently in the wrong genre to "count" as obscure. (I tend towards folk and filk in my "music few have heard of besides me" and every discussion I've seen about obscure stuff talks about rock) Ah, well...

Hey, Corwood - I'm just reading your big Blueberry Boat thing on the last High Hat - Killick (which you theorise as a nickname in Quay Cur) is the name of one of the sailors in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey books. Which fits in context.

Fantastic, Jim! Great catch! Having only seen Master & Commander, was he Aubrey's steward?

I'm going to see Jandek live on Sunday! My friend who's going with me called last night to confess that she finds Jandek a little bit funny. "Does he take himself seriously?," she asked me. I told her that the good thing about ciphers is that you can interpret them however you see fit. I certainly think Jandek has poked fun at himself quite a few times over the years, but I also think that he takes himself seriously. Maybe I'm projecting, but I think you can be 100% committed to your art, however absurd, and still have the ironic distance to know that it's silly.

tina f!

Winfield! So here's the deal. I am hoping to be in Winfield in time for Land Rush on the 8th. In case we're not able to coordinate a meetup before I leave (will probably only be online today and Tuesday) will you try to find me? I won't be that far from Stage 4.

The easiest way to find me is with the Musical Map of Winfield: The northern-most road that goes from the main entrance west toward the river, you'll see a musical note/link that appears to be almost in the road. That is the location of my Winfield dad, Carroll Gunter. He camps in a little white Casita (excuse the multiple redundancies there). I'll be back behind him (north) somewhere. If I'm there, Carroll will know where I'm camped. I'll be in a smallish popup (Indiana plates). My newbie friend will be in a Little Guy - it will be worth the hike just to see the cutie-wootiness of the Smallest Trailer Ever.

Once I get to Winfield, I usually head to the Library every few days - I have better online time there than I do in the Real World - so you can also contact me at my profile address.

Safe travels to you, and wish me luck getting the major shit done (moving) that I need to do before I can leave.

[edited to fix link]

The Be Good Tanyas are entertaining me mightily this afternoon. me like.

The Be Good Tanyas are entertaining me mightily this afternoon. me like.

They're playing Bumbershoot this year. I would love to go, but it's so much tougher to do the mega-music festival with a baby.

OTOH, they are playing Labor Day at 2:45... and the Decemberists have a stadium show at 12:30... so I could leave at naptime and be back in time for dinner... hmm.

Jandek live tonight. Two drummers, one of whom was avant-jazz guy Chris Cogburn, and the other of whom looked 17. A young-looking bassist, too. And the man, the legend, the weirdo from all those album covers: Jandek.

Some of you may wonder: does Jandek tune his guitar? After tonight, I can say definitively that the answer is yes.

He played for an hour and a half on the nose. After the last song, he held his guitar briefly, as if considering playing another song, then abruptly took the guitar off, put it in a case, and walked off stage.

Some of you may wonder: is Jandek a tech geek? After tonight, I can say definitively no. At one point, he accidentally hit the pickup configuration switch, changing his tone drastically, which confused him for several seconds before he decided that the new tone was a-ok with him.

This was easily the geekiest rock crowd I've ever seen. Outside, we looked like we were waiting in line for free 20-sided dice. The show was in the Scottish Rite Theatre, and we wondered through several ornate rooms, full of portraits of grumpy old men before reaching the theater. I half-suspected that we were being inducted into some strange club.

Some of you may wonder: does Jandek play guitar solos? After tonight, I can say definitively maybe, given a loose definition of "solo." Several times, Jandek played little picked leads that seemed as random as his chords. He seemed pleased with himself, and once even broke out into a Jandek-sized smile (i.e. tiny and secret).

What else? With two drummers, Jandek rocked the joint occasionally, stirring up music as loud and aggressive as any free jazz I've witnessed. He mostly watched the 17-yr-old drummer and the bassist, who looked to be in his early 20s, maybe. I suspect that they might be in the youth group in Jandek's apocalyptic cult. Or, as my friend suggested, perhaps they're his wards, like Robin. Jandek does have a rather Batmanish persona.

Chris Cogburn was doing the most interesting things on stage - sometimes getting high squawky noises by turning a cymbal sideways and running it up and down his drums, sometimes doing the avant-jazz standby of the superfast run through all the cymbals, changing drumsticks along the way - but it was hard to take your eyes off of Jandek. He exuded a strange blank menace, never looking at the audience at all, but somehow giving off a vibe somewhere between cult leader and serial killer. His lyrics were surprisingly trite at times, although quite a few of them had the creepy-but-beautiful old Jandek charm.

He occasionally fretted with his thumb. I mean, not just the low E, but all the way across, like Thurston Moore with a drumstick. Oh, I heard someone say that Thurston Moore was there, but I didn't see him. One of the guys two rows up from me was in Jandek On Corwood, but it wasn't Douglas Wolk or Gary Pig Gold, so I don't know this guy's name.

There was a Jandek VIP section in front of us. In a more perfect world, it would have been filled with people no one had ever seen or heard of before. In this world, it was mostly filled with SXSW honchos.

Whew. An hour and a half of live Jandek is rather exhausting.