CORWOOD 0742
1982
STYLE: Early Period Acoustic and electric.
NOTABLE SONGS: "Down in a Mirror", "European Jewel", "Nancy Sings".
MY RATING: Five Bird Houses.
REVIEW: The cover shows our man as a young boy. It appears to be a closeup on a photo of many people, like the White Box cover. A Smith family gathering perhaps? This is my favorite album of Jandek's early period, combining just the right sense of depression, mysteriousness, and spirituality that makes Jandek's work in this time so intriguing.
The second track, "European Jewel", send a blast of electric into your ears, which can be unnerving especially after you've been calmed by "Down in a Mirror". In this song Jandek finishes what he started four albums ago on "European Jewel (Incomplete)" from Ready for the House, which had made for one of the great cliffhangers in music history. In the conclusion he adds drums by neighbor "Poe", and bass by a friend named John, who may or may not be the same John who later plays drums on Your Turn to Fall. Himself playing the electric guitar, Jandek and his band stumble through a screaming version of the familiar European Jewel riff before he sings the last part of the song, starting with the verse he never completed. "There's bugs in my brain/I can't feel any pain/Just a shaking shake". Anyone who put their money on "shake" can collect now. It turns out there really weren't many more words to the song (just another verse), so the band goes out in full improv mode for another three minutes. What's amazing is how they manage to stay together, all genuinely attempting to play their instruments even though it's clears none of them have much experience. For instance, the drummer had never played before. He doesn't do badly, however, and Jandek was impressed as well, saying in a letter to Irwin Chusid "I couldn’t think of another drummer so absolute except maybe Ginger Baker from Cream...". Uh, maybe that's going a little too far. Bassist John even has a solo, walking up the fretboard in almost perfect time. The song alternates from insane barrages of noise to quiter, more musical portions, kind of like Sonic Youth on acid.
Back to acoustic for the third track, "Unconditional Authority" in which Jandek declares over and over, "I ain't gonna fool no more". The guitar playing continues Later On's style, with jagged one chord rhythmns, conveying anger and frustration. The words also echo frustration: "All I am is a fool but I ain't gonna fool no more." Good luck with that, Sterling.
Track four, "Poor Boy", is Jandek's ultimate compression of the blues. Relating the story of a young man who's lost it all, sung so truthfully that it makes one wonder if Jandek is talking about himself. In a way, the song sums up his entire carrer, making it one of his best. The blues cannot get any simpler than this.
One the fifth track, Jandek breaks out the harmonica for a pretty awful solo that lasts a good three minutes. He accompanies himself on guitar at the same time, strumming loudly over and over with no rythmn, the way my three year old cousin plays when I let her fool around with the guitar. After the harmonica stops, he yells angrily, "You think you know....you think you know... how to score!". I don't know what to say about this track. It kind of pisses me off for some reason, and I usually skip it.
Almost as an apology for the harmonica solo, Jandek brings us his most beautiful song on track six, appropriatly titled "Nancy Sings". While he plucks slowly one note at a time on guitar, angel voiced Nancy sings poetic lyrics about nature. The song presents a scene of fragile beauty, like a foggy morning. From listening for her clear and flawless voice, it's easy to see why Jandek would have such a fit about losing this woman years later.
Turning to side two, we find Jandek playing electric again for track seven, with Nancy on drums and her sister Pat singing, rather talking. Janky's guitar quietly mutters through a variation on the "Jewel" riff (which seems to be the only riff he knows, as it appears again on One Foot in the North). Nancy barely plays at all, lightly tapping the snare a couple times. Finally we've found a chick drummer worse than Meg White. But it's Pat that puts inthe most dissapointing performance, mumbling through silly rhyming lyrics like "Go to work/You're a jerk". She must be the ugly duckling in the family. I don't know what's up with this song, but I guess they must have had fun recording it. It foreshadows future sessions on Telegraph Melts and Modern Dances.
The sisters must have returned to Ohio, because Jandek is alone for the rest of the album. The reamaining songs are pretty much the same, with Jandek playing his "crazy rhythmns" and singing farily interesting lyrics. I've tried to interpret "Mostly All From You", but it still makes very little sense. "Rain on my head and it's mostly all from you", he sings, making one think he's talking to God. But then he says "Layin' in bed and it's mostly all from you." Is he sick or just sleeping? Perhaps he just has a leaky ceiling? I have no clue, and I suspect neither does Jandek.
Evidently from track nine, "Blue Blister", Jandek is a smoker, which explain why his voice gets so much heavier as time goes on (check out one of the spoken word albums to see what I mean). The title doesn't seem to have anything to do with the song, unless he is insinuating that smoking gives your throat blue blisters, but I somehow doubt that.
On track eleven, "Love, Love", agent Smith shares with us some wisdom he's gained from his travels: "Love everybody, love yourself/Make yourself the best person you can /To give to everybody someway or another" I swear my minister gave the same sermon once. "Make the most of you talents", he advises, "Don't bury them in the ground". Clearly, Jandek's followed his own adivce, thirty-three times, to be exact. Of course, it's open to debate whether it's even talent at all. But that's a topic for another essay.
For the final cut, "The First End", Jandek returns to the mysticism of "Nancy Sings": "May a fragrant mist shine over you/Until the sun rises in the dawn of a new day". Sounds like a Native American farewell.
All in all, Chair Beside a Window is one of Jandek's best releases, well deserving of five bird houses. Get ahold of this album, if only to hear "Nancy Sings" and "Eurpoean Jewel". If Jandek can be given credit for anything, it's that he makes mood-altering music, and this album is no exception.