The Rest of the Weekend, Pt. 2: Jandek(!) + Signal to Noise Showcase, Sunday

Still one day to go for the weekend, and while there’s not a ton of shows, again, this is quality vs. quantity here. The two shows that do look to be good this Sunday, April 5th are relative biggies:

Jandek @ Rudyard’s ($4; 2:30PM!)
This will be absolutely, completely sold-out; I’d just about bet on it. I mean, c’mon — while he’s lived and recorded in Houston for just over 30(!) years now, local reclusive, ultra-strange musician Jandek, the J.D. Salinger of the music world, has only played here once before that I’ve heard about (and that wasn’t even a “real” Jandek show, but him popping in unexpectedly at a Loren Connors/Alan Licht show). And this time out, he’ll be at Rudyard’s? In the middle of the afternoon? For a measly $4? It’s gonna be packed.

That said, if I weren’t already committed to Easter Egg-hunting, I’d seriously attempt to get in, even still. I can’t claim to be a fan of Jandek’s music, honestly — while it’s folky and trippy, I find it pretty grating and bizarre, “outsider music” in the purest sense, which is appropriate, since the guy’s been a shut-in for most of his musical career, only appearing live & in-person starting in 2004. But even still, it feels like it’d be worth seeing just to say, “hey, I saw Jandek!”, y’know?

Plus, there’s something immensely appealing to me about the man’s persona; he’s an artist who either is/was so resolutely shy or absolutely didn’t give a shit about fame, success, or money that he kept himself cut off from the world for nearly three decades, and there’s something really beautiful about that, I think. I’ve argued in the past that anybody making music who says, “oh, I don’t care whether or not anybody likes it but me” is lying and attempting to affect a pretentiously arty pose — if you record it and let people other than you listen to it, you by default have some interest in what other people think. Jandek, however, seems to put the lie to that, trying to distance himself as much as possibe from the making of the music. In an age of hyper-individualized, spotlight-seeking people, folks like he, Banksy, Burial, & the like are a nice switch…

Signal To Noise/Sound Exchange Showcase, featuring Sandy Ewen (Weird Weeds), Wols, & Dogebbi @ Avant Garden (7-10PM; $6)
Another cool oddball show, although one that’s a bit lower-profile. The record mavens at Sound Exchange and highly-acclaimed “experimental music” mag Signal To Noise — who moved a few years back down here to H-town, and whom I dearly need to get on the Zines page (not that the STN folks probably give a crap about that, I know, but I’m trying to be all completist & whatnot with this thing, so…) — have put together a nice setup, headlined by Sandy Ewen, guitarist for Austinites Weird Weeds. I’m not real familiar with ’em myself, but I’ve heard good things, so it’s bound to be interesting. (And yeah, Ewen’s replacing former Charalambides member and expat Houstonian Christina Carter, who was originally supposed to perform but had to back out for personal reasons.)

Wols, aka Amye McCarther, is somebody I’ve been meaning to see for a long time — apparently both her lo-fi recordings and live sets are both simple and intriguingly improvisational, and while the latter’s generally not my thing, she’s garnered rave reviews from folks whose opinions I trust, so… And opener Dogebbi is actually a collaboration between two established folks who’re darned talented in their own right, percussionist Spike of Astrogenic Hallucinauting (who’s been floating around the Houston scene literally since I first moved here) and flautist Michelle Yom, who does some truly fucked-up, mesmerizing things with the flute (full disclosure: yes, Michelle does also sometimes write for SCR, but I make a rule of not lavishing praise on people just because they’re part of the e-zine crew; the music she makes really is freakishly interesting).

Altogether, this should be a good one, and a nice companion show to the Jandek show earlier in the day — two cool-ass shows for $10 total, how do you beat that?