Jandek, Horny Goat Weed, and Friends That Don't Shoot You When You Show up at 3:00 am

Ricky and I went to a rare Jandek show in a great venue in Indianapolis Saturday night. Jandek is a one man music anomaly - a guy who has self produced, marketed, and distributed his own weird albums since 1978. He tunes his guitar (chuckle) to the key of Z...which is to say that it's not tuned and he plays weird shit. He's had less than 16 live shows, only in the last few years, and has only given a handful of interviews. There is never any stage-audience interaction, no introduction, no closing, no thank you-good nights, no encores. But they did play for over 2 hours that night. The show was 4/5ths great. It consisted of at least 3 classically trained and/or professional musicians (bass, flute/xylophone, drums) that were phenomenal in everything they played. Next, there was a woman who sang 3-4 songs and had an amazing voice. She made noises on a violin the rest of the time. Then Jandek made awful noise with his fretless guitar (as is his schtick) but sang minimalist lyrics, lamenting lost love for the most part. His phantasm-like appearance and matching voice was hypnotic. I was expecting weird nonsense and I got grade-A improvisational jazz...with weird nonsense. There are some great examples of his better work on this myspace page, which is probably not made by Jandek, but nonetheless, has Jandek songs on it.



On the way home, we stopped at a gas station to pee and I just had to purchase this packet of "Horny Goat Weed" (see picture) from the men's room vending machine. I try to imagine what was going through the lone cashier's mind when she saw a father and son come out of the men's restroom laughing hysterically and talking about horny goat weed. The homely middle aged Hoosier with a dead-end job and cigarette ashes on her DDD breasts that were resting on the greasy counter listening to boys discuss....shudder. Apparently, this is an actual product on the market now and not just a novelty at a truck stop restroom...ahem. Best quote of the night was from Ricky to me, in all seriousness, "So you smoke it and it makes you horny? Is that legal?"

The night ended with Todd and I at the Mag Bar and a quick jaunt by Jason & Erin's house to invite them out to breakfast with us. I am thankful that they didn't shoot us.

Great success!