Apocalyptic Sign #35: Jandek live in Austin

If you thought you would see the Kennedy assassination papers revealed before you saw Jandek make a public appearance you were mistaken. The Houston resident who’s been recording arcane music since 1978 has a worldwide cult for which any musician would slay. On Sunday, August 28 Jandek will perform his first ever U.S. live gig at the Austin Scottish Rite Theatre in the Texas capital city.
After years of hermit like anonymity Jandek has recently played three live shows in the U.K. Up to that point in time, part of the Jandek mystique lay in the fact nobody really knew who the guy was or what he looked like.
Free Press Houston contacted a prominent local Jandek fan with this tidbit of info and they immediately shouted back: “I don't believe in this Jandek. I think he's the Manchurian Jandek. He's the fake Jandek. He's the Bin Laden Jandek. They set him up just like they set up the fake Saddam that we are supposedly holding. They've done something with the real Jandek. He would never appear live in Austin.”
Speaking on the condition they not be identified, Jandek’s biggest, and now most secret fan, revealed that they had often thought about what made Jandek tick.
“He's this weird, socially inept, has subtle mental problems kind of guy. He’s extremely paranoid and is wanted by the FBI in 48 states. He has an obscure disease that makes his eyes dilate and has to stay in the dark or wear very dark glasses.”
But surely, I countered, this is a good thing, and Jandek fans will recall his concert as a positive memory.
Silence was the reply. After a while I coaxed a few more comments from the reticent fan with a couple of cigarettes and a small piece of semi-sweet chocolate.
“We all have our personal Jandek that we have kept quiet about all these years. Our separate and subjective images of Jandek fleshed out by imagination in the space left blank by his failure to materialize,” they explained. “He can't turn out to be just some ordinary guy that shows up at a club in Austin with a guitar. I can’t accept that. I have too much psychologically invested in his constructed persona at this point.”