The artist known as Jandek emerged with a divisive singer-songwriter sound in 1978. Dropping the needle on his debut album Ready for the House — which came with no liner notes, nor any accompanying concerts or interviews — you hear the unsettling moans of an acoustic guitar playing atonal, dissonant chords, the plucking of steel strings lingering with a hypnotic twang. Tension builds and never settles, and a ghostly voice wanders into the room, singing about visions, cowboy boots, “big time in the city” and going “naked in the afternoon.”
It’s a genre that music critic Douglas Wolk deemed “half-decomposed blues,” and it paired well with Jandek’s reputation as a recluse. Describing himself as “an inordinately private person,” he didn’t play his first live show until 2004, and didn’t divulge his real name, Sterling Smith, until 2014. All of Jandek’s albums — more than 100 in 47 years, plus dozens of live recordings — have been released by the enigmatic Corwood Industries (P.O. Box 15375, Houston, Texas).
“It’s refreshing to hear something idiosyncratic and authentically unique,” said Daniel Furuta, who became “captivated” with Jandek while studying music at Grinnell College in the mid-aughts.
“To me, the biggest misconception about Jandek — and I think about unusual artists in general — is the sense that knowing the artist’s biography would somehow make the music fit, so to speak, or alternately that the strangeness of the music must imply something unsavory about the artist making it. Clearly, the whole project was heavily invested in anonymity, and to me it’s best to take it at that and focus on the music.”
In December 2006, Furuta went with two friends to a rare Jandek performance in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Harrison Center for the Arts.
“It was a weird experience,” he recalled to Little Village. “I thought the dynamic between the performers seemed strange, and the vibe in general was very odd. The music was excellent.”
Within months, Furuta had booked Jandek for a concert at Grinnell’s Sebring-Lewis Hall in the Bucksbaum Center for the Arts.
“Sebring-Lewis is really interesting because it’s such a formal setting,” said Grinnell professor Eric McIntyre, who teaches music composition classes and conducts the college’s orchestra. McIntyre was Furuta’s advisor, and first introduced him to Jandek’s music.
Grinnell students are required to take a Tutorial in their first semester. McIntyre, who is coming up on his 23rd year at Grinnell, taught the first iteration of his “Weird Music Tutorial” in 2005, primarily inspired by artists appearing in Irwin Chusid’s 2000 book Songs in the Key of Z — The Shaggs, Frank Zappa, John Cage, Daniel Johnston, even 16th century composer Carlo Gesualdo.
“Weird Music,” or “Outsider Music,” as defined by Chusid in a 2008 interview, is, “Music that exists outside the mainstream, done by people who are often self-taught.” Jandek is his book’s “greatest enigma. His music is something that a lot of the people who first encounter it can’t handle it.”
Jandek’s prolific output is quite staggering in its range, from the hauntingly angelic vocals of an unnamed singer on “Nancy Sings” from Chair Beside a Window (1982), the lowkey but charged electric blues of You Walk Alone (1988) which was hailed by Forced Exposure as a “celebratory exorcism,” the ethereal soundscapes of Maze of the Phantom (2012) and even spoken word albums known as the “acapella” records.
“I think the early albums could be called blues or folk, mostly, but they’re unusually dissonant and stark for the genres,” said Furuta, who is partial to Jandek’s first four releases. “Later there’s a range of different influences and styles. There’s a sense of humor in there that’s often overlooked.”
His work has influenced bands such as Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Low. He filmed and released a televised one-act play called Kooken in 2014 and was the subject of two documentaries, Jandek on Corwood (2003) and I Know You Well (2015). Jandek published two books through Corwood in the 2020s, The Rays of Light That Did Not Illumine and The Element of Nothing. Even with this content out in the world, intrigue around the artist and his music has never faded.
Back in 2007, a friend suggested to Furuta that he should try to organize a Jandek concert at Grinnell, so he wrote a letter to Corwood.
“The college was willing to provide some musician’s fees and such, so I just asked them if they would be interested in the gig,” he said, adding that “the representative” he spoke to at Corwood was “polite and personable.”
“He was interested, so we discussed what needed to happen and I made the necessary arrangements, with the cooperation and support of the college and music department. There were no particularly unusual demands.”
Jandek would handle his own travel and accommodations, but Furuta was tasked with hiring musicians and organizing the live audio recording. He formed a backing band, following some recommendations from McIntyre. Jandek was on piano, Olivia Muzzy on double bass, Jennifer Wohlenhaus on English horn (though Corwood’s album notes call it an “oboe”) and Skye Carrasco on violin.
“They were of quite diverse backgrounds, people who knew going into this that this was not going to be like any other gig they played,” McIntyre said.
Jandek arrived a few days ahead of the performance, blocking time to practice in the rehearsal hall at Sebring-Lewis. He was joined by the rest of the ensemble the day of the performance.
During the artist’s visit, students “followed” him around town. “He went to the farmers market in Grinnell,” McIntyre said. “They reported that he bought a bunch of Brussel sprouts. That’s the part I find so amusing, because there were sightings around town. It’s not like he tries to hide. It was interesting to get updates on the sightings.”
A day before the show, the student-run newspaper The Scarlet and Black ran a preview under the headline, “Mysterious musician to intrigue Grinnellians Sat[urday].”
“For fans of Jandek, attending live shows, unlike most concerts, doesn’t involve singing along with familiar songs,” writer Vicky Diedrichs notes. “Purposely mistuning the instruments, playing no legitimate or discernible notes and generating most of the music on the spot: that’s what to expect heading into Jandek’s show this weekend.”
She wasn’t wrong. The night of the show, “There was no talking or singing,” McIntyre recalled, “and it was all performed attacca [without pause]. Each segment flowed to the next, so it was an entire journey.”
The recording of the concert wasn’t released until 2020. Grinnell Saturday is a double-disc album, a copy of which was graciously provided to Little Village by Corwood. There are six unnamed tracks, all over 14 minutes in length. The applause from the audience is almost deafening.
“Those of us who were involved are very proud,” McIntyre said. “I think for all the students who went to the Tutorial, that was a defining moment when that performance happened.”
McIntyre says he has a copy of the album, but had not listened to it, “Probably for a lot of reasons.”
“Honestly, a lot of my focus was on making sure everything worked out — the logistics of it, the recording, and so on,” Furuta said. “I was very relieved by how well everything went.”
In April 2009, McIntyre showcased four of his compositions at Sebring-Lewis for the recital “Music from the Mind of Eric J. McIntyre.” Among them was “Lament,” which McIntyre described as a “scream of grief.” The 2006 work featured a sextet, plus a guitarist off-stage randomly playing what McIntyre calls the “Jandek Chord.”
“The ‘Jandek Chord,’ for anyone who knows Ready for the House, would note it’s essentially the same guitar chord the entire time,” McIntyre explained. “It was my way of paying homage to the artist himself, the sonic realm he captures with just that one sound of a guitar.”
McIntyre sent the artist from Corwood an invitation to the premiere, leaving a pair of tickets at the hall. He didn’t go, but did call the professor and tell him he was coming back to Grinnell. They went to Saints Rest Coffee House, enjoyed mint tea and discussed music. Out of respect for the artist, McIntyre has kept that conversation to himself, except for a couple takeaways.
“One is the idea of getting lost in the music,” McIntyre said. “That’s a key aspect of it for any artist. The other, at the beginning of the conversation, was essentially, ‘We’re here to discuss music, right?’ For someone that is an artist like him who has done all these things, to have a music professor who conducts orchestras and appreciates his work was a great opportunity for both of us.”
McIntyre’s favorite Jandek album is “probably” When I Took That Train (2005). He mentioned the album during their conversation, and says Jandek kind of laughed and replied, “We’ve all taken that train one time or another.”
Afterwards, McIntyre bought the entire Jandek collection.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s September 2026 issue.
