On a scale of one to ten my level of "into-it!-ness" for Halloween is somewhere around a three. I don't despise the holiday, and I've had a pretty good costume or two in my day, but I've never been one for the vast minutae of Halloween that so many seem to hold so dear.
That said, one thing that I do love is a good theme to base a radio show around. The fact that the majority of my October 31st was spent either on the air, or preparing to be on the air is perhaps the most perfect way I've ever spent a Halloween. Looking back, I realize that I perhaps should have made at least one of the shows entirely Halloween themed, but there's always next year. One particularly noteworthy artist that my exploration for spooky tracks brought me back to was Jandek.
There's nothing all that particular in Jandek's work that you could use to tie back to Halloween, I loosely went with the fact that he has a record called Blue Corpse, but the overall atmosphere is what makes Jandek's music so chilling. Despite a few shows within the past few years, Jandek still remains largely a creature of seclusion and mystery. In fact, Spin Magazine ran an article about Jandek several years back and there was a sidebar citing the 5 least plausibe Jandek rumors. One of them was; "He's actually Thurston Moore." I like that. I like the idea of Jandek shrouded in as much mystery as can be, it makes the songs all the more discomforting. Cause these songs are so spare, so strange, and so sure haunt you for some time that to know anything about the person responsible for them would almost seem to take away most of the songs' overall appeal.
All that said, you must certainly be able to imagine imagine that after a year or so of not thinking about, or hearing those songs; they're all the more jarring. The song I played on this particular Halloween show, "Part II," has always been my favorite. I can't explain why, and I think that for the best. Jandek, and this song in particular, just make me nervous, and I like it.
You can listen to the show
here.
