Published 2007-06-08 18:10

PROFILE. “Who is Jandek?” It is the question inevitably uttered by casual and serious music fans. The average person, into music or not, asks because they’ve never heard of him. For serious fans, the question holds deeper, philosophical and more frustrating reasons. 

The short answer is a mysterious singer-songwriter from Texas. The longer explanation, and not exactly an answer, is a hermetic outsider music icon who mysteriously launched out of a Houston P.O. box in 1978 with an enigmatic album called “Ready for the House.” He hadn’t played a show in his 25-year career. He has refused all but a handful of interviews, and, after some insights, he still can’t be pinned. 

Jandek, officially referred to as the representative from Corwood Industries, played his first live concert, unannounced and completely unbilled, in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2004, shortly after the release of the musicologist-must documentary “Jandek on Corwood.” 

Even if the curtain has been pulled back on the man (said to be named Sterling Smith with ties to Rhode Island), Jandek is still as untouchable, inexplicable and as far out as his improv-folk caterwaul. 

“To me, Jandek is just someone who is a pretty normal person and just looks at music as something you put in your hobby music box/space,” says Angela Sawyer, an admitted record nerd who works at Twisted Village in Harvard Square. She was among a couple dozen “Jandek scholars” interviewed for Chad Freidrichs’ documentary. 

“If you make tiny boats and you have a shed where you make your tiny boats and you make them on Sundays and it doesn’t involve anyone else so no one else should care. To me, it’s someone who is just super low-key and super quiet and doesn’t want to deal with people being grabby and weird,” Sawyer says. 

After 29 years of underground zine-propagated whispers and upwards of 50 albums, the Glasgow show elicited delight and derision. Sawyer fell on both sides of the line. 

“I’ll admit, at first, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s awful,’” she says, sitting among overflowing stacks of vinyl and discs at her home-based Weirdo Records storefront. “Then I thought about it, and I was like, ‘That’s OK.’ And now I can enjoy the live experience. Jandek can do whatever he wants. ... He can’t have a bunch of collectors saying, ‘He can’t play; that’s so uncool.’” 

Audiophiles are notorious snobs, but Sawyer doesn’t begrudge the curious rubberneckers. 

“People who only have one record or don’t have any, they go to the shows because of the story. And that’s OK,” Sawyer says. “That gives them a chance to check out an experimental event as it’s going on. And you can’t develop an ear for that unless you just do it. There’s no style guide. Whether it’s media or the way people’s heads are built or both, there’s nowhere you can go to get aesthetic lessons. You just have to throw yourself in the pool.”