Monday Shorts: Jandek special

So Jandek made yet another live appearance (his 7th) on Saturday in Indianapolis. Now, Jandek has made an undeniably important contribution to the indie scene over the last twenty-five-odd years, but not by playing out. As the fine documentary Jandek on Corwood demonstrated, the Jan man was always best as a mystique, a cultural code word, a mirror for indie snobs' obsession with obscurity for its own sake. For him to emerge as a flesh-and-blood performer is just about the worst thing he could do. Someone lock Jandek up before he plays again.

In much better show news, the incredible Joel RL Phelps is emerging to play a show with James Mercer from the Shins and Eric Bachmann, at Seattle's Nuemos January 7th. In other news, I'm not making this show up. Seattleites, please report back.

Kimya Dawson reports that Adam Green found a stash of old Moldy Peaches t-shirts to sell; fans post their homebrew MP wardrobes.

Crate-digging reissue heroes Numero Group have a good deal going: subscribe and get the next six Numero reissues for $100. It kicks off with Numero 013 Eccentric Soul: Twinight’s Lunar Rotation. Before then, last year's subscription will be fulfilled with a reissue of Catherine Howe's never-really-released 1971 album, a cross of English folk and chamber pop produced by Bobby Scott. Hours of soul, folk and other finds are sure to follow. A guaranteed great gift for the indie fan brother whose collection stops at Arcade Fire.

Hefner's got a new live album out, Maida Vale:

On the 23rd August 2000 Hefner played a very special show from BBC’s Maida Vale studios to an invited audience for the John Peel show. This was the highlight of a relationship between the band and the greatly revered DJ which saw 5 Peel sessions and four live concerts broadcast on his Radio 1 show.

The concert on this CD features an 8 piece version of the band with includes a brass section, pedal steels, ukuleles and violin alongside their own guitars bass and drums. It also features several contributions from Amelia Fletcher, (Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Wedding Present, Marine Research). The songs have been newly remixed from the original master tapes and the CD features photos from the night and sleeve notes from Darren Hayman.

The CD captures an exceptional performance of many songs rarely played live during Hefner’s short career. Maida Vale follows the release of The Best Of Hefner and Catfight (a collection of unreleased recordings) and is the premier release on Belka, a label which will continue to release re-mastered and expanded versions of Hefner’s back catalogue through out 2007.

Secretly Canadian has posted another track from Dave Fischoff's The Crawl, "Landscape Skin".

MP3: Dave Fischoff - Landscape Skin