Open Mic Jandek Cover Night will proceed as planned at Lili Coffee*Shop in Polish Hill. Thanks, Lili Coffee*Shop! May you Put Your Dream On This Planet.

I'm still astonished at the high level of performances the annual Open Mic Jandek Cover Night has had over the years. (Yep, been listening to the archives.)

Tonight! Friday November 6! 7:30 pm! It's the 7th Annual Open Mic Jandek Cover Night at the Morning Glory Coffeehouse in Morningside. Anyone can play, but you have to cover a Jandek tune. Free! All ages! BYOB! I'm out of exclamation points. http://bit.ly/3ZICmf

Announcement
It's that time of year again--leaves on the weaker trees are turning, and every so many days you have to wear long sleeves. It's also time to polish up a Jandek cover or three and head to this year's Open Mic Jandek Cover Night--the fifth annual one!

When: Monday, November 5 (Jandek Day), 8PM.

Where: Te Cafe, Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh PA, USA, at the corner of Murray Avenue and Beacon Street.

How much: Free! But it'd be cool if you showed some support for the room by buying some tea or something. There are plenty of exotic teas to set the right frame of mind, and one variety of coffee.

Other logistics: there'll be time for two or three covers from each person. I'll have lyrics available. There's room for one, maybe two people to play at the same time. Drum kits, unfortunately, are out. There will be low-powered amplification, which is all we need. It's a small room.

Anyone can come and play...but you have to cover a Jandek tune. Come on over for an evening that's by turns poppy, swanky, creepy, and deeply alienating. We most likely won't see The Representative himself there, but we'd like to see you.

Te Cafe, 2000 Murray Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15217. Monday, November 5, 2007. 8 PM. All Ages. Free.

Announcement
OK, the players are in place, distant contributions have been received,
and essential shout-outs have been prepared. This will be the most
condensed OMJCN ever--and it'll be on the radio.

We will have live in the studio performances (on guitar, sure, but also
accordion and ukulele), and some absolutely wonderful contributions from
far-flung Jandek fans, some of whom you may even know.

The broadcast is Thursday, March 9, 9-10 PM EST (GMT - 5, so 2-3 AM
Friday March 10 GMT). Pick up the streams from http://www.wrct.org/ or
if you're in radio range of Pittsburgh, tune into 88.3 at the bottom of
your FM dial. WRCT doesn't archive these, so embrace the ephemerality
and check it out as it all unfolds. We'll see you...on the radio.

Report
For something that seemed certain to fail, this one ultimately worked pretty well. As the date approached, I had essentially no commitments from local performers. Unfinished Symphonies would have been there, though family-related travel kept him away, unfortunately. Otherwise, apart from the DJ/host Underwater Culprit, I had a lot of local, well, radio silence. On the other hand, there was a lot of interest nationally and internationally, so it seemed best to go along with this energy--if someone really wants to participate, they should in preference to people who don't. So I prepared to use pre-recorded work. And man, these contributions were all really good.

In the event, it went pretty well, with one snag: I used the Ableton Live setup from last Fall's J-night, and swapped channels, so that (damn!) I was rolling all the highs off my voice for the broadcast. Oh, well. But overall, it went quite well. The lineup:

Since I Went Outside: Christopher Petkus
Unfinished Symphonies: Unfinished Symphonies
Interlude: Christopher Petkus
Naked_in_the_afternoon: Naythen Wilson
I'm Ready: Danny Saul
Real Wild: Christopher Petkus
Wild Strawberries: My Boyfriend the Pilot
Lizard of the Institute - I passed by the Building
The Clothes: Christopher Petkus/Sarah Haldeman

I of course did the trio of "Niagara Blues," "Open E," and "Only Lover," although my performances were better in the live J-night shows. Jason did some very noisy electric stuff, which was quite entertaining, and at the end, when we ran out of material, we did a quick "Electric End" improv, another noisy apotheosis. Quite a nice evening, even as we kind of missed the vibe of everyone in the same room.