MUSIC

 On Saturday, December 17, 2011, beginning at 4 p.m., the Menil Collection will present a two-part program of live and recorded Outsider Music in conjunction with the current museum exhibition Seeing Stars: Visionary Drawing From the Collection. The drawings, by artists who have been variously called outsider, visionary, folk, naïve, or self-taught, showcase a unique and rarely exhibited facet of the Menil’s works on paper. The program begins in the exhibition gallery with DJ chosen selections of recorded music.

At 6 p.m., 7:15pm the Menil Collection and Nameless Sound present a free outdoor solo concert by the Houston-based musician known as Jandek. (Please Note: Due to the weather, the concert has moved to 7:15 and will be in the foyer). The quintessential outsider musician, Jandek has self-produced over sixty albums since 1978. He released the albums on his label, Corwood Industries, never performing a live concert or granting press interviews. College radio stations and record collectors took an interest in his stark, unresolving sound, which eludes identifiable reference points.

The music and the mystery of Jandek’s identity inspired a cult following. Questions about Jandek, who is sometimes identified as “a representative from Corwood,” prompted speculation in the press and a 2004 documentary Jandek on Corwood. Later that year, Jandek appeared for the first time at the Instal 04 Music Festival in Glasgow, and he has been performing live with various musicians since. A representative from Corwood last performed with Nameless Sound in 2006, when he surprised audiences by joining Loren Conners and Alan Licht’s concert at the Live Oak Friends Meeting House.

Preceding Jandek’s performance, at 4 pm, Houston record collector Jeff Williams will be in the exhibition gallery playing selections from his extensive library of recorded visionary and outsider music. From the cacophony of Charlie Nothing and his Dingulator to the innocent recordings of The Shaggs, the selections document a range of musical approaches outside accepted standards of musicianship. Many of the vinyl recordings are produced in small editions, and contained in album cover sleeves designed by the performers, making them works of visionary, or outsider, art as well.