| The Ballad of Speedball Baby by Ali Smith includes the several references to The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – El Rey Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, US (18 March 1997):
“Tonight we’ll play with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, friends from New York that we’ve played and toured with often. Our patron saints from MCA will come marvel at their acquisition on the grand stage of the El Rey Theatre – chandeliers (plural) dangling above, a thousand people in the crowd.
Jon and Ron are not the same creature, even though music press always wants to make them out to be. Jon is conventionally handsome, a withdrawn enigma off stage, a controlled ringleader on, polite and presentable although a quiet troublemaker, At our first show together, he sent their roadie on stage during our set – naked except for a family-sized bag of potato chips taped to his waits – to dry-hump Ron and Matt and generally make trouble.
Ron ripped the bag open with his teeth and sprayed chips everywhere without missing a beat, and when I looked off stage, Jon was crying from laughing. Russell, their drummer, is a trouble-enforcer: tall, confident, topped with wild, bushy hair. And Judah, their guitarist, is a quirky reed blowing in a troubled wind.”
“The Blues Explosion is on next, and I watch from the side of the stage. Now this is something the crowd can finally get behind – cool but not scary – and the audience is flipping its collective hair and shimmying in designer clothes and rattling their jewellery and I’ve had enough.”
“Soon after the disastrous LA showcase we played with the Blues Explosion, MCA dissolved its relationship with Fort Apache – having not discovered Nirvana through it, literally or figuratively – and a roster of cool, interesting bands were dropped, including us.”
“But we’re playing CBGB’s this weekend with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, so tonight is the night I privately dread the most. Tonight is the night we poster.”
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – CBGB’s, New York City, New York, US (unknown date):
“Come Saturday night, 10 p.m., CBGB’s is packed, bow to stern. The crowd wraps around the stage from behind and is thick all the way past the long bar to those swinging doors at the front.
The Blues Explosion is a great band and when we play together, we egg each other on in a light-hearted vicious snatch for the crown.”
The Speedball Baby album The Blackout features both Judah Bauer and Jon Spencer, Uptight! features Judah Bauer on the track Pocket Fulla Fish and the Speedball Baby show at CBGB’s Gallery, New York City, NY, US (10 May 1998) featured numerous guests including Judah Bauer, Bob Bert, Cristina Martinez and Hollis Queens.
Jon Spencer appeared with Speedball Baby on their track for the Gun Club tribute album Salvo of 24 Gunshots.
The photos shown below are from “Ali Smith’s 90s New York punk scene – photo essay” on TheGuardian.com (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/feb/05/ali-smiths-90s-new-york-punk-scene-in-pictures), a black and white version of the first image shown below appears in the book.
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