| 31 January 2003 | Sanctuary Publishing Ltd | 186074446X |
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| 272 page book by Mike Evans on N.Y.C. Rock features a small part about Pussy Galore and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (mentions in-passing Honeymoon Killers, Boss Hog and Gibson Bros.) and includes an image of Jon Spencer.
The following is from an amazon.co.uk customer review of the book: “It is full of errors and this really spoils it. Amongst the most obvious being: Madonna’s first album wasn’t “Like A Virgin”, “Sister Ray” by the Velvet Underground is 17 mins long and not 7 mins and Live Aid was in 1985, not 1995. With something as glaring as that last one, you wonder what else might be wrong that you don’t realise. Very poor editing, indeed.” |
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| ARTICLE TEXT: | |
| “Originally hailing from Washington, DC, and relocating to New York in the 1980s, Pussy Galore was a no-wave-influenced outfit that for five years terrified club audiences with a noise-rock assault that took no prisoners. Nihilism was the order of the day, although aficionados reckoned their two albums Groove Hate Fuck and Right Now! to be among the best of the period. ‘If The Cramps stripped rock ‘n’ roll down to its bones,’ said one review, ‘Pussy Galore crushed those bones.’
The band’s leader, singer/guitarist Jon Spencer, finally decided to call it a day when he found himself ultimately trapped by the negativity of the scene. After a short period with an outfit called Boss Hog with his wife, Cristina Martinez (also an ex-Pussy), followed by the more inspiring rockabilly group The Gibson Brothers, he formed a trop – with ex-Honeymoon Killers drummer Russell Simins and Judah Bauer on guitar – dedicated to the notion of fusing the no-nonsense directness of what Pussy had been attempting with the similar honesty of the music’s roots in the blues. As he told Mojo in 1994, ‘If the blues has got to be 12 bars played by a black guy in the Delta, then obviously we’re not a blues band. But the thing I always liked about the blues was that it was honest and direct, and in terms of authenticity I think the only thing that matters is that we’re trying to make music that comes from us.’ The bands’s first albums made only tentative moves in this direction, 1992’s The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and 1993’s Extra Width both being something of a pared-down version of Spencer’s previous band, albeit in a more minimalist context. But subsequent releases saw the group moving further into blues, R&B and soul territory, starting with their third album proper, Orange, in 1994. On this collection, the sparse trio format gave way to a broad sonic base which included a soul-inspired string section and a bizarre guest sequence from slacker-rapper Beck. Closer identification with authentic blues came with a collaboration as backing band with the legendary bluesman R.L. Burnside on his much acclaimed A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey, followed by a similar exercise with soul singer Rufus Thomas on the band’s own Now I Got Worry in 1996. 1998’s Acme, described by an MTV reviewer as ‘more Blues than Explosion, more Mississippi Delta than Lower East Side’, confirmed Spencer’s continuing musical liaison with rock ‘n’ roll’s rich ancestry in a thoroughly modern context (including electronic and hip-hop influences), as did the even more downhome Plastic Fang in 2002. And just to confirm their place up there with the cutting edge of New York City rock ‘n’ roll, the autumn of 2002 saw them on the road headlining a package with The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Liars as support. Among New York’s finest, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion have come to personify the broad template of possibilities represented by the city’s rock ‘n’ roll heritage.” |
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ARTWORK: Cover: Getty Images ISBN-10: 186074446X MATRIX/RUN-OUT GROOVE ENGRAVING: n/a |
