“Ten Years of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Reissues and a Rare Live Performance
With the release of Dirty Shirt Rock’n’Roll: The First Ten Years (2010), a retrospective anthology containing the best of the first 10 years of activity, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, the trio formed by Jon Spencer (vocals and guitar), Judah Bauer (guitar) and Russell Simins (drums), announced a dense and substantial reissue program of all their works, including the Japanese-only Controversial Negro, which has become collector’s item. The albums of the New York trio have not been available on the international market for some time. The new reissues, labeled Shove! and distributed in Italy by Goodfellas, are remastered and expanded versions, with the addition of an incredible amount of bonus tracks and unreleased material. The albums now released on the market (excluding the weaker Plastic Fang from 2002 and Damage from 2004) are the truly fundamental titles in the career of the American punk-blues band, which has the merit of having revitalized the immortal roots of black and American music (blues, rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm & blues, soul, funk) with a brutal, punk approach, partly heir to the sonic terror of the mother band, Pussy Galore. Following a chronological order, we start with Year One, an extended version of Crypt Style (1992), recorded in 1991 by Steve Albini. It includes the first recordings of the band, dedicated in those years to a mu-
A psychotic, primal, rock ‘n’ roll-ripping sound that overturns the Delta tradition, mixing Elvis, the Cramps, the Stooges, Captain Beefheart, the Rolling Stones, and Sonic Youth. A raw, sparse, rudimentary (in a word, lo-fi), brutal sound, devoid of any melodic embellishment. The reissue adds to the sessions including those by Mark Kramer contained in the bootleg LP A Reverse Willie Horton, plus a couple of vintage 7-inch records, for a total of 38 tracks. The second chapter is Extra Width from 1993, recorded between New York and Memphis, which gives a clear stylistic twist: it is a tribute to the sounds of Stax, introducing elements of funk, soul and R&B, with the addition of the sax and the Hammond organ: the opening track Afro is the manifesto of new sound and has become a dancefloor classic. The reissue is a double CD, with the addition of the entire Mo Width (an anthology of outtakes released in 1993 by the Australian label Au-Go-Go) and 24 extra tracks, including 7 live tracks. The third album, Orange, from 1994, is one of the pinnacles of the discography, the most heterogeneous and contaminated album, a brilliant experiment in deconstructing the blues, the first work in which sampling, electronics and new styles such as hip-hop and broken beat are made room, without giving up the basic ingredients: noise, punk, blues, garage, rocka-billy, funk, soul, rhythm & blues.
The Experimental Remixes mini-LP will feature Orange’s electronic reworkings by sound alchemists such as Moby, Beck, Mike D of the Beastie Boys, and Genius of the Wu-Tang Clan. The double-CD reissue contains both albums, along with rare and previously unreleased tracks. Anyone wishing to gain an idea of the trajectory of rock in recent years cannot ignore a milestone like Orange. Their 1996 follow-up, Now I Got Worry, features guest appearances by Rufus Thomas (soul and rhythm & blues legend), Money Mark (Beastie Boys keyboardist), and Thermos Malling (Doo Rag), and represents the meeting point between the lo-fi brutality, the iconoclastic and anarchic fury of their early work, and the experimentation and hip-hop “modernism” of Orange. Along with the latter, it is the group’s other masterpiece, one of the most important albums of ’90s rock. The Shove! reissue contains 16 extra tracks, including rare and unreleased songs (one in particular, “Roosevelt Hotel Blues,” featuring guests Beck and Money Mark) and four radio spots. For fans of the band, Controversial Negro is the most anticipated release, considering that the album—a incandescent live album recorded in 1996 at the Hotel Congress in Tucson, Arizona—was released in 1997 only in Japan, pressed as a promo on vinyl in the United States, and on CD in the United Kingdom. The new version adds a dozen extra tracks and charts the wildest trajectories of the band led by the former Pussy Galore member. Without a moment’s pause, the album features 29 tracks (nine of which were recorded at the DPC in Tucson in 1994), which express the great potential of the Blues Explosion, a relentless live war machine, and above all of its charismatic leader, a true stage animal. Featuring exceptional guests (Calvin Johnson, Steve Albini, Alec Empire, Dan The Automator), their fifth album, 1998’s Acme, is their most polished and refined work, with a distinctly soulful streak. An “experimental” version of the album, containing remixes and various “outtakes,” titled Extra Acme or Acme Plus, was released, in some ways superior to the original. Both albums are included in the double-CD reissue, which is enriched, for the occasion, with additional remixes and unreleased tracks, with contributions from Techno Animal, Dub Narcotic Sound System, and Dan The Automator. In terms of both quantity and quality, this is a monumental work that will appeal to fans and enthusiasts, and for newcomers, it’s an excellent opportunity to rediscover one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of the ’90s and beyond.
Gabriele Barone”
