“Interview with Jon Spencer
Photo: Ali Smith
Interpretation: Mariko Kawahara
Spencer Dickinson
Raw and personal, funky and sexy…
While fans eagerly await Blues Explosion’s new album, frontman John Spencer has launched a new project, Spencer Dickinson! Teaming up with the Dickinson brothers, members of the garage blues band North Mississippi Allstars, they are unleashing a modern, rootsy yet traditional, and innovative contemporary blues sound.
John, a true New Yorker, traveled to Mississippi himself and produced the album in a studio that was little more than a garage.
John Spencer spoke about his new unit’s debut album, “Spencer Dickinson.”
SPENCER DICKINSON
“Spencer Dickinson” Toys Factory TFCK-87263
▲From left: Cody Dickinson, Jon Spencer, Luther Dickinson,
Jon Spencer Spencer Dickinson
I love the Dickinson brothers’ playing and the rhythms they create.
First, please introduce the members of Spencer Dickinson.
The members are me, Cody, and Luther Dickinson. Basically, I’m on vocals and guitar, Luther is on guitar, and Cody is on drums. I overdubbed any other necessary instruments when we mixed the tracks in New York. Things like electric bass, acoustic bass, organ, piano, synthesizer, stylophone, and percussion. If we felt like adding something, we’d add it; Cody played bass, and Luther played bass and sang vocals. On some tracks, their father Jim Dickinson and mixer Bill Emans participated, and we also had Jerry Teo from the New York band The Knoxful Girls join in.
The Dickinson brothers are active in a band called North Mississippi Allstars (NMA). What kind of band is that?
They play the blues, but with Southern rock elements. When I say blues, I mean mostly Hill Country blues, like Fred McDowell, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, and Arthur Turner. Luther and Cody are from Mississippi, and their father Jim is a legendary producer/musician, so they grew up in a musical family. NMA’s music is modern blues, but it also has free-form jazz elements, like jam bands such as Widespread Panic, Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Phish.
It’s popular among enthusiasts.
How did you end up forming a band with them? I knew his father, and I was a fan of his. I loved his playing, the musicians he’d worked with, and his production work, so I wanted to play with them. I first met his son, Luther, when we were touring with Blues Explosion in ’95-’96. I think it was in ’97 that I first saw NMA live at a bar in New York. That’s when I thought I really wanted to make a record with them. So, around ’98, I talked to Luther and asked him if he’d like to join us. I was just blown away by NMA’s music. I especially love their early, pure hill country blues, which isn’t too jam-oriented. I love their playing and the rhythms they create. As we actually worked together, I realized just how talented they both are.
It incorporates various musical elements, including blues, rock, country & western, and more.
But is that their preference?
It’s to the taste of all three of us. We wrote all the songs together.
In terms of the blues aspect, I got a deep Delta blues vibe from it.
It’s definitely Delta, but within that, I think it’s specifically identified as Hill Country Blues. I think the roots of Hill Country are in the fife and drum music that Arthur Turner plays, but that’s hypnotic
It’s sexual, raw, and captivating music.
What makes hill country blues different from city blues? It’s raw, personal, incredibly funky, and sexy.
This album is like a barn
We made it in the studio.
“Primitive,” as the title suggests, is permeated with a primitive, one-chord blues sound. However, the way it incorporates sound effects is what makes it uniquely yours.
On the basic track of that song, Cody is making sounds with a washboard, Luther is on electric bass, and I’m on stylophone. A stylophone is like a toy electric piano, and it was popular in Britain in the 60s and 70s. I was playing it and singing into the built-in speaker. It’s kind of like Fife & Drum style hill country with some Einsterzende Neubauten-esque industrial stuff thrown in. It’s my favorite track on the album. Also, “Body” is really cool, and I’m happy with how it turned out. Jim Dickinson is on piano on this track, and Luther is on rap…
I’m playing a steel guitar.
Is “Primitive” entirely made up of live instruments?
It’s all live (laughs). After all, this album was made in a barn-like studio. It’s called Zebra Ranch, and it’s a completely homemade studio, filled with junk that’s been hoarded over the years, aside from the recording equipment. There are old instruments and strange objects. One thing worth mentioning is that the acoustic tiles on the walls are the same ones used at Sun Studio. There’s a movie called “Great Balls of Fire” about Jerry Lee Lewis, and they weren’t allowed to use Sun Studio for filming, so they had to make a set that looked similar. They used tiles that they found somewhere at that time. Jim Dickinson got his hands on those tiles used in the set and put them on the walls and ceiling of Zebra Ranch. However, these tiles are actually made of illegal material. They’re made of asbestos, which contains carcinogenic substances and is banned by the government. I mean, they’re the same tiles that were used at Sun Studio…
It makes me feel kind of magical.
Did the studio atmosphere influence the album making? Yeah. I was completely immersed in it. I even slept in a barn with nothing around it for a while. It was in the countryside of Mississippi, really with nothing around, and it was winter.
“51 Phantom”
North Mississippi All-Stars Toys Factory TFCK-87270
NORTH MISSISSIPTI ALLSTARS***
51
PHANTOM
This is the latest album from the North Mississippi Allstars, featuring Luther and Cody Dickinson. It’s an exhilarating work that combines deep blues with a garage/jam band feel.
It was extremely cold. I’m sure that environment had an impact on me.
What was the songwriting process like?
I came up with a lot of the ideas. I would record the ideas that came to mind on cassette tapes, playing guide guitar parts in my apartment in New York City. We used those tapes, and we created many of the songs by playing together as a trio.
“Flood” is particularly freeform, isn’t it?
There are many songs with “Flood” in the title, but in this song, Luther is imitating the guitar playing of John Lee Hooker when he was doing his “Flood” song. Many bluesmen have sung about floods, and Hooker was one of them. Hooker’s death was a great loss. It’s very sad. So, I played the piano part and looped it using a sampler. That became the basic, and Cody played drums, Luther played guitar, and I sang. After that, we deleted the piano loop and added another pattern with a Fender Rhodes. Many of the other songs were recorded with all three of us playing at the same time.
But this song was a bit experimental.
Please tell me what equipment you used for the album.
The recording was done in two separate sessions in Mississippi. The first time I used a black Silvertone guitar, and the second time I used a red Japanese-made guitar. The red one doesn’t really have a name…it just says MADE IN JAPAN. It’s similar to the guitar I use in Blues Explosion (Fujigen EJ-2). Luther used cool old guitars like Telecasters and Stratocasters, as well as cheaper ones like Silvertones and Harmonies. And on one song I played a 6-string bass…a baritone guitar or something like that. I forget what brand it was. For amps, I used one that was in the studio, and Luther used his Fender Deluxe Blackface a lot. I also used a small, old, weird amp that I borrowed from Jim, but I don’t remember the brand. I like equipment that’s broken and practically unusable. I used effects pedals on some songs. On “That’s A Drag,” Luther used something like an old Electro-Harmonix synth guitar pedal, and I controlled the EQ with my foot while he played. I also used some of the pedals I brought—a Roger Mayer Octavia and an Ampeg Scrambler—on “Primitive” and “Body.”
So, are there any plans to tour with this band?
There are no plans yet, but I’d like to do it. Luther and Cody are busy with NMA’s new album, ’51 Phantom,’ which just came out. I’ve been talking to them a bit about the possibility of me joining them on a few songs when NMA plays a live show.
By the way, Blues Explosion’s new
What are your plans for the work?
We started working on it in May, and now we’re in the mixing stage. I think it will be released around February of next year. Actually, this is the first time I’ve used a producer (Steve Jordan). He’s also produced for Keith Richards and Robert Cray. It’s a really good album. It’s a more traditional rock and roll album, and it’s quite different from the last one.”
