#jsbx

Recorded by Steve Albini in 1989

Amphetamine Reptile Records

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Cover Variants

Under the cut

(La Bande Adhesive)

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “Orange” released 25 years ago today, October 12th, 1994. Matador Records, silver vinyl. Tonight we’re catching JSBX’s drummer Russell Simins’ band S-E-R-V-I-C-E at Cactus Club in Milwaukee. We saw them last month at our neighborhood street party, Bay View Bash, and back in May 2017 in Indianapolis at Hi-Fi Indy and they are amazing. Here’s a couple of shots from those shows.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “A Reverse Willie Horton” 1991. Today, June 18th, is JSBX guitarist (and fellow Appleton, WI native) Judah Bauer’s 48th birthday. A Reverse Willie Horton is a super-rare, super-early JSBX release (only around 500 copies pressed); it’s possibly a bootleg (one of only three other releases on Pubic Pop Can Records - a “label” that is more likely Siltbreeze Records). From Pop-Catastrophe: “During an interview with Fiz Magazine (Issue #5) Jon Spencer discusses the various editions of the first album and hints at the origins of this particular release; ‘When I was travelling around with the Gibson Bros. last year I had a tape of that with me because we had just done it. I let a few people dub it so maybe something came from that.” although it has since been suggested that the album was released the band’s consent and it seems unlikely that the record was made from a dubbed cassette.’ The sound quality on this LP is actually really decent and not at all dissimilar from JSBX’s first couple of “official” releases of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on Crypt and Caroline. The tracks that appear on A Reverse Willie Horton mostly mirror those official releases -- all were recorded and engineered “by New York’s most famed producer, [Mark] Kramer (Ex-Butthole Surfers, Bongwater and founder of the Shimmydisc label) and their second session which was presided over by Steve Albini (ex-Big Black/top producer/all round bitch.) According to Blues Explosion drummer Russell Simins and guitarist Judah Bauer, the Kramer session took just two and a half to three hours in which they recorded fourteen songs, only doing second takes here and there. ‘The thing is that on some of that stuff, that three hours of rock mixes, we didn’t even go to the mixing board. That’s all on record: that bootleg – ‘A Reverse Willie Horton’.” (pop-catastrophe) 

My favorite tracks are “Twenty-9″ (listed as both “Twenty Nine” and “Twentynine” on other releases - the version on A Reverse Willie Horton is also completely different to their official Crypt Style release), “Typecast,” “Lovin’ Up a Storm,” “’78 Style” and of course “40lb Block of Cheese” which always makes me laugh because I envision the origin of this song as the guys sitting around late-night in a dark NYC apartment in ‘91, Judah regaling Jon and Russell with tales of what it was like to grow up in Appleton, Wisconsin (“You walk into any grocery store and there’s, like, a 40 pound block of cheese staring at you”). 

Here’s a couple of Judah Bauer photos, the first I took at a friend’s apartment in 1987 (Appleton) and the second is of me with him at a JSBX concert in 2012 (Milwaukee). 

Jon Spencer “Big Yule Log Boogie” b/w “My Christmas Wish” 1992. Sub Pop Records, Sub Pop Singles Club limited edition on green vinyl. Probably the coolest - and weirdest - Christmas music in the Vault. Recorded just at the beginnings of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Judah Bauer plays raw and unrestrained guitar while Spencer whoops and wails a gleeful “CHRISTMAS!!!” and signature “C’mon honey” at the start of “Big Yule Log Boogie.” It’s a Hasil-Adkins level lo-fi devolution of rockabilly blues and simply amazing. Side B’s “My Christmas Wish” is a woeful holiday lament, swampy country-blues with gritty sliding electric guitar. Both tracks were eventually included on the 2010 reissue on Shout! Factory’s pressing of Extra Width + Mo’ Width. The run-out grooves have writings and scratchings (due to a pressing error between Spencer’s 7″ and Wolverton Brothers’ single of “My Assassin”), Side A: Special Merry Xmas to XNA and Side B: Love Always, Jon. (Thanks to the excellent Pop-Catastrophe website for the details and lyrics)

“Big Yule Log Boogie”

Come on honey and fly with me

We’re gonna get some lovin’ on Christmas eve

Christmas time rock ‘n’ roll

Holiday season with a little soul

You got to try Holiday’s-a lovin’, baby You and I

I’m gonna love you this Christmas love you Crazy

Calling all elves all around the world I got a yule tide date with my kind of girl

Seen ’em alive I’ll be your Santa Claus I’m gonna love you this Christmas Rock ‘n’ Roll

Happy New Year dad I’m the dude that’ll kick your ass I’m gonna get drunk this Christmas I’m gonna tie one up

Christmas Remember me

I’m gonna get a little lovin’ Going more on Christmas eve Honey, this do mean honest I got the spirit of giving

I’m gonna love you this Christmas

Christmas

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion “Plastic Fang” 2002. Matador Records. Limited edition double LP (with four bonus tracks). Halloween music, JSBX style: funky, raucous, weird punk blues: “She Said” (villagers with pitchforks, silver bullets and werewolves), “Killer Wolf” (monsters feeling no pain, teenage heads with rotten brains), “Midnight Creep” (an ass-shaker with one of my favorite JSBX lines “Right now, go ahead baby, I gonna stick my head in gravy”), “Down in the Beast,” and “Like a Bat.”   Also plenty of get-down blues funk with “Money Rock’N’Roll,” “Hold On” (with signature “That’s right ladies and gentlemen, that’s Blues Explosion all the way from New York City!”) and “Shakin’ Rock’n’Roll Tonight.”

We saw Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at the Modjeska Theater in Milwaukee when they toured for Plastic Fang in May 2002. Fortunately I was writing for the Shepherd Express at that time - and reviewed the show - because I would not have remembered the details some 15 years later. The clip is pictured below but I will highlight a few of the more memorable moments here: Spencer played the theremin with his tongue (ooof! this has me recalling the classic line from the song “Can’t Stop” on Now I Got Worry “Throw their hands in the air and kiss my ass ‘cause your girlfriend still loves me”) and drummer Russell Simins getting pelted by ice, storming off stage for a few minutes but fortunately returning. Dub Narcotic Sound System was supposed to open for JSBX (they were late because of the clichéd band van breakdown). The band joined JSBX on stage and toward the end of the show, their singer Calvin Johnson pulled a throng of audience members onto the stage. The scene devolved into anarchy, culminating in Modjeska’s security pulling the plug on the concert.

We have Plastic Fang on both vinyl and CD. The vinyl has four bonus tracks: “Like a Bat,” “Tore Up & Broke,” “Then Again I Will” and “Do Ya Wanna Get It?” and both copies have some pretty amazing, vibrantly colored artwork pictured in a multi-page booklet. (I thought for some reason that when we first got this back in 2002 that it also came with some actual plastic fangs, but I might be confusing that with Vault-boy’s obsession with collecting vampire teeth a few years ago.)