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Boss Hog: Drinkinâ, Lechinâ & Lyinâ
Recorded by Steve Albini in 1989
Amphetamine Reptile Records
â-
Cover Variants
Under the cut
(La Bande Adhesive)
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion âOrangeâ released 25 years ago today, October 12th, 1994. Matador Records, silver vinyl. Tonight weâre catching JSBXâs drummer Russell Siminsâ 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. Hereâs a couple of shots from those shows.
Orange, my favorite JSBX record and their third or fourth (depending upon how you count the first two releases from 1992) LP, is at times sparse, chaotic, funky, punk, bluesy but always amazing. The lead track, âBellbottomsâ swells with strings and a funked out groove before hitting the staccatoâd âbellbottomsâ anthem. The song inspired Edgar Wright to write the 2017 movie Baby Driver, the soundtrack to which was nominated for a Grammy (the song âChase Meâ in the movie is a remix of âBellbottomsâ by Danger Mouse featuring Run the Jewels and Big Boi). âWright laid in his bedroom listening to the song on repeat, visualizing a car chase set to âBellbottoms.â He also started coming up with the idea of a character: a getaway driver for a bank heist, who cannot do his job properly without the right music playing.â (IndieWire) âDitchâ is hip-shaking sexy and âDangâ has fantastic, crazed harmonica solo by Judah, matched by Jon Spencerâs insane theremin. The first of two excellent instrumentals on Orange comes next: âVery Rareâ slows down the beat to a hypnotic rhythm overlayed with Spencerâs signature guitar twang. âSweatâ is iconic JSBX giving us the classic line âThatâs the sweat of the Blues Explosion!â âCowboyâ is weirdly mangled country-western (not my favorite track on the album) but the title track âOrangeâ returns to the slinky JSBX groove (Spencer name-drops âStar Trekâ and manages to make even that sexy). Side B leads off with âBrendaâ with Spencer singing longingly, just a little too high out his range, for a girl and her money. âDissectâ is thick with musical chaos and âBlues X Manâ is a â12-bar back-country roadhouse blues and back-alley back-seat eros to Lower East Side boasting about the Blues Explosionâs musical virility. It begins sparse and skeletal before adding a female backing chorus and DJ turntablism, turning traditionalism upside down and scraping country and city down to their nubs in order to make everything bleed.â (Allmusic) âFull Grownâ is balls-out insanity beginning with the line âBaby baby you sure like to fuck FUCK!â and âFlavorâ is hilarious, rattling off all the cities where the Blues Explosion is number one and the band gets Beck on the phone to croon out âflavor.â (The remix of âFlavorâ is even better, featuring Beck and Mike D in a wicked funny video.) Orange concludes with my favorite JSBX track, the instrumental âGreyhoundâ which is monstrously awesome, best played at 11.Â
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, The Hi-Tone, Memphis, TN, 2013
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion âA Reverse Willie Hortonâ 1991. Today, June 18th, is JSBX guitarist (and fellow Appleton, WI native) Judah Bauerâs 48th birthday. A Reverse Willie Horton is a super-rare, super-early JSBX release (only around 500 copies pressed); itâs possibly a bootleg (one of only three other releases on Pubic Pop Can Records - a âlabelâ that is more likely Siltbreeze Records). From Pop-Catastrophe: âDuring 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; âWhen 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.â although it has since been suggested that the album was released the bandâs consent and it seems unlikely that the record was made from a dubbed cassette.â The sound quality on this LP is actually really decent and not at all dissimilar from JSBXâs first couple of âofficialâ 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 âby New Yorkâs 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. âThe thing is that on some of that stuff, that three hours of rock mixes, we didnât even go to the mixing board. Thatâs all on record: that bootleg â âA Reverse Willie Hortonâ.â (pop-catastrophe)Â
My favorite tracks are âTwenty-9âł (listed as both âTwenty Nineâ and âTwentynineâ on other releases - the version on A Reverse Willie Horton is also completely different to their official Crypt Style release), âTypecast,â âLovinâ Up a Storm,â ââ78 Styleâ and of course â40lb Block of Cheeseâ 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 â91, Judah regaling Jon and Russell with tales of what it was like to grow up in Appleton, Wisconsin (âYou walk into any grocery store and thereâs, like, a 40 pound block of cheese staring at youâ).Â
Hereâs a couple of Judah Bauer photos, the first I took at a friendâs apartment in 1987 (Appleton) and the second is of me with him at a JSBX concert in 2012 (Milwaukee).Â
Jon Spencer âBig Yule Log Boogieâ b/w âMy Christmas Wishâ 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 âCHRISTMAS!!!â and signature âCâmon honeyâ at the start of âBig Yule Log Boogie.â Itâs a Hasil-Adkins level lo-fi devolution of rockabilly blues and simply amazing. Side Bâs âMy Christmas Wishâ is a woeful holiday lament, swampy country-blues with gritty sliding electric guitar. Both tracks were eventually included on the 2010 reissue on Shout! Factoryâs pressing of Extra Width + Moâ Width. The run-out grooves have writings and scratchings (due to a pressing error between Spencerâs 7âł and Wolverton Brothersâ single of âMy Assassinâ), 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)
âBig Yule Log Boogieâ
Come on honey and fly with me
Weâre gonna get some lovinâ on Christmas eve
Christmas time rock ânâ roll
Holiday season with a little soul
You got to try Holidayâs-a lovinâ, baby You and I
Iâm 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 âem alive Iâll be your Santa Claus Iâm gonna love you this Christmas Rock ânâ Roll
Happy New Year dad Iâm the dude thatâll kick your ass Iâm gonna get drunk this Christmas Iâm gonna tie one up
Christmas Remember me
Iâm gonna get a little lovinâ Going more on Christmas eve Honey, this do mean honest I got the spirit of giving
Iâm gonna love you this Christmas
Christmas
Oh lord
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion âPlastic Fangâ 2002. Matador Records. Limited edition double LP (with four bonus tracks). Halloween music, JSBX style: funky, raucous, weird punk blues: âShe Saidâ (villagers with pitchforks, silver bullets and werewolves), âKiller Wolfâ (monsters feeling no pain, teenage heads with rotten brains), âMidnight Creepâ (an ass-shaker with one of my favorite JSBX lines âRight now, go ahead baby, I gonna stick my head in gravyâ), âDown in the Beast,â and âLike a Bat.â  Also plenty of get-down blues funk with âMoney RockâNâRoll,â âHold Onâ (with signature âThatâs right ladies and gentlemen, thatâs Blues Explosion all the way from New York City!â) and âShakinâ RockânâRoll Tonight.â
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 âCanât Stopâ on Now I Got Worry âThrow their hands in the air and kiss my ass âcause your girlfriend still loves meâ) 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 clichĂŠd 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 Modjeskaâs security pulling the plug on the concert.
We have Plastic Fang on both vinyl and CD. The vinyl has four bonus tracks: âLike a Bat,â âTore Up & Broke,â âThen Again I Willâ and âDo Ya Wanna Get It?â 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-boyâs obsession with collecting vampire teeth a few years ago.)