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I love the entire album but top picks are the opener/title track “Mass Romantic,” the anthemic-flavored “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism,” the dense and piano-forward “To Wild Homes,” the Neko-forward “Letter From an Occupant,” and the final track “Breakin’ the Law” which according to Wiki “was taken from [Bejar’s band] Destroyer’s first album We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge. The group vocals at the end of “Breakin’ the Law” are credited to the Camp Northstar Kids’ Chorus, a reference to the Canadian comedy film Meatballs. The chorus is actually every member of the band singing. Newman stated, ‘I like the fact that people think that it’s a kids’ group … We made ourselves sound like a giant group, but we ended up sounding like little kids. I love the fact that in the Rolling Stone review they mention the chorus of kids. I just think it’s great that people actually believe that, because it’s such a fucking ridiculous thing for a band to do.'”

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For whatever reason, Railroad Jerk isn’t really available broken down by tracks (except for “Talking RR Jerk Blues”) but you can listen to the entire album here and there a full show recording from a 1990 show at the Pyramid Club in New York City where they perform several songs from the album including “Don’t Be Jealous,” “99 Miles,” “Old Mill Stream,” “Participant,” “Glamorous Bitch,” “Krismus Time,” “Talking RR Jerk Blues,” and “I’m Not Mad.”

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I saw JSBX for the first time about a month after Extra Width‘s release, on June 19th, 1993 in Madison, WI. (Thanks to the always excellent pop-catastrophe.co.uk for the exact date as my memory from 30 years ago = hazy). The club, O’Cayz Corral (long burned down), was loosely packed, mostly with friends from – or formerly from – Appleton, WI to see Judah Bauer. It was a very small venue and small show: the band wasn’t well-known at this point, especially in the Midwest.  But a bunch of Judah’s family and friends were there, including his brother Donovan, who I hung out with at the bar.  After the show Russell came over by us and was looking for a place to crash for the night so I introduced to him to a friend of mine, John W., who had an extra couch (Russell, in a whisper, “Is this guy OK, like not weird?” I assured him that John was indeed not weird). Russell stayed there and I popped over in the morning to bring breakfast and nab a copy of the new album (I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t buy one at the show) which they threw on the record player. The other recollections I have from old JSBX shows (having a few opportunities to be backstage or, in the case of the O’Cayz show: no backstage, just a little recombobulation corner) were Spencer’s extreme quiet and reserve offstage, basically looking exactly like the cover of “Extra Width,” but given the guy’s amazing stage energy and outlandish bravado, I’m guessing he saved it all for the audience. More recently with his solo/HITmakers tours, Jon has been far more outgoing and engaging, happy to pose for ridiculous selfies and sign records.

Joe, me and Jon Spencer, 2018

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Spoon at 88.9 Radio Milwaukee

Pressed for time (they had to skedaddle to their show at The Sylvee in Madison that evening), Daniel and Fischel played just three acoustic tracks, two from their 10th studio LP Lucifer on the Sofa (#38 US, #92 UK, #4 US Alternative and Independent charts). Both are my top picks from the LP: “The Hardest Cut” and “Wild.” (I also really like “On the Radio” and the dreamy “Astral Jacket.”)The other song they performed was “Do You,” a single that appears on their 2014 album They Want My Soul.

Despite some guitar-tuning issues, the mini-show was really great and included an interview with 88.9’s Dori Zori. They discussed a broad range of topics that included the sound of Lucifer on the Sofa (“a feeling of being watched while it was made,” “a record that’s playing in a honky tonk bar”), trying to finish writing, editing and recording the record during the pandemic, and influential MTV videos from the past (Prince’s “Kiss” and “When Doves Cry”). You can listen to the 20-minute or so radio session here.

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Gordon continues to be just. so. cool. (inner sleeve photo from No Home Record)

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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, “Bellbottoms” swells with strings and a funked out groove before hitting the staccato’d “bellbottoms” anthem. The song inspired Edgar Wright to write the 2017 movie Baby Driver, the soundtrack to which was nominated for a Grammy (the song “Chase Me” in the movie is a remix of “Bellbottoms” by Danger Mouse featuring Run the Jewels and Big Boi). “Wright laid in his bedroom listening to the song on repeat, visualizing a car chase set to “Bellbottoms.” 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.” (IndieWire) “Ditch” is hip-shaking sexy and “Dang” has fantastic, crazed harmonica solo by Judah, matched by Jon Spencer’s insane theremin. The first of two excellent instrumentals on Orange comes next: “Very Rare” slows down the beat to a hypnotic rhythm overlayed with Spencer’s signature guitar twang. “Sweat” is iconic JSBX giving us the classic line “That’s the sweat of the Blues Explosion!” “Cowboy” is weirdly mangled country-western (not my favorite track on the album) but the title track “Orange” returns to the slinky JSBX groove (Spencer name-drops ‘Star Trek’ and manages to make even that sexy). Side B leads off with “Brenda” with Spencer singing longingly, just a little too high out his range, for a girl and her money. “Dissect” is thick with musical chaos and “Blues X Man” is a “12-bar back-country roadhouse blues and back-alley back-seat eros to Lower East Side boasting about the Blues Explosion’s 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.” (Allmusic) “Full Grown” is balls-out insanity beginning with the line “Baby baby you sure like to fuck FUCK!” and “Flavor” 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 “flavor.” (The remix of “Flavor” is even better, featuring Beck and Mike D in a wicked funny video.) Orange concludes with my favorite JSBX track, the instrumental “Greyhound” which is monstrously awesome, best played at 11.

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Most of the album is lo-fi (with the exception of the highly produced “Supernova”) and, like most of Phair’s writing, Whip-Smart focuses on love and sex: “a rock fairy tale, from meeting the guy, falling for him, getting him and not getting him, going through the disillusionment period, saying ‘Fuck it,’ and leaving, coming back to it.“

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Orange, JSBX’s 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, “Bellbottoms” swells with strings and a funked out groove before hitting the staccato’d “bellbottoms” anthem. The song inspired Edgar Wright to write the recent movie Baby Driver, the soundtrack to which was nominated for a Grammy (the song “Chase Me” in the movie is a remix of “Bellbottoms” by Danger Mouse featuring Run the Jewels and Big Boi). “Wright laid in his bedroom listening to the song on repeat, visualizing a car chase set to “Bellbottoms.” 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.” (IndieWire) “Ditch” is hip-shaking sexy and “Dang” has fantastic, crazed harmonica solo by Judah, matched by Jon Spencer’s insane theremin. The first of two excellent instrumentals on Orange comes next: “Very Rare” slows down the beat to a hypnotic rhythm overlayed with Spencer’s signature guitar twang. “Sweat” is iconic JSBX giving us the classic line “That’s the sweat of the Blues Explosion!” “Cowboy” is weirdly mangled country-western (not my favorite track on the album) but the title track “Orange” returns to the slinky JSBX groove (Spencer name-drops ‘Star Trek’ and manages to make even that sexy). Side B leads off with “Brenda” with Spencer singing longingly, just a little too high out his range, for a girl and her money. “Dissect” is thick with musical chaos and “Blues X Man” is a “12-bar back-country roadhouse blues and back-alley back-seat eros to Lower East Side boasting about the Blues Explosion’s 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.” (Allmusic) “Full Grown” is balls-out insanity beginning with the line “Baby baby you sure like to fuck FUCK!” and “Flavor” 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 “flavor.” Orange concludes with my favorite JSBX track, the instrumental “Greyhound” which is monstrously awesome, best played at 11.

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