blues implosion

09Aug07

Jon Spencer, where are you? Thirteen years ago — how could it be so long? — you were on top of the indie scrap-heap, yr Blues Explosion, YEAH!!!! one of the undisputable big boys of indie rock, along with Pavement, Sebadoh and no one else. You were mentioned in the same breadth as Beck as a soul re-interpreter (by fans) or a modern-day minstrel act (by detractors), and not only were you listened to, you were culturally relevant (in a comparative literature kinda way). You were the hottest dude in rock & roll and yr wife Christina the hottest woman — the closest to a sex symbol couple we have ever had — and, along with Malkmus, represented straight-up alpha maleness in the scene, something that’s been pretty much vacant ever since.

Bands break and fall faster than Jenga pieces every day of every year ever, I know, but it doesn’t seem so much in indie rock. Not when there’s a sustained peak like what the Blues Explosion had: Extra Width in 1993 (almost 50k sold; for my money still their best record), the big breakthrough Orange in 1994 (130k sold), oddballs collection Mo Width in 1995 (a sentimental favorite) and Now I Got Worry in 1996 (almost 100k). Four albums (five, if you count the awful but still press-drenched Acme in 1998) that got them magazine covers, big tours (Lollapalooza, when it still mattered) and love from every corner. But then, out of nowhere, it would seem, they suddenly stopped mattering. At all.

Now why is that? I’ve come up with a few possibilities, each of them incomplete, but together, they amount to some sort of answer. First, the Blues Explosion were unapologetically masculine, macho, even. While indie rock is still unquestionably (white) male, such unabashed dick swinging has fallen far out of favor, especially in comparison to the mid-’90s, when David Yow’s Jesus Lizard were all the rage. The ’00s have been an age of Sufjans and Arcade Fires and Spoons, music that still has balls fersure, but is just a bit androgynous all the same. Listening back, the Blues Explosion feel hopelessly outdated in comparison (and in a weird way that, say, the Stones still don’t).

Theory #2: We got a little bit sick of the minstrel show. Though there is still a fine line between African-American and Caucasian art forms (hip-hop & rock, etc.), it has been blurred quite a bit since the ’90s. Sure, we can all point to the Judgment Night soundtrack as a pivotal point in the cross-pollination of hip-hop and rock (and a far more credible one than “Walk This Way”), that was way more of an aberration, a quick one-off rendezvous before everyone scurried back to their own self-imposed ghettos. The Blues Explosion always played punked-up “race music,” to use the term originally coined to described blues and R&B, and there was a novelty factor there that, while not always front and center, persisted.

Today, though, music has become more desegregated. Speaking very practically, we have iPods now, and so the National sit next to Nas on our scroll wheel, a philosophically unimportant point, but one that has made a difference in terms of how we classify music. Now all of this may be a bit wayward as the Blues Explosion were never a hip-hop act, but I guess I’m just trying to say that the race baiting part of their music — I don’t think it was necessarily intentional, but I do think it was there in some part — has much less of a thrill now.

Theory #3: This one also is a bit backwards, but bear with me. More than anything, I feel like Jon Spencer was known for his live show. People would compare him to James Brown, talk about the sweat he would fling off of his jet black hair with each leap, the amazing precision and energy that would emanate from Spencer, Judah Bauer and Russell Simins.

Normally, a good live show is the key to longevity. Ask every jam band ever. But here, I think that the novelty of JSBX wore off. There were only so many times you could see that show before becoming exhausted from it (for me it was four times). They were a band that, according to all of your friends, “you just have to see,” but what about after? Are you gonna pick up the records from the merch table? Probably. But what after that?

The irony of all of this is that the Blues Explosion’s albums still sound great. Listening the past few days, Now I Got Worry sounds way better than I remembered, and while Orange seems just a bit hokey, the rest is strong, too. But when was the last time you heard someone talk about them? When did you last listen to them? I’ve been polling my friends the past week — many of whom were huge fans — to see how they felt about the Blues Explosion these days, and every single one of them admitted that they haven’t thought about them in years.

Maybe it’s just proof that gimmicks never last. Looking at the band’s depressing official website, we see that their most recent update was from December 27, 2005. Here’s the text:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

IT’S A CRAZY WORLD OUT THERE BUT WE HAVE THE POWER!!!

THE BLUES IS STILL NO. 1!!!

CAN YER HEART STAND IT???

IT’S BEEN A HELLUVA YEAR FOR BLUES EXPLOSION - FROM JAPAN TO AUSTRALIA, FROM CBGBS TO ISTANBUL… THE HISTORIC MANO-A-MANO BATTLE WITH THE HIVES THAT NEARLY TORE ENGLAND APART…

WOW!!! YES FRIENDS, WE’VE SEEN ‘EM COME AND WE’VE SEEN ‘EM GO, AND WE’RE STILL KEEPING THAT CRAZY BEAT, STILL SHAKIN’ THE RAFTERS AND THROWIN’ DOWN A MESS…

The more things change…

One final, fun little question for all of you: clearly there will be some contemporary bands who will suffer the same fate as the Blues Explosion. It happens to the best of them. Throw in the comments section your best guesses for who that might be.

yancey.

Filed under: blues, music, rock |

16 Responses to “blues implosion”

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1 Douglas on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

Hilariously enough, my wife asked me to bring back her picture-disc LP of Orange from NYC when I was there a few days ago; I listened to it before I left, and was struck by how great it still sounded. Our cat’s middle name is Blues Explosion (she liked jumping around to Orange when she was a kitten, 12 years ago)…

I still remember seeing a show where Russell Simins, in the middle of I-forget-which-song, played Phelps Collins’ guitar solo from the “Love, Power, Peace” version of James Brown’s “Ain’t It Funky Now” note-for-note.
2 Douglas on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

Uh… I mean Judah Bauer, of course.
3 Elijah M on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

Theory #4: They left Matador Records in favor of Sanctuary. Maybe they got something out of that deal that Matador just couldn’t give them, but to my knowledge, no one is interested in a band just because they’re on Sanctuary. Bands on labels like Matador, Merge, and 4ad will always attract new listeners just because of the proven track record of the label they’re on. In that regard, these labels are the Motown and Stax of our time.
4 jrn on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

Mr. Spencer’s got a new record coming out in early September, sans Blues Explosion, under the guise of Heavy Trash. I got a copy through the rag I write for, and…. it’s not so hot. It’s like JBX minus any sense of danger or grit or excitement or energy they may have had. Yeah, the minstrel act is wearing real thin. I used to be a fan, and the last time I heard them was at a live show they played with the Liars and Yeah Yeah Yeahs back in 2002 or something. Listening to Heavy Trash has made me wonder if I would still care about JBX were I to listen to them now. My feeling is that I’d probably still dig some of it, but I’d much rather listen to Pussy Galore.
5 mpb on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

I think indie rock lost its sense of irony. JSBX required a lot of knowing winks and nudges for the faux-blues race appropriation stuff to work. They were performing even when they weren’t playing music. Today, I think there’s a greater emphasis on “earnestness” in indie rock, and while I think that’s almost *more* of an affectation than Jon Spencer’s postmodern Elvis routine, I think it dooms the JSBX style from being appreciated in a scene where “rockist” is considered a legitimate term.
6 ihatewesley on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

The one and only accurate theory: They stopped expanding their sound. The last original album they had was Acme (which I actually like and consider to be second only to Extra Width), while subsequent albums (Plastic Fang and Damage) and side projects (Heavy Trash and Spencer Dickinson to name two) have gotten more and more derivative and dull. Whereas older JSBX songs sounded like they were tossed off in one take, with Jon improvising the lyrics as he went along, newer songs sound like standard blues-derived rock and come with a sheen that doesn’t make sense when you consider this is the guy from Pussy Galore.

Even though I haven’t listened to JSBX in a while, I’ll still buy anything they put out, even if I don’t think they’ll ever match their 90s output (assuming they put out another album at some point). When I think of the music of the 90s, and my college years in particular, I can think of few bands that could hold a candle to JSBX or any of their offshoots — Boss Hog, Butter 08, even that Russell Simins solo album that came out in the late 90s/early ’00s.
7 Matos W.K. on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

Never been a fan, but I wonder how well they made out by doing the theme music for Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations. (Bourdain’s bad-boyism isn’t all that far removed from Spencer’s, come to think of it.)
8 Televiper on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

I enjoy “Orange” “Extra-Width” and the album they did with RL Burnside. I think mpb has it right. JSBX is just off the average music fan’s radar right now. I think there’s also a tendency for indie musicians and fans to disassociate themselves from the blues in general. Fat Possum seems to be the only exception to the rule. Otherwise, if you’re hearing the blues, you’re probably hearing an awful lot of country with it.
9 Autoclamp on Aug 9th, 2007 said:

What is the definition of long-term indie rock success? Is it staying relevant? Staying in the public eye in some meaningful way? Keeping your band together? Avoiding getting a day job? Making rent?

I don’t ask in a contentious way (I don’t feel like getting Azerraded again– that dude can retort!), I really mean it. If, instead of the message he there now, Jon Spencer had put something on his website like “Hey, we’re taking a break for awhile! SWEAT!”, I don’t think any one of us would have batted an eye. We would all be patiently waiting for the great Jon Spencer comeback. Instead, he seems irrelevant, perhaps unfairly so considering his unlikely and considerable successes.

They could be respected elder statesmen of indie rock, not “where are they now?” cases.
10 yancey on Aug 10th, 2007 said:

autoclamp, you ask good questions, for sure. he COULD be an elder statesman, but i think to do that, he would have to engage in the culture in some way. i think dude is just a cool dad now and that’s about it. that’s my impression.

oh, in terms of the mean party game of who from this era might suffer a jsbx fate? my picks are the rapture (who i love but i can totally see them being forgotten) and the shins (i know they have a big following but i don’t feel like people are rabid about THEM, they are more rabid about “new slang” or “garden state”).
11 joe on Aug 10th, 2007 said:

i nominate interpol, who also can’t seem to expand their sound. their most recent record could just as easily be their first. the songs are fine, but they’re not moving anywhere.
12 anna on Aug 10th, 2007 said:

The Gossip perhaps? As Yancey said of The Rapture, I love them but… I feel that, in the UK at least, they’ve achieved success by Beth Ditto becoming a staple of tabloid newspapers and women’s magazines, and with ‘Standing In The Way Of Control’ being licensed out to any TV show that wants to seem hip. I don’t think that’s fair to them, but that is what’s happened. I forsee a fate where their songs are only hauled out to soundtrack nostalgic TV shows about the year 2006.
13 JD on Aug 12th, 2007 said:

He doesn’t matter anymore because he’s lost affection for what he was doing with JSBX. Some people call that growing old, growing up, or giving up on the whole charade that is twenty-something indie music. I also suspect that, given his family obligations, he doesn’t like touring his ass off anymore. Note when his son was born and when his productivity slackened. His latest non-JSBX records all sound uninspired.
14 SteveA on Aug 15th, 2007 said:

I enjoyed Damage (2004), but I don’t think it went anywhere musically, but it was nice to get some more of that good ol’ JSBX sound.

blues implosion

16 Responses to “blues implosion”

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