Given MAGNET’s detailed coverage of the end of the Mendoza Line—a beloved, ragtag countrypolitan bar band that went up in flames in 2007—it only seems fitting that we have plenty of access to the formation of the Jescos, the new group featuring the Mendoza Line’s Timothy Bracy and Wooden Wand’s James Jackson Toth, as well as Bracy’s wife, singer Elizabeth Nelson. Bracy has found his rambling pub-rock foil in Toth on the forthcoming Remembrance Of Things Trashed, a debut album that guts it out for rock ‘n’ roll glory. Read our Q&A with Toth and Bracy.
James Jackson Toth: Larry McMurtry is probably my favorite contemporary author—or at least the one I return to the most. In this beautifully written memoir chronicling the author’s love affair with books, I found many parallels to my own obsession with collecting records. The book is definitely more than a little “specialized,” what with its endless talk of long-gone bookmen and tales of rare first editions and shady deals. But collector scum is collector scum, and anyone who’s ever worked in retail will no doubt recognize some of the eccentric characters vividly described in these pages.
