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Jawbox’s Own Special Sweetheart: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds’ “We Call Upon The Author” Live At LSO St. Lukes

JAWBOXlogoIn the wake of the overwhelming success of Nirvana’s Nevermind, major labels in the early/mid-’90s began signing any and every cool indie band they could in hopes of a similar payoff. One such outfit was Jawbox, a Washington, D.C., post-punk quartet that had issued two promising albums on the indier-than-thou Dischord label. The band—guitarist/vocalist J. Robbins, guitarist Bill Barbot, bassist Kim Coletta and drummer Zachary Barocas—signed to Atlantic and released the excellent For Your Own Special Sweetheart in 1994. (Though MAGNET named it the fifth-best album that year, Sweetheart was far from a commercial hit.) In 1996, Jawbox issued a slicker self-titled LP, which also failed to catch on beyond the indie-rock crowd, and the band broke up the following year. Dischord has just reissued For Your Own Special Sweetheart with three bonus tracks, and to celebrate, Jawbox reunited for a one-off performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday. Barbot is also guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.

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Barbot: Why does BBC Four get to air the likes of these geezers continuing to pound out mind-blowing performances like this while we still pay cash money for “clean” versions of the same on iTunes? I mean, saying “fuck” on television is hardly revolutionary these days (Nicole Ritchie, yah), but when Nick Cave—in his “I could be parked on a Barcalounger with a tumbler of MacAllan 18, two fingers, neat, but instead I’m staggering around like a speed freak to shout at you people with this here organ” manner—says it, you gotta thank the gods that the word can still pack a punch and make your mom, 400 miles away and nowhere near a computer, blush. Video after the jump.