Inside The World Of Jon Spencer: Sun Studio And Sam Phillips

There comes a time when nothing else but a brain-hammering session with Pussy Galore‘s 1989 album Dial M For Motherfucker will do. And not just to clear the house of your so-called friends who’ve been sloshing cheap wine on your expensive new carpet all night. (Although it might work for that, too.) Jon Spencer, the man who shocked and awed the world with the noisiest band in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, went on to form three more exhilarating combos: Boss Hog (with his wife Cristina Martinez), Heavy Trash (his most recent band) and, of course, the stunning Blues Explosion, whose recent career-spanning compendium, Dirty Shirt Rock ‘N’ Roll (Majordomo), tells you plenty about the DNA of the man in charge. (The label is reissuing expanded versions of out-of-print Blues Explosion albums Now I Got Worry and Controversial Negro this week.) Spencer is guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.

Spencer: I recorded an album at Sun Studio with the Gibson Bros. back in 1990. It’s hallowed ground, but it’s a tourist trap now. You go in there and there’s a big photo of Bono or the Edge on the wall. Bit of a drag. It is the same room, though. So we went in to record and it’s all modern equipment. Maybe it’s different if you’re U2, but when you’re in there to do a session, you’ve gotta start at 9 p.m., after the tourists. I’d like to go and record at Phillips (the studio late Sun Studios/Records founder Sam Phillips built after Sun). And it’s run by Roland James, Jerry Lee Lewis’ guitar player. Sam Phillips was a genius. I wish I could have heard him speak. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that he was a great speaker.