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: John Lee Hooker‘s music is practically a clinic in cool. Transcending mere blues, Hooker’s endlessly monotonous riffs and supreme “boogie” (which he practically invented; see also Junior Kimbrough) manages to encapsulate everything good about music in general. My favorites are the not-very-popular Endless Boogie (Hooker with a rock band) and Hooker ‘N’ Heat (his collaboration with Canned Heat, who were perhaps the only band who could match Hooker’s renegade aesthetic).
