Even James Jackson Toth’s most rabid fans probably can’t keep track of the prolific singer/songwriter’s output. The Lexington, Ky.-based Toth has issued numerous solo and group efforts (including cassettes, CD-Rs, limited-edition vinyl, etc.) under his own name as well as such monikers as WAND, Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice, H.P. Witchcraft, the Jescos and the Blood Group. His latest release is Wooden Wand‘s Death Seat (Young God), an impressive 12-track album produced by YG label head and Swans frontman Michael Gira and featuring musical contributions from members of bands such as Lambchop, Silver Jews, Mercury Rev, Glossary and Fire On Fire. Toth is heading out on European and North American tours in the new year, but in the meantime, he will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Toth: With We Never Learn, the former New Bomb Turks frontman chronicles (and ably legitimizes) the “gunk punk” scene, a sort of bizarro mirror image to the hair metal and boring grunge that typified the ’90s. While Davidson’s writing leaves a little to be desired (painful rock-crit adverbs abound), revealing interviews with everyone from Blag Jesus of the Dwarves to Billy Childish make this a must for those of us who hear names like Sympathy For The Record Industry, Crypt and AmRep and are transported back to a simpler, more fun and less pretentious era of underground music.
