Kids today care as much about the blues as Fox News does about the blacks.
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was therefore lucky to have emerged in the big-tent ’90s, when audiences would embrace both unhinged experimentation (example: metal/rap hybrids, electronica) and unabashed retro (swing revival), when the melodramatically earnest (emo punk) could thrive alongside ironi-rock (Beck). And all of it was considered “alternative.”
JSBX embodied much, if not all, of the above.
But more than 20 years after the trio first dragged punk kicking and puking into the Delta, the blues are no longer de rigueur. Even torch bearers the White Stripes, for whom Spencer and Co. paved the way by bestowing hipster cred to the genre, have disbanded. Fortunately, there are bands whose careers outlive their genre’s shelf-life. And there are clubs for them to play in that embrace both the quaint and the avant-garde.
The venue for tonight’s show, Paris’ La Gaîté lyrique, is a self-described cultural crossroads for the digital era. It features a grandiose façade worthy of a Loire Valley chateau, yet the interior is fitted with touch screens and Tron décor.
An appropriate choice for the gig, since JSBX has always had one foot in the cotton field and one in the arcade room. The trio opens with “Betty Vs The NYPD”: a high-energy number that encapsulates much of the Spencer ethos. The song is raucous, chest-beating, and cartoonishly sincere. Many more such tunes from the band’s latest LP, Freedom Tower—No Wave Dance Party 2015, follow: “Funeral,” “Do The Get Down,” “White Jesus,” “Tales Of Old New York: The Rock Box” and a deliciously sharp rendition of “Wax Dummy.”
Blues purists may whine that Spencer’s shtick (I lost count of the number of times he yelled his trademark non-sequitur “Blues Explosion!!” between and within songs) is flippant, sarcastic, and blasphemous. Sure, the group has added rap, electronic knob-twiddling and even a goddamn theremin to its arsenal, but it has actually done a great service to the blues. It honors the genre by reimagining it in its own image, filtering the blues of its self-indulgent soul-searching yet retaining the beauty of its raw passion. You only imitate what you love.
Late in the show, Spencer finishes his theremin hand jive (writhing and gesticulating like he’s feeling up the Invisible Woman) and heads back to the mic. He channels the late, great James Brown, dramatically tossing off a towel draped over his shoulders by a stage hand, in an obvious riff on the Godfather of Soul’s famous “cape act.” Now, as then, it is all a bit of fun. Energy, emotion—entertainment.
More than 350 years ago in this very town, French playwright Molière wrote, “I wonder if the main rule above all other rules isn’t simply to please.” JSBX exemplifies this rule. The blues are traditionally a vehicle to vent pain, but—fuck, the genre came up with one sexy groove.
So quitcha bitchin’, and just shake ya ass.
—Eric Bensel
