Railroad Jerk
The Third Rail (Matador)
by Jon Sarre
This is the fourth release and counting from one of the few indie rock bands who don’t allow their unbridled sense of detachment to teeter off into the realms of boredom (like Pavement, for example). Railroad Jerk ‘fesses up and calls their own scam on every record (which probably means they’re gonna remain successes in only their imaginations). The thing is, their stumbling folk-rock type aesthetic should go over well with the same people who buy Sebadoh records. Hell, I’ll go one better and argue that if Beck could touch this stuff, he wouldn’t feel like he had to prove he has talent (as well as money).
Cash or not, like past Big Apple dwellers, the New York Dolls and License to Ill-era Beastie Boys, Railroad Jerk are stars simply because they declare themselves to be. No one else is willing to do the dirty work. Their previous records, each one different (ranging from their bluesy self-titled debut to the cheap holiday in Bob Dylan’s imagery which was their last LP, One Track Mind), came and went with nary a blip, as if Gerard Cosloy only releases ’em cos he lost a bet with Byron Coley or something. It’s too bad, cos Railroad Jerk mainman Marce Hall’s songs stick something in there that makes me always go back.
On The Third Rail, you can spot echoes of Chuck Berry in the fractured riff which opens “(I Can’t Get) No Sleep.” There’s the Jackson Five’s “ABC” in the falsetto chorus of “Natalie,” plus nameless Tin Pan Oldies and the vengeful ghost of Memphis rockabilly Charlie Feathers are used throughout. Ragged rhythmless drums, guitar, bass, and harmonica anchor the music to the scenes which Hall enacts through his nasal spoken-sung tales of boy-meets-girl-boy-has-one-sided-quasi-philosophical-conversations-with-girl. What emerges through the one-liners and straight outta left field imagery often doesn’t make sense (on “Your Forgot” for example, he follows up the line, “We had sex in Tower Records” with “I am a Nite [sic] person”), but it’s perfect for these times – pop culture-derived dada anti-script. It’s channel surfing transformed into art.
