Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with Calvin Johnson

Sideways Soul: Dub Narcotic Sound System Meets Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (K)
by Jon Sarre

Uh oh, as compensation for an Experimental Remixes track, the world’s foremost practitioner of dorky white person music (thick black glasses and Sanrio accessories division), K Records master nasal passage Calvin Johnson, demanded and received a wood-paneled basement jam session with hipster heartthrobs, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Spencer shoulda just nixed the offer, or at least brought a contract-brandishing lawyer up to Olympia with him, or simply demanded the tapes be kept under C.J’s bed like porn, cuz, keeping in mind the silly pretensions of both the parties involved, the result can only be a clash of plunder-minded egos that fans of both these rock’n’roll Napoleons are gonna find just plain annoying (for the simple fact that there’s too little/too much Jon/Calvin/indiscriminate use of the word “banana”).

Johnson, for the sake of all two of you Halo Bender fans, indulges an obvious fantasy he’s had about being Fred Schneider (there’s even “Love Shack” and “Dance This Mess Around” references on the dreadfully stupid “Fudgy The Whale”). His idiotic stream-of-conscience comedic non-sequiturs push Spencer’s faux James Brown grunts to the background, thus making Johnson clear winner in the “I’ve Got Nothing to Say, but My Mic is Louder Than Yours” competition that passes for a session here. Jon gets off some spiel about kareoke bars, but mostly he just functions as conductor of the most dangerous rhythm section on this planet or any other (which is actually sorta ho-hum when they’re not really goin’ anyplace they haven’t gone before). Russell Simins’ drums still sound like mortar rounds impacting against sanitation trucks in Detroit projects circa summer of ’68, and Judah Bauer is, per usual, lock step with the beat. Always consistent, they are, even if the two big mouths up front sound like indie rock’s answer to the B-52’s.
(PO Box 7154 Olympia, WA 98507)