Mars, Arizona

Long time reader Spencer got in touch last week with a proposal- he picks a tune and sends it to me. I write about it. 'Start with how it makes you feel', he said, 'then it could be a memory... or the visceral sense of hearing it for the first time'. 

I said I was game, it's an interesting idea for an irregular series and we can see where it goes. Then he sent this, a remix of a 2005 Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song...

Mars, Arizona (DFA Remix)

I knew it but hadn't heard for years- I can't remember the first time I heard it but as I clicked play it came flooding back. At the point it came out DFA were riding the crest of a wave, reinventing post- punk and indie dance in a post Twin Towers New York (DFA was formed in 2001 after James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy met while working on David Holmes' Let's Get Killed album. Murphy went on to put together LCD Soundsystem in 2002 and release their definitive and debut single Losing My Edge later that year). 

DFA don't do things by halves and don't spare the senses either. This is a ten minute slab of noisy mid 00s dancefloor action. It kicks in instantly with fuzz and static and then a crash of a piano falling over. Drums and shaker are dropped in and we have a groove, with more bent out of shape piano stabs and a gnarly bassline, the sort of bassline you can feel. It's tense and urgent but aimed at having fun, making people twitch and dance. 

The voice Jon Spencer eventually appears, singing/ howling his 21st century blues, 'I wanna tell you everything I'm thinking of/ Well I can't talk now with my mouth full of love'. The piano bangs away and the bassline writhes, a storm gathering, before the breakdown at five minutes thirty, a long piano chord fade out and then we're into the second half, the drums come back and a distorted synth sound takes over, knobs being turned all the way round the dial and back again and again and again... It's a glorious, hot, noisy mess, the soundtrack to nights of sticky floors, lost jackets, a pre- smoking ban world, missed buses, drunken kisses, ripped jeans, The Fall fed through a synth workshop in early 21st century Brooklyn. 

That's It Ladies And Gentlemen, Blues Explosion!

So says Jon Spencer. It turns out, following finding this recently and then going digging, that I have three Jon Spencer Blues Explosion albums, which came as a bit of a surprise to me. If someone asked me what bands I liked we'd be talking for some time before I mentioned them. When they're good though, they're very, very good. And I haven't got the album I've always thought I had (Now I Got Worry)- or if I did ever have it, I haven't got it now. This song, 2 Kindsa Love, is off Now I Got Worry. This live performance from Australian TV is phenomenal for several reasons.
1. The riff.
2. Jon Spencer's performance, which removes the fourth wall. And the backdrop while he's at it.
3. It was recorded in the morning.
4. Extended use of the theremin.
5. The band are bang on the beat.
6. As a look black shirt, black trousers and white shoes works.





HSD- I think you'll like this.

On The Pill

In a similar vein musically to yesterday's Chain And the Gang song this is The Pill by Heavy trash. Jon Spencer (of Blues Explosion fame) is a man for side projects, forming Boss Hog with his wife and Heavy Trash with Matt Verta-Ray (formerly of Madder Rose). Heavy Trash lean towards the rockabilly and country end of garage rock. This track is less rockabilly and more psychedelic bad trip.

The Pill.mp3#1#1