The Jesus Lizard - Inch

Well, I saw The Jesus Lizard playing last night at the Kentish Town Forum and it was awesome. Great setlist; 'Blockbuster,' 'Gladiator,' 'Boilermaker,' 'Then Comes Dudley,' 'One Evening,' 'Wheelchair Epidemic,' 'Puss,' 'Thumbscrews' and 'Fly On the Wall' were all played. David Yow did most of his crowd-pleasing tricks without it ever feeling forced or insincere, dove into the crowd about half a dozen times and rained down vitriol and manic terror upon London for 90-odd minutes against a backdrop of some of the tightest playing I've ever seen. Vocalist David Yow often takes most of the focus but the rest of the band are all excellent musicians and performers.

Duane Denison's taut and tense guitar is the perfect partner for Yow's vocals, adding anxiety and a heightening sense of alarm. David Sims' commanding stance on stage was a focal point, with the bassist hammering the neck of his guitar forward to deliver some bruising bass lines. Mac wore headphones and his precise, jazz-influenced drumming at times evoked the math rock that has become so prevalent in the intervening years since the band's split.

Not that you didn't already know all of that if you've ever heard a Jesus Lizard record.

Grails and Harvey Milk were the support, which was okay, but a bit disappointing since in an interview with Mark Prindle, David Yow suggested that if there were ever to be a Jesus Lizard reunion then Puss (all-girl Jesus Lizard covers group) and Jazzus Lizard (you can guess) would be the perfect support acts. For shame.

So, I thought it was about time I had a look at this Record Store 7" pack that came out for one day only a few weeks ago. The good news is that Touch and Go have included a download code, so I don't actually have to put these things on a turntable (not that I have a huge issue with that, but I honestly can't break these records out of their robust packaging). The pack is very cool - you can keep it all bundled up with its rubber band on a shelf or you can unfold it all and get a nice display of all the 7" covers to hang on your wall - either way it's a beauty.



So what have we got in here? Well, every 7" that the group released on Touch and Go, remastered by Bob Weston (of Shellac, who was an engineer on the original recordings) and repressed in an edition of 2,000. So, it's pretty much the Bang compilation without the bonus tracks. I think a lot, if not all, of these tracks will end up on the CD album reissues later this year. There's a couple of singles missing that were licensed by Touch and Go for release by other labels, but they're another story.

First up is 'Chrome' from 1989. The track is a medley of two Chrome songs: 'TV as Eyes' and 'Abstract Nympho', both from the 1979 LP Half Machine Lip Moves, which has to be one of the weirdest album titles ever and possibly an influence on Melvins' song titles? (e.g. 'Heater Moves and Eyes'; 'In the Freaktose the Bugs Are Dying'). I actually got to see the Melvins covering 'Chrome' as an encore with David Yow as surprise guest singer. Yow ate a pack of cigarettes. Anyway, The Jesus Lizard make the song their own with a rambunctious and upbeat track that would fit nicely alongside anything on Head or Goat. The B-side is '7 vs. 8' from the Head album. It starts with mid-tempo tom work before kicking into some classic Denison escalating guitar playing that dizzies you before kicking into a noise assault, eventually dying back down into the laborious lurch of the verse. It's quite a nauseating track in the vein of 'Then Comes Dudley' and I mean that in the best possible way.

The second disc is 'Mouth Breather' which originally came out in 1990 just before Goat, from which it is taken. It has the iconic Mickey Mouse bomb cover that went on to become one of the best alternative rock T-shirt designs of the '90s.



This track isn't a favourite of mine as it zips by too fast without having done too much and there are far better tracks on the rests of Goat. However, it’s considered a bit of a classic for the band, so who am I to talk? The B-side is somewhat of an anomaly in the tJL back-catalogue; a cover of song by German Neue Deutshche Welle group Trio. I had a German friend who nearly kicked me out of his car for saying I didn't mind the NDW compilation that was playing on the stereo, such was his loathing of Trio. The song chugs along kind of uneventfully with a seriously understated vocal (a la 'Blockbuster'). It is pretty catchy, but it barely sounds like The Jesus Lizard at all. It’s a piece of new-wave fluff rendered strangely flat and ominous. Curiously enough a further Trio cover was put out on the Bang compilation. Sadly it wasn't 'Da Da Da'.

Next up is 'Puss' which was originally issued as a split single with Nirvana. So, instead of 'Oh, the Guilt' we get a nice B-side of silence. Did I mention this reached no. 12 in the UK charts in 1993? Wow. 'Puss' pretty much seems to be a song about domestic violence, but with no pretence to morality; in fact it's just a catalogue of brutal acts with some amazing double-tracked vocals that trade off each other, making it sound like you walked into a bar where two equally vile and drunken David Yows are jawing at each other, slurring and hurling broken bottles. Scary, compulsive and cool. This was the first song of theirs I heard so it holds a special place in my heart. If you listen to it on your Walkman as I did back in the day the two vocals come through separate headphones just to add to the chaos and terror. Nice touch, Steve Albini. Also, this disc has beautiful artwork courtesy of painter Malcolm Bucknall who also provided equally impressive artwork for Liar and Down.



Next is 'Wheelchair Epidemic', the original issue of which I already wrote about here.

The fifth record is the 'Gladiator' single, originally issued as a one-off giveaway to punters at a gig in London in September 1992 and was never commercially available as far as I'm aware. The photo on the cover is now in colour as opposed to black and white. Finally after all these years we can see what colour shirts the guys were wearing. Glad I didn't die before I got to see that.



'Gladiator' could be the ultimate tJL song; muscular, grinding, tense, demented, complex but with a catchy underlying groove. The finale is intense to say the least. It also has the line "You run the risk of conceiving a bastard." Bliss! If you don't know it you should get yourself a copy of the album Liar. The B-side of this single is a live version of 'Seasick' from the Brixton Academy show on 9th May 1992. The song really lives up to the title as it chugs and lurches away in lurid fashion, hitting you right in the stomach. The band is on top form in this live recording, but it's pretty faithful to the album version.

Discs 6, 7 and 8 cover the Lash EP which was originally released on CD and as a triple 7" pack as a stop-gap between the Liar and Down albums. The first 7" is fantastic as it has two proper non-album songs; 'Glamorous' and 'Deaf as a Bat,' both of which got an airing at last night's show. I always thought it would have faired better as a stand-alone single, so it's nice to have to have it here as a separate disc. Although 'Glamorous' has its moments, it's fairly pedestrian by tJL’s standards and something of a precursor for some of the more unspectacular moments on Down. 'Deaf as a Bat' is a short and fast little ditty, reminiscent of 'Tight 'n' Shiny' from their debut album, but with some garbled vocals on top. It has a nasty attitude, but is lacking teeth, so it doesn't really do it for me.

Discs 7 & 8 I have to say have disappointing artwork. Touch and Go have just taken the panels from the original gatefold sleeve and used them as the covers. Seriously, a few scratches in black paint does not constitute a good cover! The back covers are nicer with photos incorporated into the paintings. Shame there weren't any old Malcolm Bucknall cast-offs hanging around that could have been used!


(Front cover of the 'Bloody Mary' 7" and back cover of 'Lady Shoes' 7")

Anyway, the first of these has two tracks recorded live at a show in Boston in November 1990 (or December depending on which sleeve notes you believe). 'Lady Shoes' has to be one of the sickest songs I ever did hear and this was the version I knew way before I got around to listening to the album version. This totally blew my mind when I heard it. The music, managing to be both foreboding and rollicking plays second fiddle to a jaw-dropping performance by David Yow in which he presents a series of seemingly unrelated and deeply unpleasant and bizarre scenarios populated by a constantly revolving list of perverse characters ("There's a little girl playing a big piano while her mother gives her an enema...and then the Daddy comes in..."). This is littered with examples of David Yow's random shrieks, bellows and other unworldly noises that erupt at random to elicit genuine disgust, horror and morbid fascination. Never has a front man sounded more convincingly terrifying and insane.

Nothing could ever really follow that, but 'Killer McHann' makes a good stab of it (see what I did there. Pretty poor, wasn't it?) This kind of whizzes by in a torrent of reckless abandon and raging vocals, displaying a lot more energy and feeling than the studio version.

7" #8 has two live tracks from the same Brixton show as 'Seasick'. I always thought of 'Bloody Mary' as one of the most Scratch Acid-y songs that The Jesus Lizard did, with Yow adopting a harrowed and pleading vocal delivery on the melancholic verses, before the song explodes into a Big Black-esque pounding chorus. I guess the fact this was written when the group had a drum machine instead of a drummer influenced that. It’s nice to hear it performed by the whole band. The B-side is 'Monkey Trick' which features a seriously indecent bass line. It lumbers along leaving a bad taste in the mouth until the climactic ending with some truly feverish guitar work and Yow sounding like he's trying to cough up a ballcock.

The final record is '(Fly) On (the Wall)' and you've got to love those parentheses! Check out my thoughts on the original issue of this 7” here.

As is the way with many obsessive collectors, I’m not really a big audiophile, so the remastering is lost on me, but I’m loving the packaging! Maybe a few more repeat plays on something better than my mp3 player will shed some light on exactly what tweaking has gone on.

Pure, Head and Goat are all out in September, reissued with bonus tracks. Until then you can keep updated at The Jesus Lizard’s (Official!) Myspace or by checking out David Sims’ blog which has all kind of cool gubbins on it.