The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Sweet N Sour

Third and final in my unplanned trilogy of Pussy Galore-related reviews is The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's 'Sweet N Sour', released 24th June 2002.

The track was the second single from 2002's Plastic Fang, an album that found the raucous rock 'n' roll revivalist sound of JSBX sounding increasingly hollow and cliched. By this point in the band's career they sounded like they were flogging a dead horse. The act was always more about style and attitude over substance, but here the songs, and Spencer's vocals particularly, sound like a pastiche, sans the irony, and do little to set themselves aside from their already vast back catalogue of samey material. For me, JSBX begins and ends with 'Blues X Man' and once you've heard and loved that all that's left is album upon album of songs that are similar but not quite as good.

All that said, 'Sweet N Sour' isn't a bad track. If I'd never had heard a rock 'n' roll song before I'd have said this was brilliant, but as it is, this comes across at best as a novelty or at worst a tired retread. The video is HOT though, produced by Swedish collective StyleWar:





This type of music usually lends itself better to the live experience (how good can shaking, sweaty RnR be in the confines of your home?) and I remember seeing a smoking performance on Later with Jools Holland, memorable not only for Jools' piano accompaniment, but for Spencer stomping all over said piano. You just can't capture this stuff on disc:





The artwork ties in to the concept of the Plastic Fang album, with all design by Chip Kidd. Kidd is a pretty big name in graphic and sleeve design (particularly books) and has used his success in this field to manoeuvre himself into music and writing. There's nothing that special about the imagery on show here; just some pretty cool retro graphics inspired by 60s comic-books and B-movies that match the Blues Explosion's punkabilly/rock 'n' roll throwback aesthetic well.



The B-side is a live version of 'Shakin' Rock 'n' Roll Tonight' (the album version later becoming the third and final single from Plastic Fang) that was recorded during a session for Dutch radio station VPRO on 9th February 2002. From what I've said above you can probably already infer what I think about this one. Let's just say it's better than the album version and call it a day!

Devo - The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize

Following on from the Melvins' 'Night Goat' is another record with a Pussy Galore connection. But I'll get to that later.

This song is taken from Devo's second LP, 1979's Duty Now for the Future and reflects the slight shift away from the edgier post-punk sound of their debut, Q: Are We Not Men A: We are Devo (1978), towards the synth-pop of 1980's Freedom of Choice. The album is certainly weaker than Q: Are We Not Men?.., in that most of the material had been around since 1976-7, as heard on a multitude of bootlegs, and was basically the stuff that hadn't made the cut for the first album. Interesting, then, that the sound should be stylistically so different; something that can probably be put down to the approach of producer Ken Scott (as opposed to that of Brian Eno on their debut).

'The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize' is a highlight of the album, being pretty much a straight-up pop song, but with some typically idiosyncratic drumming and a chorus sung in an almost pseudo-lounge refrain. The lyrics seem to refer to a girl making her boyfriend aware of an unplanned pregnancy ("Got a message from my girl / When she picked up the pen from beside the bed and wrote me a scribbled note") and how this affects their relationship ("Go out on a loving spree just like before the accident / My baby would look at me").

The music video refers to these themes in a somewhat flippant manner as the boys examine a crying baby in a sterile control room, and later have trouble with the cheeky tike when he takes off flying. We also get to see a potato playing a hippopotamus's tooth! What's not to like?

The sleeve of this record is one of my favourite, being completely independent from the art concepts of the album it's from. It's an old photograph blown up with the Devo logo and the title in a pretty funky typeface slapped on top. This thing is creepy, but in a wacky sort of way; jolly yet sinister. It's pretty much generally accepted that clowns are creepy. And everyone knows masks are creepy. But look at the way that guy's mask appears to be one with his face. And this is before the days of digital photo touch-ups. The whole thing hints at something darker under the face of Americana, which is pretty much the general theme to most of Devo's work.



The back cover is also rather fetching and always reminds me of Gilbert and George.



The B-side is 'Penetration in the Centrefold'; a song covered by Pussy Galore on their Sugarshit Sharp E.P. to such successful effect that it convincingly sounds like an original Jon Spencer composition, both musically and lyrically. It doesn't sound much like a Devo song and even when you hear the original it still doesn't sound much like a Devo song. Well, not 1979 Devo. At a stretch it sounds like it could fit in with the more weird, experimental and troubling compositions on Hardcore Vol. 2 that Devo were writing in the mid-1970s, but it seems anachronistic as the B-side to this single. Not that it's not enjoyable - its just such an odd little song and there's really not anything else like it that I've heard: nasty guitar; squealing synth noises; stop-start verses leading to a clattering caterwaul of a 'chorus'; Mark's desperate, half-barked vocals and the whole thing dressed up in a lyric about the unappetising subject matter of a hardcore porn mag that displays, ahem, 'penetration in the centrefold'. This is unpalatable and ugly, yet fascinating and compulsive; a track to rubberneck to.



Production credit for this one goes to Eno, so I'd guess it was recorded during the Q: Are We Not Men?... sessions and left off the album for obvious reasons. It's since been tacked on to various Devo compact disc reissues so go check it out.

Duty Now!

Melvins - Night Goat

'Night Goat' is one of the greatest and darkest songs from one of the Melvins' most popular periods of their long and illustrious careers. It's also one of the more accessible, having what in the Melvins' repertoire comes closest to a conventional rock sound and structure. So, it's only fitting it should have received a single release.


I think this was the first involvement Melvins had with the infamous Amphetamine Reptile Records label; a relationship that has sporadically continued to this day. This single was released at time when Melvins were in between leaving previous label Boner and making their major-label debut with Atlantic. That came in 1993 with Houdini, probably their best-known album, probably in part due to a partial producer's credit for one Kurt Cobain. Apparently, Cobain actually had very little input and most of the role was carried out by the Melvins and engineer Billy Anderson. Anderson was also one of the engineers on the 'Night Goat' single, which goes a way to explaining why there is very little difference between the version found here and the version on Houdini.


The track starts with one of the most memorable bass-lines ever; low, mean-spirited and ominous, but with a definite groove. In this version the bass sound seems grimier than on the later album version. The intro is also longer, giving the band time to build up tension and anticipation with some carefully-placed percussive flourishes from the extraordinary Dale Crover. The song features a sludgy verse that has Buzz bellowing his way through some indecipherable lyrics climaxing with a classic blood-curdling scream that leads into a killer guitar solo that I suppose would be the chorus. Hard to say with these Melvins! Not that it matters.




The sleeve goes a long way to replicating the sinister and unpalatable sounds within: a boy with a deformed jaw (possibly trussed up?) in a pantry alongside what appear to be a hogleg and some kind of poultry. Nice work Harvey Bennett Stafford! It also lists what is hands-down the worst-ever pseudonym for a moonlighting musician; Salty Green, made even worse by the fact that he wasn't even moonlighting: this is, I believe, Joe Preston's final appearance as a member of the Melvins. Recorded in 1991, but not released until 1992 it seems likely that Joe was gone by the time the record came out, hence the misnomer.


The B-side is the Pussy Galore cover 'Adolescent Wet Dream'. I was very excited was I discovered the Melvins had covered this song since while I'm not the biggest fan of Pussy Galore, I do love the E.P. this track is taken from, Sugarshit Sharp, which perfectly condenses the whole P.G. attitude and sound into a concise package with like, you know, actual SONGS, unlike a lot of their other recorded output. The thing is, I couldn't imagine the slow and heavy sound of Melvins meshing well the scathingly chaotic rock 'n roll songs of P.G. - a band famed for not even having a bassist. I've since discovered that in the SPIN Alternative Record Guide (1995, Vintage) King Buzzo listed Sugarshit Sharp as one of his top 10 records of all time. So there you have it!


The Melvins' version of the song is a great reworking; channeling the energy and swagger of the original in a sludgier groove; more heavy and hypnotic. Where Jon Spencer would have yelped, Buzz unleashes his Kiss-like high screams and the drums thud rather than clatter along. So, not better than the orginal, but the Melvins really make it their own to the point where Buzz seems to swap some of the lyrics for gibberish words that are phonetically suited to the music (a technique utilised extensively on Houdini as well as many other Melvins records).






The record itself is a nice item; this one here is a marbled blue, but I've also seen it in orange. Apparently there are purple marbled and white copies out there, too. This was released in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, although it comes up fairly often on eBay so I'm not sure how accurate that is. In fact, I'd go out on a limb and say the CD version that was released in Germany is rarer, if less desirable.


This version of 'Night Goat' was compiled in 2004 on the retrospective CD that came with the beautiful Neither Here Nor There book. 'Adolescent Wet Dream' is yet to released elsewhere.