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November 18, 2004
The John Spencer Blues Explosion
ìI crave the taste of blood, Good Lord Almighty, Good Lord above, My soul is lost, I said I curse the day that I ever was born.î [She Said, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion]
On the 'Acme' album there's a couple of references to the name of (which is also the manifesto for) the band ñ a 'blues explosion'. The metaphorical explosion of a convention. A convention which is primarily formulaic and that has been done to death ñ has become a clichÈ. The blues is comfort, you know where it's going, you know what to expect (partly it's charm I guess? Nostalgia). So what John Spencer aims to do is disrupt this convention, explode it, blow it apart . . . and render it new again somehow.
Their last album Plastic Fang includes a number of references to B-grade horror ñ both through the lyrics/narrative content of the songs, and also via cover art (by Chip Kidd). I'm not sure that they're actually making an intentional link between the monsters and disruption of conventions ñ but they might be?
Posted by Luke Wood at November 18, 2004 10:13 AM