Jon Spencer - Pussy Galore / Blues Explosion

Jon Spencer is not a person. Jon Spencer is a being made of adrenaline, bleeding rock'n'roll and oozing charisma. Jon Spencer has demolished and rebuilt the roots of American music with such ferocity you have to wonder what's left of them.

It's 1984 when a lean student at the Visual Arts department of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, decides to form a band between one assignment and the next. The group will be called Shithaus, and its line-up included future Cop Shoot Cop member Tod Ashley, but it will be short-lived: in that same scant year it records a single demo-tape, which is swiftly filed away and forgotten.

Jon Spencer (born in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1965), the lean student in question, was supposed to be focusing mainly on his studies to become a video-maker. During the school year Jon produces, directs and stars in a handful of black-and-white short films shot on 16mm. Hardly family viewing, and they couldn't have been, since Spencer has never hidden a nature that's as hedonistic as it is self-destructive. Legend has it that one of these clips, more a documentary than a film, recorded a scientific experiment - with Spencer himself as the guinea pig - involving the insertion of various foreign objects into his anus and pins into even more intimate parts. Another film manages to get a slot at the prestigious NY Underground Film Festival, but is cut short moments after it begins due to "technical issues".

In the spring of 1985, Jon attends a Jesus & Mary Chain concert in Washington. He hasn't even made it inside the venue yet when he meets a girl with an expression as sullen as his own. It's love at first sight: Jon Spencer and Cristina Martinez will be living together within a week.

Free from Brown University, Spencer decides to focus on music and form a band with guitarist Julia Cafritz (his classmate at Brown) and drummer John Hammill. Three such creative characters could only have a name with serious charisma, so they turn for help to none other than 007 and the role Honor Blackman played in "Goldfinger". And so Pussy Galore was born. Their sound centred on that raw 60s edge which audiences would only later file under "punk" - a mix of Velvet Underground and New York Dolls with the same impact as a slap across the face of silence. Idolized or despised, it was impossible not to notice Pussy Galore: technically inept, arrogant and narcissistic in attitude, fronted by a leader who seemed like a bomb ready to go off at any moment. The band quickly carves out a place in the local scene, but the leader's blunt, rude and individualistic attitude will cause no shortage of friction with audiences, who are often repeatedly insulted during performances.

It takes just a few weeks to get into the studio and record their self-produced debut 7" in a single session (their label will be called Shove): Feel Good About Your Body included four tracks halfway between Howlin' Wolf and Cramps, but whoever receives the record for promotional purposes doesn't pay it much attention.

The band certainly doesn't give up and, having recruited a second guitarist, Neil Hagerty, releases Groovy Hate Fuck, awash with filth, vulgarity, incitement to use every drug imaginable, an endless stream of swear words and a relentlessly menacing tone. The record goes down very badly with bigoted, moralistic Washington (today we'd also call it "indie-snob"), which, despite teeming with rock bands, keeps as much distance as possible from anything destructive or offensive.

What finally puts a definitive spoke in the wheel of their rise is the powerful Ian MacKaye, owner of Dischord Records. It's June 1986 when, with MacKaye against them, Pussy Galore have no choice but to seek solace in the one place on earth where they might receive all the credit they deserve: New York City.

Having replaced Hammill, who prefers not to relocate to the Big Apple, with ex-Sonic Youth man Bob Bert on drums, Pussy Galore take just a few days to break into the scene's key gig circuit, playing to an audience Spencer will describe as "more cultured and metropolitan than the one left behind in Washington". The band, still categorically refusing to improve technically, is approached by a small local label, Buy Our Records, which will release the new Pussy Galore record, Pussy Gold 5000, which also contains an irreverent cover of the Rolling Stones' "Exile On Main Street".

The band's fame (and arrogance) keeps growing, prompting them to go into the studio with Cristina Martinez as third guitarist (despite never having picked up a guitar before) to self-produce the tape Exile On Main Street, on which they cover - or rather "demolish" would be the more accurate word - the Rolling Stones' entire double album.

While Cristina Martinez leaves the project to form Boss Hog, her own personal creation, Caroline Records comes calling, and it's for them that Pussy Galore will record their most representative album, Right Now!. It's a seminal record, flawless from every angle. The best of the most irreverent, disjointed rock'n'roll meets shadows hovering between dark and industrial, veering into noise for its own sake and a brief blues number that seems to be a premonition of things to come.

It's precisely during this period, in the middle of recording an album as important as the follow-up to an acknowledged masterpiece, that harmony within the band - already strained by drug abuse - breaks down entirely. Julia, by now exhausted from constant fighting with Jon, decides to quit the project, and Neil (who will soon go on to form Royal Trux with Jennifer Herrema) will make the same decision shortly after. Pussy Galore bring in Kurt Wolf on short notice, who will go on to be a loyal collaborator of the Spencer-Martinez duo.

Expectations for the follow-up to Right Now! are sky-high, and they're met by the subsequent Sugarshit Sharp, whose cover features the same Golem as Einsturzende Neubauten's, only this time engulfed in flames. Their status is confirmed in Europe too, and requests for shows, especially in the UK, pour in. It's thanks to this European tour that Julia and Neil rejoin the project.

Once in London, Pussy Galore decide to rent a recording studio for what they themselves feel will be the band's farewell to the scene: Dial M For Motherfucker. The sessions are nerve-wracking: in a climate increasingly compromised by drug abuse, Jon and Julia do nothing but snipe at each other, Neil only cares about his pills, and the rest of the band has no idea how to handle the situation. The whole record reflects the tension felt in the studio, coming out darker and slower than its predecessors. Finished only thanks to relentless pressure from the record label, Dial M For Motherfucker is a divisive album, with moments that can be considered masterpieces and others that are entirely pointless.

Spencer is physically worn out and is pondering his future when he agrees to guest on Gibson Bros.' record "Dedicated Fool". He also contributes to Boss Hog, but it's clear from the start that the project belongs to Cristina, and as early as their first record, Drinkin' Letchin And Lyin', Spencer decides to divert several songs towards a new outfit. He thus calls on Bert and Hagerty for a new Pussy Galore record: La Historia De La Musica Rock. The record is less powerful and incisive than the others, Julia's absence is keenly felt, and although the band finds itself in a more relaxed atmosphere, the same camaraderie of the early days is gone. Released in the UK on cult label Rough Trade, La Historia De La Musica Rock generates plenty of requests for European dates, but the tour will never happen: Pussy Galore no longer existed by that point. The band's existence would be virtually extended by In The Red Records, who in 1998 release Live: In The Red, the recording of the band's final concert, which took place on August 5, 1989 at New York's legendary CBGB.

Spencer still hasn't found his footing and agrees to go on tour with Gibson Bros alongside Cristina, playing drums. During this tour Jon grows closer to blues music, a love he'll deepen further during a stay in Memphis while working on the new Gibson Bros record, Memphis Sol Today.

Once work on the album is done, Jon returns to New York more fired up than ever, with the blues now firmly planted in his ears. He joins the Honeymoon Killers and records Hang Far Low with them, but that's not really what he wants. Soon after he forms a band entirely his own, with the sound he has in mind, roping in Russel Simins, drummer of the Honeymoon Killers, and his roommate Judah Bauer.

The trio starts to find its footing, works through the songs Jon has written and throws itself into endless improvisation sessions, until it feels ready for the studio, which they find together with their producer (none other than Kramer) and rent for just three hours. The result is 15 tracks ready to be released the way they would have been back when rock'n'roll was still new: a series of 7-inch singles that would later be collected, in 2007, on the CD Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers!.

Old Pussy Galore fans are buzzing with excitement, but it's glaringly obvious that the sound of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is something far removed from anything heard before, Pussy Galore included. Unbothered by criticism and puzzled looks, Spencer knows that with JSBX he's going to do great things, and he focuses on mastering the theremin, which complements his voice and his hollering perfectly. Thanks to the theremin and the shameless use of cheap guitars, with a raw, filthy sound, a new, curious crowd of fans starts to gather around the band.

The first, self-titled album, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, makes a loud entrance onto the market in 1992, even though it can hardly be called a surprising record. But it only takes a support tour with the Jesus Lizard for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion to become the hottest band of the moment. While the band works out a deal with Matador for U.S. distribution, European label Crypt seizes the chance to put out Crypt Style (with a cover that shows the trio made up and coiffed to look more like hookers than wax dolls - enough to distance themselves from Pussy Galore's aggressive image), a collection of tracks recorded by JSBX in a day-and-a-half session together with Kramer and Steve Albini.

Spencer is finally at ease, satisfied with the sound his own project has managed to create. When the trio goes into the studio to work on the next album, expectations are rewarded: Extra Width is a lean, direct, exuberant and dense record. Spencer has never been so comfortable onstage. Catching a JSBX show is an event, an experience. Spencer has stopped insulting the crowd and started egging them on instead. He sings, he screams, he never stands still, he sweats buckets, and he's instantly an icon: no one commands a stage quite like him.

The fever keeps rising, and Mo' Width hits the market, a reissue of Extra Width beefed up with a second CD of tracks left off the original pressing.

If Extra Width had people shouting miracle, with Orange they get down on their knees before perfection: flawless songs, impeccably sung, without a single note out of place.

Riding that wave of success comes Experimental Remixes, a record on which several tracks from Orange are reworked by, among others, Unkle, Mike D, Beck and Moby.

Having learned his lesson from the Pussy Galore experience, Spencer is careful not to repeat the same mistakes and decides to catch his breath by recording the second self-titled Boss Hog album, with two lineup changes (the addition of Hollis Queens on drums and backing vocals, and ex-Swans member Jens Jürgensen on bass) that will make the band sturdier and more successful. A pop detour and a breezy tour eventually make Jon willing to accept Matador Records' request that he and JSBX back R.L. Burnside on his surprising record A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey. Everything balances out perfectly, and the synergy between two such distant generations is a genuine surprise. It's striking just how much rock'n'roll (and Jon Spencer in particular) owes to Delta blues. An essential record for anyone's ideal blues-rock collection, one that managed to bring a long-overlooked artist back into the spotlight.

The confidence gained from this latest collaboration, together with the popularity earned with Extra Width and Orange, leads JSBX to take the big leap: leaving indie labels behind and signing with a major. The chosen one is the UK's Mute, home at the time to Nick Cave, Einstürzende Neubauten, Depeche Mode, Fad Gadget and many others.

Mute believes so strongly in the project that Spencer and co. are splashed across the front pages even before Now I Got Worry hits stores, and their schedule fills up day by day with commitments - interviews, shows, radio and TV appearances, video shoots. Now I Got Worry is a hit. A record a touch colder than Orange, but still a excellent effort.

Worn out by the grueling promotion and the never-ending tour, Spencer decides to fly to Chicago and change course, going for a different sound on Acme, one that moves away from rock'n'roll and closer to hip-hop. The guitars settle down and scratch less, the vocals get lower, and room is made for a string of guest musicians and their instruments (from piano to organ, by way of synthesizers, scratching and English horn). The record suffers from a forced change of direction that not even the band itself seems to fully believe in, as well as from the health problems (likely brought on by that very forced shift in sound) of Judah Bauer, who suffers repeated panic attacks in the studio.

Anyone expecting the band's trademark rock-blues aggression is left disappointed; many fans turn their noses up, others shelve the record, convinced the follow-up will be just as loud as the early albums. Not even a terrific video like "Talk About The Blues" helps much, one in which the actors are musicians and the musicians are actors (John C. Reilly as Russel Simins, Giovanni Ribisi as Judah Bauer, and, of all people, a dazzling Winona Ryder playing Jon Spencer). The album sells but fails to win people over, and things get worse still with the further, unnecessary releases Acme Plus and Extra Acme.

Pleased with how his latest releases turned out, but a little disoriented by the long tour he's just wrapped up, Spencer decides to step away from the Blues Explosion for a while and heads back into the studio to record a new Boss Hog album: Girl Positive Plus. A few years later, though, the band gets tangled up in legal red tape following Universal Records' acquisition of their label.

They wouldn't return until 2017, with the well-received Brood X.

The time comes to head back into the studio with the JSBX, and after so much experimentation, Spencer feels the need to take a step back and focus on guitars again. That's what happens on Plastic Fang, albeit in a decidedly more (self-)ironic, or perhaps simply poppier, fashion.

Conceived more at the drawing board than over hours of improvisation, and driven by the lead single "She Said" and a video directed by Floria Sigismondi, the album brings back the scratchy bite you'd expect from the guitars, but the songs are far less frantic and the vocals have never sounded so mature. The album is well received, but it's the tour that follows which will really win people over, with the songs reworked into blisteringly fast, irresistible versions.

At least the tour is a success, and an endless one at that. Spencer and co. head back to New York and shut themselves in the studio shortly after to record Damage, with which the band's name will be shortened to Blues Explosion. It's another carefully studied, measured record, with very little room for improvisation. It comes out somewhat unexpectedly and suffers from poor promotion by the label.

Hugely disappointed by the direction things are taking, Spencer deepens his friendship with Matt Verta-Ray, former bassist of cult band Madder Rose. With Verta-Ray, Spencer forms the duo Heavy Trash, blending rock'n'roll, country and rockabilly. The self-titled album, recorded purely out of curiosity, will do well enough to prompt the label to push for a tour. Spencer and Verta-Ray agree, and decide to expand the lineup by bringing in some friends.

The audience response is enough to convince the duo to write new songs for a second album. Going Way Out With Heavy Trash is recorded between London, Boston and New York alongside the Canadian band The Sadies, who will later share the stage with them on the world tour.

Midnight Soul Serenade is the third chapter of this new saga, in which the duo plays at being modern-day rock-a-billy heroes. It's certainly an enjoyable divertissement, but hearing Spencer ape Elvis for the third album running isn't exactly what we'd expect from an artist of his standing. We still prefer him when he throws himself into the tight, over-the-top grooves of "Bumblee Bee" and "(Sometimes You Got To Be) Gentle", and we have to admit that even the more narcotic, hallucinogenic moments (the story-song "The Pill", the more roots-y "Bedevilment") don't come off too badly either.

The brief "Pimento" has a quite unique charm (Tarantino will surely take note...), while the two bookends of the album (the opener "Gee, I Really Love You" and the closer "In My Heart") send us straight into our parents' Fifties daydreams. The rest of the tracks only serve to highlight just how much better Jon Spencer has been elsewhere.

With the Heavy Trash chapter filed away, in 2010 talk returns to Blues Explosion thanks to Dirty Shirt Rock And Roll, an anthology that gathers rarities and unreleased tracks from the first ten years (1992 to 2002) of what has by now become Jon Spencer's own project. The trio have fun aping the Doors at one point ("Love Ain't On The Run"), the great soul artists at another ("Magical Colors"), reviving the Rolling Stones myth on the irresistible "Wail", dipping their guitars into hip-hop on the unexpected "***k s**t up", and indulging in forgivable bouts of narcissism, as when they proclaim themselves the architects of an explosive blend ("Blues X Man"). Also worth noting are the three groove-drenched instrumentals ("Buscemi", "Train #2" and "Greyhound"), while the remix of "Flavor" is skippable despite the presence of special guest Beck. They're at their best when they're roughing up good old blues through a garage/lo-fi approach. Listen to "Feeling Of Love", "Shake 'em On Down" or the opener "Chicken Dog" (a duet with Rufus Thomas) and you'll get an exact sense of their approach to the material. The compilation closes with the radio-friendly "She Said", a perfect summary of the sleeker, less deconstructed Blues Explosion of the later part of their career, when everything became more studied and measured.

Also in 2010, the JSBX reissue campaign includes the excellent Controversial Negro, a live album recorded in Tucson in 1996 - originally released exclusively in the Japanese market - that manages to capture the wildest essence the band is capable of unleashing on stage.

But to witness the return of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion we'll have to wait until September 2012, when Meat And Bone is released, a record that pulses with blood and sweat in every groove. The lineup that, better than any other, has managed to translate the old codes of the blues, plunging them into punk and forcefully carrying them into the new millennium, is reunited once again in its classic configuration: the wondrous trio with Judah Bauer on guitars and Russell Simins behind the drums. Not that the gentlemen have been sitting idle in the meantime: in recent years the band's classic records have been reissued, the ever-handsome Jon has made three decent cross-genre rockabilly albums with Heavy Trash and lent himself to various collaborations, Bauer appears on the new Cat Power album, and Simins has dabbled in the urban garage-rock project Men Without Pants alongside Dan The Automator of Gorillaz. But seeing them reunited under their historic name still has a certain effect.

For Meat And Bone there are no guest stars: the three of them are enough, bare and raw, and even the production is handled in-house by Jon himself. The recipe is always the same: frantic rock'n'roll ("Danger"), unhealthy old-style blues sandpapered down with jolts of electricity ("Unclear", which makes it pretty clear who taught the White Stripes their lesson), provocative urban funk ("Get Your Pants Off"), a bit of easy homework dutifully done (the closing instrumental "Zingar"), and tons of energy. Everything is damned sexy, a festival of sounds shaken by continuous seismic tremors, in which it can take nothing more than Jon putting his lips to the harmonica ("Bag Of Bones") to set off chaos in a small club, a simple riff ("Boot Cut") blasted at full volume, or a hyper-distorted bass ("Ice Cream Killer") to bring down the walls of your bedroom; the sexually provocative lyrics are a clear invitation to ecstasy. The caustic, direct approach often recalls the early Rolling Stones, with tracks ("Black Thoughts") that sound like they could have come straight from the pen of Jagger/Richards. The tribute to their roots is rounded out by the shout-outs in the opener "Black Mold", where Spencer and company name a string of guiding lights (from Art Blakey to Ornette Coleman to Little Richard) who have evidently lit their path.

The years go by and Jon Spencer really does seem to have struck a blood pact with the devil: he retains a youthful charm, he's the prototype of the modern rockstar, he has an enviable wife, he's even more or less learned to play his instrument, he sings like a dream, and every project he decides to pursue is never anything less than interesting. That he might come up with actual hits is obviously an ironic contradiction for someone who, like him, has always preferred to smash dogmas apart and rebuild them according to his own aesthetic rather than secure himself one more spin on the radio. And yet, for the first album recorded under his own name, released in November 2018, he chooses the title Spencer Sings The Hits. Jon bets everything on the killer riffs of "Beetle Boots", the gorgeous swagger of "Ghost" and the healthy energy of "Overload" to comfort the niche audience that has always stuck by him.

Only a couple of tracks run past the three-minute mark; for the rest, these twelve imaginary hits fly by in a thoroughly enjoyable rush, leaving behind the subtle urge to go back and listen to the whole thing again, wallowing in the thrilling ordered chaos of "Trash Can" and the acid, space-time intersections of "Alien Humidity", ready to launch into orbit the noisiest version of the Pixies ever heard. The sound is the one he's accustomed us to: blues flayed, stripped to the bone, deconstructed, dissolved in the acid of punk, scorched under the sun of garage-rock, and rebuilt through those seismic jolts that have never weakened, despite a lifetime of excess and the advance of age.

In the meantime, also due to health problems affecting Judah Bauer - a respiratory condition that prevents him from continuing to work on the road - Jon Spencer announces the definitive breakup of Blues Explosion. At this point, the new backing band becomes the one that had accompanied him during the recording and touring of his solo debut.

The name chosen for the new lineup is The HITmakers, as if to underline the crowd-pleasing instinct that has always run through the raw sonic mix engineered by the guitarist from New Hampshire. Its members are Sam Coomes (half of Almost, here on synths), M. Sord (drums) and Bob Bert, long-time partner-in-crime of Jon's on several occasions, tasked with beating out improvised percussion and assorted debris.

The first release officially credited to the new moniker came out in April 2022, titled Spencer Gets It Lit, through which Jon confirms the mission he's decided to pursue for as long as he has the strength to make new music: tear down the blues as we've known it so far, and rebuild it according to new, personal rules.

Placed at the start of the run, the sonic grime of "Junk Man", conceived with a lo-fi approach and cheap plasticky keyboards layered over Spencer's huge fuzzed-out riffs, is perfectly programmatic in defining this thirteen-track run, built by playing up a filthy, unruly form of garage-rock-blues. Songs that move fast and direct, almost never past the three-minute mark. We're not at the level of Spencer's landmark records, but having him at the threshold of 60 with undimmed grit and talent is quite an achievement.

In 2024 Jon Spencer returns with an album released under his own name, without the HITmakers, Sick Of being Sick!, recorded with Kendall Wind on bass and Macky "Spider" Bowman on drums, both members of the New York punk-rock band Bobby Lees, for whom Spencer produced the album "Skin Suit" in 2020.

Not just garage-blues but also rockabilly and irresistible rock'n'roll, all condensed into eight tracks for a total of nineteen minutes of pure energy.

Maybe from an artistic standpoint there's nothing new left in Jon Spencer's music, but the blood still races through his veins at a thousand miles an hour. It's partly thanks to his instincts that the barriers between musical genres are a little more fragile today, even if his garage-blues might come across now as less "putrid" and more "clean" than it did twenty or thirty years ago. Or maybe it's just that the "system" has learned to "digest" it without being scandalized.

Over the years Jon Spencer has managed to surprise, to reinvent himself by experimenting in many directions, revisiting the blues of the pioneers and all-American rock'n'roll while ushering it into the new millennium, always careful not to make too many stylistic or behavioral compromises. Without losing an ounce of his own sensual brutality, and with the guitars still clattering away, he carries on his personal journey aimed at redrawing the load-bearing structures of modern american music.

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