Whoa! Right about now! 1537, baby! Ladies and gentleman, here’s the one, the only, 1537, I said 1537! (theremin solo) Yeah! Baby, whoa 1537! I said, whoa! Yeah! (guitar break) … whoa!
Umm, what was I talking, sorry I mean talkin’ about again? oh yes, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Acme. I’ll try not to get too carried away, it just isn’t the done thing.
That's right ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for letting me into your home
I'm gonna do it right now
I'm gonna talk about the blues
I was a little late to Acme, due to life stuff, which is surprising because I loved Orange and I once saw them absolutely blow Beastie Boys off the stage in Manchester*. When I eventually bought Acme I was underwhelmed, it was denser, less obvious and murkier than their previous records. Maybe it was a grower, I thought.
Listening to it this week, I’m still wondering if it is; if it knows what it is.
On standout single ‘Talk About The Blues’, amongst all their usual daft self-referential mutterin’ and exclaimin’ we get bludgeoned with the line that the ‘Blues is #1‘, before being told that the band play rock and roll, not blues. That’s not true.
I mean they do play rock and roll, but they promiscuously steep it in blues, soul, funk and every other ancient genre they could think of^ to the extent that Acme becomes a thoroughly and occasionally confusing contemporary sounding stew. Mr Spencer manages the neat trick of ventriloquizing entire swathes of American truck stop music throughout.
Add in production by a confusing number of bods including Dan the Automator, Steve Albini and Alec Empire then Acme lacks a certain amount of cohesion; which is not of itself a criticism^^ but you need really strong songs to break on through, so to speak. Which is where Acme falls down for me.
The overall sound is wonderfully dusty and sounds like it has been put together DJ Shadow-style via a bouillabaisse of old samples, which is when you realise that, no, that’s the JSBX playing it all. Russell Simins is one of the best drummers I have seen live and there is plenty more to admire here. The addition of some backing vox serves to add colour and shade to it all on the likes of ‘Magical Colours’.
Acme is a very front-loaded LP, most everything worth hearing is done before Side 2 – I’d make an exception for the funky stutter of ‘Blue Green Olga’, which features an inexplicably almost inaudible Jill Cunniff of 1537 faves Luscious Jackson. Oh and I like the quieter introspection of ‘Desperate’ too.
But I come to praise (bits of) Acme, not to bury it. Opener ‘Calvin’ is a great groove, if not much of a song, but it tees up ‘Magical Colours’ up beautifully where Mr Spencer gets all low-key plaintive on us, while Judah Bauer plays all the right notes.
The tasty oddness of ‘Do You Wanna Get Heavy’ is leavened by a wonderfully smooth coda, segueing into delightfully straight-forward ‘High Gear’, with its lyrics about road kill and pills; the sole Steve Albini production credit to make the LP^*.
Well I put on my gloves and I took that pill
I'm gonna shift it through to high gear
I love the deep swamp of ‘Talk About The Blues’, which remains JSBX’s best intrusion into B-boy sound. My ultimate 90’s heartthrob** Winona pulls off a cracking impersonation of JS in the accompanying video too.
The best cut on Acme is ‘I Wanna Make It All Right’, which manages to strut and slink in just the right way. The guitar line on this one is a real treat and there aren’t any production quirks to date it at all.
I have enjoyed revisiting Acme, which while it is certainly not the acme of JSBX albums, neither is it the nadir. For me its the last lingering traces of their bottled lightning, I get they were progressing and experimenting as a band but I do prefer their earlier more bombastic selves.
Maybe I just hold a grudge because the LP cover is a bit rubbish, yes I like the fact that various bits are glossy but it deserved a far better cover than it got.
1316 Down.
PS: Kudos to Mr Tim Procter from whom I may have borrowed the idea of the opening paragraph. Its his fault.
*I genuinely cannot remember anything much about the Beasties that night, but have total recall of JSBX; every move, whoop and holler.
^by my reckoning the only one they don’t have a crack at here is plainsong.
^^see genius-era Beastie Boys.
^*there are more on the various extra-bits LPs that I couldn’t be arsed with.
**mostly because of Heathers.
Played this a lot at work. Unfortunately not a great way to create good memories.
I hear you, however for me it always seemed to be a great way to learn all the words to something.