Elemental Rock N Roll
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The Jim Jones Revue are proving to be a band impossible to pigeon hole; a force of contradiction as much they are a force of nature, evoking the past, yet writing the future. Indulging in nostalgia, yet enthusiastically embracing the 21st century.
But while the band may have many hidden twists and turns, live they are pure, uncomplicated rock n roll – on stage, their energy is unabashed. Like a tornado, The Jim Jones Revue come rushing into town with a trail of destruction in their wake, stopping for a memorable, fleeting moment to unleash a torrent of rock n roll turbulence on their audience, which always leaves those in attendance never quite the same again. Wherever they go, they leave an impression.
And now it’s the turn of the States to experience Jim Jones Revue’s natural destruction. After a lauded performance at the South By Southwest Festival last March, the group finally saw the stateside release of their white-hot sophomore effort ‘Burning Your House Down‘, and wisely followed it up with a much-needed North American tour, which included a stop on the Late Show…With David Letterman.
Throughout the process of this continental crossover, their lightning-in-a-bottle live shows have become the stuff of legend in the US, due to a slow-moving wave of word-of-mouth reviews that in recent months has washed its way across the Atlantic. As that wave continued to grow in size and speed, the Live4ever Ezine was in tow from coast-to-coast, as the band took to the stage at the Echo in Los Angeles, and Maxwell’s in New Jersey, to do what they do best – old-school rock n’roll; loud, fast, and with reckless abandon.
In LA, the set began with singer Jim Jones approaching the mic as the rest of the band settled into their instruments, looking the crowd over once before mumbling: “We’ll chat later.” Then they immediately broke in with a distorted gut-punch version of Little Richard’s ‘Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey‘, turning the famous b-side into some sort of perverse punk rock mating call. The pummeling drum intro of ‘Dishonest John‘ ensued thereafter, heating up the room just enough before the twisted piano-boogie of ‘Rock N Roll Psychosis‘ tilted the temperature towards the ceiling.
That the spirit of Little Richard is evoked at The Echo is nothing new, however, as the band told the Live4ever Ezine just a few days later in New Jersey, there’s far more besides to consider before arriving at their irresistible sound.
“There’s a Fifties like influence to the music but you know (we have) taken everything from that point as well, and stuff before it,” Rupert Orton explained. “So you know it’s like a big bouillabaisse of exciting music that we felt was going to be good to sort of regurgitate in our own way. I don’t think it’s a straight ahead revival, you know sort of retro thing.”
Indeed if, like us, you are lucky enough to grab a few minutes of their time as they career around the world heading to gigs arranged but hours in advance, what might superficially appear to be straight-forward rock n roll flowers open to reveal much more – those contradictions become clear. The modern world, with all its new methods of both releasing and recording music, is no enemy of The Jim Jones Revue.
“The thing you really want is the performance, the communication of the music is important and whether the people get it or download it from somewhere or whether they buy it on vinyl, that’s their preference,” Jim Jones explains.
“Everyone likes to suck a dick in a different way. Vinyl is one way, CD is another way, download is another way. We’re not really bothered about it. It’s the same way in the studio. We don’t have to use old fashioned microphones, you know. If Pro tools is going to get us a better sound we’ll go with Pro tools.”
“The vinyl IS there for you,” Jim continues. “You can have that experience if you want it. Some people live somewhere too small to have a vinyl collection and mp3s are the way to go, and they still get the experience they want. You know, you don’t have to have a special haircut to come to a Jim Jones Revue concert. You don’t have to have some esoteric knowledge of the history of rock n roll. You come to have a damn good time and that’s the point. We love vinyl. I love to hear vinyl. But also, when I don’t have time and I just want to check something out, I just get my hands on an mp3.”
“And not to go into this in too much detail, but if you look at the history of recorded music; when it started in the late eighteen hundreds, maybe it’s just a transient thing,” Rupert continues. “It has gone since then and from now onwards where it’s going to go somewhere else. Before that, it was just playing it live. We do it live. There’s no samples, no synths. We play everything live, so what you see is what you get. It’s totally organic and we’re completely comfortable with that.”
As if to prove the point back in LA, and anchoring their usual bluster with just enough technical savvy, the Jim Jones Revue came off even slicker than expected. Lead guitarist Rupert seemed sharper live than on record, while the rhythm section of Gavin Jay and Nick Jones were locked in all night.
Henri Herbert served as more than adequate replacement for original pianist Elliot Mortimer, ripping through the numerous key slides on ‘High Horse‘ and absolutely nailing the stunning piano solo at the center of ‘Burning Your House Down‘. The new addition contorts around his keyboard, often appearing to crouch on some invisible stool, putting in the kind of effort regular trips to the gym would surely need to sustain. Not a bit of it.
“The workout is the gig, the gigs I’ve done,“ Henri insists. “I’ve done a lot of them now. It was a struggle at first to play standing up. I was a boxer – it does help a little with some things (laughs), in general it’s just the gigs. I don’t know how many gigs I’ve done, but lots. That playing standing up thing makes it a lot easier for me to play aggressively. I’ve just enjoyed playing standing up so when I play sitting down it just doesn’t feel right.”
“Henri is brilliant! If we would have gone into a laboratory like Frankenstein and built our perfect piano player it wouldn’t be far short of that,” Rupert enthuses.
At The Echo, meanwhile, Jones played the enigmatic frontman, coaxing the crowd into a call-&-response shout-along on the drunken dance-rock of ‘Shoot First’ and nearly destroying his voice during the scream session that was ‘Elemental‘.
The overall setlist was carefully arranged, as the songs were pretty much split even between the recent record and their self-titled debut. While newer tunes like ‘Big Len’ and ‘Killing Spree’ were delivered with more precision, it was the first album that really unhinged the electricity at the core of their catalogue.
“We booked a room for two days so we could leave the mics set up and we went in there at lunchtime and went home at eight or nine at night and we did that two days in a row,” says Jim on the manic creation of that debut record.
“It was a really horrible experience! I think it was in August and there was a heat wave,” adds Rupert. “We were in Camden I think and we had the sweat pouring off us! We were like, ‘Are we done yet?, No? One more take…’ Fuck.”
The primitive organ-stomp of ‘Cement Mixer’ was a sonic assault that mixed the dramatics of a quirky carnival procession with an almost Sabbath-like heaviness, and ‘Who’s Got Mine?’ came complete with a roll call of solos from each member of the band. Then there was ‘Princess & The Frog‘, a car-wreck of a closer that managed to recreate that same carnal energy that carried rock n’ roll through its early age of infamy.
That age of infamy may be long since dead and buried, but they continue to prove that the energy behind it is still as alive as ever. “We got sleep deprivation, everyday of the week,” Rupert contends. But then, that’s The Jim Jones Revue – the most modernly old-school, traditionally forward thinking, energetically sleep deprived band around.
Now, is that a pigeon hole?
