A chat with Judah B. from the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
After their Charlottesville, Va. Trax appearance on Dec. 11th, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion guitarist Judah Bauer spoke to Grip's raving reporter Patrick O'Rourke about the group's involvement in recording two of the year's most noteworthy releases, R.L. Burnside's Beefheartian bluesfest, "A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey" and JSBX's own raucous "Now I Got Worry" (both on Matador), and what's currently hot on the JSBX tour jukebox.
Grip Monthly: "Now I Got Worry" is sort of a step back towards what you had done on Crypt Style. Was that an intentional choice to try to get back?
Judah Bauer: No, it wasn't an intentional choice, but I don't know. I think probably there was a change. I think we were listening to more rock 'n' roll again and more rockabilly and hanging out with R.L. (Burnside) and R.L. is definitely the rawest music around. We just got back into more of that and less of the hip-hop. We listen to so much hip-hop that you can get really sick of it, at least I was. I was listening to more blues. There's more blues on this new record, more like live rock 'n' roll sound. Russell and Jon are really into hip hop. That's what we were listening to at that time, more like soul, Stax and hip hop. After listening to what we started moving more towards the blues especially hanging out with R.L., going down and playing on ("A Ass Pocket of Whiskey"). We sort of pick up what's around us. Records come out, we don't plan them. We do figure out what we're going to do. We just go ahead and play and leave it up to inspiration.
Grip: How did you get hooked up with R.L.?
Bauer: We heard his record and we liked it and called (R.L. and his band) up and asked them if they wanted to do some shows with us in New York. They said, "No," and then a coupla months later a mutual friend hooked us up. R.L. came down and played on a tour of ours and we all became friends. They're like my favorite band, my favorite live band. We've done several tours already, now we're pretty good friends. We did that record, they were just touring with us on this tour a couple weeks ago. We took them to Europe. We don't play blues and they don't care. They just like the fact that we put on a good show. R.L. likes to have a good time, he likes playing for kids because he's used to that blues circuit. It's pretty yuppie and I think he likes playing for kids because they're so much more on an immediate response. A lot of these kids. . . have never heard a lot of that (blues) stuff.
Grip: What kind of music are you listening to other than R.L.? Are you listening to any new rockabilly?
Bauer: Oh no. All old stuff.
Grip: Like Hasil Adkins?
Bauer: Oh sure. All good music. I mostly listen to country blues, but we listen to pretty much everything. Ice Cube's pretty great. Lately we've been listening to a lot of funk, stuff that this friend of ours Eric Gladstone, made a comp tape (of). Some of it is pretty good, like old funk 45s. Today we were listening to a new blues band called the Mississippi All-Stars. It's Jim Dickinson's kids. They've got a band and play with Othar Turner, this blues guy, and Arlen Boyce. It's some pretty good blues stuff but it still sounds like the old stuff. What else have I been listening to. . . Black Flag.
(Originally published in Grip Monthly #3, Dec./Jan. '97)