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Jon Spencer Blues Explosion: Dirty Shirt Rock ‘N’ Roll

Major Domo

From its start in the early ‘90s, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, born of the ashes of punks Pussy Galore, had only a tangential relationship with the blues—somewhere in the mix the band incorporated the rawness and directness of primal blues, but by any definition this was primarily loud and furious rock and roll, often too loud and furious for the mainstream alt-rock crowd. This single-disc, 22-song, Spencer-collated collection cherry-picks from the band’s first decade’s worth of output. He tosses together album tracks, singles and curios, among them “Shake ’Em Down (Edit),” from A Ass Pocket of Whiskey, a 1996 album by the real bluesman R.L. Burnside that featured the Explosion—Spencer (guitar), Judah Bauer (guitar) and Russell Simins (drums)—as collaborators. As the collection is not sequenced chronologically, it’s difficult to get an immediate sense of how the JSBE evolved (or didn’t) over the course of the covered time frame, 1992-2002. And those who’ve always seen this band as more about selling campy, nasty outrageousness than its music, might not change their minds after listening to this anthology. But for the newbie it’s about as succinct a summation as anyone’s ever going to release.