Kim Salmon & Spencer P Jones
Runaways
12 Track, LP (2013, Independent)
Last week, I read
with interest Patrick Emery’s two-part Icons piece on the legendary Beasts Of
Bourbon, a longtime favourite band of mine, one who helped shape my rock ‘n’
roll outlook, and who taught me that you don’t have to colour within the lines,
that it’s OK to stray, to explore, to antagonise.
It was both
poignant and interesting then, to listen to Runaways,
the newest cut from two Beasts’ alum in Kim Salmon and Spencer P Jones, a
couple of this country’s more notorious protagonists, rock ‘n’ roll outlaws to
a tee. It’s poignant in that the record is being released so close to this BoB
reformation, and interesting to see where these two are in 2013, after almost a
lifetime of numerous variations on a theme, compared with where they were,
circa The Axeman’s Jazz.
To be honest, where
they are is in the same neighbourhood. Perhaps even the same sharehouse, for Runaways is a gloriously fucked up
example of the same kind of middle-finger-in-the-air, pile of cans by the drum
kit rock ‘n’ roll the Beasts made their own, back in 1983. Perhaps it’s not
quite as alcohol-fuelled, but it’s a stark, naked look at how Salmon and Jones haven’t
moved on from that form in this instance.
At the same time
though, it’s also a look at their loyalty, perhaps their stubbornness, their
refusal to do anything but what they want, how they want to do it, when they
want it done by. And as a result, Runaways
is a triumph. A scruffy, filthy triumph.
One of three
projects Salmon is currently working on, or has been working on recently, this
was the last one to begin, and the first to be released. Along with drummer
Mike Stranges (no bass player, they took turns on the four-string), Salmon and
Jones set up camp in Incubator Studios, and got down to business.
As salmon wrote on
his blog, late last year: “I’d write my lyrics while Spencer was
tracking, and he’d do the same while I was tracking. Somehow, our day to day
lives didn’t give us the opportunity to be prepared for this recording and
consequently what’s gone down is the real deal. We had nowhere to hide. I can
truly say that this is an honest recording of a couple of rock ‘n’ roll musos
in their mid-fifties. It’s a consequence of their lives lived! It’s brought it
home to me that one can never really be prepared, so one should just be in the
moment and do ones best.”
So Runaways is a rock ‘n’ roll record,
through and through. From the Jon Spencer-like urgency of The Gun Club’s ‘A
Cool Drink Of Water’, to the drunken, strip club sleaze of ‘Is That All There
Is’ (where Salmon waxes lyrical about his first gig, in a strip club, and Jones
describes the aftermath of a party where he wakes up on a couch to find his
penis in another man’s mouth), it’s an album that spills over you like the
amber ale from a knocked over schooner, staggering around like an ‘80s rock pig
after ten of the same.
Then there’s a
slight deviation from the mean – not so much sonically, but in terms of song
choice, for the title track is indeed the Kanye West number, ‘Runaway’. What
possessed the pair to dig this one up is beyond me, but what they do to it is
bend it over and, against its wishes… well, you get the picture. Both Salmon
and Jones take a turn at rapping the lyrics at one point too, which in itself,
seals the deal.
Towards the end of
the record, things change a little more. Gone, temporarily, is the thrashy rock
abandon, in its place a few more considered tracks, like the pair decided they
couldn’t get away with an entire album
of their old brand of fuzzed out jangle. The country/blues of ‘Scorched Earth
Mother Pearl’ is like a ray of sunlight post-storm, mandolin and guitars ride
bareback over Stranges’ lethargic beat, and while it still retains the ‘rock’,
it seems to come from a different place, a more mature place, dare I say.
The slow, jangle continues
with ‘Underclass’, scruffy harmony vocals, a definite touch of jazz in some of
the guitar playing, and again, a bit more of that JSBX vibe, like something is
about to explode, but doesn’t. Finishing up with the melancholy country-ish
balladry of The Only Ones’ ‘The Whole Of The Law’, Runaways draws to a close and you’re left sitting there in stark
surprise, like someone just turned on the lights and caught you masturbating. But
you made it, so it’s sort of OK.
Runaways is nothing new, but it’s a record which is exactly as it should be,
given who made it, how they made it, why they made it. It’s a grubby gem, which
to my mind, is perfect.
Samuel J. Fell
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