Jon Spencer, Twenty-First Century Man
May 16, 2005

by Frank Smith

So, what's the next step for Spencer? Why, rockabilly, of course. This is what I mean when I say that his history is the history of rock and roll. He started with the noise-punk of Pussy Galore; then he played two-minute, dirty-ass rock-blues with JSBX; then he softened the Explosion's blues to a point where it could be remixed by Beck; and now he's founded a rockabilly band, Heavy Trash, with Matt Verta-Ray. It's like spinning back the dial. Rockabilly < Blues < Punk.

Spencer approaches rockabilly like the world’s foremost cunning linguist. The band’s first release, creatively titled Heavy Trash, is a filthy, filthy album. But just as easily as he can preach about having “an army of monkeys to do his every bidding,” he can take a song like “Gatorade” and turn it into a paean to the rock ’n’ roll innuendo of yore. Little Richard wrote “Tutti Frutti” about anal sex and if you don’t believe me, listen to that song while thinking about anal sex. I have, and it was a perfectly reasonable way to spend a Thursday afternoon. But where’s that song today? The only music on the radio or on MTV with any amount of cultural relevance is filled with impressed silence over all the bad words.

And all I gotta say is that Jon Spencer writes the kind of rock ’n’ roll filth that would not only make Little Richard proud, but it also gives me hope that rock is still a vibrant force in the twenty-first century. And that definitely has to count for something.