Jon Spencer
Biography Jon Spencer
Jon Spencer
Since making his name with the garage-noise band Pussy Galore in 1984, through Boss Hog, Heavy Trash (with the Sadies and Matt Verta-Ray), a few rounds with RL Burnside, and, above all, the famous Blues Explosion, Jon Spencer has gone through several incarnations without ever really deviating from his unique guitar sound and his typical way of singing and imposing himself on stage. Blues, garage, punk, soul, and noise assimilated, crushed, and spat out with a class of its own and a lot of style.
Since the 1980s, the New Hampshire-born musician has been active in a variety of bands, perhaps most notably The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Though not a traditional blues band, the trio -- which also included Judah Bauer and Russell Simmins -- released a series of relentlessly inventive albums between 1991 and 2015, then came to an end in 2016, apparently without the acrimony that often accompanies such splits.
Spencer has also recorded as a member of Heavy Trash and Boss Hog and was instrumental in connecting bluesman R.L. Burnside to a wider audience that saw the elder musician experience a more comfortable life during the last decade of his life. With Spencer’s help, Burnside recorded the 1996 LP “A Ass Pocket Full of Whiskey,” which ushered in a series of reissues and even broader interest.
Spencer lands in fine form on “Spencer Gets It Lit,” delivering a series of songs that call on a vast array of influences that weave effortlessly between rural American music and the urban avant-garde. Inspired as much by junk culture of the ’60s and ’70s (comic books, low budget sci-fi) as strange, conceptual masters such as Captain Beefheart and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the collection proves that Spencer -- no matter what musical guise he’s working in -- remains an American original and an indispensable voice on the indie/punk scene.
