Scorched-Earth Policy:
Jason and the Scorchers bring their
fiery country rock to an RFT Rhythm & Roots concert at Union Station
By Chris King
The Riverfront Times
St. Louis, Missouri - July 9-15, 1997
Copyright 1997-2004 The Riverfront Times
I lived in Boston in the mid-’80s,
when cowpunk was one of the darlings of Boston radio. Jason and the
Scorchers were one of many bands of that ilk jammed into our dorm
rooms. Juicing up the simple sweetness of country songs with crunchy
electric guitars and straining vocals sounded like a great idea. When
I moved to St. Louis and found the Cicero’s Basement Bar scene
dominated by a similar sound, it still sounded great. Now in the late
‘90s, those Cicero’s bands have done well for themselves,
our bars are still peopled by countryish crunchy-guitar bands, and
Jason and the Scorchers are back. And it all still sounds pretty great.
You don’t need to ponder much to figure out the popularity and
staying power of this approach (I won’t say “formula”).
The songs are simple to write and play. (Doing so with feeling is,
of course, another, thornier question, and mostly a matter of taste.)
Country-vocal stylings appeal to all us white guys looking for something
to do with our uncertain voices. If this sound has any power for you
it tends to work instantly, in a fashion that makes the elbow bend
to more easily slide beer down the throat - which makes the music
sound all the better and more magical, and rings clubs’ cash
registers.
Jason and the Scorchers put all this stuff together about as well
as anybody. It’s difficult to get past the overwritten hype in
their bio to piece together their story, so I will concentrate on
their latest record, Clear Impetuous Morning (Mammoth), follow-up
to their 1995 comeback, A Blazing Grace.
Overall, it is a rocking record that could only translate well live.
Guitarist Warner Hodges drenches the record, and methinks a wide variety
of St. Louis rock fans would turn on to his playing. His country licks
have that greasy-breakfast feel captured on the album cover, where
a waitress flames petrol into Hodges’ coffee mug. (The country-rock
iconography of diners and the women who work them remains an ongoing
study, best elaborated locally by Fred Friction; see the Highway Matrons’
“Cold Ice Water and Hot Caffeine” on Out of the Gate Again.)
When Hodges decides to rock out, my beer elbow tends to relax.
As for the rhythm section - well, it’s a solid country-rock rhythm
section, which is to say you can tap your foot and clap your hands.
I’m not aware that anything more can be desired along this line.
That leaves frontman Jason Ringenberg - and the silent Scorcher, their
version of Scott Taylor (the Crystal City high-school teacher and
basketball coach who shares quite a few Brian Henneman songwriting
credits), Tommy Womack. Womack was in Government Cheese (remember
them?) and is now doing a pretty damn sharp country-rock thing down
in Nashville. He has a credit on the songs that work best for me,
“Self-Sabotage” (self-explanatory, like most of their songs
and titles), “Cappuccino Rosie” and my favorite, a lost-highway
number called “Going Nowhere,” with the nifty punch line,
“But at least I know the way.”
Ringenberg’s voice is adequate for this undemanding genre, though,
yow, he risks a lot by pairing up with Emmylou Harris. The song (“Everything
Has a Cost”) is weak, and so sounds his voice against a godly
songbird like Harris. But then, so would just about anybody’s.
When they hit Union Station’s Lakestage (with opening group Big
Back 40) at 6:30 p.m. this Friday, July 11, at the RFT-sponsored Rhythm
& Roots Concert Series, I doubt we will have Harris onstage. Just
a rocking country band sending messages to your beer arm’s elbow.
©
1997-2004 — The
Riverfront Times —
All Rights Reserved
