Jason and the Scorchers

Midnight Roads & Stages Seen (2-disc set)
**** (four stars)

Rick de Yampert; The Oracle Magazine
May 1998

Copyright 1998 - 2004 The Oracle Magazine

Never mind that the new, two-CD live album by Jason and the Scorchers opens with lead drawler Jason Ringenberg quoting a very British, Nobel Prize-winning author. It’s quite an appropriate quote. “As Rudyard Kipling said, ‘He who rides the tiger finds it difficult to dismount,’ Ringenberg says. That pretty much sums up the career of the World’s Hardest Working Cow-Punk Band, and it’s a clue to Midnight Roads and Stages Seen.
Recorded over three nights this past November at Nashville’s Exit/In, the album is evidence that the Scorchers haven’t dismounted from the wild twang-punk beast, and the reason is they’re still having too much fun on the ride. Ringenberg is in great aw-shucks form, his voice often threatening to detour into a glorious yodel. That’s true on such cowtown rockers as Self Sabotage and 200 Proof Lovin’, and on such ballads as Ocean of Doubt and Pray For Me Momma (I’m a Gypsy Now.)
On such boogie tunes as My Heart Still Stands With You and Blanket of Sorrow, guitarist Warner Hodges plugs away with the steady fury of those slave-ship oarsmen in those old Viking flicks. On such punk rave-ups as White Lies and a cover of Dylan’s Absolutely Sweet Marie, his guitar screeches like an out-of-control tram packed with 1,000 screaming psycho killers. Did someone say cow-punk? Heck, Hodges bashess Both Sides of the Line until it’s cow-metal.
The album’s 23 songs span the band’s entire 17-year career. Jason introduces Broken Whiskey Glass by saying, “This is the first original song we ever learned together as a band back in September 1981.” This Town Isn’t Keeping You Down is a new tune...and maybe a comment on Music City? Hmmmmm.
Thankfully, the lads have found it difficult to dismount the beast.

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