"Jerry Jerry wasn't a serious band at the time it started, either. It was what we called a "fuck band". It took four or five years before I considered myself to be a performer."
Jerry Jerry
So what's a discussion of this notion of gospel-punk (see here) without Jerry Jerry?
At the height of Canada’s eighties stomping garage-rock revival, spearheaded by Og Records (see here), along swaggered this hard-drinking, testifier, Jerry Jerry, (born Jerry Woods) and his seven piece band, the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra.
"Canadian city boy thinks he's a hillbilly preacher sings late '60s Texas acid rock." is how Jerry Jerry's debut album Road Gore: The Band That Drank Too Much (1985) was once described. And that just scratches the surface. The tempos are speedy, the lyrics sarcastic and the band chops up elements of blues, country, gospel, rockabilly surf and punk rock into a thick n' chunky stew.The resulting sound is roots-rockin' cow-punk like their Edmonton, Alberta brethren Jr. Gone Wild (and even, a tad less so perhaps, like real early k.d. lang). However, there's no R.E.M. style jangle in these boys spurs and you can bet your ass that the redneck-ish Jerry would kick the snot out of Micheal Stipe should they ever meet.
In that spirit, here's Jerry's brilliant anti-socialism screed, "Bad Idea". While Road Gore may not be Jerry's strongest album, this song stands as his greatest achievement, no wonder it's track one, side one of the whole It Came From Canada compilation series. The lyrics are both humorous and deadly-serious. Jerry uses a stinging guitar line as his soapbox to condemn the evils of Big Government (Alberta is Canada's Texas) while the whole band offers full choral support. Eventually Jerry's righteous fury builds to an explosive triple-time ending.
This "edition" of the hopelessly out-of-print Road Gore has two bonus tracks, "Radical Look" and "Yap Yap", from the It Came From Canada series.
{MRML readers weigh in with a comment: What do you make of Jerry Jerry's take on Gospel-punk?}
Road Gore LP Re-Upped HERE
(MRML recommends WinrRAR for unpacking your downloads)
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Typical of Alberta to choose the American South/West to plagiarize so poorly.
ReplyDelete"Battle Hymn of the Apartment" and "Don't Mind If I Do" are two of my all-time fave albums. "Road Gore" doesn't quite match up to those two, but it's an awesome party nonetheless. I hope more people finally get to hear the Jenius of Jerry Jerry - thanks for posting!
ReplyDeleteAnon.
ReplyDeleteA stinging indictment with an element of truth.
Roy
I'd probably take this album over "Don't Mind..." but "Battle Hymn" is my personal favourite.
Both are forthcoming...
I've seen and met Jerry a few times, but never really knew him, though we have a few mutual friends. I get a kick out of what he does, but I take it as a pisstake, whereas he supposedly actually means all that stuff. It's an Alberta thing, apparently.
ReplyDeleteI had a fried who was drinking buddies with him in Montreal (likely not a rare thing) and he called Jerry a "born again" in the sense that he came to religion later in life and he took it seriously.
ReplyDeleteI remain only partially convinced.
'road gore' d/l link to rapidshare is broken... please re-submit.
ReplyDeleteTa-da!!
ReplyDeleteWow. I haven't heard that in a couple decades. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteSorry, not religulous, thought the sally ann suit, smokes, booze and blatant worship of rock'n'roll might have given me away. I did always like gospel music tho, maybe that's it, you are forgiven.
ReplyDeleteJerry
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification and all the the cool music (strangely, gospel is often effectively done by non-believers.)
Hope you enjoyed the posts - album links can always be taken down if having them up here bothers you at all.
Not at all, my music is not for money, obviously, (ooh, that hurt),
ReplyDeleteThanks for spreading the ..ahem...word
Jerry
ReplyDeleteEvery artist who's come by to visit (i.e. Dik van Dyke and a slew of others) has been more than happy to have music otherwise unavailable offerd alongside some, perhaps too much, context.
Glad to add you to the list of satisfied post subjects and if there's anything you want me to link to here (MySpace, facebook et al) let me know - links are a crucial part of the posts.
hey that was "the evangelist" himself poking around your tomes ... and occasionally imbibed of a hideous potion that would transform him into ... Jerry Slag!
ReplyDelete... hey boy, fast and frantic boy, I'm grateful to d/l your billion dollar dissemination ...
Crown..
ReplyDeleteJerry Slag sounds like a great blog post title!
Hey Jeffen, it's the poster formerly known as Dave Geek here. Amazingly I missed this until now. Any chance of a re-up on it?
ReplyDeleteYes: (sorry for the delay):
Deletehttp://musicruinedmylife.blogspot.ca/2014/07/jerry-jerry-and-sons-of-rhythm.html