Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra: Battle Hymn of the Apartment (1987)

"Turn around and be some one better; time permitting and shit."
Jerry Jerry

In 1986 Jerry Jerry and his ever-changing Sons of Rhythm Orchestra emigrated from Edmonton, Alberta to Montreal, Quebec. The band moved from Og Records, to the Doughboys' 1st home, Piepline Records before settling on their final label, Aquarius Records (home of great Can-Crap from April Wine to Corey Hart to Sum 41).





For Battle Hymn of the Apartment (1987) Jerry found his definitive band, with Paul Soulodre (guitar,vocals) George Wall (guitar,vocals) Duke Bronfman (drum, vocals), future Asexual Blake Cheetah (bass), not to mention backing horns, keyboard and a vocal trio.

As the credits suggest there are layers and layers of vocals here and all those voices underpin Jerry's role as the leader of a strange midnight choir. For proof of how this ensemble feeds Jerry's "Pusher for Jesus" personae - give this track a listen.



(art by Matt Wagner from his series Grendel)


On this album Jerry Jerry really claims his voice and that voice is a whiskey-and-cigarette soaked baritone that fires off venomous sermons. The Sons of Rhythm Orchestra are a super-tight unit that propel Jerry, turning his gospel and R n' B pastiches into torn flesh and dripping blood rockers.






Tracklist
A1     Runaway Lane   
A2     Bad Luck At Tulane   
A3     Pushin' For Jesus   
A4     Free Love   
A5     She's Been Used   
A6     Hurtin' Her Won't Make You A Man   
A7     The Mexican In Me   
B1     The Hard Way   
B2     In The Hands Of The Lord   
B3     Wazoo   
B4     Mistaken   
B5     Downhearted   
B6     The Drift

MRML Readers weigh in with a comment: is this Jerry's master work?


JERRY'S STILL ALIVE

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Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra: Road Gore (1985)

"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

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 to make a thick n' chunky stew. The resulting sound is roots-rockin' cow-punk a little like their Edmonton, Alberta brethren Jr. Gone Wild (and even a little like really early k.d. lang). However, there's not much R.E.M. style jangle in these boys spurs and you can bet your ass that Jerry would make short work out of Micheal Stipe should they ever meet.





In that spirit, here's Jerry's brilliant anti-socialism screed, "Bad Idea". While still-gelling 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. (Studio version here)





Tracklist
A1     Gospel Surfer    
A2     Rhythm Crazy    
A3     Color TV    
A4     Baby's On Fire    
A5     Livin' On Top    
A6     Hell And Back    
A7     Daddy Was A Peacock    
B1     Happy Nun    
B2     Bad Idea    
B3     Rancher King    
B4     Dumb Love    
B5     You Make Me Blue    
B6     Judgement Date    
This MRML-exclusive "edition" of the hopelessly out-of-print Road Gore has two bonus tracks, "Radical Look" and "Yap Yap", culled from the It Came From Canada series.




MRML readers weigh in with a comment: What do you make of Jerry Jerry's Gospel-punk?
 
JERRY'S STILL ALIVE

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Ramones: Live at Arturo Vega's Loft (1975)

So, Tommy Ramone, the last of the original Ramones is dead. Sad, fucking sad. Tommy was one of the architects behind the the band, supposedly only taking the drum stool after auditions failed to secure anyone capable of understanding what the band was doing. When the band lost its way in a fog of big-name producers in the early 80's, it was Tommy who took the producers helm for  the comeback album "Too Tough To Die and righted the Good Ship Ramone.

Here's an artifact of the Tommy-era. The sound is dirty as hell but it's still amazing that this not only exists but how how clearly it demonstrates the band's focus well before the recording of the first album.





The fact that this was filmed says that a lot of people, artistic director Arturo Vega not least among them, knew that something earth-shaking was afoot in NYC.

Ramones-maniacs:

What do you make of this super-early
Ramones performance?


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The Haywains: Get on Board With...( 2014)

Some bands use the 'tag option on Bandcamp with deadly accuracy: The Haywains labels themselves: "alternative, c86, indie-pop, jangle-pop, punk-pop, twee, United Kingdom" and that says it all. Well, almost. What that promising and accurate summary doesn't explicitly state is that the band are not part of some 21st century twee-revival but were actually slightly-latecomers to the c86 party, having put out their first release back in 1988!





On "Get on Board With...". The Haywains prove they're still bursting with clever lyrics, catchy hooks and a relentless energy. There's no shocking musical developments here just seven-and-a-half minutes of alternative-c86-indie-pop-jangle-pop-punk-pop-twee perfection.


BANDCAMP

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Words vs. Images

 "...The artist does more than 50% of the writing in comics, a reality of which most enthusiasts remain completely unaware, and most writers don’t want the enthusiasts to know, as it would compromise their inexplicable position as alphas in comics today."

Howard Chaykin, July 5th, 2014

An eternal debate - which is more important the word or the image? Obviously in the medium of sequential art - which we usually just call comics - this question is particularly nettlesome.

Legions of devotees of the the medium's most legendary artist, Jack Kirby, declare the man credited as his writer, media magnate and seeming immortal, Stan Lee, was a fraud. That Lee also worked with different artists in creating an intricately-woven, deeply-human mythology so rich that writers, artists and film-makers still haven't tapped the well is often lost on these devotees. Skeptics of the Artist-Is-All position will point to Kirby's work as his own writer, which is often praised for its intricate artwork but rarely for its dialogue, characterization or comprehensibility. Defenders will protest that this period is Kirby at his most ambitious, to which I would agree.

Howard Chaykin is right on many levels; the artist certainly spends more time on each page than the writer does and when we read we are more likely to skip a chunk of words than a panel. As well, Chaykin as writer-artist is responsible for some mighty work, including his run on his own creation, American Flagg.

However, like so many readers, I know that a writer's name in the credits is the single most reliable metric of a comic's potential. After all, we view movies, we watch TV, we gaze in art galleries but we read comics. Mark Waid has written an amazing run on Daredevil that has lasted years. While he has had numerous talented artists that have helped make this run so successful, none of the changes in artist have altered either the quality or the essence of the book in the way that Waid's departure surely would.

Writers' 'alpha position' in comics is probably a good thing, as I've heard from many people who survived the reign of terror that artists who decided that they didn't need writers in the nineties unleashed. We're in a thrilling period where a great many talented artists and writers feel they can express themselves best in this medium. In the end, it's the perfect intersection between word and image (and often colour!) that makes or breaks a comic and not the resolution of the eternal artist vs. writer tug-of-war.

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07/08/14 This post has been update because of dumb-assery.