The first time I ever heard The Birthday Party was when a slightly older but very wiser friend played me “The Bad Seed” 12″ EP after I told him about my recent life changing experience seeing The Jesus Lizard live. My friend patiently listened to my tale of David Yow writhing around on stage, shirtless and sweaty, diving into the crowd, strangling himself with the mic chord, and just generally being “like, totally crazy!”. Then my friend asked me, “Hey, have you ever heard The Birthday Party? It was Nick Cave’s old band.” By the end of the fourth and final song on the record, “Deep In the Woods”, I realized why he had asked me that question: He knew The Jesus Lizard. He liked their music a lot. He had seen them live. But he also knew what they were “doing” and in his mind, The Birthday Party had done it first, and better. I felt a little defeated but I was also excited to hear more Birthday Party. Looking back, I don’t think I ever bought another Jesus Lizard record.
I think I had heard of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion but not heard their music when the same friend who’d introduced me to the Birthday Party played me Pussy Galore for the first time. He played me a slightly warped copy of the “Right Now!” LP that he was nice enough let me keep after it was clear it was absolutely melting my mind. I seem to remember thinking “this is like if the Cramps just stopped caring about being good and just lost their fucking minds.” I was instantly obsessed and immediately tried to track down their other records which were already collectable in the mid-90’s. While “Historia De La Musica Rock” was a little over my head at the time, “Dial M for Motherfucker” and the “Sugarshit Sharp” 12″ provided me with sounds I felt like I had been waiting forever to hear. I’d also recently heard Einstürzende Neubauten for the first time and upon hearing Pussy Galore’s cover of “Yü Gung” and seeing the cover of “Sugarshit Sharp”, the connection was almost too much for my 19 year old mind to handle. A whole new world of sound was opening up for me. So, when the Blues Explosion released “Orange” that same year…I couldn’t help but feel a little confused. I liked It but…I wanted to like it a LOT…but it just wasn’t Pussy Galore. I think the thing I liked the most about “Orange” was the video for “Flavor” which featured Beck and Mike D reenacting the Run-DMC/Aerosmith “Walk This Way” video. Blues Explosion seemed so polished compared to Pussy Galore I almost suspected there was some sort of joke I wasn’t in on. Once again, I was just a few years too late for something cool. The Blues Explosion was The Jesus Lizard and Pussy Galore was The Birthday Party.
A few years later I was at a shop in Amherst, MA selling some records to finance my move to Boston when I noticed an interesting LP on the wall with a $50 price tag and a weird reverse negative photo of George Bush and Clarence Thomas (two men who were not very popular at the time). I asked the clerk what it was and when he told me it was a bootleg Jon Spencer Blues Explosion record recorded by Kramer and Steve Albini that predated all other Blues Explosion releases, it had mysterious connections to Siltbreeze Records, and it was called “A Reverse Willie Horton”…my head almost exploded. I asked to listen to it and it sounded exactly how I was worried it would sound: a stripped-down Pussy Galore playing straight up disgusting, filthy raw punk rock ‘n’ roll. Like the Dead Boys playing “Electric Mud”. Drunk. Appreciation for this type of stuff was still new to me. I had just heard the Electric Eeels for the first time and this was exactly what I wanted to be listening to. I didn’t have $50. If anything I had NEGATIVE $50. I was crushed. And on top of it all I was told the record was nearly impossible to find because (depending on who you believed) Spencer had released it to piss off Caroline Records…or it was a tape of demos that had fallen into the wrong hands…Spencer wasn’t happy with Kramer’s/Albini’s production and wanted the tapes destroyed… All I knew was it was everything I wanted the Blues Explosion to be and for now I just had to settle for “Bellbottoms”.
The following year I actually got to see Blues Explosion live a few times and sure enough I was blown the fuck away so, I was back on their team. I then had my second chance to get my hands on the “Willie Horton” LP and this time I made sure not to blow it. Just the cover and title of this record made it seem like an extension of Pussy Galore and upon finally owning it and really listening to and digesting it, I realized it was worth finally shelling out for a copy. Pussy Galore covered Einstürzende Neubauten live and on their “Sugarshit Sharp” LP but (as a greater scribe than I once pointed out) a Spencer band never sounded more like Neubauten than they do on this LP. It’s as if Neubauten traded in their 55 gallon drums and scrap metal for a three string guitar and a basic drum kit and started pounding away in a tunnel under the Autobahn. There’s actually a few false starts on some songs and somehow they actually make the record better. What other bands can you say that about?
I’m not sure what the true story is behind this record. I’m not sure if Spencer and the boys were happy or annoyed that their first proper release as a band was a micro-pressed bootleg. I’m not sure they’d be thrilled to hear there are those that would rather listen to this than pretty much anything they recorded “properly” in the years after its release. The only thing I’m sure about this record is that it could not and would not be released in 2020, and due to the “sensitive” nature of the record buying public, it probably won’t ever reappear as a “curated” “archival release” by some grave-robbing “reissue label”. Questionable artwork and song titles aside, I’m not even sure any of those bozos would even want to pay their PR lizards to try and spin this record as anything more than what it was when it was released: raw and relentless rock ‘n’ roll as serious as it is unserious. Completely uncompromising and totally unique without even trying. In some ways it might even be a perfect “punk” record, and it barely ever existed.
Please enjoy this short segment from the 1997 “What’s Up Matador” VHS where Jon Spencer teaches us about his favorite musical instrument: The Theremin.
