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JASON AND THE SCORCHERS
still raging against the light
F or a generation of kids who grew up thinking that
1976 was music’s Year Zero, the 1980s brought wel
come surprises and welcome history lessons. That
decade, a crop of U.S. bands well-versed in the New Wave
married those sensibilities with deeper — and deeply
American — traditions: groups like Arizona’s Meat Puppets,
who produced an acid-tinged, painterly country and west
ern; and R.E.M., who married a thousand new ideas with
the oldest and weirdest of Appalachian folk traditions.
And then there was Jason and the Nashville Scorchers.
While the Meat Puppets and R.E.M. played it more stone
faced cool, the Scorchers were out to tear up their home
town, cool be damned. Singer Jason Ringenberg was (and
reportedly still is) a vision of wild-eyed gawk, a gaudy flash
of Roy Rogers shirt-trim accenting your worst nightmare of
a filling station attendant. He could play the sentimental
poet one moment (singing songs with words like “gypsy”
and “mama" in them), the raging, hiccuping testosterone
punk freak the next. His band sounded like a countrified
version of outfits that never should’ve been countrified in
the first place: Heart, AC/DC, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols.
As guitarist Warner Hodges told Flagpole in a recent phone
interview, “There’s no way to be living in Nashville and not
have a country side. It’s hard not to be bombarded.”
The deep country roots of the Scorchers have acted as a
sort of preservative: the band’s new double-live CD
Midnight Roads and Honky Tonks [Mammoth], though
Richard Fausset
WHO: Jason & The Scorchers
WHERE: The Georgia Theatre
WHEN: Friday, August 14
HOW MUCH: $5
uneven in spots, is a surprisingly relevant, rough-shod doc
ument of a band who pioneered the rock-country train
wreck. “I wanted it to be like you’re standing in the middle
of the accident about 15 feet back,” Hodges said of the
album. “If it’s out of key it's out of key. So be it.”
The music remains funny and deep and dorky and
poignant and — most of all — real. Warner Hodges’ family
toured European military bases playing country covers,
with young Warner backing up his folks on drums. Singer
Ringenberg is the son of an Illinois hog farmer. He’s also the
kind of rock and roll frontman who’s fond of quoting St.
Augustine and Rudyard Kipling. It makes you wonder how
much of the cowboy stuff is shtick and how much is the
real thing.
“A little bit of both, I think," Hodges said. “Jason
doesn’t take himself too damn seriously. Then again,
most of the nights when we walk onstage it’s all busi
ness. Everybody walks onstage with the same head —
that this is gonna be the greatest show we’ve ever
played. [Ex-Del Lord] Eric Ambel used to tell me, ‘It’s
the most important thing in the world — now forget
about it and the hell with it let’s have some fun.’"
The best moments on the album are the ones that
find the band raging against a fate that never granted
them a big hit: AOR shoulda-beens like “Harvest
Moon” and the old Michael Stipe collaboration “Both
Sides of The Line” are delivered with the sort of blus
ter and sneer that big-time success, by its very nature,
snuffs. But the staying power seems to stem from the
Scorchers’ link to tradition: w'hen Warner’s own mama
comes out and revs through a cover of Rufus Thomas’
“Walkin’ the Dog," all sorts of loose ends of American
music connect.
“In country in general it seems it’s OK to get old,"
Hodges said. “Even if you don’t tour, you’ve got the Grand
Ole Opry, where you’re guaranteed two shows a week.
Which is pretty cool — you just do it until you die."
BC: Buckdancers No More.
G uitarist Dave Sandridge is counting off
the reasons why his band, the formerly
called Buckdancer's Choice, have
shortened their name to the simpler BC:
"Well, it was a lengthy name. People kept
forgetting it because of that. Also, it's a
line in the Grateful Dead's 'Uncle John's
Band.' That led a lot of people to think we
were a Dead cover band."
Those mistaken Deadheads would be in
for a surprise when they finally encountered
Sandridge's juxtaposition of swirling, melod
ic guitar phrasings and rock-solid riffage
with John Reichner's emotive vocals.
Rounded out by bassist Cain Wong and
drummer Patrick Dilda-Parker, BC offers a
heavy yet danceable groove that even sur
prised Dead fans might lock into.
Their efforts in the local scene have
finally culminated in the release of the new
CD, Hoi Polloi, which the band recorded with
David Barbe. The material featured on the
disc, most notably "Insatiable" and
"Demon," demonstrate that, despite some
reservations, BC can easily transfer their live
performance into the studio environment.
"I was really naive in the studio,"
Sandridge confessed. "We're more of a live
band, and there I was, running around the
studio, asking permission to re-record every
other thing."
The experience went so well, though,
that the band plans to return to the studio
in December to work cn an EP to be
released early next year. Until th°n, BC will
still be inundated with questions about
their former name.
"We had one phone cal 1 from this father
that had just found out that his daughter
wa- a stripper," recounts Sandridge. "Him
and his wife searched the girl's car and
found our tape. They thought I was some
kind of pimp, and 'Buckdancer's Choice' had
something to do with stripping, like the
girls were giving our tapes out to johns or
something."
How did the rattled father respond to
the tame explanation?
"He apologized and told me we sounded
like a pretty good band. I think he was just
glad I wasn't-a pimp."
John Britt
V
WHO: BC
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Thursday, August 13
HOW MUCH: Call
285 W. Washington St. Athens. GA
Call 549-7871 for Show Updates • www.40Watt.com
Wc scrvc Righteous Juices
COMING SOON
The Spinanes 8/27
Soul Miner's Daughter 8/28
Pie Tasters/Posh Toner 8/29
TUESDAY. AUGUST 11
Summer Hymns
JUNE PANIC
BRIGHT EYES
doors open at 10pm .* four dollars
WEDNESDAY. AUGUST 12
Kevn Kinney
PATTERSON HOOD
doors open at 10pm five dollars
THURSDAY, AUGUST 13
BC
(forrtierly known as Buckdancer’s Choice)
VIBRASWIRL
doors upon at lQ|ini foui dollars
FRIDAY. AUGUST 14
Japancakes
VIEWMASTER
MATH
doors open at 10pm fivetkrilars
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15
The Possibilities
CEILING FAN
HARD CANDY
doors open at 10pm five dollars
MONDAY, AUGUST 17
CLOSED
Gone Fishin’
. it
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18
Bitter Sweet Nothing
APOLLO’S CREED
LOUD AMERICAN TOURIST
doors open at 10pm four dollars
AUGUST 12,
1998 FLAGPOLE EB