30 years and still going strong

I blogged last year about the glory days of Jason and the Scorchers, but still managed to completely miss the fact that they're playing a 30th anniversary tour this autumn. I was pretty sure they'd call in at The Musician in Leicester, and sure enough they do, next Friday, but I can't make it.

But, deep joy! They're playing in Sheffield on Monday. I can hardly wait.

Still scorching

After that post about Jason Ringenberg the other day, I trawled You Tube for videos of Jason and the Scorchers in their heyday. I'm reluctant to say that this, their cover of Dylan's Absolutely Sweet Marie,  was their finest moment - there were plenty of great originals on their first two-and-a-half albums - but it was certainly their big attention-grabber, and remains one of my favourite Dylan covers. Warner Hodges' guitar solo still sounds, as Ringenberg put it himself the other night, thermonuclear.

Anyway, I was glad I made the effort to get along to The Musician. It was sauna-like, as you'd expect, but the support act, The Breakdowns, were pretty good in a Wildhearts sort of way, and Jason Ringenberg didn't disappoint at all. He's aged well - there's a bit less hair under the stetson, but he's still positively lanky and has the energy and enthusiasm of an 18-year-old.

A lot of his set was drawn from those early albums - White Lies, Lost Highway, Broken Whisky Glass, Blanket Of Sorrow, Shop It Around and Harvest Moon all made appearances - but there was more recent material too, from his solo albums and from last year's Scorchers reunion album, with Twang Town Blues a highlight. He even played a couple of his Farmer Jason songs - Honky Tonk Maniac From Mars and Moose On The Loose - which left you wondering what on earth the good farmer's primary school-age audience make of it (although, if it means they grow up to be Jason and the Scorchers fans, how can that be a bad thing?).

Throughout it all, he maintained the difficult-to-perfect combination of boundless energy and wry wit that made the Scorchers such a great live act all those years ago, and closed with the afore-mentioned Dylan cover (I'd never seen him do it before).

I bought the recent Scorchers (Halcyon Times) album on the way out, and it's really pretty good, far more in the proto-alt country vein of the early records than the country-metal they got stuck on in the late 80s. A gentleman, as ever, Jason chatted modestly and signed CDs, a true pioneer of what now gets called Americana. I hope he's back soon.

King of cowpunk

There's no surer sign of middle age sinking its false teeth into you than realising that you can't remember the last time you went to a gig. I'm thinking that it was about two years ago, at least.

Fortunately, help is at hand, as a quick scan of The Musician's website earlier today revealed that cowpunk legend Jason Ringenberg is in town once again. So, that's my Tuesday night sorted.

Ringenberg was the front man of Jason and the Scorchers, who, back in the early 80s, were briefly bracketed with the likes of REM as the Next Big Things from the USA. You have a pretty good idea of what's happened since - Michael Stipe and band went on to world domination, while Jason and his boys faded into near-oblivion. That was a shame, because their foot-to-the-floor brand of country rock (more like The Ramones backing Merle Haggard than The Eagles harmonising blandly) was a breath of fresh air in the Spandau Ballet and Kajagoogoo-bedevilled landscape of the mid-80s. Their first mini-album, Fervor, was an absolute blast, with a great cover of Dylan's Absolutely Sweet Marie, and their next two albums were in much the same vein.

Ringenberg now pursues a schizophrenic solo career, performing children's songs as Farmer Jason, and bashing his way through new material and some old classics at gigs like next week's. And The Musician is a great venue, however unpromising its location tucked away down a side street just off the ring road. Last time I saw Ringenberg there, he ended the night playing a couple of songs standing on the bar. I'd settle for that sort of night again.