JASON & THE SCORCHERS

IRS Cutting Edge - 1984

Can someone at MTV get off their butt and start showing The Cutting Edge on VH1 Classic?

THE WILBURN BROTHERS

“Shake Hands With Mother Again”

(1960s)

Porter Wagoner

“The Gathering in the Sky”

1960s

JASON & THE SCORCHERS

“White Lies” (Live at the Uptown Theater, Kansas City 1985)

Jason & the Scorchers and R.E.M. were the two most important Southern rock bands in the 80s.

R.E.M. got lucky; they signed to a failing, semi-independent new wave record company. Once Murmur sold 100,000 copies, they became IRS Records’ great hope for the future, got full label support and R.E.M. waited out the 80s as America’s biggest cult band.

The Scorchers had grander ambitions; they wanted reform the system from the inside. Even though the band had strong supporters at the record company, EMI America’s corporate culture forced them into compromises that tore up the band.

If R.E.M. had signed the contract offered by RCA Records, I’m certain they wouldn’t have made it either.

The Scorchers should have been recognized as the American Rolling Stones. They used punk rock as a platform to cross-breed country music and heavy metal the same way the Stones electrified the blues to create garage rock. No Scorchers, no alt-country.

This version of “White Lies” was recorded in 1985 for ABC Radio’s “In Concert” series and features Jason’s sermon about keeping rock & roll with the “sweat and blood of living people.” I’m sure the anti-Crüe sentiments didn’t go over well with the radio stations that were supposed to broadcast this show, but at this point the Scorchers had probably realized they were on a kamikaze mission.

Drummer and “White Lies” songwriter Baggs needs a new kidney. The Scorchers played an amazing benefit show on June 2nd at Nashville’s Exit/In. Perry played as many songs as his health would allow, Warner’s mom sang “Walking the Dog” and ex-Scorchers Ken Fox and Andy York joined them for a set of A&M-era songs. Jeff Johnson was missed but this was by far the best Scorchers show I’ve seen without him.

Make a donation to the Perry Baggs Medical support fund here.

• Download “White Lies (live 1984)”
• Watch (part) of “White Lies” from the Perry Baggs Benefit show here
• Watch the band try to make friends with the 80s in the “White Lies” video here

THE ROYAL COURT OF CHINA

“It’s All Changed”

(Nashville 1987)

This is a rough one. Radio was wrong. The cool kids were wrong. And I just missed it.

“It’s All Changed” is a magnificent record, a genuine candidate for Lost Hit of the 80s.

The Royal Court of China signed to A&M without first getting their college-rock credibility. There were no profiles in MATTER magazine, no EPs on Twin/Tone or Coyote and no showcases at the New Music Seminar. Their manager pissed off lots of people in Nashville when she proclaimed that she had come to town to teach the locals how the music business really worked. The scene was still small enough in 1987 that, absent an immediate radio hit, indifference from the Right People could doom your record.

Of course the band made sure that the immediate radio hit wasn’t coming by insisting on a one-minute intro. Forget getting to the hook by the one-minute mark, we don’t hear a vocal until 1:09 and the chorus doesn’t finally show up until two minutes in, long after most programmers would have turned it off.

But what a chorus it is. Leaving aside that the b-verse would have been a fine chorus all by itself, the real hook is a stone killer, the kind that’s pushed everything else out of my head for the last month. I’m sure there’s a well-supported label story as to exactly why “It’s All Changed” wasn’t the most dominant rock song of the year, but no real-world circumstances can really explain how both the scenesters and the industry completely screwed up this time.

Still, A&M had the good sense to let the band record themselves (maybe they learned something from the Dream Syndicate Production Disaster of 1984) and they made an album that sounds great twenty years later.

Historical note: 1987 was the last year when CDs were considering an audiophile specialty item and lots of unproven bands didn’t get one. A&M did made CDs for everything they released but artists like The Royal Court of China got such tiny pressings that it’s almost impossible to find one now. I ripped this from a promo copy of the LP, still available for $1.99 at finer used record stores).

• Download: It’s All Changed
• Watch the video on YouTube
• The band has an excellent website

(A&M Records SP-5174)