The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Extra Width + Mo' Width (2000)

×

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Extra Width + Mo' Width (2000)

Close

On their self-titled debut album, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion had worked out the basic framework of their sound – lots of guitar clatter, booming drums, and wild vocal gesticulations from Spencer – but it took a while for the pieces to really come together, and 1993's Extra Width was the first album where they revealed their true potential. The opening tune, "Afro," provides the key – Spencer and Judah Bauer's guitars lock in with a sharp call and response, drummer Russell Simins pounds the kit with the force of a punk rocker but the groove of a soul man, and the organ that chimes in with the band slyly pays homage to any number of classic funk sides while adding a good, greasy undertow to the sound. The Blues Explosion were never any kind of blues band (as they freely admitted when anyone bothered to ask), but on Extra Width they copped to the fact they'd learned a lot from classic R&B of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, and after spending the better part of a year on the road, their studying and hard work paid off. Not everything on Extra Width comes together with the precise chaos of "Afro," but practically every track feels like a better song and a stronger performance than anything on the debut album, and the layers of vocal reverb, keyboard patches, and dubwise studio effects showed that JSBX had learned a lot about the possibilities of the studio since the bare-bones sessions that produced their earliest recordings. If The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion sounded like the work of a band that was a natural evolution from what Spencer was doing with Pussy Galore, Extra Width made it clear they were something quite a bit different – still crazed and noisy, but with lots more soul, some butt-shaking tunes, and a sense of fun thoroughly absent from the earlier group. (4.5/5)

Just as the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion released Crypt Style almost concurrently with their 1992 debut album, the sessions for their second "official" album, Extra Width, produced enough outtakes to fill a sibling LP, and close to the same time Extra Width arrived in stores, Au-Go-Go Records in Australia released Mo' Width, which featured 11 more tracks from Spencer and company. While Crypt Style was actually a better album than The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Mo' Width runs a close second to Extra Width; like Crypt Style, Mo' Width is a wilder-sounding and more energetic set than its better-known counterpart, and it even leads off with the same song, an alternate take of "Afro." But while the performances on Mo' Width are fiery and the band cooks with gas on "Out of Luck" and "Wet Cat Blues," this album has some obvious filler, most notably a goofy cover of "There Stands the Glass" that doesn't go anywhere and a noise collage build around the song-poem "Beat of the Traps" that's never as weird as the original, hard as it tries. And while JSBX cut a mighty Stax-style groove on the closer, "Memphis Soul Typecast," as soon as Cristina Martinez pops up to giggle her way though a description of the day's soul food special, it loses its balance. There's enough that's good on Mo' Width to make it worthwhile for loyal Blues Explosion fans, but casual admirers will get along without it just fine. (3.5/5)