For a man who just loves to rock'n'roll, Jon Spencer has been the target for a lot of hate in his time.
Slagged for having for an Ivy League college education, for lacking emotional depth and, strangest of all, for a 'racist' appropriation of the blues for his own nefarious ends, Spencer has had it in the ear before from all quarters.
The racism accusations are hard to fathom from a UK perspective, a bit like Claire Balding mentioning a 'Mexican wave' in the crowd when interviewing a US tennis star during Wimbledon last week to the response of a slightly shocked laugh and an explanation that 'that's not a PC term back home'. Balding sounded as baffled as most of her audience must have felt.
Accusations by a couple of white critics against Spencer that the Blues Explosion (also comprising second guitarist Judah Bauer and drummer Russell Simins) were a 'blackface parody' guilty of disrespecting black music didn't make much sense on this side of the pond either. After all, this is a band who have collaborated with the likes of Chuck D, Solomon Burke, Rufus Thomas, Andre Williams, RL Burnside, Bernie Worrell, Steve Jordan and Martina Topley-Bird over the years, which hardly suggests active Klan membership.
Perhaps it stems from Spencer's cartoonish presence both on record and on stage. Having started out in chaotic arty New York punk outfit Pussy Galore, who were big on attitude but low on songwriting ability, Spencer found his feet as a performer when he developed the persona of a speedfreak hillbilly loverman, stealing visually from Elvis's 1969 Comeback Special and sounding like a delirious amalgamation of every vocalist emerging out of Sun Studio circa 1954.
He's not interested in venerating the blues, rock'n'roll and rockabilly, but rather keeping alive the wild, ribald side of it that brought us the likes of Bessie Smith's Kitchen Man, Little Richard's Tutti Frutti, Lucille Bogan's Shave 'Em Dry or Chuck Berry's My Ding-A-Ling. Rock'n'roll is meant to be a little edgy after all, isn't it?
The Cramps had paved the way for this kind of punk-edged revivalism, with the likes of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Blasters following after, with Nick Cave giving it a swing more recently with Grinderman, but Spencer seemed to find himself in the firing line for daring to boil everything down to a frenetic blur of sawn-off shotgun riffs and verbal tics. On Orange, the 1994 LP that preceded Now I Got Worry, the band repeatedly shout 'Blues Explosion!' in nearly every song and Spencer sounds tongue-tied half the time, chewing on the microphone and blurting out lyrics like he's suffering from some kind of rock'n'roll Tourette's syndrome.
Whether you buy into this delirium or not is probably the key to whether you're going to dig JSBX, and plenty of people do not.
Seeing them play live certainly helps. When JSBX appeared on The Word back in 1994, presenter Marc Lamarr was sufficiently moved to declare them "the best live band I've ever seen". They were nothing short of superb when I saw them touring Now I Got Worry in late 1996 with support from RL Burnside, the veteran Mississippi bluesman who had collaborated with the band on his fabulously raw A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey album (captured in a single day off from recording Now I Got Worry).
Burnside's swampy electric blues, featuring Bauer on harmonica, set the scene nicely for a set of brilliantly focused ferocity. The diversions into hip-hop, rap and dub that added extra colour to Orange, Now I Got Worry and the Experimental Remixes EP that had come inbetween were largely shorn away to focus on a brilliantly streamlined charge through their finest rockabilly punk blues moments, while Spencer indulged in his wildest Elvis on PCP stage antics while occasionally dishing out some serious theramin abuse.
When Spencer claims the band burn through more energy in a show than most people do in a whole working week, he's telling the truth.
Bands with this kind of stage presence often fall flat in the studio but Now I Got Worry beautifully captures that energy, right from Spencer's screaming intro to Skunk, through the minute-long hardcore blast of Identify to the swinging, fidgity Wail, where the declaration 'I'm already feeling messed up' sounds strangely celebratory. 'Weird' Al Yankovic directed the video.
The pace drops briefly for a cover of Dub Narcotic's Fuck Shit Up that sounds like early Beck with its gloopy keyboard sounds and cut-and paste treatment of Bauer's vocals.
2 Kindsa Love rides in on a cruise missile of a riff that somehow manages to find another level of bludgeoning brilliance before briefly taking a reverb-heavy swaggering detour, then heading back to that battering ram riff. If the White Stripes had recorded 2 Kindsa Love you have to imagine it would regular appear on those pointless top 100 greatest songs ever lists.
Love All Of Me combines rockabilly chicken scratch guitar with slide guitar, harmonica and a pounding rhythm section. Rufus Thomas turns up for Chicken Dog, which is frankly a match made in heaven. Rufus chuckles his way through the intro, lets the band hammer out their righteous thing, then sings a couple of typically absurd choruses before everyone joins in a funky finale of animal noises.
The pace finally relents a little on Rocketship, an R&B stomper with Spencer in a romantic mood, that brings a near perfect side one to an end.
Side two finds them still in the mood on Dynamite Lover, before the band cranks up the pressure again on Hot Shot, Simins' relentlessly pounding drums pushing Spencer to ever greater heights of wailing frustration.
Can't Stop features some great barrelhouse piano from Beastie Boys collaborator Money Mark, with Spencer declaring: "This is the part of the record where I ask you to put your hand in the air... and kiss my ass, because your girlfriend still loves me." Thom Yorke should take note.
Firefly Child is a churning rocker with Spencer in crooning mood over some great Money Mark keyboards before the whole thing builds very nicely to a climax with Justin Berry on sax.
Spencer digs out his moonshine-crazy Elvis impression again for Eyeballin' with some nice slide guitar from Bauer before a disco stomp briefly butts in. R.L. Got Soul is a funky blues number that doffs its cap to RL Burnside with Bauer breaking out one of his finest ever solos.
Get Over Here is a crazed two-minute stomp before the album finally collapses to an exhausted conclusion with Guilty, a warped, sticky, stumbling oddity, complete with breaking glass, slow doo-wop backing vocals and guitar interventions that sound like an overheating cement mixer.
JSBX never quite managed this level of intensity and great songwriting in the studio again, but Now I Got Worry stands as testament to the genius of a much underrated band.
They followed it up in 1997 with a fine live album, which they called Controversial Negro, partly as a two-fingered salute to their critics and partly as a tribute to Public Enemy's Burn Hollywood Burn, during which an uptight white voice asks Flavor Flav: "We're considering you for a part in our new production, how do you feel about playing a controversial negro?"
Spencer hasn't had much more to say on the subject - after all, why waste your time on fools when there's fun to be had?
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