‘Pills and Ammo’
Album Review
*** ½ (3.5 stars)
By Anthony Kuzminski
{Buy the album here or here}
Young starlets of today and they dress slutty, do near-naked poses for magazine covers and try to be as contentious as possible to work up the press. What they don’t grasp is that to ooze sexiness it’s not about what you wear or how you look in it, but how you carry yourself. It’s about attitude. Do you give off a whiff of sexiness or do you try and be sexy? You can’t teach someone to be arousing, you are or you aren’t. The amalgamation of blues and rock n’ roll is very much the same; bands can branch off and do one or the other but a true marriage of the two is increasingly thorny to pull off and when they try to fuse the two worlds, the results are often not disastrous but tedious. As of late, a slew of vintage rockers seem to be returning to their roots and creating records that give a tip-of-the-hat to the forefathers of rock n’ roll. They are attempting to mine the same purity with which everything else in the last fifty years has followed. However, what most don’t apprehend is just because you admire the music doesn’t mean you can cast it in your own mold. People like Eric Clapton are few and far between, most acts are very good at what they do, but when they step outside of their limits, it comes off as far reaching and incredulous. However, for some artists the necessary ingredients for a killer rock-blues-rhythm-folk record is already in their DNA. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes never had a platinum record or a major hit, but unlike other platinum acts attempting to conjure up the greatness of the past, Johnny and the Jukes do it naturally.
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes is continually a feature of the Northeast club circuit and their status of elder statesmen of the Jersey shore is legendary. Their live shows are blistering sweat-inducing revivals that are steeped in old school rock n’ roll and their recorded output are damn consistent. If the band has had any obstacle over the last three decades, it’s surpassing the first three records produced by Steve Van Zandt. Ironically, the next truly classic record the group made was 1991’s Better Days also produced by Van Zandt and features appearances by both Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi. In the nineteen-years since that record, the band has remained busy with a slew of archive releases (including the superb Jukebox box set), a continual presence on the road and the occasional new studio album. The best of the post Better Days releases was Messin’ with the Blues from 2000 but the band always proves to be unswerving. Just released is their latest record, Pills and Ammo written, recorded and mixed over a fifteen month period between 2009 and 2010. It should be stated that much of this was due to working around the schedule of the studio they recorded at, Sanctuary II, Jon Bon Jovi’s home studio which he lends out to the band when it’s not being used. Only the album’s final cut, “Thank You” wasn’t recorded there. In a last minute attempt to capture the vocal which seemed to elude them, Southside listened to the original demo at Jeff Kazee’s house and went to Kazee’s home studio and cut the vocal that wound up on the record. This off-the-cuff vision is what drove most of Pills and Ammo to completion. It doesn’t sound overworked and yet given enough attention to ensure the songs are fully fleshed out.
Pills and Ammo is an album full of simplistic strengths and highlights what a great rhythm, blues, soul and rock band truly is. When you hear some of these other acts attempt to forge new ground in the rock-blues template, you hear musicians attempting to capture lightning in a bottle and it comes off as a bunch of fans trying to imitate greatness. The mix, the aural aesthetic and the performances are all top-notch making it the best Southside Johnny record since 1991’s Better Days.Southside and long standing piano/keyboard player Jeff Kazee co-produced the record. Kazee leads the charge and is responsible for making the most strapping and strident Southside Johnny record to date. “Harder Than It Looks” instigates the guttural festivities with a blistering horn section, spacious acoustic and electric guitars and a magnanimous in-your-face production where the drums and bass can be felt. The horns seek shade in the corners while still finding their moment to shine and piano and organ fills that congeal for one downright awesome bluesy romp. Amidst this entire musical splendor it’s the band’s testimonial to surviving. If this was a new Rolling Stones song, the world would have just wet itself. “Cross That Line” features a tactile horn section, assaulting dueling Stonesy guitars and is escorted by a rollicking piano. “Woke Up This Morning” is grubby without being evasive. The way the fuzz harmonica and horns consummates into an unexpected bluesy masterwork. John Mellencamp’s guitarist Andy York (who faced off in a dual guitar attack on this record with longtime Jukes guitarist Bobby Bandiera) liberates a mean slide guitar strut evoking the greats who built Chess Records. “Lead Me On” is an unblinking reflection of love with the vintage Southside voice capturing the subtle vulnerability. Other singers probably spend weeks if not months trying to emulate something a tenth as persuasive and Southside makes it seem effortless.
“Heartbreak City” comes out of the gate roaring with chanting female voices, a spiraling guitar riff and an understated piano fills that flow into a bluesy stream of musical righteousness. “Strange Strange Feeling” is adroit in melancholy with a pensive vocal by Johnny and allusive organ and harmonica solo’s while a guitar plays along in the background; its little touches like this that make the record such a refined listening experience. The engineering and mixing throughout is tremendous as it balances the grittiness of rock n’ roll against authentic musicianship. The instruments are clear, mixed with great love and care. “Umbrella In My Drink” has a duet with Gary US Bonds that could be from a few decades back with a Big Easy horn section that drips with sweat accentuated by a feverish banjo. “One More Night To Rock” is straightforward in its assertiveness where the instruments are in unrelenting interlock in a vintage rhythm and blues rocker cut from the same cloth as Southside’s best work. “A Place Where I Can’t Be Found” is a Van Morrison style ballad while “Keep On Moving” is an old school 50’s rocker. Capping the record is the aforementioned “Thank You” proving to be the ideal ending to the record.
There isn’t anything here that sounds dated or contemporary and therein is the charm of Pills and Ammo. The Jukes along with the help of some surreal guests verges on ridiculousness. Lisa Fischer, long time backing vocalist for the Rolling Stones and Tin Turner is here to flex her vocal acrobatics, Shawn Pelton (Saturday Night Live) executes the drums with gritty precision and the aforementioned Andy York provides some downright sick Mick Taylor guitar fills that hurdle out at you. You listen to an album like Pills and Ammo and you simply marvel at how remarkable it all is, as it captures the perfect fusion of skill and spirit highlighted by a lyrical theme is of endurance. Instead of looking back to the days of yesteryear, there is a defiant strength of survival with a keen eye on the future. In many ways, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, despite an ever revolving line-up, have stayed truest to the genealogy of rock ‘n roll than most other artists who make such claims. Southside Johnny’s Pills and Ammo doesn’t emulate anyone or anything, this music is tattooed into their DNA and flows as free as water down a river. What differentiates Pills and Ammo from other artists attempting the blues-rock template is that Southside and the Jukes aren’t trying to be something they’re not. Many of the rock-blues records from the past few years may be good, but make no mistake; most of those acts are merely students while Southside is a professor whose knowledge of the art form is engrained into his consciousness. Pills and Ammo is the sound of a master showing his students how it’s done.
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMusic Network. His daily writings can be read at The Screen Door. He can be contacted at thescreendoor AT gmail DOT com and can be followed on Twitter
