My life has been considerably brightened this week by a couple of parallel musical discoveries, which I will hopefully tell you about one at a time. First up;

JAWBONE!

Jawbone is a primitive punk-blues one man band from Detroit. His joyous, demented racket first came to my attention when John Peel championed his record ‘Dang Blues’ (on Loose records) a couple of years ago. Unable to affordably locate said album, he promptly faded from my consciousness, only to return last week when I noticed he was playing a show in this very town.

Jawbone live in the flesh was an odd experience – judging by the music I was expecting some sort of desperate Hasil Adkins type character, or at least a workable facsimile of one – wild eyes, broken teeth, flailing limbs, you name it. Thus it’s something of a surprise to discover that the man behind Jawbone is a skinny, reserved, slightly geeky guy who wisely avoids any obvious ‘bloooz’ affectations and generally looks like the last person on earth you’d expect to lead a double life as a whiskey-soaked, blues hollerin’ wildman.

But wind him up and watch him go and this dude does not disappoint! Sat behind his foot-operated bass drum and hi-hat, with his insanely overdriven guitar on his knee, harmonica ‘round his neck, he just blasts into action, tearing through his addictively psychotic caveman odes to frustration and low-rent good times, thrashing out knuckleheadedly simple blues rhythms with the feverish intensity rarely seen elsewhere. His slide guitar crescendos rarely venture beyond three notes and his songs basically all just go ‘THUMP THUMP THUMP’, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more life-affirming storm of racket this side of black metal. And his lyrics – when audible - are hilarious, riffing on absurdist suburban trivia in a way that puts me in mind of early Beck. Haven’t got a clue what he’s on about most of the time, but I dare you not to crack an idiot grin every time he yelps a chorus of “DADDY GOT A HAIRCUT, MAMMA GONNA MOW THE LAWN!” on signature tune ‘What’s Goin’ On’.

Quite how all this teeth-grinding madness has ended up exploding out of a guy who resembles Steve Albini’s shy younger brother, I’ve got no idea, but it’s truly raw, fantastic stuff, and ‘Dang Blues’ stands as an essential purchase for all fans of fucked up blues and primitive rock n’ roll.

( It’s also worth mentioning that Jawbone was playing on the same bill as another under-rated Peel favourite, Louisiana-via-Hamburg everyday fella DM Bob, who embodies the strange contradiction of being a jovial, upbeat bluesman as well as anyone. Imagine the best drinking buddy in the world and you’re probably imagining Bob. He’s currently playing in partnership with a bloke called Jem Finer, who I’m told used to be in the Pogues, and together they have a whale of a time, stumbling through a selection of idiotically lovable blues/pop/rock n’ roll/country ditties and working out some serious musical mojo on a mixture of guitar, banjo, sax and lap steel while they’re at it, though it is my duty to note that self-explanatory DM Bob rave-ups like ‘BBQ Bob’ and ‘Two-Headed Woman’ hit the spot a lot more thoroughly than Jem’s slightly flat ‘clever lyric’ based comedy numbers. )