Jason & The Scorchers

The world famous Ginger of the biggest band in the land the Wildhearts recently wrote a great article on this gaggle of yahoos from the 80's that quite literally changed music............though you would not read about them in your sanitized Rolling Stone history of rock. So you got have guys like Ginger penning about guys like the Scorchers.........

In the first of a new series, The Wildhearts’ mainman recommends overlooked classic albums.

Jason and the Scorchers
‘Lost And Found’
EMI America, 1985
Nashville, early 80s, and Country music has reached a nadir of
mainstream ambivalence that ol’ Hank and Mr. Cash would have sneered at
from spitting distance. Pop had successfully shaved the edges from all
that it had infected, Country being no exception, and soon Punk would
follow on this willfully commercial theme with lip gloss and hair gel
replacing spit n’ spikes. Joe sang about ‘turning rebellion into money’ and never was there a time where this seemed to ring with more morbid truth.
Illinois native Jason Ringenberg would be the man to change the way that Country music would be heard to this present day, influencing the ‘alt country’
movement in 1990’s and establishing a pounding drive and punk spirit to
a genre of music that had long since misplaced any concept of danger.
Forming in 1981 as Jason And The Nashville Scorchers, and releasing
an EP, ‘Reckless Country Soul’ in 1982 on the independent Praxis label,
JATS were picked up by EMI, delivering mini-album ‘Fervor’ in 1983,
both releases hinting at a power that would be harnessed like a wild
bronco for 1985’s ‘Lost And Found’.
Produced by Fervor’s Terry Manning,
this whip cracking, foot stomping hootenanny opens up with the frantic
‘Last Time Around’ before hurtling into one of rock n roll’s top 5 most
thrilling moments, the mean-spirited relentlessness of ‘White Lies’. Written by drummer Perry Baggs, this song, some 20 odd years later still has the ability to simultaneously make love to and bugger the listener senseless.
With the ferocious guitar work of Warner E. Hodges
battling for supremacy next to Jason’s howling vocal performances there
are few finer examples in the annals of recorded music of how the
electricity of personality makes for such thrilling sonic adventure.
The sheer pummeling force of the band’s delivery on this track alone
holds the ability to lure the listener into some dank, beer-drenched
barn dance where one can at once feel the crowd and smell the cowshit.
It’s this same dynamic approach that fuels the Scorchers vicious take of Hank Williams ‘Lost Highway‘,
on side two, trading in the dusty romance of the original for a wild,
pedal-to-the-floor abandon, just one of the trademarks of this genre
blasting group.
While accusations could be, unfairly, leveled at ‘Lost And Found’
for being a mixed bag of southern comforts, the other styles
represented here merely reflect Jason And The Scorchers remaining
trademarks, namely a classic sense of storytelling balladry, as in the
wistful ‘Still Tied’, and their unflinching mastery of pop, like the
truly awesome smurf poo-kicker ‘Shop It Around’.
Hell, sometimes they just throw all the ingredients into one spicy
gumbo soup and end up with the jaw dropping brilliance that is ‘Broken Whiskey Glass’,
where the sweetest melody breaks into the smurfing Batman riff only to
careen off the beaten track in a liquor fuelled breakneck boogie. Holy
damn!
The pace on this album is so willfully disjointed that it simply
demands constant replay in order to savour a time when such a radical
approach to traditional music could actually be seen as outrageous.
Yeah, those days may be long gone but it’s still vitally important to
remember the pioneers and the unsung heroes who delivered the present
day to your stereo.
Jason and the Scorchers not only breathed fiery life into the
wizened lungs of a dying genre, they installed a sense of hope and
belief in every young person within contagious distance of this punk
spirit and country stomp hybrid.
Alongside every well earned accolade placed at the legacy of Ramones
influence and spoken with each rightly afforded round of lip service
paid to Willie Nelson and Steve Earle’s rejection of NashVegas
tradition, Jason And The Scorchers name should be held in equally high regard as an essential section in the evolution of rock n roll.
They made it cool to be you. Yee, and indeed Haw.


This is what he's talkin' about.........

Hell yeah!!!

Love this band! I have all their stuff and I've seen them live twice.

Their stuff is indeed awesome.

A friend of mine used to be roommates with their bass player for a while.

I have one disc by these guys, which by coincindence, I have in my carrier this week. I like 'em well enough that if I ever found any other discs for cheap, I'd probably pick them up, but I'm not a super fan or anything.

Are they still together and/or putting out new music?

I remember them from this song!

First song I ever heard from them was their cover of Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie" from their Fervor EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cF40OWeak