These songs are vitally important to understanding the Jerks as artists, rather than incredibly talented performers of other people’s songs. There are times when you wonder — while listening to an impeccably rendered “Stomping Grounds,” say, replacing Jeff Coffin’s tenor sax with Bragdon’s fiddle and bringing more warmth to the song than Bela Fleck, Future Man, and Victor Wooten ever managed — whether anyone might create the same band, by simply practicing the same riffs for hundreds and hundreds of hours.
But the originals inspire you to listen more closely to their rendering of the Fleck tune, to listen to the way Bragdon so wonderfully holds down the rhythmic duties along with the guitar and bass, making Future Man’s “drums” seem downright silly, the banjo seeming to move with every power that inertia has ever granted.
There are any number of great choices here, to which only true artists could lay claim: the selection of “Twin Peaks,” by stand-out Czech mandolinist Radim Zenkl, a name casual bluegrass fans should latch onto; the Texas swing of “Foggy Mountain Special,” written by Gladys Stacey and Louise Certain, though made popular by their husbands, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, and offering an opportunity for Day to show off a slap-heavy bass break; the “Tennessee Waltz” that shows off Bragdon’s long bow strokes and pure pitch so well, written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart (as legend has it, on the back of a matchbook) in 1947.
Go look Pee Wee up some time. The guy was the first to use an amplifier or drums on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry. The Jerks are the kind of band that know and respect that.
For sentiment’s sake, “Why You Been Gone So Long” is probably my favorite song on the album, just for it’s pure singalong quality, and the great, great delivery Phelps has always had on “There’s nothing I want to do/So I guess I’ll just get stoned/And let the past paint pictures in my head/Drink a fifth of Thunderbird and try to write a sad, sad song/Tell me baby now why you been gone so long.” It’s by the now-deceased Nashville songwriter Mickey Newbury, who wrote for everyone from Elvis Presley to Kenny Rogers, but was known as one of the first Nashville outsiders, independently recording some 15 of his own records.
In many ways, the Jerks have always been outsiders in Portland, despite haunting just about every club the city’s ever offered. Though they’re beloved by nearly everyone who’s ever seen them, and are universally recognized by their peers as some of the city’s finest musicians, they’ve made the basement bar that is the Bramhall Pub their home away from home for more than a decade, no show ever really being anything more noteworthy than another.
It’s time to come out into the sunlight, guys. This record is something special.
Sam Pfeifle can be reached atsam_pfeifle@yahoo.com.
