Day After Day #89: Bellbottoms

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Bellbottoms (1994)

The grungesplosion of the early '90s had a ripple effect, pushing a lot of established guitar acts to the sidelines. It's well documented what happened to metal and hard rock bands in the wake of Nirvana and the like, but the same thing happened to a lesser degree to blues-rock acts. They were still out there but getting less attention. But then came the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, who managed to combine punk energy with blues and garage rock and got plenty of disaffected youths to yell out, "The Blues are #1!"

Singer-guitarist Jon Spencer cut his teeth in a number of noise rock bands in the late '80s, most notably Pussy Galore. He teamed up with guitarist Judah Bauer and drummer Russell Simins to form the Blues Explosion. The band fused the punk and noise they had been playing in other bands with blues and rockabilly sounds, and Spencer as the frontman adopted a James Brown style of performing. That included a lot of crowd work, exhorting fans to get into the show, bellowing the band's name repeatedly and insisting that the Blues Explosion were indeed number 1.

The band released a few albums before signing to Matador, and started building up some buzz in the alternative scene. They played energetic, sweaty and intense live shows with the likes of the Jesus Lizard and the Afghan Whigs. Their fourth album, Orange, was released in October 1994 and found the band breaking through on MTV (well, 120 Minutes, anyway) and touring with the Beastie Boys, Beck and the Roots. 

The first song on the album is "Bellbottoms," which was a great intro to the band for newcomers. Strings accompany the band as it rips into the song for the first two minutes before Spencer starts announcing the band's presence. Yeah, the song's ostensibly about bellbottoms, but it's really capturing a moment in time, which is NYC in the early '90s: gritty, funky, sweaty, powerful and in your face. They're retro and futuristic at the same time, furiously taking these old styles and making them fun and fresh.

"Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen/Right now I got to tell you about/The fabulous/Most groovy...bellbottoms." 

There's call-and-response vocals with the band and then just instrumental fury as they tear through the song with Spencer yelling about bellbottoms and how they make him want to dance. It's cartoonish but it's exhilarating at the same time. The band doesn't give you much time to ponder the two because they're too busy rocking up a fury. 

The song got a revival in 2017 when Edgar Wright featured it prominently in his heist movie Baby Driver. The title character is a getaway driver who listens to "Bellbottoms" on his iPod as he's waiting for his partners to get back to the car.

My brother gave me this CD for Christmas in '94 and I was unfamiliar with the band but from the moment I put the disc, I was sold. I saw JSBX later the following year at the Middle East downstairs and they blew the roof off the dump. I still have the shirt I bought at the show. I saw them a few more times in the '90s, as well as Boss Hog, the band Spencer started with his wife Cristina Martinez. There are few bands more entertaining in concert than the Blues Explosion. 

They've also worked with a number of other artists over the years, including R.L. Burnside, Rufus Taylor, Andre Williams, Chuck D and Steve Jones. The band went on hiatus for a few years before reuniting in 2010. They released two more albums before ending the band in 2018, which Spencer attributed to Simins developing a respiratory problem that prevented him from touring. Spencer released an album in 2022 as Jon Spencer & the Hitmakers, featuring Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss of Quasi.

The Blues Explosion took some heat over the years for being too over the top or ripping off blues artists, but man, they were just fun.