JATS article

A nice article in the Tennessean, "Nashville's Greatest Rock Band, Scorchers Get Their Due," about Jason & the Scorchers getting set to receive their Americana Lifetime Achievement Award this Thursday. I should probably just shoot myself for not being there. Dang.

Some nice pics from the Tennessean HERE.

I liked this blurb from the article:

"The four of us got together, and started with Carl Perkins' 'Gone, Gone, Gone' and it was an explosion of conflicting chemical components," Ringenberg said. "Right from the first verse, it was there."

Baggs quickly broke a drumstick, and he finished the audition with a tree branch he found in Ringenberg's yard. Weeks later, they recorded a four-song record called Reckless Country Soul, and then they played a New Year's Eve show in Murfreesboro at a club called K.O. Jams. The music was raw and furious, as "Jason and the Nashville Scorchers" whipped Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" until it bled. Patrons began hurling chairs and tables into walls, and the dance floor was littered with wood chunks. People threw beer mugs through windows. Rock 'n' roll, hoochie coo.

I can still remember Jason's brother bringing over an advance pressing of Reckless Country Soul and thinking "this is wild." We lived in a big old house on the outskirts of Neponset, IL. We were renting it for $100 a month. Later that summer we drove to Champaign, IL with Jason's brother in the backseat (with his guitar) and saw JATS for the first time live at an upstairs bar called Mabel's on Green Street. That was even wilder.

I should be in Nashville this week.

[Side note: the picture of me in my profile (black t-shirt, flashing peace sign) was taken at Jason's house last summer]