photos by Dana (distortion) Yavin

Dan Coxon: The new album sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a barroom brawl, preferably filmed by Quentin Tarantino. Do you have to work hard at getting that kind of intensity on the record, or does it simply come naturally?

Jim Jones: Most music doesn't mean anything until you invest some intensity into it - so that is a given. But the real trick is to try and get that intensity but also the keep the maximum degree of swing in there at the same time!

DC: Twelve bar blues feels like something of a forgotten format, maybe due to the likes of Status Quo degrading it in the Eighties. What drew you back to it?

JJ: It's true, it's a pretty fine line you have to tread to avoid falling into the same old cliches... but if you come at it from the right angle, you can find that the form still has some wiggle room. When you hear early Little Richard recordings they still sound vital... It's not the form, it's the presentation.

The Jim Jones Revue and Kid Congo Powers brought their intensity to Brooklyn on Saturday night (9/10) for a show at Music Hall of Williamsburg with Des Roar. Pictures are in this post. If you missed it, their ongoing tour comes back to the NYC-area on 9/18 at Maxwell's. More pictures from Brooklyn below...

Continue reading "The Jim Jones Revue, Kid Congo Powers & Des Roar played MHOW (pics)"

The Jim Jones Revue at Mercury Lounge (more by Ryan Muir)

The Jim Jones Revue will serve their soulful garage with a dash of punk rock at a string of precision strikes in September, including a stop at Music Hall of Williamsburg on 9/10 and Maxwell's on 9/18. Tickets for MHOW with Kid Congo Powers + Pink Monkey Birds and Des Roar, as well as tickets for Maxwell's are still available. The UK crew's schedule will take them across to the West Coast for dates that include a stop at Bumbershoot in Seattle, a few Northeastern dates, and some stops in the Midwest as well. Full tour schedule is below.

The Jim Jones Revue will welcome the US release of Burning Your House Down on August 16th through Punk Rock Blues Records. Stream that record in its entirety below, alongside all tour dates and a video for "High Horse" from their latest LP.

Continue reading "The Jim Jones Revue releasing 'Burning Your House Down' (full album stream & 2011 Tour Dates too) "

The Jim Jones Venue at Mercury Lounge (more by Ryan Muir)

The Jim Jones Revue have dates scattered around the globe in the coming months, including three in the U.S.. The end of January is laid out for the The Big Day Out festival in Australia and late March is reserved for the UK, France, SXSW, LA and NYC. That NYC show is at Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on March 10th. Tickets are on sale.

The Jim Jones Revue also came to SXSW (and NYC) in 2010. "The band's second album, 'Burning Your House Down', produced by Jim Sclavunos (Grinderman/Bad Seeds) will be released here in the US this Spring (details forthcoming)." All 2011 tour dates and the video for "Shoot First", below...

Continue reading "The Jim Jones Revue touring, playing LA, NYC, SXSW (dates)"

photos by Jen Maler

We got in to Terminal 5 too late to catch their opening set last night (which was their fourth and final NYC-area show this week), but Jen Maler managed to grab the guys from The Jim Jones Revue for some portraits which you can see in this post. They continue below with a new set of tour dates that this time includes NYC and beyond....

Continue reading "the Jim Jones Revue played Terminal 5, announce more dates "

photos by Ryan Muir

The Jim Jones Revue @ Mercury Lounge

The Jim Jones Revue started a four-show NYC run on Thursday, July 22nd, with a gig at Mercury Lounge. The pictures here are from that Hunters-opened show. They finish the NY stint when they play Terminal 5 tonight (7/26) with Smashing Pumpkins.

One of the other shows took place Friday night at Maxwell's. Music Snobbery was there...

"Their super-charged music recalls all the great-pioneers of rock, mostly Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. Jim Jones and his crew only know one way to play guitar, hard. VERY hard ... like they're not satisfied unless their fingers are bleeding and people's brain fluid isn't seeping out of their ears. After one song I was like, "Great gosh of mighty!""

The UK band, fronted by the namesake ex-Thee Hypnotics singer, just brought their 2008 self-titled debut stateside. Their newer LP, Burning Your House Down, is due for a September 6th release in the UK and the rest of Europe (US release in the new year). The video for the first single off that, "High Horse," out August 23rd on 7" and MP3 in the UK, is posted, with more Mercury Lounge pictures, below...

Continue reading "The Jim Jones Revue played Maxwell's, Mercury Lounge w/ Hunters (pics), released a video, open for Smashing Pumpkins"

Kid Congo Powers @ Spider House (BV-SXSW 2010) (more by Tim Griffin)

The next free Vice Garage show at Knitting Factory, Wednesday, July 28th, will feature the ex-Cramp/Bad Seed garage rocker pictured above, with support from the supercampy Hunx & His Punx. RSVP for it here (and for the show in Austin the next night).

The previous Vice garage show featured the reunited Oblivians. Tonight (7/21) Jack Yarber/Oblivian plays a Brooklyn show with his own band at Southpaw. Tickets are still on sale.

Kid Congo Powers will be back in New York, as part of his September tour dates, for a show on Friday, September 17th at Brooklyn Bowl with the K-Holes. Tickets ($5) are on sale.

And another band that played our SXSW day show at Spider House in March, UK's Jim Jones Revue (ex-Thee Hypnotics), is in NYC for four shows this week: Thursday, July 22nd at Mercury Lounge, Maxwell's on July 23rd and Knitting Factory on July 24th. More info here. (And on top of that, they open Smashing Pumpkins' sold-out Terminal 5 show as part of Spin25 on July 26th along with Kill Hannah.)

Updated Kid Congo Powers & Jim Jones tour dates, flyers and videos are below...

Continue reading "Jim Jones & Jack Oblivian here, Kid Congo playing w/ Hunx"

photos by Tim Griffin

THIRSTY: ...What's your plan for the next few months of riding this big wave after SXSW?

Jim Jones: Well, I mean like we're really keen to sort of like work in the States. Obviously it's like sort of the birthplace of rock n' roll.

Rupert Orton: It's our calling card, coming to SXSW. It's alright. Play a bunch of shows - this is what we do, this is what we're about, hopefully people will pick up on it, and taking it to the next stage would mean doing a longer tour and coming back for some more dates. I think we're coming back to New York in late July for a few shows in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Build it up. I mean we're more, obviously we're more established in Europe and the UK and France but we'd like to build up here, you know, cause we're playing essentially American music.

UK garage rock band Jim Jones Revue, fronted by the ex-Thee Hypnotics singer of the same name, made their US debut at SXSW. One of their gigs in Austin was at the BV/Anso day party at Spider House where the band, all clad in black, brought much rock, and many rock moves. Belated pictures from that are above and, with a video, below.

Coming up, the Jim Jones Revue will be playing a trio of New York shows to celebrate the US release of their self-titled debut LP. The band already has another album in the can too. The first of those shows will be on Thursday, July 22nd at Mercury Lounge (tickets), followed by Maxwell's on July 23rd (tickets) and Knitting Factory on July 24th (tickets).

More pictures and all tour dates are below...

Continue reading "Jim Jones Revue coming to NYC (dates), played SXSW (pics) "

by Andrew Frisicano

Jim Jones Revue...

Speaking of the BrooklynVegan/AnSO Thursday day party at Austin's Spider House (full schedule here), London's Jim Jones Revue will be taking to one of the stages (right before Cheeseburger). The garage rock powerhouse, whose first record came out in 2008 and who are currently working on a new album with producer Jim Sclavunos from The Bad Seeds/Grinderman, will be making their US debut at the festival.

Since forming The Revue in 2007, Jim Jones - the jet-fuelled ex-Thee Hypnotics vocal powerhouse - has led his band through a hurricane of live shows and the recording of their first, bone-shattering LP. [Their February 4th set at London's Jazz Cafe] was predominantly made up of material from that album: a relentless meld of flame-grilled rock'n'soul and punk-R&B. In fact it's rumoured that the Jazz Café had to hold back on the band's usual volume for fear of broken eardrums and complaints from the entire postcode.

What makes the Jim Jones Revue such an exciting live prospect is their heady mix of quality songs and unpredictability. Their mining of the pre-1960 rock'n'roll sound serves them well. You feel that you've lived with these songs for a long time, yet, in a live setting, their material doesn't feel constrained by category. It just makes you stand up and listen before knocking you off your feet. [Mojo]

On the same stage will be Kid Congo Powers (aka Brian Tristan of The Gun Club, The Cramps and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds)...

WOW. The Kid did it again. All the uber cool chops and camped up suss we've come to know and love from this true legend. Yep that's right Legend, an over used word in describing musicians for sure but hell when you've spent your life playing with three of the greatest front men of all time - Lux Interior, Jeffery Pierce and Nick Cave - you must have done something right. No one can tell me its not a justified description for someone who was in not only one LEGENDARY band but three - The Cramps, The Gun Club and Nick Caves Bad Seed's.

These days Kid Congo is hipper than ever with his own band The Pink Monkey Birds, who's charming, sexy mix of 50's Rockabilly, 60's Garage Trash, 70's Vegas Lounge Muzak, 80's Post Punk all put together with an authentic Hispanic twist - serves up some serious cool medicine both on record and live. [Splash One]

The two acts also team up again for an official showcase with The Bellrays and more at Prague later that night. Both have other shows on the docket as well. Videos of both (including Jim Jones at the above-described gig) and their full Austin schedules are below...

Continue reading "Jim Jones Revue (ex-Thee Hypnotics) & Kid Congo Powers (ex-Cramps/Nick Cave/Gun Club) playing SXSW, other shows"

yes we've lost our minds...

BrooklynVegan & AnSo Present:
A Day Party in Austin, TX!
@ Spider House (2908 Fruth St @ Guadalupe)
Thursday March 18, 2010
Noon-7pm

ALL AGES-FREE [No badges, wristbands or RSVP necessary]
19 bands on 3 stages (1 indoor and 2 outdoor)
Full bar w/ Drink Specials. In house restaurant & backyard BBQ.

Stage #1
6:00 Human Eye
5:00 Tyvek
4:00 Thee Oh Sees
3:00 Golden Triangle
2:00 Lovvers
1:00 The Beets

Stage #2
6:00 Cheeseburger
5:00 Jim Jones Revue
4:00 Slim Cessna's Auto Club
3:00 Kid Congo Powers
2:00 Carletta Sue Kay
1:00 Or, The Whale
12:00 La Strada

Stage #3
5:30 UUVVWWZ
4:30 Everybody Was In the French Resistance Now (w/ Eddie Argos of Art Brut)
3:30 DM Stith
2:30 Odawas
1:30 A Sunny Day in Glasgow
12:30 The Sandwitches

Thank you to Annie Southworth of Panache Booking aka AnSo for partnering with us on this amazing party. More info on the bands and stuff as we find time. In the meantime, happy to get this (yet another BrooklynVegan party at SXSW this year) announced!

P.S. Odawas is also on the bill of the free BrooklynVegan Happy Hour show happening at Noise Pop in San Francisco this Saturday (2/27)

UPDATE: SXSW flyer below...

Continue reading "BrooklynVegan & AnSo Present a kick-ass & free Austin 2010 Thursday Day Party (with a zillion bands)"