Jim White – Misfit’s Jubilee
Fluff and Gravy/Loose Music – Out Now
Jim White fits into that weird space where America acknowledges that not all is quite what it seems, and Misfit’s Jubilee, his latest album creates a stir by assembling a series of tracks that the major labels rejected in their desire to make him accessible. That attempt was actually rather foolhardy. White doesn’t fit into any conventional mould, exactly what makes his music so appealing. But then he’s never played it straight. As a self-proclaimed Jesus freak back in the 70s he began experimenting with Alice Cooper records, even though the elders of his church found Mr Cooper to be the embodiment of Satan. As White tells it, “That devil music felt liberating and empowering and was my covert rebellion against piety and the immense gravitational pull of all things Southern and religious.”
The church’s loss was music’s gain. Amidst bracing blasts of brass, Monkey In A Silo takes on so many topics, but at the heart, there is this blast on the nature of religion, “This circle of life/ Well, it’s a fucking joke!/ Exacted on everyone by God Almighty.” White is willfully expressing his own views, unafraid of the consequences. While that shouldn’t seem like much, it’s a bold beginning in an era when expressing views that are left of centre can often be frowned upon. White does it again and again, taking on whatever targets need to be shot full of holes.
He ponders his fate on Where Would I Be. The song rocks with abandon as he wonders, “Wonder where I’d be / If I was never born / My little bitty atoms / Just scattered everywhere.” It’s an interesting question. Later in the tune, he offers up more nuggets of truth as he sings, “Where would I be if I was not myself?/ What would I be doing right now?/ Would I be an old man saying my prayers/ Or a nun dreaming of some football players?” The album is also remarkable because most of it was recorded in Antwerp, Belgium, with a core of just White, his longtime drummer Marlon Patton, plus Belgians Geert Hellings on guitar and banjo, plus bassist and keyboard player Nicholas Rombouts.
One of the distinctive features of Misfit’s Jubilee is the way that White plays with the vocals. Channelling the ghosts of Tom Waits, voices sometimes sound distant or recorded in a tin can. Using this trick, it seems like he’s trying to distance himself to make the songs more humorous than the frightening reality he often expresses. White keeps looking for a Smart Ass Reply, he finds, “My friends are lost apostles they search for missing saviors/ in malls and supermarkets./ My heart like an RV run out of gas/ I got nowhere to park it.”
Perhaps the most revealing moments appear on the final track, The Divided States of America. He sites, “Our core of decency gone/ See how the neighbors now look kinda wrong?” To hammer the point home, he finishes by quoting George Washington, Emma Lazarus’ words on The Statue of Liberty, even Jesus himself, as he points out in no uncertain terms how American has strayed from the dreams that defined the nation.
Sometimes sobering, sometimes snotty, always expressing the truths he sees in front of him, Jim White’s Misfit’s Jubilee illustrates that you don’t always need to be stone-cold sober to see the realities of today. You just have to be honest. That’s the kind of truth we all can use.