I doubt I ever would have even heard of this band had they not been the musical guest on Conan O’Brien the day I saw it filmed way back in 1994 in his first or second season. Maybe it was the excitement of being in the audience at a live taping of a late night talk show but they completely stole the show for me. They were from Washington DC and played two songs that night. One was called ff=66 which was all noisy and jittery. What does that even mean other than f is the 6th letter of the alphabet. The other song was their current single Savory which I’d never heard but I loved. It sounded atonal and powerful. The drummer Zack Barocas was a powerhouse. The singer J. Robbins was intense. The bassist Kim Coletta was great and a girl. Not a lot of female bassists out there at the time. Bill Barbot on guitar was all bendy and twitchy and looked like he was about to attend a French dinner party while being periodically electrocuted by his instrument. It was riveting. So I bought their current album For Your Own Special Sweetheart which is a great album. It is a bit on the threshold of my hardcore/post punk taste but kind of like the Toronto band Fucked Up, it has enough melody and isn’t simply noise to keep my attention. That album is often cited as one of best alternative albums of the 90’s. Their first two albums Grippe and Novelty are more noisy and hard edged. Grippe I happened to find on vinyl many years ago at a long since closed used record store at Bloor and Bathurst in Toronto.
A couple years after the Conan show they released their final eponymous album and it is fantastic. It was a bit less noisy and had a much more melodic nature to it though it was still loud and powerful in many places and songs. I listened to this record SO much in the 90s. It is angular anti-pop alternative post hardcore music. Songs like Livid, Iodine and Desert Sea balance the harder material Spoiler, Mirrorfull and Chinese Fork Tie. Also there is a hidden track several minutes after the final song Absenter which is a cover of Tori Amos’s Cornflake Girl which is awesome.
I saw Jawbox in concert once at Lee’s Palace in Toronto on their final tour and it was great. It was also one of the two loudest shows I’ve ever been to. The other being Teenage Fanclub at the same venue on their Thirteen tour. They didn’t play Savory that night and I remember talking to J. Robbins after and saying I hoped they would. He shrugged it off with “can’t play everything every night”. They were actually pretty nice. The Dismemberment Plan opened for them and needed a place to crash for the night so they slept on my living room floor.
After disbanding in 97 and released a great compilation called My Scrapbook Of Fatal Accidents. Since then Robbins formed Burning Airlines who released two great albums. He also formed Channels and My Office Of Future Plans. The others have run their label DeSoto Records and been in and out of a few smaller groups as well. To celebrate the 15 year reissue of Your Own Special Sweetheart the band reunited to perform on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon in 2009 where they played ff=66, Savory and 68 from that album. It was supposed to be a one off event but in 2019 they reunited again for a series of live shows. Not for everyone but those who like them tend to love them.
Previous
Next