THE JERKS PICKIN' ON THE PORCH: Finally! |
And you thought it was a long wait for that Phantom Buffalo record. While it may have taken those indie popsters three years to get their record out, fans of Jerks of Grass have been waiting a solid decade. Other than two tracks on the Greetings from Area Code 207 series (2000’s “Highway Paved with Pain” and 2001’s “Whitewater”), there has been nothing to bring home and put on the stereo for fans of what has been at times Portland’s hardest-working band.
Admittedly, I am one of a very few people who has a copy of a full-length disc the band recorded back in 2001, with the late John Farrell on fiddle, along with Carter Logan on banjo, Ronnie Gallant on mandolin, Jason Phelps on guitar, and Tom Jacques on bass. I still listen to it, a disc full of fire-and-brimstone bluegrass and a hell of a lot of fun. That disc was never released, though. The band simply weren’t happy with it.
I think it struck them that it was bluegrass like a hammer to the skull, and that they were, deep down inside, better than that. For all the fast-picking virtuosity that would still impress more than just the casual listener, it wasn’t anything special. Just good players ripping up standards, really.
Now, this weekend, the Jerks, differently constituted, will release Come on Home, a clarion call to their fans that, yes, they’ve got things figured out now and they’re ready for some of those bright lights and big stages.
This is perhaps most poignantly made clear by track 10 on the disc, “In the House of Tom Bombadil,” a song off the self-titled Nickel Creek album (when they looked like they were about 12, but played like they were in their prime). This song is flat-out mind-blowing, especially live, with intricate melodic runs and time changes galore. And it’s the kind of song that put Nickel Creek and Chris Thile, the mandolin player who penned the song, on the map as major talents. Here, I think it’s something of a statement by Phelps, who has long been known as a stand-out bluegrass flatpicker, probably among the 50 best guitar players in the country. Know him now as a musician who’s legitimately phenomenal on two instruments, maybe more — this song is, as we say here in Maine, wicked hard, and is exactly the kind of song Phelps and Logan had in mind when they took the band in a different direction in 2006, parting ways with Jacques and Gallant, adding Kris Day (bassist with Harpswell Sound, King Memphis, etc.) and Melissa Bragdon (a classically trained fiddler), and remaking the band from one previously known as “faster than Metallica” (unfortunate words from the third-ever issue of the Portland Phoenix) to one understood to be flat-out virtuosic.
With Day, they’ve added yet another wrinkle: original tunes. Like the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Jerks were for a long time just a really talented cover band. Now, however, they’ve debuted two terrific tunes that also debut Day’s vocal talents. He’s a good singer, with depth of feeling and a hearty tone you can swim in. “Something” is the better of the two, a waltz where Day actually plays guitar and Phelps takes over stand-up bass (the bastard — he never stops showing off, really), while Logan handles the dobro (he also proves himself a master on the guitar, later) and Bragdon creates an accordion-like drone with nuance-filled bowstrokes on the fiddle.
