Customer Reviews

Fervor/Lost & Found

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1965 the Byrds created folk-rock with a revelatory cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man." Nearly twenty years later, Jason & The Scorchers blow the doors off Bob Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie" melding punk swagger with traditional country sensibilities. Their 1984 7-track EP FERVOR was twenty-two minutes of raw energy, and now rereleased with their 1985 full-length album LOST AND FOUND is available for the first time in more than a decade.

Jason & the Scorchers sound owes as much to Hank Williams as it does the Rolling Stones (both artists the Scorchers covered on later releases). Frontman Jason Ringenberg's vocals ranged from the hyper-energy of a track like "I Can't Help Myself" to the honky-tonk pleading of "Pray for Me Mama (I'm a Gypsy Now)."

Like many ground-breaking bands (The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Velvet Underground), their popularity never matched their influence. I was lucky enough to catch Jason & The Scorchers in 2002 when they briefly regrouped to perform a handful of dates. Ringenberg was still a powerful vocalist and lead guitarist Warner Hodges performed like some kind of whirling dervish. They were still as good as ever.

In 1992, EMI first rereleased these two recordings with the title ARE YOU READY FOR THE COUNTRY, adding five bonus tracks, including "Greetings from Nashville," that was originally released as the B-side of "The Golden Ball and Chain" single. The other four were tracks that previously had only been released in the UK, incuding live covers of "Honky Tonk Blues" and "Absolutely Sweet Marie." It would have been nice to see these rare tracks included here, but it's good to see these seminal recordings back in print. [Running Time - 56:47] VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

I bought Fervor on cassette in 1984 and it hardly ever left my cassette deck. I played it for years until the tape squeals made it unlistenable. Same with Lost & Found. I found Fervor a few years later in the cut-out bin on cassette again. Same thing, played it till it was in ribbons. I've bought the CD combos of these two twice. Once, I lost when I moved. Second, I lent to a friend who had never heard JATS and never got it back. Well, were these songs really worth all that? Oh yes!!! I believe the first 2 JATS releases are the best American rock ever! There isn't a bad song in the bunch, even the slow tunes are great. I honestly can't pick a favorite tune, they're all that good. I do especially like Warner Hodges' solos on "Shop it Around," and Dylan's "Absolutely Sweet Marie." Dylan's version of the song seems rather pedestrian after listening to the Scorchers, well, scorch it. On Fervor, the last song, "Both Sides of the Line," Jason wrote with Michael Stipe from REM, and the guitar has a sound similar to that of U2's Edge, but Warner is way better than the Edge could ever dream to be. I believe that JATS and X are not only the best bands of the 80's, but best American bands ever. As big as alt-country/Americana and "punk" are now, none of the bands playing these styles can hold a candle to these two.

The "Fervor" album was an incredible, though short, venture into the realm of "cowpunk". I wore out the grooves on that LP! Glad to see it revived on CD. The Dylan cover "Absolutely Sweet Marie" and the well-penned "Help, There's a Fire" are stand-outs. The follow-up album, "Lost & Found", had a few gems but was not as wholly enjoyable. Well worth the price to get these 2 on one CD.

The cd in the sleeve is actually a mis-labelled disc number one from the EMI years double disc set, it doesn't match with the songs listed on the sleeve.

I have been following Jason and the Scorchers since 1983. My music is on vinyl. I bit the bullet and got this on CD so that I could listen in the car. Very glad that I did.

Fervor, Lost & Found and Clear Impetuous Morning are all brilliant albums that I've enjoyed countless times. It just breaks my heart these guys never made it big or have been recognized as the trailblazers they were. Their live shows were pure energy and passion. Perhaps at some point, some of the great alt-country bands out there could create a cover album of Scorchers tunes. I think that would be pretty amazing to hear. Anyhow, if you love alt-country, you MUST get this album and/or run down some of these killer tracks: White Lies, Shotgun Blues, Harvest Moon, Self Sabotage, Bible and a Gun, To Feel No Love, Take Me Home Country Roads (cover), Broken Whiskey Glass, Hot Nights in Georgia.

I first heard Absolutley Sweet Marie at an Underground club here in Oklahoma City.

I almost broke my neck scrambling to get to the DJ booth to find out who the artist was.

I wore out my first copy of Fervor and had a second copy stolen.I couldn't blame the guy.

It was / is a great record.

The following year I saw these guys on the Lost and Found tour.There were maybe 100 people in the crowd

but the Scorchers played like their life depended on it.To this day,it's still one of the best,purest rock and roll shows I have ever seen and I've seen hundreds.

Lost and Found is my fave Scorchers album. There isn't a lame track on it.Everyone I played it for went out and bought a copy.So why weren't these guys millionaires ? They certainly deserved to be.

I guess the timing was bad since Duran Duran and Culture Club were the flavors of the moment and these boys were at the oposite end of the spectrum. God bless 'em.

This album is definitley one of my desert island top ten.

Buy it. You'll be glad you did.

I had the distinct pleasure of introducing the local paper's music critic to Jason and the Scorchers at a small music fest. He was curious about why I was so amped about these guys he'd never heard of, and I described them as "speed metal meets Hank Sr.", which is a more apt description of their live show than of their recordings. This was shortly after their reunion that resulted in "A Blazing Grace", but the cover of "Country Roads" on that CD had long been a staple of their live shows. Needless to say, I was pleased when the review in the next day's paper characterized Jason & Co. as "Metallica meets Hank Sr." among other fits of hyperbole.

Let's put this bluntly: Jason can write rings around most of the "all hat and no cattle" recording "artists" that pass for coutry these days, and his twangy, hiccuping vocal style recalls Hank Sr. without sounding stupid; Warner Hodges can shift from full tilt rock-god riff-master to weep-in-your-beer country picker in between beats, and for my money is one of the most under-rated pickers around, and Johnson and Baggs can drive a beat home harder and faster than John Henry.

I could riff for a paragraph about each cut, but for me the highlights are:

Absolutely Sweet Marie: High octane Dylan, a precursor to the 190-proof "Take Me Home Country Roads"

I Can't Help Myself: Quintessential Scorchers - and emblematic of their commercial dilemma - too country for rock radio, and too rock for country radio, and in a sense, too country for country and too rock for rock. Go figure...

Hot Nights, Pray for Me, Harvest Moon, Far Behind: If these ain't pure country, I'll kiss you on the a** in the middle of Times Square at noon.

I Really Don't Want to Know: Injecting crack into the veins of an old warhorse, and somehow making the heartbreak more poignant; again they make opposites complement each other, and a concept that sounds contradictory really work.

Broken Whiskey Glass: Am I alone, or does this make you think of Britney? And doesn't it just kick a**?

Shop It Around, Lost Highway, Change the Tune: Pure-D Southern Rock with all the trappings - and they do it with only one guitarist - in concert Warner will make you wonder how one man can make so much noise.

Buy anything and everything these guys have ever put out; overall it's uneven, but their heart and soul and country is still in the right place every time, and they can rock like few ever have.

25 years later this is still a strong collection that rocks/cowpunks/alt countries pretty hard. This was the 80s, after all, and a few tracks do show hints of the same dated period cheese you see in the cover photo ("Last Time Around" feels like a Rave-Ups reject from Pretty in Pink). Still, much really good stuff that was not being done by many others at that time, and the full album download savings more than outweigh the cost of skipping a few just-OK tracks.

P.S. My full album download had either incorrect track names or track numbers for the Fervor portion of the combo album. This is the corrected version of the track order as it actually loaded in my iTunes:

1. Absolutely Sweet Marie

2. Help There's a Fire

3. I Can't Help Myself

4. Hot Nights in Georgia

5. Pray for Me, Mama (I'm a Gypsy Now)

6. Harvest Moon

7. Both Sides of the Line

It was great to see this music availble again, bringing back some good memeories of being a DJ in college radio. Only thing wrong with it is the tracks are mislabled, so the "Ferver" tunes are actually first on the CD. The tracks are also mislabled if you're running them on a computer program. But at least the music is there. Minus one star for the glitch.