20 Miles build a bridge between the JSBE legacy and artistic freedom

When The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion came to promote album ‘Plastic Fang’ recently we wondered how many of the fans at the sold-out show at the Brixton Academy, for instance, knew that the other guitarist, Judah Bauer, has got his own album out? He does and it goes under the name of 20 Miles; the disc is entitled ‘Keep It Coming’.

While the JSBE trade in their punky blues-cum-horror-flirting rock, Bauer prefers expending his dictionary. There are moments that are really pointing to his work with the band but there are such significant departures that you wonder where it is all going. This album feels like a truthful expression of a music lover who frankly embraces the whole wide range of genres he digs.

However free the bands feel to express their creativity it is bound by their collective sonic identity as well as public expectation and readiness to accept individual bands’ defined material. Even JSBE can’t simply turn and start doing Kraftwerk or hip-hop while it is acceptable by a solo member. Such a player usually has no pressing financial need and, although every muso likes to be liked, it is not going to shatter anyone’s dream (but bruise an ego) if the record fails to earn a gold disc.

Thus, ‘Keep It Coming’ braves a range that extends from slow-down funkiness of the opener ‘Well Well Well’ to mutated-countrification of ‘Only One’ to the Stones-que (‘Sympathy For The Devil’ era) ‘All My Brothers, Sisters Too’… It gets more ‘Rhythm Bound’, quite dancey on ‘Feel Right’, seriously frantic is ‘Streets & Lights’ but smoother and pensive is ‘Like A Rock’ (an instrumental). If there is something missing then it is the experimental sounds that don’t get a look in whereas it would have been very interesting to find out Bauer’s dribbling technique…

Solo albums by active (and defunct) band members tend to be inferior to what their base-outfits have done but this time it is not the case. This is parallel and equally valid to what Bauer does as the member of JSBE that doesn’t mean he’ll be leaving the other two in a hurry.

Bauer simply wants you to be aware of what he likes and is capable of… He can also bend it like Hendrix, on a low-profile level, obviously.