Tom Jessen
Hunting Season
www.tomjessen.bandcamp.com
At the bottom of the back cover of Hunting Season—Tom Jessen’s first album since 2002’s Night—is a dedication to the late frontman for The Clash, “Special thanks to Joe Strummer for giving me a second wind!”
Jessen, a Strawberry Point native spent time in Iowa City and released two albums—the staggering country punk of Redemption in 1996 and the dark R&B-tinged Night in 2002. Shortly after he hightailed it to the East Coast for love and family. “I thought I was done,” Jessen recently said about the long silence, “and considered myself retired… Didn’t have anything to say.” But after a heavy dose of Joe Strummer and The Clash, he realized that the inspiration was around him and it was more political. “Being married and especially having kids makes you pay more attention to your environment and your situation.”
The messages in the songs on Hunting Season often sneak up on you. Before you know it you’re singing “Drill, baby, drill– quake-quake” in what Jessen says was the first song written, “Pump Pump.” (BTW: best use of “Drill, baby, drill” ever!) Jessen’s musician buddies back here in Iowa assembled at John Svec’s studios last year to create a rockin’, rootsy and driving album with a healthy dose of guitars– reminding me a lot of Rockpile and Elvis Costello’s Attractions.
When it comes to Iowa songwriters, Jessen has been compared to Greg Brown and for good reason. The opening salvo “Pepper Spray” illustrates Jessen’s deft ability to paint a scene by capturing the energy of a crowd on the edge of riot, “I saw the crowds, I saw them shouting them down. Chanting ‘shame on you, shame on you!’ Cops had hands on night sticks with nervous looks behind plastic facing an army of cell phone camera crews .”
In this attention deficit twitter-feed-facebook-wall news cycle it’s easy to forget the larger picture of issues captured in Hunting Season’s blistering and honest shoe-tapping songs of dystopia. Joe Strummer said, “People can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world.” Jessen has taken Strummer’s lead, and it’s up to us to follow
This article was originally published in Little Village issue 182
First of all, thousand of agpoolies for the major delay due to the server issue. We did the migration recently and missed out quite a number of messages. Am i too late to send the quotation over? Please do let me know ya. Once again, so sorry for the delay.ThanksJessen
Nicolas dit :Bon oui c’est vrai que c’est tout de même un Yonkou, mais moi pour la vaincre j’aurais plutôt préférée voir une alliance entre Luffy, Kidd et Law. Ca rappelerait des souvenirs comme quand ils ont combattu contre les marines il y a deux ans à la salle des ventes. ^^
Välkommen hit! Och WOW, du är HELT klart mycket modigare än mig. Sannolikheten att jag över huvudtaget kommer att gå in i ett litet flygplan, ens om det står på marken och absolut inte kommer lyfta, är minimal. Kanske om man kapat av vingarna och gjutit fast det i betong eller nått sånt men bara KANSKE. LOL
Sadly this happens WAY more than most non-editorial staffers realize. I combatted it vehemently at a prior job until I learned that my own staff was doing exactly that (copying large chunks of text from web sites and pasting directly into feature articles) and then realized I hadn’t a leg to stand on. If you’re a writer at a legit magazine, just google one of your headlines with quotes around it and I’ll be it’s somewhere it’s not supposed to be.
This is the right website for anyone who really wants to find out about this topic. You realize a whole lot its almost hard to argue with you (not that I really would want to…HaHa). You definitely put a fresh spin on a topic that’s been discussed for ages. Great stuff, just great!