Admittedly 99% of the stuff I get sent by publicists and PR firms is worthless to me. I am bombarded with so much shit on a daily basis that I stopped politely replying a long time ago (it’s all I would be able to do all day). On occasion, something sublime gets through the noise of my inbox…
“Jack Name” is an artistic moniker (one of several, apparently) for John Webster Johns, a prolific LA-based musician/producer associated with Ariel Pink and White Fence. His debut solo release is Light Show, a musical “sci-fi novella.” In the artist bio written by John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees and Castle Face Records, Dwyer laments the fact that Light Show is coming out, not on his own label, but on Ty Segall’s new God? Records imprint (via Drag City) before going on to rhapsodize that…
Whiffs of young Brian Eno, Gary Numan, Chrome, ELO, Bruce Haack, even Richard O’Brien (a la “Rocky Horror”) and Stefan Wul stain the sleeves of this story, but it’s still wholly original and cooked at home so it’s as honest as it is good for you. The sounds are a dense and ever-shifting beast—just an absolutely put-you-on-the-floor headphone record. The narrative holds as much significance as the sound; hopefully there will be a lyric sheet so teenagers ripe for a push in the right direction can follow along, pink-eyed , with their index fingers.
Okay. Let’s stop right here. An “absolutely put-you-on-the-floor headphone record”? I am already a fish on that hook. Those are some pretty interesting names to drop in a press release, too. My interest was piqued, to say the least. Stefan Wul’s name included there made it even more intriguing…
What is this?
Naturally, I read on:
Light Show lifts off over an alien plane—immediate, heavily skimming the surface of the landscape where the story unfurls. A conversation, maybe a dream… it’s a bit cloudy, but it’s just the start and it’s wonderful. So you prepare to soak up the whole story and carry it with you from now on. Looking down you get a stream of conscious view into the heads of the opposing factions constantly at war in this mirror dimension to our own. The wooly bullies are applying leaden pressure on the shadows which they resent for their imagination and lust for art. They use the whip of televised terror and the cell of prescriptions to flatten your creative energies. The shadows, in turn, need time, freedom and space to flourish away from the square oppressors.
“Jack Name” aka John Webster Johns
Okay. If you are anything like me, you’re probably salivating to hear some of this. Happy to oblige… Here, to whet your appetite for the January 24 release of Light Show is the premiere of “Born to Lose.” This sounds to my ears, in some oddball way, like The Residents meet the Gun Club. The guitar solo even sounds like Snakefinger. This is a very good thing. Dig it:
“Pure Terror”
“I was there with the gang the time the telephone rang to say a sleeper bit the leader with his medicine fangs.”
If that isn’t a lyric worthy of Marc Bolan in his prime, I don’t know what the fuck would be.
Pre-order Jack Name’s Light Show at Drag City. More Jack Name on SoundCloud.
Below, a performance of Jack Name’s Fictional Boys, live at the Hyperion Tavern Los Angeles: