Thursday, March 28, 2013

The Blues Explosion Returns to Tucson

Posted By on Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 12:49 PM

It really does seem like everyday there's an announcement for a great concert coming to Tucson. I was buried in deadlines and didn't even have a chance to mention that De La Soul and Public Enemy are on a bill at AVA in May (with Ice Cube and LL Cool J, who are less interesting to me personally).

However, sometimes you put something out to the universe and then you get exactly what you wanted. For me, it was the opportunity to see the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion again in Tucson, and thankfully, now they're coming to Club Congress on June 18.

Tucson and the Blues Explosion go way back, and there was a stretch where you might just run into the band playing in some storefront on Congress (this actually happened to me once, strangely). The group has a live album recorded at Club Congress and the Downtown Performance Center (the excellent Controversial Negro). So when it looks liked the band were skipping town for a Phoenix gig, I was hurt. But now all is well and I look forward to the opportunity to hear the words "BLUES EXPLOSION" yelled at me two dozen times over the course of a summer evening. Tucson can again be NUMBER ONE.

BONUS: A very odd performance of "Afro" on some sort of British version of Club MTV in 1994, complete with theramin solo:

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