JIM JONES & THE RIGHTEOUS MIND and THE FUTURE SHAPE OF SOUND at the MIRTH, MARVEL & MAUD, WALTHAMSTOW

Jim Jones & the Righteous Mind, E17, 10 November 2017

If a ten-piece rock and roll gospel group can’t lift yer spirits, especially when it’s The Future Shape of Sound, then the musical component of your soul is sorely malfunctioning. The sight alone – five sleek and stylish ladies and five dapper hatted gentlemen– is heavenly and their testifying, boogie blues for Jesus, with titles such as ‘Joy’ and ‘Rise Up’ soar and keep lifting higher and higher. A corner of East London transformed into a Louisiana chapel. Good God almighty.

It’s been a gradual process, but Jim Jones & the Righteous Mind are becoming sufficiently distanced from their predecessors, the Jim Jones Revue. The bands aren’t a million miles apart, more like neighbouring towns, but their method of attack differs. The Revue would slash and burn, inflict wounds with razor sharp knives; whereas the Righteous Mind bludgeon using a relentless rhythmic assault with sticks and stones. The Revue meshed the MC5’s manifesto with Jerry Lee Lewis’s great balls of fire; the Mind conjure gothic spells, summon witches and dark spirits, boil your blood, shake chicken bones and rabbits’ feet.

Jim Jones, like in all his previous bands, commands every nook and cranny of the stage, the audience, the room and your blackened soul. This is a man calls, “Let me hear you say yeah!” boarding a number 48 bus and passengers respond "YEAH!" automatically. It's a gift. Tracks from recent debut album Super Natural - ‘No Fool’ ‘Aldecide’, ‘Heavy Lounge, Part 1’, ‘Til It’s All Gone’ - with Jim’s throaty demonic howl and chanting Minds, cook up a spicy gumbo stew greedily devoured by the congregation locked in a foot stomping and hand clapping voodoo trance.

Two bands - one shining a light, the other flicking it off – making a believer in the Church of Rock ‘n’ Roll outta me.

The Future Shape of Sound, E17, 10 November 2017

JIM JONES AND THE RIGHTEOUS MIND at OSLO, HACKNEY

For whatever reasons, and I don’t know what they were, contenders for the most exhilarating live band to fill my ears and eyes, the glorious Jim Jones Revue, disbanded a year ago; now Jim’s back in town to show he still really knock ‘em down.  

The set falls into three sections. The first is a clattering cauldron of percussive voodoo rhythms and guttural chanting to summon the spirits and stir the soul. Jim leads the mantra "Give Everything, Take Everything" before the blood curdling debut single 'Boil Yer Blood' mixes up the medicine with three parts Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and one part a torn-off half-riff scrap of ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’.

Jones is the master of ceremonies, as always, but he keeps Gavin Jay on bass from the Revue and the pair are flanked by a Marilyn Manson lookalike keyboard player and pedal-steel player who lays on the ghoulish effects. Behind them, sitting in on drums, is the unmistakable bearded figure of Bad Seed and Grinderman Jim Sclavunos; who fits like a black glove with the gothic nature of proceedings. My red shirt being a rare splash of colour in the blackest of seas.

In keeping with the apparent intention to create a new distinct identity away from Jim’s previous bands (add Thee Hypnotics and Black Moses to the list), there’s a notable lack of guitar wailing and a slow three song segment with Jay playing what to my ignoramus mind is a double bass with a bow, plus Jim singing in a lower, softer register cements this. In a live setting some of the subtleties of these more cinematic, almost Tom Waits tinged songs, probably get lost and ‘1000 Miles From Sure’ benefits from listening to the recorded version.

After this interlude, Jay straps his bass on again, bashing away at his knees like all great bassists, and the pedal-steel makes way for another guitar. From here on in we’re back on familiar ground, albeit with unfamiliar songs. No matter, they’re instant adrenaline rushes. Two guitars held out front and the Righteous Mind are rocking the joint. The two encore songs – one making me think of a bastardized offspring of John Lee Hooker’s ‘Big Legs, Tight Skirt’ – bring the already smouldering pot of bone crunching gumbo stew to the boil.