In the early days of rock 'n roll, Fats Domino lost his thrill on Blueberry Hill and we were all invited to play with Chuck Berry's "Ding-A-Ling". And for the most part, rock 'n roll has always been somewhat attached to the concept of fun, be it from women, alcohol, etc. But in the past decade or so, rock music hasn't been about fun as much as it has been about anger, rage, angst, and about one hundred other adjectives that mean roughly the same thing: bitching.
Sometime after Michael Stipe sent one out to the one he loved and the one he left behind, hordes of musicians have used their music to express their own inner hatred towards a variety of subjects. Not that this is bad, mind you - music has always been about giving a voice to what's in your heart - it's just not all that much fun.
Which brings us to the case of Jackyl. Their 1992 self-titled debut sold over a million copies worldwide on the strength of four hit singles and vocalist Jesse James Dupree's affection for power tools (the lead-off single for the album The Lumberjack featured what is probably still the only known recording of a chain saw solo). But their follow-up, 1994's When Push Comes to Shove, barely sold well enough to even chart, and Jackyl found themselves in the unique position of being a second-album dinosaur.
It seemed that in the new world of rock music, there wasn't room for a band that built every single song around the concepts of getting drunk, women, getting drunk with women, getting drunk and being without women, penis size, etc. But, undaunted, Jackyl switched labels and released the one thing that will always be a constant in the loud rock genre - a live album.
Night of the Living Dead is that live album - and it's a live album in every meaning of the word. The sound is as raw as their live show, with no overdubs whatsoever. Recorded on New Year's Eve in Dallas, Texas, Dupree plays his audience like a instrument in and of itself - getting the screams and howls of the crowd when he wants them and using them to full effect
Nobody pulls off a flawless live show, and Night of the Living Dead is a testament to that - guitar parts that are mixed too low, vocals that fade with Dupree's movements, and other such gaffs are fairly commonplace on the album. And while songs like "Redneck Punk" and "Mental Masturbation" (featured on the The Beavis and Butthead Experience compilation album) hold up well in their live translations, other songs like "Rock-A-Ho" and "The Lumberjack" don't do so well.
But despite their occasional failings, Jackyl is a tight unit live, and it shows. Dupree, along with guitarists Jimmy Stiff and Jeff Worley, bassist Tom Bettini and drummer Chris Worley give the audience a damn good show for their money and you can hear the appreciation from the crowd. Jackyl isn't concerned with the environment, or politics, or social issues of any type - they just want to have a party, and that's fine with me.
Dupree has called Jackyl rock music's "turd in the punch bowl" - and he's got a point. Too much of rock music today requires you to think as much as you possibly can in the space of a four to five minute song. But all things come in cycles, and even if it means that we have to return to the "big hair rock" days of the eighties, the time for this music will come again. I only hope Jackyl will still be having their party - cuz they throw a helluva good one.
