THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Spencer Gets It Lit, the debut album from the indelible Jon Spencer (Blues Explosion, Boss Hog, Pussy Galore, Heavy Trash, etc) and his new supergroup The HITmakers, delivers friction, excitement, and post-modern depravity in a gonzo retaliation against idiocy that is as good a balm for our collective PTSD as any.
Across layers of big beats, fuzz guitar, and fat synths, Spencer spits, croons, rhapsodises, and seduces. Spencer Gets It Lit is his most complex, groovy, and fun record in years; a dark and danceable odyssey — both a studied take-down of the early 21st century and a celebration of the place where electricity meets the mind. And it introduces his latest killer lineup: Quasi’s Sam Coomes on synthesizers and vocals, M. Sord on drums, and former Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert playing trash. The touring lineup will feature former Sleater-Kinney / Jicks / Quasi / Wild Flag indie-rock goddess Janet Weiss on drums.
The Worst Facts has The HITmakers chanting “It’s called a fact!” over a uniquely Spencerean lesson in humility. Strike 3 has Spencer exchange anxieties with HITmaker (and one half of Quasi) Sam Coomes (Jon: “This world! Make me feel bad!”, Sam: “I’m grindin’ my teeth! Grindin’ ’em out!” ) before they jointly erupt into the chorus of “Hot dogs! Baseball! … We’re gonna die!!” The single Worm Town (with its gambit “Twinkle twinkle little star, tried to run but didn’t get far”) is country-synth-funk that you didn’t know you needed til you needed it. In Get It Right Now, Spencer mixes hitmaking with troublemaking, calling out Zuckerberg, Bezos, and, er, Jagger (“You got nothin’ on me!!”).
In short, Spencer Gets It Lit is classic Jon Spencer taken to the extremis — electro-boogie, constructivist art pop, a cocktail of industrial sleaze and futurist elegance. Says Spencer, “Send out the Hit Signal! This is the most uncompromising album I’ve ever made!”
