Local Review: jacked johnson – the gas

jacked johnson
the gas
Street: 08.01
Self-released
jacked johnson = Daniel Johnston + Damien Hirst + David Lynch x Dadaism 

*Sounds of Sazerac Rye poured in a snifter, a quick inhale, throwback, gulp and slamdown of the glass. Slow exhale* …Alright, let’s do this!

There’s a major, yet sometimes overlooked difference between the underground arts and outsider arts. Underground is the beginning to a creative journey, with beloved fans keeping their eyes and ears to the ground for a public venue. Outsider art, however, is something special. It’s primal, chaotic, messy, but at its core, emotionally personal. Think Daniel Johnston’s 1983 Hi, How Are You cassette that still remains unfinished, but began through the chafed energy of a nervous breakdown. When listening to these kinds of albums, I get the same chills when flipping through Bryan Lewis Saunders’ drug-induced self portraits or when viewing the adverse homemade goods of Russian citizens during the collapse of the Soviet Union—this is as real as it’s going to get! Then, along comes the afakasi yardcore trio jacked johnson with their fourth album the gas that leaves me a bit torn. However, when I’m the guy that pretty much reviews anything that comes my way (and I mean ANYTHING), I must oblige. 

This album is a hodgepodge jumble of sounds and wording. Lead vocalist Val Brown rambles wicked, darkhold spells, while slide guitarist/drummer Andrew Maguire and bassist John Hoang churn a punk-y crunch with plenty of experimental alt-rock to boot. When it comes to a full atmosphere, the style changes like mood rings. Each track can’t stick to one manner for one straight minute, which is good because most of the songs stay under the three minute mark. These quick bite-size morsels sound corrupted and damaged, like half-cooked voice memos taken from found Marble Hornets footage. Tracks like “Goverment Soccer Motel St St Room 1” rise strong and proud, with backing saxophone drones and an eerie, almost-galactic wee-woo reverb. All of the sudden, the violent assault from the echo machine delay attacks with no warning…and now my headphones are across the room. Keeping us on our toes, I see. 

When it comes to Brown’s lyrical ciphering, it’s broadly subconscious in many ways. At the height of the surrealist art movement of the 1920s, a type of poetry exercise helped Dada artists get the “juices flowing.” The exercise involved slicing up newspaper articles with a butcher knife and gluing the striped segments together, to form a free-flowing combination of nonsensical psyche. That’s how I feel when diving into Brown’s strung-out lyrics. Take passages from “PIPING MOON,” when the unconventional layout of cohesive wordsmith-ery is thrown out the window. “Piping moon gallop to the fireslide / Data crush in greedyence addendum modified / Plant the flag thru the lifeguard’s sternum / (Do you) need anything from the convenience store?” Their balladry of both daydream and shitpost emulates a broader idea…what the idea is, I’m not quite sure.

In turn, I’m at odds with this album. There’s a part of me that loves the audible onslaught that rings through all five of your senses—something that could be on display at Utah’s Museum of Contemporary Arts. It’s a means for the band to be as loud and unapologetic as needed to reboot  the bare bleached bones of what music is. However, there’s a niche vulture-pecking that makes it less enjoyable to listen. Maybe it’s how the music feels offbeat with the lyrics, or the reverb mixing that’s definitely taken advantage of. Whatever it may be, brutally abstract as music can get, I kind of want a copy of the gas to keep as a reminiscence of humanity. Because no matter how high tech or cultured we think we can get, we’re still neanderthals dazzled by cave shadows and smacking bones. —Alton Barnhart

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