‘When I’m rushing on my run/And I feel just like Jesus’ son/And I guess I just don’t know/And I guess that I just don’t know’… The band Jesus Sons were playing at Permanent Records in Eagle Rock to celebrate the release of their clear vinyl LP, and their band name had to be a reference to Lou Reed right? It didn’t hit me before they played their third song (‘I wanna be your man’) because it totally sounded like something from the VU. But the quintet was actually very good, and everyone in the store seemed to greatly enjoy their music, part 60s-inspired, part Americana, anchored in a bluesy psychedelia. Some parts did lead to a sort of euphoria on my side, a euphoria however triggered by a rare coolness and I must say that I was totally digging their sound. I couldn’t help myself and winked at the Nico and Warhol posters taped on the walls of the store, however, not all their songs sounded like this one, they had a diverse, dense and wild sonic world and honestly, everything sounded fantastic! Hey what’s not to like when the harmonies are this good and the guitars this layered?
These guys are a bit mysterious, you will not find much about them, a Facebook page founded late 2012 and barely anything else (beside a few videos), but they are part of this recent exodus of these San Francisco bands coming to Los Angeles. Just last year, Brandon Wurtz, Shannon Dean, Bert Hoover, Chance Welton, and Erik Lake of Jesus Sons left fog city for angels’ city (just like Ty Segall, John Dwyer of The Oh Sees and several others) and I won’t certainly complain! If this trend continues, we will soon have the best music pool in the world, if it is not already the case! Three members of Jesus Sons are actually from Idaho, but this is beside the point now that they live in LA.
From what I can remember of their songs, they had this sort of foot stomping strangeness, a rampant guitar psychedelia, a jolting and roaring melody, some weird slow downs, extended jams, a good old time druggy-bluesy feel, a few howls, some tambourines, and a let-off-steam tempo… But I think I should let you know that these garage rockers had already sold out their limited edition vinyl before the record was officially released – Permanent Records fortunately still had a few copies – and this is another proof that people are still buying records when they are this good and when they give you the feeling of riding an old classic motorcycle along the 60s highways. Of course if ‘Jesus Sons’ is directly taken from the Lou Reed song –and not an indication that they love to wear their hair long or that they are some Christian rock band – they are wearing their influences on their moniker, but creating a instant classic sound is an art involving some savant blending and they seemed to have refined the delicate recipe, totally effortlessly.
