Jackie O Motherfucker :: Give Me Shelter
Following up on the debut release of the band’s 2023 album “Manual Of The Bayonet” on Feeding Tube Records, the long-running Lost Coast-based outfit Jackie O Motherfucker, led by multi-instrumentalist and veteran artist Tom Greenwood, the cosmic collective’s frontman, and most constant member, returns to the legendary label with “Give Me Shelter,” a cultural continuation of select dates from the group’s archival trove of meditiatve material recorded between 1999-2001. While simultaneously coexisting in the cultural haze of the Y2K bug scare, the controversial 2000 U.S. presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and the unparalleled tragedies of the September 11th attacks in 2001, the band eagerly navigated the shifting times during a legendary West Coast tour where the captivating collective recorded several sonic spells in concert as well as at the Blue House (Michigan Ave. Social Club) in North Portland, Oregon, followed by a few studio sessions somewhere in the middle of the melodic madness. The band’s prolificacy is concrete, compelling, and undeniably unique as they occupied an era that also birthed the crimson culture of Six Organs of Admittance, No-Neck Blues Band, Sunburned Hand Of The Man, Bardo Pond, James Toth and Wooden Wand, and several others through the early to mid 1990s, and into the new millennium of melodic mania. While exploring the radical response to reality’s rudimentary grip on society’s suffering system, the group poetically punches through the murmuring membrane by effortlessly expressing an electrifying effort that continues to radiate nearly three decades later in all the creative chaos and melodic magic of the world.
Carefully captured between some of the band’s most compelling early entries like “WOW” (1999), ”Fig.5” (2000), “The Magick Fire Music” (2001), and “Liberation” (2001), Jackie O Motherfucker wholesomely wields the static spirituality of tonal texture and existential expression by quickly casting their feverish findings directly into the senses with powerful prowess, and intense intelligence. Consisting of three tracks pulled from two live shows and one studio session outtake from the immaculate “Change” LP, “Give Me Shelter” blends the ruthless freedom that the band is so well known for with the alchemical adventures of a bright light abduction from the depths of the 1960s hippie fallout. From the burning zeitgeist of the psychedelic rock movement, where a never-ending nuclear reaction to the chemical culture of spiritual substance, and sonic studies break the mind in one quick flex, Jackie O Motherfucker levels the playing field with the radical response of a Rolling Stones ritual, but with the feverish finish of the Kevin Ayers era Soft Machine trapped in a tonal turbine of terror. The album’s archival atmosphere is both academic and otherworldly as the cosmic collective stretches its wings, casting a sophisticated shadow over its listeners who brave the sonic storm that crashes against the rumbling rocks found below the mountains of madness.
