Credit: Anne Day

Jon Spencer takes to the stage at Dingwalls with his new venture Heavy Trash.  A tremor of excitement runs through the crowd. It’s a rare hot night in the city  and we all want to be outside, somewhere, doing something involving lots of alcohol.

Here, a four piece, with a stand up bass courtesy of the stylish Kim Kix a rockabilly drummer Yebo the gorgeously named Matt Verta Ray from Speedball Baby and wow, if a band is gonna look  this good they had better deliver.

In a (sadly) not sold out show, the benefits of being able to get up close and sweaty enabled the audience to truly participate in the darkest, twisted rockabilly to come our way in a long while.  Songs of sex, murder and downright dirty dealings combined with the heat and sweat of an intimate Dingwalls set had smiles on everyone’s faces.

Jon has always had the ability to strip rock and roll to it’s glistening bare bones, and having thrilled us with his Blues Explosion, and scared us with Pussy Galore, it seems a natural progression to embrace the sleazy side of rockabilly.  Armed with at least a couple of Elvis’ genes ( this reporter virtually swooning when a sweat drenched Spencer joined the audience and gathered a rapturous seated audience for a tender, murderous ballad.  All that was missing was the black leather).

This is obviously a new direction that is giving Jon a lot of fun.  Directly the band left the stage after a rapturous encore, he was to be found, guitar still strung around his body, sweat pouring and drenching his (oh so cool suit), chatting, smiling, having fun at the bar. 

Just what rock and roll should be all about.