At the dawn of the 21st century
From a region known as the Great Lakes, a young songwriter finds a six-string guitar a useful instrument to help him make sense of the complexities of the universe. His name was Chance Jones. In his travels he would meet a group of bandits who had recently lassoed and wild mare. With American soil stuck under her hooves the group would follow her lead through the monsoons of technology and the floods of knowledge.
Chance Jones — The Incident at Primrose and West
Friction Records
Nov. 27, 2009
The best records always sound as familiar as they do original. Take, for example, The Incident at Primrose and West, the Friction Records, long-playing debut by Chance Jones.
Rooted firmly in the popular music of the 1960s and‘70s, yet fully informed by the 21st century, The Incident plays on listener nostalgia, while cutting to the quick with a fine-edged wit, barbed hooks and playful self-reference.
“I wanted to make a record that sounded like it came out of an era that we are all familiar with, but still never really existed,” said front man and song writer Josh Burge.
From the primal doo-wop of “Nobody’s Baby” and sticky swagger of “My Machine” to the playful simplicity of “Back Home” and barroom croon of “The One that Got Away” and “Hoping You’d Be Here,” Burge and his band mates breathe fresh life into the sounds of when the LP was king, invoking the varied, song-driven albums of greats like Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits with a knowing undercurrent of the catalogues at R&B giants Stax and Motown records. (It’s not by accident that the record is available on vinyl as well as CD.)
It’s a pleasant first listen following the richly simple arrangements; the players are skilled, and the tunes are all memorable. But several spins in, new melodies, phrases and connections are revealed, as The Incident proves itself to be more than a hodgepodge of downloadable singles; it’s a true rock ‘n’ roll album, willed into being to make you search your soul and shake your ass, and not necessarily in that order.
That’s not to say the songs don’t stand on their own. Each has a hook, and it’s seldom the obvious one. More times than not, it’s a bridge or some fleeting sweet spot, like when, a minute and 20 seconds into “Sunshine and Glory,” Burge ditches the short-syllable delivery of the verse and chorus and wails, “I’ve wasted tiiiiiiime,” the band kicking down to a slow dance behind him.
Lyrically, the album digs deep into being human. Loss, regret, disenchantment, self-effacement permeate the album, but they never drag it down. As Burge sings in the closing refrain, “Not even the winter can keep me from dreaming.”
It’s rare for a young rock band to look you in the eye these days, equally free from the faux modesty of life after indie rock or the kind of contrived confidence that comes with too much hero worship.
But Burge and his band mates — Jarrod Napierkowski (keyboards), Trevor Goldner (drums), Justin Golinski (guitar, vocals), Melissa Gleason (vocals, tambourine), Jeremy Pyne (bass) and Michael Saunders (organ), take joy in looking listeners square in the face and laying it all out night after night.
Burge, 29, got his first guitar as a gift about a dozen years ago, and began performing and writing immediately. “I played on street corners and in front of honky-tonks,” he recalled. “Before long, the saloons had invited me inside to play, which was difficult, because I was young, and the crowds were generally drunk and rough.”
To cut through all the noise, Burge developed a hard strumming, loud singing-shouting style. “I've never been thrown off by hecklers since then,” he said.”
In college, he took the stage name Chance Jones for a regular gig at a popular coffee house, where he began honing his lyric-centered style. “The crowds were always respectful and attentive, which made me feel I should probably be singing something worth while,” he said.
At the turn of the millenium, Burge traveled to New York City, where his early influences of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash collided with the anti-folk sentiments of artists like Lach, Adam Green and Kimya Dawson. “After that, everything opened up, and I didn’t feel bound by anything but my own taste and imagination,” Burge said.
He spent the next five years playing open mics from New York to the Midwest and back. Settling back in Grand Rapids in 2005, Burge started playing regularly at a local art space and began writing and recording material for his first proper albums, admittedly lo-fi affairs documented by a cheap microphone plugged straight into a computer. Despite the recordings’ limitations, local music critics started to take note.
When a bar offered Burge a show on the condition that he had a band, he put one together. Chance Jones the band was born, and soon they were playing out as often as possible.
By 2007, the band was on a roll. Staking its claim as one of the region’s most exciting acts, Chance Jones was asked to open for, and back, low-fi legend Daniel Johnston during a performance in Grand Rapids.
In 2009, with Burge and Goldner at the boards, the band spent two months tracking what would become The Incident at Primrose and West. After an attempt at tracking each member separately proved lacking, Burge borrowed a page from legendary record producer Jerry Wexler (Stax, Atlantic) and had the band record each song live in its practice space, then overdub each part separately, producing the record’s the up-tempo energy of a live performance, with the clean, polished sound of a studio recording.
With the completion and release of The Incident at Primrose and West the band plans to extend its relentless live schedule to include more of the United States, creating new converts in their native Midwest and beyond.
- Eric Gallipo
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