No black men in black shades. No vibrato divas spreading syrup between the sheets. No luscious string sections, pitch-perfect harmonies, or funky drummer backbeat. Defined as much by what they aren't as what they are, John Wilkes Booze want you to understand that although modern soul is choked by formula, the real stuff is far more dangerous, intangible and important.
Pieced together from five first-take EPs released in 2002, Five Pillars of Soul canonizes five seemingly disparate icons-- Melvin Van Peebles, Patti Hearst, Albert Ayler, Marc Bolan, and Yoko Ono-- who addled the status-quo with their singular vision and fuck-the-bullshit tenacity. "They have become a shining example for finding soul in ourselves by inspiring up to go beyond the limited mind, beyond fear and anger, to the core of what is true," reads the introduction to the liner notes. You never figured six jittery acolytes from the Hoosier state could get so archly metaphysical, but that's one of the unlikely, ingenious aspects of this album. Five Pillars forces a reconsideration of soul-- in music, in spirit, in art-- as a strong-willed DIY ethos and singularity of purpose. In the skewed rock-as-art world of John Wilkes Booze, grandfather soul is not unlike his agitated, aggressive nephew, punk, ignoring convention and plowing headfirst into self-expression.
Skeptical? I don't blame you. But check out the 12 pages of liner notes-- these guys are serious. Because the chaotic musical thread doesn't overtly tie it all together neatly, they give a detailed, articulate dissertation on the mark the five left on America's cultural fabric. The more you read the more the concept gels. But listening to the album I'm still shaking my head: The sound doesn't necessarily speak directly to the thesis. All five pillars were revolutionary in some sense, and musically, it almost makes sense. But ultimately, John Wilkes Booze are a full-bore garage band caricature, which is good and bad. There's sweat and lust and ingenuity here, but it's nearly dwarfed by the concept itself.
Still, I can't help but dig it. Rock and roll rarely educates, and JWB's devotion to history occasionally surfaces in some clever ways. Seth Mahern's falsetto is itself a lesson, a helium-sucking Ray Davies cartoon, and it leads the band into unlikely hip-thrust territory despite its completely asexual ring. He squeaks out the requisite grunts and groans on the nearly-funky opener "Sweetback's Gonna Make It", while the gurgling organ that drives "See Through Sound" is all jagged vanilla Sly. These two odes to van Peebles come closest to straight-up soul, but also lean towards The Nation of Ulysses' rhythmic noise barrage.
Bolan is hardly the top of anyone's list of soul pioneers, but the psychedelic meandering on the vaguely medieval "Butcher's Tale", the piano-driven chant of "Academy Flight Song", and country blues of "Marc Bolan Makes Me Want to Fuck" adds interesting, unpredictable shades. Ayler makes a brief appearance on "They Don't Like Me in this Town", his sampled snippet leading into Eric Weddle's skronk sax before ripping into the chorus that sums up the album's overall theme: "They don't like me in this town/ 'Cause I've got that outside sound." The band's sense of humor shows up in the congruity of the title "Meanwhile, At the Hideout" and the song's content. It's an acoustic guitar and tambourine sing-along of the Symbionese Liberation Army motto ("Death to the fascist insects/ That prey on the lives of the people"), and recalls both Patti Hearst's schizoid radicalism and John and Yoko's "Happy Christmas (War is Over)".
No surprise the band was originally named John Wilkes Booze Explosion-- the pattern for this kind of post-rock black music tribute was first drawn by Jon Spencer ten years back. That doesn't lessen the album's impact, though: Not many records inspire such profound analysis. Five Pillars seems simultaneously random and pointed, visceral and intellectual, absurd and sensible. Like School House Rock reborn through blood, guts and sweat.
