Jason & The Scorchers - Lost & Found

Label: EMI America

Released: 1985

I first heard Jason & The Scorchers doing White Lies on the radio when I was living in Boston, Mass. in 1985. When the boys came to town, I went to see them at The Paradise, a club on Commonwealth Ave. and they blew the doors out--they put on an absolutely fantastic show. Just bass, drums and guitar but with a sound as big and brash as the Duke Ellington Orchestra gone country trash punk on crack. The next day, I went out and got this LP and played it to death

Lost & Found takes off like an F-16 with the country-thrash/cow- punk "Last Time Around", and it doesn't slow down for at least seven incendiary tracks. Then comes the anthemic trashabilly-rock instant classic "White Lies", a bit of hyper punk/ rockabilly with "If Money Talks", a punk neo-bluegrass with "Blanket Of Sorrow", garage/folk-rock/acid-rock in "Shop It Around" and a ferocious honky-tonk with "Lost Highway".

The blazing pace and high-voltage drop a little on the the last four tracks, although "Broken Whiskey Glass" and "Change The Tune" are fine songs.

Jason & The Scorchers did to country what Jerry Lee Lewis did to Gospel: poured a load of bathtub crank and bourbon down its throat, strapped it onto a Vincent Black Shadow and took it for one hell of a ride.

Rolling Stone (issue 445) had this to say at the time:

'Lost & Found' is a relentless rock & roll record that's hypercharged with high spirits, if fraught with flaws of overeagerness. The album is unbalanced, with all of the faster songs on one side, and the band sacrifices finesse and detail for reckless thrills. But if Jason and the Scorchers occasionally lose control of the wheel, that's part of the point: Lost & Found is a joy ride that'll leave you hooked on speed.

With a whipcrack drumbeat, Jason and pals dive in feet first with "Last Time Around," playing as if on this, their first full album, they were making their last stand. Guitarist Warner Hodges is the firebrand behind Lost & Found's ferocious drive, performing punk-tempo variations on a whole catalog of Chuck Berry licks. Certain riffs are by now old enough to collect Medicare, but Hodges plays powerfully, and remember, this is a party, not a study hall. If side one of Lost & Found – six smokers, served right down the middle of the plate – doesn't drive you into a honky-tonk frenzy, then you ought to trade in your rock & roll shoes for a pair of loafers.

Like Hodges, singer Jason Ringenberg has limitations that he turns to his advantage. His Southern-fried yelping in "Lost Highway" is an unbridled delight. He sings the penitent words without a shred of remorse – "I'm a rolling stone/All alone and lost/For this life of sin/I have paid the cost" – making sin sound like salvation, profligacy like the only road out of an even more accursed life of boredom. And the band bashes on: Hodges raising great balls of hellfire on the guitar, bassist Jeff Johnson pumping eighth notes till you can feel the calluses, and drummer Perry Baggs banging away with muscular, unrestrained zeal.

Then the Scorchers slow it down for a triad of more reflective numbers. "Still Tied" is an unnerving ballad about a black man for whom the South hasn't changed all that much. "Broken Whiskey Glass," from their first EP, reappears here in a novel arrangement that goes from pensive to rollicking. "Far Behind" is tinted blue with Kenny Lovelace's country fiddle, a nod to their purist C&W roots. Finally, the band calls out to "Change the Tune," contrasting a tough rock guitar with the dulcet tones of a mandolin – and, incidentally, making the point that musical labels don't matter here.

Lost & Found rediscovers the wild, frolicsome feeling that comes when a band of soulful roadhouse roustabouts like Jason and the Scorchers follow their hearts, their instincts and their wandering feet. - RS #445

Tracklist:

A1 Last Time Around 3:07

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg* , J. Johnson* , P. Baggs* , W. Hodges*

A2 White Lies 3:23

  Written-By - Napier , P. Baggs*

A3 If Money Talks 2:36

  Written-By - Napier , P. Baggs*

A4 I Really Don't Want To Know 4:32

  Written-By - D. Robertson* , H. Barnes*

A5 Blanket Of Sorrow 2:21

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg*

A6 Shop It Around 3:00

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg*

B1 Lost Highway 2:02

  Written-By - L. Payne*

B2 Still Tied 3:23

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg*

B3 Broken Whiskey Glass 3:51

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg*

B4 Far Behind 3:53

  Written-By - J. Johnson* , P. Baggs*

B5 Change The Tune 2:41

  Written-By - J. Ringenberg* , J. Johnson* 

Bass - Jeff Johnson Drums - Perry Baggs Guitar [Lead] - Warner Hodges Guitar, Vocals - Jason Ringenberg Producer - Terry Manning