Last of the Juanitas - The Jay 7"
(Wantage USA)
The Last of the Juanitas follow up their excellent second album
Hawaii
with this 7" featuring one song from the archives and a Sun Ra cover.
This B-side is indicative of why Hawaii is such a great album; the band
is truly interested in challenging music and wants to challenge themselves
into making more intricate, involved riffs and songs.
But is this cover successful? "Well, ummmm, errr..." The Last of the
Juanitas choose "Blues on the Planet Mars" to cover, and while their
version does come off sufficiently jazzy, it is also somewhat drably
executed. That overabundance of energy they usually exhibit seems to be
lacking here. All their attention is on completing the experiment and
seeing how their pieces fit with this new style, and it ruins the
great chemistry that was all over their last album.
The A-Side, "The Jay," is quite similar to the music of Hawaii: tight,
heavy rock. The most interesting part of this song is when, midway,
the band members start chanting gibberish (un-miked), seemingly yelling
out incantations, summoning evil spirits. The song is more enjoyable
than the B-side, but seems to be of less quality than their full lengths.
All in all, you can still make it into the Last of the Juanitas fan club
if you pass over this single. While it is, in some regards, another testament
to how good Last of the Juanitas are and can become; it also isn't the
greatest pair of songs they've recorded. It's main purpose seems to be
so that, in casual conversation, you can say, "They even covered Sun Ra on a
7"."
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