Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons – Mouthful of Copper

Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons met and formed as a band in Salt Lake City in 1996, but hail these days from Portland, OR. The band has managed to build an incredibly devout and fairly strong cult following over the last ten years, while utterly escaping mainstream attention. Mouthful of Copper is the band’s 6th release to date, with another studio album coming in January.

Jerry Joseph—a balding, middle-aged white man that plays his guitar from a stool—is best described as unafraid. He’s unafraid to sloppy-up his pickin’ rhythm in the middle of a verse. He’s unafraid to sing out of key. He’s unafraid to let loose and just rock out. He is unafraid to tread water in the shadow of people like Joe Strummer, Warren Zevon, Jeff Buckley and Bob Dylan; yet at the same time break ground for bands like Widespread Panic.

In Joseph’s songs, he finds a rare balance with beautiful and dark imagery, soulful truth, and light-heartedness. “Hey Mancha” is a good example of this:

I’m scared of boxes/ I’m scared of holes/ I’m scared of dyin’ just to prove I got a soul/ Hey Mancha, protect me from the dogs…I’m scared of darkness/ I’m scared of light/ I’m scared of hippies telling me that it’s alright/ Hey Mancha, protect me from the dogs.

Seemingly without effort, Joseph performs the tricky feat of writing songs that are intensely personal (sometimes murkily so), yet unfold with a universal passion. He has the ability to goad understanding from his listeners through sheer intensity of emotion, rawness of expression, and a winning modesty (from “Chrome Koran”):

I can’t fu** it, I won’t buy it/ You want the truth you gotta’ step outside…For all my posturing/ My abstinence and pride…It’s hard to trust me/ With my di** in my hand/ Sex shop Bible and a chrome Koran

Throughout Mouthful of Copper, Joseph yanks an impressive diversity of noise from his guitar. He reaches back to his Little Women (a reggae/rock band fronted by Joseph in the 80’s) days, with dainty and playful reggae-esque fills and rhythms as easily as he pulls forth screaming, fire-breathing, sex-starved beasts of solos (see “Climb to Safety,” “She’s Going Out,” or “Thistle”).

Plus he does everything in between. Sometimes he just cranks up the distortion and beats unthinkingly at his guitar. Through it all, Junior Ruppel (on bass & backing vocals) and Brad Rosen (drums) back Joseph up with solid musicianship. While both are clearly accomplished musicians, neither makes it a point to show off. Both seem content to merely sit back, read Jerry’s mind, and accommodate his wild improvisation with rock-steady rhythm. This is not to say that they simply take a backseat and let Jerry do all the drivin’. On several tunes, it is Ruppel and his bass which actually push the melody along (“Hey Mancha” and “Tanker”).

By far the most impressive piece of this album is Joseph’s improvisation. The man can play a solo like few others. In fact, his rhythm guitar lines are constantly changing and evolving throughout a song, and it seems as though sometimes he pulls his words out of thin air. Unfortunately, this blessing is the trio’s downfall too. It also seems at times that Joseph wanders away from his band-mates, but they are always quick to get back on the same page. Whatever weaknesses this band falls prey to, they make up for it with pure, contagious passion.

At the end of the day it comes down to this: Mouthful of Copper is an aptly-named album. The two-disc set (recorded live in Butte, Montana) is nothing much to look at; the artwork is simple, it contains no bonus DVD features, and the liner notes are sparse. Acoustically, it is like a pile of slobbery ore—glistening with high-end twang, heavy and dark with clean bass tones, breaking apart at the seams with crackly snare and a gravelly, distorted-guitar midrange.

Jerry himself always sounds a bit like the Boss on “No Surrender,” with about three-quarters the harmonic range. But once you take that ugly exterior, grind it up, leech it, smelt it and process it, you’re left with something shiny and valuable. Semi-precious, even. I give it four enthusiastic stars out of five, but if you’re either a hater of live music or an excessively happy person, Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons might not be for you. Check http://www.jerryjoseph.com/tourdates for tour info.