When you read through the annals of music history, it is never the big success stories and multi-platinum-selling bands, the artists that make enough money to own small outer planets or seem so above the rules that parking limousines in swimming pools becomes de rigueur – that leave lingering legends and scintillating stories. No, for me, it is never the tales of success that are the most interesting to read, but those bands who can be placed in the triumph over adversity section, particularly if that triumph isn’t, in the grand scheme of things, particularly, well, triumphant. So what follows is, perhaps, another fine myth!
I’m not being rude when I tell you that Judex deserves to be at least a footnote in musical history; they are one of those great lost bands (although, to be fair, their story is anything but over), living legends, an idea so great it couldn’t be contained, let alone appreciated at the time. Like many bands who reverberate so hard with creative greatness, collateral damage is a constant consequence, as if the power and potential of the music they made were impossible to contain in mere form; that, in the words of W. B. Yeats “the center cannot hold” in the face of such sonics.
But if the story is over, at least they have left us the music, and for those of you who have not been following their tale of wonderment and woe, of music more than the sum of its human parts, of a force too great to cage, and there will, sadly, be many, Mondo Judex, a seductive and saucy sampler album made up of new remixes of their classic cuts, is the place for you to start.
Opening salvo, ‘Be Mine,’ lays down the gauntlet, a challenge to the listener to keep up with their amphetamine-fuelled pace, their gratuitous garage rock groove, their mutant rockabilly rebellion, their punk energy, and Will Byron’s alien Elvis vocals. It’s the sound of a band whose name, had they existed in an earlier epoch, would now be interchangeable with such icons as The Stooges, The MC5, The Gun Club, and Rocket From The Crypt.
So, reference points clarified, sonic stall laid out, were going in…
‘Sweet Hatchback’ is less a parody of the 60s pop ballad, and more what happens when the band takes that musical style and drags it kicking and screaming into their own world of sassy sax, courtesy of Antoine Fossey, and rock-and-roll romance, swooning swathes of Hammond, and their ever-present raw guitars. ‘Voodoo Macbeth’ is a killer, especially if you are a fan of kick-arse rock and roll in the vein of the Motörhead & Girlschool collab ‘Please Don’t Touch.’
‘Long Cold Train’ is what might have happened if Johnny Cash had taken his formative sonic steps in 60s Detroit and ‘Cult of Judex’ is the perfect, squalling, fist-in-the-air, heads-down, no-nonsense boogie call to arms, the soundtrack to the sonic world domination that they certainly deserved but, at the time of writing, at least, hasn’t yet happened.
We round off with ‘Little Iodine, ‘ which sits somewhere between chamber pop ballad and hard rock musical theatre, Byron’s usual sonic vocal attack harmonizing heavenly with Screens 4 Eyes vocalist Yael Brener.
For those of us who have been charting the band’s progress, this is a reminder of what we have lost. For those new to their world, this is what you missed. And for those who like what they hear, the next step is obvious – buy their records, share their songs, spread the word, raise their profile, all of which might, just might, ingratiate Judex with the Gods of Rock and Roll, who in turn may, for their own amusement, and to our great delight, facilitate their return to the sonic fray. Hey, stranger things have happened. (Nicki Minaj having a career in music, for one.)
