Timing, eh? What a bastard it is. LA hopefuls Jones Street know a thing or two about it, that’s for sure. Recorded at various times and places in the early nineties, Out of The Gutter is the sound – and a pretty glorious sound it is too, let’s be honest – of a band missing the last train out of glamtown, with all the thoughts fear and downright loathing such a poor piece of – you guessed it -timing might engender.

The dread-eyed, junk-fuelled grip of grunge was tightening around the neck of the music industry when Jones Street were strutting their stuff on the strip, and for every coke-addled A&R rep who saw dollar signs glittering through the murk of has been clubs like Gazzarri’s in the band’s sing-it-shout-it bravado, a dozen more up the food chain, clearer headed and doubly focused on the main chance new the game was up for pretty boy chancers like singer Shawn Crosby and his band of shag-permed brothers.

This is a tragedy of course, and one that it’s possible to put down entirely to the exigencies of the music industry and that damn word timing; Had Out of The Gutter been hatched in the middle of 1988, for instance, you might never have heard of Skid Row, such is the utter brilliance of gutter rock anthems like Razor To My Wrist, a song that both LA Guns and Love/Hate would have killed for a piece of. And we haven’t even begun to ponder on the band’s skill and dexterity with a ballad; Thieves of Love, for instance,  comes to the ears sounding as fresh in 2022 as it did to those in the know in 1994, sounding for all the years like something straight outta the Jani Lane playbook – which, as you know, is one of the greatest hair meal playbooks of all…

And maybe that’s the problem, then and now – everything here is great, but everything sounds like somebody else. Personality was not one of this band’s great strengths, and though Crosby was a fine vocalist, he just doesn’t have that point of difference that may have pushed the band forward as real contenders in a heavily saturated – sinking, actually – market. Still, as a time capsule this is way cool, and something Crosby, guitarists Jonny Jones and Mickey Perez, bassist John (J.J.) Jauregui and drummers Rob Hanna and Anthony Focx (yes! that Anthony Focx!) can justifiably be proud of look back at what were clearly halcyon times. If you love this music as much as I do, and are looking for something ‘new’ beyond the constant rejigging of combinations of superannuated rockers by label like Frontiers, then I strongly recommend you shell out for Out of The Gutter. You won’t be disappointed.


Out of the Gutter Releases on June 3rd. Get yer cowboy boots ready…