Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Jiggley Jones – Not Your Typical Day Out




Jiggley Jones – Not our Typical day Out


Warren Zevon was probably the most misunderstood songwriter of his time. Too grizzly and vulgar for the Top 40 crowd, far too indulgent for the punks and too unkempt and experimental for the folk scene, Zevon has spent a great deal of his career revered by the intellectual music “weirdos” and dismissed by a lot of mainstream critics during his prime and later audiences as a one hit wonder. But Zevon’s dare to be different was ironically the most academically “folk” thing about him, apart from his use of lyric-driven songs to create the macabre moods he became so legendary for.

In his tradition (but perhaps sans the devilishness), emerges Pennsylvania’s Jiggley Jones and his debut LP Not Your Typical Day Out, which is available now for streaming online. If you haven’t heard of Jiggley Jones, then you haven’t been following the indie music scene on the east coast lately. JJ, as a lot of his fans call him for short, has been building up quite the reputation with his live stage presence in the last decade, on the heels of a pair of extended plays and a couple of singles that exploded onto the indie charts in 2012 and 2014. Just in the past five years he has been nominated for a litany of prizes at the Artist Music Guild Heritage Awards, Independent Country Music Association Awards and the International Music and Entertainment Awards, winning “Songwriter of the Year” in 2013 following his debut EP No Spring Chicken. While all of his work leading up to this brilliant culmination in his sound has been quite stimulating and made for fun listens, personally I think that Jiggley Jones takes it to the next level on Not Your Typical Day Out.

My favorite part of Not Your Typical Day Out was probably its total lack of complacency, which is a big hazard I feel like we as music fans run into on a lot of newer, hipster-influenced singer/songwriter albums. JJ never comes off like a smug, holier than though artist whose judgmental leer burns even coming through headphones; instead, throughout every bright shining light and down in the dark dirge on Not Your Typical Day Out feels like an intimate fireside performance shared by a vintage troubadour sitting right by your side. The strain in his voice tells you that he’s got a lot of miles under his belt, and the longing of his guitar speaks to that universal thirst for life that exists in all of us regardless of age, race or gender. This vastly powerful appeal makes Jones’ rookie LP incredibly reachable to new fans while also satisfying and exciting longtime supporters with this new sampler of Jones’ future direction. Whether you’re new to his sound or have been following him since day one, Not Your Typical Day Out is a mandatory buy for diehard Americana and singer/songwriter enthusiasts, who haven’t had an ambitious record to get excited about in a long time. Check out Jones’ upcoming tour schedule and additional multimedia content at his official website and Facebook page.


Jennifer Hertzler

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