Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is the Misfits who, if not make the world go round, then at least interesting enough to stay and watch the merry-go-round in which they take centre stage, add depth and colour to our lives, and can spark the revolution enough to change people’s minds on how they carry themselves in life, even in the face of straightlaced and conformist opposition.
The Misfits, the rebels, the eccentrics, the radicals who play the maverick card in art, never truly get the praise they deserve until it’s too late, not for them the throwing of a celebration, no festivity of joy unless it is part of a larger festival, a combined effort in which to give thanks to the influence they have offered.
What is required is the banishing of the strait-laced weight of power to which the bland and dull suggest that someone must conform, must obey their line of truth and instead a Misfit’s Jubilee must be created to overthrow the tyranny of fundamentalist orthodoxy, of sweeping away the lack of progressive reform to which can bring beauty to the mind across all humanity.
Such a celebration of the pleasure and character-filled is to be found being arranged through Jim White’s latest recording, Misfit’s Jubilee, and in that deep consideration of musical storytelling to which Jim White excels, the sense of context is that of the finest narrative that comes from developing an epic novel, one of full characterisation, of intriguing plot and often the panache of misdirection.
From the initial opener of Monkey In A Silo and through tracks such as Sum Of What We’ve Been, Smart Ass Reply, Highway of Lost Hats, My Life’s A Stolen Picture and the apt finale of The Divided States Of America, Jim White’s Misfit’s Jubilee captures the extremes of life that sadly others shy from, songs and characters who stand out because they have abandoned the pull of the dull and straight line, and who find that sometimes life outside of the margins is as free as can be imagined in a world run by those espousing freedom in a bubble. There are of course consequences for the personalities of these tales, but they have perhaps lived more than we will ever do.
A tremendous album by Jim White, especially considering just how long some of these songs have been on the outside themselves, not picked up by the suits, refused to be acknowledged by the grey and banal. Misfit’s Jubilee is full of charisma and the enigmatic, not least the author of this misfit band, Jim White.
Ian D. Hall