name	The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
background	group_or_band
alias	The Blues ExplosionJSBX
origin	New York City
genre	Alternative rock, punk blues, rock and roll, garage rock, punk rock, blues rock
years active	1991–present
label	Shout! Factory Shove! Records In The Red Records Matador Mute Records Sanctuary JVC/Victor Toy's Factory Ultrapop Rock Records and Tapes Au Go Go Records Everlasting K Records Rebel Beat Factory Crypt Clawfist Hut 1+2 Public Pop Can
associated acts	Boss Hog Heavy Trash Solex vs Cristina Martinez + Jon SpencerMen Without Pants Spencer Dickinson Russell SiminsButter 08CruntCrowbar MassageWorkdogsGibson Bros.Honeymoon KillersPussy GaloreShithaus
website	thejonspencerbluesexplosion.com
current members	Jon SpencerJudah BauerRussell Simins
past members	}}

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion are an American alternative rock trio, formed in 1991 and based out of New York City, New York. The band consists of Judah Bauer on guitar, backing vocals, harmonica and occasional lead vocals, Russell Simins on drums and Jon Spencer on vocals, guitar and theremin. Their musical style is largely rooted in Rock and roll although it draws influences from punk, blues, garage, rockabilly, soul, noise rock, rhythm and blues and rap. They have released seven official studio albums, collaborative records with Dub Narcotic Sound System and R.L. Burnside as well as numerous singles, out-take albums, compilations, remix albums and, in 2010, a series of expanded reissues.

Throughout the course of their career this experimental sound and occasionally unconventional recording techniques has allowed the band to work with a number of diverse artists including Andre Williams, Dr. John, Alec Empire, Elliott Smith, Beck, Solomon Burke, Rufus Thomas, DJ Shadow, Steve Albini, Rob K, James Chance, UNKLE, Chuck D, Money Mark, Calvin Johnson, Dan The Automator, Othar Turner, Jill Cunniff, Jim Dickinson, Luther Dickinson, Cody Dickinson, Bernie Worrell, Willie Weeks, David Holmes, Steve Jordan, Martina Topley-Bird and Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys.

The band was parodied by the Shirehorses, operating as the Frank Spencer Blues Explosion as well as referenced in the name of the band The John & Spencer Booze Explosion.

History

Originally from Hanover, New Hampshire, Jon Spencer attended Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where he was part of the noise rock band Shithaus before moving to Washington, D.C. where he fronted band Pussy Galore who would quickly relocate to New York. Spencer played and recorded with Gibson Bros., Boss Hog and Honeymoon Killers prior to the formation of the Blues Explosion.

Judah Bauer from Appleton, Wisconsin had been in an early line-up of The Spitters, and with Russell Simins, from Queens, New York, recorded as part of Crowbar Massage.

It was with Jerry Teel’s Honeymoon Killers that Bauer, Simins and Spencer would all perform and record and from which they would go on to form the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

"Russell and I would rehearse with Honeymoon Killers and the rehearsal would be over and Russell and I would keep playing, eventually inviting Simins' friend Bauer to join in."

The sound of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was informed by previous bands with influence taken from working with the Gibson Bros. which was already evident in the last Pussy Galore album. "That final Pussy Galore album exuded a very Gibson Brothers-bent version of what was to come with Spencer’s next, more successful venture the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion."

"...after five years of Pussy Galore I was able to connect to rock ’n’ roll in some way that I wasn’t able to before," he remembers those formative days. "I was pissed off about a lot of things…so much shitty rock ’n’ roll that angered me, and Pussy Galore was kicking against that. With the Blues Explosion, there was some of that, but now I was into celebrating it." - Jon Spencer

They were signed to the large independent label Matador Records between 1993 and 2002 in the US, Crypt Records between 1992 and 1994 in Germany and Mute Records between 1996 and 2005 in the UK although they have released material on a number of different labels including the 2010 reissues on Shout Factory in the US and Shove Records in the UK.

They are one of the select notable groups to cultivate a punk blues sound in the 1990s. Their sound became key in the emergence of later blues and punk inspired rock bands such as the Oblivians and, later in the decade, bands like The White Stripes, Soledad Brothers and The Immortal Lee County Killers.

A Reverse Willie Horton / Jon Spencer Blues Explosion / Crypt Style (91 - 92)

The band had been playing together for six months when they had their first recording session with Kramer at Noise NY, New York in July 1991 and recorded fourteen songs over a the course of three hours, "only doing second takes here and there, we didn't even go to the mixing board". This session was issued in its entirety as the first Jon Spencer Blues Explosion album, ''A Reverse Willie Horton''. This was an unofficial bootleg issued by Public Pop Can at some point between late 1991 and early 1992 in an edition of 500 or 1000 copies due to a possibility of two separate pressings. It has been suggested that the source of the bootleg was a dubbed copy of a cassette that Jon Spencer let some people copy during a tour with the Gibson Bros. in August 1991.

The front cover image is a negative of Clarence Thomas, his wife, and George Bush at Thomas' swearing in ceremony for the Supreme Court on 19 October 1991, with the title and artist written in a typewriter style font. The rear sleeve features hand-written titles and label information over the top of a photograph of a topless woman. Both front and rear artwork are pasted onto a plain black sleeve. The title refers to the convicted felon William R. Horton who was used extensively for political advertisements during the 1988 presidential campaign.

The second session was recorded by Steve Albini at the Waterfront, Hoboken, NJ in November/December 1991. Tracks from both the Kramer and Albini sessions were issued on the Caroline (US) / Hut (UK) release ''The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion'', Crypt Records as ''Crypt Style'', and an alternate version of ''Crypt Style'' by 1 + 2 Records (Japan) including "Colty" which was unavailable elsewhere until the 2010 Shout! Factory release of ''Year One'' which compiled every released track from both sessions with the exception of an alternate take of "Feeling of Love" (released on ''Dirty Shirt Rock N Roll: The First Ten Years'').

The band made a music video for the song "Rachel" directed by Jim Spring and Jens Jurgensen which was later issued by Matador Records on the 1997 ''Live Promo Video''.

The first Jon Spencer Blues Explosion album was the only one to be issued by Caroline Records.

"In 1992, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion inked a deal with Caroline Records and requested a very specific signing bonus-- the then-new 10xCD Jerry Lee Lewis box set. As band lore has it, Caroline never sprang for the set, and the Blues Explosion's tenure there was short-lived and acrimonious."

The first single release was "Shirt Jac" on In The Red Records (1992) also from the second recording session with Steve Albini. This was the first of the ''Explosion Juke Box Series'' singles inspired by "a similar series of Charlie Feathers released in the 70s" (the third single in the series, "Get With It", was actually an arrangement of a Feathers single from 1956).

The b-side "Latch On" is a Jon Spencer arrangement of a rockabilly song despite the fact that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recording has very little in common with the most well-known recordings of this track (released by Ron Hargrave and The Cochran Brothers). The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion version is more than likely a cover of the Cochran Brothers version of this song as both tracks feature the words "you are really gone" which do not appear in the lyrics sung by Ron Hargrave.

Extra Width / Mo' Width / Afro / The Word (93 - 94)

When the band signed with Matador Records they "asked for the 9xCD Stax-Volt Complete Singles 1959-1968...Matador made good with Stax, and the band enjoyed a decade-long partnership with the label".

In late 1992 Jon Spencer Blues Explosion embarked on a long tour in the US supporting the Jesus Lizard. Frank Kozik designed posters for shows at Emo's, Austin, Texas and Kennel Club, San Francisco.

Recording sessions for the ''Extra Width'', the second Jon Spencer Blues Explosion studio album, took place in Memphis at Doug Easleys studio on 23/24 November and 3 December 1992 during the Jesus Lizard tour. The album graphic design copies a package of panty hose purchased in Memphis, Tennessee. The original panty hose packaging can be seen in a band photo used on ''Mo' Width'' and the later reissues of ''Extra Width''.

It is said that during this time Jon Spencer's stage persona evolved and he established what is now synonymous with a Blues Explosion live performance.

"Jon had a breakthrough. It was time and art. He got better at it. The James Brown-style show was an old method, but Jon brought it to another level. Before that, it was punk - he was into it, but he was coy. he finally crossed over and became a full-fledged performer. He wanted to be watched."

"Spencer writhes about, possessed by Presley during the amazing "Vacuum of Loneliness" - his tortured soul dragged over shards o' glass for all to see. The wailin' theremin spits out sound and adds to the cathartic confusion. If this is real and not theatre, I'm disturbed."

Matador Records released the album in May 1993 and Crypt Records issued the record in Europe in June 1993. "Afro" was released as a 7" only single in the UK in June 1993 and had a music video directed by Tom Surgal. This was the only single to be released from the album and featured b-side "Relax-Her" which is labelled as "Incidental" on the test pressing and introduced as such on the recording.

On 11 September 1993 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion appeared at Blast First event The Lost Weekend at London Astoria 2 with The Afghan Whigs, God Machine and Hair & Skin Trading Company. The accompanying Lost Weekend compilation album was limited to 3000 copies and included the song "Afro". 2000 copies were given to attendies of the two-day event and the remaining 1000 were sold via (now defunct) UK music weekly ''Melody Maker'' for £1.50 each.

Their first TV appearance was on Channel 4 UK TV show ''The Word'' (Season 4, Episode 12) in February 1994, performing "Afro" and "History of Sex". Afterwards presenter Marc Lamarr said "they're the best live band I've ever seen."

Also in early 1994 In The Red Records released "Train #3" and "Train #1" as the third installment of the ''Explosion Juke Box Series'' ("Train #2" appeared ''Extra Width'').

''Mo' Width'' was issued in July 1994 by Au Go Go Records and made-up of out-takes from the ''Extra Width''-era featuring covers of "There Stands The Glass" (Webb Pierce), "Beat of The Traps" (Teri Rodd & MSR Singers) and ''Ole Man Trouble'' (Otis Redding), an alternate mix of "Afro" with a much more prominent organ solo and "Rob K" features Rob Kennedy from The Workdogs and the song was later titled "Rob K is President" on the Mute Records 2000 reissue.

During an interview with Dutch magazine ''Oor'' Jon Spencer said that the release of ''Mo' Width'' was delayed until two months before the release as the next studio album ''Orange''.

Orange / Experimental Remixes (94 - 95)

''Orange'' was recorded at Waterworks, NYC with Jim Waters and released by Matador Records and Crypt Records in October 1994. The original vinyl Matador Records was as a silver-coloured picture disc and first issue of the Crypt Records edition had orange-coloured sleeves rather than the usual silver.

"Bellbottoms" opens the album and features a string section arrangement by Kurt Hoffman. The song was also issued by Matador Records as a white vinyl 7" only single in the UK and had a music video directed by Tom Surgal. There were also music videos for "Dang" directed by Steve Hanft, "Flavor" directed by Evan Bernard and featuring appearances by Beck (who also appears on the song) and Mike D of the Beastie Boys.

In August 1994 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion played a number of tour dates in Australia and New Zealand with Beck and in September 1994 they played in the Netherlands at Vera, Groningen on the 18th and recorded a live set for VPRO radio on the 25th. The VPRO session was issued as an unofficial 10" bootleg which included otherwise unreleased songs "Curfew Blues" and "Wriggle and Move" and the "Intro" is edited together in the same way as "Tour Diary" on ''Experimental Remixes'' and at least two segments appear on both releases. "Curfew Blues" was later released on ''Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers'' and the 2010 reissue of ''Orange'' includes two VPRO session tracks "Very Rare" and "Woman Love" (title sometimes given as "Frustrate").

In October 1994 the Blues Explosion made their first attempt to record a live album at DPC, Tucson, Arizona, US but the performance was plagued with technical problems and was stopped when an audience member threw a stink bomb. Some of the songs were later released on the 2010 reissue of ''Controversial Negro''.

In December 1994 they performed live on The Jon Stewart TV Show at MTV Studios, New York City. "Get With It" from this show was released on the 1997 ''Live Promo Video'' by Matador Records.

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion played UK shows in March 1995 with the Beastie Boys (including Brixton Academy, London where they would headline in April 2002 on the Plastic Fang tour) and in May they toured the US with The Roots and Beastie Boys.

Matador Records released the ''Experimental Remixes'' EP in May 1995 featuring various tracks from ''Orange'' reworked by artists including UNKLE, Beck, Mario Caldato Jr., Mike D, Dub Narcotic Sound System, Moby and GZA (featuring Killah Priest).

By September 1996 ''Orange'' had sold 70,000 copies.

In 2000 Mute Records reissued ''Experimental Remixes'' with new remixes on CD and double vinyl and ''Orange'' was reissued on CD with an enhanced section featuring "Dang", "Flavor" and "Bellbottoms" music videos and on the vinyl edition was packaged with a poster. The album was reissued again in 2010 by Shout! Factory (US) / Shove Records (UK) as a double CD set this time combining ''Orange'', ''Experimental Remixes'' and several rare, live and previously unreleased tracks.

Now I Got Worry / R.L. Burnside - A Ass Pocket of Whiskey / Controversial Negro / Recovery TV appearance (96 - 97)

On the afternoon of 6 February 1996 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recorded the album ''A Ass Pocket of Whiskey'' with R.L. Burnside and Kenny Brown at Lunati Farms in Holly Springs, Mississippi. A further two tracks, "Alice Mae" and "Highway 7", also recorded at Lunati Farms in February 1996, would be released on the 1997 R.L. Burnside album ''Mr Wizard''. Both albums featured cover artwork by Derek Hess.

The musical arrangements used on the tracks "2 Brothers" and "Tojo Told Hitler" from ''A Ass Pocket of Whiskey'' would evolve into the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song "Cool Vee" which was released as a b-side to "2Kindsa Love". "Have You Ever Been Lonely?" is a jam based on "Vacuum of Loneliness" originally released on the 1992 self-titled album.

"It was pretty intimidating to go down [to Mississippi] and record with R.L. since he’s such an idol of mine," says Spencer, who toured with the guitarist/singer in 1995. "You definitely get the feeling you’re playing for him, rather than with him. It was pretty much the same with Rufus Thomas."

''Now I Got Worry'' was produced by Jon Spencer and Jim Waters and recorded at Easley Studio, Memphis; G-Son, Los Angeles; and Waterworks West, Tucson. These sessions were mostly between 5 and 13 February 1996 (the same time as the recording with R.L. Burnside). The album was released by Matador Records and Mute Records in October 1996 (reaching number 50 in the UK album chart) and features appearances by Thermos Malling of Doo Rag (credited with "Bang" on "2Kindsa Love"), Rufus Thomas and Money Mark and a cover version of "Fuck Shit Up" originally by Dub Narcotic Sound System with Judah Bauer on lead vocals. The Korean edition did not include "Fuck Shit Up" and the Japanese release featured "Get With It" and "Cool Vee" as bonus tracks.

During this time Matador releases were distributed by Capitol in an article about this Marc Burton, buyer for Minneapolis’ Electric Fetus, said "I think with the extra exposure he’ll get through wider distribution, Spencer could hit as big as Beck did."

Capitol / Matador released a promo-only 7” single of five different radio promo spots.

R.L. Burnside would also join the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion for the ''Now I Got Worry'' tour dates in the UK, Europe and the US in October and November 1996. On 23 October 1996 Lola da Musica, VPRO TV filmed both artists in a pre-show jam session at De Melkweg, Amsterdam. "Boogie Chillun" was later released officially on the ''Live Promo Video''.

On 29 October Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recorded a short live set for MTV Studios, London consisting of ''Now I Got Worry'' songs and "Water Main" and "Vacuum of Loneliness". "Love All of Me" and the band introduction were officially released on the ''Live Promo Video''.

"2Kindsa Love" was the first UK single released from ''Now I Got Worry'' by Mute Records issued on pink vinyl 7" and CD in November 1996 with music video directed by Mike Mills it reached 122 in the UK charts.

"Wail" was released in the UK by Mute Records on 10 May 1997 as a CD and two 7" singles (grey and green vinyl), the incorrectly spelt "John Spencer Blues Explosion" cover artwork was written in Tipex on an escalator hand-rail at Tottenham Court Road underground station in London (there was also a second part a bit further down the which just said "Damn"). Each of the covers features a slightly different photo by William Bankhead of the same text.

The music video for "Wail" was directed by Weird Al Yankovic, reaching number 66 in the UK singles chart.

In Melbourne, Australia, on 6 September 1997 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion performed "2Kindsa Love" / "Flavor" on ABC's national, weekly morning youth program, ''Recovery''. Jon Spencer can be seen running through the audience, around the set and destroying the "Blues Explosion" back drop. Jon Spencer was asked about this particular performance in a June 2010 issue of the UK music weekly ''NME'':

"Which song were you playing with Jon Spencer Blues Explosion when you trashed a TV studio in Melbourne in '97?" "We may have started with another song and went into 'Flavour'. It wasn't planned, it just kinda hit me. It may have just been exhaustion. You reach a point on tour and you get a bit punch-drunk. That show is broadcast live in the morning! They were all really nice about it though!"

In 2010 a new version of this album was released by Shout! Factory / Shove! Records expanded to include b-sides, rare tracks and the previously unreleased "Roosevelt Hotel Blues" featuring Beck and Money Mark.

In May 1997 ''Controversial Negro'' was released. This was a promotonal only live album issued on vinyl in the US, CD in the UK and it was officially released in Japan on CD with five additional tracks.

The sleeve for this release is referred to in an article titled "Mo' bitter blues" originally published in May 1997:

To the casual observer the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion may seem like little more than surly, self-important nihilists with an all-encompassing persecution complex. Yet their studious reserve in the face of journalistic interrogation is hardly surprising when you consider that the staunch traditionalists of the American rock media have recently branded them as racists, simply because they've dared to treat the blues as something other than a sacred museum piece. A situation soon to be exacerbated by the band's forthcoming promo live album, rather incautiously titled 'Controversial Negro' and garishly illustrated with a day-glo Warhol print of Mick Jagger's iconic countenance. Ultimately, Jon Spencer is playing with fire. He’s gleefully taunting the inverse-racists of so-called liberal America with incendiary images. He is, after all, a graduate of semiotics (the brand of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols), so he knows exactly what he’s doing.

''Controversial Negro'' works on two distinct levels: firstly it’s a timely reminder to the journalistic 'squares' of far simpler times, when Jagger and his Rolling Stones (now untouchable old-guard stalwarts) were similarly decried for 'bastardizing the blues'; secondly, it’s a forceful visual communiqué that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion staunchly refuse to be intimidated into artistic compromise.

The title for this album comes from the Public Enemy song "Burn Hollywood Burn" from their 1990 album ''Fear of a Black Planet''. Towards the end of the track someone asks Flava Flav the following question: "Now we're considering you for a part in our new production, how do you feel about playing a controversial negro?"

The artwork used on the promotional version along with the title ''Controversial Negro'' was originally intended for ''Now I Got Worry''.

In June 1997 they performed at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in New York City and a live version of "Blues X Man" was released on the accompanying triple CD album (which also featured Russell Simins performing with Cibo Matto).

Acme / Talk About The Blues / Nulle Part Ailleurs (French TV appearance) / stolen Theremin (97 - 99)

On 23 March 1997 the band recorded a track at Dub Narcotic Studios, Olympia track for the K Records released the compilation ''Selector Dub Narcotic'' (released May 1998). The song titled "Blues Explosion Attack" name checked Calvin Johnson, Doo Rag, Subsonics, Speedball Baby, Demolotion Doll Rods, R.L. Burnside, Dub Narcotic Sound System and Sleater Kinney who had supported the Blues Explosion at their Moore Theatre gig the previous day (The song would later be re-written and re-recorded for the album ''Acme'').

Work on Acme began in October 1997, when the band entered the studio with Dan Nakamura, a.k.a. Dan the Automator for Right Place, Wrong Time, a cover of the Dr. John hit used on the soundtrack to Scream 2.

"The reason we did that Scream 2 soundtrack was to try working with a producer. We were definitely into the Dr. Octagon record - it's a great record, and also a bizarre kinda record. So besides 'Right Place.' we recorded some other songs.""

The next stop for Acme was Steve Albini's studio, Electrical Audio, where the Blues Explosion cut some tracks in the days following their 1998 New Year's Eve Chicago performance. "Steve's we cut everything live, like we always do," he says. "I Wanted to use Steve because I knew he would do a good job and the tapes would sound great, and we could send them to anybody because we had a great starting point and couldn't really go wrong"

Whilst in Chicago they also met Andre Williams who was playing locally. He recorded guest vocals for the track Lapdance (which wasn't released until the Acme Plus / Extra Acme albums were issued the following year).

"Some of Acme was done in the old-fashioned Blues Explosion way, me working with the engineer, but we were also casting a wide net. Some songs were mixed and remixed by different producers, which is one reason it got so expensive, and some of them were eventually stitched together from two or three different mixes. We weren't being so precious about these songs, we were letting other people work on it and then we'd shuffle the deck.

Acme was released in October 1998 by Matador Records in the US and Mute Records in the UK.

In the US the first single to be released from the album was Talk About The Blues on 6 October 1998. This song was recorded during a session with Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic, Olympia, Washington. Most of the other tracks recorded at this time would be released in 1999 as the collaborative album Sideways Soul: Dub Narcotic Sound System Meets The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in a Dancehall Style!.

The music video, directed by Evan Bernard, features Winona Ryder, Giovanni Ribisi and John C. Reilly as the Blues Explosion with Judah, Russell and Jon acting. "The singer told MTV Online: I think that people are really going to be surprised when they see the acting on the part of the Blues Explosion. When people get a load of some of the heavy, dramatic, really very intense scenes that we pulled out from our souls, I think people are really going to be blown away.".

Throughout the life of the band the use of the word "blues" in the band name has caused a great deal of debate. The lyrics of Talk About The Blues address this issue referring directly to MTV and ''Rolling Stone'' magazine and features the line "I do not play no blues, I play rock 'n' roll" (which itself was a reference to the Mississippi Fred McDowell album ''I Do Not Play No Rock 'n' Roll'').

"Talk About The Blues" was a reaction a ''Rolling Stone'' review of ''Now I Got Worry'' and Q&A; with Jon Spencer.

"I wrote the song right after we did the interview, inspired by that and also some of the criticism we’ve received over the past couple years. If we tried to record some song that was a response to criticism as it happened, that would be too heavy-handed. The lyrics stayed true to the original off-the-cuff feel, what you call a rant. But it's not such a big deal, you know. A lot of that stuff just doesn't merit a response."

Magical Colors was the first single released in the UK/Europe by Mute Records on CD and 7" single reaching number 92 in the UK singles chart in November 1998. The Terry Richardson directed video is a compilation of still photographs.

Calvin was only issued as a single in Australia by Au Go Go Records on 12" and CD in March 1999.

Talk About The Blues was released in UK/Europe by Mute Records on 7" and CD (later released as 12" single) reaching 120 in the UK singles chart in March 1999.

Non-Acme track New Year (Destroyer) was released as a split-single with Barry Adamson as the forth single in the Slut Smalls series.

Heavy was the final single to be released from Acme in August 1999. Issued in UK/Europe by Mute Records on 7", CD and later as a 12" single reaching number 106 in the UK singles chart.

In 1998 they appeared on the Canal+ show ''Nulle Part Ailleurs'' performing "High Gear" and "Talk About The Blues". During the nine and a half minute performance Jon Spencer made full use of the television studio, running through the audience, standing on the desk and was carried back to the stage by one of the bemused presenters. Whilst on the desk Jon referred to and shook the hand of Jackie Chan who was given a copy of the album ''Acme''.

On the morning of 22 July 1999, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion tour van was broken into in the loading dock of The Sheraton in Vancouver, Canada. The window was smashed and a mess of gear was stolen, including mics, amps, rack equipment, and the original 1962 Vanguard Model Theremin. The theremin was never recovered.

Acme + / Xtra Acme USA / Dub Narcotic Sound System - Sideways Soul / reissues [2000] (99 - 01)

In September 1999 they released the collaborative album Sideways Soul under the name Dub Narcotic Sound System Meets The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in a Dancehall Style. The nine track album was recorded at Dub Narcotic Studios, Olympia and featured a line-up of Jon Spencer on Guitar, Vocals and Organ, Judah Bauer on Guitar, Russell Simins on Drums, Jeff Smith on Organ and Calvin Johnson on Vocals and Melodica (Talk About The Blues was also recorded during these sessions).

This album was issued by K Records in the US and Europe, Au Go Go Records in Australia and Rebel Beat Factory in Japan (which used an extended recording of Diamonds).

The Acme out-takes and remixes were issued as Acme + (UK), Xtra Acme USA (US) and Extra Acme (CD) / Ura Acme (LP) / Extra Acme (Promo Only LP) (Japan) all of which had slightly different track listings.

Like Acme the album features different production, mixing, remixing credits and guest appearances including; Steve Albini, Nick Sansano, Jack Dangers, David Holmes, Tim Goldsworthy, Calvin Johnson, Moby, Andre Williams, Jill Cunniff, Cody Dickinson, Luther Dickinson and Jim Dickinson.

The Shout Factory! / Shove Records 2010 expanded reissue of Acme included a 22 track version of Acme Plus as the second disc.

In February 2000 In The Red Records released a 12" single under the name "Andre Williams Blues Explosion" featuring remixes of the Andre Williams collaboration Lap Dance by Jim Waters/Scott Benzel and Jim Thirlwell.

In March 2000 Mute reissued Blues Explosion albums with bonus content; Orange included an enhanced section with videos of Dang, Bellbottoms and Flavor, Extra Width was now packaged with Mo’ Width and Experimental Remixes included three new remixes.

The vinyl editions of Experimental Remixes and Extra Width were now double LPs and Orange was packaged with a two-sided poster.

Mute also issued an indie-store-only/mailorder 12" of Techno Animal remixes.

Plastic Fang / She Said / Solomon Burke (02 - 03)

The album Plastic Fang was produced by Steve Jordan and recorded at Oorong, the Magic Shop and The Hit Factory. Released in April 2002 by Mute Records (UK), Matador Records (US), Everlasting (Spain) and Toy’s Factory (Japan) featured art and design by Chip Kidd with the limited CD and vinyl editions being issued in a 'Fang Pack'.

The original artwork for this album was culled from comics.

Various editions of this album featured different track listings but there were guest appearances by Dr. John, Elliott Smith, Bernie Worrell, Willie Weeks and Bashiri Johnson.

She Said was the first single taken from the album Plastic Fang, this had a music video directed by Floria Sigismondi and on 8 February 2002 the Blues Explosion filmed a second 'live performance' video at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, London for She Said (directed by Barney Clay). This single would be, to date, their highest UK single chart entry at number 58.

In April 2002 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion appeared on the BBC TV show Later with Jools Holland featuring Jools playing piano during Sweet n Sour.

Mute Records also released the singles Sweet N Sour (July, 2002) with a video directed by Stylewar reaching number 66 in the UK charts and Shakin' Rock'n'Roll Tonight (November 2002) reaching number 126.

On 31 January 2003 the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion performed with Solomon Burke at Royal Festival Hall, London as Solomon Burke Meets Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

Damage / hiatus (04 - 06)

Damage was the only album to be released on Sanctuary Records and for this release the band were temporarily known as just the ''Blues Explosion''. The shortened name lasted less than two years and by early 2006 the official website was located at the domain name thejonspencerbluesexplosion.com rather than blues-explosion.com as it is given on the Damage album sleeve.

The album was recorded between December 2003 and April 2004 at Empire View Studios, NYC, Globe Studios, NYC and Elegant Too Studios with production and mixing credits including Dan The Automator, DJ Shadow, Steve Jordan, Free Association…David Holmes, Jay Braun, Alan Moulder, Danny Madorsky, Chris Maxwell and Phil Hernandez (Elegant Too) as well as the Blues Explosion, Jon Spencer and Russell Simins.

During this time the band also recorded the Guitar Wolf cover version ''Kawasaki ZII750 Rock 'N' Roll'' at Empire View Recording Studio with Danny Madorsky for the tribute album ''I Love Guitar Wolf...Very Much''.

Damage was released in September 2004 and features appearances from artists including Chuck D (''Hot Gossip''), Martina Topley-Bird (''Spoiled'' /''You Been My Baby''), James Chance and DJ Shadow (''Fed Up and Low Down'') and Simon Chardiet (who would later perform with the Heavy Trash live band (''Rattling'')).

Also in September 2004 ''Burn It Off'' was released as a single with music video directed by Stylewar. Issued in the US as a one track radio promo CD and in the UK Mute released the single on 7" and CD reaching number 77 in the charts.

''Hot Gossip'' was the second Damage single released in November 2004 reaching 119 in the official UK charts and had a music video directed by David Raccuglia. Issued as a red vinyl 7" only single featuring Elliott Smith on the B-side ''Meet Me In The City'' previously released on the tribute album ''Sunday Nights The Songs of Junior Kimbrough''.

''Crunchy'' was the third and final single released in April 2005 issued on 7", 12" and CD reaching number 89 in the UK charts.

The sleeves for all the Damage-era released featured photography by Ashkan Sahihi and design by Chip Kidd.

In Japan there were two slightly different promotional ''Radio Session'' CDs featuring live recordings of the album tracks ''Help These Blues'', ''Spoiled'', ''Rattling'', ''Hot Gossip'' and a cover of the Suicide song ''Rocket USA'' which is unavailable elsewhere.

In September 2004 (28/29) Russell Simins and Judah Bauer would join Tom Waits and Larry Taylor for a performance on the David Letterman TV show playing ''Make It Rain'' from the album ''Real Gone''.

This particular event caused a furore behind the scenes when Mike Edison wrote a "crazed conspiracy rant" about Jon Spencer being replaced with Tom Waits for the Blues Explosion website . This was part of a bigger plan to get the a picture of Tom with Russell and Judah and send it out with a tongue-in-cheek press release ("Tom Waits Blues Explosion") to see if the story would get picked-up by the mainstream press but before the event took place a record company publicist took the text direct from the Blues Explosion website and sent it out as a legitimate press release and very nearly led to the show being called off.

Between August 2004 and May 2005 the band toured almost constantly beginning with a festival appearance in Norway and a low-key show in the UK at London’s 93 Feet East followed by shows throughout Europe/UK, the US, Japan (eight dates with The Kills), Australia, the UK again (supporting The Hives) and Turkey.

At this time in the UK 'garage rock' and bands such as The Hives, The Strokes, White Stripes were popular and it was often noted that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion never got the recognition many writers felt they deserved.

"It must rankle a little. Jon Spencer has been wrangling his brand of the blues - extrovert, down-and-dirty, pinched by punk and acknowledging a debt to Little Richard and Carl Perkins as much as Hasil Adkins and Son House - for around 14 years now. And have he and his band enjoyed even a taste of White Stripes-like acclaim? Have they flick"

Of Crunchy NME said it was "packing the kind of irresistible groove that would shoot straight to the number one for 14 years in any right-thinking world."

A mock-up newspaper (front page only) titled "The Daily Explosion" and DVD featuring the music videos for ''Burn It Off'' and ''Hot Gossip'' was available at US gigs in November 2004.

In 2005 an EP titled ''Snack Cracker'' was released in Japan. This compiled many of the UK single b-sides album with ''Hot Gossip'' and ''Burn It Off'' videos, a Jay Braun remix of ''Hot Gossip'' and a live recording of ''Rattling'' featuring Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.

The Blues Explosion recorded the theme tune for Anthony Bourdain series No Reservations broadcast on The Travel Channel in 2005. The track lasts approximately 60 seconds and around 20 seconds of this is used during the programmes intro sequence and the menu screen on the subsequent DVD release.

On 21 September 2005 Jon Spencer Blues Explosion appeared at Ko Ko, London performing as part of the "Don’t Look Back" shows organised by ATP where artists played albums in their entirety. The band played ''Orange'' followed by a set of non-''Orange'' songs.

During this time there was a message sent out to the Blues Explosion mailing list outlining a number of future projects and releases including news of a ''Live Recordings'' album recorded during the ''Damage'' tour (possibly just the Japanese shows) which has, to date, never been released.

Towards the end of 2005 the band went hiatus and the members worked on numerous different projects with different artists.

Jukebox Explosion Rockin’ Mid-90s Punkers / live (07 - 08)

In October 2008 In The Red Records released a compilation of rare and unreleased tracks including all tracks from the five Explosion Jukebox Series singles (''Shirt Jac'', ''Son of Sam'', ''Train #3'', ''Get With It'' and ''Ghetto Mom''). The album artwork parodied the original ''Back From The Grave'' 1983 compilation released by Crypt Records with drawings of Judah, Russell and Jon replacing the original characters. Both sleeves were created by Mort Todd.

The band also started playing live again in June 2008 with a secret show at Bowery Electric followed by New York City Bicycle Film Festival and a short Jukebox Explosion European tour during August and September 2008.

Dirty Shirt Rock 'n' Roll The First Ten Years / reissues [2010] / live (09 - 11)

In 2009 it was announced that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion would release the 22 track retrospective compilation ''Dirty Shirt Rock 'n' Roll: The First Ten Years'' followed by expanded reissues of the albums ''Extra Width'', ''Orange'', ''Acme'', ''Now I Got Worry'', ''Controversial Negro'' and tracks from the early releases (the original Kramer and Steve Albini recordings) ''Year One''.

Every reissue included a booklet with new photos, extensive sleeve notes by Mike Edison and a number of bonus tracks now making the new editions of ''Extra Width'', ''Orange'', ''Acme'' double CD sets.

On 16 April 2010 they played a one-off show at Brooklyn Bowl and announced more shows taking place from July 2010 including Pitchfork Music Festival, Chicago, the Matador @ 21 Festival at The Pearl, Las Vegas and a number of US and Canadian shows.

In an interview with music blog "Get Back" (yahoo.com) on 19 August 2010 Jon Spencer responded to a question about the possibility of the band releasing new material with "There's totally a chance. We've been playing concerts, touring and playing live because these records are coming out again. It's been very, very enjoyable. We have been talking about the possibility of something new."

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion track "Bellbottoms" from the album ''Orange'' was featured at number 180 in a chart titled "The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s" published by Pitchfork on 30 August 2010

In early October Yahoo! Music interviewed Jon Spencer and the band performed acoustic versions of "Burn It Off", "Wail" and "Blues X Man". On 15 October 2010 videos of the songs and interview were published on the "Maximum Performance" blog along with a short article.

During 2010 the band started playing more regularly with groups of live shows in July, September, October (US / Canada), December (Europe/US) and January 2011 (New Zealand/Australia). They made their first UK appearance at London (Heaven) since the Don't Look Back performance of ''Orange'' at Koko in September 2005.

During the live shows the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion played some previously unreleased songs including a cover of "My War" by Black Flag. And the band look set to continue playing live with further European live shows in mid-2011 including Primavera Festival in May 2011.

Whilst touring in Australia, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recorded a cover version of "Black Betty" at Linear Recording for a commercial created by Volkswagen of America's agency Deutsch L.A. Inc. broadcast during Super Bowl Sunday on American television (6 February 2011).

Other work / guest appearances

Judah Bauer

Judah Bauer was part of The Spitters "in their embryonic form" and has recorded or performed with Honeymoon Killers, Crowbar Massage, Appleton Brothers, Childballads (Stuart Lupton of Jonathan Fire*eater), Speedball Baby and Cat Power & Dirty Delta Blues.

Under the name 20 Miles Judah has released the following albums and EPs:

''Ragged Backyard Classics'' (In The Red, 1996)

''R.L. Boyce Othar Turner Fife & Drum Spam'' LP/CD (Fat Possum/Epitaph, 1997)

''Sinful Tunes & Spirituals'' (Au Go-Go, 1998; split EP with Doo Rag)

''I'm a Lucky Guy'' (Fat Possum/Epitaph, 1998)

''Let Every Town Furnish Its Own Women'' (Epitaph/Sony, 2000; split EP with Bob Log III)

''Keep It Coming'' (Fat Possum, 2002)

''Life Doesn't Rhyme'' (Fat Possum, 2003)

Russell Simins

Russell Simins has produced, remixed and performed with numerous bands including Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Honeymoon Killers, Crowbar Massage, Cibo Matto, Grapevine, Ween, Luscious Jackson, Yoko Ono, Money Mark, Fred Schneider, Duran Duran, Asian Dub Foundation, Stereolab, The Pierces, Tandy, Spalding Rockwell, The Morning Pages, Little Barrie, Jena Malone, Tiny Masters of Today and Harper Simon.

And as a core band member he has released the following albums:

''Honeymoon Killers'' - ''Hung Far Low'' LP/CD (Fist Puppet, 1991)

''Butter 08'' (Grand Royal, 1996)

''Crunt'' (Trance Syndicate, 1994)

Russell Simins - ''Public Places'' LP/CD (Grand Royal, 2000)

''Men Without Pants'' (Victor, 2006)

''Men Without Pants'' - Naturally (Expansion Team (US)/Vicious Circle (FR), 2009)

Jon Spencer

Jon Spencer has released some solo material in addition to being a core member of Shithaus, Pussy Galore, Boss Hog, Spencer Dickinson, Solex vs Cristina Martinez + Jon Spencer and in Heavy Trash with Matt Verta-Ray released the following albums:

''Heavy Trash'' LP/CD (Yep Roc (US)/Crunchy Frog (DK)/Victor/JVC (JP), 2005)

''Heavy Trash'' - ''Going Way Out With Heavy Trash'' LP/CD (Yep Roc (US)/Crunchy Frog (DK)/Victor/JVC (JP), 2007)

''Heavy Trash'' - ''Mightnight Soul Serenade'' LP/CD (Big Legal Mess (US)/Crunchy Frog (DK)/Bronzerat (UK), 2009)

With the Honeymoon Killers he appears on several recordings and made one complete album as a member of the band with Russell Simins, Jerry Teel and Lisa Wells:

''Honeymoon Killers'' - ''Hung Far Low'' LP/CD (Fist Puppet, 1991)

He has also performed with, recorded, remixed and produced a huge number of artists including: Gibson Bros., Workdogs, Nancy Sinatra, Moby, Cheater Slicks, Beck, Demolition Doll Rods, Edison Rocket Train/Mike Edison, Einstürzende Neubauten, Coldcut, Powersolo, Puffy AmiYumi, Eros Ramazotti, The Sadies, Add N to (X), Rob K, Haze XXL, Lost Crusaders, David Holmes, Khan, Los Straitjackets, Bomb The Bass, Princess Superstar, Speedball Baby, Five Dollar Priest, The King Brothers, The Tremolo Beer Gut, Bikini Machine, Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Micragirls, Cobra Killer, Japanese Popstars, The Slew and Perrosky.

Discography

Studio albums

{|class="wikitable" ! width="200"|Title !Year !Label !Format !Notes |- |rowspan="1" align="center"|"A Reverse Willie Horton" |1991 |Public Pop Can |LP |

US release

Kramer recordings

|- |rowspan="3" align="center"|"Crypt Style" |1992 |1+2 |CD |

Japanese release

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

25 tracks

|- |1992 |Crypt |LP |

German release

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

17 tracks

|- |1993 |Crypt |CD |

German release

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

18 tracks, includes 'Eye To Eye'

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"|"The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (album)" |1992 |Caroline |CD / CAS |

US release

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

There was no vinyl release in the US

|- |1992 |Hut |CD / LP |

UK release

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|"Year One" |2010 |Shout! Factory |CD |

US reissue

Compilation of Kramer and Albini recordings

38 tracks

|- |rowspan="5" align="center"|"Extra Width" |1993 |Crypt |LP / CD |

German release

|- |1993 |Matador |LP / CD / CAS |

US / UK release

|- |1993 |Au Go-Go |CD |

Australian release

|- |2000 |Mute |2xLP / CD |

Reissue with complete Mo' Width album

|- |2010 |Shout! Factory |2xCD |

US expanded reissue

Includes complete "Mo' Width" album and additional disc of 24 rare and unreleased tracks

|- |rowspan="5" align="center"|"Orange" |1994 |Matador |LP / CD / CAS |

US / UK release

First vinyl edition of the Matador release was a silver coloured picture disc

|- |1994 |Crypt |LP / CD |

German release

First editions of the Crypt version of this album had orange rather than silver sleeves

|- |1995 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese edition

Includes bonus tracks "Beat of the Traps" and "Memphis Soul Typecast" from Mo' Width.

|- |1995 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese edition

Includes bonus tracks "Bellbottoms (Old Rascal Mix)" and "Flavor (Remix - Part 1 & 2)" from Experimental Remixes.

|- |2000 |Mute |LP / CD |

Reissue, CD is enhanced with videos of Dang, Flavor and Bellbottoms

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|"Orange + Experimental Remixes" |2010 |Shout! Factory |2xCD |

Reissue includes Experimental Remixes and bonus tracks; Haircut, Woman Love (VPRO), Very Rare (VPRO), Shakin' (S60 V JSBX), an alternate recording of Bellbottoms and recordings of Brenda, BX Man, 78 Style and Greyhound live at CBGB.

|- |rowspan="7" align="center"|"Now I Got Worry" |1996 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese edition

Includes bonus tracks "Cool Vee" and "Get With It"

|- |1996 |Mute |CD / LP |

UK release

|- |1996 |Matador |CD / LP / CAS |

US release

|- |1996 |Au Go-Go |CD |

Australian release

|- |1996 |Rock Records & Tapes |CD |

Korean edition

Omits "Fuck Shit Up".

|- |2010 |Shout! Factory |CD |

US expanded reissue

Includes an additional 11 rare tracks, 4 Radio Spots and a previously unreleased song titled "Roosevelt Hotel Blues".

|- |2010 |Shove! |CD |

UK expanded reissue

Includes an additional 11 rare tracks, 4 Radio Spots and a previously unreleased song titled "Roosevelt Hotel Blues".

|- |rowspan="6" align="center"|"Acme" |1998 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese edition

Includes "Hell" and ends with the full version of "Calvin" rather than "Calvin (Reprise)"

|- |1998 |Labels |CD |

French edition

|- |1998 |Everlasting Records |CD |

Spanish edition

|- |1998 |Mute |LP / CD |

UK release

|- |1998 |Matador |LP / CD |

US release

|- |1998 |Rock Records |CAS |

Thai release

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|"Acme + Acme Plus" |2010 |Shout! Factory |2xCD |

Reissue includes bonus tracks

|- |rowspan="3" align="center"|"Sideways Soul: Dub Narcotic Sound System Meets The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion In A Dancehall Style" |1999 |K Records |LP / CD |

US release

|- |1999 |Au Go-Go |CD |

Australian release

|- |1999 |Rebel Beat Factory |CD |

Japanese release

|- |rowspan="6" align="center"|"Plastic Fang" |2002 |Mute |CD / Ltd. CD / 2xLP |

UK release

Ltd CD and vinyl in "Fang Pack".

Vinyl edition features 'Point of View', 'Like A Bat', 'Then Again I Will' and 'Do Ya Wanna Get It?' which were not on UK CD editions.

|- |2002 |Matador |CD / Ltd. CD / 2xLP |

US release

Ltd CD and vinyl in "Fang Pack".

CD track list replaces 'Tore Up & Broke' with 'Point Of View' (In comparison to the UK CD edition).

Vinyl edition features 'Tore Up & Broke', 'Like A Bat', 'Then Again I Will' and 'Do Ya Wanna Get It?' which were not on US CD editions.

|- |2002 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese release

Features 'Ghetto Mom', 'Alex', 'Then Again I Will' and 'Like A Bat' which are not on the UK version but omits 'Tore Up & Broke' and 'Mother Nature'.

|- |2002 |Mute / Virgin |2xCD |

Australian release

Double CD set with B-sides and remixes.

|- |2002 |Ultrapop |CD |

Argentinian release.

In comparison to the UK CD release this edition of the album omits Tore Up & Broke which is replaced with Point of View and includes a thirteenth bonus track Do Ya Wanna Get It?

|- |2002 |Everlasting |CD |

Spanish release

|- |rowspan="5" align="center"|"Damage" |2004 |Mute |Ltd CD/DVD / CD / LP |

UK release.

CD/DVD edition in Matchbook sleeve features 22 minute film directed by Niko Tavernese.

|- |2004 |Matador |Ltd CD / CD |

US release.

Ltd CD edition in Matchbook sleeve with enhanced section including 22 minute film directed by Niko Tavernese.

|- |2004 |Victor / JVC |CD |

Japanese release.

Includes 'Grinding', 'The Funky Gremlin' and enhanced section with 22 minute film directed by Niko Tavernese.

|- |2004 |Modular Records |CD |

Australian release.

|- |2004 |Ultrapop |CD |

Argentinian release.

|- |}

Other albums and EPs

{|class="wikitable" ! width="200"|Title !Year !Label !Format !Notes |- | rowspan="1" align="center"|"Mo' Width" | 1994 |Au Go-Go | LP / CD |

11 recordings from Extra Width-era

Features alternate recording of "Afro" and covers of There Stands The Glass (Webb Pierce), Beat of The Traps (Teri Rodd & MSR Singers) and Ole Man Trouble (Otis Redding).

Only released has a stand-alone album in Australia this has since been issued on the Mute (2000) and Shout! Factory (2010) reissues of Extra Width.

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"|''Experimental Remixes'' |1995 |Matador | 12" / CD | Orange remix album

12" only included three tracks

CD features the unlisted "Tour Diary" in addition to the six remixes by UNKLE, Mike D, Beck, Moby, Dub Narcotic Sound System, GZA and Killah Priest.

|- |2000 |Mute | 2xLP / CD | Reissue of the Orange remix album

Includes additional remixes by Prince Paul, Plunderphonic (John Oswald) and F. Carles (MC Relov/Hypercard)

|- |rowspan="4" align="center"|''Controversial Negro'' |rowspan="3" align="center"|1997 |Mute | CD |

Promo only live album

14 tracks

|- |Matador | LP |

Promo only live album

14 tracks

|- |Toy's Factory |Ltd CD / CD |

Original official Japanese release

Issued in Ltd album-style card sleeve and plastic case

19 tracks

|- |2010 |Shout! Factory | CD |

Expanded reissue

29 tracks

Adds "Bellbottoms" to original "Hotel Congress" show and nine tracks recorded live in 1994

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Rocketship'' |1997 |AU Go-Go | 7" / CD |

Single / EP

Australia-only release

7" includes "Chocolate Joe" B-side / CD includes four live tracks from the Japanese release of Controversial Negro.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Acme Plus'' |rowspan="4" align="center"|1999 |Mute | 2xLP / CD |

UK release

Acme-era out-takes, B-sides and remixes.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Xtra Acme USA'' |Matador | 2xLP / CD |

US release

Acme-era out-takes, B-sides and remixes.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Ura-Acme'' |Toy's Factory | LP |

Japanese release

Vinyl-only

Acme-era out-takes, B-sides and remixes.

The only variation of Acme out-takes album to feature "New Year (Destroyer)"

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Extra-Acme'' |Toy's Factory | CD / LP |

Japanese release

CD and Vinyl editions had slightly different track-listings and running orders.

Vinyl version was only issued as a promo.

Acme-era out-takes, B-sides and remixes.

Another variation on the track-list and running order

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Fang Plastique'' |rowspan="2" align="center"|2002 |Toy's Factory |CD |

Japanese only EP

Features UK b-sides and two different "She Said" videos.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Fang Visual'' |Matador |DVD |

Full length DVD with live tracks, videos and interview footage

Given away free via Matador Records or shrink-wrapped with US CD copies of Plastic Fang.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"|''Snack Cracker'' |2005 |JVC / Victor |CD |

Japanese only EP

Includes remixes, b-sides videos and "Rattling (Live on Jonsey's Jukebox)" which is exclusive to this release.

|- |''Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers'' |2007 |In The Red |LP / CD |

Compilation of Jukebox Series 7" singles and previously unreleased songs.

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"|''Dirty Shirt Rock 'n' Roll: The First Ten Years'' |rowspan="2" align="center"|2010 |Shout! Factory |CD |

US release

22 track retrospective album.

|- |Shove! |CD |

UK release

22 track retrospective album.

|}

Singles

{|class="wikitable" ! Year ! width="200"|Title ! Label !Album !Notes |- |rowspan="3" align="center"| 1992 |"Shirt Jac" |rowspan="2" |In The Red |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers / Year One |

B-side: Latch On

|- |"Son of Sam " |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers / Extra Width (2010) |

B-side: Bent

|- |"History of Sex" |rowspan="1" | Clawfist |rowspan="1" align="center"| Year One |

B-sides: Write A Song / Smoke Cigarettes

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 1993 |"Afro" |rowspan="1" | Matador Records |rowspan="1" align="center"| Extra Width |

B-side: Relax-Her

|- |"Train # 3" |rowspan="1" | In The Red |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers / Extra Width (2010) |

B-side: Train #1

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1995 |"Bellbottoms" |rowspan="1" | Matador Records |rowspan="1" align="center"| Orange |

B-side: Miss Elaine

Issued as a white vinyl 7" single

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 1996 |"Get With It" |rowspan="1" | In The Red |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers / Now I Got Worry (2010) |

B-side: Down Low

|- |"2Kindsa Love" |rowspan="2" | Mute |rowspan="3" align="center"| Now I Got Worry |

UK Chart Position: #122

B-sides: Fish Sauce / Cool Vee / Let's Smurf.

Issued on pink vinyl 7" and CD.

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 1997 |"Wail" |

UK Chart Position: #66

Non-album tracks issued across formats: Wail (Video Mix) / Yellow Eyes / Buscemi / Turn Up Greene / Wail (Mario Mix) / Flavor (Live Version) / Judah Love Theme / Radio Spot.

Released on grey and green vinyl 7" singles and CD.

|- |"Rocketship" |rowspan="1" | Au Go-Go Records |

B-sides: Chocolate Joe / Down Low (Live) / Dynamite Lover (Live) / Flavor (Live) / Full Grown (Live)

Australia-only single issued on CD and 7".

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 1998 |"Magical Colors" |rowspan="1" | Mute |rowspan="3" align="center"| Acme |

UK Chart Position: #92

B-sides: Confused / Bacon / Get Down Lover

Issued on red vinyl 7" and CD.

|- |"Talk About The Blues" |rowspan="1" | Mute / Matador |

UK Chart Position: #120

UK B-sides: Wait A Minute / Lovin' Machine (Automator) / Calvin (Zebra Ranch) / T.A.T.B. (For The Saints And Sinners Remix) / Talk About The Blues (Video)

US B-Sides: Bacon / Get Down Lover/ Lovin' Machine (Automator Mix) / Calvin / Calvin (Zebra Ranch Mix)

Issued on orange vinyl 7", CD and 12".

|- |rowspan="3" align="center"| 1999 |"Calvin" |rowspan="1" | Au Go-Go Records |

B-sides: Wait A Minute / Confused / Get Down Lover / Calvin (Zebra Ranch) / T.A.T.B. (For The Saints and the Sinners Remix)

Australia-only single issued on 12" and CD.

|- |"New Year (Destroyer)" |rowspan="1" | Slut Smalls |rowspan="1" align="center"| Ura-Acme (Japan-only vinyl album) |

A-side: Barry Adamson - The Crime Scene

Issued as 7"-only split single with Barry Adamson.

|- |"Heavy (Remix)" |rowspan="1" | Mute |rowspan="1" align="center"| Acme |

UK Chart Position: #106

B-sides: Give Ya Some Hell / 2 Kindsa Love (Duck Rock 105.9 FM Remix) Blues Power / Do You Wanna Get Heavy? (Duck Rock Hip 'n' Bass Remix) / Attack (Detroit) / 2 Kindsa Love (Duck Rock 105.9 FM Final Mix) / Do You Wanna Get Heavy? (Duck Rock Hip 'n' Bass Final Mix)

Issued on blue vinyl 7", CD and 12".

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 2000 |"Lap Dance (Jim Waters/Scott Benzel Remix)" |rowspan="1" | In the Red |rowspan="1" align="center"| - |

B-Side: Lap Dance (Jim Thirlwell Remix)

features Andre Williams

12"-only single

original version of Lap Dance released on Acme Plus / Xtra Acme USA

|- |"Techno Animal Remixes" |rowspan="1" | Mute |rowspan="1" align="center"| - |

Track listing: Bacon (Radio Edit) / Not Yet (Sci-Mix) / Bacon (Dub) / Not Yet (Splatter Mix)

12"-only single

Remixes of tracks released on Acme Plus / Xtra Acme USA

|- |rowspan="4" align="center"| 2002 |"Ghetto Mom" |rowspan="1" | In the Red |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jukebox Explosion Rockin' Mid-90s Punkers |

B-Side: Do Ya Wanna Get It

|- |"She Said" |rowspan="6" | Mute |rowspan="3" align="center"| Plastic Fang |

UK Chart Position #58

B-Sides: Ghetto Mom / Point of View / Do Ya Wanna Get It? / Then Again I Will / Like A Bat

Released on 7" and two-different CD singles

|- |"Sweet 'n' Sour" |

UK Chart Position #66

B-Sides: Shakin' Rock 'N' Roll Tonight (Live at VPRO) / Maureen / Alex / Sweet N Sour (Video) / Plastic Fang Bite Size - Album Excerpts (Mean Heart/She Said/Shakin' Rock 'N' Roll Tonight/Hold On)

Released on 7" and two different CD singles.

|- |"Shakin' Rock 'n' Roll Tonight" |

UK Chart Position #126

B-Sides: She Said (The Tremolo Beer Gut Mix) / Over and Over (Techno Animal Mix) / Money Rock 'N' Roll (Sub Species Mix) / Over and Over (Barry Adamson Mix) / She Said (Video - Floria Sigismondi) She Said (Video - Live) / Point of View (Video - Live) / Shakin' Rock 'N' Roll Tonight (Video - Live)

Released on 7" and CD.

|- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 2004 |"Burn It Off" |rowspan="3" align="center"| Damage |

UK Chart Position #77

B-Sides: Fed Up and Low Down (Edit) / Serial Number / Fed Up And Low Down (Edit) / Cold Cold Eyes (Demo Version)

Released on clear vinyl 7" and CD.

|- |"Hot Gossip " |

UK Chart Position #119

B-Sides: Meet Me In The City

Released as a red vinyl 7" only single.

Hot Gossip features Chuck D and Meet Me In The City is a Junior Kimbrough cover version featuring Elliott Smith on acoustic guitar.

|- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 2005 |"Crunchy" |

UK Chart Position #89

B-Sides: Crunchy (Solex 'Bounce' Remix) / Hot Gossip (TMJ (!!!) Remix) / Mars Arizona (DFA Remix) / Blues Explosion Man (Live at FMU)

Released on 7", 12" and CD.

|- |}

Music videos

{|class="wikitable" ! Year ! width="200"|Title ! Director(s) !Album !Notes |- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1992 |"Rachel" |Jim Spring and Jens Jurgensen |rowspan="1" align="center"| Jon Spencer Blues Explosion / Crypt Style |Released on Live Promo Video |- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1993 |"Afro" |Tom Surgal |rowspan="1" align="center"| Extra Width | |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 1994 |"Dang" |Steve Hanft |rowspan="3" align="center"|Orange | |- |"Flavor" |Evan Bernard |Features Mike D of the Beastie Boys and Beck |- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1995 |"Bellbottoms" |Tom Surgal | |- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1996 |"2Kindsa Love" |Mike Mills |rowspan="2" align="center"| Now I Got Worry | |- |rowspan="1" align="center"| 1997 |"Wail" |Weird Al Yankovic | |- |rowspan="3" align="center"| 1998 |"Magical Colors" |Terry Richardson |rowspan="3" align="center"| Acme |A series of still photographs |- |"Talk About The Blues" |Evan Bernard |Stars Giovanni Ribisi as Judah Bauer, John C. Reilly as Russell Simins and Winona Ryder as Jon Spencer. |- |"Attack" | - | With Alec Empire, video released on Digital Hardcore compilations |- |rowspan="3" align="center"| 2002 |"She Said" |Floria Sigismondi |rowspan="3" align="center"|Plastic Fang | |- |"She Said (100 Club)" |Barney Clay | |- |"Sweet 'n' Sour" |Stylewar | |- |rowspan="2" align="center"| 2004 |"Burn It Off" |Stylewar |rowspan="2" align="center"| Damage | |- |"Hot Gossip" | David Raccuglia | Features Chuck D of Public Enemy |- |}

References

External links

Blues Explosion official website

Blues Explosion at Matador Records

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Discography/Website: Pop-Catastrophe.co.uk

"The Spencer Report", a complete list of songs and releases these appear on, 1991-95.

Category:Matador Records Category:American indie rock groups Category:Music of New York City Category:Musical groups established in 1990 Category:Punk blues Category:Mute Records artists

br:Blues Explosion de:The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion es:Blues Explosion fr:Blues Explosion it:Blues Explosion lb:Blues Explosion nl:The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion no:Blues Explosion pl:Blues Explosion pt:The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion sv:Blues Explosion

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The French Revolution |Image_Name Prise de la Bastille.jpg |Image_Caption The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 |Participants French society |Location France |Date 1789–1799 |Result Abolition and replacement of the French monarchy with a radical democratic republic. Radical social change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights. Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte Armed conflicts with other European countries }}

The French Revolution (; 1789–1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from left-wing political groups and the masses on the streets. Old ideas about hierarchy and tradition succumbed to new Enlightenment principles of citizenship and inalienable rights.

The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms. A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries. Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed. After the fall of the Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.

The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies and the invention of total war all mark their birth during the Revolution. Subsequent events that can be traced to the Revolution include the Napoleonic Wars, two separate restorations of the monarchy and two additional revolutions as modern France took shape. In the following century, France would be governed at one point or another as a republic, constitutional monarchy and two different empires (the First and Second).

Causes

Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the ''Ancien Régime'' as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hunger and malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789), after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niño along with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.

Another cause was the state's effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France's colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation. To obtain new money to head off default on the government's loans, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787.

Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.

Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.

Pre-revolution

Financial crisis

Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income. This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War. In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant. Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden, while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy. He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the ''parlements''. This was not received well by the King's ministers and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership. Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code. The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.

Estates-General of 1789

The Estates-General was organized into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France. On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The ''Parlement'' of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614. The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, where each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For example, in the Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate. The "Committee of Thirty," a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign." Necker convened a Second Assembly of Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333. The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.

Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.

''Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.''

Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate." To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (''cahiers de doléances'') were compiled to list problems. The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare. Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship. The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet ''Qu'est-ce que le tiers état?'' ("What is the Third Estate?"), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something." The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this. The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator." Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.

National Assembly (1789)

On 10 June 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the ''Communes'' (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June. Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.

In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.

National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)

Storming of the Bastille

By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.

Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers. On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ''Ancien Régime''. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the ''prévôt des marchands'' (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.

The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the ''commune''. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of ''Vive la Nation'' ("Long live the Nation") and ''Vive le Roi'' ("Long live the King").

Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.

As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighboring countries; many of these ''émigrés'', as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.

By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as ''"la Grande Peur"'' ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.

Working toward a constitution

On 4 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.

On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.

Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 ''départements,'' uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.

Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.

Women's March on Versailles

Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns. The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.

Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards. La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.

On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.

Revolution and the Church

The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the ''Ancien Régime'', the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom. The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, which it then redistributed to the poor. The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented by some groups. A small minority of Protestants living in France, such as the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy who discriminated against them. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy. As historian John McManners argues, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."

This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body. The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation." They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy, caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned. In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years. In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved. Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy. This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath. Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors." Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianization by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign, replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée, whose suppression is considered by some to be the first modern genocide.

Intrigues and radicalism

Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or ''monarchiens'', allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.

The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies. The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the ''Ancien Régime''— armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the ''émigrés''. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the ''Fête de la Fédération''; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.

The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the ''communes'' had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.

In late 1790, the French army was in considerable disarray. The military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them. At Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.

This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organization for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these fractions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.

Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.

In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the ''émigrés''. The debate pitted the safety of the Revolution against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau prevailed against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco". But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly adopted this draconian measure.

Royal flight to Varennes

Louis XVI, egged on by Marie Antoinette and other members of his family, opposed the course of the Revolution, but rejected the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe. He cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791, the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.

However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse ''département''). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they returned to Paris, the crowd greeted them in silence. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.

Completing the constitution

As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.

However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.

In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's ''L'Ami du Peuple''. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.

Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions. The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.

Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.

Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."

Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)

Failure of the constitutional monarchy

Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot." The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction. Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the ''émigrés'' with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.

Constitutional crisis

On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents and popular militias, supported by the revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards who were assigned for the protection of the king. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.

What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new ''de facto'' government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.

War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)

The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, many of the Feuillants and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum, Robespierre opposed war, preferring to consolidate and expand the Revolution at home. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792. France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.

The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792. The French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France. After the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793. At the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.

The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering Holland itself. The House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France. It was during this time, that ''La Marseillaise'', originally ''Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin'' ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792 and adopted in 1795 as the nation's first anthem.

National Convention (1792–1795)

Execution of Louis XVI

In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. 17 January 1793 saw Louis condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named ''Citoyen Louis Capet'' (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the ''Place de la Révolution'', former ''Place Louis XV'', now called the Place de la Concorde. Royalty across Europe was horrified and many heretofore neutral countries soon joined the war against revolutionary France.

Economy

When war went badly, prices rose and the ''sans-culottes'' — poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary ''coup'', backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian ''sans-culottes''. An alliance of Jacobin and ''sans-culottes'' elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders. This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods. Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"

Reign of Terror

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities. A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.

On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the ''enragés'' ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to ''sans-culottes'' alone. With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the ''revolutionary dictatorship''. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.

Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.

War in the Vendée

In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription. This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée. North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).

After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann penned a letter to the Committee of Public Safety stating

"There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."''

However, some historians doubt the authenticity of this document and others point out that the claims in it were patently false — there were in fact thousands of (living) Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely. It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, that may have been Westermann's attempt to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his incompetent military leadership and for his opposition to ''sans-culotte'' generals (he failed to avoid that, since he was guillotined together with Danton's group).

The revolt and its suppression (including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides) are thought to have taken between 117,000 and 250,000 lives (170,000 according to the latest estimates). Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media, but it has attracted much criticism in academia as being unrealistic and biased.

Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the ''levée en masse'', which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.

The result was a policy through which the state used violent repression to crush resistance to the government. Under control of the effectively dictatorial Committee, the Convention quickly enacted more legislation. On 9 September, the Convention established ''sans-culottes'' paramilitary forces, the ''revolutionary armies'', to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the ''Law of Suspects'' was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with vaguely defined crimes against liberty. On 29 September, the Convention extended price-fixing from grain and bread to other household goods and declared the right to set a limit on wages.

The guillotine as a symbol

The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.

At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the ''Noyades'' ("drownings") he organized in Nantes; his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.

Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November. The Reign of Terror enabled the revolutionary government to avoid military defeat. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with younger soldiers who had demonstrated their ability and patriotism. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy.

In the spring of 1794, both extremist ''enragés'' such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard ''indulgents'' such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the ''Cult of Reason'', advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".

Thermidorian Reaction

On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and other leading Jacobins. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.

In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against. The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.

The Constitutional Republic: The Directory (1795–1799)

The new constitution created the ''Directoire'' () and the first bicameral legislature in French history. The parliament consisted of two houses: the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents'' (Council of the Five Hundred), with 500 representatives, and the ''Conseil des Anciens'' (Council of Elders), with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the ''Conseil des Anciens'' from a list submitted by the ''Conseil des Cinq-Cents''. Furthermore, the universal suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.

With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the ''Ancien Régime'' by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. However, many French citizens distrusted the Directory, and the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them, the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, to prolong their power the directors were driven to rely on the military, which desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.

Other reasons influenced them in the direction of war. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.

The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.

The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained total power.

On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the ''coup of 18 Brumaire'' which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as ''Empereur'' (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.

Symbolism in the French Revolution

The French Revolution was a time of upheaval, especially towards traditional ideology, in almost every sense: the current monarch, King Louis XVI, was executed; the Catholic Church was all but abolished; a new calendar was created; and a new Republican government was established. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.

Fasces

Fasces, likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic. The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity. During the French Revolution the fasces image is seen in conjunction with many other symbols. This is seen with many emblems of the French Revolution. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most well known French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, it symbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on top of the classical symbol of power.

Liberty cap

The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originally worn by ancient Romans and Greeks. The cap implies ennobling effects, as seen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part to its importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incited the slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were a standard. The pileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionaries at the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism." The pileus competed with the Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck, for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurped its symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.

Liberty Tree

The Liberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlasting Republic, national freedom, and political revolution. It has historic roots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was shared by the two nascent republics. The tree was chosen as a symbol of the French Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore, which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another. The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate their own acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riot in 1765. The riot culminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elm tree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in the American colonies. It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living and growing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as a sapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation. The Liberty Tree serves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.

Hercules

The symbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent the monarchy. Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength and power. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the King over France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs. However, the monarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol of Hercules to declare its power.

During the Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascent revolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol was during a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalism on 10 August 1793. This Festival of Unity consisted of four stations around Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolution which embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power. The statue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI, symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. The statue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented the tyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished. In one hand, the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping the fasces which symbolized the unity of the French people. The image of Hercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moral system. Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of the monarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the French people. This transition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was a famous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, he was easily recognized by educated French observers. It was not necessary for the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the background of the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeks and the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republican and democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice to represent the powerful new sovereign people of France.

During the more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage and depiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due to revolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among the common citizens. The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming of enemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbol to use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered but eventually ruled out in favor of Marianne. Hercules was on the coin of the Republic. However, this Hercules was not the same image as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image of Hercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser, rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution. Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now the same size as Liberty and Equality. Also the language on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric of pre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty and Equality" were used. This is opposed to the forceful language of early Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, the Council of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from the problematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favor of an even more docile image.

Role of women

Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they couldn’t vote or hold any political office. They were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere. The ''Encyclopédie'', published by a group of philosophers over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a "failed man," the fetus not fully developed in the womb. "Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men" as opposed to men, upon whom "Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern." In general, "men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters". Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and "all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation." A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.

When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.

Even before Léon, some liberals had advocated equal rights for women including women's suffrage. Nicolas de Condorcet was especially noted for his advocacy, in his articles published in the ''Journal de la Société de 1789'', and by publishing ''De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité'' ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790.

Feminist agitation

The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women. Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."

Pauline Léon, on 6 March 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion. Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied. Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of "legions of amazons" in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.

On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence." Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.

The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on 10 May 1793. The goal of the club was "to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic." Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society. Of special interest to the Society was "combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation."

Later, on 20 May 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793." When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."

Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".

These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.

Women writers

While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym "Polyme" calling him the Revolution’s "infamy and shame." She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were "preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver." Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied. In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.

Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women "could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance" if given the chance. As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.

Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.

Legacy

The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with liberal, conservative, communist, and anarchist scholars—among others—disagreeing over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution. Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance. Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints. Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle. In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyzes the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.

Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789. The Revolution is, in fact, often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era". Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option." Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution. Outside France, the Revolution captured the imagination of the world. It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas were imbibed by Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.

See also

Related pages

Biens nationaux

Dual revolution

History of democracy

Jean-Nicolas Pache – Liberté, égalité, fraternité

La Révolution française (film)

List of people granted honorary French citizenship during the French Revolution

List of revolutions and rebellions

Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleonic code

Rise of nationalism in Europe

Timeline of the French Revolution

Audio files

Other revolutions or rebellions in French history

Camisard Rebellion, French Huguenots (1710–1715)

Haitian Revolution, Haiti colony (1791–1804)

July Revolution (1830)

Canut revolts of the July Monarchy

French Revolution of 1848

Resistance to the coup of 1851

Paris Commune of 1871

French Army Mutinies (1917)

French Resistance during World War II

May 1968 in France, a noteworthy rebellion, though not quite a revolution

References

Works cited

Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. "Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Marquise de Maintenon "Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis," in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000), 321.

Scott, Joan Wallach. "A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).

Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland" Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary Culture (2001): 403–419.

"Women." The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09. < http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.

Further reading

Baker, Keith M. ed. ''The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture'' (Oxford, 1987–94) ''vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1987); ''vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution,'' ed. C. Lucas (1988); ''vol. 3: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848,'' eds. F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989); ''vol. 4: The Terror,'' ed. K.M. Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4

Blanning, T.C.W. ''The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802'' (1996).

Censer, Jack R. "Amalgamating the Social in the French Revolution." ''Journal of Social History 2003'' 37(1): 145–150. Issn: 0022-4529 Fulltext: in Project Muse and Ebsco

Doyle, William. ''The Oxford History of the French Revolution'' (1989). online complete edition; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Doyle, William. ''The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction.'' (2001), 120pp; online edition

Doyle, William. ''Origins of the French Revolution'' (3rd ed. 1999) online edition

Dunne, John. "Fifty Years of Rewriting the French Revolution: Signposts Main Landmarks and Current Directions in the Historiographical Debate," ''History Review.'' (1998) pp 8+ online edition

Englund, Steven. ''Napoleon: A Political Life.'' (2004). 575 pages; the best political biography excerpt and text search

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. ''The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History'' (ABC-CLIO: 3 vol 2006)

Frey, Linda S. and Marsha L. Frey. ''The French Revolution.'' (2004) 190pp online edition

Furet, François. ''The French Revolution, 1770–1814'' (1996) excerpt and text search

Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. ''A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution'' (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Hunt, Lynn. ''The Family Romance of the French Revolution.'' (1992)

Hunt, Lynn. "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution." (1984)

Germani, Ian and Robin Swayles. ''Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution''. University of Regina Publications. 1998. ISBN 9780889771086

Griffith, Paddy. ''The Art of War of Revolutionary France 1789–1802,'' (1998); 304 pp; excerpt and text search

Jones, Colin. ''The Longman Companion to the French Revolution'' (1989)

Jones, Colin. ''The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon'' (2002) excerpt and text search

Kates, Gary. ''The French Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2005), 308pp; essays by scholars; excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

Lefebvre, Georges. ''The French Revolution'' (2 vol 1957) classic Marxist synthesis. complete online edition vol 1; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com

Neely, Sylvia. '' A Concise History of the French Revolution'' (2008)

Palmer, Robert R. ''The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800.'' (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online

Paxton, John. ''Companion to the French Revolution'' (1987), hundreds of short entries.

Rothenberg, Gunther E. "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon," ''Journal of Interdisciplinary History,'' Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 771–793 in JSTOR

Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. ''Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815'' (2000), scholarly survey excerpt and text search

Schroeder, Paul. ''The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848.'' 1996; Thorough coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition

Schwab, Gail M., and John R. Jeanneney, eds. ''The French Revolution of 1789 and Its Impact'' (1995) online edition

Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus. ''Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799'' (2 vol 1984), short essays by scholars

Schama, Simon. ''Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution'' (1989), highly readable narrative by scholar excerpt and text search

Sutherland, D.M.G. ''France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution'' (2nd ed. 2003, 430pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com

External links

"French Revolution" in the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''

Open University course

Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia Encyclopedia

Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York)

The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789–1792, and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792–1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History

Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.

english.republique.de A large collection of links

Category:Republicanism in France Category:18th-century rebellions Category:18th-century revolutions

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Name	Mike D
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Michael Diamond
Alias	Mike D, Country Mike, The King of Lunch
Birth date	November 20, 1965
Origin	New York, New York, U.S.
Instrument	Rapping, vocals, drums, percussion, keyboards
Genre	Hip hop, rap rock, hardcore punk, alternative hip hop
Occupation	Rapper, musician, songwriter, drummer
Years active	1979–present
Label	Def Jam RecordsGrand Royal RecordsCapitol Records
Associated acts	Beastie Boys Latch Brothers
Spouse	Tamra Davis (1993–present)
Children	Skyler Davis
Brothers	David Stephen
Website	www.beastieboys.com
Notable instruments	}}

Michael Diamond, better known as Mike D (born November 20, 1965), is a founding member of New York hip hop group the Beastie Boys. Mike D raps, sings, and plays drums alongside fellow members Ad-Rock, MCA and Mix Master Mike.

Early life

Mike D was born in New York City, New York. Mike was raised in an upper-middleclass Jewish household. He attended Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York for six months.

Career

In 1979, Diamond co-founded the band The Young Aborigines. In 1981, Adam Yauch, aka MCA, a friend and follower of the band became their bass player, and from the suggestion of their then-guitar player, John Berry, the band changed their name to the Beastie Boys. By 1983, Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) joined to form the lasting Beastie Boys trio, and their sound began to shift away from punk to hip-hop. In 1992, Mike D founded the Beastie Boys' now-defunct record label Grand Royal Records.

Personal life

In 1993, Mike married film, television and music video director Tamra Davis. They have two boys, Skyler and Davis. He has two brothers, Stephen and David.

References

Category:1965 births Category:American male singers Category:American rock drummers Category:American rock singers Category:American vegans Category:Beastie Boys members Category:Jewish American musicians Category:Jewish rappers Category:Living people Category:People from Manhattan Category:Rappers from New York City Category:American Jews

fr:Mike D it:Michael Diamond pl:Michael Diamond simple:Mike D fi:Michael Diamond

name	Jools Holland
background	solo_singer
birth name	Julian Miles Holland
birth date	January 24, 1958
birth place	Blackheath, London, England
instrument	Piano, keyboard, guitar
genre	Boogie-woogie, jazz, blues, R&B;
occupation	Musician, composer, television presenter, bandleader
years active	1974–present
associated acts	Squeeze Rhythm & Blues Orchestra
website	Official site }}

Julian Miles "Jools" Holland OBE, DL (born 24 January 1958) is an English pianist, bandleader, singer, composer, and television presenter. He was a founder of the band Squeeze, and his work has involved him with many artists including Sting, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, The Who, David Gilmour and Bono.

Holland is a published author and appears on television shows besides his own and contributes to radio shows. In 2004, he collaborated with Tom Jones on an album of traditional R&B; music. He currently hosts ''Later... with Jools Holland'', a music-based show aired on BBC2, on which his annual show the Hootenanny, is based.

Life and career

Holland played as a session musician before finding fame, and his first studio session was with Wayne County & the Electric Chairs in 1976 on their track "F*ck Off."

Holland was a founding member of the British pop band Squeeze, formed in March 1974, in which he played keyboards until 1981 and helped the band to achieve millions of record sales, before pursuing his solo career.

Holland began issuing solo records in 1978, his first EP being ''Boogie Woogie '78''. He continued his solo career through the early 1980s, releasing an album and several singles between 1981 and 1984. He branched out into TV, co-presenting the Newcastle-based TV music show ''The Tube'' with Paula Yates. Holland achieved notoriety by inadvertently using the phrase "groovy fuckers" in a live, early evening TV trailer for the show, causing it to be suspended for six weeks. He referred to this in his sitcom "The Groovy Fellers" with Rowland Rivron.

thumb|right|Holland at the Tsunami Relief concert in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, 22 January 2005In 1983 Holland played an extended piano solo on The The's re-recording of "Uncertain Smile" for the album ''Soul Mining''. In 1985, Squeeze (which had continued in Holland's absence through to 1982) unexpectedly regrouped including Jools Holland as their keyboard player. Holland remained in the band until 1990, at which point, he again departed Squeeze on amicable terms to resume his solo career as a musician and a TV host.

In 1987, Holland formed The ''Jools Holland Big Band'' which consisted of himself and Gilson Lavis from Squeeze. This gradually became his 18-piece Rhythm & Blues Orchestra.

Between 1988 and 1990 he performed and co-hosted along with David Sanborn during the two seasons of the music performance program Sunday Night on NBC late-night television. Since 1992 he has presented the eclectic music program ''Later... with Jools Holland'', plus an annual New Year's Eve "Hootenanny".

In 1996 Holland signed a record deal with Warner Bros. Records and his records are now marketed through Rhino Records.

Holland has a touring band, The Rhythm And Blues Orchestra, which often includes singers Sam Brown and Ruby Turner. In January 2005 Holland and his band performed with Eric Clapton as the headline act of the Tsunami Relief Cardiff. He also headlined the Skegness SO Festival in July 2010.

Personal

Holland is a fan of the 1960s TV series ''The Prisoner''. He owns costumes and props from the series, and occasionally appears wearing the trademark brown-with-white-pipe blazer featured in the series. Holland lives in the Westcombe Park area of Blackheath in southeast London, where he had his studio, Helicon Mountain, built to his design, heavily inspired by Portmeirion, the setting for ''The Prisoner''. In 1987, Holland demonstrated his love of the series and starred in a spoof documentary, ''The Laughing Prisoner'', with Stephen Fry, Terence Alexander and Hugh Laurie. Much of it was shot on location in Portmeirion, with archive footage of Patrick McGoohan, and featuring musical numbers from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Magnum and XTC. Holland performed a number towards the end of the program. Holland is also a Millwall FC fan. His younger brother Christopher also plays organ in the Rhythm & Blues Orchestra as well as being a successful singer/songwriter in his own right.

Holland was an interviewer for The Beatles Anthology TV project, and appeared in the 1997 film ''Spiceworld'' as a musical director.

He received an OBE in 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours list, for services to the British music industry as a television presenter and musician. In September 2006 Holland was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Kent. He is also known for his charity work: in June 2006 he performed in Southend for HIV/AIDS charity Mildmay, and in early 2007 he performed at Wells and Rochester Cathedrals to raise money for maintaining cathedral buildings. He is also patron of the Drake Music Project and has raised many thousands of pounds for the charity.

Jools Holland was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Canterbury Christ Church University at a ceremony held at Canterbury Cathedral on 30 January 2009.

On 29 August 2005 Holland married Christabel McEwen, his girlfriend of 15 years (between 1983 and 1995 she had been married to Edward Lambton, 7th Earl of Durham, but they divorced). The wedding, at St James's Church, Cooling near Rochester, was attended by many celebrities, including Ringo Starr, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Lenny Henry, Noel Gallagher, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

Writing

His 2007 autobiography, ''Barefaced Lies and Boogie Woogie Boasts'' was BBC Radio 4 "Book of the Week" in the week beginning 8 October 2007 and was read by Holland. He is the author or joint author of four other books.

Discography

Albums that have charted and gained Certifications

Year	Album	Peak chart positions		!style="width:4em;font-size:75%"
1996	''Sex & Jazz & Rock & Roll''
1998	''Best Of''				UK">Music recording sales certifications
!style="width:4em;font-size:75%"	!style="width:4em;font-size:75%"
1996	''Sex & Jazz & Rock & Roll''
1998	''Best Of''				UK: Silver
2000	''Hop The Wag''				* UK: Silver
2001	''Small World Big Band''				* UK: 2× Platinum
2002	''SWBB Volume Two: More Friends''				* UK: Platinum
2003	''Jack O The Green (SWBB Friends 3)''				* UK: Silver
2005	''Swinging the Blues, Dancing the Ska''
2007	''Best of Friends''				* UK: Silver
2011	''Finding The Keys - The Best of''

Releases

1978 "Boogie Woogie '78" (EP)

1981 ''Jools Holland and His Millionaires''

1984 ''Jools Holland Meets Rock 'A' Boogie Billy'' (U.S. release only)

1990 ''World Of His Own''

1991 ''The Full Complement''

1992 "Together Again" (single with Sam Brown)

1992 ''The A-Z Geographer's Guide To The Piano''

1994 ''Solo Piano''

1994 ''Live Performance''

1996 ''Sex & Jazz & Rock & Roll''

1997 ''Lift The Lid''

1998 ''Best Of''

1999 ''Sunset Over London''

2000 ''Hop The Wag''

2001 ''Small World Big Band''

2002 ''SWBB Volume Two: More Friends''

2003 ''Jack O The Green (SWBB Friends 3)''

2004 ''Tom Jones & Jools Holland''

2005 ''Beatroute''

2005 ''Swinging the Blues, Dancing the Ska''

2006 ''Moving Out To The Country''

2007 ''Best of Friends''

2008 ''The Collection''

2008 ''The Informer (With Ruby Turner)''

2008 ''"The Informer" (single with Ruby Turner)''

2009 ''"I Went By" (single with Louise Marshall)''

2010 ''Rockinghorse''

Film and television

1981 ''Urgh! A Music War''

1982 ''Police: Around the World''

1982 - 1987 ''The Tube'' (Host for 121 editions)

1983 ''Rebellious Jukebox'': Compere

1984 ''The Young Ones'': Punk (Episode entitled "Summer Holiday")

1985 ''Walking To New Orleans'' (Jools Holland in New Orleans)

1987 ''Eat the Rich'': Sun Reporter

1987 ''Filthy Rich & Catflap'': Strip Show Pianist (Episode #1.3)

1987 ''The Laughing Prisoner'': No. 7

1987 ''French and Saunders'' (Episode 1.5)

1988 ''Sunday Night'': Host (unknown episodes)

1989 ''Juke Box Jury'': Host (unknown episodes)

1989 ''The Groovy Fellers'' Himself, 6 episodes

1991 ''Mr Roadrunner'' (Jools Holland in Memphis)

1994 ''There's No Business'': Pianist

1994 - 1995 ''Don't Forget Your Toothbrush''

1995 ''The Beatles Anthology''

1997 ''Spice World'': Musical Director

1997 ''Name That Tune'': Host and Pianist

2003 ''Jool's History of the Piano'' : Presenter

2006 ''Top Gear: Star in a reasonably priced car.

2007 ''Fairport@Forty'': Interview

2009 ''Chop Shop Rover Concept: The Jet 1 Car'' : Customer

Current television programmes

1992–present ''Later... with Jools Holland''

2000–present ''Jools' Annual Hootenanny''

Books

''"Rolling Stones": A Life on the Road'', (with Dora Loewenstein), Viking/Allen Lane (1998), (ISBN 0-670-88051-5)

''Beat Route: Journeys Through Six Counties'', Weidenfeld & Nicholson (1998), (ISBN 0-575-06700-4)

''Ray Charles: Man and Music'', (with Michael Lydon), Payback Press (1999), (ISBN 0-86241-929-8)

''Hand That Changed Its Mind '', International Music Publications (2007), (ISBN 1-84328-645-9)

''Barefaced Lies and Boogie-woogie Boasts '', Michael Joseph Ltd (2007), (ISBN 0-7181-4915-7)

References

External links

Category:1958 births Category:Living people Category:Boogie-woogie pianists Category:English rock pianists Category:English television presenters Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Bandleaders Category:Squeeze members Category:I.R.S. Records artists Category:People from Blackheath, London Category:BBC Radio 2 presenters Category:Deputy Lieutenants of Kent

cy:Jools Holland de:Jools Holland es:Jools Holland fr:Jools Holland nl:Jools Holland pl:Jools Holland pt:Jools Holland fi:Jools Holland