Featured review by Benjamin Popper (Rolling Stone, Vice, Men’s Vogue, the Daily Beast, New York Observer, and The Memphis Flyer.)

“The hard driving drums that open Jump Back Jake’s new EP, Call Me Your Man, don’t try to do too much. When the rest of the band jumps in a few bars later, the contours of a small recording studio emerge from the sound. It’s tight, focused, full of momentum. Jump Back starts singing, but the cadence is more relaxed then his older material. I think immediately of Kris Kristofferson when he gets to that line, “I’m sleeping in the next room doll / And all my shirts smell like you”. It’s understatement with an undercurrent, simmering on top of some rock and roll.

Where have all the horns gone? I remember Jake proudly rounding up aging Memphis brass, dragging them out of their retirement kicking and screaming, charming them with grand marnier and an unabashed love for the obscure records they played on decades ago. But the well curated soul sound that powered his first record, Brooklyn Hustle / Memphis Muscle, is over. And frankly I don’t miss it.

That Jake can still be found. The murderous metal riffs on Rose Colored Coffin (track 4) fall right into “I got a Loooovveee,” sung with the tone and melisma of a juke joint regular. But instead of trying to produce a modern soul record, Jump Back is putting those tools to work on compositions that defy easy categorization. There is something of Tom Waits in this track, a spooky gypsy, collecting the odds and ends of American music and stitching them up into an ill fitting suit that scares the women as much as it turns them on.” (continue reading at The Vinyl District…)

Check it out.  We’ve just released a new single from Jump Back Jake called “KING OF ROMANCE.”  You can stream and download it free from the above player.  And here’s a note from front man Jake Rabinbach, who is currently touring and playing guitar with Francis and the Lights opening for DRAKE and MGMT.

There were meteor showers all week – slow burning blue flames in between flashes of heat lightning in the sky above highway 61 between Clarksdale and Memphis. Robert ‘Wolfman” Belfour was playing at Red’s on the corner of Sunflower and MLK. It was a a Wednesday night house party and it was like 2009 and 1959 were the same year.

Then it was a new year and I stayed up late in a guest house on Belvedere writing a new song called ‘King of Romance.’ Now it is our new single. It’s free. Share it with each other. XOXO JBJ

The audience was one of our best. I think I met, and shook hands with, almost all of them after the show as they passed through the exit. Ardent Music’s Jake Rabinbach (Jump Back Jake) had a smile on his face. No one seemed to mind the inadvertent new arrangement of “September Gurls.” I had just taken off my shoe to locate the source of pain on my toe when Alex started the song. Before I could get my sock and shoe back on he had sung through the first verse so I brought Jon, Ken and myself in with a drum fill for the first chorus. The new arrangement comes off pretty good in the “low fi” YouTube video of it I just watched.

David Fricke, being the nice guy that he is, attended and wrote about the show. His account is much more interesting than what mine would be. So here you are…
http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2009/11/19/big-star-rock-1-record-radio-city-classics-at-rare-nyc-gig/

Thanks to all who came and lent their wonderful spirits to the show.

- Jody