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July 29, 2010

Jon Spencer's Review of Jim DeRogatis: 'Fucking Asshole'...

Eye Weekly | Read Full Story >

Eyeweekly

Was it difficult for you to revisit the past? Particularly around the time of 1996’s Now I Got Worry, you were taking a lot heat from critics for the way you reinterpreted the blues.

I think it got worse after that, it all went downhill! Like this fucking asshole Jim DeRogatis [the Chicago Sun-Times’ long-serving music critic, whose Pitchfork Festival review likened the Blues Explosion to a “blackface parody”] — he’s always had a chip on his shoulder against me and this band, and it continues to this day. If you don’t like the music, that’s fine, but this whole thing about racism is just bone-headed and wrong. America still has a long way to go; race is still a very touchy subject here. [The criticism] definitely got worse as the years went on, and it’s the same thing with what I wear onstage: I don’t understand what the fuck is up with these squares. I guess maybe I was kind of hoping we’d outlive some of these fuckers, but in the case of this dude in Chicago, some of them are still around.



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