Jon Spencer & the HITmakers, Skull Practitioners, and Licks at TV Eye
Closing their winter tour at Ridgewood, Queens’ TV Eye, Jon Spencer & the HITmakers performed on Saturday, February 4, 2023 on an extremely cold winter night, courtesy of a polar vortex, to a sold out crowd. Spencer’s HITmakers features Sam Coomes (Quasi; who will perform another sold out show next month on the same stage) on keys, plus drummer Andrew Zammit, and Bob Bert (Sonic Youth, Pussy Galore, Wolfmanhattan Project, Lydia Lunch’s Retrovirus) on trash cans and some metal spiral thing. The tour in support of their album, Spencer Gets It Lit!, began in Cambridge, MA on January 24th and concluded in NYC.
The night began promptly at 8PM with a set from Licks, a local quartet that seemed to make the most of their allotted time by playing loud, quickly, and energetically; closing their set with a cover of a song by The Gories. Licks set a great tone for the rest of the night. The other opening act was Skull Practitioners, another local band who released their newest album, Negative Stars, a couple weeks ago on In The Red Records (who also put out Spencer Gets It Lit!).
Last, but certainly not least, was Jon Spencer & the HITmakers. Taking the stage around 9:45PM, the band played songs from their newest release, plus older material, and including a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion song during their encore (“Dang” from Orange). I first saw Spencer perform live in 1999 with JSBX and Luscious Jackson at SummerStage in Central Park and have seen him numerous times over the years and he always puts on an excellent show. Before the encore, Spencer realized he was the only one to return on stage and looked around for his bandmates. Sam soon appeared on stage holding a birthday cake since Jon’s birthday would arrive at midnight.