Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Releasing Greatest Hits Album

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion will issue the career retrospective disc, 'Dirty Shirt Rock N' Roll,' on Mar. 30, compiling the skuzz punk blues trio's work from 1992 to 2001. Alongside songs from JSBX's first six albums are several bonus cuts, including some noteworthy collaborations from those years.

"We tried to give a good sense of what the band was about back then," Spencer tells Spinner from his home in New York City. "There's quite a few guests on there: We worked with R.L. Burnside, Rufus Thomas, Calvin Johnson, Money Mark. We had the good fortune in getting to work with very talented unique performers. I tried to cover as much ground and different angles of the group as I could on this compilation."

The band's individual albums will also be reissued this year with plenty of extra tracks and new liner notes. "The compilation leads the way, then there will be a series of six album reissues. The first two are 'Now I Got Worry,' which is from '97 ... I think it's from '97. I'm not very good with dates, even though I spent months working on this stuff. The other one is a live album, 'Controversial N-----,' which has only ever been released in Japan."

"I'm filling these CDs up to the brim. Some material has never been released and some of it is rare. They've always been great albums, but I think there's a lot of extra stuff here for people who might already be familiar with the band. Yesterday, I was in the studio sorting through live tapes that were recorded at CBGBs. I think we're going to be using some of that for the 'Orange' album reissue. That's never been released: We recorded it and it sat on the shelf since Dec. 12, 1993. We were a very busy band back then."