Song Spotlight: Jagged Baptist Club's Temptation Death House (a night at Permanent Records Roadhouse)

Jagged Baptist Club took to the Permanent Records Roadhouse stage, yelling out "Los Angeles!!!" The band is fronted by Blake Stokes who has to rank as one of the more engaging lead singers of the Los Angeles music scene. He gave his audience a complement after their first song of the night, "Now ladies and gentlemen of Los Angeles, California, I have to tell you something . . . I'm already impressed. We were playing eleven shows in England. And they were very good at clapping. And in the past, you Americans have not been very good at clapping. But guess what, you're very good at clapping." He then called out someone who had stopped clapping to the beat set by their drummer Morgan Ponder. 

Jagged Baptist Club at Permanent Records Roadhouse

He should have added that Americans are very good at screaming as screams filled the venue throughout their synth rock performance. Are the English good at screaming? By the time the band got to "You Are a Dog," the crowd was chanting "JBC! JBC! JBC!"    

I first came across Jagged Baptist Club in 2019 at The Hi Hat (the current location of The Goldfish). They had recently gone through a name change (TEST). I've continued to follow the band throughout the years. My favorite song has always been "Temptation Death House" which is a song that is driven by Josh Boyd's synth playing. It always reminds me of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." The song has the conflicts of the temptation. At one point, the lyrics say: 

Jagged Baptist Club at Permanent Records Roadhouse

I always said you were the wrong one, baby.

And then a few lines later:

I never said you were the wrong one, baby

Jagged Baptist Club at Permanent Records Roadhouse

Conversation of the set. From the audience, "How are you doing?" Stokes responded, "Pretty good. Like a B+. Can we get to an A-." A song later, he yelled out asking for the crowd to get pumped up to help raise his grade to an 89." In the back of mind, I was thinking, "That's still a B+." I suppose he realized that, as well, because he next asked for the crowd to yell even louder so that he could get to a 91. "I'm so about scholastics," he concluded the comedy routine.

Jagged Baptist Club at Permanent Records Roadhouse

Their Permanent Records set ended with "Hot Brains." The microphone cut out on Stokes, but that didn't cause him any issues. He switched over to CJ Ramsey's microphone and kept the song going. The night ended with Stokes holding his guitar high above his head to the cheers of the midnight crowd, because as he had said just a few moments earlier, "I know you're in your 30s. I know you're in your 40s. But we can still push each other." 

Setlist: Michael's Hands, Temptation Death House, Physical Surveillance, You Are a Dog, Bull on a Chain, Blue Fields, In Sequence, Blow Dry Nation, Slid Out in the Sunroom, Chop X8, Hot Brains.

The band will be headlining the Eastside Fux Vol. III Festival at Zebulon on Jun 28th.