To the casual observer The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion may seem like little more than surly, self-important nihilists with an all-encompassing persecution complex. Yet their studious reserve in the face of journalistic interrogation is hardly surprising when you consider that the staunch traditionalists of the American rock media have recently branded them as racists, simply because they've dared to treat the blues as something other than a sacred museum piece. A situation soon to be exacerbated by the band's forthcoming promo live album, rather incautiously titled 'Controversial Negro' and garishly illustrated with a day-glo Warhol print of Mick Jagger's iconic countenance. Ultimately, Jon Spencer is playing with fire. He’s gleefully taunting the inverse-racists of so-called liberal America with incendiary images. He is, after all, a graduate of semiotics (the brand of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols), so he knows exactly what he’s doing.