MusicHead

Look, I’m not going to spend a lot of time writing about defunct artists. Because, why? This band is different, though. Different because they’re personally important to me.

Jump, Little Children (JLC)

Originally founded in 1991, JLC began as four students from the North Carolina School of the Arts performing traditional Irish music. By 1993, the group had expanded and solidified to five members.

• Jay Clifford: Primary Lead Vocal, Guitar
• Ward Williams: Cello & Guitar
• Jonathan Grey: Stand-up Bass
• Matthew Bivins: Secondary Lead Vocal, Multi-instrumentalist
• Evan Bivins: Drums

Their fist full-length effort, LICORICE TEA DEMOS, was released in 1995 and they began to gather a strong following in the southeastern US. LTD was an exclusively acoustic recording created with a single microphone, much the same way recordings were made in the 1920’s and 1930’s. The music was “mixed” by adjusting the performers playing volume and proximity to the mic. They followed this up with the live EP recording, BUZZ, in 1997, featuring more traditional rock and roll arrangements and the rousing closer, “Opium,” which became a live staple for many years.

The strength of these two records brought them to the attention of record companies and they eventually signed with the Atlantic subsidiary, Breaking Records. Under this label they were able to record and release MAGAZINE in 1998.

MAGAZINE is an odd little record. It goes out of its way to show the whole dynamic of the band’s talent; raucous pop-rock, wistful love songs, thoughtful muses, and sexy alt-rock. One of the raucous pop-rock tracks, “My Guitar” features a double guitar riff that, in live shows, featured Ward Williams and Matt Bivins playing the same guitar simultaneously.

What might be most remarkable about the album, though, is it’s most successful track, “Cathedrals.” “Cathedrals” is a chamber music piece featuring no traditional rock and roll instrumentation and primarily features Jay Clifford’s high vocals and Ward Williams on the cello. This song charted in 1999 and got regular rock radio play in a time when Brittany Spears, TLC, The Backstreet Boys, and Limp Bizkit were dominating the airwaves.

This is about where I come into the story. If you read my Matchbox 20 post, then you know that at this time I was living in Atlanta, GA, and making a futile attempt to enter the music business on the engineering side. I had a temporary paid internship the summer of ’99 and I rather awkwardly started dating the studio owner’s daughter, Meaghan. Aside from the awkwardness of dating the bosses daughter, at only 20-years old I had not yet recovered from the traumas of my adolescence or my only real romantic relationship I had had by that time. Her name was Mindy and it was not a healthy relationship. It was dominated by low self-esteem, trauma bonding, and teenage hornyness.

Fortunately, Meaghan was a completely different type of girl. She was 18, had just graduated high school and was about to study art at the local girls college. She was intelligent, talented, had a great corny sense of humor, and was relatively trauma-free. She was the one who had started talking to me about JLC. I may or may not have already been hearing Cathedrals on the radio. I can’t remember this many years later, but she’s the one who really put them on my radar.

If I remember correctly, our first date was to see them perform at the Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points, with two of her girlfriends. I must have borrowed her MAGAZINE CD, because I don’t remember all the material being completely new to me. What I do remember is seeing a high energy rock show with clearly talented musicians who played both traditional and rock styles with non-traditional rock instruments. For instance, never in all the years I followed them, did I see Johnny use a bass guitar, and Matt Bivins owned the only electric mandolin I’ve ever seen or heard of in any context. I of course got my JLC initiation of seeing the four-handed guitar playing, singing along to the “You Are My Sunshine” segment of “Pink Lemonade” and putting our hands over our heads in O’s during “Opium.” If I wasn’t a fan beforehand, I most definitely was afterward.

A few weeks later, we drove from Atlanta to Columbia, SC, to see them perform at the university there, my first and only trip so South Carolina, and until last year, my only time traveling to see a band play. Unfortunately (for me, not her), my relationship with Meaghan didn’t last past the summer, but my relationship with JLC continued on. I’ve lost track how many times, but I saw them once or twice more at the Variety until I left Atlanta for St. Louis, MO, in August 2001.

Around the time of their next release, 2001’s VERTIGO, there was a major contraction in the music business and JLC’s Breaking Records was dropped by Atlantic and the band’s future was in serious doubt. Eventually, the band formed their own label, EZ Chief, and were able to continue on producing BETWEEN THE DIM AND THE DARK (2004), its companion EP, BETWEEN THE GLOW AND THE LIGHT (2005), and the double-live album LIVE AT THE DOCK STREET THEATER (2006).

The success MAGAZINE and VERTIGO allowed them to tour more extensively outside of the east coast and southeast regions, including my home city of St. Louis, but in no way does this mean anything was easier for them. Yes, they were touring further afield, but they were also self-funding. It’s my understanding that the only reason they ever came to St. Louis is that they new someone in town and didn’t have to get hotel rooms. They were never as well known there and their shows were sparsely attended.

I remained loyal, however, and tried to get whoever I could to go to the shows and connect with fans in town. I had very limited success. My first time seeing them at the Duck Room in St. Louis I took my cousin Holly with me. I did manage to create one JLC fan in the woman I eventually married, DeLyle. I was devoted enough that I volunteered to run the merch table for them the last two times they ever came to town. Once at the Duck Room (2003 or 04) and once at the St. Louis University student center in 2005.

It’s sad to say, but in those last few years you could kind of see the end coming. They’d been frank about their business struggles over the years, and seeing them fail to gain traction after the 2001 collapse was clearly weighing on them. Being a seasoned fan, I could see that the passion had largely gone from their performances. They, in fact, felt performative. They’d stopped playing their signature closer “Opium” years before and were clearly not feeling the four-handed guitar gimmick anymore. What used to be fun was just work for them, now. There was never any public display or hint of strife between the band members, but one can imagine how stressful this all was on their relationships.

That 2005 tour had been announced as their farewell tour that culminated in their annual acoustic show at the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, SC, from which the double-live album was produced. I never had the privilege to attend a Dock Street show, but I know those shows were always a kind of homecoming for them, after all, busking on the streets of Charleston was a big part of their beginnings. It was a good ending for them, as well.

Then, to all of our surprise, ten years after their previous release they came back, if only briefly, with SPARROW (2016), and a few years after that, the final album FOUNDERING (2022). Both albums are fine familiar pieces, but like any reunion, the further time moves on the harder it is to rekindle the magic. They feel like friends who meet up every decade or so, each time joyously remembering the good old days and desperately trying to find the old spark again, but the past is past.

Putting this all in perspective, while those of you who remember JLC from “Cathedrals” may think of them as a one-hit-wonder, in truth they had far more success than most ever come close to, overcame professional hardships that would have scuttled most bands, and still maintained a brotherhood amongst themselves and loyalty of their fans. What’s more successful than that?

If you’re reading this and are curious about them. I encourage you to take a listen. You may not know them, but to me, they’re famous. You might like them given the chance.