Mother Do You Wanna Bang Heads With Me?

Joe Jordan and his mom, Jacqui Gore, are the loudest family in town.

by A.D. Amorosi

Mark Stehle

Joe Jordan was on the road — somewhere in Utah — when he checked in the other day.

"People have loved the music and are really getting off on us during this tour," said the 24-year-old singer and guitarist. He's as high-energy and cheerful while struggling with his cell phone's lousy connection as he is on stage rocking out some electric fusion blues or rustic folk.

The lanky West Philly ax man has toured the states before, as a solo act and as an opener for Living Colour. Jordan's wiry licks and machete-sharp solos fit nicely with that band's slick prog-metal and brusque funk. He's got a live CD, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, and a forthcoming studio effort, Twisted Visions, that he's currently putting the final touches on.

This recent jaunt, however, was the first cross-country tour for the hard-driving Joe Jordan Experiment. Joining his sleek soul-metal ensemble is bassist Wisnu Wardhana and drummer Jacqui Gore. (Rhythm guitarist Jesse Gimbel did not go on the tour.)

If Cream had speed metal leanings or if Rush had hooks and rhythm — that's the JJX sound. While Gore and Wardhana maintain a pliable but pummeling rhythm, Jordan soars atop it with a mass of focused blistering solos and warmly handsome vocals.

It's not readily apparent to audiences who've witnessed the screech and burn of JJX in person — at spots like Doc Watson's, The Balcony and Tritone — that the diminutive Gore is quite a bit older than the rest of the group.

Which is to say she doesn't look 57. Gore's face is unlined and she carries herself like a confident teen when she walks. She's doesn't hit the skins or bust grooves like she's 57 (not that 57 is old for a musician). Gore swings, kicks and slams like a thrash-fancying skate-punk who just bought her first Mandrill album. Sure, her theatrical use of a cigarette holder when she smokes is unusual, but it gives off an air of breezy sophistication rather than age.

On the phone, Jordan recalls the occasional stare at the occasional gig, somebody in the audience trying to figure out Gore's story — her age, her connection to this pack of pile-driving rockers. "That's a 57-year-old woman up there — whoa!" he laughs. "Banging the drums with precision and doing her thing."

Then he reiterates in a mock-operatic tone his nightly introductions. "Ladies and gentlemen — my mom," says Jordan, reliving that ritual moment with stagy brio. "She was 33 when she had me — how's she doing?"

He's done that intro countless times. The reaction's always the same. "The crowd goes nuts," he says.

That's been the case since the pair joined musical forces in 1999, in Jordan's balls-to-the-wall metal band, Concrete Method. Back then he prowled the stage shirtless, screaming bloody murder, thrashing on his guitar while his mother bashed about on drums.

"She rocks," says Jordan matter-of-factly. "I mean, she always played — blues, funk acts, jazz bands. You name it, she's played it. And I was almost always with her. But we figured all this out on the day that I came home from high school to hear her jamming to my copy of Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power."

"Hell, yeah, I told him right there how much I liked Pantera," says Gore.

Hell, yeah.

Mark Stehle

Back in Philadelphia, preparing for last weekend's gig at World Café Live, Joe Jordan talks about a life in music.

At the very least, he's been doing it since he was 4. That's the age from which he has his most vivid memory of sitting around his mom's home in West Philly (they've had several; currently they live at 55th and Spruce) during one of her jam sessions and coming up with something that made it onto a record. She's been a fixture of Philly's funk, jazz and blues scenes, having jammed in bands with nearly forgotten Philly legends like Eddie Gaines and Cliff Edwards.

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"She was playing with some of The Intruders" — one of Philly's finest soul bands of the '60s and '70s — "at the house during this particular session," says Jordan. He and his brother Malik were always part of his mom's jams in one way or another; Gore started giving her sons instruments to play as soon as they could hold them.

"Even when they couldn't hold on, the kids needed something to do, something constructive," says Gore, smiling at the memory. "They had something like ADD but we didn't give 'em Ritalin or any of that shit. We gave them guitars and drums and they mimicked us."

During this particular session, young Joe was sitting across the room from his mom while the adults were playing and tape recording the jam. "Right in the middle of the session I yelled, 'I want to sit next to my mommy!'" recalls Jordan with a grin.

Mom always remembered that yelp and was so smitten with it she inserted the sound clip at the beginning of her lone solo CD, 2007's swanky genre-jumping Sum of One. Still, way back then, she never figured that her son would still be sitting next to her, making music.

As much as Jordan claims he got his skills and inspiration through "the osmosis" of living with Gore, her house jams and her collection of Black Sabbath, Weather Report and P-Funk albums, he's always been an independent soul with his own ear for music and words.

"Lyrically, in particular, I don't always know what the boy is saying but I know that it's deep," says Gore of the working-class poetry Jordan writes for JJX.

At William Penn High, he got turned on to Rimbaud which led to Jim Morrison which led to "drinking whiskey," Jordan says with a laugh. That's how he developed his dreamy-realist lyrics. He was the black goth-metal dude in spikes, fishnets and Chuck Taylors. "People either asked me, was I mixed [race] or was I from Mars?" he says.

This was stuff he didn't get from his mom. Or his dad, for that matter. He is estranged (and Gore is divorced) from his guitar-playing father.

Then one day in 1999, Jordan introduced his mom to Concrete Method. "Our drummer was a good friend and an OK time-keeper, but he wasn't tight," notes Jordan. "My mom jumped in at a block party and never left."

This wasn't and isn't a gimmick — she's the best man for the job. Nor is it her attempt to stay young. She prefers the company of her youthful children because they're smart and open-minded, she says. "More so than most older people I know."

"At first, it was just until he got another drummer," says Gore. "That's how we've run it for all these years. I kept waiting for him to get somebody younger or stronger."

Jordan interrupts: "Nobody is better." He's JJX's leader and its songwriter, but he's quick to credit his mom with orchestrating the drum track to one of his newest songs, "The Great Divide."

"I only recently conceded to the fact that I am the drummer," she says softly.

Gore's pretty much always been a drummer — that is, when she wasn't singing or playing piano. The North Philly-born Gore grew up with a dad who managed bands, a mom who sang, and a hippie mentality. She loved the idea of living free and easy. "That's because I lived with my mama until I was nearly 30 and didn't have to pay for anything," she laughs. "Every time I did leave home, I came back pregnant."

Gore picked up the drums at age 16 when she saw bands on the Channel 6 television program The Steel Pier Show — an Atlantic City-based variety show starring Joe Grady and Ed Hurst — and realized that lip-syncing, fake-playing bands like The Kinks needed to be taught a lesson. "They ain't playing those drums — I'll show them," she says. She started small, playing with bands at church socials until, in 1972, she wanted to drum in earnest. She locked herself in her bedroom for six months playing to Emerson Lake & Palmer and Temptations records until she got ferociously confident enough to play with jazz cats at hot spots like Slim Cooper's in Germantown. "I did gigs with R&B guys, too, but they were cliquish and none of the guitarists liked me. They said I played too much stuff." She doesn't name names. She's too much of a lady.

Before hitting the stage at World Café Live, she jokes about having had kids just for the company. "They understand and accept me without criticism," says Gore. Maybe she also had kids to have someone to jam with, someone whose busy biting songs Gore could play too much through. Watching them roar through their set, the crack dynamics come down to the on-stage roles of bold guitarist and powerhouse drummer.

As for family dynamics, she knows when to lean back. He can get his mack on with the girls who stop by after the show without her butting in. "It's his band and I let him lead," she says. "Personally, by the time you're 18, the only thing I can do is offer advice. I don't run it anymore. But I keep an eye on him."

What about the other way around — does Jordan have to watch for suitors hitting on his drummer? "Funny you should ask," says Jordan, meeting with fans after the World Café Live show while Gore stands nearby. "When we were in Utah, some guy came up to me and asked if it was cool to talk to her. I said of course. My drummer's a grown woman. But be cool. Don't mess with my mom or there will be hell to pay."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

For more on the Joe Jordan Experiment, visit joejordanrocks.com.