Jack Covington

Jack Covington / DogsOnThePorch

I'm a lifelong picker and wailer. I belt songs from the gut about the life I've led, from the loss of my beloved singer-songwriter Mother at age 11, to lovestruck-dumb and heartbroken as a lost and lonely young man, to down-and-out and riding the rails, to prison and back again, sparing nothing of the Hell, despondency, misery, love, ecstacy, enlightenment, and insanity that were my only friends in a cold and callous world. I'm at the apex of my happiness each time I'm seized with the unholy Spirit, performing before the vicious kinetic glow of an enthusiastic audience. Baby, if you like to gamble, I'm your muthafuckin' MAN. - J.C.

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What is music to you? What does it give you?

Music is my essence; my substantiation, my validation. In music I find transendence and existential validity. The medium gives me the power to convey what otherwise would never be expressed.

What is your music dream?

I want to be recognized among the ranks of those preceding me in this esoteric little genre. Let my songs carry momentum and resound for some fleeting time. Then I may rest contentedly.

If you could change the world - what would you start with?

Myself. Change starts locally, immediately. I am omnipresently plagued by the specters of my past.

Which is the most memorable song from your childhood?

The very first song I recall hearing was "Walkin' After Midnight", by You-Know-Damn-Well-Who. Yup, in the family Chevy station wagon, headed to the tracks on the old Conrail line to enjoy a Georgia summer evening and us kids would get to squash pennies flat as the trains roared by. Haha ... this invokes the old Guy Clark tune, "Texas, 1947".

Who are your favorite musical artists or bands?

Of course, this list could easily be monolithic, but a concise example of my kinda music would include ... Skynyrd, Emmy Lou Harris, Buck Owens, Johnny Paycheck, Billy Joe Shaver, Motörhead, DOA, David Allan Coe, Suicidal, Beatles, Mayhem, Steppenwolf, Kris Kristofferson, Ramones, Nashville Pussy, Pantera, Down, Church of Misery, Patsy Cline, Bon Scott-era AC/DC, Waylon ... ya know ... them guys, man.

What inspires you to make music?

Maybe an intrinsic weakness, an indomitable compulsion to scream my shit from the rooftops. It's totally atavistic, though, too. Extended lineage of musical people on both sides of the family. Hell, my dad was working in Nashville for RCA as a songwriter in the late 70s when he met my mother, a Cajun flower child with a six-string and a voice just ... divine. Singular. She'd come up out of Austin with a little group and they were playing one of the circuit joints and now you got my freaky ass.

What is the message you want to send with your music?

Wit, acumen, and prowess is good, good shit and it's hard-earned, but so is humility. We're all hurtling through the indifferent entropic nothing and trying to find a bush to cover our naked, vulnerable selves; therefore, the self-righteous, sanctimonious, antagonizer-oppressor has got to get slapped the fuck back down with extreme prejudice. ... uh, and also I wanna mesmerize with lyrics interwoven with silver and rattler venom.

How do you feel when you perform in front of an audience?

There is no gratification I know equaling the enthusiastic reciprocation of a good crowd. It metamorphosizes me into my most potent form and I am, at fleeting last, home. The opposite is true regarding a negatively-receptive audience. When they're indifferent or patronizing, if not outright hostile as you sing those songs comprised of your life's struggle ... I don't feel entitled to graciousness, but I've played to people who, collectively and arbitrarily, were just not gonna fuckin' tune-in for the act, and it just makes a guy feel like shit. But it'll grow ya a backbone.

How do you see the musicians’ reality nowadays? What could be improved?

Well, it's conducive in that the labels don't operate a total hegemony on performers as they did fifty years ago. Getting paid is always gonna be a breathless hustle, though. Consumers of music: PLEASE ... GO TO SHOWS. Go see it, support it. Vocalize your weight and presence with your dollar-vote.

What do you think of Drooble?

I am thrilled at the prospect of communicating with Latin-American musicians in my incipient, faltering Spanish. The technology needs further refining but what can I contribute to that? Shit. No, I'm new, but thus far, I love it.

What frustrates you most as a musician?

Uh, anonymous insulated slander from little shit-talkin' clueless bitches on the internet. Wish I could say I was impervious to that ugly fuckin' trivial crapola but it makes me wanna get murderous on purpose.

Do you support your local scene as a fan? How?

I'm not yet four months out of prison, A), and B) Independence, Kansas is a sad and sorry spot for live music. The general vibe and atmosphere, here, as I perceive it, is one of stupidity, fearful suspicion and pointless, default hate. It is repressive and suffocating if you're about anything beyond the likes of Newschool, faux country-pop or fuckin' Eminem, or some such blandassed non-matter shit. I gotta get places, man, because this place has got like zeitgeist cancer.

What qualities should a musician nowadays have in order to get their music heard by a larger audience?

I don't have a fucking clue.

Share some awesome artists that we’ve never heard of.

TORO, the new prog-metal Gods out of Atlanta. The entire band is a plethora of talent and originality; however, I have ... NEVER witnessed a vocalist with the berzerker-mode raw fuckin' power and fury that characterize Zack Hembree. It is sensory blitzkrieg, people. Also, I was gone some years, ya know, but ... Dead Confederate, Savagist, Gripe, Utah ... there was/is a lotta really great music coming outta the Atlanta-Athens scene.