To say the '90's has brought about extremes for Strawberry Point native Tom Jessen would have to qualify as a major understatement. Jessen's decade broke noisily out of the gate with the notorious Devastation Wagon, a hell-bent-for-leather cow-punk aggregation whose drunken caterwauling ran the gamut from regurgitated country classics to wisenheimer send-ups of Iron Maiden (e.g., 667- The Neighbor Of The Beast). The singer-songwriter left D-Wagon's smoking embers for Portland, Ore., and a more laidback country approach with Sawtooth Borders - a career killer kind of move what with the Northwest's music scene wallowing in the full flush of Nirvana/Soundgarden/Pearl Jam "grunge" fever.

"Almost all of the bands at that time were playing that kind of music," Jessen said. "If you were playing something different it was really hard to get gigs because they didn't think anyone would come and see those shows." The strangeness of big city life, professional rejection, friends moving on and the sheer distance from home doubtlessly helped lay the ground work for more important considerations than an opening-slot gig in a Portland nightclub.

"I had a kind of weird conversion experience back to Catholicism at that time," Jessen revealed. "It was so devastatingly powerful to me that I felt that I had to get out of the decadence of the city. I came back to Iowa not knowing where to go or what to do next. I hung out in Strawberry for about three months and, at one point in time, I entered a monastery for about a week, but that was not right for me and so I left that with no better idea. I came back to Iowa City because I knew I could play music and I knew all of these people who were still down here."

In March 1994, the prodigal son assembled the first edition of Tom Jessen's Dimestore Outfit with guitarist Darren Matthews and ex-D-Wagoneers Jim Viner and Steve Tyler on drums and bass, respectively. The Outfit quickly carved out a niche of its own and, as the most prominent practitioners of country-roots music in the area, garnered virtually every opening gig for like-minded national touring acts that came to town. But Matthews and Viner also were in the wildly popular High and Lonesome, and scheduling conflicts became increasingly problematic. Eventually, Tyler moved to San Francisco and the Hi & Lo boys ended their double duty.

In October 1995, Jessen began recording in John Svec's Minstrel Studios with a revamped Dimestore Outfit. On hand were former Bakersfield session drummer Eric Griffin, bassist Eric Straumanis and steel guitarist Marty Letz (all still in the current band) with Matthews and a host of local luminaries pitching in. Jessen finished his debut CD in April 1996. Redemption, released late that summer on Trailer Records, is an elegant, eloquent collection of Jessen's original songs combining classic country elements with Tom affection for stalwarts such as Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, Bruce Springsteen, Joe Jackson and John Prine. It remains a strong, singular piece of work marked by startling originality and (gotta say it) recurring spiritual themes.

Jessen's Dimestore Outfit continues to evolve, incorporating soul and R&B chestnuts that Tom's dug up. "To me, there's a perfect correlation between the roots of R&B and the country side - there's not that big of a leap at all," Jessen explained. "Why would you allow yourself to say that you only have one influence? We all know that we've all grown up around every single type of music, and most us have like something from every type. It doesn't seem real to me that you'd only play one kind."

Meanwhile, Jessen's contempt for much of the music business and, peripherally, for the dilution of popular music via MTV and TNN ("I don't think people were ever this concerned with how people looked…") leaves him at ever increasing odds with his spiritual side.

"Some people will say that's just part of it, and you have to put up with it," Jessen said, "and I'm saying, 'No, I don't.' I realize every (career) path has its trials, as in 'How much will you put up with for The Cause?,' and I just don't know if this cause is that big of a deal in terms of the Whole Thing. I love to play music, but I'd rather be a music lover than let it get to the point where I can't listen to music anymore.

"Ideas of the priesthood have hit me since Portland, and have been filtering in and out of my consciousness ever since then. It's only been that I've seriously thought about it the last year or so. That's kind of the big news now, and it seems like a good time to do it - it's something that I have to go do." So odds are good that the young man who careened into the decade on a Devastation Wagon will witness the turn of the century from the St. John Fisher Seminary in Connecticut. Talk about "Redemption"…

(Tom Jessen's Dimestore Outfit should remain intact through the summer. They will play at Cedar Rapids Third Street Theatre with the Bo Ramsey Band on May 23 and the Art House benefit at Studiolo May 27.)

Jim Musser, Iowa City Press Citizen, May 5, 1998.