― Ian Riese-Moraine has been xeroxed into a conduit! (Eastern Mantra), Monday, 4 July 2005 16:34 (eighteen years ago) link
The Gun Club - Fire of Love (Ruby, 1981)
This isn't southern gothic, it's feral white trash. Jeffrey Lee Pierce is Jack White’s charming older brother until the Wild Turkey comes on; then he’s an arrogant prick swathed in a cloud of Aqua-Net.
The Gun Club had a long career after this album and never hit this mark again. The rhythm section of Rob Ritter and Terry Graham hounds Jeffrey Lee through the scrub pine, chasing down the hollow keen of his voice. Ward Dotson's slide guitar slashes wildly at Pierce, coming after him from the shadows like a trucklot whore with her pimp’s buck knife.
The lyrics whip past your head until you catch one in the face: “I’ve been a real good tombstone / but now I’m blown away.” Gun Club co-founder (but absent from this first record) Kid Congo later covered “She’s Like Heroin To Me” with Sally Norvell, where it loomed in the half-light with an eerie, narcotic allure. "We sit together drunk / like our fathers used to be / I'm looking up and God is saying, 'What are you gonna do?' / I'm looking up and I'm crying, 'I thought it was up to you.'" Pierce sends murderous, adoring valentines to Ivy Rorschach ("For the Love of Ivy") and gets at a piece of Robert Johnson on "Preaching the Blues" that nobody else ever touched.
Then there’s the "Sex Beat," which isn’t sexy or erotic but base, urgent, murderous, nothing more than a criminal motive as unconsidered as the reflex at the base of a dog’s hunched spine. The sex beat hammers away like an all day speed freak. It’s dry hump sex; it’s a black pubic hair caught in a crust of blood on polyblend panties. It’s just a fact, a part of the mosquito landscape.
This record forges the earliest link between punk and blues. For hippies the blues represented a base truth and authenticity. For Pierce it’s raw, repetitive, hypnotic, clangorous, syphilitic. Ultimately, Jeffrey Lee drugged and drank and fucked himself into the grave, but don't get this record because he lived out his blues cliche. Get it because he knew his special rider in the dark, and he had a band that could preach the blues in hell. (David Smay)
― Kim Cooper, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 01:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― Kim Cooper, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 01:09 (eighteen years ago) link
The new Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds album should be (indie label gods willing) out by September, but if you're on Myspace you can listen to two of the tracks here: http://myspace.com/kidcongoandthepinkmonkeybirds
I'm in the band. I'd like to know what my fellow ILM'ers think. xox
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 04:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― willem (willem), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 05:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― willem (willem), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― latebloomer (latebloomer), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 05:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 06:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 07:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 12:08 (eighteen years ago) link
(Though my personal favorite's probably be Miami)
― iodine (iodine), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 13:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Si.C@rter (SiC@rter), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 22:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Wednesday, 28 September 2005 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Thursday, 29 September 2005 10:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 17 January 2006 06:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― regular roundups (Dave M), Monday, 13 February 2006 06:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 13 February 2006 06:48 (eighteen years ago) link
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Monday, 13 February 2006 11:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― howld, Monday, 13 February 2006 12:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 13 February 2006 12:54 (eighteen years ago) link
I know there's a lyric or two on Fire Of Love or Miami (both records I love) but I'm listening to a great bootleg from 1982 and at the beginning of Jack On Fire he just says "N-Word".
Is this ok?
― derekerdman (Derek Erdmany), Sunday, 8 October 2006 20:27 (seventeen years ago) link
To address the heart of the matter, Jeffrey Lee Pierce was not a racist; he loved and respected black people, and he was an avid follower of many blues and reggae artists. He certainly wasn't a bigot on account of his lyrics. In his music he used a device called a persona, which is to say he delivered his songs from the perspective of a fictional character whose views were not necessarily consistent with his own. If the line "I was hunting for niggers down in the dark" makes you uncomfortable, just pretend the narrator of the song is a deranged mid-20th-century Kentucky preacher whose wife just left him for a black woodcutter whose name is probably LaDerrick. And if you're offended by Jeffrey's casual use of the word "nigger" at the beggining of "Jack on Fire," just pretend he was hopped up on heroin -- and thuis deprived of his social conscience -- for the duration of the concert. [/prolixity]
― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Sunday, 8 October 2006 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― King-a-Ling (King-a-Ling), Sunday, 8 October 2006 22:04 (seventeen years ago) link
"It is not an art statement/to drown a few passionate men"
Fire of Love totally beyond classic
― J0hn D., Tuesday, 22 May 2007 23:07 (seventeen years ago) link
She's like heroin to me, she cannot miss the vein... Wow. Fuck "Miami", it's indeed all about "Fire of Love"... Oddly the GC is currently being revived here in Montreal by an up and coming band which regularly plays covers of their songs during their live sets. The Club's really another one of these obscure bands from which spring various cult figures... the Kid, Patti Morrison... It's a bit like Crime & the City Solution, confidentially yours...
And "Sex Beat"! What an album-opener!
-- Simon, Wednesday, April 4, 2001 12:00 AM (6 years ago) Bookmark Link
i wonder what band this was/is
― s1ocki, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 02:15 (seventeen years ago) link
mother of earth (from 'miami') is one of my favourite songs of all time.
― estela, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 02:48 (seventeen years ago) link
are the gun club really obscure these days? i remember tons of kids seeming to dig/ at least know about them -- goths, rockers, punkers, mockers...
but then i do speak of twenty-plus years ago.
and yeah i love them a lot, in small doses. best rev. gary davis cover, ever.
― Mike McGooney-gal, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:31 (seventeen years ago) link
ohh wait that's son house, doh.
― Mike McGooney-gal, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:32 (seventeen years ago) link
lol
― latebloomer, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:34 (seventeen years ago) link
Godspeed You Sex Beat
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:51 (seventeen years ago) link
are the gun club really obscure these days?
yes
― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 03:56 (seventeen years ago) link
Waht! I thought they were pretty well known.
― Trayce, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 04:00 (seventeen years ago) link
I wouldn't have heard of them if not for the Left of the Dial comp which I only came across thanks to the internet. Even then they were still buried amongst 50 other artists.
― Curt1s Stephens, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 04:00 (seventeen years ago) link
I knew about them cause of the Guthrie production, apparently "Breaking Hands" is awesome tho I dont know if I have it/have heard it.
― Trayce, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 04:14 (seventeen years ago) link
I know their music from way back when.
Kid Congo's living in DC these days. He was in the row ahead of me seeing "the Fabulous Stans" movie at the Library of Congress a little while back.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 04:35 (seventeen years ago) link
His new album's pretty nice, and there's ILXor involvement...
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 04:48 (seventeen years ago) link
Yes.
― Capitaine Jay Vee, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 07:22 (seventeen years ago) link
Two Lone Swordsmen are doing their best to revive them.
― baaderonixx, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 08:39 (seventeen years ago) link
My typo above--Kid Congo was seeing the "Fabulous Stains" movie. I am also trying to remember if I ever saw the Gun Club. I know I missed them opening for the Cramps at the Bayou in Georgetown (DC) because I was studying for a final. Hmmmm, I wonder if they ever came back to town.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 23 May 2007 13:06 (seventeen years ago) link
Lucky Jim's a bit crap though, IMO.
― Colonel Poo, Friday, 29 February 2008 16:26 (sixteen years ago) link
I wouldn't have heard of them if not for the Left of the Dial comp. . . . .
And what a fantastic -- utterly classic -- comp it is.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 30 May 2008 02:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Original drummer Terry Graham has got a Kickstarter going for a book project on the time/place -- looks well worth it!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1417342148/its-a-book-punk-like-meliner-notes-for-a-revolutio
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 4 August 2010 18:25 (thirteen years ago) link
"Lucky Jim's a bit crap though"no it isn't. it is one of the great last albums. like nirvana's unplugged.
― alex in mainhattan, Friday, 6 August 2010 12:42 (thirteen years ago) link
coming after pastoral hide & seek and divinity I thought lucky jim was a drop in quality for sure
― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Friday, 6 August 2010 12:56 (thirteen years ago) link
want to give some special extra shine since nobody seems to really talk much about it, but damn, the las vegas story is something else. totally engrossing, lynchian subversive america shit. i'll take that record over ANY psychobilly album ever recorded including the whole of the cramps catalogue
― you sleazy prostitute (jk), Friday, 7 January 2011 04:25 (thirteen years ago) link
Jose Esteban Muñoz, "Calling Up Thunder: The Gun Club and the Punk Rock Commons"
EMP Pop Conference presentation scheduled for March 25th
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 24 January 2012 15:41 (twelve years ago) link
"Calling Up Thunder: The Gun Club and the Punk Rock Commons"
What does that even mean?
Anyway, been listening to Miami lately and it's really good. I am new to this band.
― the box cutter killer from the calcutta gutter (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 06:24 (twelve years ago) link
Google tells me that Munoz is an NYU professor who listened to the Gun Club, Germs and other LA bands when he was younger, and he writes about that in his book Cruising utopia: the then and there of queer futurity . I still do not know what the "calling up thunder" phrase refers to.
― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 25 January 2012 13:11 (twelve years ago) link
It's a Gun Club song title. The "Punk Rock Commons" is what I don't quite get.
― the box cutter killer from the calcutta gutter (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 25 January 2012 13:24 (twelve years ago) link