Gun Club: Classic or DUD

Fave JLP quote ever -- "The rehab place I went to was pretty scummy, but I hear Nick Cave's was fabulous."

The first album, "Fire of Love" is completely classic and holds up as well as anything from the period, period. Later albums weren't as good. Insanely great live band for the first few years.

Fire of love: covered in slide guitar. acoustic blues tunes and rip- offs thereof, done by a somewhat competant but mostly just damn enthusiastic bunch of LA punks. How else can you describe that? Classic.

And "Sex Beat"! What an album-opener!

Absolute Classic! albums i know:
"Fire of Love" - Enough praise already
"the Las Vegas Story" - Wonder why nobody's mentioned it. Powerful manic big city swampblues songs wonderfully sung. Everybody should hear this one.
"Mother Juno" - 1987 comeback album. Less manic, more introspection & melody (Yellow Eyes, Port of Souls, great slow songs), Jeffrey "you look like an Elvis from hell" Lee Lewis's voice has aqcuired more depth & variation and would only get better on subsequent records.
"Pastoral Hide & Seek" The Gun Club at its most accessible & compelling? "Emily's Changed", "I hear your heart singing", "Flowing" ah, too many to mention. (Great singalong album when cycling to university it was.)
"Lucky Jim" the contemplative album, songs written in Vietnam & Cambodia, recorded in the Netherlands (yay!:). Very strong cuts, (and I suppose) the last he would compose since he died in '96.

Fire of Love is real good. It is similar to X lyrically (damnation punk blues) and somewhat musically (of course no Exene), but much darker in tone. "Sex Beat" is a great song. Oh yeah, Jane's Addiction ripped off the back cover.

Mother Juno is a weird one. The sound is total reverbed out and it takes a bit away from the songs and it doesn't help that Pierce's voice sounds real thin. "Bill Bailey" and "The Breaking Hands" are both really good songs. It is much more subdued than "The Fire of Love"

Pierce was a good songwriter with a shady voice.

I've had both of these albums for years and give them a listen now and then but haven't yet got the bite to get another Gun Club record.

Also, I really miss Rob Ritter.

I also have JLP's solo Wildweed which has its moments.

And yes, they were incredible live.

I forgot one essential release upthread, maybe strictly for Gun Club devotees only, but it offers a nice insight into the influences of JLP. It's a double CD "Early Warning" containing demos, outtakes & live-material on one disc and a haunting disc 2 containing home-recordings of JLP at his most delta-bluesy (e.g. "the Devil and the Nigger", about you-probably-know-who)

j.l.p.'s death was a tragic waste.

There was an argument in the crowd and, before anyone could stop him, this guy leapt over the bar counter at the back, grapped a bottle, leapt back over and hit someone over the head with it.

The music was unmemorable though. I'd just seen the Fall (Brix Smith era) there a few weeks and they ROCKED - the Gun Club suffered in comparison.

hear hear! i like this one as much as fire of love.

Why the FUCK do you not tell me these things! I even have the unreleased Congo Norvell record on Priority for crying out loud.

Oh, Ned --Don't be angry. I thought you knew. I promise to tape the next show for you if I can, ok?

Jack On Fire
(typed in by Ger Potze, taken from "Go Tell The Mountain")
I am like Jack, I am from southern land
I'm holding your happiness in my hand
the sun behind me is a sexual red
and all your bounty-hunting ghosts are dead

I am like Jack and I tell you this
I will be your lover and exorcist
In the stillness of the mosquito sunset
you will make love to me to your very best

Hey, hey, I'm a Jack On Fire
hey, hey, your lips kiss Jack on Fire

Way back in the Indian days
nothing could drive the heat away
drive the search and murder of lost enemies
drive deep into what is never seen

And like Jack, there is a heat to the fight
like a moth detects a heat to the light
and like Jack, I will covet everything that is you
because, the heat in you will temporarily do

Hey, hey, I'm a Jack On Fire
hey, hey, your lips kiss Jack on Fire

(noise)

When you fall in love with me
we can dig a hole by the willow tree
then, I will fuck you until you die
bury you and kiss this town goodbye,

it will be unhappy, it will be sad
but, it will be understood that I am BAD!
so don't you go and lie to me
'cause everyday is judgement day with me

I just followed up a comment on another list about a rerelease of
the Gun Club's Miami + Las Vegas on Sympathy for The Record Industry
by writing and asking about it and got this response pretty rapidly
(1/2 hour?)

'they'll be out in october on cd/lp then put together eventually in a
nice box set with booklet and lots of extra stuff... '

Yes.

Two Lone Swordsmen are doing their best to revive them.

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.

Lucky Jim's a bit crap though, IMO.

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.

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

"Lucky Jim's a bit crap though"
no it isn't. it is one of the great last albums. like nirvana's unplugged.

coming after pastoral hide & seek and divinity I thought lucky jim was a drop in quality for sure

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

Jose Esteban Muñoz, "Calling Up Thunder: The Gun Club and the Punk Rock Commons"

EMP Pop Conference presentation scheduled for March 25th

"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.

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.

It's a Gun Club song title. The "Punk Rock Commons" is what I don't quite get.

i think it just means punk-rock's tropes & shared values etc in this instance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_commons

Thanks.

I guess drummer Graham has still not gotten his book published yet, although the kickstarter financing was successful.

The lyrics to "Jack on Fire" (posted way upthread) reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian".

I will fuck you till you die

Like the judge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvTM8XtF-kA
Interesting, hadn't known this existed as video until earlier today.
Am assuming it's the source of the image here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Death-Party-Gun-Club/dp/B0002DRKYY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1329434582&sr=8-2
and here http://www.discogs.com/Gun-Club-Love-Supreme/release/913496

Rob Ritter departed, to reappear in 45 Grave. Patricia Morrison brought in as his replacement. She stayed in the band until they split at the end of '84, but wasn't in New York when Tex & The Horseheads recording session ran short and Death Party was recorded. Jim Uliana was, so is on that but wasn't in the band.

Not sure if the video is the same gig as the recording on the 2 discs pictured above. Love the garage rock take on A Love Supreme on them.
The lp of that title is 1/2 of what's on that Death Party disc. The other half was released as Sex Beat '81.
The 2 lps were released when Terry Graham and Ward Dotson sold the tapes to a European record label cos they were making no money from being in the band.

The video is from around the time Miami was released but Rob Ritter was already gone by the time that came out hence his face not being on the cover and his weird sleeve billing. I think that record has one of my favourite covers ever which I find almost synaesthetic to the record inside. not sure too many would. But I find a record that was recorded in a cramped NYC studio fills my head with visions of wide open plains as well as swamp fronds. Love the psychedelic touches, the swirls of pedal steel guitar etc. One of my all-time favourite records.

great interview with Nick Cave about his friendship with Pierce:

http://messandnoise.com/articles/4448221

So sad re Pierce's medical issues

I guess drummer Graham has still not gotten his book published yet, although the kickstarter financing was successful.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Still don't see via google any sign that his "Punk Like Me" book has been published

No no sign of Tery Graham's book and he's said that he couldn't get it printed for the money raised or something to that effect, not apologised to anybody who sent him money through Kickstarter and no sign of the book.

There have been a load of bootlegs of the band in various incarnations upped to various places over the years. & Hellione's dvds of their tv appearances etc have been good watching.
I think the official dvds are also still in print. THe 2 from manchester & the from Spain at least.

JLP put out a book called Go Tell The Mountain which conssisted of reminiscences and a load of lyrics, think it was through Rollins's imprint. I should have it around somewhere but need to be more organised.

& I think most of the lps are in print on cd. Plus some other unreleased at the time stuff.
Oh & there have been 2 reasonably successful tribute sets covering various songs he wrote.

Forgot The Ghost On The Highway bio film too.
Think I get credited on that too.

NC:" I think Henry Rollins might have been there as well actually. Jeffrey and I sat around and took loads of drugs and watched Henry do push-ups. "

Best drug story EVAH

YES!

x-post

and this book

Interview courtesy of Gene Temesy to be used in his upcoming book documenting the history of The Gun Club. Used with permission.‘The Journey Is Long’

That should be in every scared straight program in the world.

"If you do drugs eventually you will just watch people exercise"

damn man didn't know about this. want one. demos of mother juno without all the cocteau action. really need to hear demo port of souls. can't buy records right now but will buy this when i can.

https://www.discogs.com/The-Gun-Club-Mother-Berlin/release/7722652

hmmmm, does sound intriguing but...

Limited edition release of early recordings of the Mother Juno album, recorded in Berlin.
Gatefold sleeve.
Limited to 500 copies.

Vinyl issue of the Flow Records bonus CD with their 2006 reissue of the "Mother Juno" album.

ah, so maybe i just need that. good looking out, curmudgeon.

I have it. It's pretty good but I still prefer the Cocteau frills that Guthrie provided.

one of my favorite bands of all time, and they make it work, but I would wager actual money that JLP was legitimately tone deaf -- could not carry any actual melody, and that his style develops because of that pretty harsh formal restriction. there is not one song in the discography where he's consonant with the tonic anywhere. this is especially notable in "yellow eyes."

best voice. the most soulful of bobcat goldthwait impersonators. and 4000% times better than that horror show jack white. and better than frank black too. as far as pretenders to the death rock throne go.

i like the cocteau frills too! it's one of my favorite records. i just like the idea of hearing different studio versions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWixeZwQmg&feature=share
Hadn't seen this before Kid shared it on Facebook. Looks like it was only upped to youtube last night.
Las Vegas Story line up of GC joined onstage by Bryan Gregory who Kid, at that point another Brian, had replaced in the Cramps. Though I think there were possibly a few short term guitarists between as can be seen in Urgh a Music War.

Not sure how frequently the Gun Club played this song. there is a version released on The Birth< The Death, The Ghost which was recorded before Brian Tristan left the band the first time.

I had thought the song was called Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger but it looks like that's the original lp title and the song is just Gunslinger on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWixeZwQmg&feature=share

I've got that playing on another tab and it doesn't seem to be appearing on here.
Gun Club Gunslinger is what it's down as on youtube if it stays up there
Cleveland 1984-8-16

Try that one more time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeWixeZwQmg

Reissue of Miami in December with some demos:

DISC 2
1. CARRY HOME (DEMO)
2. LIKE CALLING UP THUNDER (DEMO)
3. BROTHER AND SISTER (DEMO)
4. RUN THROUGH THE JUNGLE (DEMO)
5. DEVIL IN THE WOODS (DEMO)
6. TEXAS SERENADE (DEMO)
7. WATERMELON MAN (DEMO)
8. BAD INDIAN (DEMO)
9. JOHN HARDY (DEMO)
10. FIRE OF LOVE (DEMO)
11. SLEEPING IN BLOOD CITY (DEMO)
12. MOTHER OF EARTH (DEMO)
13. WALKIN’ WITH THE BEAST (DEMO)
14. PRUNE DICKS FROM MARS (DEMO)
15. VAMPIRES (DEMO)
16. JOURNEY TO ZATAR (DEMO)
17. BLUE HAIR (DEMO)
18. PIG BOYS (DEMO)

The last 5 o9f the Demoes are versions of songs from teh Death party e.p. not sure if they are all from teh same source , the Death party version here sounds very very close to the released version so I would think it was Duckworth. I think a couple of others may have some variance. Only listened to each track once and not heard them in direct contrast to the released versions. but would think that since Terry Graham and Ward Dotson have pretty different styles to Dee pop and Jim Duckworth it would be noticeably different.
Seems like these may be working pre production recordings of the released tracks. Not sure.
Just thought it might be interesting to hear what the different line ups did with teh same song. I know that Walking With The Beast is very different in its b-side Dotson/Ritter/Graham version to its released Powers/Morrison/Graham version .
Also the difference between the early 80s live version of I Hear YOur Heart Singing to the 1990 version on PastoraL Hide & seek is somewhat interesting. Very different line up too.

Oh yeah, I still need to check this---from Rolling Reissues:

THE GUN CLUB’S 1981 PUNK-BLUES CLASSIC DEBUT FIRE OF LOVE RETURNS WITH DELUXE DOUBLE-VINYL AND DOUBLE-CD REISSUES VIA BLIXA SOUNDS
Both the LP and CD Editions Come with 10 bonus tracks and the Previously Unreleased Live At Club 88 – March 6, 1981

Street date July 23, 2021

LOS ANGELES, CA. (Tuesday June 1, 2021) — With a howling and unholy mix of punk rock and the blues, Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club exploded upon the L.A. club scene in the early ’80s. They recorded their classic debut, 1981’s Fire Of Love, for the local Slash/Ruby Records label. And now that legendary album has been unearthed and brought back to life as a deluxe two-CD and two-LP set.

Both the double-CD and double-vinyl editions contain a digitally remastered version of the original 11-track album, produced by fellow L.A. scenesters Chris D. of The Flesh Eaters and The Plugz’s Tito Larriva. The CD version will include 10 previously unreleased four-track demos and alternate versions, while the LP will include a download card for the digital version of the 10 bonus tracks.
Both the CD and the vinyl versions will include a second disc, the previously unreleased Live At Club 88 – March 6, 1981, a concert recording capturing the band’s incendiary live set at the legendary West L.A. dive bar.

The double-vinyl version will be released as a two-LP set packaged in a gatefold cover with extensive liner notes by drummer Terry Graham and remembrances from producer Tito Larriva and co-producer Chris D., as well as rare photos and ephemera. The CD version will include a booklet with liner notes, photos and ephemera.
Born on June 27, 1958, Jeffrey Lee Pierce grew up in the East Los Angeles suburb of El Monte, California, before moving with his family to the San Fernando Valley, where he attended Granada Hills High School. Back then his main passion was acting. Eventually, his interest veered to music, but he held on to his love of drama and would later inject it into his music and performances. He’d been toying with guitar since the age of 10, and by his late teens and early 20s, he’d formed a few bands and wrote about reggae for Slash magazine under the pen name Ranking Señor Lea.
It was in Creeping Ritual, a band Pierce formed with guitarist Brian Tristan, in which Pierce found his footing. He’d discovered the Delta blues from the record collections of Canned Heat singer Bob Hite and L.A. scenester Phast Phreddie Patterson, and decided to make them his own. Although his first bassist and drummer bailed, the band — rechristened The Gun Club by Circle Jerks’ singer and Pierce’s one-time roommate Keith Morris — became a reality with the addition of the fully formed rhythm section of bassist Rob Ritter and drummer Terry Graham. They had already played together in punk band The Bags and could hold down a solid foundation for Pierce and Tristan — now known as Kid Congo Powers — to improvise over. “He was injecting blues into the heart of punk rock, struggling to give life into something new and brilliant even if it was old and obvious at the same time,” Graham says of Pierce, in the book More Fun in the New World: The Unmaking and Legacy of L.A. Punk.

Fire of Love captures the Gun Club at their rawest on such originals as the unforgettable album-opener “Sex Beat,” the addictive “She’s Live Heroin to Me” and the psychobilly stomp of “For The Love Of Ivy,” an ode to Cramps guitarist and future Kid Congo bandmate Poison Ivy Rorschach. The band also delved into their influences on the set, digging up Tommy Johnson’s “Cool Drink Of Water” and Robert Johnson’s “Preaching The Blues” and jolting them back with jumper cables via Pierce’s new arrangements and “Elvis from Hell” howl.
As Graham writes in the liner notes, “I couldn’t be more thrilled to know Fire Of Love has given so many a nice kick in the ass…I not only loved fighting off the Devil while a member of Gun Club, but I’m proud of what we did on Fire Of Love with Chris and Tito as our guides. And if this music continues to irk the purists, I couldn’t be more proud. Jeff, you were one hell of a great musician, but you knew that.”
The Gun Club went on to record several other albums — including 1982’s Miami (reissued by Blixa Sounds in 2020) — before Pierce’s death in 1996, yet Fire Of Love is their finest hour.

CD TRACK LISTING
DISC 1
1. SEX BEAT
2. PREACHING THE BLUES
3. PROMISE ME
4. SHE’S LIKE HEROIN TO ME
5. FOR THE LOVE OF IVY
6. FREE SPIRIT
7. GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY
8. JACK ON FIRE
9. BLACK TRAIN
10. COOL DRINK OF WATER
11. GOODBYE JOHNNY
BONUS TRACKS
12. BAD INDIAN (ALTERNATIVE VERSION)
13. COOL DRINK OF WATER (ALTERNATIVE VERSION)
14. FIRE OF LOVE (ALTERNATIVE VERSION)
15. FOR THE LOVE OF IVY (ALTERNATIVE VERSION)
16. GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY (ALTERNATIVE VERSION)
17. FIRE OF LOVE (4 TRACK DEMO)
18. DEVIL IN THE WOODS (4 TRACK DEMO)
19. GOODBYE JOHNNY (4 TRACK DEMO)
20. PREACHING THE BLUES (4 TRACK DEMO)
21. WATERMELON MAN (4 TRACK DEMO)
DISC 2 / LIVE AT CLUB 88 – MARCH 6, 1981
1. DEVIL IN THE WOODS
2. BAD INDIAN
3. SHE’S LIKE HEROIN TO ME
4. PREACHING THE BLUES
5. KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
6. JACK ON FIRE
7. RAILROAD BILL
8. FIRE OF LOVE
9. SEX BEAT
10. GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY

LP TRACK LISTING
LP1
SIDE A
1. SEX BEAT
2. PREACHING THE BLUES
3. PROMISE ME
4. SHE’S LIKE HEROIN TO ME
5. FOR THE LOVE OF IVY
6. FREE SPIRIT
SIDE B
1. GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY
2. JACK ON FIRE
3. BLACK TRAIN
4. COOL DRINK OF WATER
5. GOODBYE JOHNNY
LP2 / LIVE AT CLUB 88 – MARCH 6, 1981
SIDE C
1. DEVIL IN THE WOODS
2. BAD INDIAN
3. SHE’S LIKE HEROIN TO ME
4. PREACHING THE BLUES
5. KEYS TO THE KINGDOM
SIDE D
1. JACK ON FIRE
2. RAILROAD BILL
3. FIRE OF LOVE
4. SEX BEAT
5. GHOST ON THE HIGHWAY
Fire of Love EPK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7kwkoRyI5w

3 part interview with Terry Graham . First part here. I think you should be able to find teh link to next 2 from there.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1MOkNP6zwWzK5SPvMFkcOs?si=50d44bff29604e07
Probably on other platforms if you don't like this one.
Think I found the podcast from something else then found they had this as episodes

You know all these recent Gun Club reissues are pretty nice -- the Las Vegas Story one came out today and as I said on Twitter just now...

So it should be said that the Blixa Records reissue series of the early Gun Club albums has been pretty great, and this liner note anecdote from Patricia Morrison in the just-released _Las Vegas Story_ about their sessions at Ocean Way Studios rules. pic.twitter.com/xlXygJXGe9

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) June 18, 2022

ha!

kid congo's book seems to be finally on the way.

It has a release date in October

signed copies here (not to UK though) - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/some-new-kind-of-kick-kid-congo-powers/1140976960?ean=9780306831447

The 80s cable TV music series Night Flight has come back as a streaming service, and here's this:

A Night Flight Streaming Exclusive - The Gun Club on the Road
1984 Home Move: The Gun Club on the Road includes never-before-seen footage of the band backstage and onstage during their legendary 1984 tour.

This classic line-up only stayed together for this one album, featuring original drummer Terry Graham, as well as guitar from Kid Congo Powers (The Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds) and bassist Patricia Morrison (Sisters Of Mercy).

That home movie is a bonus DVD with the Las Vegas Story reissue.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Pdb6DrUkhuoLBGGPC8G6Q?si=ca9b68bee95f421f
KId interview from The Vinyl Guide interview.

Hope he writes some more. Would be good if he did a book on his personal tastes etc. Anyway, enjoyed the memoir so would read more from him.

i just finished the memoir last night. so good. i can't really see there being a second volume but do hope he writes more too.

Forgot The Ghost On The Highway bio film too.
Think I get credited on that too.

― Stevolende, Wednesday, November 6, 2013 12:00 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is pretty great just watched it on YouTube, unlike the modern hagiography format, this is mostly people talking about how they wanted to punch him and what a virgin fucc boi he was lol