9.26.2008

Mystery at the Gun Club

I know that you have all been slavering at the mouth, waiting for my next blog. It would have come sooner, but I have been busy. Busy traveling, and reading, and buying more music.

Download The Gun Club's 'Come Back Jim' on Mediafire

or, maybe Download The Gun Club's 'The Fire of Love'

I was recently chided for ‘still’ buying music, but I don’t mind.
Because I know I’m right; I'm in the black and all that. (See below for an apologia of music purchasing- it's not what you expect...)
Thinking that it is goofball to buy music is simply false; in fact, I might go so far to say it's a LIE!!

Download The Gun Club's 'The Lie' on Mediafire
Or watch it !LIVE! on Youtube:


Plus, what would I spend my money on instead? I am running out of room for thriftstore kicks. I have already constructed a Foucaultian counter-archive (that means ‘lots of odd books’ about prisons, sexuality, state institutions, ‘abnormal’ individuals, militaries, and history history history). You know that I would just spend the $16.25 (no sales tax) on stickers from the dollar store (or worse, dollar store hardware/tools), caviar from Asian Invasion, SEPTA tokens, ceramic knickknacks or bric-a-brac, etc.
(just reflect for a moment upon how good this last part of this last sentence sounds and looks: “Caviar from Asian Invasion” [‘a’ and ‘i’ make such a good vowel-team!], and just say “Ceramic knickknacks and bric-a-brac” out loud. “My, what a Pleasant Blog!”)
I don’t need that junk.
Oh, what $16.25? I got *3* CDs in Portland for that paltry sum. All by one of my new favorite groups: GUN CLUB .



Right?!?!?




Big dramatic sweep. Wild-eyes and Snake-eyes. Very American: Blues, Country, Skuzzy, 'end-of-the-road' Guitars. My understanding is that Gun Club sort of helped spawn rockabilly (while not being rockabilly themselves), and the lead singer, Jeffery Lee Pierce (he’s one of those who writes almost all of the songs too) died young: drugs, prolly.
Listen to the way he sings, and tell me it’s not drugs that killed him. Look at him, and tell me if he doesn’t look like Brando crossed with Gerard Way.








Kid Congo Powers is in the band too, of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds fame, and also The Cramps.

A surprising amount of the Gun Club that I have is live; two full albums, and half of two more. Related to his death, and to label-related issues and troubles (some of their stuff is released on “Sympathy for the Record Industry”, as in, sympathy for the Devil). More interestingly, however, it’s probably related to how good they were live. A singer that sounds like he IS drugs, actually high, in front of you, live?: gots to be good, right?

Here’s the liner notes- in their entirety- from “Danse Kalinda Boom”:
”Yes its true kids, this is an authentic “live” album for the first time. In response to the overwhelming amount of illegal & incorrect recordings purporting to be “live” Gun Club albums, Kid Congo, Patricia Morrison & myself have found it necessary to release an “Authorized” live album representing the Gun Club experience at its best and as it truly went down. So guaranteed this is not an album of poor quality tapes licensed clandestinely to some dodgy label by disgruntled & frustrated ex-members. I can promise this record features the Gun Club at its “live” best and definitive line up. Rest in Peace. [signed] Jeffery Lee Pierce”

Funny- signed “Rest In Peace” to us ( but he dies); “disgruntled ex-members”; “how it truly went down”; “dodgy labels”. Plus, did he misspell his own name? Or did someone else write the whole thing- seriously undermining all the rhetoric of “authentic”- since the CD’s copyright date is 7 years after he died? A Real Jeffrey Lee M Y S T E R Y.



As promised, here is the apologia of buying music 'in this day and age':
First, if you just download it all, you are guided only by what you already know you like, or what someone else ‘knows’ to be ‘good’.
(On the other hand, presented with a random assortment of used CD’s or vinyl, you can find new stuff, get reminded of old stuff, and with CDs at least, give a little listen before a wholesale acquisition an entire downloaded back catalog, which, it may turn out, you don’t really like that much anyhow.)

Second, used music isn’t even really random, is it? It's better than random. Because someone had to like that CD enough to purchase it, so you actually have a built-in regulator of quality, although it’s far from failsafe: Cf. “ ‘knows’ to be ‘good’ ”. Whereas with mp3s, all that can be shown in someone else having it is that they probably have 'heard about it', and have the internet. Not a stellar recommendation, is it?}

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