The Gun Club "Fire of Love" (1981)

org. cover

Fire of Love [debut]
release date: Aug. 31, 1981
format: cd (2000 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,32]
producer: Chris Desjardins, Tito Larriva
label: Last Call Records (re-issue) - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Sex Beat" - 2. "Preaching the Blues" - 3. "Promise Me" - 4. "She's Like Heroin to Me" - 5. "For The Love of Ivy" - 7. "Ghost on the Highway" - 11. "Goodbye Johnny"

Studio album debut by L.A. post-punk quartet The Gun Club, here consisting of songwriter, lead vocalist and guitarist, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, bassist Rob Ritter, guitarist Ward Dotson, and drummer Terry Graham. The band changed line-up throughout its 16 year lifespan, and this is only the most recent line-up at this point. The band was founded by Pierce and Kid Congo Powers (aka Brian Tristan), who didn't play any instruments - Pierce was founder and president of the Blondie fan club, and he has been described as obsessed with Debbie Harry, and Powers was chief of the Ramones fan club. The two friends teamed up with the rhythm section of bassist Don Snowdon and drummer Brad Dunning, who initially were the only two with experience in playing an instrument, and this quartet constituted the first incarnation of The Gun Club. Powers left before the recordings of this album as he was offered a spot in the already established New Yorker-band, The Cramps, despite not being a skilled guitarist - he had the looks though. In came Ward Dotson, who could actually play, and with Ritter replacing Snowdon and Graham replacing Dunning they were ready to record their debut. Regardless, the change of band members, Lee Pierce is nevertheless synonymous with The Gun Club, as he was the only lasting member through the many formations of the band. The band plays an energetic form of post-punk with a clear garage rock influence, which comes out as rockabilly, psychobilly, and what some would call punk blues - in later years more boldly characterised as blues rock. At the time of the release of the debut, I guess, another label would have been art punk. The blend of styles puts the band in family with The Cramps.
The album has undoubtedly aged, but it really was something else in 1981 at a time when most bands of the punk scene either played post-punk (or: art punk), no wave, gothic rock, or psychobilly. This is quite original with its inclusion of blues rock and garage rock in an up-tempo and melodic way, although Pierce was influenced by the relatively new style of no wave. The band and Jeffrey Lee Pierce has been a source of inspiration for many artists including Danish Sods / Sort Sol, Thin White Rope, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and in modern days: The White Stripes. From the early 1980s, I recall, a rather well-known record store in mid-town Copenhagen, who had taken its name from this album's first track: Sex Beat Records.

It's not all great but I really like the original intense vocal of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, which consists of both an uncertain craziness and a disturbing fragility, and then I'm quite pleased with the garage rock sound on most of the tracks - an element they [or: he] sought to maintain on most albums by the band. Sometimes, however, the band tend to play with too much psychobilly, at least on this album, which again make me think of The Cramps. The album is somehow the only by The Gun Club to be included in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". Personally, I don't find it among the band's top-3 albums.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Uncut Magazine 4 / 5 stars ]

2000 remaster