The Gun Club "Lucky Jim" (1993)

Lucky Jim
release date: Sep. 1993
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Peer Rave
label: Solid Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Lucky Jim" - 2. "A House Is Not a Home" - 3. "Cry to Me" - 6. "Idiot Waltz" - 7. "Up Above the World" - 8. "Day Turn the Night" - 10. "Desire" - 11. "Anger Blues"

6th and final studio album by The Gun Club follows 3 years after Pastoral Hide & Seek (Oct. 1990), 2 years after the Divinity (ep), and 1½ years after the Jeffrey Lee Pierce project-album Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove with Willie Love (Mar. 1992). Since the 1990 album, The Gun Club has been reduced to a trio as guitarist Kid Congo Powers left to pursue his own project-band, Congo Norvell. The trio here consists of Jeffrey Lee Pierce on vocals and guitar, Romi Mori on bass, and with Nick Sanderson on drums, who once again had been out, but returned for this.
You could argue that the band's style hasn't evolved much since The Las Vegas Story from 1984 but as practically no-one else sounds quite like The Gun Club, nor like Jeffrey Lee Pierce, that's not really something you could hold against them. The garage rock and bluesy rawness has subsided somewhat on the account of an old-school Hendrix-like guitar-founded blues rock tone. In an interview with Louder, Pierce's girlfriend Romi said, she found that Pierce became increasingly obsessed on playing the guitar - he had a Hendrix-thing going on, and she felt it took away some of the qualities in his vocal performance [Louder interview, also with Kid Congo Powers]. The relationship between Pierce and Romi is said to have come to an end during the recordings of the album, which didn't make things easier. Pierce's lacking health saw him hospitalised several times and he has been described as hallucinating more than usually. Musical simplicity, however, remains on the album and there's still an edgy tone to the music and the fragile / desperate voice of Pierce is found on top of all compositions. It's by no means poor or mediocre, I just miss that unspecified greatness in larger doses, which is something else than melancholic despair, but the album surely has its moments - and then it reveals a new level of guitar skills, which here is handled by Pierce.
A year later, Pierce and Romi had split for good - she now befriended Sanderson and together they founded the band Freehat (around 1999) with ex-members Jim Reid and Ben Lurie of The Jesus and Mary Chain. Pierce relocated to the US, to his father's house and to him to be looked after in the attempts of sobering up. Here, Pierce managed to write his memoirs, and he also made attempts in early '96 of finding new musicians to reform The Gun Club, which never materialised, and in late March, three years following Lucky Jim, Jeffrey Lee Pierce himself called it a day, as he was found dead - his body gave in, posssibly resulting from a life-style that included long-time heroin addiction and with various deceases as side-effects.
Lucky Jim is not the band's best, nor its worst. It's a genuine The Gun Club-album and as such quite fascinating stuff. Lee Pierce had been a youngster dreaming of being someone doing wild things, or actually: he wanted very much to become someone like William S. Burroughs, or Charles Bukowski, more than a rock'n'roll- icon. He wanted to be be out there living his life as a drunk and as a heroin addict, simply because he idolised that lifestyle on the extreme edge. He soon ended there himself and never really came back. People around him were shocked, petrified, or struck by his otherness, his vigor, his appetite, and his ramblings - and no matter what, he left us with enduring original fine music.

"No one sings the blues like Jeffrey Lee". [ ♱Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Jun. 27, 1958 - Mar. 31, 1996 ]
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]

   

US cover

   

German cover

The Gun Club "Divinity" (ep) (1991)

Divinity (ep)

release date: Aug. 1991

format: cd

[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,48]

producer: Jeffrey Lee Pierce

label: New Rose Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Sorrow Knows" - 2. "Richard Speck" - 3. "Keys to the Kingdom" - 4. "Black Hole" - 6. "Yellow Eyes" (Live) - 7. "Hearts" (Live)

EP release by The Gun Club following 10 months after Pastoral Hide & Seek (Oct. 1990). The album was originally released as a 7-track double vinyl ep consisting of 4 new compositions and 3 live tracks stemming from the band's farewell tour from a concert in France. The cd issue comes with 8 tracks, adding a remix of "St. John the Divine", a song that appears in its original version on Pastoral... - with the three live tracks put at the end of the cd. The band's drummer Nick Sanderson had left the band after Pastoral..., and back here is Desi (aka Desi Desperate, aka Peter Kablean), who previously stood in as an untrained substitute to handle drums on the final performances for the band's farewell concerts in Dec. '84 as Terry Graham already left before Jeffrey Lee Pierce then finally broke up the band. Pierce and girlfriend and bassist Romi Mori stayed in Amsterdam but Kid Congo Powers is now back on guitar, and with Desi these four constitute the new quartet. This is however, the final release with Powers, who should leave again the following Spring of '92.

Dvinity appears to have been made at point when Pierce wanted to record a follow-up to the 1990 album but apparently had been unable to write enough material for a normal album. Also, it seems that Pierce went through a rough period with poor health due to his substance abuse. Anyway, all four new compositions are strong songs that recount some of the characteristics of the band, but the album is a strange breed. The first half takes you into the sensation of what could've been another full-length and then a new mix of an old song, which basically sounds like the original, but it transports you elsewhere before we enter three good live recordings, which in a way both document the energy in the vocal and instrumental performance / the very presence of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, yet also show us another side of the coin of a former great unity, which just isn't the same as the starting point of the album. The end-track is a live version of "Fire of Love" from Miami which in a way takes the sound downstairs in a muddy and distorted chaos of what sound more like a bad recording.

Divinity is a difficult album to review, but I think it will of course appeal to die-hard fans, but for others, it probably could feel like something is missing out. After this, Pierce' condition saw him hospitalised and the band activity was on a halt, although, the line-up once again went through some changes. Desi  was replaced by Simon Fish in early '92, shortly after, Powers left for good, and in early '93 the band was back as a trio of Pierce, Mori, and with Sanderson back on drums - ready to record what would turn out to be the band's final album, Lucky Jim (1993).

The Gun Club "Pastoral Hide & Seek" (1990)

Pastoral Hide & Seek
release date: Oct. 1990
format: vinyl / cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,88]
producer: Jeffrey Lee Pierce
label: New Rose Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Humanesque" - 2. "The Straights of Love and Hate" - 3. "Emily's Changed" - 4. "I Hear Your Heart Singing" (4,5 / 5) - 5. "St. John's Divine" - 7. "Another Country's Young" - 8. "Flowing"
[ full album ]

5th studio album by The Gun Club follows three years after Mother Juno (Oct. 1987), and what's quite interesting is that the line-up is the exact same quartet as on the '87 album with songwriter, guitarist and lead vocalist Jeffrey Lee Pierce, guitarist Kid Congo Powers, bassist Romi Mori (girlfriend of Pierce), and drummer & percussionist Nick Sanderson. That said, Kid Congo had left the band to play with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds after Mother Juno, but after his return in the Spring of '90, Pierce soon made arrangements for the recordings ofwhat was to be this album. It's the second in the new formation of the band after Pierce had put an end to the band and initiated a solo career. Also, by the end of the year, Sanderson left to concentrate on another music project - all of this showing how this band never was in a stable period without members leaving, returning, or with someone being sacked. The album is the second recorded and released exclusively in Europe alone. At this point, the band, or at least Pierce and Mori appear to have being relocated to Amsterdam. As usual, Pierce is only songwriter and composer of all tracks, and this time he has also put himself in the producer seat. The resulting soundscape may not be that impressive but the style is certified The Gun Club - a style connected so much to Jeffrey Lee Pierce, his poignant vocal, his characteristic guitar-sound that no matter who he invites to play with him sounds crystallised as The Gun Club, and that is more than just sufficient. I've all ways linked The Gun Club with the music of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and all days found The Gun Club that little bit more interesting - or perhaps: showcasing something with  greater potential. In a contemporary perspective I didn't put this band among my favourites - I liked it, though, but may have neglected its qualities because of the lo-fi production, and the ever-present component of country and blues. I think, I might have put the band alongside artists like Adrian Borland, Bob Mould, R.E.M. etc. [without comparison whatsoever!] had I acknowledged it as much as I did later on. Fact is, I just listened to much else back then and The Gun Club was somewhere in the periphery: interesting and fine but never really 'it'. After this, Powers returned to the US - reputedly to get clean but stayed a member until '92 when he left to focus on a solo project of his; however, Mori and Pierce remained in Amsterdam with Pierce increasingly affected from heavy substance-addiction, also when heading into a studio in Belgium to record the band's final album, Lucky Jim (Sep. 1993).
In retrospect, there's no doubt that Jeffrey Lee Pierce definitely had 'it', and that he proved it over and over again. Better late than never, but fact is, I have come to understand why he became an artists' favourite and also a music critics' icon. This album doesn't contain obvious fillers, and in my mind, and in a close race with The Las Vegas Story (Jun. 1984), I find this to be one of the band's finest.
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 stars ]

[ collectors' item ]

The Gun Club "Mother Juno" (1987)

Mother Juno
release date: Oct. 19, 1987
format: cd (2006 remaster)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]
producer: Robin Guthrie
label: Flow Records (Remaster) - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 1. "Bill Bailey" - 3. "Lupita Screams" - 4. "Yellow Eyes" - 5. "The Breaking Hands" (5 / 5) - 6. "Araby" - 7. "Hearts" - 8. "My Cousin Kim"

4th studio album by The Gun Club originally released on Red Rhino is the band's first release after its reformation and it follows more than three years after The Las Vegas Story (Jun. 1984). Between these two, Jeffrey Lee Pierce released his solo album debut Wildweed in the Spring of '85, but for this he has reformed the band in a line-up featuring guitarist Kid Congo Powers, bassist Romi Mori (lead guitar on track #4), and with drummer Nick Sanderson. Pierce has written and composed all tracks and the band still sounds like no one else. Blixa Bargeld of The Bad Seeds plays guitar on "Yellow Eyes".
It's quite amazing how the band seems to just continue where the 1984 album ended considering that one half of the band wasn't taking part in the making of that particular album. I never got hold of any of their original albums at the time of their release, but Mother Juno was an album I found at the local library but didn't quite appreciate in '87. The only album that I really liked was The Las Vegas Story from 1984. The version, I have purchased of Mother Juno is a remastered edition including the bonus disc titled "The Berlin Tapes", which seems like a nice find. "The Breaking Hands" is a marvelous track - fans of the band would probably call it over-produced, and it IS a strange cocktail to have Robin Guthrie as album producer but Pierce apparently had his own ideas about The Gun Club, also when keeping in mind that the band's second album Miami was produced by guitarist Chris Stein of Blondie. And Pierce had been entrigued by Guthrie. Alledgedly, Romi and Pierce had met Guthrie and Liz Frazer of the Cocteau Twins at a music festival and from that positive meeting, Pierce had found a gateway to get in touch with Guthrie and ask him to produce an upcoming new album. Pierce and Mori were at this point a couple, and Pierce had relocated to Berlin as the band found it more attractive to play and perform in Europe as the band simply had more fans here. Also, Cave and the Bad Seeds, with whom Powers had played with, were mostly hanging out in Berlin.
Stylewise, The Gun Club and Cocteau Twins are nowhere near one another, nor with regards to genre for that matter but I really like this album as it has a fine delicate feel of garage rock, the ever-present hesitating energy of Pierce, and a productional side that tries to catch up and embrace it all and yet still leaves room for all the quirkiness.
The front cover is a painting by Danish-born artists Claus Castenskiold, who also fronts several releases by British punk rock band The Fall.
Recommended.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]

The Gun Club "The Las Vegas Story" (1984)

The Las Vegas Story
release date: Jun. 1984
format: vinyl / cd (2004 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,82]
producer: Jeff Eyrich
label: Animal Records / Chrysalis - nationality: USA

Track highlights: A) 2. "Walkin' with the Beast" - 3. "Eternally Is Here" (4 / 5) - 4. "The Stranger in Our Town" - 5. "My Dreams" (4 / 5) - - B) 2. "My Man's Gone Now" - 3. "Bad America" - 5. "Give Up the Sum"
[ full album ]

3rd studio album by The Gun Club follows nearly two full years after Miami (Sep. 1982) and it was originally issued by Animal Records. The 2004 remaster cd version comes with one bonus track. This has been issued by the label ' Sympathy for the Record Industry'.
In the aftermath of Miami, The Gun Club experienced a major change in the line-up with only Jeffrey Lee Pierce as the remaining member, which may explain the longer time in between albums. Patricia Morrison had been brought in to replace Rob Ritter as new bassist in the many new formations of the band in the following years. Drummer Terry Graham had been sacked and replaced but returned, then he refused to carry on, then he was replaced, but eventually he is still the drummer on this album. Guitarist Kid Congo Powers also returned from a period playing with The Cramps and Ward Dotson was subsequently sacked, and together they constitute the new quartet who recorded The Las Vegas Story.
The album is nicely put together, the songs are better, and the album is better produced and mixed than the predecessor. The style is with less reminiscences of post-punk and psychobilly, and instead it has a more profound blues rock at the base of an alt. rock sound. Strange as it may seem with the ever-changing band members, it's still an album with a sound and style that is unmistakably The Gun Club, which only goes to show that Jeffrey Lee Pierce is nearly synonymous with the band.
To me, this is one of the band's most memorable albums. It demonstrates a fine balance of alt. rock maintaining a clear blues-line, and that certain Jeffrey Lee Pierce combo of white energy and trembling fragility lifts the album to their so far best.
Within less than six months after the album release, tensions within the band had Pierce decide to put an end to the band and they performed a number of farewell concerts before disbanding after their final live performance in Dec. '84. Kid Congo Powers briefly joined Patricia Morrison in Fur Bible before moving to Berling where he initiated his work with Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Morrison joined The Cramps, and Jeffrey Lee Pierce then recorded and released his first solo album Wildweed (Apr. 1985). However, already as of 1986 Pierce regrouped a band and restarted it as The Gun Club.
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com, Mojo 4 / 5 stars ]

The Gun Club "Miami" (1982)

Miami
release date: Sep. 20, 1982
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,08]
producer: Chris Stein
label: Animal Records - nationality: USA

Track highlights: 2. "Like Calling Up Thunder" - 4. "Run Through the Jungle" - 5. "Devil in the Woods" - 9. "John Hardy" - 11. "Sleeping in Blood City"

2nd studio album by The Gun Club follows one year after Fire of Love (Aug. 1981) but it comes with a much more polished sound than that of the raw debut, which had put the band's name on everyone's lips. That may be the reason to how Blondie composer and guitarist Chris Stein ended up in the producer seat, and despite his musical skills that may not have been the best decision for The Gun Club. The band members credited on the album remains unchanged compared to the debut, although, the quartet of the debut is portrayed as a trio on the front cover because bassist Rob Ritter already left after recording the album in Jun. '82. Yes, Jeffrey Lee Pierce had founded the Blondie fan club and apparently adored Debbie Harry, but the sound and style of The Gun Club isn't really comparable with that of the neighbourhood to Blondie, although, that may have been what Stein assumed they wanted - and who knows, perhaps Pierce really wanted that? The sound on this fits more to what Blondie experienced as successful: pop-founded new wave with hints of rawness to it, but basically, Blondie never was really dirty - they were never labelled punk rock. On the other hand, The Gun Club soothed unspecified rawness, and of everything that's stuck to the other side of the coin of... 'prettiness'. In that regard, the band is more in of the same caliber as The Birthday Party, The Bad Seeds, with a direct link to Iggy and the Stooges, and as a modernised street-version of Rolling Stones. Debbie Harry (credited here as D.H. Laurence Jr. on the album due to contractual obligations) is credited for adding backing vocals to the album, and although, Pierce may have been thrilled and possibly downright honoured by the presence of the Blondie-couple, they do not add anything substantially good to The Gun Club.
The album contains the John Fogerty-cover "Run Through the Jungle", which has been completely transformed into something more disturbing, but in a refreshing way that is. After this album, the band went through a major change in the line-up as bassist Rob Ritter left to join another band and Pierce fired both guitarist Ward Dotson (who had replaced Kid Congo Powers) and drummer Terry Graham.
Mostly for completionists.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Mojo, Uncut 4 / 5, Q Magazine 3 / 5 stars ]

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