Not many people my age routinely deploy an appreciation for the band Rare Earth, but I have always, always, always loved the song "Hey, Big Brother". This live version, recorded during 1974's California Jam concert (which also counted Deep Purple, the Eagles, and Black Sabbath in the lineup) does a pretty effective job of demonstrating why, even through the thicket of handlebar moustaches and ubiquitous helicopter shots of the sprawling crowd (now alleged to have been several hundred thousand strong.)
Rare Earth, in case you don't know, were among the first all-white acts signed to the Motown label. At their best, they were a funk-rock act that tread smoother, more accessible waters than the James Gang. They had a string of hits in the early 70s, but are probably best remembered for their cover of "Get Ready", which is OK, but doesn't hold a candle to this one. It's nice to see they haven't faded entirely from modern consciousness, as this recent and rather blazin' remix of "I Just Want to Celebrate" from Soundcloud demonstrates.
Watch the video all the way to the end for a short appearance by legendary broadcasting blowhard Don Imus, who strolls through the crowd with the local California police chief.
Imus: "Do you like rock & roll?"
Chief: "Some of it."
Very insightful, Don. Than you for your ongoing commitment to broadcasting excellence.
If you think my periodic musings on moldy oldies like the Gun Club, Swell Maps, or Roxy Music indicate that I've sworn off new jams forever, let these periodic mixes from the FMA be the first to state otherwise. Yeah, I write about a lot of old music here—mainly for my own enjoyment. But more importantly, I listen to a lot of new music because that way lies the future. It's the same balance I've always sought to apply when programming a radio show: let 'em know where you come from, but also give 'em a sense of where you're heading. Too much of either ingredient, and you end up either sounding like an insufferable hippy or a dough-eyed neophyte. As such, here are Thee Oh Sees, Wovenhand, Dragen Espenschied, and Outpost—Four modern artists comped together thematically by what seems like the only constant in any of our lives here in the metro area.
It's odd for a cover song to reveal so much about a band as unique as the Gun Club were. With the exception of the lyrical overhaul, their rendering of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Run Through the Jungle" is pretty faithful, but goes down like a cruel lover with a mile-wide mean streak. The Gun Club's music excels in revealing the dark and inaccessible regions of the subconscious self—leading the listener down a long and dark corridor, they invite them through an unmarked exit, and then turn on them in a frenzy of sexual and sometimes violent depravity. They were scary, self-destructive, and had an air of real recklessness about them—just like all the good things that come from Los Angeles.
Seen above is Gun Club leader Jeffrey Lee Pierce, from the cover of his Wildweed LP—a record that, along with the lion's share of his band's catalog, totally defined some corner of my personal aesthetic. I buy that album every time I come across a cheap vinyl copy in a cutout bin, which, if you know me personally, might explain why you own it. Oddly enough, Wildweed isn't really a very consistent listen. A number of its tracks have aged poorly, but I've always been willing to look past them entirely on the strength of the song "From Temptation to You", which sounds as lonely and desperate as JLP appears in that iconic photo. My wife and I listened to that song over and over again while driving the rural highways from Jerome, Arizona to the Grand Canyon during the Spring of 2005, and it's now impossible for me to hear it without mentally conjuring the eternal nothingness of that barren landscape at dusk. Use the player below to hear it.
At the opposite end of the GC spectrum are the destructo speaker-crankers that most fans adore them for. This isn't a Gun Club primer, just the appreciation of one fan who believes they complete all the important punk-blues circuits better than any other band who's tried, with hooks and snarl to spare. Witness below: the totally unhinged, hoodoo ritualism of "Death Party", in which Blind Lemon Jefferson meets a blown Marshall stack.
All the original Gun Club albums are mandatory listening as far as I'm concerned, but don't sleep on the (hopefully still available) Early Warning double disc of demos, live songs, and previously unheard solo-acoustic Jeffrey Lee Pierce material. I also strongly recommend JLP's Go Tell the Mountain autobiography, if you can find a copy. (Used ones are currently fetching stupid money on Amazon.) Though I haven't read it in years, I remember it being a deeply personal and commanding read chronicling the years just short of those which lead to the author's untimely death. Reminiscent of the troubled loners, outcasts, and drunks that inhabit the songs of the Gun Club, Jeffrey Lee's narrative is at times like watching a toilet flush in slow motion. And while it's easy to romanticize anyone after they're gone, JLP's story offers plentiful evidence that he was a guy who really lived it, something that his closest confidantes tend to agree with while in the same breath citing his arrogance and unbridled narcissism as the root of his undoing. Like many others, I still find myself deeply moved by the Gun Club, and I remain in awe of their routine exorcisms of the ghosts down every highway, real or otherwise.
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Non-comm broadcasting is my currency. WPRB-->WFMU-->WNYC. All the related hooey is chronicled here.
Mantra
There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. -Bill Hicks
