Jeffrey Lee Pierce: an appreciation
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1Randy_Hierodule
Jeffrey Lee Pierce (1958-1996) was the only true genius of pop (or "roots") music who came out of the southern California punk rock scene - maybe out of the 80s music scene as a whole (Your kind indulgence please, O affable reader: I have no taste for the mannered David Byrne or Elvis the Pretender). He was the lead vocalist of The Gun Club, a great rock and roll/blues guitarist (supposedly taught Kid Congo Powers to play), and a writer.
Prior to forming The Gun Club (initially as Creeping Ritual), Pierce was a Blondie groupie (Chris Stein produced GC's second lp). Attracted to the glam rock of the early 70s, Pierce also, in hoping to form a band, was looking for a new sound that had some bearing on the "American Soul". He traveled to Jamaica and absorbed reggae (etc.) - but it was the raw fury of punk rock and a growing fascination with the rural blues of the Mississippi delta that gave birth to the Gun Club. Like Lux and Ivy of The Cramps, Pierce has written of days spent record hunting - with his old room mate - Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks - and with band members. Pierce and mates were looking for old blues records. Their devotion brought them to the notice of Canned Heat's Bob Hite, who gave them the tour of his famed collection of rare 78s.
The haunted sound of the delta blues was incorporated into the band and the soul of Jeffrey Lee Pierce. He was the real thing, like Howlin' Wolf or Tommy Johnson (whose yodeled delivery was favored on quite a few of the early songs). He lived the blues, as they say or once said, with a tragic authenticity. In concert, he came across as a sort of deep-south voodoo shaman - frantic, absorbed, intoxicated by the music (and the heroin, and the wimmins and the whiskey). He was capable of giving voice to homicidal rage, tenderness and death-welcoming sorrow... a screeching punk tirade like "Death Party" could yield to a mournful country ballad like "Mother of Earth". A Gun Club show was the closest thing to a Doors concert anyone born after 1960 could have attended (of course, I have clearer memories of the mid-60s than I do most of the Gun Club shows I saw): they were loud, fierce and achieved a sense of perturbing menace. Pierce was an articulate blues man/ punk rocker, and, like Like Jim Morrison, a poet. From Brother and Sister:
Why do you keep me way underground?
My sight is dying, as was the sound.
Why do you paint me - and cover me with jewels?
Where are we going? What are we going to do?
----
The sins of me buzz and hiss in the trees.
Their little skeletons
Will harm no one.
Why do you send them
Always back to me?
Their kingdom come and their will will be done
On heaven and earth and me.
_______________________
I cannot get a look at it
so, I'm burning them on the deal anyway
I see her come down from the top of the stairs
I guess that I'd be cool, but there's a tickle in my veins
I've been a real good tombstone, but now I'm blowing away
She is like an I.V. swimming pool
but, she will never know that she is there
we sit together drunk like our fathers used to be
I'm looking up and God is saying, "What are you gonna do?"
I'm looking up and I'm crying, "I thought it was up to you!"
(from "She's Like Heroin to Me")
Pierce, also like Morrison, seems to have been unmanageable - both the destructive and driving element of the band. Unlike the "lizard king", though, he had self-deprecating sense of humor. He was aware he was an occasional and flagrant fuck-up: he cracked jokes about it, ridiculing, for instance, his serious attempt to play "A Love Supreme" on the guitar.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a mess; a bright, talented, energetic, creative mess. He was, I have gathered, an inspiration to those he mentored and worked with (Anyone remember Tex and The Horseheads? he created them and took them on tour). An inspiration and a beast. What will they say about him, now that he's dead and gone? No one has said anything yet, and that is a shame. Hopefully some serious and enterprising archivist will see beyond the hairdo culture and leather and braces uniforms of that time and write Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee Pierce into the history and culture of American roots music (whatever the current jargon is for blues, country and western and jazz). He deserves it.
Prior to forming The Gun Club (initially as Creeping Ritual), Pierce was a Blondie groupie (Chris Stein produced GC's second lp). Attracted to the glam rock of the early 70s, Pierce also, in hoping to form a band, was looking for a new sound that had some bearing on the "American Soul". He traveled to Jamaica and absorbed reggae (etc.) - but it was the raw fury of punk rock and a growing fascination with the rural blues of the Mississippi delta that gave birth to the Gun Club. Like Lux and Ivy of The Cramps, Pierce has written of days spent record hunting - with his old room mate - Keith Morris of Black Flag and The Circle Jerks - and with band members. Pierce and mates were looking for old blues records. Their devotion brought them to the notice of Canned Heat's Bob Hite, who gave them the tour of his famed collection of rare 78s.
The haunted sound of the delta blues was incorporated into the band and the soul of Jeffrey Lee Pierce. He was the real thing, like Howlin' Wolf or Tommy Johnson (whose yodeled delivery was favored on quite a few of the early songs). He lived the blues, as they say or once said, with a tragic authenticity. In concert, he came across as a sort of deep-south voodoo shaman - frantic, absorbed, intoxicated by the music (and the heroin, and the wimmins and the whiskey). He was capable of giving voice to homicidal rage, tenderness and death-welcoming sorrow... a screeching punk tirade like "Death Party" could yield to a mournful country ballad like "Mother of Earth". A Gun Club show was the closest thing to a Doors concert anyone born after 1960 could have attended (of course, I have clearer memories of the mid-60s than I do most of the Gun Club shows I saw): they were loud, fierce and achieved a sense of perturbing menace. Pierce was an articulate blues man/ punk rocker, and, like Like Jim Morrison, a poet. From Brother and Sister:
Why do you keep me way underground?
My sight is dying, as was the sound.
Why do you paint me - and cover me with jewels?
Where are we going? What are we going to do?
----
The sins of me buzz and hiss in the trees.
Their little skeletons
Will harm no one.
Why do you send them
Always back to me?
Their kingdom come and their will will be done
On heaven and earth and me.
_______________________
I cannot get a look at it
so, I'm burning them on the deal anyway
I see her come down from the top of the stairs
I guess that I'd be cool, but there's a tickle in my veins
I've been a real good tombstone, but now I'm blowing away
She is like an I.V. swimming pool
but, she will never know that she is there
we sit together drunk like our fathers used to be
I'm looking up and God is saying, "What are you gonna do?"
I'm looking up and I'm crying, "I thought it was up to you!"
(from "She's Like Heroin to Me")
Pierce, also like Morrison, seems to have been unmanageable - both the destructive and driving element of the band. Unlike the "lizard king", though, he had self-deprecating sense of humor. He was aware he was an occasional and flagrant fuck-up: he cracked jokes about it, ridiculing, for instance, his serious attempt to play "A Love Supreme" on the guitar.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a mess; a bright, talented, energetic, creative mess. He was, I have gathered, an inspiration to those he mentored and worked with (Anyone remember Tex and The Horseheads? he created them and took them on tour). An inspiration and a beast. What will they say about him, now that he's dead and gone? No one has said anything yet, and that is a shame. Hopefully some serious and enterprising archivist will see beyond the hairdo culture and leather and braces uniforms of that time and write Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee Pierce into the history and culture of American roots music (whatever the current jargon is for blues, country and western and jazz). He deserves it.
2slickdpdx
Strange - on the way to work today, Bad Indian came up in the random rotation on the mp3 player. If I had to pick a favorite song I'd narrow it down to either My Cousin Kim or Texas Seranade - but 50% of the songs were in the running... (And I did catch the "What will they say about him" reference you sly dog! Did I miss others?)
Saw The Gun Club only once and that in the very late 80s maybe even very early 90s. No one can sing like JLP. Have you ever tried singing a song JLP-style (or imagined how it would go) without having first heard him sing it? Mr. Pierce was singing from a different hymn book. RIP Wildweed.
Saw The Gun Club only once and that in the very late 80s maybe even very early 90s. No one can sing like JLP. Have you ever tried singing a song JLP-style (or imagined how it would go) without having first heard him sing it? Mr. Pierce was singing from a different hymn book. RIP Wildweed.
3Randy_Hierodule
Ha! I've been spinning (?) my old cassette comps on the car stereo all week... those lyrics are seared into what's left of the gray cells. I think you got the only reference, so kudos, my man (well, unless you wanna count the wimmins and the whiskey bit which was Pierce reverently plundering Son House) - good to know I'm not the only one still listening.
5Trelew
I saw Gun Club a couple times in the early 80s; I didn't appreciate the blues influence until later. I've still got Fire of Love album and Death Party ep in constant rotation. Unheralded greatness, like you say.
6Randy_Hierodule
Australia's Beasts of Bourbon were kind of in that vein as well... The Axeman's Jazz is worth picking up if on cd.
7Trelew
yea, good connection. I've got Axeman's Jazz on LP. First song I heard was "Psycho." Good and creepy. They really tapped into some American roots.
9Randy_Hierodule
And Nick Cave did a whole lp of blues covers... can't recall the title. But a good deal of his work/writing seems the ejaculate of a fantasy of the deep south: inbreeding, murder, mama's home-fried crystal methedrine.
I think his "City of Refuge" is a reworked/worded version of Blind Willie Johnson's song (speaking of covers: I do like JLP's version of Run through the Jungle, lyrically, better than John Fogarty's).
I think his "City of Refuge" is a reworked/worded version of Blind Willie Johnson's song (speaking of covers: I do like JLP's version of Run through the Jungle, lyrically, better than John Fogarty's).
11slickdpdx
Kicking Against The Pricks. I don't think they are all blues songs though. Speaking of Cave and covers - his version of Leonard Cohen's Avalanche is superb.
Agreed about Run Through the Jungle but I don't like the song anyhow. Too long and boring. Long and interesting is okay, but not boring. JLP does help make it a bit less boring.
Agreed about Run Through the Jungle but I don't like the song anyhow. Too long and boring. Long and interesting is okay, but not boring. JLP does help make it a bit less boring.
12Randy_Hierodule
That's it - and I just revisited the track listing, which includes "By the Time I get to Phoenix". I'll have to play that lp when I get home... see if he outdid Glen Campbell ;) (I do have some good old guitar stuff by Glen Campbell and the Gee Cees... Buzz Saw Twist is one instrumental that comes to mind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQLxWoKdtRk ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQLxWoKdtRk ).
13slickdpdx
http://s0.ilike.com/play#The+Misunderstood:Golden+Glass:15441328:s39082122.10566...
Golden Glass - The Misunderstood: It was all downhill from there. (For Glen, that is.)
That Buzzsaw video is wonderfully unwholesome while remaining absolutely G-Rated. Loved it!
Golden Glass - The Misunderstood: It was all downhill from there. (For Glen, that is.)
That Buzzsaw video is wonderfully unwholesome while remaining absolutely G-Rated. Loved it!
14Trelew
Which was the early Glen Campbell band that featured Leon Russell on keys?
ETA: I don't remember the name of the group, but the lead instrument was some kind of psychedelic zither thing. wow.
ETA: I don't remember the name of the group, but the lead instrument was some kind of psychedelic zither thing. wow.
15Randy_Hierodule
Probably the Marketts... (I think he sat in with The Champs as well) mostly a bunch of studio guys who were working with Brian Wilson on Pet Sounds, etc. Mostly shlocky, but Out of Limits is fun.
16Trelew
It was kinda cheesy.
Speaking of covers, Nick Cave, Blind Willie Johnson, etc: someone turned me on to a record called "Soul of a Man." It's actually the soundtrack to a Wim Wenders film on the life of Blind Willie Johnson & JB Lenoir (part of Martin Scorsese's series on the blues, none of which I have seen). Blind Willie sings the title track, Bad Seeds are there, Marc Ribot does Blind Willie's "Dark Was the Night," Skip James covered by Jon spencer Explosion, Lou Reed (!) does Blind Lemon Jefferson,
Speaking of covers, Nick Cave, Blind Willie Johnson, etc: someone turned me on to a record called "Soul of a Man." It's actually the soundtrack to a Wim Wenders film on the life of Blind Willie Johnson & JB Lenoir (part of Martin Scorsese's series on the blues, none of which I have seen). Blind Willie sings the title track, Bad Seeds are there, Marc Ribot does Blind Willie's "Dark Was the Night," Skip James covered by Jon spencer Explosion, Lou Reed (!) does Blind Lemon Jefferson,
17Randy_Hierodule
13: That's Glen Campbell? Wow... definitely misunderstood!
... ah, GLENN Campbell... not the Lineman for the county Campbell.
http://www.themisunderstood.com/
... ah, GLENN Campbell... not the Lineman for the county Campbell.
http://www.themisunderstood.com/
18slickdpdx
Thanks for clearing that up. The misunderstanding was mine! I should be used to it. Too bad for one en Glen. I've been so impressed. It was more interesting that way.
P.S. The rest of the misunderstood's discography is not distinguished but that one song is worth your 99 cents.
P.S. The rest of the misunderstood's discography is not distinguished but that one song is worth your 99 cents.
19Randy_Hierodule
I'm hunting for the lp!
20slickdpdx
Of the free downloads at the Misunderstood website (having just listened to them) I can recommend Hidden Door. UCan skip the others... My Mind has a bit of a Roky Erickson flavor but not that good. Probably the 2nd best there.
21slickdpdx
I recently discovered (although the release "Prayer of Death" is 2006 so...) Entrance, a band that reminds me of JLP and the Gun Club in a manner that is not unpleasant or derivative. You can listen to songs here if you care to:
http://ligamusic.com/Album/2229023/Entrance/Prayer_of_Death/download-mp3/
I found them on emusic so you can get the tracks there too. Whoever came up with the track order screwed up in my opinion. The first track is good but not great. Tracks 3, 5 and 6 are a bit weak for different reasons. However, the other tracks are all really strong. I'd strongly recommend checking out Valium Blues, Silence on a Crowded Train, Never be Afraid and Lost in the Dark. And give a qualified recommendation to Grim Reaper Blues.
http://ligamusic.com/Album/2229023/Entrance/Prayer_of_Death/download-mp3/
I found them on emusic so you can get the tracks there too. Whoever came up with the track order screwed up in my opinion. The first track is good but not great. Tracks 3, 5 and 6 are a bit weak for different reasons. However, the other tracks are all really strong. I'd strongly recommend checking out Valium Blues, Silence on a Crowded Train, Never be Afraid and Lost in the Dark. And give a qualified recommendation to Grim Reaper Blues.
22Randy_Hierodule
Curious stuff. I wonder if they pressed any on vinyl....
