The Gun Club – Reissues: Miami | Death Party | The Las Vegas Story

Jack White famously asked of them, “Why are these songs not taught in schools?” The “them” in question is the collective of the seminal blues-based punk, and later alt-rock, band The Gun Club. Two of their albums, 1982’s Miami and 1984’s The Las Vegas Story, and an in-between EP, 1983’s Death Party, are being reissued with a bonus disc apiece of the punk blues/psychobilly progenitors. Having been a music journalist himself, frontman Jeffrey Lee Pierce liked the idea that if he started a band he could acquire free drinks from the press. It was this not-giving-a-shit attitude that followed the band throughout its career, shaping both the band’s songwriting and its progression.With the three reissues here, we pick up after the band’s debut LP, 1981’s Fire of Love. The album was revolutionary in its use of punk combined with country, blues, rockabilly and ”“ gasp! ”“ slide guitar. The band toured the U.S. in support of it, but, as Stevo Olende put it, the band “always seemed to be based elsewhere than their audience were [sic].”The first reissue, Miami, is a record that takes the elements of Fire ”“ that is, punk-plus everything ”“ and expands on them. There are still punk qua punk songs, like ‘John Hardy’ and ‘Devil in the Woods’ but both are augmented by rockabilly. Country still exists in ‘Like Calling Up Thunder;’ blues in the CCR classic ‘Run Through the Jungle;’ and slide guitar is still present, too, on ‘Texas Serenade.’ But the star of the band was and always will be Pierce: he can make his voice do anything to fit a particular song. ‘Watermelon Man,’ for example, finds him sounding as if he’s singing the song in the Arizona desert after having just done a shit-ton of peyote. When he repeats “he no dead,” he’s either having a moment where he understands the entire universe or he’s on the verge of a breakdown. In either case, it’s simply fascinating.If you’ve ever wondered why bands like TGC (or anything Social D put out after 1988) are considered ‘punk’ then you simply need to experience them live. Thankfully, the reissues here answer the call. The second disc of Miami is a show in Buffalo, New York back in ’82 where the band rips through songs from Fire of Love, the Death Party EP and Miami, as well as songs from the then-forthcoming The Las Vegas Story. ‘Ghost on the Highway’ and ‘Bad Indian’ see the band dash along at break-neck tempo while simultaneously demonstrating the band’s secret weapon: its performance. Pierce’s vocals in particular are taken to their illogical extreme live. His wailing is more haunting and his screaming is more, well, piercing. The quality of the recording here isn’t pristine ”“ it’s actually quite grungy. But it fits the Club’s style of letting the music come before anything else. There’s very little applause from the (one would assume) small crowd. The smattering here or there between songs suggests that either the audience doesn’t quite understand what they’re hearing or is as humble as the band.Then came the release of Death Party. The EP is the first time that alt-rock came knocking on the band’s door, heard especially in ‘The Lie.’ The song ”“ and, really, the EP itself ”“ suggested that the band wanted a more melodic, mainstream approach to its songwriting. The blues influence that was so prevalent on Fire and Miami is traded for an alternative rock sound on all but one song of Party. Most notably, Pierce’s vocal delivery is”¦normal. It’s odd because he still howls and bellows and yet it’s controlled, precise, restrained. In short, he’s understandable for more than a couplet at a time. That said, his sincerity remained intact throughout this transition. The EP still retains the abrasive nature of the band’s two LPs, particularly on the title track. Thus, it’s apparent that Death Party was meant to be a transitional outing. To that end, it succeeded: it brought old fans along on the band’s progression while coaxing new fans in with the alt-rock leanings. Once again, the bonus material is a full live show. This disc finds the band in Switzerland in 1983. And, once again, the Club’s live persona is more ferocious than its studio counterpart. Tracks from Death, like ‘Lie’ and ‘The House on Highland Avenue’ get a standard reading live, but the band’s take on ‘Run Through the Jungle’ finds Pierce doing a wolf-man impression while the band attempts to tame him by surrounding him with a whirlwind of sound. Also notable is the blues standard ‘Cool Drink of Water,’ from Fire, which is expanded to a nine-minute death march of blue-flame intensity.By the time Vegas Story dropped, TGC was free to do what it wanted with its sound, which explains its slightly free-form nature. The band was free to progress and experiment, hence the jazz-tinged, lounge-act take of Pharoah Sanders’ ‘The Master Plan’ or the camp-fire nature of ‘Give Up the Sun.’ But the key to the Club’s forward-thinking was the perpetually emerging mainstream rock sound. On Story, the alt-rock transformation wasn’t complete yet, but the doorway was more than cracked open ”“ the hinges were now broken. The band’s version of ‘My Man’s Gone Now’ is the closest thing to a by-the-numbers rock song the band would ever commit to tape. The track wouldn’t be out of place on Pablo Honey. The band’s punk leanings didn’t leave, though. ‘Bad America’ demonstrated the Club’s ability to simultaneously push and pull the past with its rapid speed (relatively speaking, that is) and radio-friendly hook. Pierce would continue this yearning for the past on the album’s closer ‘Sun’ wherein Pierce aches, “Touch me through the screen door/ I want to remember you.” Here it’s as if Pierce is singing to himself. It’s clear that the decision of Pierce to focus on singing by 1984 was as much a development of the band’s sound as it was a way for him to address the widening gap between of then and now. The moment suggests that while the band wanted to embrace its past, it couldn’t live there.Once more, the supplemental disc is a concert. Strasbourg, France is the destination this time around, recorded during the band’s ’84 fall tour in support of Vegas. Highlights include a spirited (read: grunge) cover of ‘Louie Louie’ and a balls-out punk version of ‘The Twist,’ which is preceded by Pierce proclaiming the band’s excitement to entertain with a string of fucks. Elsewhere, the setlist isn’t all that surprising: the band steamrolls though ‘The Lie’ (here, augmented by power chords), ‘Death Party,’ ‘Run Through the Jungle’ and ‘Moonlight Motel,’ found here with its running time halved and tempo tripled.It’s a shame that none of the Gun Club’s releases have any RIAA certifications. Not that record sales are the one, true defining characteristic of quality music. Certainly not. But if there is a band that honestly deserves a gold record, it’s the Club. That said, it’s perhaps for the best that the band’s popularity didn’t reach arena-rock levels, lest it be forced to make an album or two it didn’t desire to or go in an unwanted direction. Instead, the band strolled through music ”“ indeed, life ”“ in the manner that the members chose individually as well as collectively: their own path, and to hell with any else’s opinions or thoughts. The reissues here of the Club’s best era prove that legacy and popularity don’t share a symbiotic relationship. The former is the important attribute, anyway.

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