#2.13.61

Henry Rollins - I know you

Gun Club, “Eternally is Here/Psycho” Live, 7”

This is an interesting single. I’ve argued that there are two incarnations of the Gun Club: the shifting 1979 to 1984 lineups, broken up by Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s 1985 solo album Wildweed, and the 1986 to mid-1990s lineups, which was a relatively stable period—with the Gun Club typically revolving around Kid Congo Powers, Romi Mori and Nick Sanderson. It’s this second incarnation of the Gun Club that these two live tracks are pulled from—“Eternally is Here” from 1990 and “Psycho” from 1991.

           Originally appearing on The Las Vegas Story (1984), “Eternally is Here” has a slowed down intro and features Pierce ripping on lead guitar. It was in the 1990s that Pierce really came into his own as a guitarist. You can hear it here on the A side, but for further proof check out the Gun Club’s Rockpalast show from 1993. This second incarnation of the Gun Club came out of the gate strong with Mother Juno in 1987, but then tapered off in terms of popularity. That’s a real shame as “Eternally is Here” displays that this band had the live goods entering into the 1990s.

           I’ve listened to a lot of Gun Club bootlegs and I’ve yet to hear them cover The Sonics’ “Psycho” before receiving this 7”. That makes sense; according to the liner notes, neither Kid Congo Powers nor Romi Mori recall ever playing it. Again, it’s interesting for Gun Club fans for that fact alone, but the cover more than holds up. It’s driving and raw. Incidentally, the B side was recorded in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on June 1, 1991, less than four weeks before the Ten-Day War and the start of the breakup of Yugoslavia. You come across similar tense situations—playing shows in late Cold War-era nation states on the brink of collapse—in James Young’s book on his time playing with Nico (Nico: The End). On a lighter note, the Ljubljana show demonstrates how European-based The Gun Club had become in the early 1990s.

Endeavours 037 – Peter Dickinson, Michael Morimoto, Henry Rollins

Is spring finally here?

  http://endeavoursmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/episode-037.mp3 Peter Dickinson is a Vancouver-based playwright, writer, and educator, whose play Long Division is being put up by Pi Theatre. He also co-organized a symposium on Queer Theatre in Canada – Q2Q. He currently teaches at Simon Fraser University.

Michael Morimoto is a saxophone player with the Vancouver…