In the pre-Internet days, record collecting was more than merely a hobby, it was almost like… a way of life. For many, many years I’d spend the weekends stomping a track around all the good record and book stores in lower Manhattan, and then after that I did the same thing in Los Angeles. Before our current Age of (Consumer) Enlightenment, back when you couldn’t just dial up eBay or Amazon or Gemm and find anything you wanted, record collecting was like big game hunting or something. Even living in a major city, it might take a while—years even—to find a particularly scarce record.
The first time I visited Los Angeles, in 1991, I had just three “holy grail” records left on my list, items that I had coveted for years, but was never able to find in NYC. They were: the original soundtrack of Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, the three-record set of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner’s “2000 Year Old Man” albums and the Gun Club’s Death Party EP. Believe it or not, I found all of them in one store on the second or third day I spent in LA. Major score. (The insanely great record stores of Los Angeles were a key reason I moved here, I think.)
Death Party is one of the great genius records to come out of the LA punk scene and because it was just an EP and not an album, they (Chris Stein’s Animal Records label, distributed via Chrysalis) probably didn’t press up that many of them. Not only was it hard to find, pretty much right when it came out, it wasn’t even released on CD until 2004 and it’s remained relatively obscure.
Death Party was sandwiched between long-players Miami and The Las Vegas Story, and was recorded with a short-lived incarnation of the Gun Club. Joining Jeffrey Lee Pierce were guitarist Jim Duckworth (Tav Falco’s Panther Burns), drummer Dee Pop (Bush Tetras), Jimmy Joe Uliana on bass and Pierce’s then girlfriend Linda “Texacala” Jones on backing vocals. I’ve read reviews that describe Death Party as having a Neil Young and Crazy Horse vibe and I think that’s kinda, sorta accurate. AllMusic described the EP’s music as “powerful, dark rock of disillusionment, drug abuse, and warped sexuality.”
Although hardly forgotten, The Gun Club were one of the best American bands of the 1980s and it’s a cryin’ shame that Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s music isn’t better known today. In my world he’s a musical icon. An authentic white American bluesman isn’t something anyone expected to emerge from the Los Angeles punk scene, but that’s what happened. Since a strong plurality of DM’s readers were born after the Gun Club’s brief brush with popularity, I thought I’d highlight Death Party‘s five amazing songs.
The seldom-seen promo video for “The House On Highland Ave”:
“The Lie,” a stunning live performance from Holland, 1983 (One wag on YouTube left this comment: “Whenever people tell me Vince Neil is just a talentless hack I say… ‘Listen to his work with the Gun Club.’”!):
“The Light Of The World”:
The epic centerpiece of the release, “Death Party,” here performed live in Madrid on Spanish TV’s infamous La Edad de Oro program, 1984
“Come Back Jim”
And finally here’s a wild and raw Gun Club set professionally shot at Manchester’s Hacienda nightclub on April 20, 1983. Duckworth on guitar, Pop on drums and Patricia Morrison on bass: