Fucking, murdering, leaving (I will fuck you til you die / Bury you and kiss this town goodbye). At the time of his death, he was 38 years old. IMDb ID. She caught the band live in London in 1991 after the release of Pastoral Hide And Seek: They were so uninspired that night., The recording of Pastoral Hide And Seek in Belgium had become a workmanlike chore for Kid Congo. Not that I was free from my own special demons. Apparently his health had been very bad again but it was a step in the right direction. Jeffrey Lee Pierce Death Fact Check, Birthday & Date of Death I learned 30 songs and I had one 10-minute rehearsal where Jeffrey was completely pissed, and then I played the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in front of 5,000 people. Hed then run back home, only stopping at the pub for a few more drinks, and hed do that every day.. He tragically died of a brain hemorrhage on March 31, 1996. When you were on stage and it was going well, it was fantastic; it was what music should be, enthuses Morrison. Jeffrey was so into it and even asked if we wanted to split the writing credits, but we stupidly declined and just accepted a recording fee!, Powers concurs: It was like a completely new band and it was the strongest version that I was in.. But also I take away all the things I learned from Jeffrey. What can you say about a record that you cut for 2500 bucks in 48 hours, on speed? Kid Congo Powers chuckles when asked what hes proudest of: Many things. Thats what I got the most out of it. By then, his influence could be felt on the work of rootsier American outfits like Green on Red and on the new direction taken by Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds (which featured for a time the Gun Club refugee Kid Congo). An obsession for record collecting in his early teens led to him meeting fellow music fan and future Gun Club guitarist and co-founder, Kid Congo Powers (ne Brian Tristan). He did me first before the rest of the band and I loved that. He had the idea that he wanted a Cocteau Twins kind of sound for it. BA1 1UA. This is a crucial moment and one that links the opening overs of the 21st century to the early 1980s, when roots music collidedwith the fury of punk. We really liked the songs. [43] The found recordings were too rough to release, and Glitterhouse Records, the label responsible for the project, used digital technology to allow artists to record their contributions from around the world. Then wed get together with the rest and they picked things up quickly.. Preaching The Blues: Remembering The Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce - ABC By the late 1970s, Pierce was also performing as a musician. Over the course of seven studio albums and an ever-shifting line-up of musicians driven away by Pierces self-obsessed and self-destructive behaviour, The Gun Club left behind a body of work whose ramifications are still reverberating to this day. Punk had left its mark on both of the young friends, with Pierce and Powers running the Blondie and Ramones fan clubs respectively. Using a pick-up drummer, The Gun Club road-tested material from what was to become their third album, The Las Vegas Story. In the early stages of his career, Pierce became friends with his idol Debbie Harry, having met Harry and Chris Stein through his presidency of Blondie's U.S. fan club. Music was the same thing: if he liked something then hed listen to it to death. Pierce continued working despite failing health, and reformed a Gun Club lineup for two shows in Los Angeles in August and September 1995, including guitarists Powers and Mike Martt, formerly of Tex & the Horseheads, and the Wayne Kramer rhythm section of bassist Randy Bradbury and drummer Brock Avery. Amy is currently creative director of an East Village rock & roll club, DJ, and contributor for PKM. Great Jeffrey Lee Pierce interview from 89. Their problem was that they bamboozled everyone, including themselves in all likelihood. Here, the latter was almost out. [16] A different line-up including Romi Mori, Dean Dennis and Nick Sanderson also recorded with Pierce, completing the six-track "Flamingo"[16] The EP featured a remix of Wildweed's opening track "Love and Desperation" and two cover tracks. He was one of the founding members of the band The Gun Club, and released material as a solo artist. Says Mori: It definitely felt like a band. And in a handful of others Like Calling Up Thunder, The Fire of Love, and Mother of Earth Pierces absorption of all those influences, his near-assimilation by the prevailing ancient creepiness of American roots music spliced with the then-still-novel exuberance of punk, allowed him to hunker down and create something not only timeless but seamless, as if Johnny Cash, Johnny Thunders, and Johnny Rotten had dropped all their differences in order to embrace whatever nameless idolatry secretly united them. [50] The documentary received mostly positive critical reception, but was criticized for not including any of Pierce's music or interview footage with him.[51]. The Gun Club and perhaps this more than anything explains their continued marginalization were rarely if ever fun. The band's first album, "Fire of Love" (1981), remains its most admired, with a fast-paced, irreverent version of the Mississippi blues song "Preachin' the Blues" and Mr. Pierce's warbling voice wailing about dark themes like drugs and death. Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Jeffrey Lee Pierce, Rock Musician, 37 New York Times", "Obituary: Jeffrey Lee Pierce People News", "in exile: the rootless cosmopolitanism of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club", "Preaching The Blues: Remembering The Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce", "Returning to the supposedly troublesome 'Miami', "Rockbrat Remembers: When Spencer Jones played with The Gun Club", "NEW YORK NIGHT TRAIN issue 1: Kid Congo Powers Oral History Pt. We were recording in Holland and, as you can imagine, you could get hold of anything you wanted. I wouldnt be playing guitar if it wasnt for him, and I wouldnt know a lot about music if it wasnt for him. The Gun Clubs 1981 debut Fire of Love was rarely off my turntable in those days. This was to be the last gasp of a career which had patently lost its direction. With The Gun Club well and truly over for the time being, Pierce embarked on a short-lived solo career. By coincidence, Robin and Liz were walking towards us, remembers Mori. Morris, a friend and former housemate of Pierce, had suggested "The Gun Club" as a band name while they were living together. He went and grabbed it; it didnt come to him. It stopped him doing what he wanted to do. [30], Pierce is honored by Thstrm in a 2005 song recording. The future was acknowledged, however grimly envisioned. [43] In some cases, the contributing artists had to finish the songs themselves, with Pierce appearing posthumously on the recording via the inclusion of his original parts. His interest in reggae overlapped with the emergence of punk rock and he became involved in the Hollywood scene as a contributor to Slash, writing on contemporary punk, 1930s blues, 1950s rockabilly, and on reggae under the name "Ranking Jeffrey Lea", including an interview with Bob Marley. His Anglo father worked as a union organizer. His relationship to the blues, in particular, is complex. Yes. Between these two lies a solid body of work, though. He was digging. Powell. Subscribe to Deadline Breaking News Alerts and keep your inbox happy. He got back in touch with his initial blues roots, began dressing like a rambling cowboy, and finger-picked a resonator guitar. And speaking of language, Ive tried to avoid it, but his last name even rhymes with fierce. Deadline is a part of Penske Media Corporation. Soundtrack: Too Young to Die. The ultimate beginner's guide to Jeffrey Lee Pierce - Far Out Magazine I was already living in New York and I got as far as asking people, because there was a great music community in New York. PLEASE KILL MES PUNK HISTORIANS LEGS MCNEIL AND GILLIAN MCCAIN TURN THEIR ATTENTION TO L.A. Texacala Jones noted that Pierce carried a handwritten note from Harry in his wallet with instructions on how she dyed her hair, including the types of products she used. [citation needed], Mark Lanegan recorded a cover version of the Gun Club's "Carry Home", from the album Miami, on his album I'll Take Care of You. See the article in its original context from. He said, Leave them! [39], Henry Rollins, another friend of Pierce, played the Gun Club song "Bill Bailey" during his first show for the "Artist in Residence" feature on Australian national radio station Double J. Rollins stated before playing the song: "Jeffrey Lee Pierce was a very good friend of mine and I miss him horribly. His demise is another sad reminder that the rock 'n' roll life-style can also lead to oblivion. Born in Montebello, California to a Mexican mother, he felt alienated growing up and considered himself a half-breed. -Amy Haben Great Jeffrey Lee Pierce interview from '89. Its fair to say that the band fell almost completely off my radar at some point after 1985 (having picked up, and loved, that years excellent solo release Wildweed, one of my emigration casualties, sadly), so the news of Jeffreys death at age 37 of a brain-hemorrhage on March 31,1996 eluded me entirely. Joined by his girlfriend, Mori, on guitar and Clock DVAs Dean Dennis (bass) and Nick Sanderson (drums) for his 1985 album, Wildweed, the quartet undertook a US tour that left them penniless after being ripped off by their tour manager. He was very unusual and a very unique guy. Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an American punk, and a bluesman lead singer and guitarist for that most contradictory of bands, The Gun Club, whose erratic embers smoldered and sputtered fitfully. This contained forgotten preliminary recordings for a further . In December 1984 the Gun Club played two gigs in London, but by January 1985 had broken up, cancelling an upcoming Australian Tour. I could feel that he was so lonely. Pierce was born on June 27, 1958, in Montebello, California. We were all very relaxed and all good friends and we all really wanted to do it. 13 October 2015. stated in. The odd thing is that although they are understandably pigeonholed with fellow haunters of the gothic margins such as Cave and The Cramps, they were also different. nm1838020. So returning later, at some point before I left the land of my birth, to the supposedly troublesome Miami, whose admittedly thin Chris Stein helmed production is nowhere near as problematic as history has decreed, I discovered a perfectly fine album. Pierce returned to Los Angeles before relocating to Utah to stay with his father and write. "[19] In May 1994, Pierce joined the band on-stage during the "Let Love In" European tour,[20] culminating in a show at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, where he sang a cover of the Johnny Cash/Bob Dylan song "Wanted Man". Stack O Lee. Jeffrey Lee Pierce, for all intents and purposes, was the Gun Club. At his suggestion, their next album, Mother Juno, was recorded at Hansa studios. Springheel Jack. Right up until Jeffrey died we were talking about doing something again, sighs Congo Powers. Morrison and Powers remained in London, forming Fur Bible, while Pierce visited Egypt with guitarist and new girlfriend Romi Mori, who he had met at a London show. When he was a teen-ager, he was president of the Blondie fan club. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Almost beyond language. By Gregg L. Friedman MD, I really miss the great musical groups of the 1960's. After punk and post-punk, the next logical step was for us to have a band.. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Get up to 10% off using the Booking.com app, $6 off a $50+ order with this AliExpress discount code, 15% off orders over 15 using this eBay discount code, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK April 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this April, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. One minute he'd be talking about the fall of Saigon and the next minute hed be talking about the size of a dinosaur's brain. Their most straight-ahead blues album, the direction taken still evokes scorn from Mori: I think Jeffrey wanted to be Jimi Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan. To understand Pierce's ambivalence toward Los Angeles requires looking further into the particular origins Jeffrey Lee Pierce. In July 2014, Australian musician Spencer P. Jones argued that the blues influence in Pierce's music was largely the result of his access to the record collection of Canned Heat frontman Bob Hite, who allowed Pierce to come to his house and choose ten albums from Hite's vast blues record collection as he was dying. Come back, Lux Interior. He was 37 years old. About any of it. Elvis From Hell is set to be released in 2020 and the producers are in talks with additional production partners, as well as sales and distribution companies. To this day, I still havent heard either Pastoral Hide & Seek (1990) or Divinity (1991), and only listened to 1987s Mother Juno relatively recently, which in itself is almost unforgivably neglectful since it was produced by another of my 80s musical touchstones, the Cocteau Twins Robin Guthrie. And it was there that the next stage of The Gun Club began to take gestate. My sense of why this is rests on Pierces deep familiarity with many musical forms, not least the blues. He just needed somebody so badly, so I stayed with him.. Literally. Jeffrey's mother Margie Pierce is a stay-at-home mom; Jeffrey's father Robert Pierce is employed as a union organizer and arbitrator (Local 1710 Electrical Workers Union). Pierce arrived in Australia with bass player Patricia Morrison and enlisted two members of support act "The Johnny's", Billy Pommer Jr and Spencer Jones, to fill in,[10] plus Kid Congo, who flew from the United States to join them after being convinced by Pierce. But it was with a depressing sense of inevitability that the band would collapse once again. Terry and Rob joined and we pretty much had a ready-made rhythm section. As were The Gun Club as a live draw, and their popularity increased in Europe, especially Britain. We need you now. During the mid-1970s, after attending a concert by Bob Marley, Pierce became an avid fan of reggae, and subsequently traveled to Jamaica, where he met Winston Rodney and others, but also "got beat up there too", as he later recalled in an interview.[5]. I knew the situation he was in: he couldnt drink and he so he needed something else. No two gigs were ever the same on that tour.. With his tousled blond-dyed hair, Jeffrey Lee Pierce was in many ways the archetypal American cult musician, at the crossroads of many musical styles (the goth scene, the swamp blues now revived by G-Love & Special Sauce) which later came to prominence. Come back, Sid Vicious. The sessions were recorded with acoustic guitars in Grove's bedroom using a "boombox" device. Recruiting bassist Don Snowden and drummer Brad Dunning, the quartet named themselves The Creeping Ritual before changing their name to The Gun Club at the suggestion of The Circle Jerks Keith Morris. The album features interpretations of Pierce's work by friends and collaborators including Debbie Harry, Nick Cave, Lydia Lunch, Mick Harvey and Kid Congo Powers. Born in 1958, Jeffrey Lee Pierce was raised in the east LA suburb of El Monte. So bookends of sorts: one darkly prosodic, the other starkly prosaic: one running frenzied from the swamp-demons of the past, the other recoiling in vain from the keening horror of an unspeakable future. The 1992 album Ramblin Jeffrey Lee & Cypress Grove with Willie Love was in effect his final paean to that musical style, from acoustic Mississippi Delta to electric Windy City. With the first line-up imploding, Pierce and Powers were joined by Rob Ritter (bass) and Terry Graham (drums) from LA band The Bags, whose contribution was instantly felt. Musically, most of the pieces were in place very early. [citation needed] The final Gun Club album, 1993's Lucky Jim, includes the song "Idiot Waltz". By now Pierce had begun to take his health more seriously and took up an unconventional method to lose weight. People want to see me! And he looked at us as if were supposed to leave our guitars. It kind of sounds like a Christmas song but Jeffrey always described it as a love song.. "[7], The Las Vegas Story (1984) was the band's third album, seeing the return of Kid Congo Powers, drummer Terry Graham and a new bassist, Patricia Morrison. And I could navigate Jeffrey when he was saner. But it was too good to last. Look! But it was after witnessing Pere Ubu at LAs Whiskey A Go Go in 1978 that the idea of band was hatched. Instead of falling to the floor screaming, hed play the guitar and hide behind that. Hed play the songs to me and Id learn the bass parts. The propulsive downstruck open-E chords: F, A, E, G. The echo-twang of the rockabilly substratum, the trebly punk veneer, cockroach legs skittering on pockmarked concrete. Creeping Ritual Productions was formed June 27th 2007, not only as a tribute website to the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce but most importantly its primary purpose is to archive and protect the legendary memory of this rock . He had the voice of sadness and when we played really large venues, his voice would go so wide, especially when we were playing sad, bluesy songs.. "Death Party" (uncredited) 2012; Too Young to Die. His demise is another sad reminder that the rock 'n' roll life-style can also lead to oblivion. I couldnt do it any more; we had too many arguments and disagreements.. [4], The Gun Club's debut album, Fire of Love featured the songs "Sex Beat" and "She's Like Heroin to Me". TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. So we went and kept in contact, and it was decided that the next album should be recorded with Robin., She continues: Jeffrey had been wanting to record The Breaking Hands and he knew that he wanted loads of bells on it, so he figured that Robin would be perfect for it. [13] Pierce relocated to England with Mori and concentrated on his solo career. (Jeffrey Lee Pierce photo: via fanpop.com). He represents the Americana I hate. So Chapter 1: Verse 1 in the Punk Bible, then. [32], In 2010, OFF!, a punk "supergroup" fronted by Keith Morris, formerly of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks, released a song dedicated to and named after Pierce. They were going to be playing that night and I said, Jeffrey! This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. imported from Wikimedia project. His 2002 tribute "El Fuego Del Amor" had previously featured eight Gun Club songs. Death Certificate Index Pierce, Jeffrey Lee Certificate Number: 1975-MN-017354 Death: July 28, 1975 County of Death: Itasca County Mother's Maiden Name: SCHAEFFER Date of Birth: Jul 2 1959 Place of Birth: MINNESOTA. Country:UK: . One of his best qualities, was encouraging his friends to make music, even insisting that they do. His health had been poor for some time. Its counterintuitive, and often, at its most abject, unforeseen beauty lurks. But The Gun Club made things happen on their own terms. Hes also in the select group of music journalists to have actually got on with Lou Reed. Julian Marszalek is the former Reviews Editor of The Blues Magazine. Its like we had this idea that the band would repeat Fire of Love ad infinitum and wed all go home happy, so when expectations were dashed, much of the critical world scowled petulantly and turned away, never to turn fully back. There was very little funny about The Gun Club, certainly not intentionally (Although Pierces bitter comment about Cave attending a better class of rehab than himself could be seen as humorous if you squint hard enough.). Pierce had a relationship with singer Texacala Jones, and together they formed the band Tex and the Horseheads, with Pierce providing arrangements of traditional songs and playing the guitar in some of their initial performances. He formed the Gun Club, originally named Creeping Ritual, in 1979 and developed a reputation for flamboyant performances. Dissonance on the former (Black Train) becomes plain ugliness on the latter (Day Turn To Night), while Fires haunted and unhealthy lyricism (Ghost On The Highway) is tempered by Lucky Jims sonorous melancholy (Idiot Waltz). Elvis From Hell will tell the story of Pierce, a. Mori moved to bass, Nick Sanderson was on drums and the call was made to Kid Congo Powers who, by this time, was based in Berlin. Other family and friends of Pierce provided additional material; Phast Phreddie Patterson submitted a copy of a homemade cassette recording of Pierce performing "My Cadillac" and "St. Mark's Place", which were pre-Gun Club recordings, and Cypress Grove obtained the two-inch master tapes of some song ideas they had recorded at the end of the Ramblin' Jeffrey Lee sessions. Produced by The Flesh Eaters Chris D and released in 1981, The Fire Of Love was the perfect distillation of Pierces vision of punk and blues coming together. But for those who played in The Gun Club and suffered the outrageous behaviour, demands and whims of Jeffrey Lee Pierce, there remains an enormous sense of pride at what was created. Jack on Fire: Jeffrey Lee Pierce, 1958-1996 | PopMatters At no point did The Gun Club ever really break into the broader public consciousness. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Prior to his departure and the release of the album, Ritter played Miami to former Bags compatriot Patricia Morrison, who quickly fell for the records charms and replaced the bassist. DEATH PARTY - EP (13-Apr-83) 01.The House On Highland Ave 02.The Lie 03.The Light Of The World 04.Death Party 05.Come Back Jim Line-up: Jeffrey Lee Pierce (vocals)/ Jim Duckworth (guitar)/ Jimmy Joe Uliana (bass) and Dee Pop (drums). The maddening part for me is that I missed most of it. Having somehow missed their sophomore effort Miami completely, I next encountered the Gun Club in 1984, with the release of The Las Vegas Story, an album as remarkable and as perplexing as anything in their catalogue. Rock music has had its beautiful losers (Jim Morrison, Ian Curtis, Kurt Cobain) but the American singer and songwriter Jeffrey Lee Pierce was more in the mould of the late Johnny Thunders (of New York Dolls and Heartbreakers fame) and Malcolm Owen (of Britain's Ruts), one of those musicians who never quite fulfil their potential yet follow their destiny to its inescapable conclusion. That period was a lot of trial and error and luckily more of it was working than not, but that nihilistic streak and antagonism that was coming from him was needed at the time.
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