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Monday 7 June 2010

The Gun Club 'Sex Beat'


Barnstorming brilliance from L.A. blues-punk outfit The Gun Club, following yesterdays 80s American indie punk Replacements track. Few people have managed to use the word sex in song without it being cringe-worthy but Jeffrey Lee Pierce more than gets away with it. This song is off 1981's Fire Of Love album, an album which I never get bored of, and which drew the template for many, not least The White Stripes. After this album the line-up changed (Kid Congo Powers went to The Cramps), and each album afterwards seemed to have less than the one before, though all of them have their merits. If you only get one, get this one.

In typical Factory fashion every band who played The Hacienda were filmed and the tapes given to the band. The band could then release the live video, and Factory got nothing. Typical Factory. I have the full Gun Club at The Hacienda on VHS, Jeffrey Lee Pierce prowling the stage, abusing the audience and letting them sing into his mic, and wilfully sabotaging this song in a 'it's our best song but it's become a millstone' kind of way. Jeffrey descended into alcoholism and died in 1996 from a stroke brought on by a brain tumour, leaving this song amongst others as a fine epitaph.

Sex_Beat.mp3

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