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Gun Club Miami
Each of us must battle our own demons. Mine is called blues and I probably will never be able to defeat it. The blues is like a greater entity that takes hold of you and once it does, it never lets go, nothing much to do. Damn me when I met it. Yet the blues also has its own energy, its own power that is not just pain, not just suffering but also a forceful rush, a brash, overwhelming and malevolent frenzy. The blues is also the strength of despair, when all is lost, yes, but in spite of that, it supports and deeply animates you. The blues is a curse and a cross that one carries but cannot do without. The blues is also like a wounded tiger moving in the dark, it is also the prevalence of the most untamed and unthinkable Dionysian instincts in an orgiastic and tireless outlook, it is pure pleasure.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the mind and soul of the Gun Club, was definitely someone who had something to do with the blues. And yes, he had his personal demons and ghosts that, indeed, he couldn't defeat, little to say. The price to pay was too high but the masterpieces Pierce produced, indeed. "Miami" is the second work by the Gun Club in which the group and the mind behind it inexorably continues to revive and modernize the roots of American music, blues indeed and country. Dark, morbid, claustrophobic, and delirious, "Miami" is a true masterpiece that wonderfully merges urban urgency, blues ritualism, and toxic/ancestral country into an apocalyptic and ancestral musicality. The cover of "Run Through The Jungle" by Creedence Clearwater Revival is a clear representative example of the album's delirious mood. A delirium that is entirely interior, psychological, and dark. Pierce looked deep within himself and maybe found nothing, or maybe just found a stranger (remember "Stranger in my Heart" )? Or maybe he encountered the great lie (remember "The Lie")?
"Sleeping In The Blood City" possesses some reminiscences of the grit and the majestic despair of their debut, a hurricane capable of dragging all the anguish in a whirlwind of eternal damnation and existential unease but no, it always comes back there. It's useless. Gorgeous "Watermelon Man", characterized by a dark and damned tribal rhythm. More than a song, a voodoo rite performed in the arid and mystical desert. Indeed, the inner desert that many have in their soul with no way to transform it into a lush and, very simply, beautiful oasis. What a simple word "beautiful," isn't it? "Carry Home" is another pearl of the album, languid slide guitars with a fragrance oh so sweet to get lost in, lost in that sweet warm refuge. How can we not mention "Mother Of Earth" where Jeffrey Lee's voice reaches one of its expressive peaks in what is a modest country ballad mildly sinister, sensitive, and full of a certain sense of defeat, bitter and irrevocable, as if someone had pulled it over who knows how. The highest point of despair can be observed in "Texas Serenade", accompanied by a dark chorus that seems to foretell misfortunes and curses and a formidable way of singing in its highest notes really capable of bringing out all the ghosts, at least for a damned moment, yes, at least for a damned moment.
It is noteworthy that the Gun Club's approach to the genres that, in fact, constitute American musical tradition, is not certainly of a traditional kind. The Gun Club sounds different compared to Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin, who are among the greatest interpreters of the blues in the traditional rock field. And this is exactly where the point is. The Gun Club does not belong to the category of classic and traditional rock but rather to an alternative context with a clear and evident revival of traditional genres and, peculiar trait, their musical journey traces, in an unforgettable way and perhaps with its highest peak, a true parallel between elements of rituality, metropolitan jungle, and primitive tribalism.
The blues is like a cruel chill that makes you shiver,
so preachin' blues, uh uh uh, preachin blues now......
Tracklist Lyrics Samples and Videos
01 Carry Home (03:18)
Come down to the willow garden
with me
come go with me
come go and see
Although I've howled across fields and my eyes
turned grey
are yours still the same?
are you still the same?
Carry Home
I have returned
through so many highways
and so many tears
Your letter never survived the heat of
my hand
my burning hand
my sweating hand
Your love never survived the heat of
my heart
my violent heart
in the dark
Carry Home
I have returned
through so many highways
and so many tears
Carry Home to where I am from
carry to the place that I have come
carry to the dust and flies behind me
carry to the cracks and caves on the face of me
Oh, but I didn't change, I just had to work
Yeah, but I didn't change, I just had to work
and now I'm home, and now I'm home
do you still want me?
Now, that I'm home
Come down to the willow garden with me
come go with me
come go and see
03 Brother and Sister (03:02)
Why do you keep me
way underground?
My sight is dying
as was the sound.
Why do you paint me
and cover me with jewels?
Where are we going?
What are we going to do?
you used to say, you'd take me home
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
The sins of me
they buzz and hiss in the trees
their little skeletons
will harm no one
Why do you always
bring them back to me
they're kingdom come
and earth will be done
on heaven and earth and me
you used to say, you'd take me home
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
And who is that there
always beside you
when I count us together
together we are only two
I had a dream
and there was foxfire in your hair
I am your brother, your lover
I give you my blood
I will follow you anywhere
you used to say, but, you never know
but, I keep falling to the sister
brother falls unto the sister
keep getting pushed further and further
away
07 Watermelon Man (04:11)
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
see the Watermelon Man ah' come
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
He no dead, he no dead he dea' yah!
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the Watermelon Man ah' come
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
See the man put on a smiley face
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
He no dead, he no dead he dea' yah!
Haiyo! Haiyo yah!
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Other reviews
By Enkriko
His vocal cords strangle the lyrics, sob, suck, swallow... all accompanied by extremely high doses of sulfurous rock.
This is blacker-than-black music, reviewed and corrected by the drugged and destabilizing mind of a white boy, son of punk and its ephemeral revolution.
By supersoul
Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the classic American loser, with that voice too big for his small stature.
This man calms you down and gives you chills at the same time.
