Fire Of Love

 

In the late 70's/early 80's the heads of Blondie and Ramones fan club. Jeffrey Lee Pierce and Kid Congo Powers started their band The Gun Club. Not knowing that they made a groundbreaking album with Fire Of Love from 1981 when they combined classic blues, rockabilly and punk to a melange named psychobilly blues and a never heard before slide guitar . In the early and mid-80s, The Gun Club were probably one of the most influential bands on the Los Angeles music scene, if only because of their legendary debut album "Fire of Love". What made Pierce and his band stand out was their wild, raw fusion of punk and blues, captured in killer songs like Sex Beat and She's Like Heroin to Me, roughly comparable to what The Cramps had done with rockabilly in a similarly legendary way at almost the same time. When I bought the album and played it for the first time, I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This mixture of priestly enlightenment and punk was unusual and disturbing. But this music captivated me right from the start and Miami, the follow-up album, was another highlight. For me, it is still an album that is almost perfect and should appear in SWC's series.

The Gun Club - She's Like Heroin To Me

The Gun Club - Sex Beat

The Gun Club - Preaching The Blues

The Gun Club - For The Love Of Ivy

Back To Normal Life

 

Since today, public life in my hometown has moved back towards normality. The incidences have fallen so far that it is again possible to meet in groups also in a pub. Of course not without the government having ordered regulations for this. So visits to a pubs and beergardens are only allowed to those who can show a negative vaccination test. For this reason, the public test centers cannot save themselves from an unusually high rush. Yesterday after work I managed a date for testing today and so in the late afternoon I will be able to meet some friends personally to those I had only contact via chat or Zoom. Hopefully this will be a few steps into normality. Today some songs I found on a sampler that was played often in times when me and mates met in a pub.

Pretenders - Brass In Pocket

Tom Robinson Band - 2-4-6-8 Motorway

Dr. John - Right Place Wrong Time

Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop

Little Feat - Dixie Chicken

Velvet Underground - Sweet Jane

Dr. Feelgood - Milk and Alcohol

Three In A Row

Yesterday it was very stressful to come home by public train. When I came to the station they announced that no train was running for the next two hours because the found an aircraft bomb from World War II while they were rebuilding the main station in Stuttgart. There was a lot of confusion to get to the best connection to find a train to bring you home. I decided to be calm and go for the next chance to get a train that will take me home. In this mood I just watched the masses running a hectic pace and listened to the music on my mobile phone. This was the three songs that appeared in a row. It was funny to listen to that up-tempo songs while others almost went crazy to get the next train.

Cologne's local hero

Way back in the late 70s a lot of German musicians tried also to go other ways than playing mainstream, progress rock or jazz thing. Influenced by British and American punk and New Wave some of them have managed to combine these influences with their understanding of music. Some of them got well know in Germany riding the wave on the so called New German Wave others will be remembered by some insiders and never got more than local heroes.

One of them is Jürgen Zeltinger (called 'de plaat' what meas 'the bald'). He formed a band with Jaki Liebezeit (former drummer by CAN) and Arno Steffen (guitar, often hired for studio recordings or as a tour guitarist) to play some classic rock and also some standards. They played their first gig round carnival 1979 in a small club where they taped this concert for their first record. A guy in my local record store recommended me this record an I was astonished of this guys. I recognized, that they had really fun playing this concert. Probably the most unusual was that they started singing a classical German folk song that turned at the end into a punk version. 

Then they played 'Müngersdorfer Stadion' - the German version of the Ramones Rockaway Beach, sung in typical Cologne dialect so the rest of the nation had problems to understand. At least they covered Lou Reed and his 'Walk on the wild side' - also translated into their dialect. While Lou Reed has taken on transsexuality a a them, Zeltinger sings about an old prostitute who waits in vain for the whole evening to a suitor. Saw him live a couple of years later and had real fun on his show.

Zeltinger Band - Müngersdorfer Stadion

Zeltinger Band - Stüverhoff

Zeltinger Band - Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann