| Format: | LP |
| Availability: | In stock |
BANGLP83
25/08/2023
Originally released back in 1985, this record is reissued, remastered, with added photography, lyrics, and 2 bonus tracks from the recording!
The magnum opus of his solo career, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, leader of THE GUN CLUB recorded this wonder during the mid 80s.
His band Gun Club was on hold after The Las Vegas Story (1984) when Pierce recorded his only solo LP. He goes back to the sound they had done on 1982's Miami, a kind of Delta Blues mixed with punk and CCR, driven by his voice and guitar.
Complex compositions performed with excellence that, once again, puts Jeffrey Lee Pierce as one of the most important and influential artists of the 80s & 90s.
Wildweed was the first of two solo albums Pierce made in between his Gun Club albums. Following in the footsteps of remarkable statements like Miami and The Las Vegas Story, the material presented here isn't all that different. The violence theme practically drips from the album cover, depicting Pierce with a dreamy look and a shotgun slung over his shoulder. Standing amidst what could be the last true vestige of an unspoiled, rural America, it's a fair bet that he's ready to shoot anything even slightly disturbing -- upon which he probably will utter one final howl before putting himself "to rest" as well.
Plenty of those howls are scattered through Wildweed, which opens with a strong threesome of "Love and Desperation," "Sex Killer," and "Cleopatra Dreams On." In more than one way, "Love and Desperation" is the twin to "Sex Beat." Apart from the infectious driving beat, one only has to compare the lyrics of the latter ("I, I know your reasons/And I, I know your goals/We can f*ck forever/But you will never get my soul") to the former ("Somebody hurts you, so you hurt me/So I hurt somebody else, who I have never seen/Who hurts somebody else, why on down the road/Who hurts somebody else who goes on home/With you") to conclude that Pierce's world is one in which love takes a wrong turn most of the time. Halfway through the album things get a little awkward when, during the nursery rhyme of "Hey Juana," Pierce starts name-checking a colleague ("Now Nick the Cave/He spent all his pay/On a bottle of gin/And a shark without a fin"). Luckily, "The Midnight Promise" makes a beautiful closing piece.
His band Gun Club was on hold after The Las Vegas Story (1984) when Pierce recorded his only solo LP. He goes back to the sound they had done on 1982's Miami, a kind of Delta Blues mixed with punk and CCR, driven by his voice and guitar.
