The Gun Club “Fire of Love”

At one time I might have put this on the list of my favorite albums of all time. I got this record in my store when it came out (1981) in an order from Slash Records. It was awhile before we listened to it, and when we did we were all blown away by it. It was a kind of intense, psycho blues that sounded somewhat traditional, but totally new.

The lyrics are pretty extraordinary, and there are too many good lines to paraphrase here to do it all justice. The only bad song is– you guessed it– the train song.  They had to go and do the half-hearted, obligatory train song. But there are so many good songs on this record– there’s like three records worth of killer songs: “Sex Beat,” “For the Love of Ivy,” “She’s Like Heroin to Me,” ” Jack on Fire,” “Fire Spirit,” and even more.

I saw them play in Tucson in early 1982, and they were pretty intense. It was worth the trip to Tucson. This guy Jeffrey Lee Pierce was my hero for awhile.