Fire of Love was The Gun Club’s debut record and it is considered one of the most influential releases of the post-punk era, blending punk, garage and roots rock plus a dash of general freakout weirdness equaling punk blues. As a recent article in Pitchfork states, Fire of Love “set the stage for outlaw eccentrics like the Pixies, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, and the White Stripes (while providing Nick Cave with his post-Birthday Party roadmap into the swamp).” The punks in Gun Club (Rob Ritter and Terry Graham both were in The Bags) even recorded a cover of an old Robert Johnson song, “Preaching the Blues” (originally titled “Preachin’ Blues,” 1939), something unheard of in the scene at the time. The whole album is amazing, but my top tracks are “Sex Beat,” “For the Love of Ivy,” “Ghost on the Highway” and “Jack on Fire.”

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We have seen X play several times and were supposed to see them again at the end of May, along with Milwaukee local hero punks Violent Femmes. Sadly, yet another show that has fallen victim to the tsunami of concert cancellations.

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“The Decline of Western Civilization” 1980. Slash Records. Today, November 7th, is Alice Bag’s birthday (b. Alicia Armendariz, 1958) and the only recording we have of her and her band, The Bags/Alice Bag Band, is on this soundtrack from the film directed by Penelope Spheeris which documented the ‘79-’80 LA punk scene. Quite recently I read Alice Bag’s autobiography Violence Girl (from Feral House publishing) and it was a can’t-put-it-down read. She was an integral part of the LA music scene, starting off as a super-fan of David Bowie, Freddie Mercury and Elton John before starting her own band and hanging out with members of the Germs, The Weirdos, etc. She spends a short chapter describing her experience with the recording of the track (“Gluttony”) for Decline of Western Civilization: “The filming of the performance was an ordeal. It was supposed to be a live show, but because several bands were being filmed and there were five bands on the bill, it became a marathon. Fights broke out backstage as people tried to change the order of performance. In a small backstage overflowing with testosterone, I was the only woman and nobody was fucking with me…We were nearly out of steam even before we went on. The show had gone on far too long. The film crew was packing up equipment, members of the audience looked spent and it was hard to get excited about playing, but we went out and tried to revive the night. I knew it wasn’t our best show, but it wasn’t our worst, either.”

The soundtrack features several other prominent LA punk bands (all filmed at various locations and dates from December 1979 through May 1980). There’s a great version of “White Minority” by Black Flag, a messy version of “Manimal” by the Germs (are there any versions of any Germs live songs that aren’t messy?) and X play a really excellent set that includes “Beyond and Back,” “Johny Hit and Run Paulene” and “We’re Desperate.” Circle Jerks have four songs (the best “Back Against the Wall”) and Fear have three including “I Don’t Care About You,” “I Love Livin’ In the City” and “Fear Anthem.” There’s also a song by Catholic Discipline (“Underground Babylon”) but I never really heard much by them beyond this record and don’t care for that track.

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Slash Records released What We Do Is Secret soon after Darby Crash’s suicide in 1980. All the songs were available on other releases but the EP had a couple of different versions and live tracks. The version of “Round and Round” was recorded in ‘77 for What Records. The “Lexicon Devil” version on What We Do Is Secret is the slow version and my absolute favorite. That track, along with “Circle One” and “No God” were recorded in ‘78 for Slash Records and were produced by Geza X. “Caught in My Eye” comes from the GI sessions on Slash with Joan Jett producing. “The Other Newest One” and “My Tunnel” are live, recorded in late ‘80, just days before Crash’s death, at the Starwood in Hollywood and Crash is rude, obnoxious, a complete mess and completely awesome.

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Sparrow is one of many replacement drummers over the years; the original drummer Victor De Lorenzo is still around, playing out here and there with various other musicians in Milwaukee. We got to see him back in August 2013 at an even more intimate venue: a rooftop sculpture garden concert on the MSOE campus hosted by WMSE with about 40-50 people in attendance. (In the photo below De Lorenzo is on the left.)

During the show at 88.9, the Violent Femmes played three songs, one from their debut album Violent Femmes – “To The Kill,” a song that Gano introduced as probably the only song that wasn’t popular from the LP. He also told a hilarious story about playing it solo while still in high school (or soon after) at a local disco for a battle of the bands concert. It won second place but he was puzzled why no one thought it was a dance song. (It’s not) Their acoustic rendition of “To The Kill” was powerful, amazing. It literally brought tears to Joe’s eyes (he gave me permission to write that).

If you grew up in the 80′s in Wisconsin and were even remotely interested in punk or offbeat music (check, check and check) it was a given – you listened to the Violent Femmes. Violent Femmes was THE soundtrack to every Wisco alt-teen experience. Punk-folk songs with a sound unlike anything you’d ever heard: “Blister in the Sun,” “Kiss Off,” “Prove My Love,” “Gone Daddy Gone” and of course “Add It Up” (oh how we loved screaming along “Why can’t I get just one fuck?!”) are etched into our collective memories. For me, Violent Femmes provided part of my soundtrack to the the summer of ‘86 (an epic summer that has popped up in many of my posts); I went on a canoe trip to the Manitowish chain of lakes in northern Wisconsin for a week with my Girl Scout camp (I was telling this story to Joe yesterday on our way home from the Violent Femmes show and he commented that canoeing seems to be another running theme here; summer camp was a big part of my youth I guess). One of the camp counselors smuggled along a portable cassette deck and one tape – Violent Femmes. So that’s what we listened to for the entirety of the trip. And it was amazing.

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This album provided part of the soundtrack for a pivotal summer during my teenage years, especially one particular epic evening with a group of friends involving unsupervised debauchery, which ended in a bunch of us crashing on the floor, hot and sweaty, exhausted and joyous, heads spinning. As we drifted off to sleep, this album played on the record player. My friend’s turntable had this weird glitch that caused the arm to lift up midway during track #5 (in this case “Strange Notes”) and start the album over from the beginning. We let this go on for about 10 times before dragging our lazy butts off the floor to turn the player off. But those songs are burned into my mind, and I don’t mind at all.

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For whatever reason, it would be years after I bought the soundtrack (I purchased it for the cover – Darby Crash!) that I actually viewed the film. I never bothered to see Spheeris’ subsequent “The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years” but would be interested in seeing Part III at some point, which chronicles the gutter punk lifestyle of homeless teens during the 90′s.

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