The Gun Club “Fire of Love” released on this date, August 31st, 1981. Slash/Ruby Records. The Gun Club’s debut release – punk-a-billy roots rock, extremely influential to subsequent psychobilly and garage rockers. This album is also a favorite of many of my musician and music/record geek friends. Thom Jurek of Allmusic states it “is the watermark for all post-punk roots music…swamped-out roiling rock, swaggerific hell-bound blues, and gothic country…The songs become rock & roll ciphers, erasing themselves as soon as they speak, heading off into the whirlwind of a storm that is so big, so black, and so awful one cannot meditate on anything but its power.”

We have two different copies of this album, one with the better-known pink cover and the other orange/red flames. I’d suggest a few tracks to listen to but honestly, just listen to the whole damn thing here, it’s worth it.