1981@40: FIRE OF LOVE - THE GUN CLUB

It wasn't all synthesisers. Filtering through post punk from the late '70s and growing into lavish blooms came things like this album. They were American and like the punk bands that were based on the UK innovation of that notion they got it all wrong. But getting it wrong is how you discover things and what The Gun Club was that the music behind all that 12 bar style that bedroom guitarists find contains worlds of shadow, sex and power. Once established, terms like psychobilly and cowpunk were stuck on bands like this which lumped them all together. If you heard this in 1981 as a young honky you might have picked the influences of all the Pebbles and Nuggets albums that made the demimonde of garage rock of the '60s available in easy packages. But the two advantages the Gun Club had were a scholarly awareness of the legacy and the bottle to push it onstage and wear it.

Ringing and raging guitars from screeching riffs to earthquakes of barrechords under some of the most committed and dangerous sounding vocals of its time, Fire of Love burst out of the speakers and into the darkened living rooms of numberless parties. Frenzied, sexy and threatening, The Gun Club made with the blues like no one had since the time of the originals. And everyone loved them. Everyone except for me.

Eleven tracks of rock assault and it's over. And for me, outside of that context of young bodies and nervous systems like my own gyrating in the dark, they just sounded old. Every track with its lines about dressing like an Elvis from hell or preaching the devil's music or voodoo or whatever else also informed the cover art, sounded, to me, like a revival of Creedence. It was effective but did we really need it? Well, maybe so. The sole track that sounds a little different from all the others on this record is Jack on Fire, a nasty song about a nasty piece of work that uses the dynamics of the rest of the album to a real effect. Told in a jazzy 2/4 stride, it's cool cat strut works a treat. Then it's back to the old folks at home on speed.

That said, I hated psychobilly, cowpunk and whatever anyone wanted to call it that week. Partly, I'll admit that this is because I didn't get it and wanted all my new music to be a mix of big scary electronica and modified '60s psyche-pop. But it was more than that. I felt threatened by the look. What I mean by that was the skeletally skinny boys with nothing but front and wild grins who lanked around the scene picking up and waking in new beds the year round. Well, that's what I thought. I wanted everyone to find my short back and sides north of England austerity to be irresistible because ... well, I didn't actually have a reason. But the cowpunks were like every single other type that works scenes for their own rewards and will get into anything at all that works. The music is not the point, understanding that it's worth something in the market is. And that is where post punk snobs like I was will always lose and deserve to: we made ourselves into far worse relics than any of the cowpunks or rockabilly diehards ever could because at least they could drop everything and flail while we stood against the walls trying to get people talking about Syd Barrett.

I also hated the bands that blossomed from this branch. Their releases were cute and the videos like jeans commercials and when you saw them live they sounded like pub rock cover bands. It was yet another occasion where musical proficiency (because ALL of them played perfectly) could mean so very little. The music itself was nothing like the image. Anyway, I need to stop ranting about this as it's an embarrassing confession and one few would care about.

The point as far as this article goes is how this record stands up at forty years of age. Well, it doesn't. There is no point in my doing a track by track account when they all sound essentially the same and, from the height of decades, feels try hard. The problem is that as soon as something new gets the spotlight like synth pop, dub, EDM or Trip Hop there will be a gang of neanderthals ready willing and able to turn their pubrock chops into more roots rock and roll with the same bastard cliches from the'50s as this crew. I understand why. I would, given the choice and my youth back, far prefer my chances of fleeting happiness in a sweaty rock gig than in a freezing basement listening to tapeloops among a lot of other enthusiasts in overcoats. I still hate this, though, and I hate every attempt at killing off real invention with ever more flavoursome cliches. But that might just mean I hate the world. Well, sometimes I do.