SUN CITY GIRLS

I really respect all opinions i general and in music specifically.There are two reasons that pushed me to write this review.The first one is that I WANT TO SHOUT THAT IS AN AVANT GARDE MASTERPIECE and the second which is part of the first is tat i believe that the only rating of this album so far which is one star!!!??? is really unfair.Of course i respect any opinion.SCG is a really underated band i believe because of their eclectisism.They have elements of filthy and dark avant garde,experimental rock,free improvisation and even surf or garage rock music.Of course this mix is different on every album making them so diverse.This album is so dark,dense and sick and theatrical that sometimes it scares me.The atmosphere is sick and there are moments which remind me their "flute and mask" album which is another masterpiece in my opinion,It's really worth to discover the ugly beauty of this band and i am really dissapointed after the cancer death of their drummer.I understand that Charlie Gocher was an integral part of this band but i will be really happy if they release albums in the future.R.I.P Charie....

They came from punk. The not excellent sound production and the high volumed instruments are reminding of their roots, but this is fundamentally a rock album, with some instrumentals in which the trio performs, I suppose, in direct live recording. As usual, who is able to play rock in a trio must be skilled enough and even though their music can appear easy it's not elementary. Charles Bishop's guitar is the principal element, but this is not the Jimi Hendrix experience. I mean that bass and drums are not just a background and the guitar is not too much prevalent.

When there are lyrics, as in Space Prophet Dogon, the vocals are also quite good and very particular.

It's this song the one that I like the most. Even if I tendentially prefer instrumentals, the lazy bluesy progression of this track is hypnotic and the final crescendo is an added value.

Another mention is deserved by the parodistic "The Shining Path". It's a punky cover of a huge pop success, but I don't remember the title neither the performer of the original...but I gurantee that it's very famous.

This is just one of the many parodies, sometimes just a genre, not a specific song. Anyway when it comes to rock it's where the band reaches the top, like in the crazy Radar 1941.

The album contains also some trippy tracks, but I mean that as parodistic as well.

Not enough to have 4 stars, but a solid 3 stars rating is well deserved.

— First review of this album —

Entertaining Sun City Detour

Phoenix Arizona's Sun City Girls (three men, as it were) spent three decades making dozens of albums full of some of the most uninhibited, free-range avant rock. The basic trio of guitar/piano, bass, and drums managed to cover everything from free-form noise improvisation to spoken word to delicate, subtle jazz. Getting into their huge discography is a lot easier now that their albums (mostly out of print) are available as purchasable downloads, but still, you can never really be sure what you're going to get with any given album. Brilliant albums, decent albums, unlistenable albums, they're all there for you to discover.

This 33-minute release, falling somewhere between an EP and a mini-album, focuses on a character named Uncle Jim, portrayed by bassist Alan Bishop, an eloquent, acid-tongued beat poet who has made "cameos" on prior albums throughout the band's history. The six tracks contain potent rants and treatises spoken urgently and forcefully by Uncle Jim, with backing music by the Sun City Girls as well as some sampling of other tunes -- Led Zeppelin's "Achilles Last Stand" is prominently featured in the opener "Liberties". This is hard core "I've had it up to here" beat poetry brimming with rage, sarcasm, and the sheer force of the most tightly composed prose, supercharged for maximum effect.

Philosophically, Uncle Jim is a compelling character. If profane language and blunt, often politically-incorrect commentary don't make you uncomfortable, there's a good chance you'll be taken in by his ideas and impressed by his way with words. Though it has a lot to say about the state of the world, it is more or less apolitical and has more in common with people like George Carlin or Bill Hicks who don't sit comfortably with either the conservatives or the liberals, standing proudly outside the system and angered by the corruption of humanity itself. Or, if you'd rather not go to that level, just think of it as some good poetic ranting.

An obscure side project by an obscure band makes for a doubly obscure artifact, one that I think has a fairly small audience. But if the music of language and ideas gives you pleasure, by all means check this out.

A Delightfully Impish Look at Hell on Earth

That ought to get your attention. This is most certainly one of Sun CIty Girls' major works, and a rarity in their discography in that it sticks to a consistent theme and artistic vision, even as it sprawls insanely over three full LPs (or two full length CDs). As seen in the title of the work, Dante's Inferno was a starting point, but the Sun City Girls have taken this loose idea to create a mad fun house of graphic murder ballads, depraved childrens' songs, mind-blowing spoken treatises and poetry, and just a general sense of gleeful menace. This is how they choose to depict their idea of Hell. But it's not really a spooky work, and it certainly isn't very serious. But it's pretty intense, and it's pretty fun too.

There's over 30 tracks on this album, so I'll just hit some representative tracks and highlights:

"Sexy Graveyard" -- the 11 minute opener with quiet, unsettling percussion sounds and animalistic grunts and growls. Like a haunted graveyard at night, basically. "The Brothers Unconnected" - spoken word piece with minimal musical background, a bar room conversation detailing a graphic sexual role-playing game involving Marilyn and JFK masks. "Geography of the Swastika" -- one of the many appearances of "Uncle Jim" in the SCG discography, a character (brought to life by bassist Alan Bishop, I believe) who is a smooth talking beatnik jazz poet, but supercharged with paranoia and rage at the state of the world. Not political per se, but existential cynicism mellifluously shelled out in rapid-fire rants. All this with an absolutely cool jazz backing for 11 minutes. Far out. "A Man is an Insect is a Flame" -- a short song with a folk/children's melody, but played and sung as if by cavemen banging rocks together. And the lyrics are just wacked. "Bitter Cold Countryside" -- a singalong folk murder song, a bunch of country folk singing verse after verse about "city slickers" who came to town and ended up lynched, sung with drunked blood lust and glee in their voices. "Dear Anybody" -- A really funny sounding loping melody sung over an oom-pah electric piano part. Sounds like nonsense at first, but it all makes sense by the end. That's what they do a lot of the time on this album: it sounds like a joke, but they sprinkle it with serious bits of wisdom and profound observations so that you don't know quite what to think. It's Dada that won't let go of your collar. "Let's Pretend" -- the closest thing to a rock song on here, this song is loud, harsh and angry. Love it.

Not a lot of mention of music in the above descriptions -- this is one of those Sun City Girls albums where the music is mostly used as background, and the words are what's important. That may be off-putting to prog fans, but overall I think the words are good enough, and the album's concept is strong enough, to be a very worthwhile listen for fans of the outer fringes of musical art. As a massive chunk of frightfully focused macabre art, it falls just short of being a masterpiece partly because there are a few too many purely spoken word pieces that, while good in themselves, don't really lend themselves to a perfect score on a music site. A strong 4.

This is a live album featuring the Sun City Girls in their "power trio" configuration (electric guitar, bass, drums), playing largely instrumental psychedelic guitar-based music. With all the band's experimental/jazzy/poetry/noise efforts in their discography, it's nice to come across albums like this where they just rock out old-style. However, this disc definitely has its ups and downs... it's rare that I find any album that is start-to-finish brilliant by this band, and this album is sadly no exception to this rule.

"The Venerable Song (The Meaning of Which is No Longer Known)" is a side-long live version of a song also available on the "Kaliflower" studio album. And I'm sorry to say this, but it's a total drag. It's intended to be a spiritual/mantra number, very repetitive and filled with crazy shrieks and chants. But it just goes nowhere; worse yet, it often sounds like it's thinking of going somewhere, and then puts the brakes on and starts over at the beginning (or so it seems). Through the entire song, the guitar plays a single 4 note figure, one that's supposed to sound ominous, but by the time the song is half over I just want to shake the guy and wake him up. Maybe that's the point of the song... transcendental meditation achieved through numbing frustration. If so, consider this a huge hit.

Fortunately, the other two songs rule. Here is where guitarist Rick Bishop really shows what he can do, endless modal soloing that always seems to find new territory to explore. I hear a bit of Sonny Sharrock influence in his playing style. I'm also reminded of the early Amon Duul jams such as "Phallus Dei" and "Yeti". Charles Gocher (drums) and Alan Bishop (bass) provide a loose but powerful foundation, occasionally dazzling us with a particularly dexterous move.

Half painful, half transcendent. Sounds like a three to me.

This is the Sun City Girls' final album, following dozens of freakishly eclectic releases over nearly 30 years. Charles Gocher, the band's drummer also known for his crazy spoken word performances, was dying of cancer while this album was being created, and the mournful tenor of the work reflects this. Gocher's work, if present at all, is extremely restrained. Aside from the hyper opening track ("Ben's Radio"), this album explores the band's contemplative side, focusing mainly on Arabic musical themes (always the band's forte) and Ennio Morricone - styled instrumentals (mostly original, though Morricone's "Come Maddelena" is covered here).

"The Imam" uses acoustic guitars to make koto-like sounds, with gently chanted vocals. "Black Orchid" is a mournful funeral march with a strong Arabic melody. "Holy Ground" reminds me of late 60s jugband psychedelia like you might hear from the more serious work of the Fugs or the Kaleidoscope. The Morricone cover "Come Maddalena" is achingly beautiful, understated and very gentle but possibly the most emotionally powerful moment on the album. "Funeral Mariachi" has a late-night jazz ballad feel to it, thanks to stellar trumpet work by guest David Carter -- this track has the same sort of lonely beauty as King Crimson's song "Islands". "This is My Name" is stylistically similar to "Holy Ground", but ups the ante with some odd droney parts with guitar feedback. "Vine Street Piano" is another favorite of mine, another gentle cinematic instrumental led by a lovely piano melody - it's minimalistic beauty reminds me of something off Eno's Another Green World. "Blue West" has a clear Morricone influence, sounding like a theme for a spaghetti western, extremely effective.

This album proves convincingly that the Sun City Girls could play with finesse, a trait not always evident when navigating their wildly experimental prior output. But in some ways, it's the perfect cap to a career built on surprising people.

Box of Chameleons is three CDs filled with 128 total tracks, intended (I guess) as a kind of Sun City Girls audio scrapbook/collage. Very few tracks exceed two minutes, and very few tracks sound like anything other than an excerpt from a rehearsal jam. Rick & Alan Bishop (brothers) and Charles Gocher make a very adventurous team, rarely sticking to any kind of straightforward beat, in favor of impressionistic noise experiments that, at their best, resemble some of Henry Cow's improvised bits. Lots of electric guitars, bass, drums, odd percussion, and free form horn blowing. And LOTS of noise.

Occasional vocals peek in, and there are a few solo piano and solo acoustic guitar pieces that sound somewhat composed, but overall this enormous set of music plays like a sonic portrait of the band experimenting together, complete with all the advantages (invention, excitement, the occasional premeditated composition) and disadvantages (monotony, boredom, forgettableness) that this format provides. I can get into it when I just feel like zoning out and allowing myself to free-associate with the band, but even that kind of goodwill is put to the test over the course of three full-length CDs. I've never made it through more than one in one sitting, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Overall, two stars - not the place to start with these guys, but fans will certainly get off on it - for a little while, anyway.

— First review of this album —

The Sun City Girls were in fact three men from Arizona, whose enormous discography is filled with strange, independently produced albums running the gamut from psychedelic guitar rock to spoken word performance art. This particular release leans a lot closer to the latter category, giving center stage to Charles Gocher (drums), who provides vocals for all tracks in his Tom Waits-meets-the-Fugs phlegmy growl. The musical accompaniment by Gocher and the Bishop brothers (Rick on guitar/piano, Alan on upright bass) is what I like to call "junkyard jazz", a clunky, drifting mood piece that gives Gocher's gory recitations a "poetry and jazz" feel. As musicians, they clearly have some pretty serious chops (as heard on other releases), but for this album, they keep the music pretty low-key.

The Sun City Girls' (particularly Gocher's) recurring lyrical themes are often very disturbing trips inside the evil nature of man - not "demons and goblins" scary, but "creepy guy in the country who keeps little girls' eyeballs in his refrigerator" scary. The glee with which they deliver these stories makes them even more disturbing. Through it all, the group manages to come across as nice guys in sneakers and t-shirts you'd probably like to hang out with, but who just have a pretty sick sense of humor.

"Shadowland" opens, and sounds a lot like Tom Waits circa "Swordfishtrombones", but distilled down to it's noisy core, with little discernible melody to hold onto. Think of it as a delirious, drunken romp through a barren wasteland. "Prisoner of Mold" is mostly instrumental - soft, ominous jazz led by piano, with upright bass and brushed drums, with Gocher's spooky groans just in the background towards the end. "Isle of Spree/Foley's Halloween" is a 7 minute recitation by Gocher with moody background music. The story is told from the point of view of John F. Kennedy, who meets John Wilkes Booth (referred to as "the handsome stranger") in Purgatory, they visit a bar together and Booth propositions JFK for sex. Fun stuff, huh? "Leprosey (sic) of Melbourne" is a brief, noisy number, and "Calcium Kiss" is its quiet flipside, with just piano and tender (for Gocher, anyway) sing/speaking about wanting to kiss the bare skull of his lover after cutting off her head and soaking it in bleach. Holy cow, Chuck.

Light entertainment follows, with "Grease That Lightnin' Bolt", a relatively straight swing number with saxophone and scat singing. "Carcass Investigation" is all mood, an abstract bit of avant ensemble play, which turns out to be an intro for the final track, the 11 minute "The Handsome Stranger". Gocher's vocal hits its most raspy and horrible registers here, as he appears to elaborate on the JFK/Booth story told earlier, but perhaps told from the point of view of the Devil. Hard to say. It's disturbing stuff, but also kinda funny in a dark sort of way.

Overall this album is a good concise example of this band's vocal-based work, and Charles Gocher's twisted stories and visions. It's definitely more interesting than it is pleasant to listen to, and a lot of it sounds made up on the spot (with 40+ albums under their belt, it's easy to assume they don't spend a lot of time composing each one), though Gocher's stories are literate and sometimes gripping. It'll certainly open your eyes, but it's definitely a rough listen that may not be your cup of tea. But if you like seeking out the Weird, you should check these guys out.